Learning to Exercise More Control Over Individuals

Has there ever been a discovery that has not been used to harm humans, in the name of good? Who will be the first political control freak to use whatever is learned about how the brain operates to control humans? Aren't there enough misguided psychiatrists and psychologists running loose using their knowledge to control and to manipulate humans? Obama typically says this is investing in "the best ideas" when it is an example of wasting taxpayer funds on the worst ideas. He is one of the most obsessed officials to use his position to increase government control over others by using deception. Francis S. Collins moderated a town hall meeting on sequestering taxpayer funds. He sounded like a shop steward for public sector unions. Not quite an inspiration for human freedom. Regarding getting more bang for the buck, in what way is that? In controlling humans? Will the future bring court ordered humans walking around with metal probes sticking out of their brains so that scientists can calculate how their neurons fire? Don't brain "observatories" already exist? Aren't they called mental hospitals?  

[From article]

Leslie Vosshall, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University, tweeted: 'Baffled by the NIH Brain Activity Map Project. We don't understand the fly brain yet. How will this come to anything?'
Michael Eisen, a biologist at Berkeley, added: 'Someone has to go to congress and explain why basic research is so important, not pander to them with big science c**p.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280707/Obama-wants-map-human-brain-Administration-plans-huge-3BILLION-year-research-project.html

Obama wants to map the human brain: Administration plans huge $3BILLION ten-year research project
The Brain Activity Map could cost over $300 million a year for a decade
Advocates say it could help scientists understand mental illness
Critics say the study lacks clear goals
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 17:45 EST, 18 February 2013 | UPDATED: 02:56 EST, 19 February 2013


* * *
[From article]
In his State of the Union address, President Obama cited brain research as an example of how the government should “invest in the best ideas.”
[. . .]
Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, may have inadvertently confirmed the plan
[. . .]
George M. Church, a Harvard University molecular biologist who helped create that project and said he was helping to plan the Brain Activity Map project. “If you look at the total spending in neuroscience and nanoscience that might be relative to this today, we are already spending more than that. We probably won’t spend less money, but we will probably get a lot more bang for the buck.”
[. . .]
 the human brain is so complex that scientists have not yet found a way to record the activity of more than a small number of neurons at once, and in most cases that is done invasively with physical probes.
[. . .]
They also said that a series of national brain “observatories” should be created as part of the project, like astronomical observatories.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/science/project-seeks-to-build-map-of-human-brain.html?hp&_r=0

Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: February 17, 2013
New York Times