memories.

They said they found a way to extract the memory. Extract it, then can it, replicate it, mass-manufacture it, then sell it to a million different person.

Words of authors, unwritten, will no longer be lost. Paintings, by artists, will cease to be undrawn. Man could now feast upon the infinite knowledge of the luminaries of science, to build upon one another without any confusion. Man could now sell or simply discard those unwanted memories, bad breakups and terrible deaths, nightmares at midnight and bad bosses by midday. As long they are so much imprinted as lightly touched on in your minds, they could extract them.

Celebrities are now unforgettable, not when you own a piece of their memory, a fragment of their daily lives. TV and youtube are obsolete now, who needs dramas when you can watch them unfold, 'seconds after they happen', who needs sports shows when you could get them now 'live in your head', feeling the rush of blood through the athlete's brains as they leap run and swim at breakneck pace. Facebook and twitter could now be customised to reflect your real time thoughts. Animals need not be conserved, not 'so that our children could see their majesty', not when i could simply pass on the film in my camera to them. In fact, they could see every species they ever wanted to see, and perhaps slightly more. No longer do we need to fear of losing our culture and tradition. Who can, now that the gods are injected into our veins. And god could never die when they are remembered.

Security is now much better. We could wipe clean any dirty slate and write it anew. Terrorist today, pure hearted humanist the other. And its more humane, we don't need jails or the death sentence now, why punish, when you can rehabilitate to perfection. What of the victims you ask?
Why? They don't even remember it (with some help of course). No longer will there be political discourse, or fear of evil dictators, or 'unrepenting hordes of capitalists' advances, Everyone would inject and subscribe to the manifesto. No one says no. Not when big brother is right there in your head. Who needs big brother anyway? or neo-pavlovnian conditioning? All it takes is a jab. You won't feel the pain at all.

Of course there are those who try to rebel. 'Individualists' they call themselves, for they believe in the individual, the rights for each to have their own memory, their own thoughts. But haven't science proved again and again that centralisation and scale allows for faster thought and quicker answers? Why would we need the right to think as 'I' instead of 'We'? Why would we want something that may potentially destroy the very fabric of social cohesion?

But the public have been mostly cooperative, after much work of course. This new technology have allowed us to specialise the memories of the individuals to suit their statuses. Of course we still allow for people to grow to what they are, we aren't a discriminating group, we don't do the caste thing. What we do is to sharpen the minds and focus them, so that they could realise their full potential. The workers will get the memories of a goldfish. 7 seconds. All they need is to know how to screw on a screw, nothing else, and never be bored of it. Gone will their wants of cars and houses, or their secret hope of winning the lottery. One could not wish for such things when one could not recall any of them. The scientists will share a common databank, A million heads is better than one. And again, their material wants are wiped out, when there's no 'I', there isn't any thing that's 'mine'.

And the world is a peaceful place now. No more conflict and wars as all the reasons for them are removed. Everyone now have the exact same memory of past events and have the exact same political sentiments. Religion, on which so many wars are fought on, is now united under a common memory of a common savior, and all sing praises in his name, no more splits like those ancient times.

This is progress.

-written for a friend who probably didn't expect this to come out. i don't think its too complete, but i'm too sleepy to continue.