DIGITAL NARCOTICS

DIGITAL NARCOTICS
COCAINE TO THE COMPUTER
Futurology, as Rohit Talwar says, isn’t about crystal ball gazing. “It’s about understanding ideas or possibilities that exist in the future and rehearse for it,” he says. Talwar’s idea of what will happen in the future has the capacity to change how we use hallucinogens. His prediction will put drug cartels from Columbia to Afghanistan out of work and after him, if it comes to fruition. In a time not too far from now, computer games — according to Talwar — will deliver the same stimulus to the brain that cocaine does. “The brain is a set of electrical impulses. We know already that people are addicted to computer games. Currently people are developing things that will give you a high like designer drugs. But imagine that in the future, people would be able to tailor electronically and give themselves the high they want, eliminating the middlemen or the drugs. Direct brain stimulation from immersive games or electromagnetic stimulations will be the name of the game,” explains Talwar. So today if parents are happy to let their teens stay glued to the computer as it is time spent off the streets, in the future they may need to worry about the highs that could come from virtual game experiences. With digital narcotics comes the problem of policing, and Talwar, CEO and founder of Fast Future, agrees that it could pose a whole new bunch of problems for governments. “Today we worry about the drug cartels. Tomorrow it would be the console makers. Digital narcotics just change the delivery mechanism.” Talwar also makes a social prediction. “With the advancement of science, society and governments have to figure out how to regulate it, not necessarily police it. This is something with radical potential to change a lot of things.”
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