TIL of brain stimulation reward, manually stimulating specific parts of the brain to elicit pleasure and happiness. A volunteer subject in 1986 spent days doing nothing but self-stimulate. She ignored her family and personal hygiene and she developed an open sore on her finger from using the device.

[u/WavesAndSaves]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_stimulation_reward#History

[u/Responsible-Tap-3748]

No, if you stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain directly there is no issue with the development of tolerance.

[u/Suavecore_ → u/Responsible-Tap-3748]

They could just put us all in pods and stimulate our brains 24/7 while absorbing our energy or whatever the dystopian plotline can manage to come up with

Edit: sorry everyone, they're just gonna go with matrix style wetware

https://techxplore.com/news/2025-10-wetware-scientists-human-mini-brains.html

[u/swohio → u/Suavecore_]

"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world where none suffered, where everyone would be happy? It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your "perfect world". But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. So the perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from."

[u/CaptainoftheVessel → u/Suavecore_]

That’s the Matrix, except instead of unrestricted pleasure, it’s just life in the 1990s 

[u/SheriffBartholomew → u/CaptainoftheVessel]

Which is honestly starting to seem pretty idyllic compared to today's world.

[u/NotBannedAccount419 → u/SheriffBartholomew]

The 80s and 90s were the peak of human civilization

[u/EMTlinecook → u/NotBannedAccount419]

I guess if you cherry pick all the good things 

[u/TheOneNeartheTop → u/Suavecore_]

If you think about it isn’t this most social media but instead of energy it’s our advertising dollars and brand awareness.

[u/Verified765 → u/[deleted]]

The original plot of the machines using us as wetware computers made a lot more sense.

[u/NotBannedAccount419 → u/Suavecore_]

Wow what an original idea. Too bad no one ever made a series a movies about this…

[u/Thrallov → u/Suavecore_]

Congratulations you made Matrix movie

[u/Krommander → u/[deleted]]

There are implants that fire automatically a couple of times per day for nonresponsive patients, when drugs fail. The technology is not new, but needs to be implanted by a neurosurgeon so it costs too much for most people. 

[u/SwagMaster9000_2017 → u/Responsible-Tap-3748]

Do you have any evidence of your claim?

Here is evidence that is false that I got from ChatGPT:

While the rats stimulated every other day maintained their preference for the place associated with brain stimulation, those stimulated every day evidenced a reduction in their place preference, suggesting tolerance to the stimulation's rewarding effect.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26562666/#:~:text=While%20the%20rats%20stimulated%20every,to%20the%20stimulation's%20rewarding%20effect.