I had an hour-long conversion with a delusional guy who was confined to a mental health facility, and who was probably smarter than I am. Lots of these folks believe that somebody - often the CIA - is either beaming thoughts into their heads, or has implanted a microchip in their brains for this purpose. This guy was offering a very thoughtful argument as to why such claims should not be so quickly dismissed. "It's precisely because such delusions are so common that mental patients make the best test subjects," he said. There he was, confined and protected, constantly observed, his health and behavior documented, and there is zero chance that anyone would ever take his concerns seriously. How else would you test and improve such technology? Does the government not have a strong motivation and a plausible ability to create such a device? "You can see I'm not irrational," the man said. "I'm just straight-up telling you that they are doing this to me. I know just how unbelievable it sounds, and yet, here I am."
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Mental
Non-FictionWarning this story is based on true stories. Every person that the main character encounters has their own story based on true stories submitted to me anonymously by people who work in the psych field or who have been in a psych ward themselves. The...
