Maybe I'm missing something huge here but a blind controlled demo where the subject committed words to paper and then compared the results afterwards would be persuasive. Unfortunately, the demo as presented in the article seemed achievable by professional magicians and mentalists.
I'm sure we're close to brain interfaces, but something seems off about this one.
Let's say a couple years from now, someone invents an airport scanner that "detects" evil thoughts, except there is no way to verify it, and no accountability for false negatives. The result is whatever the operator says it is. If enough people accept it enough to not resist it, and even turn on the ones who are detected by it, it doesn't matter what's real because it's just a participatory ritual of sympathetic magic. I feel like there are examples of similar dynamics in recent memory.
I'm sure we're close to brain interfaces, but something seems off about this one.
Let's say a couple years from now, someone invents an airport scanner that "detects" evil thoughts, except there is no way to verify it, and no accountability for false negatives. The result is whatever the operator says it is. If enough people accept it enough to not resist it, and even turn on the ones who are detected by it, it doesn't matter what's real because it's just a participatory ritual of sympathetic magic. I feel like there are examples of similar dynamics in recent memory.