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Jake Research Nut Cluster 2: Subjective Measurements
Jake, #2, FIRST ROUND RESEARCH TEMPLATE
DISCIPLINES/TOPIC:
new Subjective measurements (wellbeing + mental states)/ neurocompetitive national policy (neurocapitalism)/ neuro-identity politics (neurotypicality-neurodiversity-cosmetic neurology)
HOW DOES IT ADDRESS “TRANSFORMING BODIES AND LIFESTYLES”
(behavior change/intervention at community/population level)
EXPERTS: (Max 6)
(from the list, we’ll identify one or two people to invite to the APRIL 9th EXPERT WORKSHOP)
Richard Layard (LSE/UK)—happiness, public policy, subjective measures
Arjun Chatterjee—cosmetic neurology
JM Appel, workplace bioethics, neuroenhancement, policy,
Eric Racine, Director, Neuroethics Research Unit, Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada
*Jonathan Moreno, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, (on neuroethics, governance, policy)
WHICH GHE CATEGORY/IES:
(health, information, consumer electronics, food etc, just to have a sense of the most obvious domains of health, health care, and well-being we are researching)
EARLY WORKING HYPOTHESIS
(some sort of narrowing down the scope of your research, where you will be looking for directional change)
New ways of reliably measuring subjective states (from emotional wellbeing to the neural correlates of happiness, stress, etc.) will provide the “knowledge-power” for states and global actors to begin to manage mental and emotional health at an unprecedented level of precision and control. The responsibility to not only provide job opportunities, security, and access to health care, but also more intangible metrics like happiness and meaning, will change the way national governments address the health of their citizens, and will shape a new generation of health care policy initiatives.
Policy will also focus on creating a national “neurocompetitive advantage” to spur economic success. This “neurocapitalism” will focus on ways to increase our brain fitness, our cognitive reserve, and ways to enhance cognitive functioning.
We’re becoming a “neurocapitalist” world. The demands of performance-driven, self-enhancing societies will expand markets for neuro-psychotropic drugs beyond those for depression, dementia and attention deficit disorder. And they will cost our health care systems dearly.
ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/the-dawn-of-neurocapitalism/
This new political landscape will respond to and co-create a new form of identity politics, based on ideas of neurotypicality and neurodiversity. Neurotypicality is a term coined within the autistic community to describe the relative norms of mental and cognitive functioning. The flip-side of this is the idea that there is a wide range of neurodiversity, a diversity which has value and place in society.