This tecnique added to others may improve our understanding of the way the brain works or fails , likely improeing therapy for disease ,eventually ,perhaps allowing therapy to improve the normal.
Implants in the brain are already being used to cure certain sorts of deafness could humanity be merged with machinery to produce super thinkers , or super soldiers?
Once we know how , how could we avoid doing this?
It IS exciting. You should know I am a proponent of stem cell research and whatnot. I believe that there is too much good to be gained by these studies to warrant NOT doing them because of some peoples ethical issues. (Was that sentence English?)
But like you said, once the cat is out of the bag... Once we learn how to work the brain like we do, say, a car engine or CPU, what is to keep us from altering it to suit twisted ends. Very good point.
Well... my first thought would be oversight. Have people who are IN the fields of research monitoring and reporting, to us laymen, what's going on.
Other than that... Hmmm... I can really see different governments using this technology in... less than wholesome ways. Maybe we couldn't avoid it! Is this the crux of peoples dissent with stem cell research? The ends may actually be bad for us? Hmmm... I'd like to really think about this topic some more...