spoiler
I mean just an example:
Step 1: Commit murder
Step 2: Destroy evidence
Step 3: Delete memory of you committing the murder
Step 4: Live guilt free
Step 5: Profit?
Profession Sleeper Assassin
I’ve been doing this unselectively over the past twenty years.
Booze.
I have huge chunks of memories missing and that ain’t exactly a bad thing for my older, and sober, self. (Sometimes I still get flashbacks of blurry memories and it is very anxiety inducing. Booze memories are weird and were written to some corrupt cells or something that only pop back up under strange conditions.)
Delete the memory of being able to delete memories, what happens now?
Forget my favourite books and read them again.
Beware: you are now a different person than the one you were when you read that book for the first time. You could find it boring or silly if you read it again for the first time.
Fastest way to make it super illegal is to cause less consumerism
I’m sure the pigs will add a law that makes you lose access to anything you bought if you choose to erase it’s memory, so you are forced to but it again
That thing already exists, it is called subscription. Once you stop paying it like you’ve never paid at all.
Malazan Book of the Fallen and all associated works! Bonus points if I can forget the plot and remember all non-spoiler lore. My one complaint with those is going to the wiki to refresh my memory on something and going down a rabbit hole.
Movies and TV too.
The only memory I would keep is that I really liked XYZ book/video game so I could replay reread it.
Future you - “900 pages, fuck this shit”
Delete my memories of everything pre-2016.
I feel like it would be easier to live in this nightmare if I didn’t remember a relatively stable, functioning world.
You’d have a lot of people erasing their trauma and then not understanding why they do or feel a certain way about things.
There is a great movie!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Sunshine_of_the_Spotless_Mind
I would cheat on my husband with an absolute knob, get pregnant, and then forget to delete that memory.
There is some horrible shit in my past that I’d definately get rid of. But, besides that gloomy sentiment, I’d use it to experience my favorite movies, games, and books for the first time again. Like seeing Whiterun for the first time or seeing the citadel for the first time.
I don’t think I’d personally have much use for it, at least so far.
But I see it going dark places. If people figured out how to delete their own, that’s one step away from authorities or even just criminals being able to rewrite other people’s realities.
Alcohol already exists my dude
Alcohol prevents forming new memories, not delete existing already-encoded memories.
Not the way I use it
Heal the world from generational trauma. Would probably reduce murders by 90% worldwide. Imagine all those child soldiers would have empathy again. Imagine Donnie would suddenly forget how daddy treated him all those years?!
I already have that ability. Unfortunately I don’t have any control over it and stuff gets deleted without my knowledge
Can I have the reverse and selectively recall memories my AuADHD/limited working memory forget?
You ever hear about the US government funding experiments in mind control? One of the examples was a doctor who thought, since experiences are the key to who you are, if you could erase someone’s memories and replace them with selected others, you could turn anyone into a ‘good citizen.’ Turns out wiping someone’s brain can sort of be done, and will leave them without memories of the traumas of their past, but making them back into a whole person again isn’t so easy, and simply implanting whatever memories you want seems impossible.
I would be afraid of using it, forgetting I used it, and then using it again, in an endless loop. Other than that, I think society would change tremendously, and with change, specially regarding something as fundamental as memory, comes chaos.
Maybe I’d use it to forget some awkward, embarrassing moments, but I don’t know, I’m not that worried about them since I imagine everyone else has probably forgotten about those by now, I’d be worried that by purposefully forgetting crucial life-changing moments I’d be, like, losing a part of myself.
