The result is a novel that is much more fun to talk about after you’ve finished reading it than it is to read.

But now, neuroscientists are directly measuring the neurons whose firing rates encode value and produce our choices. We know a lot more about the neuroscience of human motivation than you might think. Now we can peer directly into the black box of human motivation, and begin (dimly) to read our own source code

The project was a complete farce. As the filmmaker notes the “control room” from which policymakers were supposed to ensure that the economy was functioning had no ability to give outputs — it was just a place to sit and watch. The Cybersyn program really had very little control ability at all, rather it gave policymakers the illusion of omniscience. And why did they need such an illusion? Simple. Because the maniacal economic policies enacted by the Allende government were tearing the country apart.

A major secret that "Bob" learned from the Conspiracy is that deep down inside, everyone, even the SubGenius, craves authority. It's from having Parents. But a SubGenius shortcircuits this urge. He appoints himself Pope or Raja or something, and he believes it. But it's easy to fake that belief, even to yourself.

Now one of the greatest impediments placed on the mind is authority. Please understand the whole significance of that word, and don't jump to the opposite conclusion. Please don't say, "Must we be free of law; can we do what we like; bow can we be free of morality. authority?" Authority is very subtle; its ways are many; its permeating influence is so delicate, so cunning, that it needs great discernment, not hasty and thoughtless conclusions, to realize its significance. When there is deep understanding there is no division of authority as the outer and the inner, as applicable to the mass or to the few, as the externally imposed or the inwardly cultivated. But unfortunately there exists this division of external and inward authority. The external is the imposition of standards, traditions, ideals, which merely act as an enclosure to restrain the individual, treating him as an animal to be trained according to certain demands and conditions. You see this happening all the time in the closed morality of religions, in the standards of systems and parties. As a reaction against this imposition of authority we develop an inner guide, a system, a discipline according to which we try to act, and thus force experience to fit itself into this groove of protected desires and hopes. Where there is authority and a mere adjustment to it, there cannot be fulfillment. Each individual has created this authority, through fear and the desire for security. You have to understand your own desire, which is creating authority and to which you are a slave; you cannot merely disregard it. When the mind discerns the deep significance of authority, and frees itself from fear with its subtle influences, then there is the dawning of intelligence, which is true fulfillment. Where there is intelligence there is true cooperation, and not compulsion; but where there is no intelligence, collective work becomes mere slavery