Loved Ones Can Be Returned Medically From Foxification

There still might be time to have a conversation again with a Foxified relative

Remember Uncle Ed? He was the guy at the family barbecue who everyone checked in with to hear a corny, not-so-off-color joke or get their hand wrapped up in a tight, loving shake.

It’s been years since I last “spoke” to Uncle Ed. He has been Foxified for two decades now.

There are signs that he is in there. Each time it seems he might be breaking free, the creative minds at Fox reel him back in with some new super-duper conspiracy.

There might be hope, though, as one of the least attractive humans alive, albeit a uniquely brilliant one despite his stupidity in politics, is about to market a device that can be inserted into the brain.

Elon Musk’s Neuralink Corp. aims to start putting its coin-sized computing brain implant into human patients within six months, the company announced at an event at its Fremont, Calif. headquarters on Wednesday evening (Implant Computer in Human Brain).

Uncle Ed, are you in there?

Looking you straight in the eyes when Uncle Ed asked, “How you doing, pal?” you knew he was listening. You knew that whatever was ailing, you would be made better by Uncle Ed’s energy and hearty laugh.

Uncle Ed also liked his beer, but it never got out of control.

“Hey there, pal, bring your Uncle Ed a cold one from the cooler.” Handing the beer to him, he would slide a quarter or two across the table to you, “Don’t let your mom or dad see that, pal. That’s for some baseball cards.”

Ah, Uncle Ed. We all had one.

Chino-wearing men from a different time, often veterans of some war or another, most of their lives had passed working hard from morning to night. My “Uncle Ed” always had a box of Chicklets deep in his pockets. As if on some unseen cue, he would remove the piece from his mouth and pop in a new one.

And then it happened. Uncle Ed, whose politics were never known to anyone, except that he did vote for Reagan twice, Bush, and then Clinton for re-election. He voted for no one in 2000 because he found Gore unpleasant and “Bush Junior simply too dumb.” 9/11, however, turned Uncle Ed, who retired in 2001, into a news junkie.

By 2003, Uncle Ed was no longer the person you sought out at the family barbecue. He became the loveable guy who you would greet as quickly as possible with a “Hey there” and then pretend to be in a hurry to give a hand to another one of the much older relatives:

“Got to give Aunt Mary a hand, Uncle Ed, talk later.”

By 2009, when Obama was elected, Uncle Ed was the relative who was not being invited to smaller, more intimate gatherings simply because no one wanted to hear the racist hate and endless stories of “how someone was coming for someone to take something or overthrow this or that.” Uncle Ed was relegated to the big family weddings and Christmas celebrations when there were 50 or more relatives.

When his immediate family showed up at the parties, they’d greet everyone with an exhausted look, saying, “Ed’s in rare form today.”

“Merry Christmas; where’s Uncle Ed?”

“He didn’t make it past the front door. He’s yelling at somebody about God knows what.”

Does any of this sound familiar?

Uncle Ed is now 87, and he is still in sound health. He is wracked with conspiracies. Remarkably, his wife of 60 years left him, and they now live in the same retirement complex but in units that are far enough to prevent spontaneous pop-ins but close enough for her to keep an eye on him.

Since 2010, I learned how to extract myself from my body and mind and to zoom back to the times before Fox News entered his life. He takes my hand like he did back in the early 90s, and I let the strength and wisdom I know is still a part of him find me. I imagine that by doing this, I can somehow pull him back to reality — maybe he will recall a familiar emotion and snap out of the Fox state of mind.

The brain of my Uncle Ed, your Uncle Ed, and our Uncle Eds have been “Foxicated” and maybe thanks to Musk’s device, we can break them out. Perhaps we can free them from the daily tsunami of lies and propaganda and, before it’s too late, have meaningful conversations with them again.

Neuralink has been refining the product, which consists of a tiny device and electrode-laced wires, along with a robot that carves out a piece of a person’s skull and implants it into the brain. Ongoing discussions with the US Food and Drug Administration have gone well enough for the company to set a target of its first human trials within the next six months, according to Musk (Implant Computer in Human Brain).

The designed device is supposed to help people who have lost the ability to speak due to traumatic events like strokes or accidents. Nevertheless, I believe that people like Uncle Ed are still in there. I think they are trying to communicate with us, but each time they try to say something, the hate and lunacy of right-wing extremism replace their words.

The anger they always seem to be harboring is because when they hear the words that eventually made it to sound, they realize those weren’t the ones they wanted to speak to, like my grandmother with Alzheimer’s. I could see she knew me, but then she would call me by the wrong name, which confused her even more.

There are still so many questions I want to ask Uncle Ed. I hope this device can save him and our lost loved ones.