Should Government have the power to make people "better" without their consent [spoilers for Film "Serenity"]

[Rippounet]

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I agree with you.  However, if human society could end war and criminality with such a medication wouldn't that be a huge boon?

1) We don't know that. At least some forms of criminality definitely have some social functions. Or, to put it differently, criminality may be seen as a symptom of the diversity of human perspectives on life and humanity that is necessary to experience for the continuous evolution of our species. Even some wars could be seen as the end result of a necessary confrontation of ideas without which human thought cannot move forward. And since progress and adaptation go hand in hand, a humanity artificially deprived of violence may find itself unable to adapt to changing circumstances in the far future.

In a similar vein, how can we know that the violence humans inflict on their species is not something that actually preserves civilisation? Or, to rephrase, that civilisation is a creation to contain and use the violence that exists within each individual? Without any form of violence, there may be a lesser need for human cooperation and society, because there would be less dependence on a common framework for self-protection and self-preservation.
And talking about self-preservation, what if there is a link between violence and reproduction? One could argue that there must be some small degree of agressivity to reproduce, or that without violence and the fear of death, reproduction no longer is a biological imperative.

On a psychological level, is it not necessary to suffer from some forms of violence to grow as a person? Or to express it as a young age in order to understand and contain it? It's not crazy to imagine that the development of cognitive functions requires some degree of violence, whether it is being subjected to others' or expressing your own.

There are too many unknowns I believe... Yes, violence is bad, but it is also something (or the expression of something) that can be canalised. Can one really invent medication that would only get rid of the bad forms of violence, without touching something that is necessary both for the psychology of the individual and the functioning of society?

But more importantly:
2) If drugs are required to reach peace or true equality, can we say that humanity has in fact reached peace and equality? In other words, perhaps it is necessary for humans to be able to end violence through reason rather than through the use of medication, lest that violence become an ever greater threat if anything goes wrong. Basing a utopian society on medication seems fraught with many perils...

Actually, I'm kind of repeating myself. Perhaps it would be useful if you described the benefits you envision.
 

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Is a goal of true equality and an end to bias worth the loss of freedom such a medication could engender?

You could be asking whether true equality is worth the loss of freedom full stop. The Cold War is sometimes described as having been a conflict between two value systems, one of which that theoretically sought to forcibly impose equality and social justice, while the other saw individual freedom as paramount. Despite claims to the contrary, this fundamental conflict in political philosophy has not been resolved yet. It seems in fact that freedom without social justice is just as dangerous as social justice without freedom. I'd like to think that social justice requires a significant degree of individual fredom to be meaningful (and functional) and vice-versa. And as far as medication is concerned, the paradox here is that attempting to force people to take it seems -to me- to be a form of violence, one that is likely to cause outright rebellion towards society, and is hard to defend from a moral standpoint if your aim is to end violence in the first place...

 

[Rippounet]

3 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

I also see a potential 'quiet solution' to another major global issue with 'stealth medication.'  Suppose, just suppose, thanks to a bit genetic (?) tinkering, these pills or chemicals could induce sterility without other adverse effect. Set up distribution so around 90% of the global populace unknowingly takes such 'medication.'  Global birthrate plummets. Couple generations, overpopulation and attendant concerns are pretty much gone.  On the one hand, highly unethical.  On the other, possibly a best case solution to a looming catastrophe with the potential to crash global civilization.

That's actually the plot of a great TV show, one that I cannot name without spoiling it, since this is revealed in the last episodes of its first season.

 

Check the wikipedia page: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_%28UK_TV_series%29 

I have to add though, that in the show you don't actually see this being done. It's just what some people want to do.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Rippounet,

Can you put the show's name in spoiler tabs.  I'm quite curious about what it is.

[karaddin]

32 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

On a psychological level, is it not necessary to suffer from some forms of violence to grow as a person? Or to express it as a young age in order to understand and contain it? It's not crazy to imagine that the development of cognitive functions requires some degree of violence, whether it is being subjected to others' or expressing your own.
 

Just pulling out this to respond to, because I don't necessarily disagree with your overall point but...to this? No.  This presupposes that violence has been necessary for the cognitive development of everyone, and I feel pretty comfortable saying that the ways violence has touched me - which in the traditional definition are very minor - have not resulted in any aid towards my development, either cognitively or as a person.  I've never been inclined to, nor participated in, dealing out violence and I've not been the victim of physical violence.  A broader definition of violence I have been, and it's perpetuated the exact opposite of development on me.

Adversity of some kind may be a catalyst for development in certain circumstances, and I can certainly see and acknowledge when it has been such for me, but adversity from a form of violence? Nope, that's never been helpful.

That's not to say it hasn't been for others, but you can't generalise the experience of everyone to have been reliant on violence for growth.

[Rippounet]

1 minute ago, karaddin said:

Just pulling out this to respond to, because I don't necessarily disagree with your overall point but...to this? No.  This presupposes that violence has been necessary for the cognitive development of everyone, and I feel pretty comfortable saying that the ways violence has touched me - which in the traditional definition are very minor - have not resulted in any aid towards my development, either cognitively or as a person.  I've never been inclined to, nor participated in, dealing out violence and I've not been the victim of physical violence.  A broader definition of violence I have been, and it's perpetuated the exact opposite of development on me.

Adversity of some kind may be a catalyst for development in certain circumstances, and I can certainly see and acknowledge when it has been such for me, but adversity from a form of violence? Nope, that's never been helpful.

In that particular paragraph, I definitely did not mean physical violence. I was thinking more about emotional stuff, like the way kids confront themselves to their parents and vice-versa, the way authority can be impressed on our children, the way teenagers can interact during puberty... etc. Affirmation of the self seems to require some level of agressivity on all sides, from what I've read here or there. If you think about the way testosterone affects all teenagers (both male and female) for instance, I find it hard to imagine how psychological development would work if all forms of agressivity are repressed. I'm not even sure if you can take medication against agressivity without affecting hormonal balance, which in turn can lead to serious psychological issues. I probably shouldn't have gone as far as talking about cognitive functions but... Well, it's not crazy to say cognitive development is indeed affected by the way we relate to others. And my point was that we just don't know what type of adults we'd get if we completely inhibited agressivity in society.
This is all very abstract anyway. I'm just having fun with the concepts to see where this is going...

[DireWolfSpirit]

Well I support immunization and innocculization programs for communicable diseases and eradicating plague type outbreaks. But I wouldnt support extending such programs into mind and behavior control policies for several reasons. A fewof which are-

I may not agree with certain laws and want to retain my personal freedom to follow or not follow societal laws based on that agreement or disagreement.

Also the same objection over the stated goal of eliminating "evil". I want to preserve my personal judgement to what I consider evil or not evil, not have a "Big Brother" entity make a blanket choice for all of society. I absolutely shudder at the thought of some of our national officials execising such choices in a blanket manner. The question becomes whose evil? Reminds me of the time Ali questioned why this government should be able to draft him and send him 10,000 miles to kill brown people who he had NO quarrel with, stating that this government was his oppressor, not those villagers. 

No, fuck no, I do not want this or any government to decide for me the most personal choices over what they constitute eliminating evils or "improving citizenry behavior with serums and blue pills". They have never demonstrated being remotely qualified for such a task.

Also to the question of being able to medicate away our ability for violence.......? Again a big no way imo should such control to a central authority be ceded. Jefferson fealt we would probably need to be able to overthrow our government from era to era. The idea being to retain our personal liberty not bend to a Orwellian tyranny.

"YOU MY OPPOSER WHEN I WANT FREEDOM!" 

 

 

[karaddin]

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

In that particular paragraph, I definitely did not mean physical violence. I was thinking more about emotional stuff, like the way kids confront themselves to their parents and vice-versa, the way authority can be impressed on our children, the way teenagers can interact during puberty... etc. Affirmation of the self seems to require some level of agressivity on all sides, from what I've read here or there. If you think about the way testosterone affects all teenagers (both male and female) for instance, I find it hard to imagine how psychological development would work if all forms of agressivity are repressed. I'm not even sure if you can take medication against agressivity without affecting hormonal balance, which in turn can lead to serious psychological issues. I probably shouldn't have gone as far as talking about cognitive functions but... Well, it's not crazy to say cognitive development is indeed affected by the way we relate to others. And my point was that we just don't know what type of adults we'd get if we completely inhibited agressivity in society.
This is all very abstract anyway. I'm just having fun with the concepts to see where this is going...

Ok I think I have a better idea of where you are going with it, I think I would parse the idea much better phrased as assertiveness rather than aggressiveness or violence.  And I do agree that displaying assertiveness is necessary for maturation, if not for cognitive development, and I do think this is still something that would be hampered by the kind of treatment that curbs aggressive behaviour.

I'm a woman that went through a testosterone driven puberty and all the violence imposed by societal on people who are like me, so that's the kind of non-physical violence I was talking about earlier and it most definitely did nothing positive.  Testosterone itself isn't as simplistic as aggression, our understanding of the sex hormones is still...very lacking.  And even being in the category that's lived with both a testosterone and an estrogen driven system doesn't provide a controlled insight, as the reduction in aggressive feelings and irritability I had with the change can be just as easily explained by no longer dealing with the dissonance of my brain objecting to the hormone it's bathing in.  However there is some correlation between testosterone and aggression that is universal across cultures which suggests non-cultural factors at play.

Chemical castration of sex offenders may provide some insight into the impact of the reduction in testosterone, but while I understand the impact on sex drive to be pretty reliable I'm not so sure on other behavioural traits.  That also poses it's own challenges that they are then simply running in a hormonally deprived state, rather than still having sufficient hormones for healthy energy levels etc like with trans people do and this lack of energy itself would have an effect.

It's certainly all extremely complex and I think we'd want to fully address cultural issues, which imo is far and away the primary problem and I feel can be done in a way that doesn't have any ethical question marks over it, prior to looking at biological modifications to systems even if we decided that was an OK thing to do.  I'd also want to ensure we fully understand said systems before we go tinkering with them, that whole creating a population of hyper-aggressive humans seems like a pretty relevant side effect even if the rest don't just lay down and die.

[Minstral]

When I watched Serenity I came away with the feeling that the concept was like a minor lobotomy. The questions I find myself asking now are :What else does this modify for the human experience?; Can the dispensers whom provide the drug be trusted in the intent?; Would the government really be willing to administer it to themselves now that they have unlimited power over their populace? 

 

[maarsen]

On 4/17/2016 at 1:55 PM, Altherion said:

We do this to children via a variety of medical procedures. I think it is acceptable as long as you can convince practically everyone that it is unambiguously better. This works with concrete problems (e.g. protect from measles, straighten out a severely scoliotic spine), but I don't see how you can make a case for it with something like "suppress aggression." What does that even mean? I can't think of a single interpretation which is unambiguously good: aggression is not always bad or, at the very least, it can be a lesser evil.

As some one who has a scoliotic spine, I was probably lucky that I did not have surgery. When I was young I was literally days from having the surgery when it was cancelled. I me some one who did have it and was told of the months of pain they went through. Would I be better off if I had it done? I would be a different person than I am now.

As far as shows dealing with the issue, Farscape's character Chiana's backstory and a few episodes do deal with the attempted eradication of bad impulses. Things do not always end well there either.

[sologdin]

there is a misanthropy to these texts, in assuming that there are immutable 'evil' impulses not subject to suppression, as opposed to certain forms of market participation structured by the historical course of dealing in same, which participation enacts a market discipline, itself subject to revision and evolution, and which discipline produces an aesthetics.

[The Anti-Targ]

On 17/04/2016 at 6:01 AM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Altherion,

The movie states that the drug induced the majority of the population to literally lay down where they were and die.  And it created "the Revers" (Hyperagressive humans) in about 10% of the cases.

What if art, music, and literature were the only casualties.  Would that price be worth it to eliminate most crime and war?  Should people have the right to refuses such an inoculation?

That's at least half of what makes up a civilised society. The other half is science, and creativity is a vital part of science, so loss of the creative cognitive processes would be pretty much an end to science. And thus an end to civilisation. We'd revert to living to survive, but without a survival instinct, therefore Homo sapiens would become extinct.

 

[felice]

It would arguably be a more humane option than prison for violent offenders, especially if it's a temporary measure that allows new habits of living to be developed which can persist once the medication is withdrawn. And perhaps for politicians, if we want to end war; I don't think aggression is an especially useful trait in government (and standing for public office is a choice). But drugging entire populations Federation-style? Hell no. Even Big Brother style total surveillance and equipping everyone with remotely triggerable incapacitation devices would be preferable.

[Kalbear]

I'd be okay if it was only targeted at white southerners. 

[karaddin]

7 hours ago, maarsen said:

As far as shows dealing with the issue, Farscape's character Chiana's backstory and a few episodes do deal with the attempted eradication of bad impulses. Things do not always end well there either.

Gotta say I feel like the Nebari are a much better illustration to make me go "holy fuck no" than in Serenity.  You can dismiss the problems of the Reavers etc in Serenity as being a problem of execution, but *if* they'd done it right it might have been worth it...the Nebari are doing it kinda right, and they're terrifying for it.

[maarsen]

4 hours ago, karaddin said:

Gotta say I feel like the Nebari are a much better illustration to make me go "holy fuck no" than in Serenity.  You can dismiss the problems of the Reavers etc in Serenity as being a problem of execution, but *if* they'd done it right it might have been worth it...the Nebari are doing it kinda right, and they're terrifying for it.

Glad to see more love for Farscape. 

[karaddin]

25 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Glad to see more love for Farscape. 

Always. Other shows may take the crown of favourite in my head, but Farscape will always be the love of my heart

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I've never seen all of the first Season of Farscape.  I'll have to watch the Chiana intro episodes sometime.

[JonSnow4President]

On 4/17/2016 at 2:22 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

JA,

Ah, but the board isn't public.  We are subject to the arbitary power of Ran and the Mods because its his space.  The same is not true of Government.  Should Government have the power to force us to take something that would make us "better"?  "Better" being defined as less likely to break existing laws or push for changes that would reduce Government power.

It already has the power to force you to buy something to make you better (health insurance for example), or to deny you public services if you do not comply (child immunizations).  

I think it needs to be a cost-benefit standard.  I don't think removing aggression is worth losing passion in any case outside of a possible criminal law sentence if it were hypothetically possible.  By contrast, a measles vaccine has next to no downside, but massive upside not only to the person who receives the vaccine, but to the community at large, particularly if many people get the vaccine.  

So yes for the measles vaccine scenario.  No for the aggression vaccine scenario.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Jon,

What if they could just "tone down" passion not eliminate it?

[Iskaral Pust]

On 4/17/2016 at 4:33 PM, Jo498 said:

It's not really a new question. Remember Clockwork Orange [spoilers!] where we are dealing not with prophylactic measures but with a brutal criminal.

This is the example that came to my mind too, especially since it is more nuanced and realistic than Serenity.  After reading the book*, I was supportive of the treatment for Alex.  That was unpopular around here and we had a long debate about it but I think that the societal benefit of preventing terrible harm to others from a severely dangerous, uncontrolled and unrepentant individual (an impulsive rapist and murderer, in this case) outweighs that individual's right to sanctity of self/mind, especially since the cost was relatively minor -- he still had a functioning intellect, self-awareness, sense of agency, etc.
*there are different endings in the movie and various versions of the book

Along similar lines, we effectively have a modern system of internal banishment -- in prisons -- for the most harmful offenders and persistent recidivists.  Given the abuse that occurs within prisons, the anti-rehabilitation (young offenders learning how to be criminals) and the cost to tax-payers, I'd like a debate on whether there are better methods to protect the general citizenry from repeat criminal behavior (and I happen to think that protection outweighs punishment and deterrence) with less harm to convicts and less cost to tax-payers.

 

But back to Scot's OP about the state modifying or restricting passion: I would suggest that social mores, including the high cost of divorce imposed by the state, play a major role in forcing a monogamous restriction of passion on a large portion of the adult population.  We've willingly signed up for this system because we think it has a probable net benefit rather than an unambiguous benefit. 

In this analogy the Reavers are presumably swingers -- is 10% a realistic proportion?