Morality drugs
- Thread starter Razzle Bathbone
- Start date
Oh, but it will be. Lots of people are locked up in psychiatric hospitals and force-fed medicine. Now... I'm not saying these people would necessarily be better off out in society but really, it's naive to think that such a powerful tool for control would not be abused. I say no. Besides, you can't force morality because it is relative to the person and situation. You can brainwash people into certain behavioral patterns, but the whole thing sounds physically impossible to me.Razzle Bathbone post=18.71428.723140 said:
Since impulsivity, whether it be emotional (flying off the handle with little or no provocation) or action (doing or saying something just because it popped into your head), is a big part of the diagnosis of ADD, if and only if it interferes with the person's ability function in daily life, the threshold of that criteria being defined, for the most part by the patients themselves, to some extent, we already have drugs that do some of this.
As far as the rest, it could conceivable make a population less susceptible to abuse of power, because they might be more alive to the harm done by it and more willing to take risks to stop it.
I have less objection to the concept of such drugs and their use because I view it rather like debating how we would have to revise traffic laws and the transportation infrastructure to accomodate flying cars. We don't have real, functional, flying cars, or real smart drugs, or real morality drugs.
I'm more concerned about the proper application of existing psychoactive drugs. Being a consumer of such drugs which, to put it bluntly, keep me from killing myself, I know by personal experience that the wrong drug or the right drug at the wrong dosage can have the opposite effect of what is intended.
The same problem exists with drugs that are not psychoactive. The there are large numbers of drugs which in most people reduce the risks of fatal disease and thus extend lifespan, but can cause fatal disease in a subset of patients. While there is a way to test your blood and see if the cholesterol reducer that should protect you from heart failure is sending you on your way to liver failure, there is no objective test to confirm that a psychoactive drug is not doing more harm than good. This makes an unskilled, improperly educated, or simply stubborn doctors who won't listen to their patient much more dangerous.
In the case of misprescribed "morality drugs", negative reactions would be potentially disasterous. Drug-induced sociopathy, or even mere apathy, in just a small portion of the population would be very dangerous.
Then there is the knotty moral issue of "bad" people who won't take the drugs. Take a hypothetical serial rapist, pedophile, or child abuser. Don't we have a moral obligation to protect the potential victims from that person's behavior before the attacks, rather than punishing the criminal after the fact? But then we've violated that person's free will and personal sovereignty. As a strongly pro-choice individual, I have to defend a person's right to bodily self-determination. The same goes with schizophrenic people or bipolar people with psychotic manias who won't take their meds. You have to wait until they are incapable of making rational decisions and have become a danger to self and others. You can't do it on a preventative basis because that's a violation of their human right to self-determination.
But like I said, this is an interesting philosophical debate to be enjoyed with friends over the beverage of your choice, but to get worked up and flame-baited over it is as nonsensical as getting into a fight over speed limits for flying cars.
As far as the rest, it could conceivable make a population less susceptible to abuse of power, because they might be more alive to the harm done by it and more willing to take risks to stop it.
I have less objection to the concept of such drugs and their use because I view it rather like debating how we would have to revise traffic laws and the transportation infrastructure to accomodate flying cars. We don't have real, functional, flying cars, or real smart drugs, or real morality drugs.
I'm more concerned about the proper application of existing psychoactive drugs. Being a consumer of such drugs which, to put it bluntly, keep me from killing myself, I know by personal experience that the wrong drug or the right drug at the wrong dosage can have the opposite effect of what is intended.
The same problem exists with drugs that are not psychoactive. The there are large numbers of drugs which in most people reduce the risks of fatal disease and thus extend lifespan, but can cause fatal disease in a subset of patients. While there is a way to test your blood and see if the cholesterol reducer that should protect you from heart failure is sending you on your way to liver failure, there is no objective test to confirm that a psychoactive drug is not doing more harm than good. This makes an unskilled, improperly educated, or simply stubborn doctors who won't listen to their patient much more dangerous.
In the case of misprescribed "morality drugs", negative reactions would be potentially disasterous. Drug-induced sociopathy, or even mere apathy, in just a small portion of the population would be very dangerous.
Then there is the knotty moral issue of "bad" people who won't take the drugs. Take a hypothetical serial rapist, pedophile, or child abuser. Don't we have a moral obligation to protect the potential victims from that person's behavior before the attacks, rather than punishing the criminal after the fact? But then we've violated that person's free will and personal sovereignty. As a strongly pro-choice individual, I have to defend a person's right to bodily self-determination. The same goes with schizophrenic people or bipolar people with psychotic manias who won't take their meds. You have to wait until they are incapable of making rational decisions and have become a danger to self and others. You can't do it on a preventative basis because that's a violation of their human right to self-determination.
But like I said, this is an interesting philosophical debate to be enjoyed with friends over the beverage of your choice, but to get worked up and flame-baited over it is as nonsensical as getting into a fight over speed limits for flying cars.
I would never, ever take medicine designed to alter your brain chemistry. Just no.
But I guess this is the view of a guy who'd never need it. I vaguely remember the emotion of jealousy, sadism is the only trait that makes me sick, I would sacrifice my life to save a stranger, and I have trouble thinking of the last time I got mad. Which I think is actually funny because I always act like I'm angry when I'm not to set boundaries and as a tactic in sports and stuff(people usually flinch when a berserker runs at them) which is completely the opposite of what everyone else seems to say they do with the whole bottling it up thing. My emotions are perfectly suited to society, even if the rest of me isn't.
But I guess this is the view of a guy who'd never need it. I vaguely remember the emotion of jealousy, sadism is the only trait that makes me sick, I would sacrifice my life to save a stranger, and I have trouble thinking of the last time I got mad. Which I think is actually funny because I always act like I'm angry when I'm not to set boundaries and as a tactic in sports and stuff(people usually flinch when a berserker runs at them) which is completely the opposite of what everyone else seems to say they do with the whole bottling it up thing. My emotions are perfectly suited to society, even if the rest of me isn't.
Well, in a purely hypothetical sense these drugs might be okay, but add even a touch of realism and it all falls apart.
Allow me to elaborate. A human being is like a program. Everything we do could, in theory, be accurately simulated on a computer with the proper program. The thing is, we have no idea what said program would be. There are major things we would have to learn, and it might even be impossible for the human brain to comprehend something that complex. But we're at the point where we can alter the program pretty significantly. It'd be like someone who had no idea what they were doing changing random values in the code for a program. They might have some general idea of what to do, like "if I make that number higher it could up my attack" but they have no idea if the number has to be at a certain value to make other parts of the program function properly or if changing it will even have the intended consequence. Before you know it the program will be syntax error-ing all over the place. The use of drugs is a lot like that. We have a general idea of what we're doing, but we still screw a lot of things up. That's why we should avoid medicating people unless it is necessary. Until we fully understand how humans work, we can't really start messing around in earnest without making things blow up.
Allow me to elaborate. A human being is like a program. Everything we do could, in theory, be accurately simulated on a computer with the proper program. The thing is, we have no idea what said program would be. There are major things we would have to learn, and it might even be impossible for the human brain to comprehend something that complex. But we're at the point where we can alter the program pretty significantly. It'd be like someone who had no idea what they were doing changing random values in the code for a program. They might have some general idea of what to do, like "if I make that number higher it could up my attack" but they have no idea if the number has to be at a certain value to make other parts of the program function properly or if changing it will even have the intended consequence. Before you know it the program will be syntax error-ing all over the place. The use of drugs is a lot like that. We have a general idea of what we're doing, but we still screw a lot of things up. That's why we should avoid medicating people unless it is necessary. Until we fully understand how humans work, we can't really start messing around in earnest without making things blow up.
This sounds a bit like how they used to give shock treatment to child molesters. It worked very well, but they stopped doing it because it was deemed cruel and unusual punishment (though it seems to me it's more cruel and unusual to send these guys out to fuck more children).
I don't.Razzle Bathbone post=18.71428.723078 said:
Anyone who wouldn't take these drugs is immoral anyways, out for themselves instead of others. We as a society already agreed to institutionally punish those who commit evil, Anyone who willing doesn't take it is evil, and evil is to be punished.
There is no argument for not enforcing there use that can't be used to argue against law in general.
That's just what I was thinking. Using medical means to alter your morality sounds a lot like using brain surgery to "mellow" you out. Morality is something associated more to a person's values and personality. If you alter their morals aren't you really altering what they believe? how they feel?tiredinnuendo post=18.71428.723114 said:
Intelligence on the other hand, is more of something you could "enhance" (not that I'd personally care to try it). It has more to do with brain functionality and learnability (that's so a word).
**Edit: I confused "A Clockwork Orange" with "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". I've never actually seen "A Clockwork Orange".
And for being the first, you got the banhammer of doom!!Monarch of Greenwich post=18.71428.723082 said:
30 days, they's thirsty for blood... BLOODD I SAY
- make you feel happy for others instead of jealous of them when they accomplish something
This could be a good idea for me, as there have been times I've gone through major depressions due to my jealousy, even going as far as avoiding good friends for several months because I just get depressed thinking about them.
This could be a good idea for me, as there have been times I've gone through major depressions due to my jealousy, even going as far as avoiding good friends for several months because I just get depressed thinking about them.
