Poll: Could there ever be such a thing as "ethical" mind control?

[Areloch]

The question posed by the thread title and the OP seem to be a little different: ie "ethical" vs "for good".

I would say that it would effectively be impossible to ethically mind control someone outside maybe some VERY expressly limited situations, like someone that has a dangerous compulsion and wants to be prevented from doing it - as in, specifically asks.

However, while it'd be unethical, yes, mind control could indeed be used for good, such as stopping hostage takers or other similar examples. That said, the question then becomes "is the good it can do worth the ethical violations this surely would cause". I think that's a much harder question to answer.

 

[happyninja42]

Spoiler for Jessica Jones Episode 8 if you want to know what prompted the question:

Spoiler

Jessica takes Kilgrave to the site of a hostage situation, where he uses his powers to talk the hostage-taker into letting his hostages go before turning himself over to the police. Jessica tells him he saved four lives, and briefly considers whether it would be worth surrendering the balance of her own life to act as a caretaker for him, pointing him in the right direction and "using his power for good".

So, my question is this. Presume you had a power to make people do whatever you wanted. You could talk suicides off ledges, you could talk ideological fanatics into reason, you could talk dictators into humanitarians, etc, etc. You could impose your view of a moral society on the world, one hi-jacked brain at a time.

Regardless of the outcome. Let's say you saved thousands if not hundreds of thousands of lives. Would the use of that power still not be a fundamentally evil act? Regardless of your intention, you are still violating someone in the most intimate way. You are making them a prisoner in their own mind. You are removing their volition and substituting your will.

Could such an act ever be good? Does the end justify the means?

PLEASE DO NOT POST JESSICA JONES SPOILERS I'M ONLY ON EPISODE EIGHT THANK YOU.

Interesting that you ask this, as I recall playing a mind controlling mutant in an online chat format, in a Marvel/Mutant school setting. My guy was an open believer in Magneto's philosophy that mutants were the next evolution of man. My character didn't openly suggest genocide of normals, but he sure didn't have much love for them. The funny thing, was even though he was always a perfectly polite person, and helped people, and only ever used his mind control powers one time (to force an non-mutant enemy to drop his weapon and handcuff himself, instead of you know, attacking us), he was looked on as a pariah. Which is funny, considering one of the other mutants killed a guy in the same fight. That was ok apparently, but me ending the conflict without bloodshed, creepy. I found it funny, how the people were willing to just let certain plot elements go as being "ok", even though they were super suspiciously anti-mutant. And when my character spoke up, he was shunned. So I would say that most of the population would probably find it distasteful.

Personally, I consider it the same as any other super ability that could potentially cause harm to people. If it's used for the betterment of humanity, then I don't really have a problem with it. If it's used in a way that harms humanity, even under the guise of helping humanity, I wouldn't support it. To me, this is no different than a government forcibly restraining people to prevent them from causing crimes. You are forcing your will on them. Until you arrested them, they had the freedom to go where they want, do what they want, but you took that away from them. You have effectively, removed their free will and agency in their own lives. They are at the mercy of what you allow them to do. Functionally, I don't see much difference in this from mind control.

The problem you run into is "how certain are you that the view you are imposing is better for humanity?" If you are using to do things like talk people down from suicide ledges, stop random shooters from killing more people, or other immediate result situations, I don't have any issue with this. These examples, some of which you presented yourself, have no negative consequence that I can see. It would be no different than rushing out and grabbing the jumper, or the shooter yourself. You are taking an action to restrict their choices, to reflect the outcome you want to have happen. "I don't want you to kill yourself" or "I don't want you to kill any more people". Is there any real difference in how you accomplish this? The end result is the same.

This question seems to come up a lot on this forum, the "is it ok to let people with powers use their powers?" question.

I personally don't have a problem with it in theory, but since this is purely a hypothetical situation, I'm not too worried about the "real world" ramifications of it.

 

[The Philistine]

I think the question is pretty heavily dependant on the mechanics of the effects of mind control and what's being forced upon someone. In Jessica Jones, yes it did save a couple of people's lives. It also never truly rewrote what a person did and left them emotionally scarred.

For another example, the Dresden Files. Any use of mind control leaves lasting psychic trauma.

Star Wars never really explores the effort cts of mind tricks. So it's pretty hard to say how useful it would be.

With absolute mind wipe type mind control, that may very well be in line with killing part or all of an individual's psyche to implant another. If that psyche is incongruous to the remaining, that could cause it's own damage. Or if wholly erased, what part of that person has actually been saved?

In short, the mechanics of mind control could wind up doibg more damage than good. And may leave brain washed individuals ticking time bombs ready to break free of the influence.

And that's not even getting into who decides what's best for society. Or who gets to set those boundaries. I doubt outside of hostage situations or willing hypnosis that the result would end positively for those involved.

 

[william1657]

As soon as I read this thread's title I thought "Advertising".
That's all about trying to control peoples' minds enough to get them to go buy something.

Then as I was writing this I started thinking "Is advertising 'ethical'?"
Almost all the types of advertising I can think of are annoying, irritating, or harmful. Sure there are a handful of ads that are pretty entertaining, but even they would get annoying if they were replayed as often as some ads are.

 

[Rahkshi500]

My thoughts would be around the same as those who say it being like killing; never to be used lightly and only in the most urgent situations as a last option when everything else shows to not work. But even then, the mind control must be undone as soon as the threat is neutralize. Unless it's of willing consent on the receiver's part, it shouldn't be used to change someone's personality, or else that will indeed be a breach and violation of one's free will and autonomy, no matter the intentions. If it is to be used for some things like therapy, that should be used up to the proper authorities, and again, with the receiver's full on consent.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

While I can see instances where it could be used ethically, unfortunately bending others will to force them to do something they did not choose to do is beyond my ethics. One could say that putting a gun to a person's head is basically the same thing but in that instance they still have a choice. A rather shitty choice but its still there. Taking away the autonomous will completely is just something I cannot condone.
I would argue against it most because in a long-run scenario it would ultimately be abused. Human nature and an absolute power of mind control is a mix I hesitate to consider even remotely. Its the whole Gandalf and the one-ring argument. Would use the power to do good but end up causing more harm in the end.
No. I cannot in good conscience condone it. Its just beyond my nature, even for the worst sort of people, I couldn't employ it.

The arguments about hypnosis and beneficial mind control techniques have one caveat: Consent. Consent is the only time I'd condone its usage, like if a pederast wanted to be mind controlled to rid him/herself of those urges, or a serial murderer wishing to learn compassion, mercy, stop killing, etc. Consent. Its the only time I'm willing to be lenient on that topic, and even then it could still be abused.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

I think it can. What's the big difference between telling a gunman to surrender and using mind control or forcing him to physically? His choice doesn't matter in that position, what matters is stopping him.

Or if you command someone "Never murder someone". What's the dilemma? That they cannot make a wrong choice that ruins someone else's life?

I don't think there's a dilemma in situations where you are depriving someone of a choice they shouldn't be allowed to make.

 

[The Philistine]

I think it can. What's the big difference between telling a gunman to surrender and using mind control or forcing him to physically? His choice doesn't matter in that position, what matters is stopping him.

Or if you command someone "Never murder someone". What's the dilemma? That they cannot make a wrong choice that ruins someone else's life?

I don't think there's a dilemma in situations where you are depriving someone of a choice they shouldn't be allowed to make.

The difference being that if the gunman surrenders, you're reasonably sure he's surrendered to your authority, if only for a time. Someone mind controlled may break free, being incensed after the violation of their free will.

In the case of progamming someone to not murder, what was overwritten in the process? What part of them is lost or damaged? There would likely be some reasoning or function that brought about their urge to murder, and progamming the urge away by force might not reconcile with the new progamming. Murder isn't a normal choice to make, impeding that decision may not remove their threat.

They might be unable to defend themselves or others to avoid the risk of killing someone, take the order in some obtuse way such as a skewed definition of murder to justify continuing to kill, or take it to a logical extreme and stop eating to avoid the death of anything.

The results almost certainly would be unpredictable, or at least unreliable. Should a progammed person break from that progamming, they may wind up being an even worse danger from the experience.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Hell no. Well,unless they ask for it. But I guess you could say the same about hypnotists. Arguably psychologists do it a lot of the time in experimentation. Tests concerning authority, false memory phenomena. Whole lot of experiments which alter perception, manipulate emotion and provoke responses. Informed consent is necessary of course, but at the same time I use stuff I learnt in behavioural science in daily life.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

By definition, hypnotism is both a voluntary state, and voluntarily maintained. If you try to induce someone to behavior they're not prepared to do, they simply have an "abreaction" and wake up. It is considerably less powerful as a tool than depicted in most fiction in any case, unless you're using it like meditation. In the case of authority tests it's not a matter of mind control either, but situational control. One may tend to resemble the other, but only in the way that strangulation starts to resemble any process which leads to cellular asphyxia. They reach a similar grisly conclusion in most cases though.

Yes ... but the thing is the same could be said of other systems, such as manipulating peer pressure or circumventing the mnechanics of the diffusion of responsibility. You're right about hypnoitism, but at the sometime, but I would argue against authorioty simply being situational. I mean you can say that of anything ... knowing how to manipulate the psychosocial environment is nothing but situational, doesn't mean it's not tangibly disimilar to circumventing systems of self-control. Given that's exactly what it is and the effects can often be far more surprising than fictional depictions of mind control.

If you don't believe me the Loftus experiment serves as a potent example of basically being able to rewrite people's memories without a person even knowing it, and what's best ... is that unlike fictional depictions of mind-control where they just seem to 'snap out of it ' ... they'll pass lie detectors and truly believe whatever you say. It will be a certainty in their mind when it never happened. All by merely how you phrase a question, and positively or negatively responding to what is being said in return. Makes you lose all faith in eyewitness testimonies.

After years of reading various psychological phenomena it just seems like memory is there to prevent constant ego death, rather than any pursuit of truth recall.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

If it was really always used for good, yes, mind control is justified.

Problem is, we're only human, and sometime, somehow, somewhere, it will be misused. And when it is, it could lead to nasty things.

So no, I don't think something as powerful as mind control should be in this world.

 

[veloper]

I suppose it could be a kinder alternative to just beating people up to make them do what you want, the good old fashioned way.

I think the real problem is still somebody making people do stuff they don't want to. How this is achieved only comes next.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I think the larger issue there isn't the ability to selectively edit memories, it's that we as people haven't come to accept what we as people are. We're fragile, and every act of recollection opens a memory to editing. The thing is, if you're educated about these, trained even, you can simply resist or ignore them. They are not magic, not a "power". They are powerful because they are stealthy, because they can be used in ways that are made to be egosyntonic. "You have bad breath, no one will love you, use Listerine." That's really powerful, until you know the principle behind it, then boom... zero engagement.

It's always been, and will always be a war for our minds, with education being the only real defense. The point of mind 'CONTROL' over influence though, is disregard for the individual. For example, torture works if you don't care about it working on any one person. If you're only interested in meeting some quota, with endless raw human material, time, and resources, you can torture people as a group into just about anything. The Chinese produced the illusion of "Brainwashing" this way, in Korea.

The dirty secret though is that like the swan, a lot goes on beneath. For one, most people you torture, around 40%, simply won't break. There are a ton of reasons why this is, and we don't need to get into them here, but the point is that if the state needs you Paul H to confess to your "crimes" (and not scream "I'm being framed!" on the stand at your show trial) there is no way to do that now. There's a way to make a certain number of people in a group, some of whom will die, be crippled, and lose their minds, do it, but not just YOU, not reliably.

If or when that changes, our society is going to change. Why try to manipulate subtly what you can control outright? Our lives are relationships built on exchanged influence, but what if that didn't matter in the face of some absolute control? Not a tendency, not a high percentage of compliance, but total control? I think that line matters, because it changes how people relate to each other and governments relate to people. For one, killing people becomes an insane waste of future resources, a future slave waiting to be made. For another, once someone is under your control you don't have to have any concern for maintaining their state of servitude, there is no risk of your system being unstable like any slavery-based system.

Finally, and most critically, if you can control minds you can do so in a way that hides the fact of what you've done. Yes, I know that you can kick down my door if you want to and rob me, but I will know that my door has been kicked in. If you pick my lock, you can enter without my knowledge. If you can pass through walls...

Fairly skeptical, but the difference is that we don't just see examples of long-term memory store being rewritten, but also short-term memory store. As you said, by the misappropriation of stimuli when being brought into recall. Remembering a memory as part of a specific stimuli irrevocably changes the memory. They've know about that for awhile. In fact they did experiments by trying to improve memory by associating it with sensation. What we learnt that scent is particularly potent due to the biological construction of how we smell.

The thing is that a lot of this stuff we already knew about for millenia. A lot of accusations about witchcraft and sorcery are stories that often have a lot to do about being able to wrap people around your finger ... stories of ensorcelled victims being cheated and used. I mean, you say these systems are weak when you learn of them ... but once again, it's also not hard to see that as more is learnt about the infinitely complex construction of the mind and the perhaps even harder question of the brain, that what difference will it be?

You say it's not magic. But given that you're talking about manipulating the mechanics of thought and how people perceive reality, and that we are learning more about how to fuck with minds, it's also not that hard to foresee that it may very well be a case of scared poeasants claiming it was magic once more. Simply knowing the tricks means little when scientific progress is often 10 steps ahead of what is at present known commonly.

The interesting thing about Loftus was that this wasn't long term memory store. You know how when you were a kid, you'd listen to two older family members, like your parents, recount a memory from decades ago ... and one of them will correct them saying; "I thought it was orange." --- "Oh yeah! I must have been thinking of the day bed." -- whatever ... yeah, the Loftus experiment ddidn't just sho0w weakness in ciomprehensive memory recall and the ability to rewrite said memories simply by asking questions and how you ask questions, it also worked with short term memory store. Recent affairs. No matter how well someone had studied the source material being questioned about.

I mean, when we learn ever more ways to fuck with perception, what's the difference between perceiving a trick and perceiving a spell anymore? More to the point, is there no way to foresee a state whereby we know the mechanics of the mind and the brain so well that it is utterly ambiguous compared to fictional mind control?

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

I think it can. What's the big difference between telling a gunman to surrender and using mind control or forcing him to physically? His choice doesn't matter in that position, what matters is stopping him.

Or if you command someone "Never murder someone". What's the dilemma? That they cannot make a wrong choice that ruins someone else's life?

I don't think there's a dilemma in situations where you are depriving someone of a choice they shouldn't be allowed to make.

The difference being that if the gunman surrenders, you're reasonably sure he's surrendered to your authority, if only for a time. Someone mind controlled may break free, being incensed after the violation of their free will.

In the case of progamming someone to not murder, what was overwritten in the process? What part of them is lost or damaged? There would likely be some reasoning or function that brought about their urge to murder, and progamming the urge away by force might not reconcile with the new progamming. Murder isn't a normal choice to make, impeding that decision may not remove their threat.

They might be unable to defend themselves or others to avoid the risk of killing someone, take the order in some obtuse way such as a skewed definition of murder to justify continuing to kill, or take it to a logical extreme and stop eating to avoid the death of anything.

The results almost certainly would be unpredictable, or at least unreliable. Should a progammed person break from that progamming, they may wind up being an even worse danger from the experience.

Wut

You're arguing based on the *details* of mind control that doesn't exist? Just no. That's not about the ethics of mind control that's about *your* version of it. This makes as little sense as saying we can't use a gun that freezes someone in time since it might accidentally obliterate them from existence. You're making up new details to the theoretical power.

 

[Tono Makt]

It's complicated.

Controlling the mind of someone who is suffering from a mental illness like schizophrenia to ensure that person is not able to harm themselves or others? There can be quite a bit of ethical justifications there... depending on what it is they are made to do instead of acting on that little voice telling them to burn the world down. Being made to do things that are productive AND things the person is already interested in doing? Likely ethical. Being made to do things that they wouldn't normally do OR are done in direct benefit of the person controlling them? Likely unethical. But it's not black and white.

Mind control to outright change their mind? If it is to cure a mental illness like the above mentioned schizophrenia, it's probably ethical. If it is to cure depression... might be ethical. If it is to change something about themselves that they don't like - say a Fundamentalist of any Abrahamic religion looking to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual - it's going to be walking through a minefield with magnetized boots.

 

[The Philistine]

Wut

You're arguing based on the *details* of mind control that doesn't exist? Just no. That's not about the ethics of mind control that's about *your* version of it. This makes as little sense as saying we can't use a gun that freezes someone in time since it might accidentally obliterate them from existence. You're making up new details to the theoretical power.

No, using plausible possibilities in place of spoiling works that follow the victims of mind control like Jessica Jones, Dresden Files, or Clockwork Orange. The human mind is complex, and tampering with it could lead to unexpected results. If it's used to issue an order like, "Don't murder", the underlying cause of that person wanting to murder is not addressed, and will likely be taken out in some other way, which could wind up being even worse for all involved.

Mind control is a bit overly broad to begin with. You could be talking about jacking someone's motor functions, effectively paralysis. Or implanting a suggestion, i.e. Jedi mind tricks. Or overwriting memories. Imparting visions. Forcing commands like in Jessica Jones. Or re-writting part of all of a person's psyche.

 

[springheeljack]

No I don't think it could ever be used for good because that much potential power would corrupt anyone in a second. The potential to have that much power over someone, anyone? The actual possibility of fulfilling any dark desires you had? I don't care who you are no one would not abuse it in an unethical manner