Freedom of will versus the prevention of atrocities

[kajarainbow]

If you had a method of making people nice, or at least making them not do the really terrible things that happen everyday (carnage and suffering around the world), is it morally acceptable to preemptively use it on everyone and sundry? Is it okay to use it only on proven offenders?

Does the inviolability of their psyches outweigh making the human race far better off?

Comments

[bossgoji.livejournal.com]

The question, of course, really comes down to what "making people nice" means, as Relee said above. The problem being, no single individual is capable of knowing what's "nicer" for an entire planet of people, nor do they really, deep down, give a shit. Why does anyone want to change the world? To make people better off, okay, that's part of it. But why do they want that? Why do other people matter to them?

Because suffering makes them uncomfortable. Even if it's not happening to them, knowing it exists, having to see it in the media and all around them, it makes them afraid. Afraid it's going to happen to them. People want this sort of thing, this sort of "make people nicer" dream, because, ultimately, they don't want to see that suffering happen to them. At it's core, all love and all compassion is selfish. That's not a bad thing, normally: if we didn't have some self-interest, nobody would do anything.

But let's say you DO have the power to "smooth people out," as it were, to make all the unsightly, unpleasant bumps in personality go away. Would you, honestly now, actually take the time to sort through every individual mind on the entire planet and meticulously provide the right deep-level therapy so that they're completely functional and nonthreatening human beings? Because omnipotent or not, you can't just wave a hand and "fix" people, and that's even presuming they WANT to be fixed.

So would you make that much effort on your part? Probably not. Probably what would happen is you'd eventually get tired or bored of the effort and just make everyone think like you, just like anybody else would in that position, because you and pretty much anyone else would want things to be fixed fast. If it was me, I'd probably do it that way too. I can say I wouldn't, oh that's horrible, but power corrupts, and if you hold absolute power over the minds of every living being, nobody would be capable of resisting the temptation to abuse it. Even if someone DOES make all the effort to do it the hard way, do you honestly expect them to relinquish that power over people? The longer they hold it, the more likely they'll abuse it, and by our species' own nature, no human would ever give it up.

And let's say it happens anyway. An entire planet, completely unified in thought and deed. Six billion people, all thinking exactly the same. What happens, then, if we run into aliens? Or a new form of life arises on the planet? What if it wasn't you who brought the change, but someone who thinks we should be the only dominant lifeform? Imagine an entire world of manic, genocidal xenophobes who never have doubts. That scares me far more than our current cultural situation.

The only safe option is to make sure nobody is ever in that position to begin with. It's not a matter of "can we make things better," it's a matter of "how will this make things worse"?

[kajarainbow.livejournal.com]

I don't know. When I see another person suffering, and feel their pain, sometimes there's that fear you speak of, yes (I feel it when I hear about instances of transphobia for example). But not always. Sometimes I just don't want them to suffer. There's not much logical explanation for that, it's just something I feel. I don't know. The argument that people ultimately don't really give a shit baffles me. If that selfish fear's a strong element as you argue, why do people even give their lives for others?

I dunno. When I see people making those sorts of statements, sometimes it seems like they're generalizing from their own feelings. That doesn't mean that it doesn't hold true for a lot of people (and I'm sure what you say holds true for many people). But, well.

Well, yeah, generalized fixes would have to be the order. But if I ended up with that kind of power, I'd just do what I said in my response to Relee's comment. Fix the minimum to at least reduce carnage, then make sure no one does further meddling on others against their wills (voluntary meddling's a different thing), then just leave it off at that. I wouldn't fix every ugly thing, because that's far too much to do on a global scale. Humans'd still be petty, etc. after I was done--I couldn't trust myself to know what's best for everyone.

Of course, that's assuming I can manage to keep from being corrupted by said power. That's why my second and last act with it would be to cut off my (and everyone else's) ability to do that stuff.

Truthfully, it'd probably be safest if this kind of global power never came to pass, yeah. Too much random factor, chance in who attains it first. Fortunately, it's most likely that it'll never happen anyway--that kind of scale is difficult to achieve in the first place, and counters can be developed to everything.

In practical terms, it's very improbable and very dangerous. But I sometimes think about it as a pure thought experiment.

[relee.livejournal.com]

Animals developed compassion as an evolutionary mechanism. Mothers have compassion for their children because if the children don't survive, they don't have offspring. Individuals in a group have compassion because the herd/tribe/gang requires teamwork. Compassion is a survival mechanism. After all, life isn't about the survival of an individual, it's about the survival of species.


While changing people on a dramatic level as altering their capacity for violence may not be quite as possible, it's certainly possible to drug the water supply or introduce gasses or other behavior-altering impetus into the environment on a large scale.


I think it's a reasonable course of action to bathe Africa in Empathy Foam. It's certainly better than the genocide most people seem to reccomend.

[kajarainbow.livejournal.com]

There're really people that suggest genocide as a solution?

[relee.livejournal.com]

Yeah a lot of people think that genocide would be a good way to end strife in the third world. Not just religious folks either. The logic is that with less people there would be more resources to go around, and the survivors would be able to thrive where the masses are being tortured.

Mostly people urge contraceptive use, but it doesn't work, and the population keeps going up with the resources dwindle. Some folks feel that since they won't listen to reason they have to be put down, like animals, for their own good (or at least the good of whoever survives). Most people who would suggest genocide are patient enough to wait for a pandemic to wipe everybody out, but some of them also support the idea of intentionally causing a pandemic.


I said 'most people seem to reccomend' earlier but that was a bit of an exaggeration. I do hear people suggest that almost anytime the subject comes up, but few are really serious... I hope.


Really do hear some horror stories from around the world though. I'm not sure if the children hate-conscription is worse or if the prevailing superstition that raping a little girl will act as a panacea and cure your aids is worse, though. Brr. *shiver*

[alfador-fox.livejournal.com]

"For the good of all of us...except the ones who are dead."

[relee.livejournal.com]

Imagine an entire world of manic, genocidal xenophobes who never have doubts. That scares me far more than our current cultural situation.

Someone else already imagined that. EXTERMINATE!