Are you a RACIST? There's a pill for that...
- Thread starter Bill Mattocks
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OP
- Thread Starter
- #22
Thank you! Whether we agree or disagree is less important to me at the moment than that we have the discussion.
Interestingly enough (and I did not suspect this, I really didn't), it appears no one wants to or is even willing to actually address it (except you and me, apparently).
Perhaps this is why we can't have a discussion about race in our society. Everyone understands it is an issue, everyone has an opinion, no one is going to talk about it.
I mean, they put fluoride in the water supply. There's a public health benefit to it, and that's the reasoning; no other. So what if they could put this stuff in the water too?
For those who don't believe such a drug is possible, I am not asking that; I am asking you to PRETEND for a moment that it is, and engage in the thought experiment - what would it mean to us?
It is a stretch for the imagination indeed since our racism has such deep roots in group dynamics and group chauvinisms. And so because it is informed by these deep roots and further informed by degrees of categorising, of homogenising and stereotyping I can only guess then that were such a multi-system chemical really available, and our plain-dwelling capacity for racism reduced or arrested then perhaps -like every other pharmaceutical product today- several otherwise useful aspects of our cognition may be taken down with it as unwanted adverse effects? I would hazard a stab that with reduced categorising abilities and, if the drug hits higher up our evolutionary hardwiring, with a reduced desire to compete for scarce resource, we would become placid and pacified. I think this is not wholly necessarily the good thing it appears. That is quite Huxleyan I think.
cdunn
2nd Black Belt
Unlike flourides, this is not a cut and dried public health benefit. Even if we pretend that that this is a magic bullet that targets only our subconscious.. or even conscious.. racial or other ingroup out-group biases, this may not be a good idea. Our ability to form ingroup/outgroup biases are likely a large portion of what we call things like friendship. So, I really can't see this having the kind of cost/benefit we, as a society, should consider electing for ourselves. But, yeah, I can see the polemic too. And I don't like very much any of it.
The precedent to medicate a person without consent has already been set with fluoride in the water. It is not out of the question that the government might extend this to other chemicals.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #27
You bring up another good point. The government (and society in general) has long established the right to forcibly medicate those who have been judged mentally unwell to the point of being a danger to themselves or others. That is, if you get locked for being crazy enough, you have to take your meds or they'll legally strap you down and force you to take them.
Now, imagine a drug that has massive public health implications and the AMA defines racism as a mental illness and not a simple 'opinion'?
Now if you are a racist, you're mentally ill. Now the government can medicate you against your will.
What if they make the argument that the drug PREVENTS mental illness, just like fluoride prevents tooth decay?
Fascinating.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #28
That's all I'm saying, pretend for the sake of discussion that this drug *is* a cut and dried health benefit. As you said, it presents some chilling choices. And it would appear that no one really wants to go there. Sigh. OK, I get it. Moving on now...
cdunn
2nd Black Belt
Well, like I said. I do not believe it can be ethically done. I can understand why you would want to - "Imagine" comes to mind really fast.To tinker with the mind is at the very root of what we consider freedom and individuality. We cannot do this to the average, competant individual. What can be done, ethically, if it were a magic bullet, is to allow it to be freely available for those who CHOOSE it, much as we make caffiene freely available for those who choose it. Curiously, I wonder if those who are no longer able to negatively discriminate against others would be even able to mount social pressure against those who would still be able to - the mechanisms have a high probablity of linkage.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #30
Surely, a person who knew he or she was a racist and liked it would not voluntarily take such a drug, and a person who was a racist and didn't think they were would not feel they needed it, so I doubt anyone would take it at all. Imagine a pile designed to cure stupidity; no one would take it, because stupid people would be unable to recognize they were stupid and would benefit from it. Ever met a real numskull who knew it?
And if the AMA defines racism as a disease, then a person who is a racist is neither average, nor perhaps competent. See where I'm going with that?
Bear in mind of course that I'm not advocating anything of the sort. I'm playing philosophical mind games, and experimenting mentally with both sides.
I think most people know I come down on the side of individual liberty; and that even includes the right to hate, the right to be prejudiced or even racist. Doesn't mean I like those people or support them; just that I support the right of any person to hold whatever opinions they like, so long as they do not commit crimes. Hate my guts for my skin color if you like; just don't take my life or attack me or fire me because of it.
But when we consider the overall good, and the problems we face, then the needs of society begin to intrude into personal liberty space. In order to have a society at all, everyone gives up a little freedom. And when it comes to things like childhood inoculations against disease, or fluoride in the water supply, most of us rather passively accept that our rights to not be inoculated or not drink fluoridated water are overridden by the rights of society to not have preventable disease epidemics or massive tooth decay. Is that it? Is that the limit? Or is the limit a little bit farther out? Can those examples be extended? Should they?
Em MacIntosh
3rd Black Belt
The first misstep is to simplify racism. Obviously all thought is based on physical architecture but it's not a matter of the "suspicion" part of the brain, or the "pride" part of the brain, nor is it a matter of wanton ignorance. It's a matter of overlapping experiences having to do with multiple precise regions of the brain that can't be "controlled" by drugs, unless you want to use a broadsword instead of a scalpel which will most certainly have negative repercussions on other physiology, such as the entire endocrine system. You can't "sum it up" physically and you have to know what the problem is if you want to treat it. Philosophically or socially, we understand the problem superficially as discrimination based on assumptions about, or experiences with, different cultures. The problem isn't physiology, those functions are there for a reason. The problem is a matter of reason and conscious thought. I feel I'm racist but I try to overcome my ignorance. I know its not right so I fight it but I don't deny it. I try to catch myself. I make the attempt to recognize when I'm discriminating and why. I try to see how it stems from my bias but I have strong, blanket assumptions, more based on frustration with complexity than anything else. Nevertheless, I'm guilty of discrimination but it's up to me to use reason and logic to make the effort not to be. A pill that reduces acute anxiety regarding suspicion does nothing to address the actual misconceptions the problems stem from.
The study is poorly founded and depends on their own convenient, arbitrary definition of racism. They pretend its a (relatively) simple problem with a simple solution. When you apply a simple solution to a complex problem you cause a lot of damage, never mind that it's wagging the dog in the first place.
This drug either interrupts receptors, or redirects synaptic patterns that I can guarantee are intertwined with systems you need in every day life, like judgement and decisiveness, for example. Flouride trades healthier teeth for poison in the body, the argument being that the gains for protecting the teeth, considering the amounts involved, outweigh the potential of poisoning over the short term and supposedly over the accumulation in the long term. While I don't think flouride in the water is a good idea it does have a more concrete benefit, it's not a psychotropic drug designed to alter behavior (in potentially unpredictable ways).
There's too many reasons why this would be wrong, not the least of which is the entire paradigm of solving a problem with a pill.
The study is poorly founded and depends on their own convenient, arbitrary definition of racism. They pretend its a (relatively) simple problem with a simple solution. When you apply a simple solution to a complex problem you cause a lot of damage, never mind that it's wagging the dog in the first place.
This drug either interrupts receptors, or redirects synaptic patterns that I can guarantee are intertwined with systems you need in every day life, like judgement and decisiveness, for example. Flouride trades healthier teeth for poison in the body, the argument being that the gains for protecting the teeth, considering the amounts involved, outweigh the potential of poisoning over the short term and supposedly over the accumulation in the long term. While I don't think flouride in the water is a good idea it does have a more concrete benefit, it's not a psychotropic drug designed to alter behavior (in potentially unpredictable ways).
There's too many reasons why this would be wrong, not the least of which is the entire paradigm of solving a problem with a pill.
oftheherd1
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I reckon that is just what its use would be, a thought experiment. Dangerous territory!
OP
- Thread Starter
- #34
Yes, I've noticed. Despite my repeated requests that people NOT simply take the science to task to avoid talking about the actual issue, that's all they will do.
The conclusion I have reached in this thread is that very, very, few people are willing to talk about racism, or the limits of government authority when it comes to individual freedoms.
I'm a bit surprised; I really didn't expect that. But it seems this is too advanced a topic for many; or they are just afraid to say anything. Sad, in a way. We can never defeat racism if we can't even talk about it. So let's all pretend that the subject is something else entirely and comment on that instead. Sigh.
Did anyone read the original article? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h...od-pressure-drug-reduces-in-built-racism.html
If you want a thought experiment, then I'd suggest that posting the link was a mistake. By basing the thought experiment off the link, you inherently connect the two. And that means that those with a scientific bent are going to point out the enormous flaws in that "study".
If you simply want to postulate an imaginary drug that prevents racism and speculate on the ethics of its use, then fine.
In your purely hypothetical situation, I'd need to know:
What is the incidence of 'genetic racism'.
How effective is the drug, both in the short term and long.
What are the side effects of the drug, both in the short term and long.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #37
When people read a work of fiction that they know is fiction, do they deconstruct it and criticize it, or suspend their disbelief long enough to enjoy the story?
It's all dancing around a topic that people don't want to discuss; that's the conclusion I am reaching here.
If I say "Imagine 100% efficacy, imagine no known side-effects, imagine that 100% of racism turns out to be genetic," someone will say 'Nuh uh, that's not possible, because X and Y and Z." I give up.
Your scenario WOULD be impossible, because everything has side effects. Even water. Or air. Oxygen is toxic if you breath it at two atmospheres.
Thought experiments work best, I think, when they're grounded in reality.
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They need not be at all.\
From the delightful, Merriam Webster English Language Technical Manual
And, from Wikipedia:
So we see that thought experiments need not be grounded in reality at all.
I'll play, Bill, but I'm a little busy right now....
Um, you'll notice I said "I think", as in, in my opinion, althought it's entirely possible to have thought experiments that are entirely based on fantasy, it's not very useful to do so.
