[RD] Butlerian Jihad.

[Mouthwash]

And by the way @Synsensa my beef is not with "technology" as such but with the way that technology is being used by capitalists....in other words, my problem is with capitalism.

Technology seems inherently exploitative to me. I mean, why invent anything if not for pressure to improve? If people are healthy and satisfied, they're complacent. Ruthless competition is the *only* reason we have computers and smartphones (I've never heard any other model of technological development even suggested; only lefties wringing their hands about why can't all this progress be put to more ethical use - as though Silicon Valley inventors have some kind of collective agency and can choose to alter their process. It's magical thinking all the way down).

Eh? Every addiction recovery program is built on the fundamental idea that you are responsible for your own recovery. Addiction is insidious and it ruins you. If it were so easy to not be addicted, no one would be. But regardless of those realities, you're still the only one in control -- even if your control has been compromised.

Those addiction recovery programs are fraudulent. I suspect that is because any real help (i.e. total restriction or making it much harder for victims to maintain their addiction) is incompatible with the liberal ideal of total self-determination. It would get sued into the ground.

Connected to the rest of your post, there are obviously chemicals at work and manufacturers/less-than-moral individuals can take advantage of that. Yet the truth remains that only you can enact a denial of these substances, whether you've yet to try them or you're years deep into having your daily life controlled by them. Manipulating psychology and creating chemical dependence are both heinous acts, and they should be prosecuted where and when possible. But the core of addiction lies with the individual. Conquering your addiction requires taking personal responsibility. You'll never be able to turn your back on it if it's always someone else's design or fault.

Your decision is essential, but so is the object of addiction itself. Take it away, and the problem is also solved.

There are many, many people who aren't capable of the former. Why should they be denied access to the latter? Because it violates their human "rights", even if it's by their own request?

Destructive behavior could be a defect, or it could be the "system" working as intended. We don't know enough to say. But this will likely not be a fruitful discussion between us primarily because we hold different beliefs on the "design" behind humanity. A more spiritual approach to how we're put together sort of makes my perspective bankrupt on delivery.

I'm a Darwinist. The notion that we are meant to be addicted to destructive things doesn't seem compatible with that.

Addiction takes advantage of reasonable systems and manifestations in our bodies. Barring infallible fail safes, I'm not sure there's a way to prevent addiction entirely.

I'm not sure what your point is. I assume it's not 'so we may as well give up and serve ecstasy with school lunches'.

 

[Lexicus]

Technology seems inherently exploitative to me. I mean, why invent anything if not for pressure to improve? If people are happy and healthy, they're complacent. Ruthless competition is the *only* reason we have computers and smartphones (I've never heard any other model of technological development even suggested; only lefties wringing their hands about why can't all this progress be put to more ethical use - as though Silicon Valley inventors have some kind of collective agency. It's magical thinking all the way down).

So, you are saying that the pressure to improve must be imposed by some outside entity? Something like "the only reason we work harder/better/faster/whatever is fear of the lash?"

I'm a Darwinist. The notion that we are naturally addicted to destructive things doesn't seem compatible with that.

Evolution doesn't work that way.

Those addiction recovery programs are fraudulent. I suspect that is because any real help (i.e. total restriction or making it much harder for victims to maintain their addiction) is incompatible with the liberal ideal of total self-determination. It would get sued into the ground.

Wait, are you saying that uh the way to really help addicts is to, like, ban the things they're addicted to?

 

[Synobun]

I'm not sure what your point is. I assume it's not 'so we may as well give up and serve ecstasy with school lunches'.

That'd be dope.

But no, that's not my point. My point was more that you can remove a flavour of addiction without really changing anything. At its core, addiction plays on a necessary and fundamental part of our existence, which is the reinforcement of desired behaviour. Our bodies just aren't good at knowing the difference between desirable and beneficial. It can be tricked by chemicals (like @Lexicus's example of tobacco) or it can be compromised by unhealthy mentalities that slowly but surely convert enough of your neurons into believing a faulty premise.

In simplest terms, you want to have the dopamine/reward response. You need to have that response in order to pursue beyond your most basic genetic programming. If behaviour x gives you that response, you'll naturally want to do it more. More dopamine = more reward. Our reward system is complex but dangerously simple to exploit.

Many addictions make you physically dependent, but most if not all of them play on your reward system. Having that compromised means you're at risk of finding fulfillment elsewhere if the current path to a quick fix is removed. It's why "cold turkey" recovery approaches universally drive home the point that they won't work if you aren't consumed by the desire to be free of the addiction. Simply removing the attachment isn't foolproof. How you process and pursue the feeling of reward is critical to how you recover, and how that feeling of reward parses for an individual can wildly differ from the person next to them even if the attachment they're suffering from is identical (e.g., two alcoholics can have completely different motivations and responses despite being addicted to alcohol).

People are "denied" access to your ideal scenario because it works the same way chopping off the hands of a thief works. You can solve an addiction by locking someone in a cell, but the mechanisms inside of them that created that original synergy with the addictive substance (whether it's actually addictive or not) still exist. You're enacting a nuclear option that doesn't rehabilitate the individual. While it's true that you "solved" the superficial (the individual can't* stop doing x [*based on an assumption], so you made it impossible for them to ever do it again), you removed their agency and also made it impossible for them to progress from there.

 

[Farm Boy]

Removing temptation is valid. I eventually stopped going to gas stations for a month, because they sold cigarettes there. It took restructuring and cooperation. It also involved avoiding public spaces where they were accessible. Kept them out of the house. Haven't let any back in, there. Food is tricky. You can't structure food out entirely. Which is why people who drop weight and keep it off for extended periods of time not infrequently say that calling it a diet is inadequate. Some people can do it, I'm sure. But for some, everything must change in order to change a personal relationship with food. I imagine interpersonal interaction, online and otherwise, is more similar wide sweep and in broad scope to food than it is to cigarettes.

 

[Mouthwash]

So, you are saying that the pressure to improve must be imposed by some outside entity? Something like "the only reason we work harder/better/faster/whatever is fear of the lash?"

For scientific advancement, yes. I suspect this is also true for societal/cultural change.

Evolution doesn't work that way.

A significant component of evolution, as I understand it, is survival. The only addiction I can even imagine being built into us is a sex addiction, and even that's unlikely.

Wait, are you saying that uh the way to really help addicts is to, like, ban the things they're addicted to?

No. Banning objects of addiction is probably only necessary when that object is enmeshed in its host society. Someone who talks to his friends all day on his phone is not going to be able to do that if none of those friends have phones themselves. For this reason, I also think cakes and cookies should be heavily restricted (not be sold in any public location except for special stores, not consumed publicly, have an age restriction like alcohol, etc).

I do think that addicts should have the right to be removed from society in order to break their addictions.

My point was more that you can remove a flavour of addiction without really changing anything. At its core, addiction plays on a necessary and fundamental part of our existence, which is the reinforcement of desired behaviour. Our bodies just aren't good at knowing the difference between desirable and beneficial. It can be tricked by chemicals (like @Lexicus's example of tobacco) or it can be compromised by unhealthy mentalities that slowly but surely convert enough of your neurons into believing a faulty premise.

In simplest terms, you want to have the dopamine/reward response. You need to have that response in order to pursue beyond your most basic genetic programming. If behaviour x gives you that response, you'll naturally want to do it more. More dopamine = more reward. Our reward system is complex but dangerously simple to exploit.

Then this is only a semantic disagreement. Of course addiction is a product of our biology, but it's not an intended product - it can't happen to optimally healthy individuals.

Many addictions make you physically dependent, but most if not all of them play on your reward system. Having that compromised means you're at risk of finding fulfillment elsewhere if the current path to a quick fix is removed. It's why "cold turkey" recovery approaches universally drive home the point that they won't work if you aren't consumed by the desire to be free of the addiction. Simply removing the attachment isn't foolproof. How you process and pursue the feeling of reward is critical to how you recover, and how that feeling of reward parses for an individual can wildly differ from the person next to them even if the attachment they're suffering from is identical (e.g., two alcoholics can have completely different motivations and responses despite being addicted to alcohol).

People are "denied" access to your ideal scenario because it works the same way chopping off the hands of a thief works. You can solve an addiction by locking someone in a cell, but the mechanisms inside of them that created that original synergy with the addictive substance (whether it's actually addictive or not) still exist. You're enacting a nuclear option that doesn't rehabilitate the individual. While it's true that you "solved" the superficial (the individual can't* stop doing x [*based on an assumption], so you made it impossible for them to ever do it again), you removed their agency and also made it impossible for them to progress from there.

You seem to be under the impression I believe that cutting all addicts off will eliminate addiction. I actually just think that (A) societal restrictions can help with prevention and recovery, and (B) large numbers of addicts who want to be cut off don't have the option, because freedom.

 

[Lexicus]

For scientific advancement, yes. I suspect this is also true for societal/cultural change.

So, does this include, like, figuring out fire? Domestication of the dog?

A significant component of evolution, as I understand it, is survival. The only addiction I can even imagine being built into us is a sex addiction, and even that's unlikely.

Well, evolution has given us a reward pathway so that among other things we like to keep having sex over and over again. It's the reward pathway that causes addiction.

 

[Mouthwash]

So, does this include, like, figuring out fire? Domestication of the dog?

If you're trying to throw up doubt here, those are really weird examples. Fire helped us cook food, gave us a defense against predators and cold, allowed as to create better tools, etc. Dogs have been used for tracking, hunting, herding, and protection. Everyone from hunter-gatherer tribes to modern armies have relied on them.

Well, evolution has given us a reward pathway so that among other things we like to keep having sex over and over again. It's the reward pathway that causes addiction.

Sure, but healthy humans should never have self-destructive fixations on those rewards.

 

[Lexicus]

If you're trying to throw up doubt here, those are really weird examples. Fire helped us cook food, gave us a defense against predators and cold, allowed as to create better tools, etc. Dogs have been used for tracking, hunting, herding, and protection. Everyone from hunter-gatherer tribes to modern armies have relied on them.

So now I'm confused, your position is that social and technological change is forced on us by external compulsion, except when it is useful?

Sure, but healthy humans should never have self-destructive fixations on those rewards.

Why shouldn't they? Evolution is not concerned with some abstract concept of self-destruction. It is concerned with reproduction and specifically with the reproduction of heritable traits. Addiction is most unlikely to kill people outright before they have a chance to reproduce.

 

[Mouthwash]

So now I'm confused, your position is that social and technological change is forced on us by external compulsion, except when it is useful?

Okay, you have no idea what I'm trying to say here.

Technological development was historically driven by human needs. Now it is driven through competition. I don't see how it can continue without either form of pressure. That's pretty simple.

Why shouldn't they? Evolution is not concerned with some abstract concept of self-destruction. It is concerned with reproduction and specifically with the reproduction of heritable traits. Addiction is most unlikely to kill people outright before they have a chance to reproduce.

Perhaps in modern times (though it would still certainly affect social status), but not for the majority of people who have ever lived. Childrearing would also be affected.

 

[Lexicus]

Okay, you have no idea what I'm trying to say here.

Technological development was historically driven by human needs. Now it is driven through competition. I don't see how it can continue without either form of pressure. That's pretty simple.

I guess I don't know what you are trying to say. Both of those things are very different from the original formulation, when I asked "you're saying innovation is driven by the lash" and you answered yes.

You say it is simple but I don't quite get it. What caused competition to replace human needs? Are you saying human needs are largely met these days and so not a substantial driver of technological innovation?

Perhaps in modern times (though it would still certainly affect social status), but not for the majority of people who have ever lived. Childrearing would also be affected.

What makes you say this? Most of the highly addictive substances that are easy to overdose on (ie the most deadly ones) are also emphatically a product of modern times: no one was overdosing on fentanyl in the Neolithic. Childrearing might be affected in outlier cases but I think like many people with no direct experience, you might have a pretty inflated sense of how damaging addictive drugs are just by themselves. Drugs that are easy to overdose on are certainly highly dangerous, but addiction by itself is frequently not even noticeable if the addict has access to a steady supply of the addictive thing.

 

[Hygro]

In these discussions I ask what the point to humanity is. We are part of an incredible process of the germination of self replication and evolution chemical reactions of the earth’s outer crust. This process ends with the expansion of the sun in under a million years unless we demonstrate the expansive nature of this process by going beyond earth.

At any time we can call it quits. We can maximize a certain form of happiness and cohesion under a certain context and ride out one very arbitrary point of human existence until we cannot survive any longer in under a hundred million years. To what end? We take all of this life-momentum that got us to this point and then we squander it to make new humans who still suffer but not in the ways you wish us not to suffer until we are no more?

To me this is the very masturbatory nightmare this fear of addiction and the introduction to new challenges seeks to avoid. Aversion leads to the very thing it seeks to avoid.

Embrace life and its glory.

 

[Mouthwash]

I guess I don't know what you are trying to say. Both of those things are very different from the original formulation, when I asked "you're saying innovation is driven by the lash" and you answered yes.

Well, I meant a metaphorical lash.

You say it is simple but I don't quite get it. What caused competition to replace human needs? Are you saying human needs are largely met these days and so not a substantial driver of technological innovation?

Our demands for food, shelter, transportation, and security have been more than met. No one truly needed social media, or, for that matter, radio. The technological frontier these days is being pushed back by specialists who dedicate their whole careers to it - who would want to do that without the artificial incentive that the market provides?

What makes you say this? Most of the highly addictive substances that are easy to overdose on (ie the most deadly ones) are also emphatically a product of modern times: no one was overdosing on fentanyl in the Neolithic. Childrearing might be affected in outlier cases but I think like many people with no direct experience, you might have a pretty inflated sense of how damaging addictive drugs are just by themselves. Drugs that are easy to overdose on are certainly highly dangerous, but addiction by itself is frequently not even noticeable if the addict has access to a steady supply of the addictive thing.

If it doesn't hurt me and doesn't grow worse on its own, is it even reasonable to call it an addiction? I feel that way about oxygen.

In these discussions I ask what the point to humanity is. We are part of an incredible process of the germination of self replication and evolution chemical reactions of the earth’s outer crust. This process ends with the expansion of the sun in under a million years unless we demonstrate the expansive nature of this process by going beyond earth.

I am extremely against any ethic that prioritizes 'humanity' over individual humans or societies.

At any time we can call it quits. We can maximize a certain form of happiness and cohesion under a certain context and ride out one very arbitrary point of human existence until we cannot survive any longer in under a hundred million years. To what end? We take all of this life-momentum that got us to this point and then we squander it to make new humans who still suffer but not in the ways you wish us not to suffer until we are no more?

No one is calling it quits. I want to see Amish Martian colonies.

To me this is the very masturbatory nightmare this fear of addiction and the introduction to new challenges seeks to avoid. Aversion leads to the very thing it seeks to avoid.

Embrace life and its glory.

No. The communal life, religious scripture; these things contain more genuine fulfillment than anything a sci-fi writer could imagine. Nothing will run its course faster than the full embrace of sensation and experimentation, and then we're left with a nihilistic Last Man.

 

[Hygro]

While we're at it let's stone the weirdos instead of letting them feel isolated.

 

[Lexicus]

Our demands for food, shelter, transportation, and security have been more than met. No one truly needed social media, or, for that matter, radio. The technological frontier these days is being pushed back by specialists who dedicate their whole careers to it - who would want to do that without the artificial incentive that the market provides?

Who is "our"? There are, at least, hundreds of millions of people alive today for whom the first sentence would be little more than a bitter joke.

If it doesn't hurt me and doesn't grow worse on its own, is it even reasonable to call it an addiction? I feel that way about oxygen.

I'm not saying it doesn't hurt you. It doesn't necessarily hurt you, but it certainly can and usually does. My weed addiction isn't really good for me for example. Smoking weed's bad, and because I do so much of it I'll probably end up following in my grandfather's footsteps and dying of a heart attack. But here's the thing: that addiction has literally nothing to do with my reproductive "fitness" in an evolutionary sense. It might even have increased my fitness by putting me in social situations I wouldn't have been in otherwise, and giving me some social skills I might not have had without it. Smoking weed is really what drove me to socialize for the first time with people who were from drastically different backgrounds than my own. And I would guess that has helped me navigate life more generally which in turn has helped me get laid.

That is really the point I was making. Addiction is hardly an evolutionary death sentence. I wouldn't recommend it, of course, but I think "evolution would have gotten rid of it" relies on a vastly inflated sense of the actual damage that addiction does.

 

[Traitorfish]

I am extremely against any ethic that prioritizes 'humanity' over individual humans or societies.

Not immediately clear what the distinction being drawn is, here. I take it that "humanity" is taken to describe something abstract, rather than something concrete- but "societies" can be and generally is used in the same manner. (Wasn't that the gist of Thatcher's famous assertion that "there is no such thing as society"?)

 

[metalhead]

Our demands for food, shelter, transportation, and security have been more than met. No one truly needed social media, or, for that matter, radio. The technological frontier these days is being pushed back by specialists who dedicate their whole careers to it - who would want to do that without the artificial incentive that the market provides?

Most useful tech was pioneered using government funding. "The market" only succeeds at producing tech that is salable, not that is useful to humanity - and even then, the people who actually make technological progress are wholly removed from any rewards doled out by "the market."

"Competition" provides benefits to people who own things, and that includes intellectual property generated by those who improve technology. It provides no incentive for the actual improvement itself.

 

[Lexicus]

"Competition" provides benefits to people who own things, and that includes intellectual property generated by those who improve technology. It provides no incentive for the actual improvement itself.

I mean, competition with enemy/unfriendly governments has historically been a major driver of government-funded research.

 

[Farm Boy]

While we're at it let's stone the weirdos instead of letting them feel isolated.

I dunno. I've been tossing ideas around. We can honestly know what, about 150 people? I'm guessing the methods by which we select and interact with those people matters. You connect them all according to a common interest or specialty after originally connecting them by age and then academic ability, you streamline the weeding process and concentrate the mass until you can extrude those individuals much easier, we invent mass tools and algorithms to aid in this process and then make it so they operate without our direct recognition of them. People that fall outside what we come to expect to be served to us are unexpected, perhaps unpleasant, visitors into our mental realms. At best an obstacle to avoid colliding with on the road in a complicated dance of accident prevention.

Isolation is a weird thing. Is processed humanity sort of like processed foods? Too rich in one sense and too poor in others? I dunno. What ingredients of them are we taking the time to isolate?

 

[Hygro]

No one is calling it quits. I want to see Amish Martian colonies.

Any martian colony is going to be super communal no matter what, but the Amish aren't getting there. But to your point of "I want to see" I remind you this:

100% of happy people I know have embraced this society and leaned hard into it. Do they suffer the same problems? Yes but the difference in scale is vast enough to be a difference in category. I’ve never met anyone happy who waits on society changing.

Who is happy? My monogamous friends with or getting graduate degrees living professional lives.

When you’re hungry you imagine you need a feast when a hole in the wall burrito would suffice.

And

I am extremely against any ethic that prioritizes 'humanity' over individual humans or societies.

Your internally devised and synthesized ethic wants to ban things for others to help yourself, but instead of holding me, an individual back, I suggest to you, for yourself:

100% of happy people I know have embraced this society and leaned hard into it. Do they suffer the same problems? Yes but the difference in scale is vast enough to be a difference in category. I’ve never met anyone happy who waits on society changing.

Who is happy? My monogamous friends with or getting graduate degrees living professional lives.

When you’re hungry you imagine you need a feast when a hole in the wall burrito would suffice.

I want to de-stress, however, the monogamous part as sexually that seems a lot less important than an overall partner thing.

 

[Mouthwash]

Who is "our"? There are, at least, hundreds of millions of people alive today for whom the first sentence would be little more than a bitter joke.

I'm speaking of the First World here. They're the ones who are innovating, no?

I'm not saying it doesn't hurt you. It doesn't necessarily hurt you, but it certainly can and usually does. My weed addiction isn't really good for me for example. Smoking weed's bad, and because I do so much of it I'll probably end up following in my grandfather's footsteps and dying of a heart attack. But here's the thing: that addiction has literally nothing to do with my reproductive "fitness" in an evolutionary sense. It might even have increased my fitness by putting me in social situations I wouldn't have been in otherwise, and giving me some social skills I might not have had without it. Smoking weed is really what drove me to socialize for the first time with people who were from drastically different backgrounds than my own. And I would guess that has helped me navigate life more generally which in turn has helped me get laid.

I doubt you would find addiction among primitive peoples, even those with access to substances.

A major cause of it is being deprived or in pain (whether physically or emotionally). It's possible that a much healthier person - such as a hunter-gatherer - could smoke all the weed he wanted without risking addiction.

That is really the point I was making. Addiction is hardly an evolutionary death sentence. I wouldn't recommend it, of course, but I think "evolution would have gotten rid of it" relies on a vastly inflated sense of the actual damage that addiction does.

If smoking a particular substance really had positive fitness, we would have adapted to it. If we didn't, that means it isn't a natural part of our biology.

Not immediately clear what the distinction being drawn is, here. I take it that "humanity" is taken to describe something abstract, rather than something concrete- but "societies" can be and generally is used in the same manner. (Wasn't that the gist of Thatcher's famous assertion that "there is no such thing as society"?)

Societies help people. Loyalty to 'humanity' never has.

"The market" only succeeds at producing tech that is salable, not that is useful to humanity

That's, um, kind of my point here.

"Competition" provides benefits to people who own things, and that includes intellectual property generated by those who improve technology. It provides no incentive for the actual improvement itself.

Yes, but it is still responsible for the salaries of those innovators. Few people learn mechanical engineering and then spend the majority of their lives in an effort to make an incremental improvement over current technology, as a hobby.

Any martian colony is going to be super communal no matter what, but the Amish aren't getting there.

It was a metaphor.