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Blazinghand
United States25562 Posts
Desire Modification
About a week ago, economist Noah Smith (whose blog I admit I read only because we have the same name) posted a thought-provoking blog entry that I think merits discussion. An excerpt:
As ultimate technologies go, being a god is hard to beat. And mind upload makes faster-than-light travel look a little silly...why explore strange new worlds when you can just create them? But I think there is an even more ultimate technology out there for the taking - one that is probably a lot easier to create than any of the ones I named. That technology is desire modification.
First, let's imagine the ultimate form of desire modification (or "d-mod" as I will sometimes refer to it). In this ultimate form, each person would have a computer in his or her brain that could change his or her desires, habits, beliefs, personality, and emotions in any conceivable way. Here are some thoughts about what that would imply for the human species:
1. Obviously, the technology would be incalculably dangerous. If the brain computers were hacked, people could be made into slaves, zombies, or worse. So the technology would only be adopted after extreme precautions had been taken and shown to be effective.
2. Such a technology would mean the instant end of economics as we know it. Utility theory assumes something called "local nonsatiation", which means that people always want more of something. With d-mod, local nonsatiation goes right out the window, since you can instantly dial yourself to a "bliss point" where you are just perfectly satisfied and don't want anything else. That's the end of scarcity.
I recommend you read the whole thing. It's fascinating and is something I never thought about before. The stuff of science fiction, for sure, but no more than things like brain upload, and no less possible, either.
If anyone feels like hanging out and discussing it, I'd be interested in doing so. Some questions to start us off.
1) If d-mod existed, would you use it? What for? What if it wasn't 100% safe? What if it could be hacked?
2) Do you think it would be legal? Should it be legal?
3) How would the world change if d-mod were developed (reliable or otherwise)? Is it really the ultimate technology?
4) What about mind-altering medications, such as those used to treat depression and bipolar disorder or ADD? What if d-mod develops out of these? Would therapeutic use be okay?
Personally, I think I'd use d-mod if it existed and was 95+% safe and wasn't hackable without surgery (so no wireless communication between the d-mod devices and other things-- if someone wanted to mind-control me they'd have to knock me out and do surgery on me). I'd use it to give myself a stronger work ethic and make me more motivated to exercise and be healthy. I wouldn't use it to make me happier, though.
If d-mod devices had any sort of communications circuits in them, though, I wouldn't want them in my head. No matter how well-encrypted, it's still vulnerable as long as it can be accessed. Hell, even the surgery-only ones are vulnerable, but at least then it's not more vulnerable than I am (if someone can knock me out and put me into surgery, they can do other stuff to me also).
What are your thoughts?
 
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Buddha is not pleased.
Seriously, however, desire modification is entirely possible without resorting to anything outside of your factory equipped wetware. Most people simply have no wish to do so as it may take effort on their part. Also, such a device as postulated is likely a path to extinction as a race. This is a rather well mined topic by some of the truly great science fiction writers.
... plus, seriously, anything that relies on technology is going to be subject to inequalities across the race and have great potential for oppression.
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Blazinghand
United States25562 Posts
On September 08 2012 01:54 felisconcolori wrote:
... plus, seriously, anything that relies on technology is going to be subject to inequalities across the race and have great potential for oppression.
It's definitely true that this wouldn't be universally available. You could easily imagine a dystopia where rich technology companies sell doctored d-mod in 3rd-world-countries to their own employees, who happily toil away 16 hours a day in factories. Or as bad, soldiers who follow orders instantly and have no compunctions about killing-- soldiers with perfect discipline.
I think Noah Smith assumes that d-mod will be fairly available and equitable, which often is not the case with a new technology.
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I'd never use it.
I may not be happy with who I am now, but if I change myself then I'll no longer exist to experience the happiness. Might join a terrorist faction to destroy the device.
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If I had full control of my own d-mod, then maybe. But then, is there an answer to this hypothetical situation -
There's a test a week later. I use d-mod to make my current desire to study extremely hard and perform well academically. So a week passes, and I've studied extremely hard as my studiousness was fuelled by the d-mod. But wait. Fuelled by the d-mod, I keep wanting to study and study and study, I do not turn off the d-mod a week later as I had originally planned (after my test). So what happens?
Will using the d-mod for the first time be the last time I use it? Are there different intensities of desire or maybe a time limit?
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Hey Blazing, have you read Brave New World? The premise is pretty well the same except with "Soma".
At any rate, I think humans psychologically desire a sort of equilibrium between work and play, struggle and joy, etc. I'd be invoking the unconscious/subconscious for my own reasoning, but I wonder if you agree with the premise that people will seek out that homeostasis between the two extremes. Ultimately I think the device would be rejected or cause substantial neurological harm to the participant.
I wonder how you would actually modify the desires, though. What part of the brain, or does it tap into the whole brain? Also I wonder how many people would be unaffected by it, and still want to change the world or change their life because they saw through the mere chemicals to reality.
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cf. _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep_
edit: Soma in BNW is the purely negative side of this - the release from desire.
(and as far as that goes, we already have it, it's safe and organic, it's called religion - if you buy the off-brand kind though it doesn't always work as intended)
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1) If d-mod existed, would you use it? What for? What if it wasn't 100% safe? What if it could be hacked?
I'd only use it if I were in complete control over it and if it were 110% safe. Why? because it would grant a lot of joy to me. Being satisfied with what you have is, I would say (but is quite arguable since some people find more happiness in the "journey" that takes you to your desired goals rather than the goal its/themselves) the biggest source of happiness a living being could have. So... if I could modify what I want in order to be happy with the circumstances of my situations and/or my life, wouldn't that be great?
2) Do you think it would be legal? Should it be legal?
If you read what I just said above, d-mod would be an immense sense of joy for me and most living beings... which brings me to the fragile conclusion that, maybe, d-mod is some sort of drug. Drugs are illegal. So d-mod should be illegal. That's my logic.
3) How would the world change if d-mod were developed (reliable or otherwise)? Is it really the ultimate technology?
Honestly, if everyone had a d-mod in their brain, the world would be a pathetic place to live in. If you immediately switch your desires to what you presently have, then there is no pursuit of a goal, no quest, no motivation, so no innovation, and ultimately no advancements. D-mod would definitely NOT be the ultimate technology, au contraire, it would be the end of technology.
4) What about mind-altering medications, such as those used to treat depression and bipolar disorder or ADD? What if d-mod develops out of these? Would therapeutic use be okay?
That, I don't know. I really try to avoid debates about stuff being used for therapeutic purposes.
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I think desire modification won't give the results that he thinks it will. The idea of a "bliss point" is complete nonsense. Every desire satisfied means ten more desires. You can satiate a desire but more just pop up. Desires can be quelled not thru desire satisfaction but only by not desiring. But that leads to boredom.
It gets worse, though. Because I think that if humans could have instant desire gratification, suicide rates would probably sky rocket. Because the only thing that keeps us going is the illusion that desire fulfillment will grant some sort of happiness, aka bliss point. The ugly truth is that such a device would shatter the illusion.
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I see d-mod as a useful tool for a couple of different applications (more so than what could arguably be called recreational use).
- "reprogramming" convicted criminals
- aligning small groups of people to unified purpose, such as space expeditions or remote outposts such as drilling rigs
- I would come up with more but my brain is nonfunctional right now...
Ultimately, I would say I'm against recreational use of this kind of technology. If the way that mobile phones and other wireless mobile devices can be tracked, scanned, monitored and remotely altered is any indication, voluntarily making a brain operate under technology that can also be tracked, scanned, monitors and remotely altered is really begging for trouble.
Imagine walking into Defcon 2020 with a computer attached to your brain.
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On September 08 2012 17:12 Obvious.660 wrote:I see d-mod as a useful tool for a couple of different applications (more so than what could arguably be called recreational use). - "reprogramming" convicted criminals - aligning small groups of people to unified purpose, such as space expeditions or remote outposts such as drilling rigs - I would come up with more but my brain is nonfunctional right now... Ultimately, I would say I'm against recreational use of this kind of technology. If the way that mobile phones and other wireless mobile devices can be tracked, scanned, monitored and remotely altered is any indication, voluntarily making a brain operate under technology that can also be tracked, scanned, monitors and remotely altered is really begging for trouble. Imagine walking into Defcon 2020 with a computer attached to your brain.
Behavioral reprogramming: See "Clockwork Orange". Scratch that, don't watch that. One of my favorite movies of all time, but I'll never watch it again. Too intense.
Anyway, the plot of that movie is that Alex, a horrible human being, is arrested while doing all manners of horrible things, and is "reprogrammed" by being forced to watch movies of other people doing the same things while being fed drugs. The drugs give him an intense physiological response to doing all of the things he used to do, and ends up crippling him until the government sets him right back to the way he was before. The book/movie makes the argument that, by doing this sort of reprogramming, we're removing a part of what makes them human.
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" brings up a similar device, but strictly for recreational use. I believe that in the story, people have to use the device to put themselves in the proper mood necessary to actually use the device.
I think that given such a thing, people would become far too reliant on it for anything, and eventually begin to fall apart as people. Why bother spending time with other people when you can simulate the same feelings without leaving your house? Why bother worrying about being homeless when your device can make you feel just as at home? Why get out of bed when you can feel just as fulfilled without getting up?
Of course, people probably thought the same thing when TVs first came out.
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Italy12247 Posts
If such a thing existed, each person's identity would stop existing. That would be literally the worst thing that could happen to the human race, short maybe of killing ourselves in a nuclear holocaust.
I'd never use it.
I may not be happy with who I am now, but if I change myself then I'll no longer exist to experience the happiness. Might join a terrorist faction to destroy the device.
I'm in. Come to think of it, that would make a pretty good game.
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On September 08 2012 14:33 shinosai wrote:
The idea of a "bliss point" is complete nonsense. Every desire satisfied means ten more desires. You can satiate a desire but more just pop up.
That's just your ideology talking.
It is certainly possibly to free oneself from desire.
On September 08 2012 23:35 ghost_403 wrote:
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" brings up a similar device, but strictly for recreational use. I believe that in the story, people have to use the device to put themselves in the proper mood necessary to actually use the device.
They don't have to, it's just that when Iran tells Deckard she doesn't want to dial the Penfield Mood Organ, he tells her to dial the setting that makes her want to dial, no matter what.
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On September 08 2012 23:43 Teoita wrote:If such a thing existed, each person's identity would stop existing. That would be literally the worst thing that could happen to the human race, short maybe of killing ourselves in a nuclear holocaust. Show nested quote +
I'd never use it.
I may not be happy with who I am now, but if I change myself then I'll no longer exist to experience the happiness. Might join a terrorist faction to destroy the device.
I'm in. Come to think of it, that would make a pretty good game.
It'd be an interesting movie too. I mean if the movie focused on the belief and less on fight scenes.
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But what if you could use this thing to better realize your true self? To take rational control over your desires?
I don't see it as nearly so sinister.
edit: that is, in order to use it, I would have to have some sort of "second-order" desire in order to use it to modify my first order desires. Why are my first order desires more constitutive of my "self"? Aren't these second-order desires the desire directed toward the Ego Ideal, whereas the first order desires are simply the desires OF the Ego?
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Italy12247 Posts
Well, what i desire, what i strive for, in a way defines who i am. I am me because i like starcraft and want to be as good at it as i can with the time i can invest in it, because i like rock music and guitars, because i like rational explanations to the world around me, science and math, because i can't stand idiots and people that don't think with their brain, and so on.
If i can toggle each one of those on and off at random, then how am i defined as a person? How am i different from the person next to me, who could change each of those to be exactly identical to who i am now?
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Why would you toggle them on or off "at random"?
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Italy12247 Posts
Yeah it was poorly worded, but if any of those can be changed at any moment to the point where i can be (except from what i look like) completely identical to any other human being on the planet, who do you define a person's identity?
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well, I guess you'd have to stop basing a person's identity on their desires, wouldn't you?
"What would you want with a self, anyway?"
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Italy12247 Posts
It's not just desires though:
In this ultimate form, each person would have a computer in his or her brain that could change his or her desires, habits, beliefs, personality, and emotions in any conceivable way
That means you could emulate any other person on the planet.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Fhewwl.jpg)
