Re: violence...

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
17 Sep 1999 14:00:01 +0200

Spike Jones <spike66@ibm.net> writes:

> Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> > < "When they take `anjing gila' they want to kill people everywhere. They
> > do not even recognise their own father or mother. They just kill. That's
> > why they call it `crazy dog' pill." >
>
> Have any of you medically-tuned-in folks ideas on the existence of a pill
> that would cause a person to want to kill *themselves*? Could such a
> thing exist? spike

Sounds like an awfully specific effect, likely rather hard to achieve. What could be done is of course to cloud judgement, decrease inhibitions and induce a very negative emotional state - that might work.

As for the crazy dog pill, I think one should not underestimate set and setting. If you are an already violent person in a situation where raping and pillaging are going on, being given a pill that supposedly makes you even more aggressive (or something) will have a very strong "placebo" effect.

One could imagine a substance that selectively inhibited parts of the hypothalamus, making you non-aggressive. It would likely have a lot of side effects (that part of the brain is true spaghetti code) but might be interesting for many applications.

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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