Immunity To Remorse In A Pill

Erik Baard writes "Several lines of research to prevent the formation of post traumatic stress disorder might also have the effect of stunting the development of healthy feelings of remorse over one's wrongdoings. With such therapies available one day, will soldiers or police officers be less hesitant to use lethal force in questionable situations? Will rapists and murderers qualify for treatment? This Village Voice article explores the ethical implications without pointing to any single answer."

Comments

Forgive me, CmTaco

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, I am Anonymous Coward, the guy whose comments you can read daily on this fine Web site. What I am about to tell you is not easy for me, however, I will just let my conscience clear.

I have been trolling Slashdot since its inception. I find guilty pleasure in posting all those first posts, Natalie Portman and hot grits posts, in Soviet Russia and Beowulf clusters posts, as well as information about Stephen King's death or Townsend's pedophily (oh, wait, cross out that one).

The remorse is killing me. I don't know if you will ever forgive me Taco, but if you don't, my wretched life is a good punishment for such an evil deed.

Sincerely,
Anonymous Coward

Opposite Effect?

[olrs]

Could this line of research also lead to the development of a pill that could induce remorseful feelings? If so, what would be the implications of administering such a drug to criminals? Kinda reminds me of a stupid episode of Sliders (yes I know, redundant statment) where they had the 'police' officers who went around medicating everyone... strange.

Re:Opposite Effect?

[skywire]

They were not 'police' officers. They were police officers. They were simply enforcing the law, just as police officers in the US enforce the state's decisions about what we can and cannot ingest. If it is strange for the state to drug everyone, it is no stranger for them to forbid people to drug themselves.

Re:Opposite Effect?

[Anonymous Coward]

without knowing the specific action of this new chemical I would say no, it could not provoke an opposite effect. These types of drugs usually work on HT receptors in the brain, suppressing them, thus allowing open receptors that have been identified with certain emotional pyschological responses a better chance to bind. You're really not releasing any chemicals in the classical sense that one might think of. Pyschological pharmaceutical drugs are little more than specific receptor binders, usually.

Re:Opposite Effect?

[dizee]

hey, dork, it's called methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA for short) or, as most of the fear-ridden world knows it as, the evil club-drug ecstasy.

"damn ravers."

--
the junglist movement

Poof

[Hubert_Shrump]

And there go logged in comments...

End of Civilization

[redelm]

If effective, this medication would be abused by people with predatory inclinations to increase their predatation or garner soldiers. Without hyperbole, it would deal civilization a crippling blow because it would decrease the costs of predators.

Re:End of Civilization

[Tardigrade]

The worst of the predators feel no remorse; they're sociopaths.

Re:End of Civilization

[redelm]

Clearly sociopaths are the worst. But do you want to increase their numbers artificially? These pills could be "sociopaths in a bottle".

Re:End of Civilization

[Tardigrade]

But would a person who isn't a sociopath want to take the pill in the first place, knowing that that is what they would become? It seems to me you'd need a strong desire to be a sociopath to want this, or a strong hatred of a particular person.

If someone could be forced to take this pill to do a deed, they could almost as easily be forced to do the sociopathic deed without taking the pill. This seems to me to be redundant (unless one wants someone who can still function after commiting an atrocity; I hadn't thought of that possibility before. Anyways, you'd still need to convince them to ignore their scruples and take the pill each time (unless you did it surreptitiously).).

What's remorse?

[QuantumG]

Can't say I've ever felt it, unless you mean that feeling you get when your girlfriend cries, that's just a chemical reaction to psychological input.

Re:What's remorse?

[Anonymous Coward]

A message to whoever modded this as funny: YOU ARE A SICK BASTARD!

Special Forces

[4of12]

Reminds me of recent stories of special forces personnel returning from Afghanistan to the States and harming/murdering their spouses and families.

Try a long, loud, drunk party,

[SolitaryMan]

that last for several days. Then, when this all came to pass and your head is ok, ask others what you have been doing for this days :) The thing, that you will feel -- that is the remorse.

Oh shit! What did I do to piss her off THIS time?

[Anonymous Coward]

And on a day I was NOT in the mood for a fight! Is she being a psycho or does she possibly have a point?

(that feeling you get when your girlfriend cries)

Definitely for the millitary...

[sm.arson]

They are always getting one step closer to "the perfect soldier." Nanotech stealthsuits, nutrition patches and now drugs that take away guilt and remorse. Murder has never been so easy (uh... probably!).

The next step would be to have a drug that wipes the memory (it is possible to inhibit the brain's long-term memory "commits" chemically) of the grunts in the field after a certain amount of time has elapsed, making for the ultimate in top-secret, covert missions.

If nobody remembers the horrendous attrocities, it's like they never happened at all!

The perfect drug

[Dr. Photo]

No-Remorse Pills means never having to say you're sorry... :)

No Fear? Perfect Soldier?

[Madcapjack]

The article in the Village Voice says: "Feelings of guilt and regret travel neural pathways in a manner that mimics the tracings of ingrained fear, so a prophylactic against one could guard against the other."

Some thoughts:

1) Is a fearless soldier actually an asset? I'm not so certain that it is. Fear keeps soldiers alive, and keeps them shooting. Fearless soldiers might be scary as hell, but they might just be easy targets too because they aren't cautious. Another possible problem with fearless soldiers is that they might not be afraid to disobey orders, or whatever they feel the hell like doing.

2) Is a guiltless soldier actually an asset? Will the removal of guilt-feelings weaken the bond between soldiers which is essential to their military effectiveness? Will they be more susceptible to infighting?

any thoughts, please?

Re:No Fear? Perfect Soldier?

[Eccles]

Fear keeps soldiers alive, and keeps them shooting.

Actually, soldiers who are afraid often don't fire their guns. That would require exposing oneself to the enemy.

"Samuel Lyman Atwood (S. L. A.) Marshall developed a method of analyzing the actions of infantrymen in battle during World War II, and his findings and methodology have become controversial, especially during the past decade. According to Marshall, only about 15 percent of United States infantry soldiers fired their weapons in combat during World War II, and this number never increased to much higher than 25 percent for even the best of American units."

Re:No Fear? Perfect Soldier?

[Madcapjack]

"Samuel Lyman Atwood (S. L. A.) Marshall developed a method of analyzing the actions of infantrymen in battle during World War II, and his findings and methodology have become controversial, especially during the past decade. According to Marshall, only about 15 percent of United States infantry soldiers fired their weapons in combat during World War II, and this number never increased to much higher than 25 percent for even the best of American units."

I assume that by infantry you mean those soldiers actually on the battle front? The majority of any army is made up of support staff of various kinds.

This is an interesting point you raise.

Re:No Fear? Perfect Soldier?

[darkmeridian]

A fearless soldier would be a tremendous asset. Sometimes doing the "right" thing (as defined by military strategy) may also be the most fear-inducing thing. For example, when under enemy machinegun fire, troops are supposed to keep moving so they are not pinned in and come under artillery attack. How many people would actually keep moving while under heavy machine-gun fire? This pill could actually save (American GI) lives if soldiers are not paralyzed by fear and can actually use their training effectively.

Re:No Fear? Perfect Soldier?

[EggplantMan]

I disagree. Are you afraid to cross the street? No? Oh, therefore you're just going to charge across without excercising caution, right? No, no you're not.

Being fearless doesn't mean you're a berserker. Being fearless gives you that extra degree of self control. It's the coward that loses self control in the face of danger.

Re:No Fear? Perfect Soldier?

[Eccles]

I assume that by infantry you mean those soldiers actually on the battle front?

That's what I've inferred from reports on this report, although you would have to find Mr. Marshall's original report to find out his actual methodology.

Re:No Fear? Perfect Soldier?

[buswolley]

a guiltless soldier will kill americans enmasse if we ever rise up off our damn yokes against the government. an ordinary soldier might defect and join the populace if the entire civilian population revolts against a police state.

Re:No Fear? Perfect Soldier?

[Fat Casper]

a guiltless soldier will kill americans enmasse if we ever rise up off our damn yokes against the government. an ordinary soldier might defect and join the populace if the entire civilian population revolts against a police state.

Just where do you think they get soldiers from? On top of that, 54% of the army is in the reserve components, distinguishable from the populace only by their shorter hair, and sometimes not even that. It's everyone's military, folks. If it's full of the conservative and uneducated, then it's your own damn fault for not joining (hint: it's easy to excel when you're surrounded by conservatives and uneducated)

My favorite example of this is Bill Clinton. He had all the work in place to dodge the draft, but did it discreetly so as not to damage his political future. He wanted to lead americans, just not ones whose lives depended on good leadership. How much better off would the world be if he had stepped up to that responsibility and met that need? We wouldn't have had to scrape the bottom of the barrel until we found Bill Calley. No one today would know the name My Lai, because nothing would have happened there. It makes me sick that he was the one who decorated the soldiers who tried to stop the atrocity for two reasons- it shouldn't have taken that long, and he and others like him could have prevented it in the first place.

The guiltlessness problem that we have here is among civilians. They blame an institution for the actions of its members while refusing to take ownership of it and change its demographics. Face it- we all own the military, just as we own its reputation. Being too good or too busy to join reduces its potential. Do you actually want the world to see of us only the people that you think aren't as good or valuable as you? Most people do, because they get to point to what happens and congratulate themselves on being smart enough not to join.

Maybe this will help. The last formal function I had to go to had a series of toasts, and there was a noticeable drop in volume when they got to the "to the president of the United States." That made me feel better about being in than I have in a while.

Before I go, buswolley, I have to clarify something else. You need to throw off your yoke. The only damn thing you need to rise up off of is your ass. Maybe you aren't really the kind of person we need after all.

Re:No Fear? Perfect Soldier?

[buswolley]

what a useless, but heart-felt reply. I simply put out that the idea that an army made of guiltless individuals would feel no shame to turn on their own citizens.

Re:No Fear? Perfect Soldier?

[Fat Casper]

...army made of guiltless individuals would feel no shame to turn on their own citizens.

Which is precisely my point. Guilt is irrelevant in the face of motivation. Everyone is responsible for their own actions, and every young private is taught that. If you want them to fire into a crowd, you're going to have to convince them of the rightness and legality of it. If they believe that they're doing the right thing and the law allows it, then feelings of guilt don't enter into it. Any civilian who worries about the moral makeup of the military is personally to blame, because they've neglected to alter it by chipping in. It isn't that hard.

already tested and tried

[f64]

this could explain much of what's been going on lately...

Jerry Springer...

[eamonman]

must have been popping these all this time. Otherwise he'd have stopped long ago.

Hardly news...

[thedji]

I've consumed these pills that makes you feel good about everything before... Hardly a new discovery.

I think mine was called Ecstasy though...

Anti-malarial drugs

[Bowling Moses]

I think now that the Ft. Bragg murders have been attributed to the use of the antimalarial drug Lariam (aka mefloquine). It apparently has the nasty side effects of making users of it less able to control destructive and/or suicidal behavior and thoughts. This once came up when I was talking to a guy who used to work at the same place as me. He was given mefloquine by his doctor prior to a trip to SE Asia. He said that he had random thoughts pop up like "If I took this razor blade to my hand, I could see all the musculature in my hand just like in an anatomy book." He said he felt safe only if he had to concentrate on something like work; at home to focus on something he took to building models. Effects lasted for about six months and there wasn't anything to do about it but wait. Anyway, that's what happened to a well-adjusted and happy individual, as opposed to someone who just got out of a combat zone and went home to a wife that wanted a divorce like at Ft. Bragg. Ah the power of chemistry.

Minty Gel

[Yogsalot]

Wasn't there a Simpsons episode where Lisa read about the impending market release of a "minty gel" that eliminates guilt? Life imitates art once again.

What about morals before the atrocities?

[jericho4.0]

The article postulates a pill that a soilder could take to remove feelings of guilt after the soilder does something that would normally leave him remorse ridden.

I don't get it. Does this mean the soilder's moral base rests on the fear of future remorse? He doesn't feel bad about tourture/slaughter/nastiness, but worries he will later?

IMO, most people function diffently.

Regardless, with the combination of training and drugs we could make pyscopathic soilders easily. Most grunt types seem pretty close already.

Ouch.

[Omkar]

Controlling human behavior is the biggest ethical/practical biomedical issue I see today, but it's been ignored in the media at large. Drugs are banned for a reason folks (though the /. crowd may not agree) - they make society crumble.

Re:Ouch.

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you back that up please? How does someone smoking cannabis in his bedroom make society crumble? Does nicotine also make society crumble?

Already available

[Anonymous Coward]

this pill must already be available, how else would you explain Bill Clinton.

In the year 2525, if man is still alive..

[A55M0NKEY]

Every thing that you do think or say, is in the pill that you took that day woe woe..