Consider Rohypnol.
If I drop a little something-something in your drink, which is physically harmless but makes you more pliable to the notion of having hot monkey sex with me (while still letting you think it’s 100% your decision), and you are not aware that you have been drugged, how is it a violation ?
Because it bloody well is.
The only thing an individual has that is truly and ever their own is their will and mind. That is the very last inch that you can not enslave, imprison or restrain. Take that away, and what is left of a human being ?
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It would be ethical with their consent. An example that gets mentioned in fiction on occasion would be giving someone who wants to quit using an addictive drug a counter-compulsion to not use the drug.
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Weeell, even that might not be exactly kosher. I’ve watched A Clockwork Orange, you see :p. Even absent the whole abject torture aspect of Alex’s “therapy”, the end product - that is, a dry-heaving incapacitated Alex whenever he even thinks about sex or violence - is not a pretty sight.
Mind controlling whether it is ethical or unethical relies with the situation and the scenario with which it is practiced. You can save a person with it that seems to be ethical and you can even mislead a person with it that is said to be unethical. It is left with the choice of the person who does it.
Not sure I’d call mind control “ethical,” but it could certainly be *beneficial *to society as a whole. i.e., making criminals donate money to charity, preventing genocide, etc.
The Doc Savage model of rehabilitative mental surgery, so that criminals are cured of criminality. The good thing is that, for a lot of criminals, it would be voluntary. It might also provide a cure for mental illnesses. (Not saying that criminality is a mental illness…and not saying it ain’t.)
Okay, some die-hards would refuse it. Well, okay. We’ll keep maintaining prisons for them, but, over time, society will begin to resent the expense. If the process to reform bad guys actually seems to work, and if there aren’t any side-effects, then, in the course of a few decades, it will probably become mandatory.
The answer to the question “is it ethical” would change, over time, as the definition of “ethical” adapted to the new environment. At some point, society would (likely) decide that it was unethical not to reform the minds of criminals.
In cases of self-defense, as someone already pointed out. Like someone pointed out, if someone’s about to rape you, or whatever, you can use mind control to stop them.
As bright as this group is I am very surprised that the discussion hasn’t gotten into the most common and obvious forms of mind control.
" When we fall in love we fall in love with the way we feel about ourselves when we are with that other person" The same dynamic that drives this also drives most every other kind of relationship we have in life. Preachers have this down to a science, con artists, jigalos and gold digging women have leaned this.
All someone has to do is generate a feeling in us that stimulates a feel good drug, we always want more. No different than narcotics. Political parties use it effectively as well. What is right or wrong in life matters less than how you feel about yourself for supporting something or being a part of something. It's all mind control.
These are both valid points, but a little to one side of the ideas in the OP. Still, these are existent forms of mind control, and are very much at the center of the issue of “freedom of speech.” Like most free speech issues, any “cure” for misuse of the freedom is probably worse than the misuse itself.
So, yeah, political parties – and cults – practice a kind of mind control that’s pretty damn scary. But other than our speaking out in open criticism…what can we do? Worse, what if the people uttering such speech believe it to be true? Where is the morality, then?
If I defraud you by lying to you about buying shares in my perpetual motion machine, that’s absolutely immoral.
If someone is an idiot anti-vaccinator, and believes that vaccinations cause horrible diseases, he’s still immoral in what he says on the subject, because the truth is within his reach, and it’s only his laziness that keeps him from learning it. “Reckless disregard for the truth” is immoral.
But what about political speech? Someone can legitimately believe that higher or lower tax rates would be harmful to the nation’s economy. Both views can’t be true. But is it immoral for a partisan politician to speak in favor of his tax policy?
And religious speech is even fuzzier. Is it immoral for the nice Catholic Priest to talk about Jesus and Mary and Heaven and Hell?
Broadly speaking, I think this is right. The premise of the OP and similarly minded posts is that we have free will or something close enough to count. I agree. If we’re wrong on this, mind control deprives us of nothing of importance.
Those are all good points, I don’t think we need laws to regulate powerful speakers who know how to tap into peoples weaknesses as much as we need more education and awareness on how this occurs, and how to recognze when it is happening to us. Some of our ancient cultural practices were put in place as defences against our own weaknesses. A very powerful, well timed sexual experience can leave an inexperienced person seeking a repeat of that same experience for years after the actual experience. The same is true for social experiences where one who is not normally accepted suddenly finds himself loved and cherished as with cults and even clubs sometimes. We just need to be aware of the symproms and causes I believe. It might help.
They absolutely were. In the 80s, the Dead Kennedys put out a tape with the second side blank so you could record your favorite songs from the radio, in protest against the RIAA’s stance against cassettes.
And mind control is practiced extensively by marketers, advertisers, police, politicians and soldiers every day. It is by no means science fiction. And yes, it is highly unethical and should be outlawed. Advertising especially, because it is practiced indiscriminately against an innocent and unsuspecting populace.
I can see an advertisement for coffee and still say no.
Mind control would be if someone controlled my brain to buy the coffee in a way that I had no way of resisting and was utterly powerless.
Fine line between mind control and influence. Many mind control tecniques use everyday emotional responses such as acceptance, rejection, validation, power etc. Things we are lacking in are offered to us by religions, political groups, etc. They offer us the good feeling natural dopes our body responds to and in turn we are loyal. To admit this is to admit weakness and it is pretty much universally rejected. If you want to be a part of the elite, intelligent, progressive cool group you have to buy the whole program!