Steve81

Sadly, psychology is not a hard science, and no one was around to take notes in prehistory. The fact remains though, disregarding a few outliers, that humans feel shame.

My argument is that the *potential* is there for a more enlightened society, simply based off those innate feedback mechanisms. Results will vary depending on the circumstances of course. Surely, no one would expect a starving individual to be worried with moral behavior when he has other impulses driving him. In a more pessimistic view, we may also obliterate ourselves before we reach that potential.

A little history story on the power of chemistry and war... For much of World War I, the British Navy tended to rely on Lyddite (Picric Acid) for the filler in their large caliber armor piercing shells. The problem with Lyddite was it was too sensitive for the job; the shells tended to burst before achieving adequate penetration against a heavily armored target (i.e. a battleship). Supposedly, this is part of why British battlecruisers were so lightly armored; they were deemed at least marginally adequate against their own weapons, and they didn't consider the fact that the Germans could do better. The Germans did do better. They utilized TNT, which is a relatively less sensitive explosive. More than likely, they also desensitized the TNT with wax (my sources indicated they did during WWII at least). As a result, their shells tended to penetrate armor quite well compared with their British counterparts. The Germans also utilized smaller caliber, but higher velocity weapons, which was somewhat advantageous considering the relatively short effective battle ranges of the day. To get around that particular problem, the British tended to drill heavily to improve rates of fire; this would also have disastrous consequences, as it led to poor safety protocols with respect to handling the propellant charge. The results of all this would lead to problems for the British at the Battle of Jutland, with the loss of three battlecruisers in fairly rapid succession, and a fourth only saved by quick thinking and the flooding of the powder magazine. The British would later develop Shellite, which typically was a mixture of Lyddite with DNP, which was less sensitive. Shellite would remain in use throughout WWII.

I would agree with the note in the article that more rigorous academic study is required, but if it works, and the patients are there of their own free will, who am I to judge? PS: the claims are not mine. I’m merely reporting those claims. Of course, I can say that in my own personal experience, those claims appear to be true.

As has been well documented by now, our bodies respond positively to acts of kindness. As noted in the linked article, seratonin, dopamine, and endorphins are released when we are kind, giving us a pleasant feeling when we do something nice for another party. In other words, our bodies provide positive feedback for altruistic behavior. On the other side of the spectrum, we have shame. I will cite a brief excerpt from Building Self Esteem by Joseph Burgo, Ph.D , pg 14/15. As the book further goes on to explain, this provides negative feedback for bad deeds to promote better social behaviors. Taken in aggregate, combined with our capacity to learn and develop new and better ideals, and restating the fact that these things are encoded in our DNA, the logical conclusion is that we are meant to be altruistic. Any constructive comments and criticisms regarding my analysis are welcome. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy reading this tidbit.

Addendum one: given that interest-excitement is also hard coded into our DNA, it would naturally follow that we should learn as much as is feasible, which in turn maximizes our ability to help others.

I've provided an explanation for why this is so. If you don't find that interesting, you are well within your rights to ignore me. If you do feel compelled to respond, I'd appreciate a better reply than "Yeah - so?"

So taken in aggregate, we have people who believe they have God or whatever else on their side who can't be convinced otherwise, with no moral qualms about causing harm to others.

I think you may be missing my point, so I will attempt another explanation. If the shame encoded in our DNA is the hardware, then the moral philosophies that we espouse are the software. If that software doesn’t trigger a shame response for a given action, you don’t feel shameful for doing it. As it relates to extremist religious and social elements and their outmoded and/or dangerous philosophies, this allows people to commit acts of violence and bigotry without shame. Further, depending on the extent of their zealotry, they may not be able to be reasoned with at all. It’s difficult to have a reasonable conversation with someone who believes they have the word of God on their side.

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

As you might gather from my volume of output, I have some issues with overthinking. There are reasons for it I'm willing to discuss in private if interested.

If you don’t like what I have to say, you are well within your rights to ignore me. However, as I stated in the OP, constructive comments and criticisms are welcome. Your comments are not constructive, and will be ignored in the future. Simply discussing the ethics of drug usage, and how it may relate to policy matters.

No, but it is a place where I can exchange ideas with intelligent individuals, receive constructive feedback, and evolve my ideas accordingly.

As someone who has dabbled and at times admittedly abused recreational drugs, I have a few thoughts and observations to share. Clearly, the abuse of recreational drugs, including relatively safe ones like marijuana can lead to a variety of issues. At one point in my not so distant past, I was abusing medical marijuana to the point of having my brain essentially being deactivated on a 24/7 basis. Obviously this is not a positive outcome. At the same time, I can appreciate the effects of moderated use. The THC had the effect of making me artificially happy, and capable of enjoying things I would ordinarily write off as being idiotic. I gained an appreciation for Adam Sandler movies as a result of this, and understand his market appeal as a result. As far as ethics go, my opinion is, if it’s not destructive, go for it. Just take great care such that moderated use doesn’t devolve into abuse. All constructive comments and criticisms are welcome.

Makes sense to me at least.

Incorrect. From pg14/15 of the book I referenced above:

My apologies for the laconic OP. As @swansont kindly stated, this is a technical manual from the Army regarding military explosives. It goes over their potential uses (for example, you wouldn't want to fill an anti-aircraft shell with undiluted PETN as it's far too sensitive), the history, etc. Discussion is whatever you care to discuss, but I'm happy to attempt to answer questions if people have them based on my understand of the material. I'm also trying to re-find another document that goes over specific tests done on the explosives to determine sensitivity, brisance, along with various other properties. I'll update if I track it down. Edit: Found it. Link.

After careful consideration, I have concluded based on inter-related biological/psychological factors that the "meaning/nature" of human life is to help others to the best of our abilities, and achieve happiness.

For those that are curious: link.

Indeed. Proximity (which doesn’t have to be physical) matters. This coding would explain how people get radicalized and commit various heinous acts like the 2022 Buffalo mass shooting.

The author posits that shame developed as an evolutionary survival mechanism. (pg15) The book doesn't really go into the topic of religion (at least not based on my recollection / quick scan), as the focus is on the concept of core shame primarily developed during early childhood, and then jumps into a series of case studies. That said, this is the relevant bit on cultural values being the "software" that codes our shame "hardware". (pg16) In this case, I'm proposing that within religious zealots, the software is not coming from society at large, but from their church/synagogue/mosque/temple. This would explain a great deal of documented bigoted behavior, which I can link, but I expect most that read the news are familiar with various cases of LGBTQ people being discriminated against. With respect to Hinduism and Buddhism... I'm not sure that shame is used much (if at all) in Buddhism. It may well be the most enlightened of the major religions, at least from my recollections of taking Art and Philosopy of the East back at CSU East Bay. Hinduism with its caste system certainly embraces shame.

This is a carryover of thoughts from another thread regarding human development, the integral part shame plays in it, combined with the evolution of enlightened philosophies. Relevant quotes about how shame is related to our development are from Building Self Esteem by Joseph Burgo, Ph.D. Since I've been accused of spamming the book, I'll refrain from posting a cover shot. I will include the relevant page at the end. Inferring from the book a bit, human development has relied upon shame-driven human behavioral modification, combined with societal advancements with respect to enlightened philosophies. This presents a problem as it relates to religion. As you all are surely aware, religions tend to be slow to change (if they change at all) their guiding philosophies. The world's major religions are over a thousand years old, and while the Catholic Church as an example has evolved from the bad old days of the Spanish Inquisition, it remains well behind the times on a variety of topics (gay marriage and abortion to name a couple big-ticket items). Fundamentalist Islamic societies are even worse, the Taliban as an example (women's rights anyone?). The implication here is that devout followers of these religions will follow that outdated moral code, and that will be their basis for feeling shame. While something may be deemed a gross violation of human rights by our standards, by theirs, it's just the way things are supposed to be. They may literally feel NO shame when engaging in bigotry, because they aren't programmed to do so. Moreover, given the fanatical adherence to dogma that some of these individuals exhibit, there may be no feasible way to change their minds.

The faster the computer, the more capable it will be of running an advanced AI as mentioned by TheVat. I suspect hobbling upload bandwidth would help mitigate the issue of distributed computing. Either way, this is a hypothetical thought experiment, not a serious plan. You might be surprised as to what an old Pentium IV could do with a good SSD and adequate RAM. Of course it wouldn't actually be a Pentium IV; those things were inefficient heat monsters. Utilize a modern, but intentionally slow processor of comparable performance, add an application-specific co-processor for video decoding, and it should be able to tackle most general-purpose tasks. They ran all the basic applications we run today (word processing, spreadsheets, web browsers, e-mail clients, etc.), and with the SSD to boost performance over the spinning disks of yore, the system ought to be reasonably snappy. As to the potential to save lives, that rather depends on the nightmare scenario one cares to envision. Personally I don't see how this would stop a potential hacker from potentially bringing down a power grid or similar, which could conceivably cost a great many lives. Even an air-gap doesn't necessarily help, as the Stuxnet virus attacking Iranian centrifuges proved. Unfortunately, we live in an age where a single bad actor with a computer and sufficient ability could cause chaos on a significant scale. + I agree. The purpose of the thought experiment is to consider the opinions of the other side, as opposed to blasting them with rhetoric, which only tends to further entrench them. Yes, there are a great many nutjobs, but presumably there are a few logical conservatives left to reason with. If not, there is no real solution that I can see, other than waiting for demographic changes to run their course.

Maybe a side project for you some day to help the students of the future.

My point is imitation may be the best demonstration we can do, unless you have another idea to represent a black hole for students in a classroom? Thanks for the book recommendation. I’ll put it on my list.