From: blanc <blancw@accessone.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 20:22:08 +0800
To: "'cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: RE: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
Message-ID: <01BB6D3B.DA8A10C0@blancw.accessone.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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From: 	Perry E. Metzger

I suppose you don't understand what it might be like for someone to be
unable to do their work no matter how heavy the threat against them if
they don't, and no matter how easy it is. There are people out there
who can't get themselves to pay a phone bill or throw out the
newspapers for months on end -- they just can't get themselves to
dance around into the task no matter how hard they try, no matter how
great the threat (job loss, etc) to them is. 
......................................................................


Drugs create a picture of coercion - where the mind is coerced into a state arrived at not by thoughtful consideration, but by round-about ways of achieving the desired result.  This is what makes some people wary of them, but make them appealing to others who find this very feature attractive - that they can get results without having to think about it.

There are times when people have been totally unmotivated to take care of themselves or the mundane matters in life because they were not involved in the pursuits which were of true value to them, and life "lost its meaning".  

Putting one's priorities into perspective can do a lot towards feeling motivated to attend to life's minor contingencies, while elevating the lesser items to the top of the hierarchy can totally dissipitate one's energies and interest.

What if someone was working at a "practical" kind of job, living the kind of life prescribed by someone else, when what they really wanted to do was something related to fine art or other field, living a different kind of "life-style"?   This could be so depressing that subconsciously they would finally rebel from supporting that false existence, and find themselves with no energy to move.

Maybe Ritalin could make them forgot their true interest which was lying dormant, pushed away by who-knows-what kind of arguments against it, and help them to start paying attention again to those mundane, irrelevant aspects of existence.  Maybe it could help them forget the *point* of their existence and they could attend to ordinary things which are easily understood and accomplished without too much creative energy.  Maybe Ritalin could help force them to pay attention, in spite of the protest from their submerged psychology.

Maybe.

In taking 'beneficial' drugs there's always a question of whether someone's mind is being helped into awareness or overpowered into submission, even if the results seem to be acceptable to everyone.

You're right, Perry, that no one should be making that decision for others.  I do think, though, that achieving self-command by a conscious knowledge of what is right for one's nature is actually the most beneficial (and less controversial).

(But I wonder how this would apply to crypto.  Hmmmmmmm - only in reference to those evil old men in the govmt who......might allow it to be prescribed indiscriminately.)

     ..
Blanc