From: "E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 15:16:09 +0800
To: perry@piermont.com
Subject: Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
Message-ID: <01I6VLB17Q2O984QJY@mbcl.rutgers.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


From:	IN%"perry@piermont.com"  9-JUL-1996 07:29:49.72

>get on with their lives. Maybe you would prefer to "help" them by not
>letting them get medication. Maybe its "unnatural". Could you explain
>to me, however, how you are making their lives better by not giving
>them their meds? I mean, what concretely is better about their lives?

	Quite. Besides which, what's wrong with something being "unnatural"?
If you define doing something to modify how one naturally
thinks/behaves/whatever as "unnatural", then all education is unnatural, child
raising is unnatural, etcetera; all these modify neural patterns in the long
run.
	All this is more in the area of transhumanism than of cypherpunks, BTW,
although I can see some _possible_ relevance.

Mike Duvos writes:

>> Again, to return to the height analogy, doctors have to throw
>> short parents seeking human growth hormone[...]

>You miss the point. You spoke of involuntarily medicated kids. Most of
>the kids aren't involuntarily medicated.

	I wasn't, and I won't be when I go back on it (shortly, I hope). I
noticed the difference that it made (as did my teachers), and I preferred it.

>> The price of giving the patient (or the patient's parents)
>> everything they want is [...] classrooms full of obedient
>> citizen-units in Soma-induced trances.

>Ritalin does not induce a zombie-like trance, as the numerous people
>on this mailing list who take it can tell you.

	Most definitely agreed. While on it, I found myself much better able to
do what _I_ ultimately wanted to do.
	-Allen

P.S. Thank you, Perry.