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Monday, November 21, 2011

What If Everyone Were on Prozac?

Does pure pleasure have inherent value? Here are a couple of scenarios to consider: 1) We develop the ability to put an electrode into one's pleasure center, and indefinitely support them with IV drip, etc., while they do nothing, think nothing, and feel nothing but intense pleasure; 2) we turn the planet into a garden, with more than enough food growing everywhere, and no need to do anything to satisfy basic needs beyond picking it off the nearest bush... and the food is loaded with tranquilizers and euphoric drugs. Ok? You like these? Do you think one or the other of these is what humanity should aim for? If you leave the ability to think, you're going to have striving, at least by some... so you've got to turn it off, one way or another. But hey, why think, if you've got food, shelter, sex, and (minimal, since we don't think) entertainment? Bread and circuses, like the Romans, right?

You could ask what the difference is between humanity like that and no humanity at all, just blades of grass... I don't see one. I'm not going to present an ethical system with some other basis, although I easily could. I could say that in order to make the scenarios above, or something like them, work, you'd have to change the basic nature of humanity... and then the question becomes: to what do you think it should be changed, and why?

But to give a direct answer: yes. Here's one simple reason: we can't predict the future. If we have a world of contented cattle, they'll need keepers, right? Because something is bound to happen to the system, eventually. Well, who will be our keepers? Robots? Could you trust them a) to do a good job, in the long run... be flexible enough to cope with the unexpected, to not rust away, etc., and b) to not just abandon humanity?

4 comments:

  1. I feel like the better question is what if everyone were given a morphine drip and something else to counter tolerance. Lol I'm on prozac but i hardly feel good all the time, just average really. Or not terrible which relative to how i felt is i guess really good.

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  2. But yes I don't think there's value in always feeling content. In fact we might start wanting to feel better than we already do all the time and start engaging in more dangerous behavior. Maybe a meth drip to go along with it or an amphetamine drip.. and then what next?

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