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The death penalty is one of America's most contentious issues. Critics complain that capital punishment is inhumane, pointing out how some executions have failed to quickly kill criminals (and instead tortured them). Supporters of the death penalty fire back saying capital punishment deters violent crime in society and serves justice to wronged victims. Complicating the matter is that political, ethnic, and religious lines don't easily distinguish death penalty advocates from its critics. In fact, only 31 states even allow capital punishment, so America is largely divided on the issue.
Regardless of the debate, technology will change the entire conversation in the next 10 to 20 years, rendering many of the most potent issues obsolete. For example, it's likely we will have cranial implants in two decades time that will be able to send signals to our brains that manipulate our behaviors. Those implants will be able to control out-of-control tempers and violent actions—and maybe even unsavory thoughts. This type of tech raises the obvious question: Instead of killing someone who has committed a terrible crime, should we instead alter their brain and the way it functions to make them a better person?
Recently, the commercially available Thync device made headlines for being able to alter our moods. Additionally, nearly a half million people already have implants in their heads, most to overcome deafness, but some to help with Alzheimer's or epilepsy. So the technology to change behavior and alter the brain isn't science fiction. The science, in some ways, is already here—and certainly poised to grow, especially with Obama's $3 billion dollar BRAIN initiative, of which $70 million went to DARPA, partially for cranial implant research.
Vice.com is the home of the original article.
[Company Website]: THYNC
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Friday July 24 2015, @11:35AM
Sometimes I can't tell if a Soylentnews article is about technology, philosophy, or an elaborate sociological experiment in which *we the audience* are the lab-rats.
Is anybody else familiar with the German expression and song, "Die Gedanken sind frei" [wikipedia.org]?
The thoughts are free. This idea has been probably been expressed in every century since Cicero. Read that article, the song has nice lyrics.
100 years after that song was made, in 1948, the UN published the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's handy as a reference sometimes in case we forget who we are as humans. Let's see if it says something about this topic; I think article #18 applies:
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html#a18 [un.org]
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought. Period. End of discussion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @12:41PM
one can argue that since society is willing to kill the person involved, it has already decided that the person is no longer entitled to human rights.
personally I haven't thought about this thoroughly (maybe I should), but this is one way of looking at it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @01:08PM
If it can be applied to 'people you dont like' it can be applied to you. This is a horrible horrible horrible idea.
I am thinking I would rather be put to death than have someone manipulate me on that level.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @02:31PM
No. What happens when society decides that certain people have no human rights is evidenced by the Nazi concentration camps: When people are no longer considered subject of human rights, they are not just killed, they are put to use in the same ways animals are: Forced to do any work, used for experiments, and even used as source of materials. Most proponents of death penalty would object to such use of convicted criminals, even if they don't object to put animals to such use. Which clearly shows that even after being convicted to capital punishment, those people are still be seen by most as having human rights.
(Score: 2) by Francis on Saturday July 25 2015, @03:54AM
For cases like that we have life without possibility of parole and the possibility of committing somebody to a psychiatric hospital until they're no longer a risk to others. It's not perfect, but if there's been a mistake we can mitigate the results. Dead is dead and no matter how wrong the process was, you can make somebody undead.
The risks for abuse in this sort of thing way outweigh the possible benefits.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday July 24 2015, @01:26PM
> Everyone has the right to freedom of thought. Period. End of discussion.
The research in methods to interfere with freedom of thought, like modern advertisement, and age-old disinformation, propaganda, astroturfing... prove that this self evident right is far from being self evident. Like most of the universal declaration BTW. Those are axioms, laudable ones sure, but require faith.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday July 24 2015, @03:14PM
That's a good point. I guess advertisement and propaganda are tolerated, because it is believed they don't always 100% work.
I don't know much about ethics, but what if it's an imprecise, blurred distinction; a mind control technique that works below x % efficiency is societally acceptable, above x% efficiency is uncomfortable, and > 90% efficiency is taboo.
If you read Heinlein's SF/horror book "The Puppet Masters", he describes alien slugs mind-controlling American citizens as somewhat socially un-acceptable. Does it really matter to the puppets if the puppet masters are alien slugs or if they are charismatic, down-to-earth human leaders? I doubt it.
Imagine you sell a soft drink, and invent a trap that, when an innocent passer-by steps on it, it alters their mind to have a permanent craving for your soft drink.
(That was in one of Frederik Pohl's books, I think one of the ones with Kornbluth). Now you have much more customers who are conditioned to spend a portion of their income on your product to keep them going!!
Is that moral? Should that be legal or illegal?
If you change the words "soft drink" to "crack cocaïne", it shouldn't change the principle of the question. Yet many societies outlaw the selling of crack. Why? They could profit a lot from taxing addictive substances.
I should know, I've been addicted to nicotine (smoked cigarettes for 10 years, difficult to quit, had to try twice). It was a bloody expensive pastime with the high tobacco tax.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @04:48PM
I guess advertisement and propaganda are tolerated, because it is believed they don't always 100% work.
And people who believe that are correct. Advertisements and propaganda are certainly not 100% effective; not even close.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Bot on Friday July 24 2015, @09:46PM
Curiously, the policy about drugs seems about maximising its economic impact. That is, making sure it's still feasible to obtain drugs, but at high prices. It's not legalization, it's not prohibition (some dictators successfully clamped down on drug crime, by simply making it not worthy with harsh punishments). I'd say that drugs are about control, not freedom.
Another aspect is that by defining illegal drugs, legal drugs like alcohol and possibly sugars are perceived as safe. A visit to the local hospital should clear that misunderstanding up.
Personally, I'd legalize everything self-produced and -consumed, and punish as homicide attempts the acts of: giving drugs to others, no matter if money is involved, being outside home while stoned, worse if driving or working, implicitly advocating drug use (explicit endorsement is freedom of expression). It's the only way to preserve one's freedom to fuck up his own life, and one's freedom not to have his own life fucked up by others. An exemption for docs prescribing SSRI or equivalents, who would need an insurance to cover for damages by people under antidepressants.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by penguinoid on Friday July 24 2015, @04:53PM
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought. Period. End of discussion.
Dead people don't have freedom of thought.
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday July 24 2015, @06:56PM
If you mean, you have to choose between killing people or mind-controlling them, I believe that's called a "false dichotomy".
There are more options than those two.
For example, several countries have lifetime imprisonment. That is much more expensive, but also protects society from the individuals that are currently on "death row" in the USA or elsewhere.
From a cost perspective, I can imagine that a Thai or Tchadian or Tongan government would prefer a cheap piece of rope to an expensive long-stay prison. But for the USA, the richest country in the world, that's no excuse.
EDIT: oops, seems Tchad has also abolished capital punishment. Tajikistan, then. Bother, Tajikistan and Tonga haven't executed people for years. OK change the example to Iraq, Iran and India.