Indulge my curiosity...

[lederhosen]

Suggested by a recent discussion in cerebrate's journal, which focussed focused focussed concentrated on this article (text reproduced below). If you haven't already seen that discussion, indulge me by answering the poll in this post before looking over there.

The British government is advocating the vaccination of children against particular behaviours using the forthcoming array of pharmacotherapy vaccines. These would innoculate children against a host of behaviours that the government defines as anti-social: drinking, smoking, drugs, blogging and so on.

The article explains that "Doctors would immunize children at risk of becoming smokers or drug users with an injection" and that the program would operate in a way similar to the "current nationwide measles, mumps and rubella vaccination programme." Further the authors reveal that "such vaccinations are being developed by pharmaceutical companies and are due to hit the market within two years."

[snippage]

The [Centre for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics] warns that advances in the neurosciences will challenge the ability of individuals to maintain their cognitive freedom. Governments will redefine mental health to use drugs and other neurotechnologies in order to police and channel people's behaviours.

(My thanks to Alex Ramonsky of the Entelechy Institute for alerting me to this issue).

[Poll #330650]

Comments

[miasmakat.livejournal.com]

My answer didn't fit so here's the rest of it.

It depends on how 'customisable' these injections were and whether you had a say in the matter. Definately a no for injecting the kiddies.

As a punishment for say a violent crime perhaps an injection for preventing future violence, but then would you be able to defend yourself against an attacker ??? So perhaps an injection for preventing the initiation of violence against another ? Somehow I doubt they would be that specific.

Anti-social behavior is too vague a qualifier. If someone reallllly wanted to be anti-social they would find some new and exciting way. Reading on public transport could be considered anti-social too so if there was a blanket vaccination on 'any' sort of anti-social behavior then everyone would be in everybody elses face 24/7 and I doubt we would want that.

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

In that very special sense of inelegant reserved for politicians, managers and other unthinkful individuals who seem to believe that if you can make the symptoms go away, the problem is solved.

This is just the psychological equivalent of fixing an addition algorithm that breaks on 2+2 by coding:

if ((a = 2) & (b == 2))
c = 4 ;
else
c = a + b;

Bletchful.

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

(That first = is a typo for an ==, obviously.)

[mdrnprometheus.livejournal.com]

The bug is, somehow, a more eloquent argument against the policy than your argument itself.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Two words. "Define antisocial."

The next question is "Who gets to define antisocial?"

If it's the same people that'd tell me (dancer/musician/reader/engineer me) to "get a life" because I got extremely giddily excited about a work of fiction for every December for the past three years, me and my little steel Sting replica have a few objections here.

Hence, slippery slope.

[malada.livejournal.com]

Vaccinate against anti-social behaviors? What's the mechanism at work here? There are no biological components to 'anti-social' behaviors. If you smoke pot because you get a feeling of euphoria, how will the vaccine work against that?

From the addition of 'blogging' on to the list of banned behaviours I suspect this report smells more of prank than of practical science.

Swamp Root! Snake Oil! Phrenology!

What struck me was the polling - how few people would innoculate against violence. Remove violence from our society and you automatically remove most crimes and more importantly, war.

And war is a *much* worse problem than drugs.

-m

[ex-cerebrate131.livejournal.com]

If you smoke pot because you get a feeling of euphoria, how will the vaccine work against that?

Induced allergy, probably. If you get your euphoria along with a generous dose of headache, nausea, and retching your guts up, you probably won't find it terribly euphoric, yes?

From the addition of 'blogging' on to the list of banned behaviours I suspect this report smells more of prank than of practical science.

It's an extract from a blog itself; they're permitted the snark, and it amused me.

What struck me was the polling - how few people would innoculate against violence. Remove violence from our society and you automatically remove most crimes and more importantly, war.

Property crimes?

Oh, and re war: take away people's instinct to violence, and - like the snarky .sig quote says - they end up at the mercy of rational evil. Not to mention anyone who slips through the net.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

You win a gold star. See the sequel post :-)

Another Thing

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

The "vaccine" doesn't work as a preventative vaccine. The British Government doesn't know what they're doing.

http://WWW.markarkleiman.com/archives/drug_policy_/2004/07/vaccines_against_drug_abuse_not.php

Even if it did, of course, it would be stupid to do so.