From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Sep 17 1999 - 06:00:01 MDT
Spike Jones <spike66@ibm.net> writes:
> Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> > < "When they take `anjing gila' they want to kill people everywhere. They
> > do not even recognise their own father or mother. They just kill. That's
> > why they call it `crazy dog' pill." >
>
> Have any of you medically-tuned-in folks ideas on the existence of a pill
> that would cause a person to want to kill *themselves*? Could such a
> thing exist? spike
Sounds like an awfully specific effect, likely rather hard to
achieve. What could be done is of course to cloud judgement, decrease
inhibitions and induce a very negative emotional state - that might
work.
As for the crazy dog pill, I think one should not underestimate set
and setting. If you are an already violent person in a situation where
raping and pillaging are going on, being given a pill that supposedly
makes you even more aggressive (or something) will have a very strong
"placebo" effect.
One could imagine a substance that selectively inhibited parts of the
hypothalamus, making you non-aggressive. It would likely have a lot of
side effects (that part of the brain is true spaghetti code) but might
be interesting for many applications.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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