There is a class of drugs called ‘cognitive enhancers’ that could potentially raise the intelligence, skills and productivity of users. Pharmocological enhancement is an anticipated bonus of the information revolution, and has been welcomed by many in the transhumanist community. These issues are now cognitive blips on the unenhanced specialist offices that civil services establish to monitor that horrible outcome of progress known as the Future.
When governments begin to understand that people could use a new set of drugs for improvement, they grasp for an improper P word, Prohibition. Their Puritanical wish to maintain a level playing field between themselves and the Populace demands that these substances be controlled, classified, prescribed, monitored and hopefully banned. Enhancement is a dirty word, but if these drugs have to be accepted, then they will make sure that we will use them on their terms:
Foresight, a Government think-tank, believes that “cognitive enhancers” could be “as common as coffee” within a couple of decades to help a person think faster, relax and sleep more efficiently….
The Department of Health has become so concerned about these drugs that it has asked the Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS) to assess the potential impact of the substances, some of which are licensed in Britain to treat narcolepsy or acute tiredness.
They are already being bought illegally over the internet in the US by people who think they will enhance their performance in the classroom and in the office.
Government attention in these drugs is unwelcome, since the report of Foresight or the Academy of Medical Sciences speculate about social problems as an excuse for regulation. One argument raised is that the pharmaceutical industry could abandon research into mental health and switch to ‘cognitive enhancers’ because of greater demand.
All of the evidence indicates that civil servants, politicians, and public sector professionals would not benefit from ‘cognitive enhancers’, since their increased intelligence would be expressed in greater fiscal and regulatory complexity. These classes should be prohibited from employing cognitive enhancement.
Why doesn’t the UK just issue a Law- “Whatever thou art Doing, Stoppeth it NOW!” Think how many problems that would solve!
Ummmmm… They ARE doing what they’re paid to do – in a sick, inefficient way (but they are government) and it’s probably not their Ministry’s mandate to concern themselves with banned substances anyways (but all government agencies are either busybodies or criminally negligent – sometimes both – by nature), but somebody’s gotta have a red flag in their pocket in case it proves to need waving, and in the case of banned substances – many of which are illegal for pretty good historical reasons, says somebody who works in the aerospace industry – that’s what the government is there for, and supposed to do.
Sorry – just thought somebody should mention it…
Aren’t there already cognitive enhancers “to help a person think faster, relax and sleep more efficiently”? And aren’t they already illegal? Or am I just being old-fashioned?
They’re going to ban caffiene, alcohol, and sleeping pills?
Yeesh.
At times, it seems like the primary function of the government in the UK is to make the idiots over here look less bad in comparison.
Jim, Thats not what the government is there for at all.
The government is not there to enforce freedom, it is there to provide an environment in which people can be free. You may not see the distinction, but it is an important one.
I’ve said it before but I don’t need the government sticking its nose in and telling me what I can and cannot do with my own body. If I cannot judge situations in which I should not be taking mind altering substances (drink driving for instance) then the resulting accident and possible deaths are my responsibility and mine alone. Saying “It was the drink that made me do it” implies that I was not capable of judging whether or not I should have been drinking in the first place. Responsibility for ones actions ultimately and always rests with the individual. There is always a choice, and to deny that we are capable of making that choice is belittling and demeaning.
A man is not a man who cannot govern himself. What the state has done over the last few decades is create a race of sheeple who cannot govern themselves, and needs to have an army of people deciding what we can and can’t do. It has stripped us of thr right to be responsible, in short it has made us less than men.
They may be doing what they’re paid to do but they’re not doing what they’re meant to do.
It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how governments deal with all kinds of new technologies over the next few decades. I can see how it might work: using cognitive enhancers carries a small risk (from over-use, or allergy, or whatever), therefore we need to ban it. Replace “cognitive enhancers” with the technology of your choice. Then there will be the “ethical” arguments: enhanced people get paid more so others are “forced” to enhance themselves to keep up.
And if drugs are bad, what happens when brain implants start making people smarter? I just hope the technology is developed before governments notice and ban further research.
I’ve been reading books by the likes of Ray Kurzweil and Charles Stross lately, and it seems like governments are the only thing that might stand in the way of this type of technology. With luck and timing, a lot of the (not so?) far future stuff like molecular manufacturing and uploading might make governments a bit pointless.
And the whole purpose of this blog, hell, the whole point of libertarianism, classical liberalism, call it what you will. is to say NO, that is not what government is for and not what it is supposed to do.
Self ownership means being responsible for your actions and if you cannot decide what you put in your body, you do not own yourself, you are just a chattel of the state.
Rob Fisher,
Don’t worry. All this will come to pass. Do you think the Chinese have the slightest moral compunction about any technology? All the big companies involved in this sort of stuff are multinationals. Do you think any of these outfits has the least compuction about upping stakes to a rather more permissive regime – and if we’re talking about the likes of Astra-Zeneca shifting there will always be a more permissive regime which will welcome a multi-billion dollar investment in their economy.
I’m personally looking forward to the Daily Mail howl of anguish when the first lesbian couple conceive their own biological daughter. I hope it happens in the UK. I know some of the boys and gals at Newcastle University have started agitating to get on with the research.
Why do I, a heterosexual married male care about lesbians having kids? Because I care about the future and the future should be now. I want to get on a plane and go to see my relatives in Melbourne at Mach 17, I want to see Valles Marineris and the methane seas of Titan. I want to ride a space elevator and toast the year three thousand in good health. Also, the mewling from certain moralists would make me laugh my pants off.
Well, I guess all of that is a bit petty, really. But here’s something that isn’t. Casava is the fifth largest source of calories in the world. It grows in places that wheat, rice etc doesn’t. Unfortunately it requires 48 hours of processing to make it edible. I did work experience at Newcastle University into genetically modifying it to remove the gene that made it poisionous. Yeah, GMO crops are evil aren’t they? We can afford to eat “organic”. I wonder how many Africans agree?
“Their Puritanical wish to maintain a level playing field between themselves and the Populace demands that these substances be controlled, classified, prescribed, monitored and hopefully banned.”
I rather think that the governing classes want to keep the playing field very un-level indeed. The arguments in the late C18th and early C19th against extending literacy to “the lower classes” sound familiar warnings. “Having too many people able to read and write will produce a restive, insolent mob that will threaten ancient traditions and privileges”, was the general tenor of the opposition.
Plus ca change. . .
Wonder how many ‘cognitive enhancers’ it would take to get your average UK state-educated (‘scuse the oxymoron there) student up to a reasonable proficiency level of just about any other European country.
State-mandated Luddism in this field will have the same effect that it has in any area of technology. As cognitive enhancers become more effective and more widely available, some governments will ban them, while others will not. The countries where they are not banned will gain the benefits of their use and will reap advantages in workplace efficiency, faster technological progress, and other areas. The countries where they are banned will not gain those advantages (except insofar as cognitive enhancers are used illegally). Thus the banning countries will fall behind the non-banning countries in important ways.
Luddism cannot stop technological progress. It can only shift that progress to countries other than the ones where the Luddites have influence.
If cognitive enhancers really worked without significant tradeoffs (something I doubt) then attempt to ban or over-regulate them would backfire. Areas with more permissive policies would quickly out compete places that prevented their people from giving themselves a competitive edge.
We’re buying them over the internet? Why would that be illegal, and if they work, where can I get some?
Russ, minor civil servant (community college instructor), who promises only to regulate grades.
Well we have the ordinary Olympics
The paraplegic Olympics
Why not the Chemically induced Olympics?
Only the first two to be drug tested.
It would be interesting to compare the times and distances between one and three!
I will confess to having used cognitive enhancers for some years now.
They have opened my mind to thoughts and feelings I never thought possible; they have given me the ability to outthink my peers; they have given me insights into myself and my world that I could never have achieved without them; they have twisted my mind so that I no longer believe everything I am told by the state.
In fact I have now become so dependant on them that scarcely a day goes by without me getting my fix.
I call these enhancers “books”. I suggest we ban them immediately, lest others begin to use them to understand why government is bad.
Farenheit 451, anyone?
I’m researching the ethics and social effects of enhancers at Oxford University (see (Link)).
One of the most intriguing things I have noted when talking about them is that 1) laypeople and experts are in general moralistic about them and willing to support bans or heavy regulation, and 2) willing to use them if available and safe. My prediction is that as long as they are mainly theoretical and not used much in practice people and governments will have an easy time banning them, but when they become real and useful, they will not hesitate to use them.
Unfortunately early, bad regulation can of course stop development in the first place. If a pharma company cannot expect to sell an enhancer drug due to negative approval bodies it will not develop them (this is why all enhancers right now are either side-effects of drugs for treating illness or DARPA research).
The economic benefits of increased cognition appear to be enormous because it affects so many abilities deeply. That is of course one argument politicians understand: if the UK inhabitants got 1 IQ point smarter, it would correspond to 2-3% income increase individually and up to 8.2% larger GDP. If you buy Murray and Herrnstein there would be several percent reduction in poverty rate, males in jail, high school dropouts and welfare recipiency.
One of the most cheering results is that most enhancers seem to help the worst off the most, and in particular help at least mice who have grown up in impoverished environments to develop their brains to the same degree as mice having grown up in enriched environments. Enhancement isn’t even a “rich get richer” situation, at least as long as it is not about expensive medical services.
– which works, up to the point where you $crew-up your brain with a banned substance and crash your car into MY body.
I understand the Libertarian stance, that YOU don’t need a government telling you how to live responsibly. Pity there are so few of you in the general populace, and so many full jails out there – and in remembrance of the innocents of Virginia Tech, so many wackos among us who desperately need 4×8 worth of jail cell cleared for them.
Libertarianism is considerably more utopian than Marxism-Leninism, but not a whole lot more workable – so long as the rest of us remain chronic sufferers of the human condition.
Then you clearly know next to nothing about libertarianism. In fact it is you who makes the mistake you ascribe to libertarianism. Libertarianism is predicated upon the fact that people cannot be trusted to always do the right thing, and for that reason it is madness to give people great political power over others. It is why libertarian value emergent social pressures more than imposed regulations. It is why libertarians like the means of self-defence to be in private as well as state hands. It is why in a libertarian society, just as in many pre-modern societies, there would be less laws but the ones that existed would be fiercely enforced.
If someone puts me at risk far in excess of what is reasonable (such as taking some LSD and driving down a street at 130 mph), I have no problem treating them as attempted murderers.
I do not care that they take LSD (that should not be illegal) it is their subsequent actions that should not be tolerated. They took the first dose willingly, so I care not a jot if they subsequently fried their ability to think. I mitigates their crime not one iota.
It does matter what specific part of a chain of events is deemed illegal.
Perry, my old friend:
The problem I and many others have with libertarian philosophy is that not everyone has a 120+ IQ and a decent moral code — and sadly, ’tis only under this condition in which libertarianism can come even remotely close to being a workable social system.
But Kim, I suggest you re-read what I wrote. It is your approach that assumes people are sensible, not mine.
I assume most people are venal and not to be depended on until proven otherwise. You on the other hand must feel that the people who are given political power over others are somehow different and less likely to be venal idiots. Who is the trusting optimist? I would say you.
I assume people with political power are just like most other people (that said, the fact they seek political power is probably reason enough to assume they are likely to be exactly the sort of folks who should not have it)…and that is why I want to give as little power over other people as possible.
I am a classical liberal/libertarian/whatever precisely because I am not a utopian. Trusting the state? Now that is utopian. Governments are run by people and as people are general not to be trusted, smaller constrained government is likely to be a whole lot better than larger less constrained government.
Sorry, Perry – what’s to know? Humans swarm with contradictions, which makes us both deliciously unpredictable and defiantly undefinable – and also far less than perfectly quantifiable or dirigeable, to the despair of Statists everywhere.
Therefore, it should not be surprising that Libertarianism is at the same time both eminently sensible and almost inapplicable to contemporary society. I stand beside you (if you’ll permit it) in stating that’s a Bad Thing – but so are rainy Monday mornings, and here in my second half-century I haven’t figured-out how to correct them, either. I wonder if they care?
Sadly, I fear the old bromide “you’re right – so what?” applies as well here as it does just about everywhere else.
Jim, I am honestly sorry if I am going to sound idealistic (believe me, it is not like me at all), but rain and the state of society, both current and general are totally different. If you lived 200 years ago, you could say the same about slavery, for a example, women not being able to vote, or gays being jailed. Just because things are the way they are, does not mean they cannot be changed.