Is it ethical to socially engineer a paranoid society?

[nutronjon]

This is not my favorite site. I especially do not like the way it treats the subject of education, because it so completely ignores the idealism and concepts of democracy and liberty that I believe are essential to education. However, it is a quick explanation of Leo Strauss and the neocon agenda, which is the subject of this thread.

Leo Strauss Menu

A professor at Chicago university, Leo Strauss was instrumental in influencing his "select" students and in shaping the conservative agenda we see today. An agenda based on his philosophy that the elite should use deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant masses. Today's Straussian conservatives are committed to a “New World Order”. They envision a new era of “Enlightenment” by imposing what is termed “moral clarity and purpose” of “American exceptionalism” upon the world through forced military democratization. A war is peace doctrine, which flouts and dismantles international laws through open-ended warfare while maintaining both foreign and domestic rule. This messianic vision of an American global empire smacks of a totalitarian Orwellian super state with apocalyptic consequences for all humanity or what I can "Neocon Imperialism or Apocalypse Now."

[Kriminal99]

Originally Posted by modest

The level of paranoia is directly proportional to the level of danger in an ordinary person. For example, I get a little paranoid when everybody's looking at me - I get a lot paranoid when everybody's looking at me and holding weapons. So how can your question be answered sensibly Kriminal99? Is it ethical to put an entire society in mortal danger?... my gut says no. There might be some small ethics problems associated with that.

-modest

The idea in it's simplest form is something similar to this. Once something has adapted to its environment such that it knows what to do to get what it wants, change something so that it has to re adapt. Change it in a way such that they can still adapt and achieve their goal. Ideally, change it in a way that makes sense so that they might figure it out and adapt to future changes. Then when they adapt to that system, change something else.

Do this several times until the person has a natural understanding of the limits of induction.

[modest]

Originally Posted by Kriminal99

The idea in it's simplest form is something similar to this. Once something has adapted to its environment such that it knows what to do to get what it wants, change something so that it has to re adapt. Change it in a way such that they can still adapt and achieve their goal. Ideally, change it in a way that makes sense so that they might figure it out and adapt to future changes. Then when they adapt to that system, change something else.

Do this several times until the person has a natural understanding of the limits of induction.

As you point out in the title of the thread there are some pretty obvious ethical issues that I think would make this type of experiment, if done intentionally, wholly unacceptable.

I guess I'm having trouble understanding the limits of what you're describing. Would this be like Stalin USSR with gulags for those who can't adapt? Or, like kindergarten where some kids get gold stars for spelling their name correctly and others don't?

I bring up the polar opposites here because it makes (in my opinion) all the difference in the world; Not only in how ethical this learning method would be, but also how effective it would be.

A person who is challenged in childhood and forced to adapt may benefit from the experience. However, a person traumatized in childhood will most often exhibit developmental immaturity and in no way benefit. I think this would be true in the scope of a society as well.

So... I guess my question would be - what exactly did you have in mind?

[Kriminal99]

Well the part you just quoted contains all that is necessary to the idea. The next question is just how cruel would you have to be to accomplish that?

It is naturally stressful when something that a person used to be able to do to get what they want suddenly changes. However this is naturally part of life. The goal is to simply increase the frequency of it early on to make the person more willing to consider that what they believe could be wrong, and then build them up once that is understood.

The idea would be to put the changes within not only their ability to adapt, but also within their ability to understand why the changes occurred (Perhaps a reason that makes sense other than that you designed it to be that way)

Thus it might be different for each person. You would have to be careful to give the person maximum chance to adapt to the hardest changes so you don't impede their development, but you also wouldn't want to risk endangering them.

At least thats the way I see it because I believe in not only diversity but also that maximizing the ability of any person may cause his/her progeny to have higher natural abilities.