[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

telling a knife wielding maniac not to stab someone is not enough. you can't just go "well gee officer, i told him not to stab all those people, what more do you want from me?"

if you are there and you can see he's gonna do it you have to tackle the fucker!

hey, you might not have a direct scan of the interior of his brain that would allow you to observe the cogitations and data that indicate "extreme psychosis, cortisol levels rising, imminent intent to stab random strangers". but you see him salivating and staring at people and hear him ranting about his mother and god planting bugs under his skin or whatever.

so you do the right thing and try and stop him.

i mean, when you see a man whose an alcoholic, you already know his kids are highly likely to have the same genes. we could screen them! we could stop alcohol from being sold to these people, or at least make it incredibly difficult. we could show them their genomes, we could explain to them. we could scan their brains and detect addiction before it starts. we could do all this ethically, and only resort to coercion if they break laws and do serious damage to others. we are smart enough to pull this off without becoming nazis

yes, but i can't go to your house and take away your cigarettes and lock you up in a closet and feed you under the door. and you particularly showed up here expressing desperation.

this is not the official city fire brigade-- this is your neighbor handing you a water bucket.

from the distance, the best i can do is suggest a difficult hack: study your addiction reward system (from self-observation, from literature), then disconnect or replace each addiction reward circuit with benevolent ones, as you identify them. it is definitely not easy nor quick, and many people will still be fucked regardless, but if you were lucky enough to receive intelligent genes from your ancestors you stand a non-universal chance to save your ass-- a temporary, non-universal solution.

of course it doesn't end there-- the less capable are still being fucked, and we need social change, but who is going to fight for it if everyone is sick? i'm not suggesting you hack your addiction out of existence in order to "prove free will" but rather for sheer survival. then you can go and give the fuckers throat cancer and cackle over their sick corpses. but survival first.