[ExI] An old skeleton tumbles out of the list closet

[Dan]

On Tuesday, November 13, 2012 6:27 AM Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> wrote:

> Not so fast Charlie, it works both ways. The government could
> reprogram soldiers by _reducing_ their empathy. I guess many
> people would sign for that against the promise of a green card.

If Dave Grossman is correct, basic training is how government militaries currently do this reprogramming. See his _On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society_.

And, IIRC, for the US (and for some other nations), joining the military is one way to move the naturalization process forward. So, much of this seems to be in place.

What we might want to think about is how to prevent governments and others (after all, governments are not the only bad actors on the planet; they are merely the big players in the badness business) from reprogramming individuals or how to break the reprogramming once it's done. (To be sure, modern militaries seem to aim at creating soldiers who can shut off their empathy for the enemy in combat operations, but not for fellow soldiers and then to turn this empathy back on outside of combat operations. At least, that's the public relations on this.)

Regards,

Dan
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