Human Domestication

[Cognisant]

If you think about it our everyday activities have very little in common with our natural impulses and this is what I'm getting at by the title "human domestication", that we have been trained by society to behave in a certain way in order to be functional participants of that society.

Is the typical INTP difficulty with focus perhaps the result of insufficient domestication? Do we actively resist people telling us what/how to think?

Anyway, do you think society could be improved if the perspective of "domestication" was widely accepted, for example if someone broke the law, rather than assuming them to simply be "bad" or "defective" it was seen as an indication that they are insufficiently (or were improperly) domesticated, so instead of just sending them to jail maybe they should be (willingly or not) retrained?

I've seen documentaries about jails full of people who are "a product of the system", assumedly beyond rehabilitation, but I don't believe such rehabilitation to be entirely impossible, it's just that politically correct society doesn’t condone the methods required.
Do you think what is effectively torture could be justified if it means a "lifer" could be safely returned to society?

 

[GYX_Kid]

Well we'd choose our own habits based less on social norms, and more on our own independent choosing from what's in front of us, seems true for NT's in general.

I have learned to be more articulate in a way over recent years, to speak "human" more fluently through the values of mainstream society, which is probably more of an INTP late-developing thing.

What's a lifer? But sure, as long as it was all economically worth the cost and all

 

[Bird]

Self-domestication, animals? We do it.
SURVIVAL.

 

[Puffy]

Spoiler

Just look how happy he is. :P

 

[SkyWalker]

the sheeple are being domesticated by the demons....

let's start domesticating the demons instead

 

[digital angel]

What do you mean by "everyday activities?"

 

[matt761]

Wouldn't a lifer be considered someone who's highly domesticated?

From wiki: Domestication (from Latin domesticus) or taming is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control.

If you're applying it to humans I'd take it to mean learning to live with and rely on other humans or by your definition becoming a functional participant of society.

So the reason a person goes to jail is because they did something that did not fit in with society. Therefore, they've been placed in an environment where they are being highly controlled not to mention fed and kept after by other humans. In other words we've forced them into domestication.

As far as rehabilitating prisoners to live a domesticated life outside of prison, I think even if you used torture, the person would still have to choose whether they change at their own free will. There would always be some prisoners that would rebel against the method if they didn't agree with them. If spies can keep their secrets through torture and martyrs hold their beliefs to death you can bet the mind is capable of withstanding any sort of training if it wanted to. We can of course just kill off any outsiders. That would get us to a "final solution" but I don't think that's what you're really after.

Another problem with using methods that are considered "politically incorrect" is that you're bound by what society considers right and wrong. Even if you found a method to retrain prisoners you yourself would become undomesticated in societies eyes in the process.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

What are my natural impulses?

 

[Cognisant]

What do you mean by "everyday activities?"

Do you work? What stops you from just walking away?
Why do horses allow people to ride them?

Sure you can just walk out of your workplace whenever you want and there's nothing really stopping a horse throwing off the average rider if it wants to, except the behavioural conditioning I'm referring to as "domestication". Also consider that allowing someone to ride it isn't of direct benefit to the horse, are we to assume horses are smart enough to understand the concept of a symbiotic relationship?

When having a bad day at work what keeps you from just running away, is it knowing that you're going to be paid at some later time for your efforts, or the fear of what might happen if you went against your conditioning? When leaving a job you don't like do you just walk out at the very moment you decide you want to quit or do you finish the day, write a letter of resignation, hand it in the next day and maybe continue working for another week or two (e.g. the letter was to give notice) because that's just the way it's supposed to be done?

 

[Cognisant]

What are my natural impulses?

What you want to do, and would do without thinking if society had never trained you; basically who you are as merely the animal that you are.

I'm not saying this is preferable, hell no, I'm just trying to say that there's no inherently bad people and no matter how "bad" a person may be I don't believe they're beyond reintegration into society, simply because humans are animals. Highly sophisticated animals, certainly, but sentience doesn’t make us immune to directed influence, you can say no amount of electroshock treatment will reform a dedicated nazi skinhead but in practice when you’re in pain all you want, regardless of your thoughts, opinions, beliefs, or nature, is for the pain to stop.

That’s a barbaric example, if you could control almost every relevant variable I’m sure subtler methods could be developed, like horse whispers that leverage of herding instincts because a horse would rather hang out with humans than stand in a paddock all alone.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

What you want to do, and would do without thinking if society had never trained you; basically who you are as merely the animal that you are.

I'm not saying this is preferable, hell no, I'm just trying to say that there's no inherently bad people and no matter how "bad" a person may be I don't believe they're beyond reintegration into society, simply because humans are animals. Highly sophisticated animals, certainly, but sentience doesn’t make us immune to directed influence, you can say no amount of electroshock treatment will reform a dedicated nazi skinhead but in practice when you’re in pain all you want, regardless of your thoughts, opinions, beliefs, or nature, is for the pain to stop.

That’s a barbaric example, if you could control almost every relevant variable I’m sure subtler methods could be developed, like horse whispers that leverage of herding instincts because a horse would rather hang out with humans than stand in a paddock all alone.

We're are humans. During the development phases we adapt our ourselves to our environment. There is no natural man, animal that I am or could have been unless you are referring to just our general nature of adaptation.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

If you think about it our everyday activities have very little in common with our natural impulses and this is what I'm getting at by the title "human domestication", that we have been trained by society to behave in a certain way in order to be functional participants of that society.

Is the typical INTP difficulty with focus perhaps the result of insufficient domestication? Do we actively resist people telling us what/how to think?

Anyway, do you think society could be improved if the perspective of "domestication" was widely accepted, for example if someone broke the law, rather than assuming them to simply be "bad" or "defective" it was seen as an indication that they are insufficiently (or were improperly) domesticated, so instead of just sending them to jail maybe they should be (willingly or not) retrained?

I've seen documentaries about jails full of people who are "a product of the system", assumedly beyond rehabilitation, but I don't believe such rehabilitation to be entirely impossible, it's just that politically correct society doesn’t condone the methods required.
Do you think what is effectively torture could be justified if it means a "lifer" could be safely returned to society?

Isn't the term you are looking for socialization? (not the annoying political system)

 

[Cognisant]

We're are humans. During the development phases we adapt our ourselves to our environment. There is no natural man, animal that I am or could have been unless you are referring to just our general nature of adaptation.

*hugs proxy*

Isn't the term you are looking for socialization? (not the annoying political system)

Whatever.

Is nobody concerned with the moral quandary that is the possibility of "fixing" people?

Which is the greater evil, to imprison someone for life because they had a bad start which led them into making poor choices which ultimately put them in this position, or to disregard things like free will or choice and basically overwrite someone's brain in order to make them a functional member of society.

Basically if you could "fix" people, would you?

 

[Dr. Freeman]

If it was me in charge of the operation, yes.

I would not trust anyone else to have the potential to "fix" me, or to make me conform to their specific views on what a normal person should be like. I trust myself (for the most part) to determine when such extreme measures would be enacted. This would primarily happen when the death penalty would be used, or if someone would have life without parole. Then they would be given the option to die or to become a functional member of society. That way, they still have the choice.

Also, life sentence prisoners should have the ability to opt-in for an execution.

 

[thefourthditch]

About "fixing" people:

Barring societal collapse, brain modification seems inevitable. Self-augmentation and eliminating undesirable traits (either parent to child, law enforcement to criminal, or psychiatric facility to patient) are such useful things that those (individuals and societies) who do not embrace it will be outperformed, crushed, and brushed aside by those who do.

I suspect that, much as the Scientific Revolution neutered the idea of God, this Brain Modification Revolution will neuter the idea of self.

Consider: Man X gets augmented, becomes man Y. Two points:
1) Y will have a will that clashes in some ways with X.
2) Y will not feel any natural obligation to X.
Analogy: a boy is walking to get ice cream and wishes he had rocket shoes to get there quickly. Magically, he receives rocket shoes. He is probably going to forget about wanting ice cream. (Unrelated: unless he is abnormally cautious, he is unlikely to survive the day.)

There will probably be some sort of transition mentality when this technology is new, something like "How can I augment myself to maximize resource acquisition abilities as well as contentment?"

Then the breakdown: what is meant by "Myself?" X is not Y. Why should X care how happy or successful Y is?

Reiterating an earlier point: Some people won't care. They will be trampled by the superior abilities of those who will care. Further, it will be a self selecting thing: X installing that care in Y for Y to install it in Z, etc.

As for what I think of all this: I wouldn't call it good or bad, but it is scary. So radically unfamiliar. I like my notion of self.

 

[wadlez]

I would not trust anyone else to have the potential to "fix" me, or to make me conform to their specific views on what a normal person should be like./QUOTE]

I agree with this. No group of people acting as a centralised authority which dictates morality (Government) should ever be given this power over people. Imagine if they had this power back before blacks were legally equal, or when swimsuits had to be only 1 piece, when blasphemy was a crime. Even worse, were thinking of the more liberal western countries, would you want north Korea to be able to do this, or China?

The actual cause of people doing more universally deviant behaviour, such as murder/stealing, can be found in the current laws and restrictions to enforce morals and impossible ideals. For example, making alcohol illegal forced the market underground where violence rules and created/strengthened a massive criminal network which due to this still exists today (the Mafia). Today this happening in the war on drugs. Our current government's would try to domesticate prostitutes and people who smoke weed.


Anyway, this human domestication concept already basically exists in Sigmund Freud's theory of the Super Ego.