A device developed with today’s technologies that make torture impossible – what would it look like? It would have to be wearable, legal, activated at will, impossible to turn off except by its owner, reversible (avoiding torture but not causing death), of course cheap and even free, not just for humans but for all mammals and, if possible, for all sentient beings. This article explores why this is a bad idea.
Motivation
- Torture in war situations
- Torture for political reasons
- Animals and humans burned to death
- Animals boiled alive
Vision
- No human should ever experience being burned alive, to death.
- No mammal should ever experience being burned alive, to death.
- No sentient animal should ever experience being burned alive, to death
- A basic human right.
- A free or very cheap device or intervention, widely used and without which it’s inconceivable to live. Perceived naturally. As the use of anesthesia in surgical interventions is currently perceived.
Some classifications of possible shields against torture
- According to reversibility
- Reversible (does not cause death)
- Non-reversible (does cause death)
- According to legality
- Legal
- Illegal
- According to the decision mechanism
- Voluntary (Mechanical, electronic, and others). E.g. something you can bite, cut or press (biting the tongue, placing with the tongue a normally retracted spike that once released allows, by biting hard, to break a capsule hidden in the molar).
- Automatic (Electronic, Chemical, and others). E.g. Cortisol measurement.
- According to the actuating / dispenser mechanism (there may be several combined)
- Electrical
- Mechanical, physical (e.g. pressure)
- Chemical (e.g. cortisol [n1], cyanide, morphine, OxyContin [1,2,3], other euthanizing substances)
- Genetic [4] (e.g. anti-suffering gene therapy based on FAAH, FAAH-OUT, ACKR3, LIH383 [5])
- Hormonal and endocannabinoid system (Oxytocins, Endorphins, Serotonins, Dopamines)
- Psychological (e.g. autosuggestion, meditation)
- Philosophical? Severe pain isn’t so bad?
- In the case of chemical actuators, the releasing mechanism may be:
- A patch on the skin
- A swallowable pill
- A drinkable liquid
- A cut that releases the active principle
- A membrane that dissolves automatically
- Port a cath
Inspiring classic examples
- The Romans’ preventive suicide by bleeding to death in a hot tub
- The cyanide capsule in the tooth socket typical of spies
- The whiskey bottle in amputations without anesthesia
Objections
- Impulsive rejection.
- Taboo.
- Risk of accidental death.
- Biomedical regulations.
- They could be intentionally disabled from the outside by adversary agents.
- Other types of concerns, such as simple survival, make people unreceptive to these types of opportunities. When the obsession is to stay alive, and this is the absolute and desperate daily dedication, it is not easy to reserve mental resources to think about how to die with the least possible suffering.
- Interest in this prevention encourages an incorrect or objective-incompatible attitude. E.g. military environment: The military is trained to tolerate suffering and this type of device can be considered counterproductive, contrary to the culture they aim to promote.
Responses to objections
- Rationalization.
- Ensure avoidance of accidental misuse.
- The active principle could be released precisely when trying to be manipulated from the outside.
- Review real cases that inspire the motivation for this prevention.
- Confidence in its effectiveness can provide courage and improve mission effectiveness.
Why is this a bad idea?
There are many reasons why this device is a bad idea. The most important one is that these terrible experiences will most likely not happen to us but to other individuals. As they say in Brazil, “Pimenta no cú dos outros é refresco” (Pepper in other people’s asses is refreshing).
A promising finding: vasovagal syncope
As explained in this document [6], syncope is a transient loss of consciousness caused by a decrease in cerebral perfusion (interruption of cerebral blood flow for 6-8 s, or a 20% decrease in the amount of oxygen supplied to the brain). Syncope has an abrupt onset and resolution is generally spontaneous and rapid. In the presyncopal episode, the patient feels the imminence of a loss of consciousness without it actually happening (the same symptoms that precede a loss of consciousness occur).
Syncope is frequently confused with attacks without loss of consciousness (falls, cataplexy, convulsive episodes, psychogenic pseudosyncope) and with partial or total loss of consciousness (metabolic disorders such as hypoglycemia, hypoxia, hyperventilation with hypocapnia, or epilepsy and poisoning).
The factor that triggers vasovagal syncope causes the heart rate and blood pressure to drop abruptly. For instance:
- Situational syncope is reflex syncope related to situations such as urination, defecation, coughing, or rising from a kneeling position.
- Carotid sinus syndrome is a syncope closely related to accidental compression of the carotid sinus.
See more information at: https://empendium.com/manualmibe/compendio/chapter/B34.III.23.2.1.
A “pass out switch” (a “Syncope Switch”) would be acceptable in a broad range of cultures and face far less pushback from regulators.
Strategy
- Encourage progressive acceptance. Start by preventing cases of intentional torture suffered by non-humans. For example, prevent black cats from being tortured for being black by installing the mechanism in them.
- Secondly, the military environment would greatly benefit from such a technology and would likely be receptive. In particular, it may be welcome in the NATO environment where recruitment is expensive. Assuring recruits that they will not experience torture-like suffering (such as being burned to death inside a tank) may improve recruitment prospects.
- Thirdly, Western culture is primarily hedonistic and is best able to embrace this initiative and then extend it to other cultures through mass media, in the same way that other commodities have been extended.
References
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodone
[2] https://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs6/6025/6025p.pdf
[4] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/family-feels-almost-no-pain-180971915/
[5] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pF2KsE8waXPmrEdEonnizwxWJ8WMBjMU-C9oiYFHsqs/
[6] https://empendium.com/manualmibe/compendio/chapter/B34.III.23.2.1.
Notes
[n1] A delay in pain perception is described when an injury or amputation occurs under highly stressful circumstances (extreme sports, high concentration, conflicts)
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PROJECT DEVELOPMENT
Not only, but particularly from a hedonistic axiology (the thesis that only experiences have intrinsic value), it is imperative to prevent the most intense suffering, which we can call “torture-type suffering.” This suffering occurs in nature and can be suffered by non-human animals as well as human beings, simply by chance or bad luck. But of course, the torture-type suffering that attracts the most attention is not natural or causal, but rather that which is intentionally caused for political reasons. The word torture usually refers to intense suffering caused intentionally.
Regardless of causality, it would be desirable to avoid such extreme suffering. Is the technology available? I think so. Which one? How would it work? Why is it not applied massively? What do we have to do to have this shield against torture-type suffering? This is what this project aims to explore.
The “Turtle shield” project is the improved equivalent of the cyanide capsule hidden in a hole in the tooth: a device that can be activated only in cases of extreme suffering (torture-like) and that can initially be carried by those who work in very dangerous situations, and later everyone.
For this we need to design a device that performs a measurement (or anticipation) of the magnitude of the intensity of the negative experience and, based on this, releases an actuator that can alleviate suffering, either a substance, an electrical shot into certain tissues, or any other.
The challenges of this project are, at least:
- Have a mechanism to measure (or anticipate) the intensity of suffering
- Have a mechanism to alleviate suffering
- Have a mechanism capable of making the decision to release the second based on the first
- Explore all the possible ways in which this device may malfunction and prevent them all, and in particular, all those in which it may work contrary to how it has been designed.
- Explore all the possible ways in which this project can be misused and prevent them all, and in particular, all those in which it can be used to create more, rather than less, suffering.
- Evaluate this project together and decide if its benefits outweigh its drawbacks and risks, both in the short and medium and long term.
Current palliative care could be considered a variant of this same idea. In palliative care, suffering is measured by personal subjective appreciation and external manifestations, as well as knowledge about the situation in which the patient is (for example, invaded by incurable cancer), which is also indicative of the risk (for example, it can be determined that there is not much to lose when there are surely only a few days to live). The mechanism of relief of suffering is morphine, among others. The mechanism capable of making the decision is the patient’s own brain, as well as the brain of the doctors and / or family members.
The main difference between palliative care and this project is that in the first case we try to prevent intense suffering that we can predict with great certainty and in advance, while in the second case we want to anticipate an unforeseen situation that is difficult to predict.
Voluntary morphine approach
Perhaps in the skull we can store enough morphine, and in any case, it can be supplemented with more morphine that comes from other parts of the body, such as the abdomen through tubes. The good thing about this approach is that at least we can be pretty sure that morphine doesn’t cause suffering in the event of failure, at least in the short term. But it requires the integrity of the body (someone or something could damage the tubes). If the control of release were voluntary, for example by pressing somewhere, many erroneous releases could be generated, which would generate addiction and dependency. One way to remedy this would be for the trigger mechanism of the release mechanism to be painful, so that under normal circumstances it is avoided. For example, if it were possible that the trigger mechanism was to bite your tongue hard. But it seems complicated that biting the tongue can cause a valve in the brain to open. Perhaps with a bite you can break a capsule that releases a corrosive substance into the blood, which in turn breaks down a membrane that in turn opens the valve that releases the morphine. Another drawback is that this would work for human adults who can understand the mechanism, but it would not work for children, humans with cognitive impairment or non-human animals, where we would need an automatically functioning system.
Electricity approach
The system could work by releasing an electric shock with a battery inside the skull. If we could be quite sure that these electric shocks cannot generate more suffering, this type of device can have many advantages. It could be very small. It would be very difficult for it to be damaged or tampered with from the outside to be disabled. It could work a greater number of times, until the battery charge is exhausted, which in addition, could perhaps be recharged with the body’s own energy or another (or use uranium as energy).
With this approach it seems that it would be easier to have a device that works autonomously without the will having to intervene, although this increases the risk that in some individual for any reason the system works in the opposite way than expected. To alleviate this, we should provide it with one or more deactivation mechanisms from the outside and at will.
Syncope approach
Syncope appears relatively easy to induce by mechanical action, but its effectiveness is doubtful.
To be continued…
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