What will happen if the mechanisms restraining violence are disabled?

Voluntarist, Bitarch

The development of biotechnology brings us closer to the moment when it will be possible to create a gene therapy capable of activating the violence-inhibiting mechanism in humans that Konrad Lorenz wrote about. However, along with this, there arises the risk of the appearance of a completely opposite gene therapy aimed precisely at eliminating any inhibitors of violence in a person. Therefore, some may consider the idea of creating gene therapy against violence to be useless, as if it can be made, then gene therapy to unleash violent potential can also be made. Demand for it could be found among certain psychotics, maniacs, and people who overly prize their aggressiveness, consider it the meaning of their life, and are unwilling to part with it because of some dart with a drug fired at them during another attack. Additionally, some groups of people (supporters of authoritarian power) may consider it important to achieve certain goals by force, meaning that the security forces executing these orders must be protected from the risk of losing their capacity for violence.

Of course, the vast majority of scientists are against violence, and it is unlikely that any of them would engage in such developments. But what happens if there is someone among them who decides to help violent degenerates? Let’s go through this step by step:

1) There is a probability of the uncontrolled spread of a drug that disables the Lorenz mechanism, and if this happens, the whole world will be mired in violence and wars, and the survival of humanity will become impossible (practically repeating a typical scenario from a zombie movie).

2) This risk will lead to the necessity of creating an updated gene therapy against violence. It may be capable of preventing the disabling of the Lorenz mechanism by any means whatsoever; however, if this cannot be guaranteed, the only remaining option will be to make it so that a person dies from an attempt to remove their own restrictions on violent behavior. Allowing the survival of people striving for violence in such a situation is simply impossible; otherwise, the previously mentioned scenario will occur.

3) After this, a fairly rapid equalization of the balance of violent potential will occur; absolute universal armament will be achieved (it will become clearly apparent to every average Joe that weapons in such a world are the only guarantee of survival). The new status quo will be maintained because a minority of sadists will be afraid to deactivate the Lorenz mechanism to attack the majority of non-violent people, who are capable of destroying them at the very first attempt to initiate violence.

4) The stationary bandit (the state) will not survive either the appearance of gene therapy against violence, since it would then lose the ability to impose its order by force, nor the appearance of a blocker of the violence-inhibiting mechanism, because in that case, the security forces working for it will receive Molotov cocktails, bottles of sulfuric acid, infectious agents, bursts of automatic gunfire, etc., instead of peaceful protests, from the very people who removed their restrictions on violence and will manifest it toward everyone, including them. Zombie movies, although pure fantasy, nevertheless quite accurately convey what will happen to the state in such a scenario.

As a result, it turns out that the creation of a drug to disable violence-inhibiting mechanisms will also lead to the elimination of the stationary bandit, whom supporters of authoritarian power and forceful measures love so much and consider the best mechanism for achieving any goals. They do not understand this, but even worse, they do not understand the catastrophic scenario that the creation of such a drug would lead to if gene therapy against violence is not updated in time according to the parameters in the second point, or at least if the balance of violent potential is not equalized so that all resulting rapists and violent criminals can be liquidated during their attacks.

The Walking Dead — ancap? And is it possible to create Ancapistan during a zombie apocalypse?

анонимный вопрос

Unfortunately, it is difficult for me to answer the first part of the question. My knowledge of the series is entirely exhausted by the information that there is a sad boy named Carl somewhere in there. So I will not go into specifics; let’s talk about the zombie apocalypse in general, without tying it to a specific series.

I would define a zombie apocalypse roughly like this: it is a phenomenon of an unstudied nature in which the bodies of dead people become deadly to the living. In such a general formulation, humanity has encountered the zombie apocalypse repeatedly. Every epidemic of some plague became a zombie apocalypse. According to one version, the great zombie apocalypse in England in the 17th century even contributed to the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of liberalism, since it increased the cost of labor.

A typical cinematic zombie apocalypse differs from historical analogues only in that the dead body pursues living people with all the appropriate cinematic special effects: it approaches with a tragic gait, waves household equipment terrifyingly, and scrapes its nails against stone in powerless rage if the victim manages to climb to a height. Hygienic measures against zombies are generally about the same as during an epidemic: burn the corpses.

Alright, these are all very sweet reflections, but how will zombies help in the construction of Ancapistan? For this, we will have to introduce another fantastic assumption. A zombie does not just lunge at everyone indiscriminately. No, he purposefully and inventively sets out to take revenge specifically on the person he considers responsible for his death. By analogy with the philosophical zombie, I will call this subspecies the “legal zombie.” Agree that, compared to the fantastic assumption that brisk corpses exist at all, such a specification of their motivations looks like a quite modest and realistic addition.

Such a zombie is a living… pardon, non-living embodiment of the non-aggression principle: no one has the right to initiate violence with impunity. Let’s add that a legal zombie also lunges at anyone who prevents another legal zombie from carrying out their revenge. Having finished the retribution for their death, the legal zombie finds peace.

I assert that in the world of a legal zombie apocalypse, Ancapistan will be built quite quickly. A living person is such a more pleasant companion than a zombie that the very idea of contributing to the appearance of a new zombie would already be horrifying. Therefore, people will soon learn mutual politeness, develop a readiness for charity and cooperation in difficult situations, and will even evacuate from the Titanic into lifeboats only after ensuring that a seat was voluntarily provided to them.

But we don’t have to wait for the arrival of a legal zombie apocalypse; we can learn mutual respect, cooperation, and compassion for the weak in advance, and be ready to pounce on any violator of the NAP. Why postpone for the afterlife what can be done today?

Thank you for your attention.