Another form of death penalty

[Greenday]

ETA: Eugenics was the process of weeding out those with defective genes, preventing them from procreating, and encouraging those with superior genes to breed. I don't see how committing murder twice would prove it's geneticly caused, rather than just deeply ingrained past memory, or some such. Also, they'd have had the chance to breed beforehand. Killing someone after they have kids is NOT eugenics.

There's been a lot of genetic research into genes causing people to be more prone to crime. I wouldn't be surprised if we come up with much more technology in the near future to help determine this. I mean, theoretically you can get the death penalty when you are 18. I'd say that may not be enough time to have kids. I know this is a huge reach, but still, it's a major issue in my mind.

[BroomJockey]

I wouldn't be surprised if we come up with much more technology in the near future to help determine this. I mean, theoretically you can get the death penalty when you are 18.

So you're brining in outside information beyond the scope of the thought experiment. Fine. Then let me put it to you this way. With this one, a person's got a second bite at the apple. They're first mind-wiped. After that, unless they *immediately* go out and kill someone, they still have time to have children. Besides, parents already get genetic testing for debilitating diseases. If crime IS genetic, then can't that also be considered a genetic disease? Still beyond the scope of this thread to determine. This one is about an alternative form of punishment than physical death. If you want, you can make a thread about genetic disposition to crime and we'll have a good Fratch there

[Greenday]

I agree that it's better than the death penalty. They still get to live. But the logistics of it would be nuts. So much to take care of.

[Slytovhand]

I would be totally and completely against this idea, for a couple of reasons.

First scenario... rapists gets caught and has a mind wipe. 2 years later, the victim sees the rapist on the street... all the crap they went through, all the pain, all the horror, all the grief suddenly comes flying back... when they see the criminal happily walking down the street to go to his job, with a happy smile on his face.. scott free! Umm - no, that's not an ok situation!

Second scenario, and a much bigger argument against. Take your Columbine shooters, those going postal, those kids (and sometimes adults) who lose it completely, because they just can't stand their life anymore.. they're full of anger, and hate, and rage, and just want everything to go away... what they'd really like to be able to do, is go an shoot all those people who they hate, who have been giving them grief for so long. The only reason more people don't go ballistic is the fear of retribution, the fear of punishment. Those people aren't going to care about losing their life, their 'friends' and all the rest of the life they had.. they want that. Trust me, there are some people (and I was once one of them) who'd hear this legislation, and say "Where do I sign?".

Mind wipe?? No guilt, no remorse, no repentance, no shame..... no way! (I think we've got a slogan there! )

[BroomJockey]

First scenario... rapists gets caught and has a mind wipe. 2 years later, the victim sees the rapist on the street... all the crap they went through, all the pain, all the horror, all the grief suddenly comes flying back... when they see the criminal happily walking down the street to go to his job, with a happy smile on his face.. scott free! Umm - no, that's not an ok situation!

That's why you move them to the other side of the country.

As for your other argument...

Finally! Someone with a great reason to say it's a bad idea!

[AFPheonix]

That does bring up another point. Does the mindwipe take care of some of the mental underpinnings that caused the crime in the first place? Like psychopaths for instance. Slyt brought up Columbine. Eric Harris was a psychopath and Kliebold was pretty severely depressed.
Do the psychopaths get a mindwipe and then get put in a mental institution for life?

[BroomJockey]

Do the psychopaths get a mindwipe and then get put in a mental institution for life?

Assuming the psychopathy was caused by a structural defect in the brain, and was thus incurable, I doubt they'd mindwipe in the first place.

[Flyndaran]

Assuming the psychopathy was caused by a structural defect in the brain, and was thus incurable, I doubt they'd mindwipe in the first place.

The underlying problem with this whole idea is that memories themselves are structural, and not some kind of computer software.

[BroomJockey]

Are you familiar with the term "thought experiment"? Where you think up a scenario and then contemplate the consequences as a means of divining society's values and your position on theoretical topics? I submit that if you're unprepared to engage a topic on the level presented, you may want to start a parallel one to engage it how you wish.

[Flyndaran]

Are you familiar with the term "thought experiment"? Where you think up a scenario and then contemplate the consequences as a means of divining society's values and your position on theoretical topics? I submit that if you're unprepared to engage a topic on the level presented, you may want to start a parallel one to engage it how you wish.

I prefer thought experiments with at least a vague possiblity. If everyone else is ok with such, then ok, as long as its impossibility is expressly stated.
I don't see the appeal of thinking about things like what if I were a cartoon character... wait, now I do.
Please continue with your fun.

[BroomJockey]

in sci-fi, you always read about memory tampering and such, so how about this:

as long as its impossibility is expressly stated.

I thought that most thinking people would have realized the impossibility from the phrase "in sci-fi," A.K.A. "Science-Fiction." Apparently you missed that. My apologizes. I'll hire some sky-writers for next time

[Flyndaran]

I thought that most thinking people would have realized the impossibility from the phrase "in sci-fi," A.K.A. "Science-Fiction." Apparently you missed that. My apologizes. I'll hire some sky-writers for next time

There is such a thing as hard sci fi. It uses reasonable predictions about the future or alternate histories that don't violate any known laws of physics.

I'm not into things like space opera or future fantasy that much anymore.

[BroomJockey]

I'm not into things like space opera or future fantasy that much anymore.

Neither am I. Never really was. Cyberpunk. Dystopia fuelled by human greed and the rampant unchecked progression of technology for technology's sake. Johnny Mnemonic, the short story by William Gibson (not the movie with Neo *cough* Keanu Reeves ) is a good example. Technology shoved in to a person's brain, replacing memories with the ability to up/download information directly to the brain from a computer.

[Flyndaran]

Neither am I. Never really was. Cyberpunk. Dystopia fuelled by human greed and the rampant unchecked progression of technology for technology's sake. Johnny Mnemonic, the short story by William Gibson (not the movie with Neo *cough* Keanu Reeves ) is a good example. Technology shoved in to a person's brain, replacing memories with the ability to up/download information directly to the brain from a computer.

But that technology is just as impossible as it was twhen that book was written back in the 70s I believe.'
Memories are not clustered like that. They are all over the place and can even move sometimes with different parts of sense memories far away from eachother. Your mother's smell here, and her face here, etc.
Besides why not just put the memory drive in his face and replace his nose? A hell of a lot more room to mess with.

[BroomJockey]

But that technology is just as impossible as it was twhen that book was written back in the 70s I believe.'

Impossible then, impossible now, yes, impossible forever? Maybe not. We've seen some wicked advances in neuro-interfaces recently, and it will only improve.

As to why not sticking it in his nose, the information storage density in the brain is higher than any currently available storage medium. The human brain can hold Petabytes of information. By using the brain to store, you'd have massive efficiency gains.