Polygraphs for the elimination of thought-crimes?

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Since certain thoughts ought not to be thought, oughtn't these thoughts be sought at the root and preemptively uprooted? Free and mandatory polygraphs for everyone on Earth, the punishment being death for thought-crimes*. This way, evil thoughts will be purged prior to the possibility of them ever reaching the public in any fashion.





Notes: * Thought-crimes© means precisely what I mean it to mean, nothing more and nothing less.

Good luck with that.

Polygraphs don't work.

Aside from the total inaccuracy of polygraphs, the concept of thought police is straight out of "1984". Sardonic or not, it nails your attitude down rather neatly towards totalitarian control.

If everyone that felt threatened by "Thought-Crimes©" ganged up on the people that screen for "Thought-Crimes©", there wouldn't be any need to worry about "Thought-Crimes©" anymore.

Though it hasn't been styled as such, "thought crimes" do exist and are enforced. It's just a matter of being just smart enough to not get sucked into those kinds of groups/societies. Take any kind of closed or authoritarian pseudo-religious cult. The Branch Davidians immediately spring to mind, though they did have a large degree of freedom. You COULD walk out, but their thoughts had become so aligned to the purpose of Koresh that they really didn't want to. Thus thought crimes are suppressed by intense isolation.

Other cults/religions are much more subtle. The one that is most overtly thought-crimeish in my opinion would be the "Church" of Scientology. They ACTIVELY seek to purge thoughts they perceive to be wrong. They cover it by appearing to allow a great deal of freedom for their members. Just don't join the Sea Org.

As for a method of government, what really stands in the way of something like that happening? Most likely diversity of thought and a highly independent spirit. So it's a matter of right time, right place, and right people.

The notion of "thought-crime" is essentially making independent thought a crime. It is an anti-human notion. What we are as human beings are thinking beings. Not always wise in our thoughts, not always right in our thoughts but always thinking. It is what we are.

ruveyn

Will never happen.

Polygraphs are geneally inadmissible in court. They are easily proven unreliable devices to determining if someone is being truthful. They only monitor physiological indicators and it's up to the person doing the exam to interpret if the results indicate truth or deceit, and they are easy to fake and it's easy for an honest person to give a false positive to a lie response.

Bare thought unwrought cannot be caught, and ought not be sought. It would come to naught.