Zombifying misfits?

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I just want to propose an idea - which I'm quite skeptical on whether I'd be in favor or it - but the idea entails taking all of societies misfits, all of society's ill-treated, abused, neglected, unwanted, and feeding them pufferfish poison to permanently destroy the side of their brains that operates personality, their humanity in general, and making these people all into free slave labor with no human rights.

The upsides: misfits no longer technically have to 'be' here. Even getting whipped, bum-raped, or spit-on by passers by will mean less when your humanity and memory have been taken from you. That and, if the owner beats you into the ground its a few less years you're stuck living on this earth. The other upside - the healthy, those who conform well, those who are alpha, the beautiful - never have to confront themselves. They can believe in deity, they can believe in free will, they can believe that even genetics are completely merit-based and that you get what you diserve - no one will be around to voice dissent! That and - they'll be able to enforce conformity by threatening to take someone to the doctor who's been out of sorts (for treatment) and, if anyone hates this dystopia enough to attempt suicide - they either succeed or they're zombified, hence they'll take successful suicide quite seriously. That and, should the day come that we destroy the earth and go extinct - it really would be good riddance, human extermination or race-suicide wouldn't be such a terrible or heartbreaking thing if we became that kind of society.

I'm not meaning to be sensational here, I've just had some things on my mind about the nature of our reality that I've been pondering. Nihilism as a concept definitely plays a part in my example but also, technically - I still find myself confused on whether its humane or inhumane to keep people alive and sentient who's live missions have been failed, for them not by their own hands, and are forced to pretty much devolve and have worse and worse lives as time goes on. The later is something that I've actually thought about off and on for the last few years and, as animals if we only have a few reasons to be here - namely procreating - I don't understand the wild and out of control fetish we have for forcing those to stay alive who simply have no desire to be on this planet anymore. Really if there's no point then there's no point. I'd never advocate that a person who has health or mental difficulty who's happy with their lives in general be dispatched, just that see a lot of excess human suffering kept in line with whose who are forced to stay here and are sort of trapped in their own personal hells which just deepen with age. In some cases, I even wonder if they'd be better off - if they had to be forced to live until old age - if cognition were just taken to prevent further suffering.

I know this might be a bit light and fluffy for most people's tastes here but any takers?

Your reasoning has fallacy.

The misfits are a product of modern society. As long as modern society functions like at present, more misfits will be born

The powers that be are already doing what you suggest, in a round a bout way.

The abolishion of slavery meant that the peasants needed to be held spellbound by the ruling elite, controlled and kept down and stupid, so as the poop jobs will always have a ready supply of workers

Now, there is less jobs for the mentally reduced offspring of the work force, as slavery has again moved offshore.

Misfits are a indicator of societal health, and things dont look rosy from my angle

I would like to think that was in jest. But the whole thrust of society is rectifying those who will not voluntarily conform and become zombie-like [obviously not genuine zombies].

I did laugh at the "only if they are not happy"

Happy, productive - easily manipulated.

I remember my dept head calling me in "Are you happy here?" Planning on getting me off staff.

A Devil's Advocate post deserves a Devil's Advocate movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457572/synopsis


It isn't misfits who are zombiefied per se, but the general idea of zombie servants being mistreated is there.

That does not sound like a good idea.

See, the interesting thing about a post like this is what floats to the surface. I see a few "Misfits are a sign of the ill health of a system - not the misfits themselves". I got in a pretty lengthy debate with someone (a lot of you may know exactly which thread) about whether such a thing as 'human nature' or the 'human condition' even exist. My take - as animals we have the same endemic problems that other animals have, ie. the genetic/eugenic issue, and while we're kinder about it we also have other issues that come into play - ie. those with disabilities still need to work often, especially hidden disabilities, and we run into a different issue that animals in the wild face - accountability, ie. if our brains skip out and we otherwise have high capability (ie. Aspergers/Autism) we're in a position to do a lot of damage to a company and it can happen quite easy. Its not to say we can't work around this but I'm sure it happens often where things get fubared because someone who has a disability and isn't allowed to have that disability is forced into positions that are technically beyond their capability because there's no place for them - hence in this case, and even cases where its more clear cut, we make society uncomfortable. We, and many other groups of people could easily be classed as 'inconvenient'.

The reason I'd never endorse the scenario of my first post - I can't imagine zombies doing good work. Maybe picking bananas but if one's operating a machine and has a seizure or spasm, there it goes, odds are you get them behind the wheel and they'd run it right into a wall. Get one on a food production line and they could randomly (I'd envision) throw up on the goods. It'd be incredibly lossy and in a sense really making the disabled or unskilled even more of a burden.

My take on this - we're really not too far from having genome targeting drugs on the market, I really think there will be a cure for autism within the next ten or twenty years, I say that because I think the real goal of even researching and looking for one is to make sure we - and other people with conditions that are inconvenient, can be made less inconvenient. To fight it unfortunately might be futile just because, its 'the' solution and just like mechanization and industrialization putting small shops out of business at the turn of the 18th century or the mp3 market, Napster, and Soulseek forcing the major record labels to rethink their futures, I think we're in the same position they are if we end up trying to defend our rights to not be cured. That topic in and of itself I'm sure could go on for a long time, and I really don't know what a 'cure' would do if it were switching gene triggers. I would figure that a nootropic cure would just give us 'more' to work with meaning we'd lose none of our aspiness but just gain more room for social skills processing, as for a genetic trigger - who knows, my best guess though is on the white matter highway bit - that we'd find ourselves with quicker and sharper accuity but we'd all of a sudden find out - over the course of a year or so of life like that - what its like to be as rigid going forward as NT's are and what its like for the future to leave us in the dust. Perhaps they could give just a partial dose for slight improvement but not throw all the benefits out? Who knows.

Thanks for putting up with my musings though. I tend to think about the ugly issues from time to time and its always interesting to figure out where I can place hope for the future vs. where it may in fact be misplaced.

To OP.

How would you like to be on the receiving end of your proposal?

ruveyn

Who gets to decide who's a misfit? Almost everyone has some personality trait or quality that deviates from the cultural norm. 99% of the population would end up lobotomized. Or shall we mash up the brains of the other 1%, as the pure normals are clearly the minority and therefore the true misfits? Calling all prom kings and queens.....

That seems like a lot of trouble just to engineer an army of re-purposed "zombified" misfists. The pufferfish poison also seems a little unnecessary, as it is entirely possible to neutralize parts of the brain without resorting to such exotic methods. Why not just contribute all available funds to the development of a genetic experiment to tailor-make the "perfect" human, or a pair of such for breeding's sake? That way you could engineer the entire genetic destiny of the human race as you saw fit, provided that you made steps to establish a stabilized world authority. It wouldn't be very cost effective, but seems a tad less risky than a horde of zombo-slaves. I suppose they could make adequate stand-ins until the genetically-engineered prototypes achieved a healthy population base.

Nah, the whole plan is really just bunk, but funny as hell, though!