Re: Ok, how about Brainwashing?

[Robert "J." Hansen <rjhansen@xxxxxxxx>]

> How far can you go with some form of scientific brainwashing (for lack
> of better terms)? Can you implant knowledge? Can you put someone to

Sure you can.  That's what elementary schools and military boot camps
do.  :)

Really: if you want to know the state-of-the-art in indoctrination
techniques, look at the military.  They've been at the forefront of
educational psychology since the field was established: they're always
looking for the best way to teach the most information and skills in the
smallest amount of time.  That is the absolute state-of-the-art.
Anything more advanced than boot camp would fall into the realm of the
wildly experimental and potentially unsafe.

> sleep and when they wake they are a great tactician? What about waking
> up and knowing Karate? Can they wake up knowing Mandarin? Could you make
> them feel no pain, no temperature, no remorse?

Making people feel no pain is possible.  We know how to do it.  We
/don't/ do it, not even for soldiers, because pain is an essential part
of the neurological feedback system.  If you don't feel pain, then that
means you don't know that your leg is broken.  There's a difference
between being able to deal with pain and not feeling pain.

Senator Kerrey was a Navy SEAL in Vietnam; despite suffering traumatic
and extensive wounds from having a hand grenade go off next to him,
which took off his leg, concussed him, and left him dying of blood loss;
still, he was able to deal with the pain enough to rally his troops,
direct them into position, and even though he was legless, bleeding to
death and concussed, lead his troops to victory.  That's the sort of
pain tolerance that the military wants.  Not -feeling- pain is a totally
different thing, and it's not useful.

Making them feel no temperature is possible, I guess, by burning out a
few neurons here and there.  But, just as with making them feel no pain,
it's counterproductive.  If I had a genetically engineered killer on my
tail who felt no pain and no temperature, I'd spend my days and nights
chillin' in the mountains of Ecuador, where it goes from outrageously
hot during the day to numbingly cold at night.  The fellow who couldn't
feel the temperature wouldn't know exactly how hot it was (and thus
wouldn't have any natural way to monitor his fluid intake, exertion
level, etc), and he wouldn't know how cold it was (and thus, would have
no warning of "wow, it's cold", until he'd succumbed to hypothermia).

No remorse is easy.  The prisons are full of them.  Find someone who's
doing a couple of life terms for the rape and murder of a 6-year-old--no
surgery needed.