Dear Fellow Lovers of Peace,
My book does briefly touch upon two extreme scenarios in which there may be reason for the involuntary use of means to pacify and/or enhance empathy in others: (1) As an alternative to our current use of lethal weapons in a war, which today kill and maim soldiers as well as innocent civilians, including children, certainly without their voluntary consent to being maimed and slaughtered; (2) In a truly "life or death" situation for the world, whereby such measures would be humanity's best or only hope for survival.
I remind readers: My writings are based on the premise that certain medical, genetic and other technological developments ...
(1) are inevitable and coming anyway, cannot be halted, cannot be ignored;
(2) have a high chance of being misused by bad actors unless we use them in beneficial ways;
(3) can be shown to be effective and safe to use; and
(4) can be introduced in an ethical way respectful of individual free choice, civil and human rights ...
... and I ask, how should such technologies be best employed to heal some of what troubles this world??
I propose ...
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It is possible that such technologies will be sanctioned for the battlefield too, as non-lethal alternatives to blowing our enemies to smithereens. If wars will happen despite all our wishes for peace, what then is the better road, the most humane way? Should we do as we do now, dropping explosives and napalm, killing and crippling enemy combatants plus whatever unfortunate civilians happen to get in the way? Or should our armies truly turn into peacemakers and peacekeepers, whose primary “weapon” of first choice consists of substances, launched as "Maitreya Missiles" or heavily armed “Kannon Balls,” with her 1000 arms of caring, which make an enemy simply unwilling to fight, filled instead with empathy toward all others, feelings of fraternity and even love? Adversary generals and leaders could be tamed by snipers, not working as assassins, but as assuagers. Our future Putins and Pol Pots might be shot full of mercy and kindness. How is rendering the enemy incapable of combat in such way any worse, and not better, than slaughtering platoons and companies in cold blood? And if these “heart ♡ attacks” are used by both sides against each other, is not the result still good: two opposing sides who will not attack each other, but instead, be so filled with brotherly concern that they will seek to work out their differences and somehow find a way? Rather than a button pushed sending ICBMs ballistically flying, Inter-Continental Benevolence Missiles will bring, not nuclear winter, but a springtime of mutually assured mass pacification!
Of course, it would be terrible, immoral, and a violation of human rights for governments to force anyone to take these “peace and goodness” treatments unwillingly (except, as previously discussed, in cases of convicted violent criminals with all due process). As the recent Covid-19 debacle shows, democratic governments cannot easily order their people to undergo such measures, nor should they as an ideal. While it may cross the minds of some to do so, I do -NOT- think it ethical, legal, feasible nor anything less than horrible for well-meaning but misguided “peaceniks” … bands of anti-terrorist terrorists … to, for example, add pacifying substances to public water supplies by night. Nor should vigilante Bodhisattvas stealthily convert stragglers with a virus or gas released in the air. I believe such methods wrong in the strongest terms, and all should be met with rejection, justified resistance and criminal punishment.
On the other hand, I can see some narrow exception if, and only if our earth, this planet, is placed in such extreme, terminal, dire straits that there literally is no other choice, no other option, as a means to save most human life. The only exception even to consider would need to be a very much more extreme scenario than even what we face currently, true desperation, a life and death state of affairs in which the world is undeniably on the brink of its own destruction, requiring a strong and forceful act to save millions from dying. Non-voluntary use of such technologies must be the only way to head off cataclysmic disaster.
What then?
While I do believe in my bones, right to the marrow, that it would be wrong, a violation of civil rights and basic human decency, to force anyone to do anything unwillingly …
… nonetheless, might there someday be a crisis condition so extreme, a time in which the human race had become such a threat to itself, that radical action is called for nonetheless?
If the surviving passengers from a sinking ship are crowded into a small row boat at sea (our planet) … and if a few passengers risk tipping the boat by their behavior, thus endangering the lives of all in shark infested waters … then there may be grounds for the endangered to bind the endangering group hand and foot, dope them up, lock them up, even threaten to toss them overboard if that is what it takes to get everyone settled down.
Likewise, there may be times and grounds to change peoples’ behavior by compulsion in equally desperate circumstances. What would be the medical, ethical and philosophical implications of doing so?
Here, I merely raise the subject, pray to Buddha and anyone else who is listening that we never reach such a state, and leave others to debate the terrible question.
During the recent years of Covid-19 and vaccinations, the internet has been filled with conspiracy theories and misinformation: That the virus and/or vaccines are methods to render the population compliant, to track us, to inject nano-implants, to change DNA, all as part of a nefarious plan led by world governments and various billionaires. Such beliefs are nonsense. In the first place, such claims are not true simply because neither the virus nor the vaccines work like that, and anyway, the feared technology does not exist now even if it were desired.
But what if, in the near future, it actually could be so? Not now, but in the coming decades?
What if various bad actors had the capability to design and release infections that could render whole populations compliant to their wishes, much as some bad actors are hoarding chemical or bio-weapons today? What seems a science fiction conspiracy for now might not be so always. Could enemy nations release viruses causing other nations’ populations (their own population first being made immune) to give up the will to fight? Could dictators render their own population passive? It sounds ridiculous, absurd … yet, is it technologically a possibility that, someday, viruses could be released in the air, or added to food or water supplies, leaving us at the mercy of scoundrels and tyrants?
And if so, if such technology eventually exists, could the technology instead be used for good, to save us from ourselves in a time of desperation when the human race’s very existence is on the line, and the world is pushed to the brink? Would it be ethical to do so then?
Would a Buddha or Bodhisattva save sentient beings even if those beings did not wish to be saved?
The answer is not so clear.
Some would be irate, some would resist but, at least, the human race, its own worst enemy, would survive the crisis.
I hope that we never reach such point
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