Hacker News Reader

Comment by walterbell | Hacker News Reader

Brain ethicist from Duke Law, https://law.duke.edu/fac/farahany/

> [Farhany] believes an important defense against potential abuses of privacy using such technology is pre-emptively “recognizing a right to cognitive liberty, a right to self-determination over our brains and mental experiences,” and added that “it requires that we update existing international human rights … “Speaking as a CEO, I’m sure all CEOs will use it completely responsibly,” said moderator and Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson, to the laughter of Farahany and the audience.

Read-only sensory proxies for brain state include:

  iris response, via headset camera
  facial expression, via image analysis
  heart rate, through walls via Wi-Fi Sensing
  gait analysis

View on HN

This is regularly deprived for the mentally ill.

Either humans have this right or don't.

only the Sith deal in absolutes.

schizophrenics often reject medication in the midst of psychosis, while agreeing it's necessary when they're lucid.

lots of addicts genuinely want to kick the habit, but their willpower fails them. drugs like disulfiram and naltrexone can help by making highs unpleasant or unattainable.

sex offenders who abuse minors are sometimes chemically castrated with GnRH agonists as part of their parole. this reduces their sex drive by depriving them of androgens, reducing the risk they'll reoffend.

where to draw the line is complicated, but at least in the schizophrenic case I really think forced medication compliance helps everyone. if you're not lucid you aren't competent to make medical decisions.

I do not hold those views, but I respect your right to state that you have them, and be met with an understanding that that is the case, and that I don't have the right to change your mind by violence.

Is someone diagnosed with Schzophrenia allowed to disagree with you?

It always comes down to absolutes, if you're sifting the question finely enough (warning, at some point this process will distort the grains, and you won't be processing reality anymore, but the result of your own mind, the cycle is fatal).

Anyway. This moment is a _very_ direct test of this question. Answering it, or more carefully, your emotional reaction on reading this, will expose some of your absolutes.

I've had a friend go off psych meds for religious reasons (Christian Science) and nearly die (waxy catatonia from severe bipolar), so my objectivity is impaired. however:

my rule of thumb is that if the patient, after being returned to lucidity by meds, agrees in retrospect that meds were necessary, then it's the right call.

the other exception is if the person is at substantial risk of hurting others if unmedicated. then the violence of mandated medication is warranted.

barring that, if someone on psych meds wants to go back off them, I wouldn't prevent them from doing so.

The boundaries of lucidity are more fluid than you can imagine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com