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The morality of performance enhancers.
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Aphoxema G
Khushakor Clan
#1 - 2012-05-03 13:59:04 UTC
Since starting a panel of nootropics and (synth) boosters routinely, my combat performance has dramatically improved, I've made fewer mistakes and I've lost fewer crew to my dumbassery.

Now, this isn't a chivalrous sport where fairness is expected and it's scandalous for a runner to be pumping some Crash or a Mindclasher hitting some X. This is a god damned war and we need to be at our best, and when you have dunces like me we obviously need a little more, like a lunatic needing a little medication to live happily with society.

My concern here is a little more archaic; we have to eat for our bodies to remain stable and repair damages, this is a fact of life. We have to consume water. We have to take in oxygen and release CO2 and other waste gasses. These are inevitable results of our biology and even if upload ourselves into computers, those computers will have needs so long as we want the information to survive.

Then at some point, if we want to survive the way we choose to, we have to fight people. Either we're swinging our axes around and lopping off heads, or we're highly intellectual brains who possess war machines and snuff life by the thousands. Clearly, when it comes to axes, the person who exercises and is healthier has the better chance. When it comes to capsuleers, the better minds stand a better chance.

So what I hesitantly question is, at what point am I not just "eating better" to have a healthier mind and I'm just plain shoving things into me to change who I am so I can be the person I believe I want to be? I'm obligated to be the best, to fight for my people, and I'll sacrifice my existence if that will be the thing that does the most good. At what point am I sacrificing too much, though?

Is my life or my identity more important? What is more useful?
Halete
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#2 - 2012-05-03 14:27:23 UTC
Dear, that's entirely subjective.

Do you want to be a war machine or do you want to make a difference?

"To know the true path, but yet, to never follow it. That is possibly the gravest sin" - The Scriptures, Book of Missions 13:21
Zukes Bla'hati
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#3 - 2012-05-03 14:31:47 UTC
In the end the choice is yours...

None of us can really make that decision for you.
Aphoxema G
Khushakor Clan
#4 - 2012-05-03 14:33:43 UTC
Halete wrote:
Dear, that's entirely subjective.

Do you want to be a war machine or do you want to make a difference?


I want to defeat the Amarr. I guess both, then.

Zukes Bla'hati wrote:
In the end the choice is yours...

None of us can really make that decision for you.


I just don't know how I feel about this, as in, I don't know what I would tell someone else to do if they asked me for my advice.
Tiberious Thessalonia
True Slave Foundations
#5 - 2012-05-03 14:43:14 UTC
If I may, I would like to put forward a little bit of perspective for you.

At one point, you were simply Aphoxema G (or whatever name you chose/had given to you by parents, guardians, society, etc). You were not a capsuleer. Perhaps you were a starship pilot anyways! Perhaps you baked bread.

However, at some point, you elected, or were told, to get a series of implants along your spine, and a neural mesh attached to your brain. This series of implants led to you becoming an instantly reacting war machine. Because of this, you have more control over your ships than anyone has ever had before. You have become essentially unkillable as long as you remain within your pod, providing you with the incentive to remain a war machine. You have become rich and powerful enough to afford soft clones to provide you with insurance for those times you are killed outside of it.

Your very existance is due to someone enhancing your performance. If there was a line, it was not crossed by you using Exile Boosters, or what have you. You crossed it long before that was even an option.
Scherezad
Revenent Defence Corperation
Ishuk-Raata Enforcement Directive
#6 - 2012-05-03 14:43:47 UTC
We are not only entities, we are trajectories. Our identities are constantly changing from inputs - things we see and hear, and yes, also the food we eat changes the way we think. Some things we eat and drink, or have injected into us, are just much more effective at making those changes than others. Morality is not instilled in food or drugs, it's in us and our choices. This opinion isn't a popular one in the state, but it seems correct.

So, if boosters are a useful tool to arrive at your goal, and you've considered all of the implications of using them, there's no harm in it. It's all a question of choosing the person you want to become. Find the star you wish to orbit, and choose the fuel best suited to the course you've set.
Scherezad
Revenent Defence Corperation
Ishuk-Raata Enforcement Directive
#7 - 2012-05-03 14:48:27 UTC
Tiberious Thessalonia wrote:
If I may, I would like to put forward a little bit of perspective for you.

At one point, you were simply Aphoxema G (or whatever name you chose/had given to you by parents, guardians, society, etc). You were not a capsuleer. Perhaps you were a starship pilot anyways! Perhaps you baked bread.

However, at some point, you elected, or were told, to get a series of implants along your spine, and a neural mesh attached to your brain. This series of implants led to you becoming an instantly reacting war machine. Because of this, you have more control over your ships than anyone has ever had before. You have become essentially unkillable as long as you remain within your pod, providing you with the incentive to remain a war machine. You have become rich and powerful enough to afford soft clones to provide you with insurance for those times you are killed outside of it.

Your very existance is due to someone enhancing your performance. If there was a line, it was not crossed by you using Exile Boosters, or what have you. You crossed it long before that was even an option.


I agree with Tiberious here, and only want to add: choose the person you want to become very carefully. You are very powerful, for the reasons he states above. Even if you choose to not exercise that power, that is in and of itself a choice which only an immortal killing machine can make. It's what you are. It's what we all are. Many lives hang in the balance of your choices. Choose wisely.

No pressure :)
Aphoxema G
Khushakor Clan
#8 - 2012-05-03 14:50:03 UTC
Tiberious Thessalonia wrote:
Your very existance is due to someone enhancing your performance. If there was a line, it was not crossed by you using Exile Boosters, or what have you. You crossed it long before that was even an option.


That really is true, but I suppose I can draw a line now that I know where I'm at, at least in the foreseeable future.

Scherezad wrote:
We are not only entities, we are trajectories. Our identities are constantly changing from inputs - things we see and hear, and yes, also the food we eat changes the way we think. Some things we eat and drink, or have injected into us, are just much more effective at making those changes than others. Morality is not instilled in food or drugs, it's in us and our choices. This opinion isn't a popular one in the state, but it seems correct.

So, if boosters are a useful tool to arrive at your goal, and you've considered all of the implications of using them, there's no harm in it. It's all a question of choosing the person you want to become. Find the star you wish to orbit, and choose the fuel best suited to the course you've set.


I agree entirely, society's a bit of a bastard though. I have no doubt that someone is going to nail me on being a drug addict or unscrupulous for coming forward with this and the fact that I hesitated to talk about the matter is evidence enough that I care what other people think.

This is something I'll choose for myself, but for someone else, even for the sake of what others might feel, I'm still not so sure what I would recommend.
Halete
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#9 - 2012-05-03 14:59:54 UTC
Tiberious articulated many of my feelings beautifully.

"To know the true path, but yet, to never follow it. That is possibly the gravest sin" - The Scriptures, Book of Missions 13:21
Scherezad
Revenent Defence Corperation
Ishuk-Raata Enforcement Directive
#10 - 2012-05-03 15:11:23 UTC
I understand your worries all too well. Due to the events of my own life, I'm deeply mistrustful of my own conclusions, even my own senses. Both of them are simply too easily fooled. I'm sure that adding boosters and drugs into the mix could make one very unsure indeed.

I won't suggest a course to you, but I can at least let you know how I deal with my own doubts, to keep from being crippled. Firstly, be cautious. If you protect yourself and use some common sense you could easily have a lifespan measured in centuries or greater. The outside environment may suggest hurrying, and there are times when it's warranted, but you have no reason to consider a 50-year-wait for something to be a good timeline. Since you are dealing with the freedom of your people and their improvement of life, by all means, act as quickly as you can. But don't act rashly- you have time now. Stop. Think.

Secondly, STUDY. Others have tread this ground before, many of which were smarter than you or I. Learn from them. First on your list of things to study should be the human cognitive landscape. Find out the many varied and wonderful ways in which we humans can be wrong, how we get there, and how to keep from falling into those traps. Study math. Study poetry. Science, literature, art - these are your tools. Your body is replaceable, and may be swapped for a many-tonned warship on a whim. Your mind is the weapon that you must exercise. Arm it well.

Thirdly, and in my mind most importantly - gird yourself, and then expose yourself to ideas you dislike, ideas you think are wrong. Even those you think are evil. Taste them. There are an infinite number of ways to be wrong, and only one way to be right. Odds are great that your current beliefs are deeply wrong, as deeply wrong as those you disagree with. So, learn what it feels like to be wrong, from the inside. Learn the confidence, the calmness, and learn to identify that little blind spot that would otherwise be invisible. Become familiar with wrong arguments, so that you can identify those traits within yourself. This will require bravery, but I am confident that you will find it within you.

Rationality is your art, now. It should be the most important pursuit of humanity, but so many brush it aside, or think they've figured it out and leave it - they assume that they're being rational while not exploring deeply. Don't fall for that trap. Rationality is lightness, inquisitiveness, thoroughness and bravery. These are the traits I strive to embody, and they're the course I've chosen to set for myself.

I hope that this has been helpful. Best of luck in plotting your own course, and if you'd like to talk further, don't hesitate to write me a letter.
ValentinaDLM
SoE Roughriders
Electus Matari
#11 - 2012-05-03 15:19:16 UTC
Before i did combat where customs officers patrol regularly, I used to pop them like candy and i am fine. I still do them from time to time, but having to do them in the station so customs doesn't find out and having to smuggle them in makes them too expensive for everyday use. Sure there are legal ones but, where is the fun in that?
Ava Starfire
Khushakor Clan
#12 - 2012-05-03 16:06:23 UTC
I hear performance enhancers have done wonders for Rodj Blake's love life.

"There is no strength in numbers; have no such misconception." -Jayka Vofur, "Warfare in the North"
Jev North
Doomheim
#13 - 2012-05-03 16:11:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Jev North
Try not to let other people's opinions influence your own course too much. Public morality is little more than a brute attempt by others to impose a course of action on you. If someone feels particularly strongly about whether you should or shouldn't drop some Crash when you feel like it, they should bloody well bring a proper, rational argument - or some autocannons.

Don't bring yourself down, either. The edge Synths give isn't that big. I've a feeling your increased performance is less about the actual effects of the drug, and more about the level of commitment you've achieved to consider taking them in the first place.

Even though our love is cruel; even though our stars are crossed.
Makkal Hanaya
Revenent Defence Corperation
#14 - 2012-06-19 22:50:58 UTC
You can never sacrifice too much if you're doing it for the right reasons.

Sadly, no one agrees what the right reasons are.

Render unto Khanid the things which are Khanid's; and unto God the things that are God's.
Deceiver's Voice
Molok Subclade
#15 - 2012-06-19 23:53:17 UTC
These are not questions of morals but of ethics and identity.

Quote:
So what I hesitantly question is, at what point am I not just "eating better" to have a healthier mind and I'm just plain shoving things into me to change who I am so I can be the person I believe I want to be?

I think you just answered your own question. It shouldn't be too hard to tell the difference, non? That last part is confusing though. Do you want to be what you see yourself becoming?

Quote:
I'm obligated to be the best, to fight for my people, and I'll sacrifice my existence if that will be the thing that does the most good.

You choose to fulfill those obligations. You make the choice. If you are not willing to do what is necessary, why are you doing what you are doing?

Quote:
At what point am I sacrificing too much, though?

What are you not willing to sacrifice?

Are you a tool, or do you use tools to achieve an end of your choosing?

If you are uncertain of who or what you are now, how can you possibly make a choice to become something different?
Jev North
Doomheim
#16 - 2012-06-20 06:17:22 UTC
About half of everyone is very certain of what they are, occasionally try and change; but will forever remain bloated ******* gas bags.

Even though our love is cruel; even though our stars are crossed.
Rogue Integer
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#17 - 2012-06-20 13:29:18 UTC
So because you're concerned about what some set of people might think about your booster usage, you ask another set of people what they think about it, hoping for a different result?

If you believe that booster usage will, on balance, help you reach your goals, then use them. If you feel that, on balance, they will harm your goals, then don't. Everything else is frippery.
Aphoxema G
Khushakor Clan
#18 - 2012-06-20 18:26:46 UTC
Rogue Integer wrote:
So because you're concerned about what some set of people might think about your booster usage, you ask another set of people what they think about it, hoping for a different result?

If you believe that booster usage will, on balance, help you reach your goals, then use them. If you feel that, on balance, they will harm your goals, then don't. Everything else is frippery.


I'm not asking for permission. I just wanted to have a conversation that didn't involve who the best Amarr capsuleer of the year is or the scandal of some Gallentean nobody.
Rogue Integer
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#19 - 2012-06-20 21:33:00 UTC
On that point, I could not possibly agree more. Multiple threads on which nation is more damaging to humanity have me a little emotionally calloused right now.