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Comment by wireprotocol | Hacker News Reader

Mostly a reasonable and interesting article. But when you talk about adding something psychoactive to the drinking water, it's just a horrible idea.

It doesn't matter if it's otherwise natural. Nature is inconsistent in dosages (so diverse perspectives can flourish) and doesn't have ulterior motives.

Maybe it brings down suicide rates, but what other effects does it have? Does it affect the likelihood of voting for a political party or cause? Does it affect the likelihood of political participation in general?

It's kind of like CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Higher levels will have some effect; we're basically arguing over the significance of it, what to do about it (if anything), and whether politicians can be trusted with the power to make those changes.

Similarly, mind-altering substances will affect aggregate political behavior. Once someone finds out how, they will use it to their advantage.

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> But when you talk about adding something psychoactive to the drinking water, it's just a horrible idea.

Should we remove trace amounts of lithium from water in areas where it's naturally occurring?

Exactly. If it's a bad idea to add any lithium to water (anywhere up to the FDA-approved safe levels), doesn't that imply it would be a good idea to control randomly-varying* lithium levels to even lower levels? See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversal_test

* lithium levels in drinking water change constantly, in part due to variations in rainfall in a region

No, I think you missed my point. Humans can't be trusted with the power to add mind-altering substances to the drinking water. Once someone figures out how to use it to their advantage, they will.

But won't those same people just exploit the naturally occuring trace lithium?

Or is it not about lithium but the principle of adding stuff to water?

Well, people will notice if concentrations change unless there is a real conspiracy. But if it's declared "good" to add something to water, it's much easier to manipulate the dosage.

I think you've hit on something very fundamental here. When the government has well targeted interventions that achieve specific goals, this can be a good thing.

But the cumulative effect of many social interventions can give the government excessive power. Even beside purely political concerns, I think we have to ask whether we prefer the random hand dealt by nature, to a hand carefully chosen by the government.

Nate Silver gives a talk [1] describing how we could design cities to make people less "racist". If this was possible, it would represent an overtly political manipulation of the populace. Chemicals probably can't have such target effects, but they still raise the question of what rights the government has to manipulate people's behavior.

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/nate_silver_on_race_and_politics

I'm not sure whether you can call it psychoactive. I think psychoactive substances have an immediate, noticeable effect. Especially at the doses suggested, lithium does not. What do you call psychoactive? Tomato sauce can make me happy, but it's not sensible to call it psychoactive. On the contrary, it is widely reported that lead plumbing causes higher crime levels, lower IQs, and all sorts of bad things. Should we then resign and say we should not mess with the "psychoactive properties" of our drinking water? No, most things in our society are already artificial and engineered to achieve certain ends. I don't see the point in being paranoid about affecting political behavior, first it's something which should first be established, second, people couldn't possibly get more apathetic than they already are.

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