Here’s a recent idea I had: A tattoo that responds to blood alcohol content over a certain level (e.g. causing an itchy sensation in the skin, or releasing a small amount of something that causes nausea), making it difficult / anti-habit-forming to get drunk. I’m thinking this could solve the alcoholism problem, comprehensively, without discouraging moderate drinking or relying on willpower.
Another variant would rely on social pressure. Although that is less reliable, it could be safer or easier to implement than one that creates a physiological reaction. For this version, one would have a tattoo that is usually invisible, but becomes visible in the presence of high alcohol level. It could e.g. spell “drunk” across the person’s forehead.
Of course, such an invention is not quite on par with flush toilets. Not everyone gets drunk, and it is not infectious. Alcohol is not necessary for civilization. However, comprehensively eliminating alcohol overconsumption would be pretty darned helpful and would eliminate a lot of spillover costs of alcohol consumption, like drunk driving, spousal abuse, and so forth. Moreover, ethanol in excessive doses damages the liver, heart, and skin over time.
In addition to helping people who are alcoholics or at-risk directly, a side effect of such an invention is that people who do not drink due to perceived risk of alcoholism (or reluctance to expose oneself to such a risk) would be able to start drinking. This would probably have benefits that go beyond the extra hedons. Assuming it functions as a nootropic for social characteristics, it could lead to more people being better connected socially (i.e. having more close friends).
Incidentally, I don’t see a reason something along these lines could not have been developed 50+ years ago.
Reminds me an episode of radiolab you could be interested in :
from what I remember, they talked about a pill that was implanted into the patient and would dissolve and release its content in presence of alcohol in the blood. The chemical reaction would cause incredibly bad pain. The patients were given a foretest of the reaction pill and were told that the real reaction with the entire pill would be X times more painful and they might not survive.
can’t find the episode, but found an article which talks about it. Didn’t read it but it mentions the episode
I’d go for a tattoo in a discreet place that could tell me these things, if there were a bit of granularity to it—knowing how stressed you are us useful for learning how to be less stressed, and in general it’d be nice to have some diagnostics about my body easily at hand like that.
As to using them to stop people from doing things… on the one hand I see your point, on the other hand it seems like it’d be a big violation of privacy to require tattoos of that sort, especially if they were in an obvious location.
As to using them to stop people from doing things… on the one hand I see your point, on the other hand it seems like it’d be a big violation of privacy to require tattoos of that sort, especially if they were in an obvious location.
Well, sure, but that’s one of those cases where the difference between utopia and dystopia is consent.
Here’s a recent idea I had: A tattoo that responds to blood alcohol content over a certain level (e.g. causing an itchy sensation in the skin, or releasing a small amount of something that causes nausea), making it difficult / anti-habit-forming to get drunk. I’m thinking this could solve the alcoholism problem, comprehensively, without discouraging moderate drinking or relying on willpower.
Another variant would rely on social pressure. Although that is less reliable, it could be safer or easier to implement than one that creates a physiological reaction. For this version, one would have a tattoo that is usually invisible, but becomes visible in the presence of high alcohol level. It could e.g. spell “drunk” across the person’s forehead.
Of course, such an invention is not quite on par with flush toilets. Not everyone gets drunk, and it is not infectious. Alcohol is not necessary for civilization. However, comprehensively eliminating alcohol overconsumption would be pretty darned helpful and would eliminate a lot of spillover costs of alcohol consumption, like drunk driving, spousal abuse, and so forth. Moreover, ethanol in excessive doses damages the liver, heart, and skin over time.
In addition to helping people who are alcoholics or at-risk directly, a side effect of such an invention is that people who do not drink due to perceived risk of alcoholism (or reluctance to expose oneself to such a risk) would be able to start drinking. This would probably have benefits that go beyond the extra hedons. Assuming it functions as a nootropic for social characteristics, it could lead to more people being better connected socially (i.e. having more close friends).
Incidentally, I don’t see a reason something along these lines could not have been developed 50+ years ago.
Reminds me an episode of radiolab you could be interested in :
from what I remember, they talked about a pill that was implanted into the patient and would dissolve and release its content in presence of alcohol in the blood. The chemical reaction would cause incredibly bad pain. The patients were given a foretest of the reaction pill and were told that the real reaction with the entire pill would be X times more painful and they might not survive.
can’t find the episode, but found an article which talks about it. Didn’t read it but it mentions the episode
http://somatosphere.net/2011/give-me-fear.html/
Blood alcohol content, heck — how about blood sugar, or stress and fatigue hormones?
“You are too stressed to drive safely; it says so right on your wrist.”
I’d go for a tattoo in a discreet place that could tell me these things, if there were a bit of granularity to it—knowing how stressed you are us useful for learning how to be less stressed, and in general it’d be nice to have some diagnostics about my body easily at hand like that.
As to using them to stop people from doing things… on the one hand I see your point, on the other hand it seems like it’d be a big violation of privacy to require tattoos of that sort, especially if they were in an obvious location.
Well, sure, but that’s one of those cases where the difference between utopia and dystopia is consent.
“I’m too stressed to drive safely; my wrist is itching too much.”
Of course, we should let the example be something that it’s not crazy to let humans do at that tech level, instead of driving.