Fear is so passe
November 17, 2005 7:31 PM   Subscribe

Scientists find fear gene; can an army of [literally] fearless soldiers be far away? (Plus some good things, too.)
posted by ryanhealy (40 comments total)
 
Would that really make for good soldiers?
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:34 PM on November 17, 2005


Where there is no fear there is no courage.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:44 PM on November 17, 2005


I think ryanhealy's point is more-than-a-bit tongue-in-cheek, but just in case:

Isn't fear a healthy response that would tend to prevent people from taking risks that would get them killed? A dead soldier isn't particularly useful to anyone.

Regardless, I think it's particularly interesting that therapies based on this gene prevent both innate and learned fears. I would assume it only works for particularly well on irrational fears; it doesn't make people stupid, right?
posted by JMOZ at 7:45 PM on November 17, 2005


Even tossing aside the moral and ethical considerations of creating such creatures, a fearless soldier would only be useful if their numbers were so great, and the cost of training them so little, that we could afford to simply throw them at the enemy.

Images of the Russian soldiers with too few guns, who would have all the guns at the front of the troop, and as each soldier with a gun fell, the soldier behind him would pick up that gun and keep on going, ad nauseum.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:51 PM on November 17, 2005


JMOZ: Thanks for picking up on the tounge-in-cheek. I'll make it more obvious next time.
posted by ryanhealy at 7:56 PM on November 17, 2005


"This is the first time it has been shown that the protein called stathmin -- the product of the stathmin gene -- is linked to fear conditioning pathways,"

Is it just me, or could this be used both ways?
posted by IronLizard at 8:08 PM on November 17, 2005


A dead soldier isn't particularly useful to anyone.

a fearless soldier would only be useful if their numbers were so great, and the cost of training them so little, that we could afford to simply throw them at the enemy.

I think they could be useful as shock troops. No need to have ALL your soldiers psycho nutcases, erm, fearless.

1st Mobile Martyrs Brigade, anyone?
posted by pompomtom at 8:10 PM on November 17, 2005


Imagine, if you will, an aerosol drug released in combination with a large screen, such as you might find in a movie theater. The ultimate scary movie? Or something far more sinister? Putting forth images that an unscrupulous puppet master would like individuals or even groups to instinctively fear.

This is one of humanities base emotions. The others may follow shortly. Anger, happiness, love and hate. Once the gene has been found, it's secrets lie open for use...or misuse.
posted by IronLizard at 8:15 PM on November 17, 2005


Imagine, if you will, an aerosol drug

Batman Begins allows to skip the hard work of imagining.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:21 PM on November 17, 2005


Oh yeah. I saw that, too. Didn't click. Well, there you have it, they're already doing it!
posted by IronLizard at 8:26 PM on November 17, 2005


Killbots!
posted by uncanny hengeman at 8:27 PM on November 17, 2005


(They call it the Army, but a more alarmist name would be The Killbot Factory)
posted by mowglisambo at 8:29 PM on November 17, 2005


You don't want a fearless soldier. Fear is useful. It gets your adrenaline pumping and can trigger a fight-or-flight response. Very important when 'flight' is actually the best option.

What you want is a soldier that knows fear well, becomes comfortable with it, and can be afraid while still accomplishing his or her mission. That's something that needs to be learned, and can't really be injected or grafted on.
posted by xthlc at 8:37 PM on November 17, 2005


We'll choke their rivers with our dead and scream for more!
posted by Balisong at 8:39 PM on November 17, 2005


Well, without fear, then they will just have to have adrenaline shots to keep up their reaction times, or maybe just something cheaper, but similar, rhymes with adrenaline, pick any variant.
posted by Oyéah at 8:57 PM on November 17, 2005


This story has only one ending:

Zombies.
posted by Jon-o at 9:09 PM on November 17, 2005



posted by Smedleyman at 9:27 PM on November 17, 2005


You can be taught to ignore pain. Your environment can affect pain. During World War II surgeons found that soldiers required much less morphine than civilian patients did. They attributed that difference to the differences in perception of either group. For civilians it's an unwelcome experience going to the hospital and they expect pain.
Soldiers in battle going to the hospital welcome it. It's a relief.

The physiology of pain is has been described by gate theory. In gate theory, two types of pain pathways are proposed. One type conducts the pain impulse quickly, the other slowly. They both come into a "gate." Usually we can't prevent the fast-acting pain from being detected. However, gate theory says that if the gate is stimulated, say by rubbing, then the slow-acting pathway will be closed.

So if you hit your thumb with a hammer by accident then you quickly rub your thumb you can close the slow-acting pathways, and not feel throbbing pain in your thumb later.

The opposite can also happen - pain can felt even when there is no stimulus, or it can be caused by a stimulus which is clearly not damaging. One example is neuropathic pain, which persists indefinitely, long after the injury which inititated it has healed.


Clearly - research - good things.

And we've all learned our lessons from Doctors Frankenstein and Moreau.
(For those of you not familiar with Marshall Law - the picture I posted - the comic tells the tale of men without pain or fear who committed horrible atrocities)

But I wonder if there is something analogus in the realm of fear to neuropathic pain.
And I wonder what horrors a person might experiance or inflict deprived - or relieved - of the need to cope with it.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:42 PM on November 17, 2005


Fear is good for ratings. Expect the major news outlets to be genetically engineering viewers in the near future.
posted by Eideteker at 9:55 PM on November 17, 2005


Any other mid '80s - early '90s movie clichés we should rehash in this thread? It'd be cool if the fearless soldiers could shoot laser from their eyes.
posted by ori at 9:58 PM on November 17, 2005


Okay... so... for those of us living with anxiety disorders... is there anything useful we can take away from this? I mean, I can't reconfigure my genes but maybe I should be trying to lower the amount of stathmin bouncing around in my blood stream. (God only knows how one might accomplish such a thing. Probably involves eating large quantities of brussel sprouts or something.)
posted by Clay201 at 10:58 PM on November 17, 2005


Who's Gene and why is he afraid of what the scientists found?
posted by dwordle at 11:13 PM on November 17, 2005


there are already FEARLESS SOLDIERS
posted by Hands of Manos at 11:52 PM on November 17, 2005


I think that soldiers probably need a bit of fear - it just has to be controlled.

Now, the group which would relish having fearless "warriors" are those who make use of suicide bombers...
posted by Chunder at 3:07 AM on November 18, 2005


"I will have no man in my boat who is not afraid of a whale."
posted by alumshubby at 5:18 AM on November 18, 2005


Mice instinctively avoid open spaces, but the stathmin-free mice showed no fear and often explored more open areas than normal mice, the researchers found.

Well, this is interesting because fear of open spaces is a big adaptive behavior for the rodent. It's good to be afraid of somewhere you're more likely to die! Translating to humans, this may be an example of the rational fear discussed above.
posted by gaspode at 6:57 AM on November 18, 2005


I wouldn't totally equate the lack of fear with the total disregard for death. I don't think it's quite black and white as that. Not having fear doesn't necessarily indicate soldiers would just run into a machine gun nest like a drone. I'd take 20 amphetamine driven and fearless soldiers for my army anyday.
posted by geoff. at 7:29 AM on November 18, 2005


Translating to humans, this may be an example of the rational fear discussed above.

Except we have free will where mice do not. We have consciousness and the ability to objectively evaluate a situation.
posted by geoff. at 7:30 AM on November 18, 2005


Paging Dr. Crane. Dr. Jonathan Crane, please pick up the white courtesy phone.
posted by Gamblor at 8:20 AM on November 18, 2005


Well I guess we can start breeding our own Jem'Hedar soliders to protect us.
posted by benjh at 9:27 AM on November 18, 2005


geoff. : "Except we have free will where mice do not.

How do you know this?

We have consciousness and the ability to objectively evaluate a situation."

So do mice, presumably.
posted by Gyan at 9:39 AM on November 18, 2005


Ph34r M3 1 4m r00t!!11 ... damn
posted by fenrir at 9:44 AM on November 18, 2005


Are you suggesting that mice have free will? Or are you suggesting we don't have free will? And that mice are sentient beings?
posted by geoff. at 10:07 AM on November 18, 2005


geoff. : "Are you suggesting that mice have free will?"

I'm suggesting that both mice and men have basically similar central nervous systems. We both have free will or we don't. Similarly, the current thinking is that mice are conscious as opposed to the earlier anthropocentric chauvinist attitudes.
posted by Gyan at 10:21 AM on November 18, 2005


Anthropocentric chauvistism? The strongest argument that exists for our free will is intersubjective truths, which may be inherently flawed but there exists no way to empirically verify non-empirical items. But beyond the debate of deteriminism why does having basic neurological structures convey a mouse having a consiousness? Especially when watching mice we see nothing we intuitively associate with beings of consiousness? I'm not debating a different, incredibly simplistic form internal mental processes might be at play, but at anywhere near the self-awareness and introspection that ours has is ridiculous.
posted by geoff. at 12:03 PM on November 18, 2005


geoff. : "The strongest argument that exists for our free will is intersubjective truths"

What's intersubjective truths?

geoff. : "But beyond the debate of deteriminism why does having basic neurological structures convey a mouse having a consiousness?"

I think we're working with different definitions of consciousness. I'm using 'the domain of mental events' i.e. sensory modalities like vision, audio, nociception and basic affects like fear.
posted by Gyan at 2:25 PM on November 18, 2005


Yes perhaps we are on two different points, to say that mice are nothing more than advanced is absurd - but I accept and believe they have to a certain extent what we would call fear.

On to intersubjective truths, that as we widely and universally believe ourselves to at least possess the ability of free will. I realize there are determinists and Calvinists who argue against free will at least understand what it means, giving rise to the notion that they understand free will and must to some extent possess it. I'd also point out that free will probably is something very rare and we a lot of lives being determined by outside influences, but the capacity for free will does exist. I realize recent game theory introduces the notion that we are simply tricked by the complexity of our environment into believing in free will, but the intersubjective evidence thus far points to free will existing to at least some capacity.
posted by geoff. at 3:57 PM on November 18, 2005


geoff. : "I'd also point out that free will probably is something very rare and we a lot of lives being determined by outside influences, but the capacity for free will does exist."

Define 'free will'. Belief is not a definitive indicator of existence of free will. 'Free will' is universally believed because we can't foresee the future, and we crave power and control. Talking of "outside" influences seems a relic of dualist thinking. All is matter & energy, including the brain, as per physicalism, which is the current scientific dogma.
posted by Gyan at 4:30 PM on November 18, 2005


Speaking of a war on drugs, go/no-go pills are already routine for pilots; Dexedrine's been used for over 30 years.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:27 PM on November 18, 2005


Yes your notion that this is a form of dualism is interesting, I had this all explained to me by a professor who used fancy rhetoric and when I brought up that it was dualism responded with an answer that satisified me. If he responds back I'll let you know, for I cannot counter your charge.
posted by geoff. at 10:28 AM on November 21, 2005


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