You get to live a happy life and don’t care about all the horrible things happening all across the world. You wouldn’t feel terrible for children getting killed in a genocide half the globe away, every day. Blissful ignorance.
My response would be no. And I suppose most responses are gonna be no, but I also don’t think anyone who already doesn’t care would take a pill to start caring. That’s an interesting concept to me.
I’m sure that what me caring does to my mental state is far worse than however good is anything it does to anyone else. But by that logic, if everyone stopped caring, how would the world look like?
EDIT: It’s permanent. It doesn’t take away your emotions, it just stops you from caring about things like wars as long as they don’t directly affect you. Just like many people already have it.
Appearing to care is dangerous in this surveillance state. To avoid persecution, I register to vote with the current administration party. My main goal is to survive and ensure my dependent(s) are taken care of and have a future ahead.
If I could get my hands on that pill I would.
FUCKING OF COURSE…
People do that all the time now. Hell I suck down a liquid that does that now. It is called Whiskey.
Sometimes it’s more than I can take and I take time away from social media. And it’s not lack of caring, it’s just a weariness of feeling helpless. What can men do in the face of such reckless hate? But I can’t do it forever. Evil can’t be left to its own devices.
In my opinion the world is at this shitty state exactly because so many people just don’t care and turn a blind eye to so many injustices, awful things happening in the world. You can ignore the smell of smoke coming from the neighbour, but enough sitting around will just get your roof on fire, as well. Even if the fire avoids you, you could easily be the person burning inside while the neighbour is just “taking their pills”, not caring about the state of the world.
Had more people cared, we wouldn’t see the same atrocities as back in and around WW2, Fascist states and semi-dictatorships running wild without anyone stopping them, white men oppressing minorities, etc.
This question is explored in The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Delila Harris if you’re interested in a novel on the topic.
What do you mean? I already don’t care about the state of the world.
I’m not convinced this pill would be better than death. Empathy is a large part of what makes life worth living, IMO.
Those pills exist but they can’t be taken in moderation so governments prohibit them and doctors tightly prescribe them for limited periods of time.
I would force it on the hysterical right wingers who believe they need to impose their will on the world
Then people would actually be happy
I think you could also argue people like that ought to feel more empathy and understanding for the folks they impose their will on, right?
Some of these people are broken enough that they feel they are protecting “their own” by going on the attack against “the others”.
As long as they can still be led to believe somebody they don’t know is dangerous without evidence, then increasing empathy isn’t a solution by itself. You have to either force them to think twice, apply critical thinking, question sources and motives, demand evidence, etc, or else simply make them stop.
Better question, what would you do if you found out something in the food or water or air was causing everyone to not care about things?
Because I’m pretty sure there is something like that going on. Just as lead poisoning made a generation of people with more violent impulses and other problems, some widespread pollutants, that I am willing to bet are making us compliant.
You might have wanted to do something, if those contaminants had not already made you compliant. The damage could be permanent already too.
Once people stop caring its when things will start to get worse.
Freedom is only something you miss when it’s gone, and something you don’t appreciate when you have it.
These pills are called cyanide
Found the 18th century doctor.
Im just old fashioned…
Umm drugs ARE available
What you describe as “not feeling terrible” is what I would describe as “empathy”, aka what makes us humans. Our ability to feel emotions regarding what is not happening to us but to someone else.
There is no need to go seek trauma-like events to experiment empathy, no need to witness a war, a child suffering or something deeply unfair. It’s the same empathy that also makes us able to cry real tears when watching/reading a love story, and sincerely worry about what’s happening to a fictional character that is, by definition, not even a real person. That is the same empathy that makes us feel good when witnessing someone happy in front of us, even a perfect stranger (like this sweet couple sitting in front of me in the bus, yesterday), or feel happy when we see kids playing around on the street or in a park. The same empathy that makes us feel bad when we see those same people not being happy. And it’s the same empathy that makes feel like helping some random strangers that obviously needs help. To care about others, that’s what make us human beings.
So, would I take pills to stop being a human in order to not feel bad? No. At the very least because I know I would also not be able anymore to feel happy, as I would not be able to feel much anymore, if anything.
if everyone stopped caring, how would the world look like?
robot like. De-humanized. A billionaire’s dream I imagine. Even more so that they would make us pay for having access to those magical (?) pills.
Personal remark:
Ignoring real trauma here, just considering our emotional reactions to events happening around us. Imho, the real issue with bad/sad feelings is not in us feeling bad. The issue lies in not being educated to accept and to handle those kind of feelings as a legit part of ourselves. Exactly like so many of us now seem to have become incapable to handle any disagreement or contradictory fact, btw. It’s most likely the same issue.
No pill ever will replace education, or its absence.
No. I feel it is my duty to pay attention. To read the articles, to look at the faces of the murdered. Otherwise it’s like their misery was for nothing.
