Pleasure Effect

A long time ago, I read a novel called Ringworld by Larry Niven. In it, I vaguely remember that there was this two headed creature that looked a lot like an ostrich. I don’t remember exactly who did what to whom, but there was a scene in the book where there was an attempt to influence the creature by beaming pleasure at it. Every time it looked at this person, they had the mental ability to induce pleasure directly into the creature’s brain, and the person turned this up whenever the creature did something associated with the person. Very quickly, the person had complete control of the creature because they controlled its pleasure center.

I remember at the time thinking, how is this different than an addictive drug? It sure seems like a perfect description of addiction. When it gets down to it, turning pleasure on or off in a person would be the ultimate control. Besides taking drugs, or the other less chemically induced ways we produce pleasure, we already do this in a huge variety of ways. What I’m describing is no different than the effect a pretty woman sometimes has on the men around her. She throws some positive attention around and men on the receiving end will stumble all over themselves in order to experience some of it. I used to fantasize about having this kind of power when I was young. I had heard about the concept of a love potion or a spell, and thought that would be great to have that kind of power.

Wouldn't this also be an excellent way to retrain a person, or help them learn. The obvious use of the power would be to simply seduce someone, but think about what else could be done with such a power over other people. Of course, this kind of thing is used in less direct and more subtle ways all the time. People are always seeking to persuade people or sway the crowd.

I flipped the concept on its head and was thinking, which is better? to use this power on someone or have it used on you? If someone cast a spell on you to make you happy or in love - why would this necessarily be bad? It's looked upon as scary because you lose control, but if you're truly happy, what does it matter what the source is? If you can overlook the subversion of your free will, the result is pretty good. You may or may not have reached the state of loving or craving the other person without the spell, but my point is, maybe you would have eventually reached that state anyway. I suppose the true limit you would put on this fictional power is something akin to what I had heard about hypnosis. I heard that you could not be made to do something under hypnosis that you would not have done anyway. The hypnosis just lowers your inhibitions and removes your embarrassment so that you will do the things that you were already capable of in front of a crowd without embarrassment. I suppose it is similar when it comes to succumbing to your desires.

The obvious place people usually take the fantasy of complete control is to see someone enslaved by this pleasure control. Such a strange concept. On one hand, you are enslaved, with all the negative connotations of that word. You are not in control of yourself, you do not call the shots, you have to do what someone else tells you to do. On the other hand, you’re happy, so what difference does it make?

In normal circumstances, the pleasure is dampened and self-limited if the negative consequences to succumbing to the lure are larger than the pleasure you get from it. Of course, this is the downside of drug abuse and the nearly impossible condition to protect people from. The DARE program, which is designed to keep young people away from drugs, along with all the other anti-drug programs (as well as abstinence programs, for that matter) always seemed so fake to me. They fail to tell you the truth about sex and drugs or alcohol. The truth is that if you try this, you might love it so much that it will soon be the only thing you want to do. You can lose control of your own free will through your love or irresistible appeal of your addiction. No doubt most people reading this are thinking about the possibly fictional story about the lab rats that were given a bar they could depress in their cage that would deliver cocaine to them. The story goes that the rats would sit there and press the bar continuously until they died. They would not eat or sleep or groom themselves, they just took cocaine until it killed them.

We as a species, in fact, all life probably to some degree, are prone to this. Knowing this, it is probably best to avoid the things in life that you know you will not be able to resist unless they help you. If you could find a way to become addicted to exercise or eating right or reading and learning, wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing? I suppose it wouldn’t be too much to ask to open yourself to enjoy the pleasures of experiencing and getting to know someone. To have the attitude that each person is there to be appreciated so they can enrich your life would be an accomplishment that would surely lead straight to a mostly happy life.

I’ve often thought it would be great to be the person standing up in front of a classroom making the young minds in your charge feel pleasure in and find an addiction to learning things.

We’re subject to this pleasure effect, we might as well be aware of it and filter the effect to let in the positive addictions and resist the negative ones.