Author Topic: EP112: The Giving Plague  (Read 51522 times)

Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #50 on: July 10, 2007, 03:20:38 PM
Eating chocolate excites my pleasure centre - so my tastebuds control me?  They force me to eat chocolate (or other junk food)?

If you really did feel like chocolate was controlling you, would you still want it?

I'm a caffeine addict.  I'm generally at work, where coffee plentiful, and at home I make myself yummy cappuccinos, but sometimes when we're out for the day, I don't get any coffee, and then a headache starts.  But then I get this weird stubbornness: I know that downing a big cup of joe will fix my headache, but I don't want any.  In fact, I will likely refuse to drink coffee and just live with the headache.  Why?  Because I don't want to feel controlled by coffee.  I want to drink coffee because I like it (which I do), and if I get to the place where I feel like I need it satisfy a craving, then the coffee isn't fun anymore.  I don't want that stupid bean to control me; I want to be the master!

If you feel like you are compelled to do something, then the pleasure in doing it suddenly diminishes, and you might even feel resentful.  People aren't happy unless they (at least feel like they) are acting of their own free will.  We can't stand being dominated.

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ClintMemo

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Reply #51 on: July 10, 2007, 03:45:45 PM
Eating chocolate excites my pleasure centre - so my tastebuds control me?  They force me to eat chocolate (or other junk food)?
  Because I don't want to feel controlled by coffee.  I want to drink coffee because I like it (which I do), and if I get to the place where I feel like I need it satisfy a craving, then the coffee isn't fun anymore.  I don't want that stupid bean to control me; I want to be the master!

...but in a sense, isn't the the caffeine still controlling you?
It is limiting you to a choice between more caffeine and having a headache.
What you describe is exactly the way the beginning of drug addiction feels as described to me in my psych class from 25 years ago - you start out taking the drug because it makes you feel good, but later you take the drug because it stops making you feel bad.

Life is a multiple choice test. Unfortunately, the answers are not provided.  You have to go and find them before picking the best one.


slic

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Reply #52 on: July 10, 2007, 03:51:16 PM
But then I get this weird stubbornness: I know that downing a big cup of joe will fix my headache, but I don't want any.  In fact, I will likely refuse to drink coffee and just live with the headache.  Why?  Because I don't want to feel controlled by coffee.  I want to drink coffee because I like it (which I do), and if I get to the place where I feel like I need it satisfy a craving, then the coffee isn't fun anymore.  I don't want that stupid bean to control me; I want to be the master!
Maybe it's just me, but that seems really weird.  If you like something and it hurts not doing it then it seems to be foolish not to do it.  I can understand wanting to avoid the addictive qualites of caffeine , however that's not exactly what you are doing, you enjoy drinking coffee.

If you feel like you are compelled to do something, then the pleasure in doing it suddenly diminishes, and you might even feel resentful.  People aren't happy unless they (at least feel like they) are acting of their own free will.  We can't stand being dominated.
I'm "forced" to play soccer when it's game time (this Thursday at 6pm).  I can't play on Wednesday morning or Thursday at 7:22pm.  And yet, I still really enjoy the game.
Same thing with a tournament,  I might have to play 3 games, and I may be feeling a bit sore and not be as excited by the third game, but I still enjoy it.

I do understand your gist in regards of the knee jerk reaction of people to suddenly not want to do something because someone or something else wishes/compels it.  But I see that as spite, and frankly, it's silly.



ClintMemo

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Reply #53 on: July 10, 2007, 04:01:28 PM
It may seem like a flaw that a virus could develop that would give people a compulsion to give blood and had I thought about it, I might have considered it a flaw. But, a few months ago, I saw a bit on the "Animal Planet" channel about an organism  that causes ants to act like zombies for a while and then climb out on to the end of a blade of grass and hang onto to it with their mandibles until they die.  The behavior enables to organism to reproduce but it is part of a cycle where it has to travel through two or three separate creatures to do this.

very weird

Life is a multiple choice test. Unfortunately, the answers are not provided.  You have to go and find them before picking the best one.


Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #54 on: July 10, 2007, 04:44:24 PM
I'm "forced" to play soccer when it's game time (this Thursday at 6pm).  I can't play on Wednesday morning or Thursday at 7:22pm.  And yet, I still really enjoy the game.
Same thing with a tournament,  I might have to play 3 games, and I may be feeling a bit sore and not be as excited by the third game, but I still enjoy it.

You are not forced to play soccer.  If you were, if there were men with guns who would shoot you for not playing, you would be a slave, and you would doubtless resent your condition.

You are in the league voluntarily and you play at certain times because it is necessary for the game you enjoy.  If you were compelled to play, you wouldn't want to anymore.

When there is no headache, I drink coffee for the pleasure it brings me, but when there is a headache, then I feel forced and so there is no longer any pleasure.

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Reply #55 on: July 10, 2007, 06:14:32 PM

We all have that warm little feeling after we help someone.  ALAS makes people addicted to this feeling.  The story said giving blood was just one of the things people did.  They were also more likely to help little old ladies cross the street. 

Not exactly - the story said quite explicitly that ALAS only made people addicted to giving blood, and that the other helpful things were done as a secondary effect;

::grumble grumble::  I went to his website and reread that part.  My bad.

The thick blood idea isn't a bad one though.  Lots of viruses have strange side effects.  Sometimes it helps the virus to spread and sometimes it doesn't.  Something that kills the host too quickly would be a non-helper.



darusha

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Reply #56 on: July 10, 2007, 07:18:28 PM
This was a great story.  Like Steve, I love an unreliable narrator, and found this to be a great example of the device.  My take on this story was, like some of the other posters, that the causation of general altruism from the desire to be bled or donate blood was a weakness.  However, that doesn't have to be the story's weakness, it could be an analytical error by Les which the narrator fails to correct. 

So, the narrator believes that ALAS causes people to act in an altruistic manner, and this belief causes him to take all kinds of actions to prevent a possible blood transfusion.  What a wonderful irony if that belief is unfounded and he ends up doing all these things for no reason.  He ends up controlled, at least indirectly, by ALAS after all.



eytanz

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Reply #57 on: July 10, 2007, 07:58:50 PM
It may seem like a flaw that a virus could develop that would give people a compulsion to give blood and had I thought about it, I might have considered it a flaw. But, a few months ago, I saw a bit on the "Animal Planet" channel about an organism  that causes ants to act like zombies for a while and then climb out on to the end of a blade of grass and hang onto to it with their mandibles until they die.  The behavior enables to organism to reproduce but it is part of a cycle where it has to travel through two or three separate creatures to do this.

very weird

Interesting. But is that behavior really unrelated to anything the ants ever do naturally? Or is it just taking a regular behavior out of context? I don't know, but I'll assume it's the latter. Say, that the ants usually grab grass as a way of bringing food to the nest, and the organism screws up with their ability to figure out that the grass can't be moved before it is cut.

My problem with the story isn't with the "desire to donate blood", it's with the causality - desire to donate leads to altruism. If it was the reverse - say, that ALAS made people more altruistic (by, say, invoking social instincts normally restricted to close relationships), and also made blood feel thicker if there wasn't occasional bloodletting. Each of these on its own is possible, and the result would be more blood donation. However, that switches the causality of what was implied in the story.

If you just had people who felt uncomfortable without the occasional bloodloss, you'd end up with more blood donations, but also more self-cutting and people with leech addictions and the like. The story didn't mention these at all - and if it was the case, then it couldn't work in the way the story described it, since "altruism arises as a rationalization for blood donation" won't work if the blood donors figure out that they share symptoms with self-mutilators.

My main gripe here, though, is not "this is implausible". I don't mind implausibility. It's that I figure that the story would work just as well if the causal relationship between altruism and blood donation were reversed, so the implausibility feels, to me, rather gratuitous. Which is annoying on its own, and even moreso because it makes me suspect that there's a motivation which I'm just missing, and I'd hate that to be the case.

(Note that for all the nitpicking I still feel this is a great story.)



7by12

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Reply #58 on: July 10, 2007, 08:48:03 PM
My problem with the story isn't with the "desire to donate blood", it's with the causality - desire to donate leads to altruism. If it was the reverse - say, that ALAS made people more altruistic (by, say, invoking social instincts normally restricted to close relationships), and also made blood feel thicker if there wasn't occasional bloodletting. Each of these on its own is possible, and the result would be more blood donation. However, that switches the causality of what was implied in the story.

My main gripe here, though, is not "this is implausible". I don't mind implausibility. It's that I figure that the story would work just as well if the causal relationship between altruism and blood donation were reversed, so the implausibility feels, to me, rather gratuitous. Which is annoying on its own, and even moreso because it makes me suspect that there's a motivation which I'm just missing, and I'd hate that to be the case.

(Note that for all the nitpicking I still feel this is a great story.)

I agree. I've decided, by way of my "reader's prerogative" that the virus did activate more than just a desire to give blood, and the narrator was unreliable at least in this respect. Being that he was aware of the virus and its vector, that's all that he saw. I don't buy at all that a compulsion to give blood (and I think we have to call it a compulsion because of the case study of the elderly man that was willing to break the law and lie in order to keep giving blood, something I wouldn't be willing to do for caffeine (thought don't ask me about nicotine)) would "naturally" lead to further altruism. If this were a natural law, someone responding to a local natural disaster would then expand their scope or altruism to the nation and beyond, and eventually there would be no nonprofit relief organization wanting for funds and volunteers.

It's fiction, and I like it, and I want to like it, so by personal fiat, the virus compelled all sorts of altruism, but our antihero was blind to the wider effect of ALAS. It can certainly be argued that he suffered from narcissistic tendencies in other areas. At least this helps me suspend disbelief enough to enjoy the story. Anyone else willing to accept this theory? With it, you can still go either way on whether or not the protagonist is unreliable in other areas, or antihero.



slic

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Reply #59 on: July 11, 2007, 02:23:03 AM
You are not forced to play soccer. ... If you were compelled to play, you wouldn't want to anymore.
Not true.  I have a sense of responsibility to my team. I may not really want to play that third game in the tourney, but I do want the team to advance.
That sense of responsibility can also be overridden, by other more immediate or important things - too much rain/lightning or the need to take my children to some other activity.



jahnke

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Reply #60 on: July 11, 2007, 04:52:23 AM
My point is along the lines that ALAS certainly was a contributing factor to people becoming more helpful to others, but it wasn't a mind-controlling virus making zombies of us all.  Imperatives can be ignored.

I think you are glossing over how subtle biology is. In the latest issue of National Geographic here is a great article on Swarm Behavior go read it... I can wait http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0707/feature5/.

Ok... See what I mean, there is an entire body of study called emergent behavior that says lots of things doing really simple things can give rise to really complex behavior. So it is very simple to extrapolate that something simple can subtly affect how you behave, just think about the biology of thought, how does it really work anyway? The point is at once you are infected how does one know if you are doing something because a virus is encouraging ou or because you want to do it. The only way to know for sure is to not have ALAS. The other bit that was glossed over but should resonate here is it is likely that there are carriers that are immune to the effects of ALAS. So they got transfusions and then went back to their depraved lives of rain forest thinin and baby seal clubbin. Just like real viruses there are folks who are immune to AIDs once they have HIV, or just like people who do not have addictive personalities who think that addicts should just "get over it already."

I did not see in my head that everyone that got ALAS became good, nor did I see that the virus was making them do good things. BUT the change was enough to encourage them to do good. And at that point what roles does free will play? I think you assume we would know we are being manipulated. But  we are made of biology, so when it breaks how do we know? I have met people who had dementia, their brains were broke and no amount of talking to them or insisting that it was not 1977 was going to make them think see that they were really living in 2007. They know it is 1977 just as I know it is 2007, and just as you cannot convince me it is really 1977 and you can't convinced them it isn't 1977. We are that dependent upon our biology and once is affected we really don't know it has happened.



ClintMemo

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Reply #61 on: July 11, 2007, 11:28:05 AM
It may seem like a flaw that a virus could develop that would give people a compulsion to give blood and had I thought about it, I might have considered it a flaw. But, a few months ago, I saw a bit on the "Animal Planet" channel about an organism  that causes ants to act like zombies for a while and then climb out on to the end of a blade of grass and hang onto to it with their mandibles until they die.  The behavior enables to organism to reproduce but it is part of a cycle where it has to travel through two or three separate creatures to do this.

very weird

Interesting. But is that behavior really unrelated to anything the ants ever do naturally? Or is it just taking a regular behavior out of context? I don't know, but I'll assume it's the latter. Say, that the ants usually grab grass as a way of bringing food to the nest, and the organism screws up with their ability to figure out that the grass can't be moved before it is cut.


I distinctly remember the little CGI they had of the ant on the blade of grass. It hung out there like a piece of fruit on the end of a branch - it's body hanging down while it's mandibles clung to the end of the blade of grass which was bent over from the weight.   IIRC, some larger herbivore came along and ate it along with the grass, then the organism ended up in the big animals digestive system, which it needed to pass through in order to reproduce (don't remember why), then it ended up in herbivore dung where some thing else took it that later got eaten by ants....

Life is a multiple choice test. Unfortunately, the answers are not provided.  You have to go and find them before picking the best one.


slic

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Reply #62 on: July 11, 2007, 12:01:31 PM
Thanks for the link, jahnke.  The idea that a large set of very small, clear instructions can result in complex behaviour itself isn't new.  I had read about Craig Reynolds "boids" back in University, lo these many years.

Quote from: janhke
I think you assume we would know we are being manipulated.
No, I don't.  Where my desire/enjoyment to play soccer comes from, I haven't clue (most likely it's the result of many small contibuting factors - oh there it is again).  My point was my very real ability to not go play.  Addictive behaviour is a different beast and I'm not going to tackle that here. 

As we already have a Predestination and Free Will thread, I'll wait for you to read through that and I'll reply to any posts you make there.



Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #63 on: July 11, 2007, 01:34:00 PM
It may seem like a flaw that a virus could develop that would give people a compulsion to give blood and had I thought about it, I might have considered it a flaw. But, a few months ago, I saw a bit on the "Animal Planet" channel about an organism  that causes ants to act like zombies for a while and then climb out on to the end of a blade of grass and hang onto to it with their mandibles until they die.  The behavior enables to organism to reproduce but it is part of a cycle where it has to travel through two or three separate creatures to do this.

very weird

Interesting. But is that behavior really unrelated to anything the ants ever do naturally? Or is it just taking a regular behavior out of context? I don't know, but I'll assume it's the latter. Say, that the ants usually grab grass as a way of bringing food to the nest, and the organism screws up with their ability to figure out that the grass can't be moved before it is cut.


I distinctly remember the little CGI they had of the ant on the blade of grass. It hung out there like a piece of fruit on the end of a branch - it's body hanging down while it's mandibles clung to the end of the blade of grass which was bent over from the weight.   IIRC, some larger herbivore came along and ate it along with the grass, then the organism ended up in the big animals digestive system, which it needed to pass through in order to reproduce (don't remember why), then it ended up in herbivore dung where some thing else took it that later got eaten by ants....

Goofy but relevant link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Plagas.  This particular parasite is fictitious, of course, but there are links to articles on a couple of real parasites about 2/3 of the way down the page.

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ClintMemo

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Reply #64 on: July 11, 2007, 05:19:48 PM

Goofy but relevant link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Plagas.  This particular parasite is fictitious, of course, but there are links to articles on a couple of real parasites about 2/3 of the way down the page.


Way Cool!
I'm almost positive that the first of the real organisms is the one I saw on Animal Planet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicrocoelium_dendriticum

Life is a multiple choice test. Unfortunately, the answers are not provided.  You have to go and find them before picking the best one.


eytanz

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Reply #65 on: July 11, 2007, 05:44:50 PM

Goofy but relevant link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Plagas.  This particular parasite is fictitious, of course, but there are links to articles on a couple of real parasites about 2/3 of the way down the page.


Way Cool!
I'm almost positive that the first of the real organisms is the one I saw on Animal Planet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicrocoelium_dendriticum


Oh, wow, that was interesting.

It's worth pointing out, though, that this parasite is a far more complex organism than a virus, and that the means of manipulating the ants are very different than anything a virus could do. While certainly a wonderful example of the complexity of parasite/host behavior, it is not evidence that a virus like ALAS could exist.



FNH

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Reply #66 on: July 11, 2007, 08:46:12 PM
For a story without Spaceships and Aliens, this was darn good!

« Last Edit: July 12, 2007, 06:14:54 PM by FNH »



jahnke

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Reply #67 on: July 12, 2007, 03:11:46 AM
Thanks for the link, jahnke.  The idea that a large set of very small, clear instructions can result in complex behaviour itself isn't new.  I had read about Craig Reynolds "boids" back in University, lo these many years.

Quote from: janhke
I think you assume we would know we are being manipulated.
No, I don't.  Where my desire/enjoyment to play soccer comes from, I haven't clue (most likely it's the result of many small contibuting factors - oh there it is again).  My point was my very real ability to not go play.  Addictive behaviour is a different beast and I'm not going to tackle that here. 

I think the problem is that your comparison is flawed. It isn't being altruistic vs playing soccer it is being altrusitic vs being physically active.



DanK

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Reply #68 on: July 13, 2007, 05:14:33 PM
I'm late to the party, but I'll post anyway.

First off, I loved this story as much or more than The Watching People and How Lonesome a Life Without Nerve Gas - meaning, I loved it a lot.  In regards to the whole determinism/free will thing, as it relates to the story; Slic said that hating the feeling of being controlled by coffee was both spiteful and silly.  I think that's a very good description of the narrator's "relationship" with ALAS.  At the end of the story, he acts altruistically, as ALAS would have directed him to.  But!  He also essentially chooses to die, by refusing treatment for the Mars virus.  He decides to be a good person, while also giving the metaphorical finger to ALAS and viruses in general.  The irrational, and in my opinion, very human, stand for individuality really made me love the main character.

Waaay back on page 1, 7by12 made some comments about good vs. evil and free will that I'd like to respond to.  I think part of the message of this story is that people do have a choice - the narrator was altruistic despite being uninfected by ALAS.  Which is a reassuringly positive message (though I personally don't believe in "good vs. evil").



Talia

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Reply #69 on: July 14, 2007, 01:36:20 AM
also late, but i just listened to this today and wanted to comment...

The very day this episode was posted I started getting sick, actually winding up on antibiotics. I'm still getting over it (and might need to go back to the doctor.. stubborn thing) :P

I required no blood transfusions however and feel no more altrustic than normal.. ;)

In regards to the story itself, I found the first half pretty dry, but it got better when the narrator started his murderous scheming. I donno. Not big on science-heavy sci-fi, personally - not a science person - so that first half didn't do much for me. I'm sure its wonderfully well-written for what it is. But what it is isn't really my genre.



7by12

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Reply #70 on: July 14, 2007, 02:59:02 AM
Waaay back on page 1, 7by12 made some comments about good vs. evil and free will that I'd like to respond to.  I think part of the message of this story is that people do have a choice - the narrator was altruistic despite being uninfected by ALAS.  Which is a reassuringly positive message (though I personally don't believe in "good vs. evil").

That was actually what I was trying to say. In an effort to not offend our excellent publisher, and in an effort not to appear too daft, my posts ended up a little convoluted. The way I took the "unreliable narrator" comment was that he didn't realize that an altruism virus was a good thing. Maybe I misunderstood that comment. My point was that this unsympathetic character fighting to maintain self will made him an anti-hero, or an unsympathetic hero, if we pick nits. I also thought his fight for autonomy "a reassuringly positive message." I don believe in "good vs. evil" either, at least not as two diametrically opposed forces. It was useful at the time for the point I was trying to figure out.

Anyway, I try (sometimes too hard) to make sure I'm not misunderstood. Please disagree with me if you want, but please don't misunderstand me.
« Last Edit: July 14, 2007, 03:01:28 AM by 7by12 »



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Reply #71 on: July 16, 2007, 05:56:02 AM
"That was actually what I was trying to say."

Oh.

Isn't human communication wonderful?  I wish I could pull it off more often.

I'm glad we agree.



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Reply #72 on: July 17, 2007, 10:26:31 AM
I liked the story very much. Character-based and hard-science-based at the same time. Lovely.

I was somewhat irritated by the lack of research the author did on the UK Blood Service and Health Service, though. I kept being knocked out of the story by the errors of fact.

You can't give blood within 12 weeks of your last donation. Existing donors can give until age 70. You'd have to be extremely foolish in the UK to get into debt due to medical costs.

And the big one - if you get a blood transfusion, you can't give blood.

I wish the story had been set somewhere that these nitpicking objections don't apply, for it was a good proposition, using blood donation as the vector, and altruism as the result. The cranky, amoral protagonist added another dimension.

Nice one, more like it please, (perhaps better researched).

Ally



eytanz

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Reply #73 on: July 17, 2007, 10:58:35 AM
Interesting points (and sort of useful for me to know, given that I'm a blood donor who's moving to the UK in a couple of months).

That said, I should point out that the possibility of medical debt was only brought up by the American narrator, and Les, the British doctor, quickly pointed out that that's implausible. All your other nitpicks seem to hold, though.

Oh, and I really doubt that there's anywhere in the Western world that allows someone who got a transfusion to donate blood, so that might have been a deliberate blurring or reality.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2007, 11:02:53 AM by eytanz »



Sullydog

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Reply #74 on: July 18, 2007, 04:56:24 AM
"Oh, and I really doubt that there's anywhere in the Western world that allows someone who got a transfusion to donate blood..."

But this is not so. People who have received blood in West Africa or the UK are not permitted to donate blood in the US, but the Red Cross permits donations from patients who receive blood after 12 months:

http://www.redcross.org/services/biomed/0,1082,0_557_,00.html#blotra