The Not-So-New Pleasure Killer Pills

Last night I started watching the movie Equilibrium on Netflix. Didn't get far because a storm knocked out our Internet. Basically the movie is about a society that has eliminated war by eliminating emotions. Through drugs, of course (specifically injections of the fictional Prozium.) Not just "bad" emotions such as anger or hate but also pleasure.

No art. No individualism. No strong reactions of any kind -- except, of course, the government going in and violently killing and disposing of those naughty non-conformists or "Sense Offenders" who refuse to self-medicate and manage to hide (temporarily) all manner of pleasurable materials and activities.

Then, this morning I ran across a recent article on Paracetamol, a drug that researchers have found is more than a pain killer. It kills pleasure. One researcher called it an "all-purpose emotion reliever." Perhaps the premise of Equilibrium is not so far-fetched. We are already a drugged society.

Previous research had shown that the pain-killer works not only on physical pain, but also on psychological pain. However the new study takes those results one step further by showing that it also reduces how much users actually feel positive emotions. Dr Baldwin Way, assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State added: “Most people probably aren’t aware of how their emotions may be impacted when they take paracetamol. “People who took acetaminophen didn’t feel the same highs or lows as did the people who took placebos.”

Paracetamol kills feelings of pleasure as well as pain (Article from The Telegraph, April 14, 2015)

Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out here for discussion. The fictional "Prozium" already exists. And most people take it voluntarily. In the US it's more commonly known as acetaminophen. I've never been a fan of Tylenol and such. Perhaps my subconscious was warning me. :-)


Somewhat related past ATS threads:

Doctor Jones Knows Alzheimers Disease Cause but is Targetted
Connection between asthma and paracetamol

For more on the movie:

Equilibrium (Wikipedia)

Equilibrium NOT a rip-off of the "Matrix" (ATS thread)

I have always avoided Tylenol because of the danger to your kidneys and other known side-effects. This is just one more reason to avoid this 'medicine' in the future. I really appreciate this post...very interesting.

a reply to: AhsoVaniva

This is exactly what the PTB have been doing the last 20 years with all the ADHD and ADD drugs. Numbing the society down slowly over time.


And before you say I am against these drugs....NOPE. Some people really do need them to survive. But it should be the last resort not first.

a reply to: Metallicus

It's the liver you have to worry about with Tylenol, it's fine with kidneys. Probably a small distinction for most people, but for someone with kidney disease it's quite the difference.

As far as the rest of the OP, it's a bit of hyperbole. It doesn't remove your emotions, it just (according to the study, which was a tiny sample size, by the way) lessens them.

Those who took the placebo rated their level of emotion relatively high, with an average score of 6.76, when they saw the most emotionally jarring photos of the malnourished child or the children with kittens.

People taking acetaminophen didn’t feel as much in either direction, reporting an average level of emotion of 5.85 when they saw the extreme photos.

So, a bit over 1 point of difference on the (I'm assuming) 1-10 scale. Not only is the sample size tiny (82 people), but how do they take into account that different people would rate things differently just normally? Someone may have rated the most emotionally jarring photos a 5 who may very well have rated it a 5 even without taking any pills. There's no way to tell.

If the sample size was, at minimum, 10 times what it was, then maybe they have something.

This hits at the very basis of human society. Everyone is alone, ie. even if you are married in your head you are alone. This is as it should be as we are individuals with the capacity to love, hate, be peaceful, be violent, obey the laws or break the laws, be a saint or be a sinner of the worsed sort.
THAT is what the authoroties hate about people. We are individuals with these capacities and it's these capacities that they try to control or eradicate with programing and drugs.
Yet it's these very same capacities that makes us human. The sense of adventure, the act of daring, even the act of thinking outside the box have bought humans to the state we are in now and it's the same capabilities that will take us to the stars.
If they reduce us to being peaceful and controlled we lose the impetus to make music, to create art, to invent things and to live life as we should live it. This would be a very, very bad move on their part and lead to stagnation (Ok a peaceful stagnation) and extinction as a species.

a reply to: AhsoVaniva

The New York Times dismissed Equilibrium for having heavily borrowed from Fahrenheit 451, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, and other science-fiction classics like THX-1138.

Although making a science-fiction movie...

...Hurt Wimmer intentionally avoided using futuristic technology that could become obsolete, and he also decided to set his story in an indeterminate future. The fascist architecture was chosen "to make the individual feel small and insignificant so the government seems more powerful"

"I wanted to create more of an alternate reality than get caught up in the gadgetry of science fiction," he explained. "In fact, there’s no technology in Equilibrium that doesn’t already exist. It’s more like a parallel universe, the perfect setting for a parable."

I like the film and any such film where the subject "false authority" is raised. It is a metaphor for the world we live in, and IMHO, one not far removed from our current state of affairs.

a reply to: AhsoVaniva

It would truly be the holy grail for social engineers.

Now I can't quote the study or give any links, which I will prob get a bollocking for, but I read there was also a link between taking paracetamol while pregnant and ADHD and autism. Sorry can't provide a link as on naff cell phone but as they say "just Google it"

Yes, but Equilibrium gave us GUN KATA!



In all seriousness, TPTB wouldn't want us to live in an overly emotionless society. Emotion threatens to decouple you from your rational mind and your ability to reason and realize when you're being lied to and misled. At most, TPTB would want to erase emotion in their own, not the masses. Emotional cattle are incapable of mounting a reasoned, well thought out response.

Just pay attention to how many election appeals are made based on emotion alone, not actual attention to the details or implications of policy.

a reply to: ketsuko

Martial arts with guns! I remember finding that on netflix years ago having never seen any ads for it, great movie.

I am not so sure about the emotion/emotionless control concept.

It is necessary for an emotional argument to begin the totalitarian socialist process/agenda but, once underway, it is appeals to emotionless "scientific" sacrifices for the "greater good" that drive social engineering.

This deserves more attention for sure.

a reply to: greencmp

Even that is an emotional appeal if you think about it. They aren't even using science itself, just the awesome idea of science and the emotions it evokes in this proud, grand vision of a brave new world society that you can be part of! It's designed to create a sense of nationalistic pride in you and make you feel all smart because it's all sciency and stuff.

You want to be part of the smartest, most sciency society in the room don't you?

originally posted by: AhsoVaniva


Paracetamol kills feelings of pleasure as well as pain (Article from The Telegraph, April 14, 2015)

Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out here for discussion. The fictional "Prozium" already exists. And most people take it voluntarily. In the US it's more commonly known as acetaminophen. I've never been a fan of Tylenol and such. Perhaps my subconscious was warning me. :-)


Somewhat related past ATS threads:

Doctor Jones Knows Alzheimers Disease Cause but is Targetted
Connection between asthma and paracetamol

For more on the movie:

Equilibrium (Wikipedia)

Equilibrium NOT a rip-off of the "Matrix" (ATS thread)

I saw this movie after adding it to my Queue a few years ago. It was definitely intriguing, even more so when you consider implications of medications in today's society and what Big Pharma may try and create, or use what is out there already. Would you take something to rid yourself of all emotion, if it stopped all wars? Or is the want of emotion so great that that the risk of war is worth the emotion?

I wish we didn't have as much conflict as we do. It seems every day it's popping up somewhere else, but to rid myself of happiness and joy would be too painful for me.

originally posted by: ketsuko
Yes, but Equilibrium gave us GUN KATA!

In all seriousness, TPTB wouldn't want us to live in an overly emotionless society. Emotion threatens to decouple you from your rational mind and your ability to reason and realize when you're being lied to and misled. At most, TPTB would want to erase emotion in their own, not the masses. Emotional cattle are incapable of mounting a reasoned, well thought out response.

Just pay attention to how many election appeals are made based on emotion alone, not actual attention to the details or implications of policy.

Very good answer. (So glad to see I'm not the only chick who loves action flicks! The more kick butt the better for me. I used to annoy my ex watching them. He was into Harry Potter and Twilight. It used to make me wonder who was the guy and who was the chick in our relationship. LOL)

Seems like a bit of a stretch. Maybe people are just fed up with pictures of kids playing with kittens.

Besides when people take paracetamol they are not feeling pleasurable things anyway. It isn't like people drop it to go to a party and then say "man I wish I hadn't dropped all the "P-mol" it just left me meh".

Um dulled emotions to the point they barely exist requiring extremes to get any real feeling is sociopathy.

More sociopaths is not something we need more of.

a reply to: ketsuko
I LUV the Gunkata! And always liked this movie...liked his kids in the end!

OTOH, some studies show that Tylenol can help a lot with PTSD issues. Odd as that might seem.

originally posted by: SmokeyDawn
a reply to: ketsuko
I LUV the Gunkata! And always liked this movie...liked his kids in the end!

It beats the hell out of Gymkata, which is easily among the 10 worst movies ever made.

One swallow does not a summer make (it's only one study, small sample size, questionable method).

But it's also a bit baffling.

Like all analgesics, paracetamol is a prostaglandin antagonist, and therefore has a mild anti-inflammatory effect (hardly a bad thing).

It also blocks the reuptake of a cannabinoid called anandamide, which is regarded as a euphoriant! This is thought to be the main analgesic mechanism of action.

Also, paracetamol has mild serotonergic activity (rather less so than your regular antidepressant, but essentially doing something similar).

All of this suggests quite a different conclusion than the one the researchers have come up with.

originally posted by: Bedlam
OTOH, some studies show that Tylenol can help a lot with PTSD issues. Odd as that might seem.

As someone with physical pain and PTSD, I can honestly say Tylenol does diddly for both. LOL As for PTSD, I find Cymbalta nightly, and Xanax when needed, more helpful.