Pod People Paternalism
The fourth film adaptation of Jack Finney’s 1955 novel Invasion of the Body Snatchers, this time with Nicole Kidman, is now out on dvd. It doesn’t seem to be anyone’s favorite, but it does re-raise an interesting thought experiment in paternalism. After all, in this movie "pod people" retain their memories and their new "culture" makes them happy, serene, cooperative, and peaceful. Their main crimes are:
a flatter emotional tone,
a foreign origin, and
converting others by force
But similar complaints apply to giving kids Ritalin, pushing upper class culture in the inner city, or pushing western culture in the third world. Now hard-line libertarians can consistently oppose using government power to purse such policies, even if they really benefit people. But what about the rest of you? Are happy people with the emotional range, peace, and productivity of a typical engineer really such a horror? From the view of non-libertarian pod people, doesn’t it make sense to force everyone else to convert?
Isn't the me of today an entirely different entity from the me of yesterday?
Also, check out this cartoon.
I think you are either deliberately or incidentally misinterpreting the choice here. The choice is not about being happy and unemotional vs being unhappy and emotional. The choice is about being an unhappy, emotional person and replacing that unhappy person with a completely different entity that happens to be happy, unemotional and retains your body and your memories. AFAIK, some of the more aggressive psychotropic medication treatments might cause drastic permanent personality changes and the movie would be a good allegory to such experiences, but I think comparing ADD medicines such as Ritalin with a complete obliteration of personality is a bit of a stretch. "Pushing" cultures example, is even more stretched, to make proper comparison we would have to "push" culture by exterminating entire population and repopulating with anglo-saxons.