Varieties of rational-irrational subjugation

A rational self subjugating an irrational self

Some people write advanced directives saying "If I am going to get dementia, euthanize me." This is a subjugation of a future irrational self to a past rational self. Whether it actually works is another question. It can lead to very amusing situations, as in this report:

It involves a dementia sufferer who had asked to be killed when the “time” was “right”, but when her doctor judged this to be the case, she resisted. The patient had to be drugged and restrained by her family before she finally submitted to the doctor’s fatal injection. The doctor who administered the dose – who has not been identified – has defended her actions by saying that she was fulfilling her patient’s request and that, since the patient was incompetent, her protests before her death were irrelevant. Whatever the legal merits of her argument, it hardly changes what must have been a scene of unutterable grimness.

Some people argue that people should not suicide because their future selves will thank them for that. The unspoken assumptions are: 

1. That suicide is irrational and lifelove is rational (I disagree).
2. That the future selves will be rational.

With those assumptions, this is a subjugation of a past irrational self by a future rational self.

A rational self subjugating a rational self

A key assumption in rationality is consistency, that is, past and future rational selves do not disagree. If I am rational today and tomorrow, then we should agree on all decisions that can be made using what I know today. With that assumption, there is no need for subjugation from or to the future self. This is why some people intuitively believe that if a society is full of rational people, then they should be able to move around in harmony, with every disagreement resolvable by sharing their knowledge. They assume that a rational society is consistent.

Assuming that, there can be no example of rational selves subjugating each other.

An irrational self subjugating an irrational self

Political history gives enough examples of that.

An irrational self subjugating a rational self

An irrational past self can subjugate a future rational self by destroying its options. 

In a game of chicken, you can win by throwing out the driving wheel. It's arguable whether this is rational. Indeed, if you are sure your opponent is cowardly, then throwing out the driving wheel is rational, as it assures you of victory. If you are not sure though, then it's irrational.

I've wanted to quit school, get into hard drugs. By destroying my future self's options, I hope to stop it from living on. Personally I think both lifelove and deathlove are beyond rationality, so it is neither rational nor irrational, but from normal understanding, this is irrational past self subjugating a rational future self.

Can a future irrational self subjugate a present rational self? It's hard to find uncontroversial examples. 

Perhaps imagine a society of intelligent cows who live with a strong sense of purpose: to die for human consumption. The first intelligent cows were made by humans with some genetic engineering that increases their intelligence. The intelligent cows was then implanted with deep brain stimulation devices that make them see humans as godly devourers. The cows learned to make the device themselves, so that they can perpetuate this religion on their own.

(It is not necessary to use brainstim device. Theoretically, mere words could work too. But from the history of religious technology, conversion by brainstim device is much more reliable than conversion by words, so for this thought experiment, I'll use brainstim device.)

The device is implanted when the cows were calves about 3 years old. From the viewpoint of a genius calf, this cow society could very well be a massive scheme for subjugating past rational selves (intelligent calves, without implant) by the future irrational selves (intelligent cows loving the implant device and humans).

In the eyes of an antireligious person, a religious society that strongly recommends a "leap of faith" would be such a subjugation from the future.

Some old people can see quite clearly that they would grow more demented over time, and as their bodies decay, they will dwindle to an annoying machine for suffering and producing incontinent waste, and yet tenaciously refusing euthanasia out of an irrational lifelove instinct. Yet they cannot write advanced directives for forcing that future self to die. This is a case of a future irrational self subjugating the past rational self.

But how to subjugate the past or the future without time travelling?

With agents on the ground, of course. A distant absentee landlord holds their estate by hiring a real estate company. A future self holds their past self in check by the social structures who carry out its wish. The past rational self writes a contract, a will, an advanced directive. The future rational self has less powers, but still substantial one, by anti-suicidal social institutions that save first and ask questions later.