Consent is a concept that has been subject to a comical amount of neuroticism in modern western society. This concept is fundamentally an illusion, but illusory or no, it's nature has grave impacts on society, and must be understood thoroughly.
"Informed consent is an applied ethics principle that a person must have sufficient information and understanding before making decisions about accepting risk. Pertinent information may include risks and benefits of treatments, alternative treatments, the patient's role in treatment, and their right to refuse treatment. In most systems, healthcare providers have a legal and ethical responsibility to ensure that a patient's consent is informed. This principle applies more broadly than healthcare intervention, for example to conduct research, to disclose a person's medical information, or to participate in high risk sporting and recreational activities.
Within the United States, definitions of informed consent vary, and the standard required is generally determined by the state.1(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent#cite_note-1) As of 2016, nearly half of the states adopted a reasonable patient standard, in which the informed consent process is viewed from the patient's perspective.2(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent#cite_note-2) These standards in medical contexts are formalized in the requirement for decision-making capacity and professional determinations in these contexts have legal authority.3(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent#cite_note-3) This requirement can be summarized in brief to presently include the following conditions, all of which must be met in order for one to qualify as possessing decision-making capacity:
Choice, the ability to provide or evidence a decision.
Understanding, the capacity to apprehend the relevant facts pertaining to the decision at issue.
Appreciation, the ability of the patient to give informed consent with concern for, and belief in, the impact the relevant facts will have upon oneself.
Reasoning, the mental acuity to make the relevant inferences from, and mental manipulations of, the information appreciated and understood to apply to the decision at hand.4(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent#cite_note-4)
Impairments to reasoning and judgment that may preclude informed consent include intellectual or emotional immaturity, high levels of stress such as post-traumatic stress disorder or a severe intellectual disability, severe mental disorder, intoxication, severe sleep deprivation, dementia, or coma.
Obtaining informed consent is not always required. If an individual is considered unable to give informed consent, another person is generally authorized to give consent on the individual's behalf—for example, the parents or legal guardians of a child (though in this circumstance the child may be required to provide informed assent) and conservators for the mentally disordered. Alternatively, the doctrine of implied consent permits treatment in limited cases, for example when an unconscious person will die without immediate intervention. Cases in which an individual is provided insufficient information to form a reasoned decision raise serious ethical issues. When these issues occur, or are anticipated to occur, in a clinical trial, they are subject to review by an ethics committee or institutional review board.
Informed consent is codified in both national and international law. 'Free consent' is a cognate term in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted in 1966 by the United Nations, and intended to be in force by 23 March 1976.5(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent#cite_note-5) Article 7 of the covenant prohibits experiments conducted without the "free consent to medical or scientific experimentation" of the subject.6(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent#cite_note-junod05-6) As of September 2019, the covenant has 173 parties and six more signatories without ratification.7(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent#cite_note-reservations-7)"
From this excerpt we can learn the following:
Healthcare practitioners (and other people who apply this ethical principle) are required to ensure the person in question has "sufficient information and understanding" before undergoing an important decision.
The 4 main principles are conceptualized:
Choice, the ability to provide or evidence a decision.
Understanding, the capacity to apprehend the [relevant facts] pertaining to the decision at issue.
Appreciation, the ability of the patient to give informed consent with [concern for, and belief in, the impact the relevant facts will have upon oneself.]
Reasoning, the mental acuity to make [the relevant inferences from, and mental manipulations of, the information appreciated and understood to apply to the decision at hand.]
Impairments to reasoning and judgment that may preclude informed consent include intellectual or emotional immaturity, high levels of stress such as post-traumatic stress disorder or a severe intellectual disability, severe mental disorder, intoxication, severe sleep deprivation, dementia, or coma. (As imagined by the person requiring consent, to the best of their ability)
Obtaining informed consent is not always required(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent#Waiver_of_requirement). If an individual is considered unable to give informed consent, [another person is generally authorized to give consent on the individual's behalf]—for example, the parents or legal guardians of a child (though in this circumstance the child may be required to provide informed assent) and conservators for the mentally disordered. Alternatively, [the doctrine of [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_consent"]implied consent permits treatment in limited cases, for example when an unconscious person will die without immediate intervention]. Cases in which an individual is provided insufficient information to form a reasoned decision raise serious ethical issues. When these issues occur, or are anticipated to occur, in a clinical trial, they are subject to review by an ethics committee or institutional review board.
Let us examine this more closely. In human language, many words and ideas do not have a precise referent - the word points back, to some vague confluence of ideas, from which everyone is magically supposed to be in understanding of. This is, quite obviously, foolish. It is quite literally the definition of "psychological projection" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection), where one imagines that everybody else is the same as themselves, has the same kind of thoughts, worldview, etc. - and therefore can respond accurately to a vague concept of the speaker without ending up in a dreamworld. This is false for anything requiring intellectual precision.
This is contrasted with what I will call "Construction Site English". If one is familiar with blue collar work, or any kind of Earthy profession, one knows that "good enough" is the name of the game. Just get the point across, get the job done, do whatever you gotta do, well enough that nobody bitches and nothing goes catastrophically wrong. This is great for practical work, and suicide for intellectual work.
With that in mind, lets examine some of the terms in the above excerpts.
"sufficient information and understanding" (according to who?)
the capacity to apprehend the "relevant facts" (according to who?)
the ability of the patient to give informed consent with concern for, and belief in ({lol}), the impact the "relevant facts" will have upon oneself. (see above)
Reasoning, the mental acuity to make the "relevant inferences" from, and mental manipulations of, the information "appreciated and understood" to apply to the decision at hand. (same shit)
Impairments to reasoning and judgment that may preclude informed consent include "intellectual or emotional immaturity" ({hahahahahahahahaha}), high levels of stress (so, everyone?) such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD, along with all mental disorders, are literally defined as "level of [xyz emotion/thought process/personality trait/whatever] that "impairs your life" (according to some guy with a psychology degree)) or a severe intellectual disability (inability to perform xyz behaviors that society has deemed required for existence, regardless of whether one possesses immense talents in other areas), severe mental disorder (see above), intoxication (:3), severe sleep deprivation (severe meaning "not enough bro i swear"), dementia, or coma.
Anyway, you get the picture. All of these concepts point to one thing and one thing only: "some guy with a fancy degree and a bunch of medals and shit said so". Nothing more, nothing less. If medal man is wise, the system may operate well. If medal man makes mistakes, everybody goes along like lemmings, even as they hurtle off the metaphorical cliff. Medal man may be mostly wise. Medal man may be pure of intentions. But purity of intentions does not preclude one from error. And if a system has no method for correcting errors that occur at the top, it will eventually succumb to Izfet.
Now, we've addressed the technical definition of informed consent. The technical definition, however, as with most concepts, has very little to do with the Construction Site English definition of the word "consent", which exists as an output of the person in question's emotional state.
"consent", as commonly used, basically means "thing that I feel comfortable with happening". It is not judged against the ground. It is judged against ones own emotional state, projected onto the literal nothingburger "official definition", giving one the illusion of possessing a structural truth about reality when all they really possess is an emotion. All emotions are perfect - insofar as they are conceptualized as information about one's underlying psychology. All emotions are hopelessly imperfect - insofar as they are imagined as grand truths about the universe.
Put simply, in memetic form:
While it may be illusion, as implied above, the state of a persons idea of "violation" tells you an immense amount of information about their underlying emotional state. Things people feel violated by have practically no limit, as one can clearly witness in the very common "SJW" type of individual. Often times in our society, rape accusations are made a long time after the fact, sometimes due to the abysmal state of the justice system, social backlash against victims, etc - but other times because the woman recontextualizes the encounter as being "bad" in some manner, causing her to retroactively categorize it as a violation. One can observe the same behavior, everywhere one looks, whenever someone violates an implicit social norm, however large or small. Social norms are not taught. The extent of social rules and obligations that one is subject to would make Congress blush and flutter their eyelashes. But unlike Congress, there is no rulebook one is handed for "proper behavior". It is absorbed, by osmosis, from a million competing sources who all contradict each other and who all expect you to "just know". If one believes social rules to be an extension of morality, there is only one way possible to engage with the world without engaging in a "moral violation", which is to isolate yourself in increasingly narrow bubbles until you've finally found a specific enough subset of the population such that you can feel like you "know the rules" and can "obey the rules". This is closer to ossification than anything else, and of course, ossification is a myth. You grow, or you decay. In fact, you do both, as does everything else, constantly, unceasingly, and often beneath perception.
I have never much cared for social rules, and the brief durations where I have were nothing short of miserable. As a benefit, I can engage earnestly, with the entire world, without second guessing myself. I can talk to anyone, and i have earnestly interacted with a remarkably wide swath of the human population - potheads, meth heads, coke heads, homeless guys, medical professionals, tech professionals, construction workers, "schizos", "autists", waitstaff, random guys on the street, and various other types of individuals, from all levels of various implicit human status heirarchies. What I have found is that earnest engagement, without assumption, has led my life to become impossibly joyful and serene. Those who will be offended by your earnest existence, will be offended. Those who won't, will not. This is not a bug, it is a feature. It is the perfect filter for interacting with other humans. Why would you want people in your life who find your existence offensive? Why would you want to subordinate yourself to the prejudices of other, equally flawed, people? Live this way, and those who belong by your side will come. Those who don't, will stay far away from you, where they cannot waste your time, energy, and sanity.
