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Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
41–50 of 149 posts
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#42Forgive my votum separatum, but: > The biggest risk is that we just don't know what all the risks are. I think that's the biggest risk. I would call it "an opportunity". And as far as it is being done voluntarily, and there is a non-zero entry barrier, I am indebted to all those who (maybe) risk their health and lives for possible progress of science, medicine and technology. Compare it to extreme sports, where there…
Yes, but unless these experiments are done by pairs or groups, you are getting what is passed off as scientific results from someone who is experimenting on their own brain with a sample size of one and no control group. How do you trust the results from an experiment conducted on the experimenter's brain? What if the experimenter loses the capacity to properly conduct the experiment in the process? How would you kno…
A lot of great discoveries started from anecdotes.
(Or put in in another way: why don't we measure if the number of deers in Germany hair correlates with weather in Australia? Because they are even no anecdotes it does, or wild guesses why it might.)
Sure, a lot of self-reported self-tinkering may be qualified more like high-risk fun. Yet, people performing experiments on their own is not a new story.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#43Frustration comes from how slow and opaque research in this area is. I think their warning is very appropriate and timely. Having said that, I think a lot of benefit can be had from transparent research.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#44RadioLab's 9-Volt Nirvana episode discussed how DARPA uses tCDS to enhance sharp-shooting ability. At the end of the episode, the reporter conveyed a sense of loss when the tCDS system was no longer available to her. She sounded like a drug addict that pines for that feeling of their first high and then risks spending their life in vain trying to recover that feeling. If your life literally depends on a skill and sup…
A quote from the reporter's blog [0]: "When the nice neuroscientists put the electrodes on me, the thing that made the earth drop out from under my feet was that for the first time in my life, everything in my head finally shut the fuck up." I'll be honest, that is a pretty compelling testimonial for many folks. [0]: http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2012/02/09/better-living-th...
From that blog post:
And then, finally, the main question: what role does doubt and fear play in our lives if its eradication actually causes so many improvements? Do we make more ethical decisions when we listen to our inner voices of self-doubt or when we’re freed from them? If we all wore these caps, would the world be a better place?
That's a really interesting thought. Not so much "would the world be better", as there is a presumption present in that question that more rational decision making is necessarily better, but if tDCS works similar to how it did with her with other people, we might have a way to study rational decision making in groups in interesting ways.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#45RadioLab's 9-Volt Nirvana episode discussed how DARPA uses tCDS to enhance sharp-shooting ability. At the end of the episode, the reporter conveyed a sense of loss when the tCDS system was no longer available to her. She sounded like a drug addict that pines for that feeling of their first high and then risks spending their life in vain trying to recover that feeling. If your life literally depends on a skill and sup…
> ...then the risk may outweigh the reward
I think you mean the reward may outweigh the risk
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you point to any papers? I'm curious. A friend (actually not me) was just asking about them. He gets anxiety, and wanted to have them on hand in case of a severe attack. But he's wary of medications generally and is on the fence about taking them.
Beta blockers aren't great for sudden panic attacks. I took them for years, and while they're great for toning down the anxiety baseline, they don't even remotely approach benzos when it comes to mitigating severe panic. Sadly the only medications you can reasonably get out there that will address an incipient or in progress panic attack are benzos. There are other supplements/medications that are helpful (phenibut i…
Ah, interesting. I checked with my friend, and it turns out they had gotten mixed up. They were prescribed benzos, not beta blockers.
What made you stop taking them? My friend has been making good progress without them, but still gets some rough days. And what supplements/medicines do you use, apart from phenibut?
(To be clear, they've already spoken with a doctor, psychologist, consulted drugs.com listing of side effect, etc.)
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's one of the reasons I've stayed away from 'beta blocker' medications even though they're designed to tone down stage fright to a bare minimum. There are, from what I've read, potential side effects that can be rather severe. As in, some real unwelcome motor/cognition changes. That's enough cautionary literature to keep me away. Strangely enough though, I'm not anti-supplement (vitamins, PH stacks, etc) in the l…
> "That's one of the reasons I've stayed away from 'beta blocker' medications even though they're designed to tone down stage fright to a bare minimum." Just in case you're interested, bananas are meant to act as natural beta blockers (or more specifically, the potassium in bananas). I have no idea about how effective bananas are in reducing anxiety, but they might be worth a try.
Thank you very much for sharing! I believe I have a mild allergy to them (and avocado as well) but will pursue this experiment in the name of science. A banana rich, plain yogurt smoothie sounds like a good test.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#48RadioLab's 9-Volt Nirvana episode discussed how DARPA uses tCDS to enhance sharp-shooting ability. At the end of the episode, the reporter conveyed a sense of loss when the tCDS system was no longer available to her. She sounded like a drug addict that pines for that feeling of their first high and then risks spending their life in vain trying to recover that feeling. If your life literally depends on a skill and sup…
Larry Niven arguably predicted the existence of wireheads, although his wires ran directly to the brain's pleasure center.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole thing just reminds me about the radium water craze years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor https://67.media.tumblr.com/1899ba50f59df9c88dace35c13c2c1a7...
I watched a documentary on Netflix a while back that talked about the Radium health craze and carelessness. I think it was about the rise of investigative chemistry with regard to poisonings, etc. The radium portion was horrifying to think about.
As long as the mindset of "we're done hearing from experts!" is allowed to resurface again and again, we'll have this problem. See: Anti-vaccers, the insanity with radium, maybe even Bob Marley's toe cancer.
Re: Neuroscientists' Open Letter To DIY Brain Hackers
#50RadioLab's 9-Volt Nirvana episode discussed how DARPA uses tCDS to enhance sharp-shooting ability. At the end of the episode, the reporter conveyed a sense of loss when the tCDS system was no longer available to her. She sounded like a drug addict that pines for that feeling of their first high and then risks spending their life in vain trying to recover that feeling. If your life literally depends on a skill and sup…
> ...then the risk may outweigh the reward I think you mean the reward may outweigh the risk
Thanks. I just corrected that.