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Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

economist.com

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Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#181

Post by chillacy »

throwaway713 wrote: post #179
gboudrias wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, almost no one in NA justice systems talks about evil. The causality between life events leading to crime is often ridiculously clear, and choice barely factors into it. Believing in evil is its own kind of privilege. I for one have now seen a lot of criminal cases, and I've only seen sick people and people following the path laid before them. No evil in sight, but the concept's very existence allows fo…

> Believing in evil is its own kind of privilege. Tell that to holocaust survivors. If you want to redefine commonly used words like "evil" until they no longer have any sort of meaning, go ahead, but in that case you might as well accept a nihilistic existence as an automaton obeying the deterministic time evolution laws of physics. I feel like the rest of society will ignore you in that case, and that's probably fo…

Those prison guards found it all too easy to slip into their roles, it’s sadly a rare characteristic to resist and see the right and wrong. The majority go along with the currents. I’d like to think that I’m different but statistically I probably already engage in acts that future generations will consider evil, like eating farm raised animals or reaping the benefits of living in a first world country which invades and destabilizes weaker nations.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#182

Post by labster »

baumgarn wrote: post #126
test6554 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres always a choice, and choices have consequences. The kind of people who believe they had no choice are the worst because it shows a total lack of remorse for their selfish decisions. Phrases like “Look what YOU made me do” and “It’s societies fault” are warning signs that they learned nothing and you have a likely repeat offender on your hands.

people can learn, but only after the fact.

Books are magical devices which allow humans to bypass this part of their nature, 5 stars highly recommended

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#183

Post by jacksproit »

nafey wrote: post #97
frakr wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still choose to continue down that path, or to not seek healing. Maybe it would be difficult to make another choice, but impossible? I find that pretty hard to believe.

The will power required to exercise such a choice might also be inequitably distributed.

Ah, yes!

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#184

Post by theprotocol »

elhudy wrote: post #87
theprotocol wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't expect this level of attention at all. I hope it is appropriate for me to respond. - what positive effects did you get taking S. Boulardii ? Intestinal "well-being," feeling I can almost forget about my intestines, whereas normally my abdomen always hurts very badly, to the point my entire body is straining in reaction to it. This is only in combination with the other measures I took; S. Boulardii alone is i…

>I had to greatly limit harsh foods (acidic stuff like vinegar, or very salty foods) or else I'd get gastritis extremely quickly (confirmed on endoscopy). My scalp started to itch and lots of hair fell out in my crown area. I am better with dairy nowadays but still can't have sugar, and vinegar just destroys me (I guess because it is corrosive AND high in histamines). I also can barely eat acidic foods and have to av…

Indeed, but they are also very harsh and my digestive tract sensitive. Sometimes it's just that simple.

Also, vinegar is fermented and thus very high in histamines, on top of being corrosive.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#186

Post by colordrops »

neuralzen wrote: post #125
test6554 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres always a choice, and choices have consequences. The kind of people who believe they had no choice are the worst because it shows a total lack of remorse for their selfish decisions. Phrases like “Look what YOU made me do” and “It’s societies fault” are warning signs that they learned nothing and you have a likely repeat offender on your hands.

The problem to me is more an issue of repeat offenders not knowing what they dont know. They can't conceive of a better option, so they choose the option they understand, which is not usually a particularly helpful one, for themselves or others. We expect them to use better tools, but we dont help then find or make them, just punish them for using the wrong ones.

This thread is great. Very insightful comments about a topic not discussed nearly enough.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#187

Post by throwaway487551 »

throwaway487551 wrote: post #180

What kind of fucking bullshit is this? Autism is a spectrum of compensating behavioral patterns that emerge as the way to diminish unusually high emotional stress (which is also a spectrum) due to genetically transmitted "imbalances" in a brain's structure (and/or biochemistry). So, nowadays every kind of fucking bullshit deserve the label "working hypothesis" instead of "gross incompetence"? BTW, autistic spectrum d…

Yes, yes, SJW, Code Of Conduct, etc.

However, as one might observe, Mother Nature runs much more sophisticated and unbiased "natural experiments", so to speak. The as old as humanity strategy of quietly observing of what is often yield closer to reality results (better approximations, better hypothesis) than commercialized modeling based on wild disconnected from reality guesswork.

Of course, gut bacteria could affect behavioral patterns, but it by no means the cause, may be an amplifier (a factor) but not even a partial cause.

Anyone with an ounce of brain (which is used to be a prerequisite for a scientist) could see it clearly, just because autism is a human universal phenomena, while gut bacteria varies enormously from region to region.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#188

Post by theprotocol »

acover wrote: post #93
theprotocol wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I figured out that my problems were related to intestinal microflora because they became ten times worse after undergoing 3 courses of H. Pylori eradication therapy in the span of only a few months, and I never improved for years afterwards. That's the short version; in reality, I suffered for a decade and a half before I caught on that I could do something about it, and it took about 5 years after that to get any ki…

Do you think a survey of people with similar problems would have helped narrow down effective treatments? What about instead of sampling randomly selecting individuals to try a treatment? I'm often overwhelmed by the amount of information about options out there.

I think you'd have to reduce the problem set/space for that to be effective (which is a very similar concept to reducing how you define your state space in AI, if you're familiar with that). If the problem set has too many variables, I think it becomes too challenging to analyze.

My approach is to rely very heavily on heuristics in order to screen potential treatments. I wrote some steps describing how to do that elsewhere in this thread.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#189

Post by baddox »

CM30 wrote: post #150
theprotocol wrote: post #2

Without S. Boulardii, I am a neurotic mess who can't digest anything at all nor think straight after eating anything, so I'm inclined to believe this hypothesis. I am also intrigued about what this means for criminality and how the line between illness and evil is likely to shift given the role of microorganisms in behavioral dysfunction; and more broadly, we don't like to admit it, but it seems that completely amora…

> I am also intrigued about what this means for criminality and how the line between illness and evil is likely to shift given the role of microorganisms in behavioral dysfunction; and more broadly, we don't like to admit it, but it seems that completely amoral factors can be the cause of moral, amoral, or immoral behavior. That line is already in trouble because of genetics research, psychology research, etc showing…

Isn’t this only “trouble” if you think of legal penalties like imprisonment only as punishment for your choices? If you think about imprisonment differently, perhaps as a means to protect other people from future crimes, issues like gut biome and “free will” aren’t really relevant.

Re: Gut bacteria may offer a treatment for autism

#190

Post by theprotocol »

intralizee wrote: post #121
barrkel wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ideas of free will, consequences and deterrence; morality, punishment and justice; mental illness and life choice determinism; all exist in different planes, different parallel reasoning systems about the world - rational, moral, biological/sociological. You can make linkages between the different metaphors of explication, but mixing and matching is a recipe for inconsistency. Worse, if you think mostly in a diff…

I think the people who believe in free will can understand the notion of free will doesn't exist. They just have a problem with their ego and will not let go of the satisfaction the idea brings to them.

I'm not sure which discussion branch to reply to you on.

But I would like to put forth the argument that people get closer to gaining the required awareness that would make them free as time passes and they gain experience. This is similar to limits in math.

That is not to say that everyone moves in that direction at the same speed - that part is indeed out of one's hands. But it is undeniable that experience increases, and with it, awareness and thus freedom.

I don't think I believe this because of ego. I just think it happens to be true.

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