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GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

extremetech.com

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Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#61

Post by mistercow »

thwest wrote: post #41
mistercow wrote: post #14

> It’s not hard to see how tDCS could pose some ethical considerations, though. Only if you're primed by your culture to blanch at transhumanism. > What if some students can afford tDCS kits, but others can’t? What if some students can afford college, computers, calculators, tutoring, study guides, etc. but others can't? This is one of the silliest purported ethical issues I've ever seen, but it consistently gets con…

Some are primed to blanch at transhumanism; Some are primed to accept a class-based social hierarchy as simply mundane and not an ethical issue. Every new privilege granted to the top socioeconomic class is an appropriate opportunity to ask the question "why solve this problem instead of improving peoples' lives by tackling inequality?" The answer can be that one is simply working on what one is good at. However that…

I don't understand how you can look at a $90 kit and call it "a new privilege granted to the top socioeconomic class". It's not a $400 smartness pill or a million dollar brain upgrade. It's a reusable $90 device that increases the benefits of hard work.

I'd certainly expect that to have an impact on social inequality, but not in the direction of increasing it.

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#62

Post by georgieporgie »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #53
georgieporgie wrote: post #52

On the subject of ethics, I've been looking into Modafinil (Provigil, etc) lately. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's a drug which eliminates the cognitive effects of sleepiness. Its current approved use is for treatment of narcolepsy. The effects last for around eight hours, and the drug doesn't induce jitters or negatively impact decision making. Quoting off the top of my head, a military test showed sleep-deprived…

Based on the common programmer complaint of being on call/working very long hours, I think your conclusion is rather naive. Everyone doing it will just result in it being the expected behavior to get more work out of 8+ hours on the job.

Several issues:

1) How do we quantify the number of programmers subjected to these conditions? Squeaky wheels get noticed. Personally, I've had only a few stretches where I was expected to work more than around 40 hours per week. I've also had several stretches where I only worked less.

2) How do we compare what is still a very young field (computer programming) to other fields? How do we compare knowledge work with manufacturing? How many hours per week do you work compared to a textile manufacturing worker in the late 1800s? Did their productivity scale directly with hours? Does yours?

3) You simply don't have any reason other than pessimism to reach your conclusion.

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#63

Post by eagsalazar »

mattais wrote: post #25
eagsalazar wrote: post #21

Awesome that someone is doing this however I have to say the parts involved are only worth about $10 so $99 is a bit nuts. Someone should just post the plans and the parts list with instructions and anyone can build one of these safely in a couple hours.

Absolutely. Once the device has been tested to our satisfaction, a full schematic and parts list will be published for the solder junkies out there. Free of charge. The $99 kit is a solderless, and no tools necessary setup. - Matt @flowstateengage

That's awesome. Looking forward to seeing the result.

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#64

Post by phaker »

JonnieCache wrote: post #37
mistercow wrote: post #14

> It’s not hard to see how tDCS could pose some ethical considerations, though. Only if you're primed by your culture to blanch at transhumanism. > What if some students can afford tDCS kits, but others can’t? What if some students can afford college, computers, calculators, tutoring, study guides, etc. but others can't? This is one of the silliest purported ethical issues I've ever seen, but it consistently gets con…

>What if some students can afford college, computers, calculators, tutoring, study guides, etc. but others can't? Lots of people worry a great deal about these things as well, and would see tDCS as just another factor on that list, making the whole situation worse. It doesn't sound exactly expensive though, so the point is kind of moot.

Lots of people worry a great deal about these things as well

But they don't advocate delegalizing them either.

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#65

Post by phaker »

gwern wrote: post #44
njs12345 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This study (paywalled) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811910... shows learning increasing with an increase in applied current, at least — 'This relationship between current strength and learning as measured by change in performance with training was well predicted by a linear model of current strength (r = 0.437, p = 0.0015). This suggests that there was a strong relationship between the amount…

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5317066/2012-clark.pdf "TDCS guided using fMRI significantly accelerates learning to identify concealed objects"

A MRI machine is probably not included in the $99 kit. :)

I was skeptical that simple, unguided tDCS could have significant effects so I searched some more and found a very nice overview paper: http://www.aipass.org/files/TDCS_State%20of%20the%20art.pdf "Transcranial direct current stimulation: State of the art 2008"

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#66

Post by gwern »

mistercow wrote: post #14

> It’s not hard to see how tDCS could pose some ethical considerations, though. Only if you're primed by your culture to blanch at transhumanism. > What if some students can afford tDCS kits, but others can’t? What if some students can afford college, computers, calculators, tutoring, study guides, etc. but others can't? This is one of the silliest purported ethical issues I've ever seen, but it consistently gets con…

And it also ignores that a lot of these interventions seem to have U-shaped curves: the smartest benefit least. Iodization shifted averages up by like 13 IQ points - and did little or nothing for the smartest people since they didn't have iodine deficiency almost by definition. Modafinil, ritalin, or nootropics - all have similar results. This even holds true with the elderly, where interventions almost always report strikingly larger results than in young people at the peak of their intelligence.

To the extent that class issues genuinely match up, these interventions ought to be greeted, especially as this tDCS is cheaper than I remember my programmable TI-84 calculator in high school being!

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#67

Post by gwern »

georgieporgie wrote: post #60
dj_axl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beware, there is a 2 in 933 chance of developing a severe skin rash reaction, and the FDA has rejected modafinil for this reason. From Wikipedia: "The FDA advisory committee voted 12 to 1 against approval, citing concerns about a number of reported cases of skin rash reactions in a trial that included 933 patients on modafinil, including two severe cases which appeared to be "definite" erythema multiforme or Stevens–…

That was in a trial for ADHD treatment in adolescents. As a result, they don't advise the use of Modafinil in children. It is unclear to me whether the 933 studied were adolescents, and if so, whether or not a similar rate of rashes are seen in adults. The Wikipedia page also says: "From the date of initial marketing, December 1998, to January 30, 2007, FDA received six cases of severe cutaneous adverse reactions ass…

Those six cases cover somewhere upwards of 700,000 patient-years; the final estimate I found was that the risk roughly doubled from 3 SJS cases per million people to 6 cases per million people in modafinil users. (None were fatal, incidentally.)

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#68

Post by hrabago »

sp332 wrote: post #22
mistercow wrote: post #14

> It’s not hard to see how tDCS could pose some ethical considerations, though. Only if you're primed by your culture to blanch at transhumanism. > What if some students can afford tDCS kits, but others can’t? What if some students can afford college, computers, calculators, tutoring, study guides, etc. but others can't? This is one of the silliest purported ethical issues I've ever seen, but it consistently gets con…

Only if you're primed by your culture to blanch at transhumanism. I think they meant the stigma of "cheating" or somehow getting something without working for it. I think you're right though.

That doesn't sound like what this is, though. Someone is just in an optimum state for learning, but still has to learn the subject.

Re: GoFlow: a DIY tDCS brain-boosting kit

#70

Post by alexyoung »

wickedchicken wrote: post #24
scotch_drinker wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of appealing to authority, I have to assume that if DARPA is using it to train snipers, they know it works whether it's due to the tDCS or mental priming as mentioned below. Obviously, from a theoretical standpoint it's important to know why it's working but from a lifehacking/making better snipers/learning Perl/selling $99 tDCS kits standpoint, it doesn't matter how it works, only that it does.

> I have to assume that if DARPA is using it to train snipers, they know it works This keeps getting thrown around but I'm having a hard time identifying a good source (other than a bunch of blogs repeating the same 'fact'). The best I can do is this set of slides which claim 'a 2.1x improvement' [1], but no confirmation that it's actually in use. The brain is very poorly understood, and throwing random electrical fi…

I remember reading more detail on the snipers here:

Zap your brain into the zone: Fast track to pure focus http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328501.600-zap-your-...

Which references Experimental Brain Research, vol 213, p 9: http://www.mendeley.com/research/transcranial-direct-current...

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