Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide • Hacker News Board

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#411

Post by jajko » Tue, Jul 02, 2024, 1:53 PM UTC

beAbU wrote: post #272

jrmg wrote: post #46

Artillery crew members who fired thousands of rounds in combat came home plagued by hallucinations and psychosis Could this problem also be affecting civilian gun enthusiasts? Or is the order of magnitude of the exposure just wildly lower compared to the military, even in the most enthusiastic?

I've been surrounded by guns most of my life, going out to the shooting range at least once a month, sometimes more. Range days are busy, with sometimes dozens of people shooting on the line at the same time. The range is open air. I have some hearing damage (which I actually think is from somewhere else - we've always been anal about protection). Other than that, no other issues to report with myself nor my family/f…

Its the back of the bullet that is vaporizing from the start from the explosion and hot gases (since it has very low melting/vaporizing point), and then second, smaller spike is when hitting hard surfaces and melting instantly into 100s of pieces (if you watch any slow-mo impact of a lead bullet they mostly don't vaporize, just melt and fly parallel to surface being hit).

There is safe ammunition these days, but it costs more. Swiss make their military ammo lead-free (they have cca same ammo as US/NATO but bullets are most effective with different barrel twist compared to NATO ones, I think 1:7 vs 1:10), but both can fire each other's rounds safely.

Safe ammo is essentially just back of the bullet covering lead core (if present at all), but for some reason most manufacturers don't do it by default. Some stuff doesn't have lead core at all, but then desired weight needs to be achieved via other substances and is priced accordingly.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#412

Post by stoltzmann » Tue, Jul 02, 2024, 1:53 PM UTC

2-3-7-43-1807 wrote: post #322

kragen wrote: post #217

> Much of what is categorized as post-traumatic stress disorder may actually be caused by repeated exposure to blasts. that is to say, it's actually shell shock? as in, actual physical shock from actual shells? george carlin would be so proud https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc the article also mentions that they'd all trained extensively in diving deep underwater, which is also known to cause brain damage, b…

> diving deep underwater, which is also known to cause brain damage never heard about that. can you back this up with a source or explanation?

I don't really have a source, but anecdotal evidence... Some of my commercial diver friends got really fucked up after a while of doing it.

One of my friends in particular had a saturation dive go really bad and he came back a completely different person. Like going from someone living the life to a complete wreck in one month.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#413

Post by hollerith » Tue, Jul 02, 2024, 1:55 PM UTC

jajko wrote: post #411

beAbU wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been surrounded by guns most of my life, going out to the shooting range at least once a month, sometimes more. Range days are busy, with sometimes dozens of people shooting on the line at the same time. The range is open air. I have some hearing damage (which I actually think is from somewhere else - we've always been anal about protection). Other than that, no other issues to report with myself nor my family/f…

Its the back of the bullet that is vaporizing from the start from the explosion and hot gases (since it has very low melting/vaporizing point), and then second, smaller spike is when hitting hard surfaces and melting instantly into 100s of pieces (if you watch any slow-mo impact of a lead bullet they mostly don't vaporize, just melt and fly parallel to surface being hit). There is safe ammunition these days, but it c…

>Swiss make their military ammo lead-free

The US military has been switching to lead-free ammo, too, starting about 10 years ago.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#414

Post by fullspectrumdev » Tue, Jul 02, 2024, 1:57 PM UTC

raffraffraff wrote: post #208

WalterBright wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine is now drafting old men.

I haven't checked their current age limit but I bet it makes me feel old.

Age limit is unchanged. You can only serve between ages of 18 and 60.

There’s a few anomalies where old dudes are sticking around voluntarily.

Also worth noting that a lot of the videos posted claiming to be “people being drafted” are actually videos of the police just arresting criminals…

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#415

Post by runjake » Tue, Jul 02, 2024, 1:58 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #377

kragen wrote: post #217

> Much of what is categorized as post-traumatic stress disorder may actually be caused by repeated exposure to blasts. that is to say, it's actually shell shock? as in, actual physical shock from actual shells? george carlin would be so proud https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc the article also mentions that they'd all trained extensively in diving deep underwater, which is also known to cause brain damage, b…

FWIW The standard rifles used by the US Military (M16 and it's variants/decedents) are fairly low power, low recoil, and quiet as rifles go. Of course I'm not doctor so maybe they are still enough to cause damage and like another poster pointed out, there are other weapons that soldiers use which are much more powerful.

The M16 platform has small projectiles, but there’s a lot of powder behind them.

They are pretty loud, more so if you’re to the left or, especially, right where the ejection port sits.

My guess for SEALs is the breaching charges play a big role. Carl Gustafs are notorious as well, but I don't know whether SEALs use them. US Army Special Forces do.

Edit: Yeah, I should clarify to say the M16 is more likely to cause hearing damage, but not brain damage. The concussive force isn't that bad.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#416

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 02, 2024, 1:59 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #410

2-3-7-43-1807 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, i read plenty about breathing techniques and training from various angles and also practice breath exercises where hyperventilation and breath holding play key roles. i never came across anybody claiming that holding your breath especially pre-fainting (which is essential when practicing apnoe diving - and btw you seem to confuse apnoe with sleep apnea?). to add something of substance - here is a study that doe…

i am specifically not talking about sleep apnea, which everyone already knows causes brain damage

[deleted]

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#417

Post by HoochTHX » Tue, Jul 02, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

jack_riminton wrote: post #404

A lot of special forces have been doing what we used to call "door kicking" in the last few wars. Lots of explosive breaches, firing weapons and throwing grenades indoors. I'm sure this is the main contributing factor. The percussive force of firing and explosives indoors is horrible and I say this as an ex artillery officer, so I'm used to chest-breaking bangs from firing big artillery guns

As a 13B1O that saw all three sides of this, loading/firing, driver for platoon leader, and while deployed with orders to act in the door-to-door fashion. You are correct. I will add that while operating the gun, the percussive forces are pretty well shielded on the inside of the at least motorized versions, was a paladin crew member here.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#418

Post by Invictus0 » Tue, Jul 02, 2024, 2:02 PM UTC

tokai wrote: post #370

Prisoners is another population where we would find pervasive brain damage if we scanned them.[0] In time I believe we will find that a ton of destructive/aggressive behavior is due to physical issues in the brain. [0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00406-013-0403-6

And then what? Do you kill/indefinitely confine the ones with brain lesions? Can you grant them parole in good conscience?

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#419

Post by somenameforme » Tue, Jul 02, 2024, 2:04 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #390

somenameforme wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a rather scathing study on it here. [1] In short the government's own internal investigations realized the obvious answer, a mass hysteria event, was the most likely culprit. But politics got involved and so then they classified reports mentioning this, and released reports suggestive of foreign adversaries attacking people with some mystery weapon, even though their own internal reports put the chances of…

Then there was this: "Unraveling Havana Syndrome: New evidence links the GRU's assassination Unit 29155 to mysterious attacks on U.S. officials and their families" https://theins.ru/en/politics/270425

Do you not realize when you're reading literal propaganda? This quote is but one section from there, which I clicked to because it had a silly heading - and it delivered.

---

A consensus has formed among the growing community of AHI sufferers that the U.S. government — and the CIA in particular — is hiding the full extent of what it knows about the source of Havana Syndrome. The victims offer two general hypotheses as to why. The first is that releasing the full intelligence around Russian involvement might be so shocking as to convince the American people and their representatives that Moscow has committed an act of war against the United States, thereby raising thorny questions as to how a nuclear power fond of showing off its hypersonic missiles ought to be made to pay.

---

Okay, so Russia is running around randomly attacking low level embassy workers, and the US knows this and is playing PR for Russia, because they're worried about US citizens viewing Russia negatively. I'm sure there's far more absurd mental gymnastics in there as well, as that was literally from the first section I clicked to. When we get out of this clown world era and back to something vaguely resembling normalcy, there's about a 100% chance that these "citizen investigative journalists" are mostly all going to end up having been little more than Operation Mockingbird 2.0. [1]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#420

Post by danaris » Tue, Jul 02, 2024, 2:08 PM UTC

jajko wrote: post #335

juliushuijnk wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes companies are rational actors.

Market forces, spread over long enough time, are usually a strong force of rationality. So on average, across long time, yes. At least according to the level of contemporary wisdom.

That assumes that there aren't strong psychological/cultural forces acting against rationality.

Like not wanting to hire non-white people.

Like not wanting to hire people who are "too old"/"too young" for the field.

Like not wanting to punish men who harass women.

Like not wanting to make sure that your employees are well-treated, satisfied with their jobs, and healthy enough mentally and physically to concentrate on the job regularly.

The idea that The Almighty Market will solve all problems and be perfectly rational is notably unsupported by evidence.