Is Neurostim Becoming a Reality? 249
destinyland writes "There is a current mass market for 'cognitive enhancement' products — and arguments about the black market potential for neurostim. 'The same neurostim device that uses electric impulses from a brain implant to treat people with Parkinson's Disease can be tweaked by a few millimeters and pulse rates to make cocaine addicts feel like they are high all the time... Mix the glamour of surgical self-improvement with the geekiness of high-tech gadget fetishism and you have a niche cosmetic neurostim market waiting to be tapped...'"
"...the glamour of surgical self-improvement..." (Score:5, Insightful)
You are suggesting do-it-yourself brain surgery? I guess that would be "glamourous". If it works. And if it doesn't, it might win you a Darwin award.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Not DIY (Score:3, Insightful)
Who needs DIY when you could get your local Dr. Nick Riviera to do a little neurosurgery! Perma Coke high? I can see some rich folks paying to have that done.
Look at something like steroids. For professional athletes that have to go to the black market it's illegal. But if you're an actor that needs to bulk up for a movie you can get a doctor to create a roid regiment and prescription for you. Perfectly legal.
Re:"...the glamour of surgical self-improvement... (Score:5, Funny)
And if it doesn't, it might win you a Darwin award.
Or you might be a redneck.
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Dr. Nick: "I'll perform any operation for $129.95! Come in for brain surgery and receive a free Chinese finger trap!"
Re:"...the glamour of surgical self-improvement... (Score:4, Informative)
You mean like this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/651892.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Re:"...the glamour of surgical self-improvement... (Score:5, Funny)
Peter: Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole in your head. Remember that?
Egon: That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me.
Possibilities. . . (Score:2, Interesting)
Can I get one tweaked to give me a mind blowing orgasm every time I blink my eyes in rapid succession 10 times?
Re:Possibilities. . . (Score:5, Informative)
If I recall correctly, yes. There was some work on electrical stimulation on spinal injury patients, and one slightly wrong setting would give women orgasms. Oops. :) The doctor is selling the device, now named "Orgasmatron", for women who can't climax. Of course, it costs a fortune, but hey, for mind blowing orgasms on demand, some people would pay for it.
I've known some women who report similar results with a "TENS" unit. That's external stimulus, but the same idea. I have a TENS unit for my back, and it creates a pretty weird sensation. Well, unless you consider involuntary muscle movements normal. I don't know what the placement of the electrodes is, for an orgasm. I know what makes my back feel better though.
Re:Possibilities. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
There was some work on electrical stimulation on spinal injury patients, and one slightly wrong setting would give women orgasms. Oops.
I believe that there are a whole lot of people who would not consider this an "oops" by any means.
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Or a “wrong” setting.
Re:Possibilities. . . (Score:5, Funny)
I've known some women who report similar results with a "TENS" unit.
I'd like my orgasmatron to go up to "ELEVENS" personally.
Re:Possibilities. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Obligatory xkcd [xkcd.com].
Re:Possibilities. . . (Score:4, Funny)
You would realize that TENS units are for wimps. You'll want a cattle prod.
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Predicted by the Strugatsky brothers (Score:5, Interesting)
The name of the science fiction book [amazon.com] in Russian would translate as something like "Predating things of the times". I don't think, an English translation is available (yet?), although plenty of their other books have already been translated [amazon.com].
(Benevolent) secret police investigate strange goings-on in a leisurely resort town. They discover a very simple to make device is capable of giving a very strong pleasure — endlessly (until the user is interrupted, or the body starves and dies, or — on very rare occasions — the user's own will prevails). The town's attitudes toward the device and its users, as well as similar (but not as all-encompassing) devices are examined...
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Admittedly far from expert, I still don't believe, there currently exist drugs giving "exact same" effect as the device described in the book. Nor can they exist even in theory, I think, because all chemicals have to be delivered indirectly (through blood) and thus will always a) have side-effects; and b) wear out. Their wearing out means, the user would have to "wake up" to replenish, thus giving him a chance to come to his
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The brain is just a giant chemical machine in and of itself.
And eventually the cells being stimulated are going to fatigue and no longer be able to respond to the stimulus. Granted, this possibly could/would happen far later than the equivalent reaction to a drug induced version, but it's an inevitable result of our 'design'.
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Uhm, the nerves carry electrical impulses. Even if hormones are often released for various things, the sense of pleasure is, probably, a result of the electrical signals aligning just right (even if, in turn, caused by the right mixture of hormones and other chemicals).
The points were: a) there is no drug, that can currently do this to a human
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the sense of pleasure is, probably, a result of the electrical signals aligning just right (even if, in turn, caused by the right mixture of hormones and other chemicals).
So is the sense of hearing, but you’ll quickly grow used to familiar noises to the point where they no longer register consciously. (Similar phenomena are exhibited by the senses of sight, taste, and smell, although in these cases the acclimation may also be due in part to the senses not registering the stimuli consistently over time.)
Just because the same neurons are being stimulated in the same way doesn’t mean the rest of the brain, or your conscious mind, will continue to react or perceive t
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Electricity isn't a magic genie, if you shove a live wire into the wood of your computer desk, it suddenly doesn't start thinking. The ability to carry and act upon those electrical impulses in your head is maintained by the chemicals within and between your brain cells. It is a chemical reaction. And as such, consumes chemicals and requires constant replenishment.
In fact, most of the time, if you've become desensitized to a chemical (for instance caffeine), what has happened is that the receptors responsib
Re:Predicted by the Strugatsky brothers (Score:4, Interesting)
Again, your brain is one vast chemical machine. ANYTHING you experience, ANYTHING, is the result of a chemical process occurring in your brain. The same defenses that 'work' (and honestly, if they really worked, drugs wouldn't) for drugs are going to work for an embedded stim.
The SOLE point of the electrical signals flowing in your brain is to convey signals between it's parts. All a stim can do is 'hijack' the channel and send it's own signals. At least with drugs, the chemicals introduced do some of the heavy lifting for you by mimicking the hormones naturally present in your body. All a stim is going to be able to do is induce your own glands to produce what they can.
Second Trivia Fact: I've read (don't ask why) a few AgSci studies that have shown that while a dairy cow can be milked year round, you have a higher output if you milk them for a set number of months, then let them lay 'fallow' for a number of months before starting back up again. The reason for this is the mammary gland can not cope with constant usage. It has to have time to 'rest and recharge' in order to be at it's top production level.
The same thing that happens with a mammary gland occurs with the glands that are responsible for the hormones that run your brain. Only unlike the mammary gland, something 'designed' for high volume use, they aren't going to last months at max level output. They are going to last at most days.
More importantly, unless this stim is omnipresent in your brain (i.e. a nanomachine within each cell) it's going to be located in a specific portion of you head. And unless it's tuned to a far better degree than we have the ability to tune to today, it's going to be sending out a signal that is far of 'spec' for what your brain cells are used to receiving. Eventually, you are going to burn out those cells and create 'scar tissue' around the stim. Especially if you are attempting to do a 'eternal nothingness' deal where the dial is set to '11' for 24/7.
Yes, the book describe (which I haven't read) sounds as if presents an interesting sociological look, but it does so in the same sense that Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics did, not by creating something that could realistically happen but by investigating how life would be IF it were possible.
Re:Predicted by the Strugatsky brothers (Score:5, Insightful)
However, BETWEEN neurons the communication is completely chemical. Neurotransmitters are released from one neuron and travel across the synapse between it and the neighboring cell, possibly triggering an impulse in the next neuron. A sense of pleasure is achieved by certain neurotransmitters (primarily seratonin, dopamine and endorphins) being released in certain concentrations from certain neurons, which in turn triggers a related pattern of impulses in the neighboring neuron, which causes that neuron to release neurotransmitters in a particular way... and so on and so on. So while, yes, there is a sort-of kind-of analogy to an electrical current, the actual mechanism is nowhere near the kind of electrical current we have in a wire or microprocessor, but it is the easiest way to model the communication. The processing, however, occurs largely at the synapse, and that processing is "driven" to achieve equilibrium (the physical functioning of the brain, and actions taken by a person to chance the functioning of their own brain can work at cross purposes, such as in a drug addict. This is not a contradiction... the mind and brain are distinct entities.)
More to the point, the neurons surrounding those activated by the pleasure spike would soon add more receptors. Larger numbers of receptors means a larger amount of neurotransmitter would have to be released into the synapse to effect an impulse. Eventually the brain would operate normally only when the spike is active. The practical upshot to this is that a stronger and stronger signal would have to be sent through the spike to achieve the desired high. Eventually the user will get to a point where the levels needed to cause a high would damage neurons, preventing return to even the "functioning addict" mode. The user would then become chronically depressed, as this is the state pretty much defined by inadequate serotonergic, noradrenergic, and dopaminergic activity. It would require long term abstinence from the pleasure spike for the receptors to re-regulate to the point where normal pre-usage thought patterns can occur (I would assume 3-9 months, as this is the time-frame in which nicatonin receptors re-regulate after tobacco cessation.) Once spike addiction is broken and neural receptors return to normal levels, it would again be possible to get high from a spike, but it may have to be positioned in a slightly different place and effect different neurons if the original signaling neurons were damaged to the point of causing permanent lesions or scarring. However, the neuroreceptors would adapt much more rapidly to the presence of the pleasure signals, so the initial high would be much shorter and the return to a "functioning addict" state would be very quick indeed. A spike user would end up "chasing the dragon." They would never be able to return to the pleasurable state of their first high. Partially because their brains have rewired to be prepared for the action, partially because that first high wasn't as immediately pleasurable as they thought. One of the effects of dopamine release is that memories of related events are given rose tinted glasses... the memory of the event is happier than the event itself. Therefore, a user never actually experienced as much pleasure as they remember.
My name is Louis Wu (Score:5, Funny)
And can I have my droud back, please?
Thanks
--
BMO
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http://wireheading.com/wirehead.html [wireheading.com]
Stimpacks... hmmm (Score:3, Funny)
I'll be able to move faster, do more damage, and take more damage, all at a small cost of my health?
Fire it up!
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I'll be able to move faster, do more damage, and take more damage, all at a small cost of my health?
Fire it up!
Tsssss* aaah.
Man that brings back memories.
Normal State (Score:5, Interesting)
If something is special, doing it all the time detracts from its appeal.
Re:Normal State (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that would tend to be the case for chemical stimulation, but when it comes to other means of stimulation, matters of tolerance and resistance are different. For example, when applying electric potential to cause muscular contractions, they happen every single time. And barring tissue damage, the effect never goes away or decreases.
When chemical balances are at play, the tendency to move to balance at "center" is normal. This is not such a thing.
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Pleasure is nothing so simple as "tickle this nerve and you feel good". It is a complex cascade of reactions. Electrical stimulation will induce tolerance as the rest of the brain will eventually compensate for the area under stimulus.
Your analogy regarding muscle stimulation is overly simplistic as muscle firing is much closer* to simple commands traveling linearly down a telephone wire, whereas pleasure and other complex sensations/emotions/functions are highly involved interactions between many many ne
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I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but you can't define away a real phenomenon. That only works in philosophy journals. There, anything goes. Heck, prove space is Euclidean if you want, no one will call you on it until the physicists hear about it!
The way neurostim works is that it excites the brain activity that goes on when you take a sufficient dose of cocaine, whatever that happens to be. The phenomenon of "getting used to it" arises because, for whatever reason (such as chemical toleran
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We see that in real life, all around us. A brother in law finally died after decades of being drunk. He was only sober on a very rare occasion. Abusing that liver finally paid off though. They didn't even consider giving him another liver, because he would have pickled the new one in short order. Ehhh.
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Addicts aren't looking for a "special state". They already are in the phase you describe. They want to get out of the "low state" that ordinary reality has become. It's like hunger or thirst.
Major problem... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Major problem... (Score:4, Informative)
(usually of the clubbing type)...
???
I know people on slashdot don't get out much, but presuming that everyone who does are mindless zombies is a bit much, don't you think?
Normal State of Ubermentality. (Score:2, Interesting)
The real high (Score:2)
would be just feeling motivated, happy and loved all the time. That's the areas of the brain to stim.
Hell, could end most crime.
Re:The real high (Score:4, Insightful)
Or make for happily motivated super criminals with a sense of entitlement because they think everyone loves them.
Wireheading a reality? (Score:2)
I'm skeptical (as usual), but if true, bring it on, Larry Niven style.
Now our addictive types get toasted on wall current instead of having to steal and carjack their way to their next fix? That seems like a step forward to me.
Legalize it so we don't get a load of back-street ecstasy peddlers giving everyone deep bone infections.
And then treat it as a public health issue, and let those susceptible to its lure breed themselves out of the population. It's just evolution in action.
Re:Wireheading a reality? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I suspect periodic brain surgery (electrodes in the brain don't work forever) would be far more expensive than buying your drug of choice at its free market value. Actually, it would probably be more expensive than buying your drug of choice at it's existing market value as well.
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If it's like deep brain stimulation (DBS) that already exists today, the electrodes aren't the component that needs replacing. At least, I've never read anything that suggests they wear out. It's the batteries in the electric pulse generator that need to be replaced. In time, perhaps they'll find a way to make that an external component somehow. If they could perfect the initial surgery to make it affordable, why wouldn't people do it? People are willing to pay thousands out of pocket to have the surfa
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Hm, I'm curious: how much would a continuous supply of life-sustaining IV and the electricity to run one of these neurostim things cost, per year?
Screw making me happy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Screw making me happy (Score:4, Informative)
You might want to look into serotonin enhancers.
Re:Screw making me happy (Score:5, Funny)
Starcraft Stimpack (Score:2)
Here's the sound from the game [youtube.com]
Did the definition of glamour change? (Score:5, Funny)
Mix the glamour of surgical self-improvement
Yeah, until they find your body. Then it has all the "glamor" of autoerotic asphyxiation.
suicidal (Score:2, Insightful)
More Complete BS From h+ (Score:3, Informative)
Let's just start with part of the headline material:
" 'The same neurostim device that uses electric impulses from a brain implant to treat people with Parkinson's Disease can be tweaked by a few millimeters and pulse rates to make cocaine addicts feel like they are high all the time..."
This (and TFA) is from "James Kent is the former publisher of Psychedelic Illuminations and Trip Magazine. He currently edits DoseNation.com, a drug blog featuring news, humor and commentary."
Hardly your neuroscience expert, or even much of an educated amateur. Educated enough to be dangerous to his own reputation perhaps. We can hope.
Where Mr. Kent goes wrong is in thinking the stimulator used for Parky's can stimulate other parts of the same structure (within a "few millimeters), the Substantia Nigra, which produced dopamine which is also released in cocaine use, and that this is the reward center, so that doing so makes one feel high.
The common misconception is based on the "reward" aspect, and confusion of cause and effect with respect to drug use. The reward system operates in the manner of conditioning or learning, in that its output helps to produce the association between a behavior and a reinforcer. Let's just assume for maximum illustration that the reinforcer here is a cocaine high. We have the drug taking behavior, and we have the cocaine high resulting. The dopamine system puts on the brakes with respect to ongoing seeking/investigating and lets the organism maintain focused attention on the object that produced the positive feeling -- it makes reinforcement possible. Note that it does not cause the high, the reinforcer does that. There are many reinforcers that can make learning occur, and most of them do not cause any sort of high. Just because cocaine causes a release of dopamine does not mean this is the source of the high. No, this is the source of the powerful reinforcement that causes addiction to start. Dopamine does not act as a "reward", it allows a reinforcer to do so effectively regardless of any psychotropic effects. It is the cascade of various neurotransmitters that causes the high. Evidence of this is found in the effect of pramipexole (Mirapex) on people. It is a selective dopaminergic and does not cause any high. But it does (at a high enough dosage) cause obsessive/compulsive use and behaviors much as an addiction and related activities.
Moving a Parky's stimulator will not produce a high, but it might produce the problems related to addiction.
I've previously pointed out the lack of facts in h+ articles, and the preponderance of fiction. This article starts out with the latter. Check the rest of it for yourself to see if there are any reliable facts actually taken from known science, or whether they are other common misconceptions put to service to fill white space.
As for cognitive enhancing drugs, amphetamines and such are behavior boosters, not capable of producing long term cognitive enhancement, unless by enhancement one means seeking more of the same. Cognitive enhancing drugs (nootropics) have been around for over 50 years. The first, hydergine, is the red headed step child of the man who called LSD "My Problem Child", Albert Hoffman. There are many such drugs in use throughout the world except for the US where they are allowed only in the cases where they will not help -- severe progressive dementia. In contract with the very lucrative drugs typically used as congitive enhancers, nootropics have very little side effects or interactions.
In the cases where cognitiion enhancement is possible, anything related to intoxication is contraindicated and counterproductive. Confusing "reward" with getting high, when it is intended only to related to learning reinforcement is key to understanding this. It is also key to determining whether the source is intent on getting smart or getting high, because the latter refuse to give up on the misconception.
Basement Psychologists (Score:2)
This needs to solve other mental problems (Score:2)
like mental illnesses like schizoaffective disorder (which I suffer from), schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses that can be disability. Such a device can control brain chemistry by providing the brain with the proper signals to release chemicals to counter the chemical imbalances that cause these mental problems and mental illnesses.
I would volunteer for neurostim testing, as I suffer from schizoaffective disorder and it has caused disability and career killing. Just to see if it would help others with
Tek War (Score:2)
Get ready with your mod points: (Score:2)
Here goes:
*SUCESS* patch applied sucessfully, so far it seems stable but mayfb &^ng asdhg fsdHkuj ldSfhdj jhll hfhjfds jb ê
Aye Aye (Score:5, Funny)
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Sinead O'Connor was actually writing about trying to install Gentoo when she wrote that song: "It's been seven hours and fifteen days..." I think the song title is "Nothing Compiles To You".
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doesn't have anything better to do than getting doped up and hanging out and talking with their friends for hours about nothing.
We've already got Slashdot for that.
Re:New drug for the morons (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about anyone else but every person I know who uses drugs on a regular basis is a complete moron
You, of course, include caffeine in those drugs.
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Wait now - you can bash all the drugs in the world, but MY DRUGS are sacred. Lay off the nicotine and caffeine, and we'll get along just fine.
Besides - isn't coffee where vitamin C comes from?
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I don't know about anyone else but every person I know who uses drugs on a regular basis is a complete moron
You, of course, include caffeine in those drugs.
Right, because caffeine and meth are pretty much the same thing. Those coffee drinkers, man. They'll shank you for a hot cuppa joe. You gotta watch your back around them.
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YAAAY! YOU GOT THE POINT!!!!
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Caffeine
Theobromine (in Chocolate, with lesser amounts in Cola nuts and Acai berries)
L-Theanine (particularly in green tea).
And compositionally enhanced direct electro-magnetic stimulation of one of the brain's most developed centers (the visual cortex).
Wheeee!!!
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You don't know about the functional one
Opiate even if it completely nullify one emotional life can leave you pretty functional
I used to get high all the time at work using snorted hydromorphone and I used to get raised and perk
Now that I am sober I look like an hippy and I am not a productive member of society
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Re:New drug for the morons (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about that. I was a teenager in the 70s when it was almost socially acceptable among people under 30 to smoke pot. I've known plenty of people who indulge fairly regularly (say on the order of once a week or even a bit more) who probably weren't much different than if they'd never used at all. It's dangerous to make such generalizations as "dope makes you a dope", because practically no generalization of that sort is *always* true. Often they can be true enough to be worth paying attention to without being *usually* true.
I've also seen the other side, the people who effectively rewired their brains and lives around dope. It's very easy to do, because so much of what we as animals do is avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. As *humans*, we are driven by something more as well: dissatisfaction. The Pali word "dukka" which is often translated when discussion Buddhism as "suffering" might better be translated as "dissatisfaction". Most of the "suffering" in our life is not grand enough to be called "suffering". It's a niggling, persistent dissatisfaction with the things we thought would make us happy. The very low intellectual standards of people who are stoned are a consequence of easy satisfaction. They laugh at jokes that aren't funny because their standards of funny are low. They don't mind physical squalor because they are beyond dissatisfaction.
It's a funny thing; pain, pleasure and dissatisfaction drive us as individuals, but they aren't there for *our* benefit. They improve us as a *species*. We may wish to subscribe to a philosophy of ethical egoism, but we're still constructed neurologically so the quality of our subjective experience serves the species. Surely it would be to our benefit to live a life devoid of pain and full of pleasure and satisfaction. Any counter argument to this is bound to rest on the benefit to society or to the species, not to us as individuals.
It is conceivable that we could, in a sense, take charge of our lives, truly live them for ourselves, by using biomedical technology to control pain, pleasure, and over time even *dissatisfaction*. But I doubt in such a world read books. Why would we?
When you see a book, you anticipate the pleasure of reading it. Why bother reading it if you can get pleasure at the push of a button? Oh, at first you would make a distinction between "earned" and "unearned" pleasure, but one day you'd be a little tired and instead of picking up the book you'll push the happy button, and sooner or later you'll be going for the happy button because you won't tolerate the effort of reading. In fact it's a kind of intellectual lust that drives us to read, isn't it? And lust is kind of a pleasurable pain; a deficit we imagine in ourselves that is pleasant to fill; an itch that we scratch. If we can eliminate the itch and get the pleasure of scratching, we won't be any kind of lust, physical or intellectual, because we won't accept any kind of discomfort.
I remember working on the early Arpanet, and the amazement of seeing text from a computer appear, printed line by line on a printing terminal. The equivalent of a Slashdot article and its comments would probably have taken fifteen or twenty minutes to "load", but to *us* this was information traveling at amazing rates. Now we consider *any* perceivable delay as intolerable; there is no sensation of speed, only of varying degrees of slowness.
People adjust their feeling of what is pleasurable and satisfactory to what they experience on a day to day basis. Read about how people lived a few centuries ago. YetI suspect people were just as happy or unhappy as they are now, even though the conditions they lived in -- even the aristocrats -- were miserable by modern standards. Our modern threshold of suffering is extremely low; of satisfaction extremely high. When we can control suffering and satisfaction biomedically, the process will not only have reached its logical limit, human life as we know it will cease to be, because that life is organized around the imperatives to seek elusive pleasure, to elude inevitable pain, and to suage unavoidable dissatisfaction.
Re:New drug for the morons (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about anyone else but every person I know who uses drugs on a regular basis is a complete moron and doesn't have anything better to do than getting doped up and hanging out and talking with their friends for hours about nothing.
Most people you know who you say "do drugs" are probably doing pot, which yeah, is not very conducive to doing much productive in most fields anyway. Caffine is the most widely used stimulant, so I'd argue that most of the people you know are people who do mild stimulants.
It's worth pointing out that according to one poll 20% of our scientists [wired.com] already take "brain enhancing drugs," like ritalin. From personal experience I can tell you at least 20% of graduate students in the sciences and many more senior scientists do recreational drugs too, That portion that uses recreational drugs doesn't completely overlap with the portion that use brain enhancing drugs, and neither are the least productive portions of scientists.
So that's probably why we're stuck in the stone age, our scientists are too busy being morons and getting high. Or maybe you just don't really know what you're talking about.
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Completely agree with this. A large percentage of college students do smoke pot on a regular basis - this very much includes kids at MIT or Ivy League schools and I'm sure it's not just the failing students that are doing it. I don't think people who do recreational drugs are necessarily "complete morons".
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You never know who might be using stimulants (amphetamines, methamphetamine, methylphenidate, modafinil) - all are available with prescription, and with the probable exception of methamphetamine, are stocked in most pharmacies.
MMJ (Score:2, Insightful)
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Aside from the doped up part, this describes almost every non geek I know. Oh boy, hours of talking about the weather, american idol and gossiping about the neighbors!
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Yeah, all those stupid potheads. They can only ASPIRE to sit on their ass and post to slashdot. You, however, have truly have conquered life, and anyone who chooses another route certainly must be a moron.
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I don't know about anyone else but every person I know who uses drugs on a regular basis is a complete moron and doesn't have anything better to do than getting doped up and hanging out and talking with their friends for hours about nothing. I fail to see how this will be useful for anyone else because I doubt you would want to sit around and read a novel while you are high whether its from drugs or some brain simulation. Now won't you kids get off my lawn so I can sit here peacefully and read a book on my vacation.
Do you live in the bible belt, perchance? Maybe that's why you equate drugs with "doped up". As others have pointed out, caffeine is a very widely used stimulant and unless you're a Mormon (or was it Jehovah's Witness?) you likely partake of it as well. There are drugs that give you razor-sharp concentration. It's the same stuff that your body naturally produces, the only difference is that most peoples' bodies aren't consistently producing them. Would you want to read a book if you took concentration-
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Even if cocaine and other drugs were completely harmless, their ability to give serious but unearned pleasure would seriously warrant their banning.
And who are you to say what does and what doesn’t constitute legitimately “earning” a form of pleasure that someone chooses to experience?
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Had you finished reading my post before replying to its beginning, you wouldn't have asked this question... In short, I'm not advocating legal ban on such undeserved pleasures, but express my disapproval of people indulging in them, for they will — and quickly — stop being helpful members of society or even family.
Re:Even if cocaine was harmless... (Score:5, Insightful)
Had you finished reading my post before replying to its beginning
I did. The fact that you’re not advocating a legal ban doesn’t make you seem any less a self-righteous jerk for looking down upon anyone who, in your opinion, didn’t earn something that they got.
For instance:
Consider sex (yes, I said it) — the intense pleasure most participants derive from it is the reward for the excruciating pains of childbirth and hardships of the childrearing.
Says who? So can I assume that you think masturbation is also an undeserved form of self-indulgence, and you wouldn’t want one of “them” to marry your daughter? Even if that habit didn’t “interfere with others”, because you’d still be “wary of such people”?
Because, as you say, a man who masturbates may some day just suddenly decide to stop caring for your daughter. Yeah. Why not just go a step farther and claim, since every man who cheats on his wife also has masturbated at some point, that all men who masturbate will cheat on their wives?
I'm not advocating legal ban on such undeserved pleasures, but express my disapproval of people indulging in them, for they will — and quickly — stop being helpful members of society or even family.
Right... just like everyone who enjoys alcohol, gambling, tobacco, etc. also invariably stops being a helpful member of society.
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Strange... I'm quite confident, that you strongly disapprove of, for example, the Wall Street bankers, who got something they didn't — in your opinion — earn. But you don't call yourself a "self-righteous" jerk for that disapproval, no, such strong words are reserved for people, who happen to disapprove of something you don't object to yourself...
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Strange... I'm quite confident, that you strongly disapprove of, for example, the Wall Street bankers, who got something they didn't — in your opinion — earn.
What makes you assume that? (This, by the way, is a good example of a straw-man argument, unlike what I said which you seem to think was a straw-man.)
A straw-man... There are only so many orgasms a human can (without technical and chemical aids) experience per day, and they aren't, therefore a serious threat to anybody's sense of responsibilities to themselves and their family, etc.
How the hell does that have anything to do with it being deserved, undeserved, or showing my argument to be a straw-man? Your own argument is pretty clearly put:
– Capability of giving serious but unearned pleasure seriously warrants banning something;
– the pleasure of sex is the reward for the pains of childbirth and hardships of childrearing...
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Because you can do those things while pushing the button? Duh?
I hope to baby fucking jesus that you never drink caffeine. That makes your brain think it's awake when it shouldn't be! OMG! NOBODY WILL SLEEP! BAN COCA COLA!!!!
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"Consider sex (yes, I said it) -- the intense pleasure most participants derive from it is the reward for the excruciating pains of childbirth and hardships of the childrearing. Contrary to the wide-spread misunderstanding, the mainstream religions want us to have sex -- as much as possible. They just want it all to be for the purpose of reproduction, rather than simple self-indulgence."
Pleasure isn't the reward, it's the enticement to get people to do the act and possibly make babies.
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The hair-splitting (in this case) difference was hardly worth posting, was it?..
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At the time of the so-called "reward", you've done nothing more than following animal instincts. How does that qualify as "earning" it, as you are so concerned with?
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I don't think, it matters to my point in the least, whether the "payment" is given after ("award") or before ("enticement"). That's why I call your follow-up "hair-splitting".
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Actually, it was, and I’d have mentioned it if I wasn’t focusing on other things that you said (and sure someone else would bring it up anyway).
From your point of view, getting the reward (sex) without the work (child-rearing) is unjust.
If you consider child-rearing to be a difficult, often-unwanted, and generally preventable result of something that’s otherwise an entirely pleasant activity, it’s a completely different picture.
Re:Even if cocaine was harmless... (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider sex (yes, I said it) — the intense pleasure most participants derive from it is the reward for the excruciating pains of childbirth and hardships of the childrearing.
fapfapfap
Re:Even if cocaine was harmless... (Score:4, Interesting)
> the intense pleasure most participants derive from it is the reward for the excruciating pains of childbirth and hardships of the childrearing.
Do you think we should frown upon infertile people having orgasms? I think you're insane.
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No, because the body can only experience so many orgasms per day and a person — fertile or not — will not stop being productive due to the pursuit of such gratification.
The device in TFA, on the other hand (and cocaine — even if to a smaller extent) does have this ability to completely take a member out of society. I will frown on people seeking pleasure this way... And you will too, once your rage against me, whom you sus
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So you admit the whole 'earned/unearned' thing is crap? I can see how one might agree with the second half of your post, but the first half doesn't make any sense. The whole 'sex feels good because it rewards you for the pains of childbirth and the hardships of childrearing' thing gives the impression that you think humans are 'intelligently designed'. Besides, I like to think my parents accept the hardships of childrearing because they actually like their children... not that they grudgingly accept me beca
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Not at all. (And I would rather you used decent language, while debating.) Requiring for the pleasure to be earned is a safeguard against people indulging in things to the point, where they become oblivious to their responsibilities.
Oh, boy, let's not bring that cont
What a load of crap! (Score:2)
Even if cocaine and other drugs were completely harmless, their ability to give serious but unearned pleasure would seriously warrant their banning. I admit, that this sounds religion-motivated, but that's hardly a drawback of an argument...
Arguments like that boggle the mind. What is wrong with people actually experiencing pleasure? Do you have data that suggests that 'unearned' pleasure is ruinous as opposed to merely hypothesizing about what someone may do to your daughter? (BTW Perhaps your daughter can decide for herself what is appropriate for her.)
We know Combat stress reaction aka Shell shock does huge amounts of harm, so do traumatic childhood experiences and so does torture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_stress_reaction [wikipedia.org]
They rea
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I admit, that this sounds religion-motivated, but that's hardly a drawback of an argument...
Yes, it is, becuase I don't share your religious view (or it seems many of your other views on life) so the underpinnings to your argument are shit to me.
Now, what is the justification for a cocaine-user's pleasure? What did he do to deserve, what a Trainspotting's [imdb.com] character describes as "thousand times the most intense orgasm you've ever experienced"?
Pretty sure that quote was talking about heroin, not cocaine. Anyway, when talking about someone doing something to themselves, they shouldn't HAVE to justify something to anyone but themselves. If I think "I should be able to do coke, because I got out of bed this morning," then that's the justification I'm going with, and the judges (me) are going to a
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Even if cocaine and other drugs were completely harmless, their ability to give serious but unearned pleasure would seriously warrant their banning. I admit, that this sounds religion-motivated, but that's hardly a drawback of an argument...
So we should ban the lottery too? How about TV? That argument is ridiculous.
Now, what is the justification for a cocaine-user's pleasure?
There is enough suffering in the world already, we don't need more so you can feel morally superior.
What did he do to deserve, what a Trainspotting's character describes as "thousand times the most intense orgasm you've ever experienced"?
If you didn't get your information about drugs from bad movies you might actually know what you're talking about. Besides, Trainspotting wasn't even about cocaine. Legalization is about harm reduction; people will use drugs regardless of legality.
I wouldn't want one of them to marry my daughter, for example, as he may decide one day to stop caring for her.
Again, if you didn't get your information about drugs from bad movies you might actually
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Despite being an ex-pothead and supporter of legalization, I have to point out that the "0" next to marijuana may very well be a falsehood based on playing with numbers.
The numbers by "alcohol" may well include people killed by a drunk driver because that driver's BAC can be measured easily, whereas that is not the case for anyone who may have been killed by someone who was stoned. I'm not saying the number is really big, but I feel confident that it was specifically added to your list to make the point th
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I admit, that this sounds religion-motivated, but that's hardly a drawback of an argument...
Sure it is. Arguments typically need to be backed up by evidence. An argument based on religion, which is by its very nature a construct of faith that's not backed up by evidence, is fundamentally an appeal to authority (the religion's higher power) or an appeal to the populace (lots of people believe it, so it must be true). Appeals to religion as evidence for an argument are especially problematic when discussing governmental policies in the United States, where a law must have a secular legislative purpo
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Why do you think that you are qualified to give an opinion on drugs when you don't seem to know the difference between cocaine and heroin? Although they are both class A drugs they are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to their effect on users. Trainspotting would have been a very different film if it was about a bunch of Scottish coke fiends. I'm curious as in most other domains in life opinions not backed up by any solid experience in the area would be seen as largely superficial.
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I admit, that this sounds religion-motivated, but that's hardly a drawback of an argument...
Yes it is, because arguing from religion isn't argument. It's taking a stand based on faith. You're free to take such a stand, but you are not free to impose your faith on me, either through the force of law or through social manipulation. At all. You can frown all you want, but that's about it.
If you want to make an argument for your position, use reason, not faith, because I don't share that faith.
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>>We've come beyond populating the planet and the last thing we need is more little brats to over-righteous religious nuts such as yourself.
Haven't looked at population growth rates in developed countries recently, have you?
All of the world's population growth is now coming from Third World countries. All the developed countries are losing people (not counting immigration).
So yes, we actually do need more babies in America.