Irishred88

There's plenty of reasons to be fearful or suspicious: corporations who develop all the new tech we use today have shown already they don't respect our privacy. Our smartphones, computers, and other Internet connected devices are always harvesting data to advertise to us, so it follows that any brain-implanted device could be used to harvest data for similar purposes. Not everyone gives a shit about this one, but there are plenty who would at least like to be paid for the data that is collected from them and used for profit; barring that we should have the right to forbid data collection without consent.

There are, of course, more sinister applications for brain-implanted devices that can interface with the Internet (and if they don't now, they surely will in the future). I think a lot of us immediately think of the science fiction book and movie, "Minority Report" wherein law enforcement has access to the private thoughts of citizens and arrests and convicts those who have contemplated crime but have not yet perpetrated the crime. Any sane person would never allow the police access to one's private thoughts, let alone a corporation.

Elon Musk has said his ultimate goal with Neuralink goes beyond merely restoring function to injured parts of the body; he wants to make it possible to save and load memories and with those two functions we may also be able to delete memories too. Imagine someone hacking your memories, it could fundamentally alter your perception of yourself and your reality. You could become a prisoner in your own brain, subjected to the censorship of a corporation or government.

These are worst case scenarios and I'm not saying we are there yet, maybe not even close to that level of technology, but we should be aware of what kind of control we may be giving away to a company or authority by allowing such implants to be installed. I hope that we will use it as a means of improving people's lives, but I'm very cautiously optimistic as well.

To me such language signals that the author's purpose is not to enlighten or dispell ignorance, but to get the upper hand, be the one who is "right" and the opponent is made "wrong." It's not only a lazy way of thinking, but it prevents anyone from actually learning anything. Instead we just get to be self-righteous for being "smart."

Any time I see an article that attempts to bash, slam, destroy, demolish, etc, etc. I cannot take it seriously because the author has convinced me from the start they are not interested in inspiring honest dialogue about a social issue. They just want to draw you into their own limited, biased way of thinking.

Same :(

It's really a nasty habit too. It precludes any kind of reasonable, honest discussion. Criticism is too often conflated with insult.

As far as I'm concerned it's been the most positively life changing event in my life that I absolutely cannot recommend anyone in my life to ever try.

My thoughts exactly. I treasure the experience but I could never recommend it to anyone as it hits everyone different. The best I could say to someone considering it is that you better be willing to confront yourself and your most difficult feelings.

I'm happy to hear that it was a net positive for you that's wonderful.

I've experienced LSD a few times and Mushrooms once. They are subtly different but I like to lean into the difficulty of the experience (when or if it starts to go that way). I feel like I'm being taught something important and doing so has been beneficial. To me it feels like a death and rebirth experience. I'm not foolish enough to think it's the answer to my problems, but boy does it ever shine a light on things! For me, they bring me back to being a kid, experiencing everything with wonder and curiosity. It's a breath of fresh air because I spent my young adult life trying to "grow up" by trying to fit into everyone else's expectation if what adult means. It made me realize I am individual as well as connected to the human race and I should enjoy and embrace that.

I'm fat and lazy and still love hiking. I'd pull on my hiking boots and join in a heartbeat.

Fair enough I see this conversation is centered around first impressions and dating, but in a more general context it worries me. I see polarization in general as a net harm, because it divides us as people. Creates isolated points of view, otherizing, makes more people comfortable with perpetrating violence against the other because they are ignoring the other's humanity. I'm not equivocating, tolerance for intolerant opinions is not acceptable, but people can be ignorant for one reason or another, it doesn't make them evil.

Maybe I'm just in an echo chamber here and that's why my dissenting opinion is getting so much backlash, but I'll always advocate for nuance. I've met many with rather differing opinions, opinions which I'm categorically opposed to, but further conversation has revealed these people to be good on the whole. And non-violent to boot. We grew and understood each other from a conversation. I see so much bandwagoning on the Internet and all I want is for people to think a little more deeply about it. I get very emotional seeing people go, "Yeah! Fuck them for having that thought!" Because it reflects back at me a fear of being misunderstood, but I choose to speak up in hopes that it will bring about a more rational conversation.

By all means if your gut tells you run, run. All I'm saying is that simply holding a single, opinion is not nearly enough information. What scares me to begin with is that ideas are so polarizing that it turns off our ability to think. Not everyone who holds an opinion is polarized though, some people may be on the fence and that may show in their attitude. A better metric for measuring someone's moral compass would be how they treat waiters or waitresses or how they respond to animals.

And that's jumping to conclusions, why would having an interest in a podcast automatically make one make you believe that the other thinks of you as lesser. Adults should have adult conversations with each other.

It's an interesting study and I understand why people would feel that way, the only thing that rubs me the wrong way about these things is the human tendency to paint someone in a totally negative light once they see the "red flag." I feel the comments are evidence to that fact. If you know someone who hold offensive opinions you should actually ask them why they hold that opinion. People are enormously complex and their personalities or even morals cannot be boiled down to a small handful of extremely polarizing opinions.