# Mood Altering Wearable Tech Is Here



## with water (Aug 13, 2014)

ectomorphine said:


> We can't run away from reality all the time, we need to change reality!


What are you talking about? Good mood is key to changing reality.


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## StranGaaa Danjjja (Jan 6, 2015)

Glory said:


> _Death solves all problems — no man, no problem._
> 
> It's simple: we kill the problem.


people cannot comphrehend how serious depression is when its a chemical imbalance problem...
with that said id laugh so hard when hipsters wear these and dont get the color they want then get depressed about it..........

Plus what ever happened to the good old mood rings back in the day 

Cannabis has saved my life .. depression its ruff


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## Amine (Feb 23, 2014)

Glory said:


> _Death solves all problems — no man, no problem._
> 
> It's simple: we kill the problem.


If you believe in death, maybe. I don't think I know how to believe in death because there's nothing to believe about it. It is equivalent to nothingness, which by definition doesn't actually exist. For all I know, then, this life I'm living now is simply the Nth time I've been reincarnated without any memories of previous lives. I don't remember anything before my birth and death is the same way in reverse.


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## Zamyatin (Jun 10, 2014)

Rather like this idea. Lots of potential, and definitely a step in the right direction. Conscious control over my emotions would be a godsend, and more broadly it would be a major step forward for humanity.


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## FearAndTrembling (Jun 5, 2013)

When are people going to realize that the point of life is not just about feeling good? It is the most primitive philosophy that can be imagined. It is the philosophy of animals. Seek pleasure, avoid pain. This is another opiate for the masses. 

Imagine I am witnessing something that I feel is unethical. The feeling it gives me. The feeling is not the problem, the situation is. I am not changing myself to fit world I do not accept. You are hiding the symptoms, but not touching the disease.


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## Blazkovitz (Mar 16, 2014)

Amine said:


> If the problem is loneliness, is the problem really loneliness?
> 
> What I mean is, maybe one doesn't go out because one is low on certain neurotransmitters, which causes him to be lonely. Personally, I often take a few scoops of tianeptine before going out to socialize these days, which really helps me. This is also why you see people drinking alcohol by the million. It's a social lubricant.
> 
> If the whole reason one is lonely is because they don't go out and meet people, and the whole reason they don't go out and meet people is because they don't have the requisite pro-social chemistry, we're in serious danger of a catch-22.


By your logic, instead of trying to convince me, give me drugs which will make me agree with you.



Amine said:


> Is that some sort of cosmic law?


No. It is merely very likely. If you live in Alaska long enough, you will eventually meet a polar bear. If you have unprotected sex with many partners, you will catch a STD.



Amine said:


> I don't quite see the distinction between what you call happiness and "artificial happiness"


artificial happiness - caused by monkeying with the brain
real happiness - caused by events and actions outside the brain

If you don't see a difference, it is because of your worldview. I don't view the mind as just a chemical laboratory, just like I don't view an image as only a set of pixels.


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## Amine (Feb 23, 2014)

FearAndTrembling said:


> When are people going to realize that the point of life is not just about feeling good? It is the most primitive philosophy that can be imagined. It is the philosophy of animals. Seek pleasure, avoid pain. This is another opiate for the masses.
> 
> Imagine I am witnessing something that I feel is unethical. The feeling it gives me. The feeling is not the problem, the situation is. I am not changing myself to fit world I do not accept. You are hiding the symptoms, but not touching the disease.


Not sure how there can be a disease if someone, somewhere isn't getting hurt. Look, no one is saying the ethical thing to do is to become wireheads while children in Africa starve. The whole point of life can still be feeling good and we can take what you would consider a more ethical approach to the problem, because obviously we are also concerned about the good feelings of the starving African children. But give me some other thing, besides pleasure and which doesn't reduce to pleasure, which we should seek to maximize.


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## Amine (Feb 23, 2014)

Blazkovitz said:


> By your logic, instead of trying to convince me, give me drugs which will make me agree with you.


I'd say that's apples and oranges. If I hate baseball, but take a drug that makes me love it, all that has happened is a subjective opinion has changed. If I think 1+1=2, but take a drug that makes me think it =3, now I am objectively wrong.



> No. It is merely very likely. If you live in Alaska long enough, you will eventually meet a polar bear. If you have unprotected sex with many partners, you will catch a STD.


So if it is the consequences of reality catching up to you that you object to, and we can engineer a drug that doesn't harm a person's health or thinking ability but merely raises their happiness, what would be your objection to it?




> artificial happiness - caused by monkeying with the brain
> real happiness - caused by events and actions outside the brain
> 
> If you don't see a difference, it is because of your worldview. I don't view the mind as just a chemical laboratory, just like I don't view an image as only a set of pixels.


The thing is, I don't think you get to say that there are special "real" states that are caused by events and actions outside the brain. Every state is caused within the brain, whether from our diet or a drug. 

What do you view the mind as, then?


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## ScientiaOmnisEst (Oct 2, 2013)

Blazkovitz said:


> artificial happiness - caused by monkeying with the brain
> real happiness - caused by events and actions outside the brain
> 
> If you don't see a difference, it is because of your worldview. I don't view the mind as just a chemical laboratory, just like I don't view an image as only a set of pixels.


Hm....see, at the core, at the strictest definition, the brain really _is_ a kind of electrochemical machine, and an image really is a set of pixels. If pixels are out, you'll miss part of the picture - if something's malfunctioning in the brain, it can't process properly. However, our brains are capable of seeing the (sometimes literal) bigger picture, such that I'm inclined to see these things as only relevant in certain situations. This is one of them.

Philosophically, I agree with you that the truest kind of happiness comes from events, actions, and thoughts, not mere chemical fluctuations, but the things that produce them. However, for some people, a degree of "monkeying" may be necessary to allow that to happen. That's kind of how I view those kind of medications and treatments: they get a person to a state where they can function effectively again, to pursue those things that are best for them. But those neurological aids are necessary in some cases for that to happen. Just something to keep in mind - they have their uses.


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## BlackDog (Jan 6, 2012)

This isn't really anything new. At least nothing we haven't already been doing since the dawn of time. Eating funny little berries we found growing on volcanic slopes because they gave us an energy boost, or smoking plants because they help us relax. Other animals do it, too. 

The energy and calming effects mentioned in the article don't particularly concern me, they aren't unlike drugs that already exist (at least in principle). They may pose a more significant problem in terms of ease of abuse, but the concept is the same. Even the idea of imposing happiness on yourself isn't that unthinkable. We are the same animals we were ten thousands years ago and we'll be the same in another ten thousand at this rate.


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## TreeBob (Oct 11, 2008)

Finally! Now I won't have to keep infracting most of you!


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## Vayne (Nov 6, 2014)

Thaumaturgic Theorist said:


> Hm....see, at the core, at the strictest definition, the brain really _is_ a kind of electrochemical machine, and an image really is a set of pixels. If pixels are out, you'll miss part of the picture - if something's malfunctioning in the brain, it can't process properly. However, our brains are capable of seeing the (sometimes literal) bigger picture, such that I'm inclined to see these things as only relevant in certain situations. This is one of them.
> 
> Philosophically, I agree with you that the truest kind of happiness comes from events, actions, and thoughts, not mere chemical fluctuations, but the things that produce them. However, for some people, a degree of "monkeying" may be necessary to allow that to happen. That's kind of how I view those kind of medications and treatments: they get a person to a state where they can function effectively again, to pursue those things that are best for them. But those neurological aids are necessary in some cases for that to happen. Just something to keep in mind - they have their uses.


Are you majoring in neurology ? Or just the brain piqued your interest ? It is chemical thing going on there on the brain, the "natural" order how an event should be perceived instead of a forced "perceiving" probably only relate to moral. I wouldn't know how it feel like to feel happy when normally we would be freaked out though. that "feel" crazy, but technically, no. lol


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## Amine (Feb 23, 2014)

TreeBob said:


> Finally! Now I won't have to keep infracting most of you!


Technically you have never infracted me and probably never will because all of my infractions come from the most rage-inducing subforum I know of, the religion and spirituality subforum. And that's modded by thomas60 and bethdeth!


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## TreeBob (Oct 11, 2008)

Amine said:


> Technically you have never infracted me and probably never will because all of my infractions come from the most rage-inducing subforum I know of, the religion and spirituality subforum. And that's modded by thomas60 and bethdeth!


I give the thumbs up though


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## Blazkovitz (Mar 16, 2014)

Amine said:


> So if it is the consequences of reality catching up to you that you object to, and we can engineer a drug that doesn't harm a person's health or thinking ability but merely raises their happiness, what would be your objection to it?


You've just described Prozac. I have no objections to it. I don't need it, but some people do. Still, it can be used in an unethical way. Imagine giving Prozac to the oppressed subjects of some tyranny and in this way preventing a revolution which would cause the country to become democratic.



Amine said:


> What do you view the mind as, then?


The mind processes data about reality and acts upon it. This is the fundamental nature of any mind (real or fictitious), whether immortal soul, alien or robot. How this is done is irrelevant. Drugs interfere with the brain's inner working, while what I call real happiness derives from the mind's fundamental function. (Like Th. Th. said, sometimes interference is necessary for this to happen, but it's not the case in healthy people)


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## with water (Aug 13, 2014)

FearAndTrembling said:


> When are people going to realize that the point of life is not just about feeling good? It is the most primitive philosophy that can be imagined. It is the philosophy of animals. Seek pleasure, avoid pain. This is another opiate for the masses.
> 
> Imagine I am witnessing something that I feel is unethical. The feeling it gives me. The feeling is not the problem, the situation is. I am not changing myself to fit world I do not accept. You are hiding the symptoms, but not touching the disease.


It depends. Is this headgear just making people feel good, or modifying how the reward center part of our brain is stimulated? There is a world of difference between the two. One takes away the need to live your life, and one gives you further incentive to do so.


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## Dawd (Jul 7, 2013)

Blazkovitz said:


> You've just described Prozac. I have no objections to it. I don't need it, but some people do. Still, it can be used in an unethical way. Imagine giving Prozac to the oppressed subjects of some tyranny and in this way preventing a revolution which would cause the country to become democratic.


Nobody's being forced to use this product. If anything is used to placate the masses, it's the media.


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## Amine (Feb 23, 2014)

Blazkovitz said:


> You've just described Prozac. I have no objections to it. I don't need it, but some people do. Still, it can be used in an unethical way. Imagine giving Prozac to the oppressed subjects of some tyranny and in this way preventing a revolution which would cause the country to become democratic.


Prozac?! SSRIs are shitty drugs IMO. They provide a mood-lift barely above placebo, and they are not devoid of side effects by any means. But I'm not convinced that a tyrannical dictator, say Kim Jung-un, would want to give his people an SSRI. The idea is to keep them down, defeated, and depressed. That would lift their spirits and their motivation, which is the whole point of giving it to depressed people. Nonetheless, again I don't think SSRIs are that impressive, and I could imagine drugs used to oppress as "soma" was used in Brave New World. In my opinion, alcohol could be such an example, and I'm not sure but I think Huxley may have had alcohol in mind when he created soma for his dystopian masterpiece. 

And yet, alcohol, which is not only stupefying but dangerous _and_ addictive, is perfectly legal. And _further still_, it's hardly noteworthy to anyone that we are allowed to have outrageous and manipulative advertising for it shoved down our throats on an hourly basis. If this Thync device had the exact effects of alcohol would it _ever_ get approved? Fuck. No. I mean, if you guys are balking at "mildly increased alertness and relaxation", lord only knows what you'd say about something which *impaired cognitive and motor function, led to vomiting, blacking out, hangover, severe addiction, and possibly death*. 

Our biases are _all over the place, all the time_. It's a constant effort to cut oneself free of them. Once you do you realize society is fucking crazy. 

But I digress. Don't imagine Prozac here. Imagine a theoretical drug that had no side effects at all, and didn't change the _proportion_ to which events in your life affect your mood, but perhaps shifted them 10 notches up the scale. 



> The mind processes data about reality and acts upon it. This is the fundamental nature of any mind (real or fictitious), whether immortal soul, alien or robot. How this is done is irrelevant. Drugs interfere with the brain's inner working, while what I call real happiness derives from the mind's fundamental function. (Like Th. Th. said, sometimes interference is necessary for this to happen, but it's not the case in healthy people)


Ok. What is so special or important about the mind's fundamental function?


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## ectomorphine (Jan 5, 2015)

WT_Neptune said:


> What are you talking about? Good mood is key to changing reality.


Depending on technology for a mood boost?


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## ectomorphine (Jan 5, 2015)

Amine said:


> You guys should also spit in the faces of people who take anti-depressants. Maybe you already do. Consistency is important.
> 
> I'm actually surprised, I thought people were starting to get over this awful Nietzschian view of suffering. What we find when we treat people's depression is that they do anything _but_ adopt an attitude of numbness and/or "as long as I'm happy everything's ok". Rather, they _regain_ their ability to want to act in the world.
> 
> ...


Well it looks like I have sparked a fire here.. So everytime you feel sad or depressed you will go to your device to feel ok?


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