Electroconvulsive therapy right into your brain - Elon claims BCI can solve Autism

[Trik'Stari]

I feel like claiming that you cannot "solve" or "fix" autism, simply for the sake of identity, is a bit odd.

 

The closest analogy I can think of is that someone missing a limb wouldn't want a fully functional cybernetic replacement because them missing a limb is fundamental to who they are.

 

Like, yeah if you don't want to be treated that's fine, but you're still a bit of an odd duck for declining treatment.

[Technous285]

4 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

I feel like claiming that you cannot "solve" or "fix" autism, simply for the sake of identity, is a bit odd.

 

The closest analogy I can think of is that someone missing a limb wouldn't want a fully functional cybernetic replacement because them missing a limb is fundamental to who they are.

 

Like, yeah if you don't want to be treated that's fine, but you're still a bit of an odd duck for declining treatment.

As someone who was diagnosed with Autism (specifically Asperger's) in the 90's as a kid (even though my cuntwaffle of a mother wanted to get like 5 or 6 docs to "diagnose" me with ADHD so she could dope me up on Ritalin, the docs at Royal Far West eventually told her to 'shove it' and diag'd me with Autism, especially after seeing how much of a different person I was under the supervision of my mother compared to all my other family members) and has genetic history of Autism running in pretty much all the males on my dad's side of the family born since the 40's/50's (so my dad & uncle, my uncle's sons, myself, my eldest cousin's son... we even theorise my gramps had a flavour of Autism, like how most of us were born left-handed, but most of the older generations were forced to grow up right-handed or even ambidextrous);

I am in support for finding out what genetic factors might be in play in birthing an Autistic person for historical purposes and as a screening method like if you want to find out if your child might have something like brittle bones so you can prepare the house and your situation to accommodate such a thing, but see it as too easy a slippery-slope to abusing that discovery to go Hitler and try to wipe out all people with those genetic markers to prevent them from being passed on, even if it means forced abortions of what might be the next Newton or Einstein to jump the progress of Humanity further forward.

 

Remember Asperger's Syndrome got named from a particular German doctor who 'discovered' it in a way of diagnosing "undesirables" as Autism was considered to be "undesirable" in the "perfect race" like being Jewish or Romani (Gypsy) was along with being blind/myopic, deaf or paraplegic.

[Trik'Stari]

44 minutes ago, Technous285 said:

As someone who was diagnosed with Autism (specifically Asperger's) in the 90's as a kid (even though my cuntwaffle of a mother wanted to get like 5 or 6 docs to "diagnose" me with ADHD so she could dope me up on Ritalin, the docs at Royal Far West eventually told her to 'shove it' and diag'd me with Autism, especially after seeing how much of a different person I was under the supervision of my mother compared to all my other family members) and has genetic history of Autism running in pretty much all the males on my dad's side of the family born since the 40's/50's (so my dad & uncle, my uncle's sons, myself, my eldest cousin's son... we even theorise my gramps had a flavour of Autism, like how most of us were born left-handed, but most of the older generations were forced to grow up right-handed or even ambidextrous);

I am in support for finding out what genetic factors might be in play in birthing an Autistic person for historical purposes and as a screening method like if you want to find out if your child might have something like brittle bones so you can prepare the house and your situation to accommodate such a thing, but see it as too easy a slippery-slope to abusing that discovery to go Hitler and try to wipe out all people with those genetic markers to prevent them from being passed on, even if it means forced abortions of what might be the next Newton or Einstein to jump the progress of Humanity further forward.

 

Remember Asperger's Syndrome got named from a particular German doctor who 'discovered' it in a way of diagnosing "undesirables" as Autism was considered to be "undesirable" in the "perfect race" like being Jewish or Romani (Gypsy) was along with being blind/myopic, deaf or paraplegic.

I'd like to make it clear, I am not suggesting any of that.

 

I am merely saying that it seems odd to me. It seems like saying "you can't fix this" is merely giving up without trying, for the given reasoning of "identity". Serious question: If there was a treatment that became available, that would make you not (your flavor of autism here), would you turn it down, or take it?

 

Again, not suggesting it should be forced on anyone, nor am I suggesting aborting pregnancies because the child might be born autistic. Although I would argue that such a decision should be best left to the parent(s) of any such child.

[Arika]

1 hour ago, Technous285 said:

but see it as too easy a slippery-slope to abusing that discovery to go Hitler and try to wipe out all people with those genetic markers to prevent them from being passed on

Sorry, did you just compare an elective procedure to the holocaust?... 

[Bombastinator]

26 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

I'd like to make it clear, I am not suggesting any of that.

 

I am merely saying that it seems odd to me. It seems like saying "you can't fix this" is merely giving up without trying, for the given reasoning of "identity". Serious question: If there was a treatment that became available, that would make you not (your flavor of autism here), would you turn it down, or take it?

 

Again, not suggesting it should be forced on anyone, nor am I suggesting aborting pregnancies because the child might be born autistic. Although I would argue that such a decision should be best left to the parent(s) of any such child.

The arm thing is a poor example imho

 

The issue is that autism is a spectrum and the spectrum is very wide.  Autism has limited benefits as well as drawbacks. For very high functioning types when the problems are less severe and also when the benefits are greater and a person has spent a lifetime maximizing the effect of those benefits on their life “fixing” the problem becomes problematic.  They would gain but also lose.  For people with more severe problems it is much less of a complicated choice.  Also age is a factor.

 

A better example:

This happens with deaf people.  There is a deaf community where the people in it develop their own systems to minimize their disadvantages.  To regain hearing means leaving the community and many of them, especially if they are older have made it their life.  To regain hearing also becomes losing their life.

 

so for a young person with a severe problem, fix it!  For an old person with a less severe problem it becomes more complicated and less binary.

[Bombastinator]

10 minutes ago, Arika S said:

Sorry, did you just compare an elective procedure to the holocaust?... 

He implied the procedure may not remain elective.

[Trik'Stari]

11 hours ago, Arika S said:

Sorry, did you just compare an elective procedure to the holocaust?... 

It would seem so.

11 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

The arm thing is a poor example imho

 

The issue is that autism is a spectrum and the spectrum is very wide.  Autism has limited benefits as well as drawbacks. For very high functioning types when the problems are less severe and also when the benefits are greater and a person has spent a lifetime maximizing the effect of those benefits on their life “fixing” the problem becomes problematic.  They would gain but also lose.  For people with more severe problems it is much less of a complicated choice.  Also age is a factor.

 

A better example:

This happens with deaf people.  There is a deaf community where the people in it develop their own systems to minimize their disadvantages.  To regain hearing means leaving the community and many of them, especially if they are older have made it their life.  To regain hearing also becomes losing their life.

 

so for a young person with a severe problem, fix it!  For an old person with a less severe problem it becomes more complicated and less binary.

I'm not saying force it on anyone, I'm simply saying that there seems, from this story, to be a group resistant to even suggest that there could be a "treatment" or "cure", and I find that odd.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

It would seem so.

I'm not saying force it on anyone, I'm simply saying that there seems, from this story, to be a group resistant to even suggest that there could be a "treatment" or "cure", and I find that odd.

I don’t think it’s resistance to “ could be” I think there’s resistance due to safety and a resistance to “is”. The problem with safety is this is A, ect, B, brain surgery, and C very experimental.

the problem with “is” is Elon Musk has a habit of overhyping things.  It’s a lot more “might” than “is”.  I forget the percentage of medical failure between high level animal experiment and human trial but it’s over 50%.  It might be as high as 90%, and this is the sort of thing that requires human trials early.  Elon likes to beta test after rather than before release.  This “get it out fix it later” approach arguably works with fixable things.  This isn’t a car though.  This is brain surgery.  There are going to be failures, and the failure won’t have a buggy car, they’ll have a buggy brain.

 

Edited November 24, 2019 by Bombastinator
Additional explanation

[Technous285]

18 hours ago, Arika S said:

Sorry, did you just compare an elective procedure to the holocaust?... 

Don't be so fucking naive, you know as well as I do that once someone has made a scientific or technological breakthrough, there WILL be someone right around the corner waiting to abuse said breakthrough for their own personal means.

 

It might start as an elective procedure right now, but the next nutter that thinks they're going to be the next Hitler WILL be all too ready to abuse this to run their own eugenics program, either to wipe out anyone with Autistic markers OR those without them if they want to wipe out "normies"/"Neurotypicals".

The advancement to being able to detect the genetic factors that can lead to Autism can be easily adjusted to look for other "undesirable" things like myopia (short-sightedness), early-onset or youth blindness, congenial heart conditions, hereditary obesity... The ability to detect and know about such things before a child's birth can lead to being able to prepare the parents for an easier life knowing what needs to be accounted for in their child's life, OR will be used to make Designer Babies without any of the "flaws" of Human evolution (aka: fucking EUGENICS).

 

Can you tell I have very little faith left in humanity as a whole at this point?

[CarlBar]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

I don’t think it’s resistance to “ could be” I think there’s resistance due to safety and a resistance to “is”. The problem with safety is this is A, ect, B, brain surgery, and C very experimental.

the problem with “is” is Elon Musk has a habit of overhyping things.  It’s a lot more “might” than “is”.  I forget the percentage of medical failure between high level animal experiment and human trial but it’s over 50%.  It might be as high as 90%, and this is the sort of thing that requires human trials early.  Elon likes to beta test after rather than before release.  This “get it out fix it later” approach arguably works with fixable things.  This isn’t a car though.  This is brain surgery.  There are going to be failures, and the failure won’t have a buggy car, they’ll have a buggy brain.

 

 

Well anyone with two ounces of sense knows the latter part of your post isn't an issue since you have to get regulatory approvals to get this stuff into people and they aren't going to be happy with a get it out and fix it later approach. And the failure rate last i saw some statistics for things that made it to phase I trials was right around 90%. Which really rams home the point that there's a lot about how our body functions that we just don't understand. There are doubtless, (since they crop up surprisingly often), still things we don't know we don't know. Nevermind all the unanswered "we know roughly this happens, but not how or why" stuff.

[Trik'Stari]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

I don’t think it’s resistance to “ could be” I think there’s resistance due to safety and a resistance to “is”. The problem with safety is this is A, ect, B, brain surgery, and C very experimental.

the problem with “is” is Elon Musk has a habit of overhyping things.  It’s a lot more “might” than “is”.  I forget the percentage of medical failure between high level animal experiment and human trial but it’s over 50%.  It might be as high as 90%, and this is the sort of thing that requires human trials early.  Elon likes to beta test after rather than before release.  This “get it out fix it later” approach arguably works with fixable things.  This isn’t a car though.  This is brain surgery.  There are going to be failures, and the failure won’t have a buggy car, they’ll have a buggy brain.

 

Oh I understand that aspect entirely. But that's not what was mentioned in the OP. What was said was essentially "this cannot be fixed/cured, it's apart of someones identity" and it just seemed rather defeatist in attitude.

[mr moose]

7 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

Oh I understand that aspect entirely. But that's not what was mentioned in the OP. What was said was essentially "this cannot be fixed/cured, it's apart of someones identity" and it just seemed rather defeatist in attitude.

I can see why it would seem that way, but  the issue is that many in the autistic community are just sick of being told they have a a disability that "needs" to be cured.  For many it is an intrinsic part of our personality as much as anything and if you take that away you take away a part of who they are.    

 

It would be better if people considered autism in the same way we consider our childhood in general,  how good or bad your childhood plays a huge role in your personality as an adult.   You might say we should do what we can to remove bad childhood experiences that lead to less desired personality traits,  but you wouldn't argue removing normal childhood experiences because some times it results in poor personality as sometimes it results in good personalities. Autism is exactly the same it's existence can make or break a person, removing it can have as much negative effects on a persons adult personality as it could have positive.

 

TL:DR  Curing autism would erase a whole person. Not a part of them. Its inextricable.

 

 

[Trik'Stari]

16 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I can see why it would seem that way, but  the issue is that many in the autistic community are just sick of being told they have a a disability that "needs" to be cured.  For many it is an intrinsic part of our personality as much as anything and if you take that away you take away a part of who they are.    

 

It would be better if people considered autism in the same way we consider our childhood in general,  how good or bad your childhood plays a huge role in your personality as an adult.   You might say we should do what we can to remove bad childhood experiences that lead to less desired personality traits,  but you wouldn't argue removing normal childhood experiences because some times it results in poor personality as sometimes it results in good personalities. Autism is exactly the same it's existence can make or break a person, removing it can have as much negative effects on a persons adult personality as it could have positive.

 

TL:DR  Curing autism would erase a whole person. Not a part of them. Its inextricable.

-snip

 

I find that hard to judge considering, to my knowledge, it's never been done before?

 

Although I agree about childhood experiences. Far too many children these days seem to go through life without and real challenge or adversity, and I feel that results in some pretty harmful psychological problems down the road.

 

I feel I cannot adequately explain my opinion here without potentially (and legitimately, inadvertently) angering some members of the forum in doing so.... maybe best to leave it here?

[mr moose]

8 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

I find that hard to judge considering, to my knowledge, it's never been done before?

 

 

We know enough about ASD to know the markers, there are plenty of biological conditions that coexist pointing to not just a correlation but in sufficient uniqueness to get a much higher accuracy in diagnosis.  We know an awful lot about the effects it has on personality both direct and through experience, so we know without doubt that by removing the condition (if it were even possible) would result in a momentous shift in personality.  In which direction it would shift is unknown, but that the shift would occur is very well known.

 

 

[mr moose]

On 11/20/2019 at 3:06 AM, CarlBar said:

 

This is an incredibly complex issue. There's indications that the gut microbiome has an effect, but exactly why and how isn;t clear. We know as has been pointed out that people with autism have brain functionality thats wildly different than the norm. If the gut microbiome is the cause then how does it cause that. We also have the issue that we don;t have a lot of data on the whole gut bacteria effects in actual humans, you'd be amazed how often some treatment method has shown apparently amazing efficiency in neurological studies in a small group but had minimal effect in a larger group, (the effect is seen outside of neurology too). Mouse models for human neurology also have enormous issues. It's also not clear what level of effect where talking about here, the level of severity and exact symptoms that have changed has an enormous bearing here, (A large change in a very mild case may not be a particularly large absolute reduction whilst a large percentage in a severe case would still leave someone clearly on the spectrum). Nevermind the question about what causes the severity differentials for people on the spectrum.

 

That dosen;t mean this research couldn't be a promising avenue and should not be pursued, but where well short of declaring we have a definitive cause here, let alone some treatment method.

 

Also a lot of the research into autism is evaluated on reports by carers or the persons themselves.  Which naturally leads to placebo, preconception bias and brain steer issues. which are very hard to account for.  

[DKL]

God this entire idea is just disturbing to me right now. Like, why can't humans be allowed to be... human, yaknow?

[Bombastinator]

7 minutes ago, DKL said:

God this entire idea is just disturbing to me right now. Like, why can't humans be allowed to be... human, yaknow?

Because other humans want them to be just like themselves.  It’s a human thing.

[Goldilock]

Now, this gets me excited.

 

if my AI can tell me about office politic, a fella being passive aggressive, flag sarcasm, and even do facial expression recognition that will be all I ever hope.

 

Whoever autistic fella, you know what I'm talking about.

[Goldilock]

6 hours ago, DKL said:

God this entire idea is just disturbing to me right now. Like, why can't humans be allowed to be... human, yaknow?

Have you ever being left out in basically every social group? or you are in mid 20s and not invited in any whatsapp group?

 

If there is legit measure to help me coping with autism, why not?.

[LAwLz]

7 hours ago, DKL said:

God this entire idea is just disturbing to me right now. Like, why can't humans be allowed to be... human, yaknow?

Yeah exactly. Why shouldn't alcoholics just be left alone? Why can't we just leave bipolar people to themselves? Why should schizophrenic people need "treatment"? Just let these people be like they are!

[Bombastinator]

14 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Yeah exactly. Why shouldn't alcoholics just be left alone? Why can't we just leave bipolar people to themselves? Why should schizophrenic people need "treatment"? Just let these people be like they are!

Interesting choices.  All psychological disorders that are damaging to others.  A few are left out.  There are personality disorders for example.  Psychopaths, sociopaths and narcisisits are the ones I can think of off hand.  Also alcoholics are  substance abusers and there is a lot of similarity between such substances, so heroin addicts and crackheads would go in too.

There seems to be heavy Implication that autistic people ruin the lives of people around them to the point they need to be controlled.  
 

It’s somewhat barely arguable they might.  They can be socially unpleasant.  They can say the wrong thing at the wrong time.  They can not reliably understand non verbal communication.  Doesn’t seem to be quite in the same ballpark, but you seem to be already on your way to the whole “they mist be treated whether they want to be or not” thing that worried some earlier posters.

[LAwLz]

49 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Interesting choices.  All psychological disorders that are damaging to others.  A few are left out.  There are personality disorders for example.  Psychopaths, sociopaths and narcisisits are the ones I can think of off hand.  Also alcoholics are  substance abusers and there is a lot of similarity between such substances, so heroin addicts and crackheads would go in too.

There seems to be heavy Implication that autistic people ruin the lives of people around them to the point they need to be controlled.  
 

It’s somewhat barely arguable they might.  They can be socially unpleasant.  They can say the wrong thing at the wrong time.  They can not reliably understand non verbal communication.  Doesn’t seem to be quite in the same ballpark, but you seem to be already on your way to the whole “they mist be treated whether they want to be or not” thing that worried some earlier posters.

It depends on where on the spectrum you lie, but yes, a lot of autistic people do end up dramatically worsening the lives of other people. For example I would argue that unemployed people living off benefits make society worse as a whole.

85% of college graduates diagnosed with autism are unemployed because of a lack of social competence as well as inability to cope with other aspects of jobs (like changes).

 

Treating these people to the point where they can function at a work place should not be a though sell. These people are unable to contribute to society because of their disabilities, and yet somehow that should just be accepted because "that's who they are"?

 

Want me to take up more ways autism negatively impacts other people? Parents of autistic people report dramatically lower life and marriage satisfactions than parents of non-autistic children.

Autistic children report being involved in way more fights than non-autistic children as well. Are we going to excuse violent behavior just because "that's just how they are"? No thanks, not IF we can prevent it (massive if).

 

 

Personally, I would be okay with forced treatment of the ones heavily affected by it. If your disability makes you violent, unable to contribute to society and heavily negatively affect the life quality of your family then no, you shouldn't have a choice in being treated or not.*

 

*This obviously assumes that we had a magic pill that cured everything without dramatic side effects (and no, I don't think "removing part of their personality is a valid side effect). I am not saying we should blanket force all autistic people to do this experimental stuff.

[GenericFanboy]

Honestly i see so much criticism. Its his money. If he decides to try something like this and it doesnt work. Too bad for him. If it does work; doesnt that just make him all the more amazing that he'd invest in something like this? Like damn

[Bombastinator]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

It depends on where on the spectrum you lie, but yes, a lot of autistic people do end up dramatically worsening the lives of other people. For example I would argue that unemployed people living off benefits make society worse as a whole.

85% of college graduates diagnosed with autism are unemployed because of a lack of social competence as well as inability to cope with other aspects of jobs (like changes).

 

Treating these people to the point where they can function at a work place should not be a though sell. These people are unable to contribute to society because of their disabilities, and yet somehow that should just be accepted because "that's who they are"?

 

Want me to take up more ways autism negatively impacts other people? Parents of autistic people report dramatically lower life and marriage satisfactions than parents of non-autistic children.

Autistic children report being involved in way more fights than non-autistic children as well. Are we going to excuse violent behavior just because "that's just how they are"? No thanks, not IF we can prevent it (massive if).

 

 

Personally, I would be okay with forced treatment of the ones heavily affected by it. If your disability makes you violent, unable to contribute to society and heavily negatively affect the life quality of your family then no, you shouldn't have a choice in being treated or not.*

 

*This obviously assumes that we had a magic pill that cured everything without dramatic side effects (and no, I don't think "removing part of their personality is a valid side effect). I am not saying we should blanket force all autistic people to do this experimental stuff.

I suspect that people who have the kinds of problems you describe wouldn’t be in the catagory of people who would prefer not to have this done, especially if they are young.  As it stands though, I am a 52 year old man who has had that level of problem all my life.  You apparently want to do an experimental procedure on me where they stick electrodes in my brain in the hopes that it will make me more hirable but might not actually work but no matter whether it does or doesn’t is likely to cause profound changes in my personality.  I guess from my perspective it’s not quite the gas chamber from the 40s.  It’s very close, but not quite.  You wouldn’t be killing me, exactly.  Very close, but not quite.  And as I understand this your primary concern is money, correct?

[Bombastinator]

4 hours ago, GenericFanboy said:

Honestly i see so much criticism. Its his money. If he decides to try something like this and it doesnt work. Too bad for him. If it does work; doesnt that just make him all the more amazing that he'd invest in something like this? Like damn

The issue seems to be whether or not it is voluntary.

 For me it would be not.  I’m too old.  For a young child who’s personality has not yet formed, or if my problems were more profound it might make more sense. There are times in my past where I would have jumped at such a thing.   As late as high school.  I’m late in life now though.  I wasn’t diagnosed till very recently.  Even if such a thing was available in the 80’s I wouldn’t have been able to do it because I didn’t know.
 

There is such a thing as something being technically voluntary but actually involuntary.  Ways can be found within current law to force such things.