Are you a high risk, medium risk, or low risk biohacker?

A high risk biohacker is someone whose biohacking is pioneering.  They are using supplements and procedures which are new and exciting.  Though well-studied recently, the long-term, and sometimes even shorter-term effects and side effects of these substances are not well known.  These side effects can lead to mild, moderate, or severe side effects and even death.  Some bio-hackers have died, presumably as a result of some of their biohacking practices.  Therefore, the high-risk biohacker has to know what things he is doing which is high risk, take measures to mitigate the possibility of bad outcomes, and accept the risk that he is taking on.  What he should not do: try to convince himself and others that what he is doing is perfectly safe.  That is delusional thinking which will hurt him or her, others, and the biohacking movement in general.

The high risk biohacker has to answer these questions:

How long have humans encountered this or similar substances?  In other words, have animals co-evolved with this substance?

Plants, animals, and fungi co-evolve.  For example, plants use nicotine to kill pests, but they also use it to get humans addicted so that we spread their seed all over the planet.  Tobacco plants are a successful species.  Plants often makes substances that kill small insects while making larger animals high so they spread the seed.  Plants like marijuana has long traditional use, thousands of years of known use.  There are side effect, but they are well known, so there is a low risk of unknown side effects if the plant is used in traditional ways.  Therefore, there has been human exposure in a certain traditional form.  But opium and heroin are different entities so that leads to another question:

How much has the substance been altered from a natural form?  How synthetic is the substance?

A more synthetic substance will be more foreign to an animal body and therefore there is higher risk of unforeseen consequences.  This includes for example, genetically modified organisms.  From what we know, nature has had little interaction with genes modified by humans, like frog genes in a tomato.  There is no telling how that will interact with the environment.  Therefore gene therapies are high risk at the moment as there is more uncertainty as to the effects.  Next is recent human experience with the substance.

How long has it been on the market?  Are post-clinical reports in yet?

If the substance is completely new, for a medication, even though they have done studies, they do not know the long-term effects of the substance because the substance has never been used for decades yet.  We will find out.  If you are the guinea pig, that puts you in the high-risk category.  Bodybuilders of the past were in the high risk category because they did not know the long-term effects of using testosterone.  They discovered it shrinks your testicals and can shut down natural production.  Today, SARMS are being used which are marketed as safer but in reality, we do not know the long-term effects.  Hopefully they will be safer but using them is high risk at this point.  We can infer a little from the chemical the SARM was created from, for example if it was made from an estrogen inhibitor, we can infer that it may desensitize the androgen receptors similarly to how much the parent compound did so to the estrogen receptor but there is no convincing yourself that you are not high risk biohacking, which, congratulations is fine.  You are a pioneer, just be aware of that.  Also, if one wants to do high risk biohacking with a doctor, it is usually very expensive because doctors won’t take insurance for that.  Perhaps you can draw up a contract, even to do low risk biohacking with just mild medications for mild conditions with a goal to produce improvement in other functions as well, many doctors won’t do.  It would be good if you could contract with your doctor to work with you, instead of trying to weld authority over you.

Medium risk biohacking:  Medium risk biohacking we reserve for substances which have been on the market for decades and we generally know what the side effects are.  This could be a substance like dextromethorphan.  It’s an nmda antagonist, it has been used as OTC cough syrup for decades but has been in research for myriad uses. 

Low risk biohacking:  You are optimizing sleep, diet, exercise.  This is low risk.  The benefits are many, the side effects are few.  If you are healthy, this is where you should be, especially if you are young.  You can’t get any better, but you can get worse, so don’t use any substances.  If you do, know that you are taking on risk that will not improve things overall but you are being a pioneer.  Substance use are for people who have dis-ease, they are not easy.  To the point that they need to use something and take on the side effects to feel better and they are better off even with the side effects.  If you are completely healthy and satisfied with life, stick to low risk.  You can use substances which have been in use for at least a thousand years.  Coffee, wine, many fruits, veggies, herbs, mushrooms.  I mean, there is still a lot of things you can experiment with.  Especially things that come from the lands of your genetic background because your genes have co-evolved with them.  Alcohol has been in use in western lands for thousands of years, it is very dangerous but the risk is known, and it can be used safely.

So, what kind of biohacker are you?  Be honest with yourself.  Be a man, or a woman, and admit what risk you are taking on and be proud of it.  Don’t be delusional, sticking all kinds of things in your body and claiming it’s safe.  We will try our best to be safe but we gotta man up and take on the risks and benefits.

I am personally in the high risk category, but I wouldn’t call myself a biohacker or a pioneer.  I have medical conditions which I am trying to improve or cure while at the same time getting some nootropic benefits.  But the substances I am using puts me in the high risk category.  A person using a lot of high risk substances can expect some side effects, short-term and long-term.  The higher the risk, the less time till a severe error may occur.  But the benefits may be worth it.  Many people suffered and many people prevailed to produce our current understanding of steroids which did not all come from doctors or researchers.  Doctors were even saying in recent memory they don’t make you stronger, they just make you mad and break stuff.  That was not true, they definitely improve recovery ability which equals strength if you work out.  So, the researchers and muscle men of yesteryear gave us our current knowledge of steroids through high risk trial and error.  Some of them paid a heavy price for it, liver failure, kidney failure, heart failure, and the early death rate of those guys was incredible.  But some of them lived long lives.

Daryl Frank Seldon, MS, copy-writer, knowflow1@gmail.com

The New Man Epistemology

The New Man: Using this stance in your dealings will make you powerful.  It will make you love yourself and intelligent.  Had to dangle a carrot, sorry guys, we're human after all.

Epistemology

In order to build a new society (an ingroup), we have to have educated and reasonable people who are on the same page epistemologically.  We all have different belief systems and theories, but when we deal with each other, let's try to avoid operating from absolutism: the delusion that you have things absolutely right.

I've decided from responses that this viewpoint is better used as an agreement across belief systems that we will agree to operate from this viewpoint in dealing with each other.  It will allow a fundamentalist christian and muslim to at at least get some work done.  My personal preference is to trial collaboration groups of people who have no use for beliefs, but that shuts out too many people, and I can do that on my own time.  Apparently, it's an experiment since belief has been in vogue for a least a few thousand years who knows.  

Edit: 3/17/2019 I've written this lofty sounding at first, but know that my smallest goal for it, is just to uses if for online discussions, have everyone agree to skepticism in argumentation, else they misinterpret everything I say cuz they take it in an absolute way.  So, anything beyond that, take with a grain of salt, and please do not believe any of it.  That would be the opposite of the goal.  Only, operate under these assumptions.  It is my core assumptions but doesn't have to be yours, just use it in dealing with others otherwise, you're being a bit of a self-righteous a-hole, which is fine, but keep it to yourself.

1.  Agreement to operate from Skepticism.

The first principle of our epistemology is skepticism.  I know this is basic, but it gets more narrowed down if you read on.  Therefore, we use this epistemology because we are testing it and experimenting to see if it will work better than previous systems.  We reserve the right to fall back on older systems.  Skepticism means that you never have the whole picture, you never think you are absolutely right, or that anyone else is.  You judge information according to usefulness, truth value, predictive value, and other values, but never as absolutely right.  Even physics equations are just provisional info that we will use, until we have better info.  At no point do we believe it.  We use strategies to deal with uncertainty, rather than attempting or claiming absolute certainty.

Information resolution

We look at information as a hierachy of low resolution to high resolution systems and then the info in those systems have high and low resolution.  The higher the resolution, the higher the truth value.  Therefore, when someone claims for example that the Bible is the absolute truth, that is rather silly because human language narrativees have pretty low resolution.  That’s like a child saying, “my brother is absolutely a doo doohead”.  Doodoo head is too low resolution a concept to be called true and certainly not absolutely true.  The hierarchy of info goes something like this.  It needs to be understood also that our perspective cannot be divorced from the concepts we make about these system, so even the putting together of the system itself is tainted by our perspective.  We can never see the thing in itself because if you can’t see, you can’t understand anything.

High resolution

Physics:  Quantum phyics: high resolution,  Newtonian physics: low resolution

Chemistry

Biology

Human language, humanities

Low resolution

A goal:  Theory of Everything?  Algorithm, heuristic Web of Everything

We have a goal of integrating these systems, creating a computerized algorithmic theory of everything that is not a theory really, but a web of loose connections.  For example, “love” is low resolution, we connect it with oxytocin, oxytocin is connected with carbon.  Therefore carbon is connected to love.  And the computer program will then be able to find connections we never could and produce novel solutions and predictions.

Then you have the epistemology and senses you use to understand these systems.  E=MC2 is piece of language, a concept.  So is ‘doodoo head’.  Which has the higher truth value?  Neither is the absolute truth but they refer to things.  If her brother is behaving badly, is she speaking the absolute truth by calling him a doodoo head?  Being gay is wrong is low resolution, not similar to a physics equation but some claim it is absolute truth.

2.  Anti Logocentrism:  Language literalism is stupidity.  Deconstruct language, ask how a concept developed.  What is it were just invented?  What if I were the first person to say 'choice', 'want', 'desire'?  What new advantage did it convey?  A new concept should be better than the old one.

The second principle is anti-logocentrism.  Language does not perfectly describe the universe.  Nor do numbers.  They are just tools that we use to get work done.  See Wittgenstein, Jerome Bruner.  For example, to many people a 'choice' is a very real thing, but in essence, it’s just a word that describes a group of very different experiences (see Nietzsche).  Choosing what to eat cuz you’re hungry is not very similar to choosing a wife in a dream state.  Different drives, different circumstances.  They just have something quite small in common so we use a word like choice and now we think we’ve got magical powers called free will.  WE do an analysis of the language people use to see what concepts, algorithms, heuristics, assumptions are beneath their use of language. 

For an example, If someone says in a philosophy group, “How many years does it take to reach enlightenment?”

What are the assumptions behind that?

Language literalism - He thinks enlightenment is something very real and defined, when it’s not.

Personhood literalism - He thinks a person is a special thing to the universe.  In fact a person is a piece of the earth’s upper crust that comes and goes.  That we give it a name doesn’t change the fact.  When a person is dead, they are literally no body, it’s somewhat delusional that we even speak of a dead person.  That’s over for good.  There’s no heaven, no resurrection, most likely, because a piece of earth crust isn’t important enough for any powerful being to recreate.  All they did was eat and poop the first time around, no need to bring them back.  Plus there’s a billion just like them still eating and pooping.

So, we look at the basic, underlying assumptions, if we have to engage such a person but we generally avoid talking to those who are ignorant and not interested in learning.

3.  Anti Free will as a good description of experience or physical theory (see Nietzsche)

WE do not believe in free will, we do not disbelieve in freewill.  Like doodoo head, its too childish a concept to do what people want it to do.  But we still use intentional language (choice, belief, desire, free will) just for communication.  Most likely all we experience, all that happens is determined, and if not, then indeterminate, or something else.  It is most likely not caused by our beliefs and desires or will power.  It is surprising that people take these things so literally.  Literalism is stupidity.  With any concept, we should ask, what does that concept do?  How did the concept come about?

Our epistemology assumes that what we experience is not the ‘real world’, or the ‘thing-in-itself’ (see Kant).  As we interact with things, what we are and what the object is determines how we experience it.  It’s possible also that all matter, all physical properties are the same as experience and that when many particles work together, such as in a human body, they can produce unitary properties, therefore unitary experiences.  An example is a magnet.  When metal has domains which are not in alignment, it is just a piece of metal.  Put those domains in alignment, it becomes a magnet.  The whole metal now reacts to an opposing force.  A human is similar, our cells work together to make us a singular being.  It is also connected through electromagnetism, in fact we might just be a giant, complex magnet, or electromagnetic phenomenon.  A computer is of course the same thing.  Your computer just might already have quite a complex type of experience (see panpsychism).

A magnet is probably having a very basic experience, and experience could be based on electromagnetism since that speed might be what creates a human type of experience.

We do not use the algorithm of belief

We don’t believe in gods or any kinds of myths.  We have no need also to deny them.  We only use the term belief because we inherited it.  But it is unreasonable to claim to know something for sure when you don’t know it for sure and that’s what belief is.  We’ve no use for it, except to communicate with others who believe in it or use it.

We do not believe in IQ or any similar constructs.  It’s just a tool of discrimination.

Our goal is to create a new man who is peaceful, powerful, and intelligent to fight the degeneration which we see happening.  But we want to do this only among ourselves, not the society at large.  We have to insulate ourselves from the idiocy of society.

4.  Bias for freedom and options
We do not believe such things as marriage are anything but a convenience.  We try to keep options open and we champion freedom and options in all things.  We only let those in who understand and accept our epistemology and goals of freedom, beauty, intelligence.

5.  Concepts are little computer programs/biases in the brain

Concepts are algorithms, heuristics, little computer programs in the brain.  They are not something ultimately real in the universe.  For example, ‘love’ is not a thing.  It is a word that refers us to some feelings we have had, there are a limited number of humans and a limited number of people who have or will feel that way.  It’s not something that’s all over the universe.  Other animals may have no such experience they would describe that way or even we may have not experienced things that way in the past or will in the future.

6.  Perceptual Psychology, Phenomenology:  Understand behavior by intuiting experiences of others

We try to deduce from a person’s behavior, what they are experiencing.  For example, if a child runs away from grandma, we understand that she saw a scary face, even though we only see grandma.  

7.  Moral stance

We only use a moral judgement to change behavior, we don’t believe it is something real.  Blame, responsibility, these things do not well describe what we know physically or even what we experience.  They are just algorithms which have been successful.  Therefore, we don’t believe people are in full control of themselves and are worthy of absolute blame.  We blame only to identify the source of the problem, then we need to calm down to find a way to fix the problem.  We don’t get stuck in morality loops.

8.  Bias for useful education the person can use in life

Once a person has the right epistemology, we need then a general education and then a specialty education.

The general education should cover extensively fields which increase personal happiness, health, and success.  There’s isn’t time to waste on trifles, we want info the person can use.  We focus then on information literacy, technology, health, and happiness.  We want every single person to be able to learn expert:

Philosophy

Computers

Mechanics

Biology

Health - Biohacking

Physics

Programming

Must be expert at reading comprehension and quickly accessing and using information with computers, calculators.  Stuff like Beowulf, learn that in your own time if you want, it’s not for basic school.  There is a hierarchy.  A person who doesn’t know how to stay healthy doesn’t need to be learning Beowulf yet, there are more important things for them.

It is our goal to start a school that teaches only applied ways of using all of these.  We learn nothing in school which cannot be used by a single person to complete an important task.

8.  Listing heuristics and algorithms to use to deconstruct language and build a Unified Web of Things Theory that go from experiences like light all the way to quantum physics theories about light

Nassim taleb has a good list of heurstics in his work.  We want to collect algorithms, heuristics.  Also computerize some of them, see what AI can do with them.  Also, we learn to deconstruct the algorithms and heuristics that others are using.  It provides predictive value.  It mostly predicts what they will say however, not what they will do because they don’t do what they say.

Here we can start a list:

1. Nothing goes as planned.  All intelligent people know this, but most people don’t.  They make plans and deadlines.  They say things like “I always keep my promises.”  That’s a delusional person.

Some recommending reading to our viewpoint include:

Nietzsche

Nassim Taleb

Jerome Bruner - Show you how language, stories work

Immanuel Kant - epistemology, thing in itself is not knowable

Paul Feyerbrand

Mathematics without numbers: Geofrey hellman - this helps break the spell of those who think numbers compose the universe

Wittgenstein - shows us how language games work, language doesn’t describe experience or reality, they just do a job

Game Theory

Daniel Dennett:  The Intentional Stance
Psychological and neurobiological experiments on choosing, freewill