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MIT Finds Cure For Fear
Doom con runs away writes "MIT biochemists have identified a molecular mechanism behind fear, and successfully cured it in mice, according to an article in the journal Nature Neuroscience. They did this by inhibiting a kinase, an enzyme that change proteins, called Cdk5, which facilitates the extinction of fear learned in a particular context."
Because I saw some MIT guys talking to GIRLS!
President Bush introduced a bill this week to eliminate all research funding at MIT.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It's known as alcohol.
I'm feeling brave, mod me down you fuckers!
It is also called Liquid Courage. Drinking enough alcohol leaves me with no fear as well...
You know, to turn into your worst fear, then suck it out of you? Dave Lister got that treatment a while ago.
this finds its way into MREs given to soldiers?
Why would you want to cure fear? Fear keeps me from giving in to a friend's bet and swallowing a live hamster. But seriously, unless you could target certain fears to help people with crippling phobias, this seems dangerous.
Conspiracy theorists believe the funding was provided by a group of cats ...
Kevin Smith on Prince
Interesting study. If the research can be generalied from context-specific fear, to general fear, it may the starting point for fear gas (described by Alastair Reynolds), which might be a useful non-lethal crowd control weapon
I am terrified at the implications of this!
I hope to see commercials advertising fear-curing pills within the next few years so I can rush to the pharmacy with a prescription. In fact I think we should charge ahead with this and eliminate fear everywhere by putting it in the water with the fluoride. I see no downside or risk!
Now maybe I can get a real ID on slashdot.
How can it be known fear won't be suppressed in similar situations where necessary flight or fight reactions are necessary to survival? oh, and also I for one welcome our new fearless squeaky rodent overlords.
Am I the only one reading too much pulp scifi or are there others out there who are also worried about what will happen when one of the fearless genetically modified super-soldiers decides to seek vengence on those who wrought his unnatural life?
It could be messy.
Although, it occurs to me that soldiers without fear might die often. I mean, fear is not without its uses.
These stories are free but worth money.
uncertainty and doubt. I have no hope though that a cure will ever be found for stupid.
6F 9E A9 1E 96 9F 74 27 ED B8 81 6D 0C 4E 1E 78
My other Sig is a 229.
...am afraid that we're doomed.
a sufficient dose of alcohol.
That this scares the crap out of?
Is this the end yet?...How 'bout now...how 'bout now...how 'bout now?
...the Darwin Awards suddenly recieves a flood of new entries.
Fear is what keeps you from doing dumb shit that might get you hurt or killed. Unless this can be very targeted or shut on/off at will it will have very little effect in the average life of a person. Soldiers and others in high stress and fear jobs may actually do better, but there are many reasons they may do worse. If you aren't afraid of the enemy bullets, you won't duck when they are fired at you. And you might die. THat's a bad course of action on the battlefield. Fear == good.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
No more little death that brings total obliteration. I no longer have to let it pass over me and through me!
In all seriousness, what's the half life of this compound in the mice? I realize this is a long way from human use, but this seems like a damned foolish invention. You might think, for example, that you want soldiers without fear, but I would argue that a fearless soldier is soon a dead soldier. And I think even in everyday life this would be a dangerous state. Fear is a very primitive emotion and all creatures (well, certainly all mammals) seem to have it in varying degrees. In so many places it has a clear survival function. I'm not sure I'm keen to see a population messing about with such fundamental emotions.
Just keep repeating "fear is the mindkiller" till you realize that you have control of your brain. It really does work!
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Fear is a useful mechanism in preventing humans from doing things that have potentially bad consequences for the person.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I guess I can understand some rare and extreme cases where this could be used in positive ways. There are some people who are unable to function in their daily lives due to irrational fears. However, it seems like this sort of thing could be abused, and that disturbs me a bit. I hope people consider that fear, anxiety, and angst are appropriate responses to many situations. I don't know if it's a good idea to take these things lightly.
mice died short afterwards.
They were not killed by the injected enzyme, but by a shocked cat that could not believe all those mice were standing in front of its nose.
I'll stick with good old Dutch Courage thank you very much!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
So it impacts one of the essential functions of the reptilian brain. (4Fs Fighting, Feeding, F-ing, Fleeing). The other three (Fighting, Feeding and F-ing) will compensate !!
Aside from treatments for shell-shocked war vets, I wonder if this could be used to treat more mundane fears as well such as phobias and social anxiety. That could be a boon to many, many people; social anxiety may sound wussy, but it is a misery-inducing and debilitating condition.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Super Army of Hyper intelligent
- smart.htmrel=url2html-29657http://www.princeton.ed u/pr/news/99/q3/0902-smart.htm>
h tmlrel=url2html-29657http://www.touchlab.mit.edu/n ews/index_000.html>
ahref=http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/99/q3/0902
Fearless remote controlled
ahref=http://www.touchlab.mit.edu/news/index_000.
(pan-dimensional)
Rodents.
Professional athletes will no doubt find this new drug most useful, particularly in the more violent or fear-inducing sports. They can add it to their pharmacopoeia of performance enhancers.
The real winners will be the sports fans, of course, as athletics is taken to even higher levels,
I have a crippling fear of needles being inserted into my brain. So it looks like I'm going to have to get over my arachnaphobia the old-fashioned way -- a trip to Australia.
The WoW priest forums errupted in chaos over the latest fear nerf in patch 2.1.5
I'd say this is, upon reflection, will come as a huge blow to proponents of an ineffable soul. If emotions have a chemical basis (and i suppose, pheromones and hormones and the like already prove this, if not as viscerally) then ones innate moral and ethical feelings may ultimately be stripped of environmental causation.
I'd hazard that imbibing such a chemical is the equivalent of running magnetic bulk erasers against your spirit. Not that it's not interesting for use in PTSD cases, or hell, asking the lady you love out on a date, but if there is no causative relationship between what you learn and what you feel, is that any different then not learning at all?
That our intelligence is a better guardian then our heart, may be or may be not, but the coup is underway!
(and i've read enough science fiction to handle it, baby!)
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
I was afraid this would happen.
Cool funny t-shirts for geeks, gamers and everyone else
Fear is what keeps us from doing dangerous things. Fear is an important part of our survival system. Targeting contextual fears could be therapeutically useful, but I think "cure" is the wrong word. The ultimate word on fear, though, comes from Jack Handy:
Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, say you were an astronaut on the moon and you fear your partner had been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for moon pieces, WHAM!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, "Think again, Batman!"
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Because it take no courage to do something you are not afraid of doing (or saying)...
We've got a shot that will ease your concerns. Just step into the doctor's office. He'll be right with you.
Cool!! Give it to the republicans so we can stop invading countries pointlessly!!!!!
In related news, gangs of emboldened mice terrorize cats in Massachusetts neighborhoods. One cat, who preferred to remain anonymous, puts it in his own words, "So I was just standin' there, right, snappin' my fingers and hangin' out, OK? And these freaks in white gloves start beatin' me up! I was like, 'Hey it's cool dudes!' but they kept sayin' somethin' about 72 cheeses in Florida, or somethin'." Said cat is currently in "Groovy" condition in a nearby hospital.
Army approved! Probably been in use in the field since the Iraq War started (soldiers get injections and aren't told what they are)--Go Army!
"the extinction of fear learned in a particular context."
Fear learned in a particular context? That makes this actually useful: for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Panic Attacks, and Phobias.
Something that eliminated fear indiscriminately would clearly be problematic, since fear is a key part of our self-preservation instinct. I haven't RTFA, but from that sentence, it sounds like this could potentially be used more selectively, to cure debilitating fear that comes up in contexts where it is not helpful. I'm sure there is a lot of research that needs to be done before this information could be applied clinically, but if this is the direction it's heading, it could make a huge difference in the lives of many people.
Soon, you will actually be able to avoid intimidating shout.
Everyone seems to be hopping on the "but fear is useful!" bandwagon - but I'm not sure it is. Fear, the emotion, is an instinctive reaction to danger, whether that danger is real or simply perceived. I don't see that it's necessarily bad to replace the gut response with a rational response.
That is, I doubt the drug will remove awareness of danger, simply the emotional reaction to it. While supersoldiers leap to every SF fan's mind, imagine what this could do for everyone who's got any kind of irrational fear. Fear of flying, fear of public speaking, fear of talking to girls, the whole list of phobias. Even in situations where fear is justified - wartime combatants, for example - I don't know that fear is helpful in comparison to the ability to rationally assess threats.
Regardless, in society at large most people most of the time aren't afraid of real threats, they're afraid of imagined (or at least, disproportionately perceived) threats.
Besides which, even the real threats faced by a significant percentage of people in modern industrialized society strike me as predominantly not susceptible to the "fight, flight, or freeze" response.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
As if fear is a disease (it is not), and it's better to not be 'bothered' by it. Fear helps you keep out of situations you shouldn't or don't want to be in, and prevents you from doing dangerous things.
One obvious application is the military. Good? Hmmm... do current-day armies really need more fearless, hell-surviving, brutal killing machines? I doubt it, that's what weapons are for. Let soldiers please have some brains, common sense, be aware that it's real people (with families) they're shooting at, and shit their pants sometimes when the situation calls for it.
Other than that, thumbs up for the researchers to crack this one!
is the world's largest crime syndicate.
Thanks for your help.
Regards,
Kilgore Trout
Some of this stuff and viagra.
Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Didn't The Scarecrow do this to The Batman in Detective Comics??
I see from all the comments that nobody actually read the article.
The 'cure' doesn't eliminate any and all fear. It doesn't address situational fear at all.
What it 'cures' is LEARNED fear responses. It's specific application to, for example, soldiers would be
for PTSD.
And even if there was a way to get read of all fear reactions, you'd still have a BRAIN and the ability
to choose not to do things that you reason are too risky.
Seriously, read the article. It's interesting.
Sheesh.
I don't know that I would call it a "cure". You can hardly call fear a disease, sickness, or even a problem. It's usually a healthy reaction to a dangerous situation.
President Bush introduced a bill this week to provide unlimited funds from the pentagon budget to further research at MIT.
The "particular context" is traumatic fear, such as the result of previous bad encounters - for example, as seen in post traumatic stress disorder. It doesn't sound like this "cure" will do anything for other forms of fear, but I'm guessing that the human brain is so far beyond the mouse brain that this "cure" might not be useful for anything but mice.
I would hope this could be used for temporary therapy. Once you can face your fear with the aid of the drug... The memory that you're no longer afraid anymore becomes stronger than your fearful one. You can then be weaned off the drug. This will allow you to be afraid of things you should be afraid of again.
One of my buddies has to take a pill an hour before he goes to the dentist. Among other things, it removes his fear. Of course, he isn't allowed to drive himself to the dentist's office ...
So, because everything in the body is inter-related, what are the side effects of tampering with the fear gene? I'd be willing to bet a bottle of beer that there are some.
And I share the concerns about the abuse of this potential drug.
But there are mental illnesses that deal with crippling fears, where extreme fear of seemingly insignificant things can prevent a person from interacting with society in a meaningful way. For those people, this drug could bring relief, and a chance for a normal life. But control is paramount, and I'd need to see a LOT of clinical trial and years in the open market before it gets into military use. Fear will keep you alive on a battle field, but crippling fear will get your unit killed. Not only that, but being in a war zone isn't 24x7 guns blazing and shells falling. It's minutes of near death experiences followed by minutes, hours, days, even weeks of no activity. Knowing that at any second an explosion could rip you to shreds, or small arms fire could light you up. That is the stress that kills, the constant fear tearing at the back of your mind. Some people have even described the start of an attack as a relief, as they no longer do they have to sit in anticipation of the attack. If this drug could help prevent soldier from locking up in high stress moments, and relieve the pressure from the tedium of war, then I could have a solid benefit for the military.
If on the other hand, it takes away their fear of bullets, reprisal, and other control mechanisms... then it is nothing we want to give to anyone with a gun.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
With the reference to the hippocampus where the Cdk5 does it's magic, I wonder if the mice no longer fear the stimulus because they no longer remember the experience.
Dennis Dumont
Fear is actually a very powerful disabler when it gets out of control. Many phobias and behaviors exist because an irrational fear has been instilled in a person of some situation or thing. Removing that fear mechanism just long enough to allow the person to act against their otherwise disabling fear would probably allow for significant recovery for people who are disabled by those fears.
Note, of course, I'm talking about irrational fears. Irrational fears of normal situations occurring in phobias is one thing, "rational" fear responses is another thing entirely. You don't want to make super soldiers or even people who are completely unafraid of certain social situations. We know what we call people who tend to be unafraid of more rational things: children or criminally insane.
We don't want to have to child-proof ourselves or society if fearlessness gets out of control. When people are fearless, they also tend to be somewhat more aggressive and even in a soldier (especially in a soldier(?)) this is a really bad idea. You need to have a healthy respect for your enemy if you plan on coming home or even living long enough to attain an objective.
On the other hand, you may be able to innoculate your troops against the noise and confusion of battle by controlled exposure to those things while having fear removed. The idea would be to allow the soldier to experience the events without fear, and therefore see how proper execution of tactics at the right time allows them to actually win (and be alive at the end of it). Its been said that even the most elite troops in battle only fire 20-30% of the time. The rest of the time, they are head down trying to stay alive. Considering that the enemy is firing at the same rate (or less), the fact is that battles actually have fairly little shooting going on within a certain amount of time. A unit trained to be able to fire even 40% of the time could win battles by simply having enough suppressive fire to be able to maneuver and surround an enemy position. That is, assuming that the enemy is not also trained in the same manner.
Our fears are a useful evolutionary advantage, but as evolution is a slow process, sometimes our fears cover situations that we expected to deal with in our distant past. "Fearlessness" is a bad thing, but perhaps "tuning" our fears so that they cover realistic modern situations and at the same time, treating rogue phobias would be an excellent application of this idea.
I just hope that whatever it is that does this can't be stuck in some drug that could be sold on the street someday... that could spell real trouble. As with anything with powerful potential, its uncontrolled usage could spell disaster.
There is a difference between fear and common sense. The fear of an enemy bullet will stop an advancing squad or soldier, and curing (turning off) fear will allow them to advance. Common sense tells them not to just get up and run straight at the enemy. Although, I'm not too convinced it will be a good thing to do.
My understanding is that this specifically weakens the link between certain traumatic memories and the fear response. The experiments said nothing about the ability to experience fear for other reasons, such as a current perceived danger. The only thing shown to be affected was the immediate, automatic burst of fear/anxiety linked to certain memory triggers.
This would be directly applicable to PTSD patients, and might also help with certain phobias. But calling it a "cure for fear" is premature at best, and probably downright misleading. Note that most other news outlets have used headlines like "[cure|treatment] for PTSD" rather than the rather sensational headline chosen here.
(This is not to say that such a treatment wouldn't have a potential for abuse, however...)
I no longer fear science. I must feel better.
...but I'm afraid to try it.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
As I read this article, it isn't about making something fearless or preventing fear...it's more about increasing the rate at which a learned fear response decays in the absence of reinforcement. Essentially, the brain has built in mechanisms to "cure" fear on its own, given enough time without reinforcement of that particular fear. Inhibition of this enzyme--oddly enough one linked with plasticity and neural development--makes that process easier/faster.
If I understand correctly, then they are right in saying this would be potentially wonderful for treating cases of PTSD where the fear response does not significantly decrease even at points in time far removed from the initial trauma, but I don't think we have to worry about inhibition of this enzyme erasing people's ability to feel fear or leading to fear-based weapons systems. Those things are almost certainly possible (lesions on the amygdala are thought to tame animals by destroying their ability to feel fear), but I don't think they'll appear as a result of this study.
no text
More music, fewer hits
I thought Captain America was created by accidentally being exposed to 'Gamma Rays'.
Seriously, does MIT do anything anymore besides develop military applications?
If they eliminate greed too then W$ will be out of business.
fear is good. It stops us from doing stupid things.
Like posting without RTFA.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
After successfully treating the mice for fear, the scientists found a number of the left for experiments dropped drastically as the rodents fell to their deaths from shelves during espace attempts and as well as unsuccessfully facing down the lab cat.
Read the article. This is about extinguishing learned fear, such as post traumatic stress disorder. This is not a drug that controls fear in the present moment. It has absolutely nothing to do with either situation you mention.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Great, and we thought people on Cell Phones were a big enough problem on the highway.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
I'll finally be able to rent all of the Aliens movies and watch them without leaving the room.
Since when is fear something that needs curing? And if it's so bad why do we make horror movies? Or play hide and seek in the graveyard at night?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The first post is more correct, as the drug might actually apply in a situation involving girls. The drug treats learned fear, not the innate fear of combat. It will be used to help control post traumatic stress disorder. Arguably, fear of women is a learned fear similar to PTSD.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
...I just use my Tremor Totem. Easy :D
I'm pretty sure *tripping on acid* has created a lack of fear in drug addicts for years now.
It just doesn't last very long, gives you a hangover the next morning, and makes ugly women look like supermodels.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Call me when they've cured ennui. Or don't. Whatever.
* See your doctor for treatment options.
We have finally won?
The war against terror (extreme fear) is over. We can can now cure fear/terror.
We no longer need to fear the undefined enemy.
Of course we still need oil.
Although there are definately drawbacks to having no fear, one benefit would be the nessesity to rely more on you common sense in potentially dangerous situations. In combat, fear can be blinding and overide even the best training. The ability to calmly asses a situation in the heat of the moment would greatly outweigh the added precautions needed before undergoing such a treatment in humans.
My first knee-jerk response was that this would be combined with propranolol, the drug that suppresses traumatic memories which is intended to stop PTSD but could instead be abused to prevent guilt over atrocities.
My second thought was of how amazingly boneheaded of an idea administering an anti-fear drug would be in a war zone -- especially for US soldiers carrying an amazingly expensive array of military gear and having had expensive combat training. Soldiers need fear as a survival mechanism. Without it, they'd do amazingly stupid and suicidal things.
You'd use a drug like this if your army were cannon fodder with poor supplies and training. I could see a use for this for suicide bombers or *maybe* for overrunning positions defended by few soldiers, but that's it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Sometimes I envy Lt. Commander Data and his ability to render himself impervious to emotional attack (Borg Queens not withstanding) but I NEED my fear just like I NEED my pain!
Bring on the drugs so I can get a start on my new hobbies immediately!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Cue the blooper reel. This is *amazing* news for those of us who follow the Darwin Awards. w00t!!
Hollywood has just started supporting MIT research as part of the new Samuel Jackson movie:
"Fearless Mutant Mice in an Elevator"
love potions that work? Loyalty supplements in your school lunch?
Certain fears are good. Fear of heights has saved thousands (maybe millions?) of hominids in the past million years or so from falling to their deaths. However, my mom's fear about being around balloons because of their ability to spontaneously pop and startle her isn't such a good fear. Neither is my inability to talk to girls in a bar. And while fear of heights in general might be good, some people's fear about flying in a plane might not be so good. The point is... if this one compound blocks all fear, that would be a bad thing. Fear is the evolutionary mechanism of saving people from dying.
Go here, the FA linked from the blurb is not nearly as informative.
One of my twenty dollar girlfriends has a fear of anyone touching her neck, due to being strangled once. I hope they come up with the drug, which pressesc (who the hell are they anyway?) says they already have but LiveScience says they don't. One of TFAs is obviously incorrect.
I'm also wondering if phobias like hers could be related to traumatic stress syndrome.
While googling for a better FA (I suspected hoax), I found another related and very interesting LiveScience article Bizarre Human Brain Parasite Precisely Alters Fear. I wonder why NewScientest doesn't have anything on the "fear cure"? It's generally a far better site than LiveScience.
Scary stuff!
-mcgrew
(posting anonymously because my karma is frighteningly high)
This drug - it's called beer, right?
This just in...fear factor testing for performance enhancing drugs.
Fear factor canceled due to MIT and Joe Rogan.
I forget where I read it... it was probably linked from here anyway, but there was some discussion about why suicide bombers are muslim and all that. The bottom-line is polygamy.
Yeah, that's the sort of thing that pop-science writers come up with when they don't know a dang thing about the subject they're writing about. Polygamy amongst Muslims is very rare outside of the very wealthy. Polygamy by its very nature of excluding otherwise fit males from the breeding populace can only exist in situations where there is a strong inequality between the power of males. Poor and powerless people don't become polygamists without the favor of the wealthy or powerful.
There's a much stronger correlation between young male poverty and suicide bombing then there is to polygamy. The core reasoning (a desperation born from the lack of ability to marry and support a family) is much the same, but this is not because there are no women available as much as its because there are no jobs available.
After all the Palestinian gender ratio (as of 1997) is 1.036 males to every female which nicely tracks the world average of 1.05. Polygamous marriages constitute only 4% of Palestinian marriages, and this should not be enough to push the gender ratio significantly out of balance. Note that China has a horrible ratio of 1.06 males to every female due to illegal abortions of female children, and it's not a hotbed of suicide bombers.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
...as charged. Did not RTFA.
Just a knee-jerk reaction to the concept.
...as a certain amount of fear response is needed to tell creatures when high risk of danger is at hand. Without fear, people tend to do stupid self destructive things and get into situations that result in some risk to others. This seems tailor made to open up a whole new world of dangers that will go unheeded. What's next? A drug to eradicate conscience? Another to make you feel like superman? We really don't want to go down the supersoldier path if we care about the outcome of warfare. Conscience, fear, etc. are all things we desperately need to be able to end the conflict at some point and control the amount of bloodshed during the conflict. We don't need this, really.
I hope that it is kept strictly as a psych treatment for irrational people under professional care only.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I'm still to afraid to RTFA. Everytime I see the link, it gives me shivers down the spine. How I wish I could find this cure, but my greatest fear seems to be confronting my greatest fear. I remember a time when I had no fear. I think they called it death.
Fear is different from rationality. A normal day would be completely unaffected without fear.
Like Blizzard hasn't nerfed Fear enough already, now we've got these smartass MIT guys trying to make everyone immune to it.
I knew I should have rolled Hunter.
The world can be wrong today for once.
Reavers have taken over the quad at MIT, stolen an entire box of McDonalds ketchup packets to liven up the walls and and eaten four students alive.
Good Lord! the font on my monitor is tiny, coupled with the word Chromatic, and I translated Peril -> Perl.
I want one of those "Perl Sensitive Sunglasses" that would be so darn cool.
While I don't claim to be some military genius, I do happen to be reserve sergeant. It means that, for better or worse, in case of a serious war I would very likely get some summary training and a bunch of young men to live to our deaths. Make what you will out of that.
And it scares me to think I'd get to lead some guys who take this kind of stuff. There's this saying, "never share a foxhole with someone braver than you are."
The folks who are all brave, and the stuff of heroic hero tales and propaganda, are the guys who in practice had a nervous breakdown and did something stupid. And not only got themselves killed, but often got half the platoon wiped out. You _don't_ actually want people to start acting _too_ brave.
You can see what happen when people start caring less and less about personal safety, because that's what combat fatigue does. The more it progresses, the lower their chances of survival become. Think the Red Baron breaking his own rules and flying too low over the trenches. A machinegun got 'im.
Fear isn't just the instant irrational response, but also a factor in that rational assessment of a situation. It's why you execute your orders or trust your officers even against your common sense. You know, or hope, that if you do your role to the letter, everyone has higher chances to survive than if you don't. So basically a big factor there is precisely the fear: fear of what happens if you don't do your job.
And it can be a very irrational thing. If you were to take the rational thought path there, it's more logical to just keep your head low or just bugger off completely. I mean, fear or no fear, it's not particularly logical to have a death wish. And what keeps you there might just be an irrational fear of the unknown that would happen if you don't follow those orders.
Heck, war itself is a very illogical thing. You're asking some people to risk their life, or worse, to risk getting crippled, _and_ to do a very social thing that most would rather not be doing: killing someone else. And you're asking them to do it for little or no rewards. To quote Hermann Goering: "Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?" Not a fan of the guy, but he does have a point there: the "reward" that the average soldier can hope for is staying alive. And if you're to think logically there, it's a damn crappy reward for risking your life. You actually have more chances to achieve that by _not_ going to war.
What keeps people there? Essentially fear. And I don't just mean the fear that the corporal will have their head for breakfast, or fear of being court martialled, but a lot of it is also the "my peers would have an awfully bad opinion of me if I bugger off" kind of fear. I dare say that that's most of what drives the other half of Goering's famous quote. ("Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.") Essentially that propaganda isn't as much causing people to be fearless and utterly patriotic, it causes groupthink and fear of the social consequences of trying to go against the stream. People don't as much think, "hell yeah, now I'm all psyched to go teach the French a lesson", people think "omg, the way everyone seems to believe that chest thumping stuff, I don't want to risk being the guy who comes forth and says that he's a coward." (Actually chances are everyone else thinks the same. That's the beauty of groupthink.)
So if you were to remove all fear -- including the "what would the folks at home think of me if I deserted?" kind of fear -- would people even stay in the army?
Mind you, it would probably be an improvement if people stopped shooting each other for the glory of some megalomaniac. But if your purpose were to get people to fight better, well, you might actually better off without this kind of thing.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I remember reading in my Elite pilot's handbook how Thargons had had their fear glands surgically removed, and that was in the 80s!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Will come in handy for super patch Tuesdays.
Fear is a useful mechanism in preventing humans from doing things that have potentially bad consequences for the person.
Fear is a useful mechanism in preventing humans from doing things that have potentially bad consequences for the powers that be.
But on a more serious not, fear does prevent humans from doing things they have no little understanding of which may lead to potentially have "good" consequences.
I mean what if Christopher Columbus has been too scared to travel to the new world?
What if NASA had been too scared of sending a man to the moon?
And more importantly what if you dad had been too scared to make a pass at your mom? (We'll you wouldn't be here today)
Fear does keep us from doing things doing stupid things that will get us killed, but often times we let it get out of control in which we don't do things that are not even remotely harmful because we are too scared of the consequences. This also means fear can be used as a tool by powerful persons or organizations to keep others in line without having to result to physical force.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
There's already an existing elixir for this. It's commonly referred to as "beer." It's known to work exceptionally well on college campuses.
I'm sure it would be an injection in order to work. That isn't going to help me get over my fear of needles.
As a scientist, when I read the article but I remove the word "fear" all I see is a remedy to cure memory. Not remembering fear is nice, not remembering most things is not. They should be doing just that now, checking their "cure" does not hamper retaining any memory at all. Because a muse will not tell you that right away.
I'd be worried that somebody figures out some way to REVERSE the action of the proteins involved in this process; to GENERATE fear rather than CURE it.
I'd be more worried if that person happens to be a psychologist who calls himself "Scarecrow".
Not because he'd release his fear-weapon into the water mains, but because life isn't supposed to imitate art THAT closely.
I'd look at the other side of this as interesting as well. Does this mean that they could come up with a chemical that enhances the fear effect?
Sounds like an absolutely wonderful way to deal violent protests and even crime, in a way that doesn't actually hurt anyone. Instead of spraying mace in an assailant's face which can frequently enrage an attacker and ultimately cause more harm than good, pop a 'fearbomb' and enhance his natural anxieties over what's going on?
Sounds like a science fiction story, but it might be useful.
-Styopa
actually, you are propogating another unproven myth, that suicide bombers are drawn from the ranks of the poor and uneducated/down trodden. An analysis of suicide bombers reveals most to be highly educated, from middle or upper middle class families(many are western educated).
this was research done by a speaker at my college last year, Davidson College. now I'm searching for his name, but he basically went through by hand every suicide bomber of the last 20 years because Hamas sends out leaflets of those who died and gives a background of them.
tunrs out the guy with a bomb strapped to him is more likely to be educated the guy he is blowing up.....
sorry but I searched for a few minutes and can't find the guy's name. He lectured in the spring of 2006....
Any chance we could get a cure for greed? There's a few governments and a bag-full of companies we might want to spinkle some such potion over.
New Music!
Oh, god, this will totally destroy Adrian Monk. His show just got cancelled.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Is anyone else here terrified at the thought of an army of supermice?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The Bene Gesserit Littainy against Fear. Pg 19 of Dune I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
The best counter to fear is humor. Because humor is unexpectedly fast learning, the proper injection of info into the fear cycle can destroy it. And a humorous attitude can be proof against hte whole cycle ever taking root.
Frank Herbert's Litany Against Fear works, but best on those people already conditioned by prana-bindu training:
--
make install -not war
Get these guys integrated into Western civilization and tell them it's OK to bang a chick once in a while, and most of the suicide bombers go away.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Interesting. Please, if you can do find me some info on this. I'd like to see his research. Any clues to finding it would be handy.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I was afraid the only cure for fear was death.
So this development means the only thing we have to fear is... ???
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I actually thought this summary sounded really interesting, because it may mean that the MIT researchers have discovered a chemical that performs a similar function to something that appears in nature.
... something. They know not what.
The protozoan Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite that infests mammals, causing the condition known as toxoplasmosis. It has several stages in its life cycle, wherein you find it in different forms of animals. It does infest people, but it doesn't really like it there and unless you're immune-compromised it usually has no ill effects. Its preferred final host organism is a cat, including wildcats and house cats. And in order to get into cats it employs a novel device: First it infests mice.
Researchers did a little experiment. They had some mice run through a little maze, looking for food. One area of the maze they treated with cat urine. Normal mice, when they encountered this part of the maze, would get completely freaked out. From then on they would avoid that part of the maze like the plague. Mice infested with toxoplasmosis, on the other hand, wouldn't seem to notice. In fact, some of them seemed to develop a perverse curiosity about the cat-smelling part of the maze, and would return to it again and again.
The results seemed to be consistent with the idea that toxoplasmosis does something to inhibit fear in mice. So they did some further studies, this time on people. As it turned out, psychological studies seemed to indicate that humans infested with toxoplasmosis, though they may not be "sick," do seem to exhibit more exaggerated behaviors, consistent with the kinds of effects observed in mice. Men tend to become more solitary, aggressive, and rebellious. Women become more overtly friendly and flirtatious.
Generally, scientists agree that it's unlikely that a microscopic organism like Toxoplasma gondii could have some kind of diabolical masterplan behind these behavior changes. It's probably something as simple as releasing a molecule into the bodies of the host organism that does
Only, I wonder if the MIT guys have discovered something close.
Breakfast served all day!
And lots of it. That's all one needs. Sheesh, rednecks figured this out a long time ago.
"Well, I say let's get out there and twat it!"
You must think in Russian.
since this may get closed as a topic before I can get back to you, contact me on aim with Gordo^^^$$$3000 (ignore the obviously ignorable.....), and I'll ask my professors. I'm working abroad so I don't have my old course syllabus on hand...
Since we have now identified what creates fear, it logically extends that we can induce it. Great, a whole no meaning for the term 'terrorist' will be in order. People who can induce fear without the need to kill, cause damage, or threaten action have inordinate amount of power.
Where are we going? And what's with the hand basket?
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
The biochemist then put on a straw hat, went out to terrorize the city, and was swiftly foiled by Batman.
Post-traumatic stress disorder appears to be wildly misunderstood. The hippocampus is only one part of the whole picture and while downregulating hippocampal cdk5 in PTSD sufferers might help them to integrate traumatic memory material, they would have to be on a cocktail of other drugs (the neurochemist approach) or already in therapy like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), which would obviate the need for such a pathway to begin with.
Also, PTSD has been called an anxiety disorder, then a depressive disorder, then a dissociative disorder... etc., each new study saying they have pidgeon-holed it for years now, so it is no surprise to me that neurochemists with research to fund have just come back to calling it - in a glossed up, scientific way - cowardice. Thanks guys. Way to simplify cognition in an organ so complex, we don't even know what 85% of it does.
Rather, PTSD shares elements of many of these other disorders but is more complex than any single one. The "fear" caused by hippocampal activity is closely related to the amygdala, which integrates memory material, but not related causally to, say, the locus ceruleus, which is the alarm center of the brain; in someone with PTSD, imagine that the locus ceruleus is a fire alarm going off every twenty-five minutes in a firehouse, and each time it is a false alarm ...but the fire fighters have slide down the pole anyway, because that is there job, their role. In other words, telling the brain it is a false alarm (treating fear) does not actually desensitize the locus ceruleus, so the brain will constantly tell the body to react as though danger is near (not necessarily fear, especially for those who are trained combat veterans and do not flinch in combat, but react to danger by entering a combat mindset, which can be problematic at the family picnic one day after someone sets off a firecracker).
Basically, non-comprehensive treatments for one or the other of the symptoms invariably fail to treat PTSD effectively. It has been treated with SSRI and SNRI antidepressants which reduced hypersensitivity but inhibited memory re-integration, and i suspect this will be tried and will fail in a similar way. Describing it as a "contextualized fear response," or referring implicitly to it as such, is deeply ignorant of the complexity of the human psyche and the nature of PTSD.
i am the opposite of tom_good, i am the XOR of ]=9fÆ"ÝÕ and ÖÆ\KF, i am 746F6D5F6576696C00.
...about the best-allayed fears of mice and men?
There are some people who become suicide bombers because they're angry about their family getting killed or something, and in those cases perhaps the drugs can be useful. But for ideologically motivated bombers, PTSD isn't an issue. I had a former boss who'd been considering volunteering as a kamikaze pilot during WWII, when he was a college student - fortunately one of his professors talked him out of it. It wasn't a trauma thing, just a gung-ho serve-your-emperor Pat Tillman kind of thing.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I guess this means that we'll all qualify to be Green Lanterns in the near future.
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
Now Pinky and The Brain are definitely going to "RULE THE WORLD"!
Now if only MIT can help my mage in World of Warcraft!!! I FRIGGEN HATE when stupid WARLOCKS cast that stupid FEAR spell on me and make me run around like a chicken with my head cut off while they and their put beat the $h** out of me!! It's totally not fair because my equivelant mage spell (Polymorph) turns them into a sheep BUT they turn back as soon as they take any damage. While under the effects of the fear spell, you can continue to take damage until the spell wears off naturally... So MIT, can you cure my mage of fear too ?? :-)
The only thing to fear is .... uh ... fear itself?
Without Fear, what will lead to Anger? Hate? S-S-Suffering????
Evidence here ;-)
The drug does treat only those fears caused by anxiety, fear-of-rejection, etc... If the drug DID also control the kind of fear when your life in in jeopardy, that would not be good... murderers would be fearless and so would their victims. So, people would be murdering and committing other serious crimes constantly. Total chaos man!
The kind of fear you get when you are afraid to talk to a girl is WAY different. You're just scared of her reaction... you aren't scared she's going to kill you! lol. That'll be the day when a harmless little hottie physically hurts someone.
Let's try that again. HERE
It looks like this same set of proteins and enzyemes is involved in pain sensation / suppression.
/ 9880.asp
http://www.leaddiscovery.co.uk/admin%20pain/files
Cure pain and fear in one fell swoop?
Men prefer blondes? Not necessarily. I must not be a Gentleman, because I prefer brunettes.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
If I was in power, I would slip it in the water supplies to remove people's fears of the government and privacy intrusions.
Seriously, this stuff has some serious abuse potential.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Giving this to the dudes in the foxholes would be pretty stupid, but there are military applications if a particular fear could be eliminated. A submarine crew who are freaking out because there is a torpedo in the water are less likely to do better than a crew which is unafraid because they have been conditioned to not fear torpedo attacks. Similarly a warship crew dealing with air attack (remember the Iranian airline shootdown). An airdefense battery crewed by calm soldiers shooting down missiles and aircraft has a better chance of survival than ones shitting their pants. An AWACS command crew dealing with incoming fighters can judge and react more rationally if they arent worrying about being blown out of the sky any minute. Most command and control and technical specialities (usually the entire navy) benefit from being cold blooded automatons.
DC Comics files claim against MIT for intellectual property infringement of "Batman" storylines; announces release of new monthly series for lucrative 5-12 age set: "DarePinky, The Mouse Without Fear."
So, we've got a set-up for Scarecrow, I wonder if Bill and Melinda will get gunned down anytime soon so we can have our Batman...
You know what is interesting.. toxoplasmosis .. that weird bug that makes mice unafraid of cats has a slew of cdk related enzymes in it
D K/cdk_page2.html
http://www.biocristalografia.df.ibilce.unesp.br/C
I'm curious if they found the cdk5/fear relationship because of this actually..
alcohol. Who knew?!
From what I have read, the one common characteristic that all serial killers seem to share is that they are unable to experience fear, and thus do not fear recriminations for their actions. SO now, we can all be BTK style homicidal maniacs. Hurray for science!
I already discovered the cure to fear, turns out it's balls.
Balderdash!
Mountain Dew. All the commercials I see show these kids doing crazy stuff and drinking Dew, so there must be something in it that kills the ability of your brain to tell you that what you are about to do will probably put you in the hospital and you don't have insurance...
:-)
Then again, it could be Beer. I can remember seeing quite a few people at sporting events thinking they could do stuff that would obviously hurt them bad, yet they do it anyway...
Then again it could be women. I have seen many a young man do things incredibly brave/stupid just to impress a young lady.
God forbid someone drink a Dew/Beer combo and see a beautiful girl.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
Cure for fear? Does this mean we can finally cure all conservatives? It's getting kind of annoying having their fear overwhelm the nation, thinking people are going to blow up planes with a can of diet pepsi, some mentos, and an old gym shoe. Or that terrrrrrrrrerrrrrrrists are going to blow up their trailer park or petting zoo.
Seriously, this totally sissified fear conservatives have is (and always HAS been) completely off the hook. It's going to be great to know they can finally stop wetting their pants when they see their own shadows.
come on people, priorities here.
Reminds me of this episode of Batman The Animated Series
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
Microsoft will be fine. Fear may be cured, but Uncertainty and Doubt are certainly still viable business strategies.
It would be really interesting if this drug works on phobias. I have a severe phobia of needles. It's not that I think it will hurt, I just cannot stand the thought of something poking into my skin and ejecting liquid (or pulling blood) out of me. I can't even see people using needles on tv/movies without looking away.
It's so bad that I will not give blood even though I know I should. When I got a tetnus shot from stepping on something that lodged in my foot, I almost passed out and had to lay down for over an hour before the nurses would let me drive home. When I had my wisdom teeth out, they had to give me a cocktail of drugs that made me feel like I just drank 20 beers in order to give me an IV (the first attempt resulted in my veins collapsing and me almost passing out).
I know it's ridiculous and I have nothing to fear from needles, but that doesn't matter. I have no control. Curing "useless" phobias like this would be very beneficial as I currently avoid any situation where I might have to get a needle, possibly risking my health by avoiding medical care.
The experiment demonstrated the ability to block a learned fear reaction where the subject experiences fear when exposed to circumstances in which unpleasant stimuli were previously present. This is not about inhibitting the fear reaction to currently present stimuli. So no super-soldiers or serial killers here, move along.
Extinction is the reduction in the probability of a learned response ( http://www.google.com/search?q=extinction+psycholo gy ) Perhaps this can be used to reduce other learned responses, as well.
Perhaps, in some sick way, people with PTSD or other "fear disorders" are addicted to fear?
:(){
Despite my poor grammar, I was trying to suggest that soldiers -- as a collective nouon -- would experience more frequent death.
However, upon reflection, it occurs to me that soldiers die and are resusitated fairly frequently. Some of them heal and return to service, others end up looking like Gollum. But still -- they die and are revived, given the presence of adequately trained medical professionals or at least a reasonably functioning obnoxious medical hologram.
"What is the nature of the medical -- eeeeuuuuu, gross!"
These stories are free but worth money.
stat!
Something else that helps a lot of people are nutritional supplements.
(my scans of the article. True Hope sells the vitamin/mineral product. I did find a copy of this article on the interweb somewhere once; if you need a cut-and-paste version you might try searching.)
Many people really benefit from Omega 3 supplementation too (box titled 'fish therapy' on the fifth page of above-linked article, for example). I don't have any experience with Nutru's brain-pak, but I have been taking different supplement with the same DHA (Omega Three) algae-derived oil (from Martek Biosciences), and my lips & hands aren't nearly as dry as they were...
Of course, there's little profit in these things for the Corporations which currently have a stranglehold on American life. EFT is little more than knowledge - where and how to tap which accupuncture points. Omega Three oils can't be pattented and sold at $10/pill - my bottle of DHA sold for something like $20 for 60 gelcaps; NuTru's liquid DHA formula is probably half as much for the same dose. We don't hear about these things from the corporate media because when the truth about pharmaceuticals becomes widely known & accepted, who would bother treating the symptoms with Prozac/et al, when the causes of emotional distress can quickly & easily be permanently resolved?
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Does anybody see something premature? Of course the /.'rs caught it early, because it was a big joke. I would have loved to not be afraid to go to school when I was bullied. I would have liked not to be afraid girls in my adolescence. I would like to continue being afraid of fire. I have to remain afraid of severe chronic pain in a country where I can't get opiates. I am no longer afraid of death. Wipe out fear, they we can fight like ants.
Hey, some of us slash-dotters know what a Girl is cuz we are Girlz. We just want to know what the term "man" means, since we've yet to meet any.... *snick*
Sorry, couldn't resist. I'm sure some of you have hit puberty by now.
Here's an interesting intelligence/development test to try. Take a large mirror -- at least a meter on a side -- and put it in the middle of the floor, facing upwards. Put a toy or treat in the middle of it. See how a newborn puppy, kitten, or baby reacts. It's been my experience that a puppy or kitten has to be at least five months old, and a child has to be at least crawling well, before they'll let you put them anywhere near that mirror without serious attempts to get away. It's a rare dog, even fully grown, that will overcome its fear of falling in a hole enough to try touching the mirror in efforts to get the snacks. My mom's dog won't go within a meter of this, while my brother's extremely bright dog will walk up, sniff, carefully touch the edge of the mirror with a paw, then very carefully lean out, keeping three legs off the mirror and only putting one on, to try and get the snacks. I've only gotten to try this with three children; none who were too young to speak would have anything to do with the mirror no matter how tempting the prize until they were about 2 years old, and even then one was deeply suspicious of the whole affair.
Oh. I also have yet to see a kid or a cat/dog that wasn't freaked right out by the sight of a tarantula, but I haven't gotten to experiment as much with that, especially with babies, for some reason.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
That stuff is dangerous. CDK stands for cyclin-dependent kinase. These types of kinases control a lot of stuff all at once
because they link cell cycle clock to actual processes in a cell. CDK5 (which I indirectly work on) controls a lot. This
drug needs to be tested over many many years before field use because CDK5 may play a role in slow-developing diseases
like Alzheimer's.
. I just started with a therapist and I am trying to find a good relaxation/mediation CD. Do you know of any good CD's for meditaiton/relaxation?
:)
Silva Method's 'Long Relaxation Exercise' or the Silva Ultramind 'Centering Exercise' both teach the same method of relaxation: relax the body, relax the mind, and how to enter a state of inner-focused awareness. It's a training program, and if you train properly (that is, at least once a day at the start), after a month you won't need to listen to the tract at all.
Get sessions #1 and #2 (or the whole 8-cd package, for sure) or the Silva Method 'Choose Success' course, or find a download of the Centering Exercise (it's relatively easy to find).
Jose Silva cared more about 'how' to teach enhanced mental functioning than the 'whys' of why his method worked. If you have to know why something works, get a copy of Anna Wise's The High Performance Mind.
Robert Monroe's hemi-sync system (for hemispherical-synchronization - basically getting the two halves of the brain working together in sync) also has some good programs, though that might not be exactly what you're looking for.
The BrainWave Generator used to be available as a free download, but I haven't looked at that site in a couple years...
Hope this helps. Be sure to follow up on my other reply too.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
...are "crack cocaine". Beer? Pffft. Mind you, a nice ale buzz goes well with a pipe if you're absolutely determined to fuck your entire life up and end the day either dead or in jail :)
There are problems with the term "innate," but there are certainly some specific fears that one can observe in newborns. IIRC, fear of spiders is one.
Are you adequate?
That is what the title should read. There's no "cure" if it's not a disease.
If fearlessness was advantageous everone would have it. When a caveman comes after you with a stick trying to skewer your ass you should run.
To further test the discovery, a new study challenged an age old rivalry.
That's scary.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
> Why would you want to cure fear?
So you could become one of our new fearless mouse overlords instead of having to welcome them.
Extinction of fear wasn't measured.
Memory wasn't measured.
What was measured? Freezing: not moving. Or not freezing: moving, continuing to move.
Everything else is inferred.
Likewise, fear doesn't extinguish. Freezing could be said to extinguish. Fear could be said to be lowered, or reduced; however, again, that's an inference. One could also infer that caution was reduced. MIT Finds Cure for Caution. Is that a breakthrough?
And isn't it called religious fundamentalism?
A choice of masters is not freedom
...can be found here:
m l
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/trauma-0715.ht
www.purevolume.com/martyd
I for one welcome our new fearless mice overlords.
1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.
Bologna. Children fear heights from a very early age.
Yeah, they learn it by falling a lot. If it was truly innate, parents wouldn't need to buy all those plastic fences to keep their kids from falling over ledges and down stairs.
I have no learned aversion to fighting or confrontation.
You've never even witnessed a fight or confrontation, even on TV? Because that's all it takes to "learn" a fear. People aren't afraid of flying in airplanes because they've been in 17 plane crashes, but because they saw a couple on TV once.
damn straight I am going to be scared, not because my higher reasoning capacities have inferred that being in this environment could result in my death
Fear has nothing to do with "higher reasoning capacities".
Put me in a combat arena where people are shooting at me and bombs are going off, damn straight I am going to be scared, [...] because millions of years of evolution have evolved a fight or flight response that tends to result in higher survival rates among those who don't ignore it.
You have millions of years of evolution teaching you to be scared of the sound of gunfire? Uh, no, I bet the sound of gunfire and exploding bombs scares you because you've seen on TV what they can do. If you had no idea what a hand grenade was ("here, check out my new cell phone"), you probably wouldn't be afraid to hold one in your hand, or even pull the pin.
This is bad. It will undoubtedly be given to soldiers.
Fear is good. It's how you stay alive. It keeps you out of trouble.
Soldiers who aren't afraid will just rush like counter-strike and get shot like cannon fodder.
They won't be afraid of getting shot or dying.
This is bad science.
Though maybe it will finally help me conquer my crippling fear of spiders. And then maybe I'll get bit by one of those camel spiders and bloat up and die.
They're using their grammar skills there.
For a second there, I thought I read "MIT finds cure for cancer"...well, there's always next time, huh?
The butcher with the biggest heart has the sharpest knife.
Chuck Norris works at MIT now?
Jesus Saves
Maybe they could make the formula as a juice, so we can call it courage juice ;)
Bologna. Children fear heights from a very early age.
Yeah, they learn it by falling a lot. If it was truly innate, parents wouldn't need to buy all those plastic fences to keep their kids from falling over ledges and down stairs.
Have you ever thought that maybe the reverse is true, that toddlers DO have innate fear, but they overcome it quickly when they realise every time they've done something dangerous their parents/carers have saved and protected them?
You have millions of years of evolution teaching you to be scared of the sound of gunfire? Uh, no, I bet the sound of gunfire and exploding bombs scares you because you've seen on TV what they can do. If you had no idea what a hand grenade was ("here, check out my new cell phone"), you probably wouldn't be afraid to hold one in your hand, or even pull the pin.
I'm pretty certain that if you were to put a baby in a soundproof environment for the first 6 months, then introduce a loud bang, they would jump and cry, that's if they weren't paralyzed with shock for the first few minutes. As with your answer, i doubt anyone can prove it either way until they do some very inhumane tests.
If you introduce a loud bang to a baby, it would cause discomfort and might even cause physical harm to their ears, which usually leads to crying. Thus they would learn to fear loud bangs because they can strike suddenly and hurt your ears.
This seems like a classic example : The Higher the IQ The Lower the Common Sense
It seems to me that if this drug ever hits the market, we're going to have a huge problem on our hands... the fact is, the only thing preventing a large chunk of the world's population from hurting, murdering, raping, or doing otherwise nasty things to other people (and other living creatures too) is fear. Take away that primal emotion and all hell would break loose for anyone who didn't have a strong set of morals and values to begin with... and it's arguable as to whether a lack of fear would affect the set of morals that someone already has. Sure it might be nice to get rid of some of our more irrational fears, but what's the price? ... that being said, I'm sure the US Military is throwing a whackload of money at this project ;)
10 types of people: those who know ternary, those who don't, and those who thought this was a joke about binary
Fear is not quite an "open and shut" topic. My kids, from birth to about 1 year, feared no one, without reason anyway. I have fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. At about ome year of age, (they're now 16 yrs. old so this memory is hazy) they began to fear and exhibit shyness (or, occasionally, abject fear) of people they had "known" since birth. In every case, once they had a chance to "re-learn" who that person was, they were ok with that person from then on. They exhibited that fear and shyness upon meeting every unknown person from that time onward. My uneducated guess is that a new part of their memory began growing and functioning causing them to be able to discriminate between new and old faces. It was interesting.
cos most Americans are shit scared compared to other countries forces. Think of the Gurkas, or any of the European troops who regularly fight to the death defending impossible positions.
Americans are usually so scared they just shoot everything in sight. Not an ideal way to run a war.
Why the funny mod?
Don't you guys remember what happened to Eric Clapton's son? That kind of thing happens all the time. At least mod the parent informative so he/she gets the benefit of the mod points. I don't think the parent was going for humor.