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Five US Navy SEAL Units Are Now Testing Brain-Zappers (military.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the elite-ectro-cranial-stimulation dept.

Five different Navy SEAL units are testing "transcranial electrical stimulation," reports Military.com, with one command's spokesperson saying the early results "show promising signs... we are encouraged to continue and are moving forward with our studies." The device's manufacturer says the number of devices being tested is "in the double digits," and believes the "neuro-priming" device could improve shooting performance, adding "it's kind of all about just training a little bit smarter." schwit1 quotes their report: Transcranial electrical stimulation was one of the technologies touted by then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter in July 2016 as part of his Defense Innovation Unit (Experimental) initiative. Since then, multiple SEAL units have begun actively testing the effectiveness of the technology, officials with Naval Special Warfare Command told Military.com... At a conference near Washington, D.C., in February, the commander of all Navy special operations units made an unusual request to industry: Develop and demonstrate technologies that offer "cognitive enhancement" capabilities to boost his elite forces' mental and physical performance. "We plan on using that in mission enhancement," Rear Admiral Tim Szymanski said.
Admiral Szymanski says experiments found that operators monitoring screens reportedly maintained peak performance for 20 hours -- rather than experience the usual drop-off in concentration after 20 minutes.

11 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Soooo missleading Title... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I expected, they want to zapp the brains of the enemies.... For that they could simply use Fox News...

    1. Re:Soooo missleading Title... by OrangeTide · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What passes for patriotism now is merely willful ignorance. And this sort of mindless nationalism passed off as if were patriotism is nothing new.

      “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”
      -- Theodore Roosevelt

      “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
      -- Mark Twain

      “He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
      -- Albert Einstein

      “I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.”
      -- George Carlin

      “It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.”
      -- Aristotle

      “Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.”
      -- Emma Goldman

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    2. Re: Soooo missleading Title... by TheCarp · · Score: 2

      > What part of individual freedom and limited government as written in the US Constitution is morally wrong?

      You are putting words in his mouth. I live here in the US and I certainly don't look at our country and say "paragons of freedom and limited government", not by a long shot.

      If anything, the betrayal of those principles is why I would agree, there is no reason to love the US. We are liberties pretenders. We have made an entire industries out of imprisoning people for what they would choose to put in their own body, then used it to justify more and more surviellance and restrictions on liberty.

      That is before even getting to the murderous terrorism we call foreign policy.

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
  2. Guinea pigs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And if they don't work, well, I'm sure the VA will be happy to take care of your cognitive capabilities/disabilities, like they do every other soldier. Ahem.

    1. Re:Guinea pigs. by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Yeah, because they had so many other options in life. Take a look at your average US soldier and tell me that this person had a chance to a sensible career outside the military.

      Not because he's stupid or lazy, mind you, but simply because he didn't have the money to go to one of the more expensive colleges. I know a few people who served and still serve in the US military. The stories they tell are surprisingly similar.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. Consequences by JimSadler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Making the brain work in ways other than our nature intends will yield a crop of disabled and troubled Seals.

  4. ADD / ADHD by jenningsthecat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    FTS: "... experiments found that operators monitoring screens reportedly maintained peak performance for 20 hours -- rather than experience the usual drop-off in concentration after 20 minutes.

    I've read that TES helps people with ADD / ADHD - it's good to see experimental results from a different field of application that suggest it may be true. It just might be time for me to build my own TES device.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  5. A note for readers: by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In viewing the above post you must keep in mind that the Left has decreed that dissent is no longer "racism" as it was deemed under President Obama. Now that a Republican president holds power, dissent is again the highest form of "patriotism" , and the military and political defeat of the United States is the goal of true "patriots." .

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    1. Re:A note for readers: by OrangeTide · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think the accusations of right wing racism during Obama's Presidency had more to do with the memes giving the President and First Lady various chimpanzee photoshop treatments. I received a lot of ridicule for finding it tasteless and not laughing with everyone else. I takes no effort to attack someone's race, but it has no power any more either as we all see the weakness in that kind of personal attack.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  6. Re:No drugs. by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    What do drugs do? Well, in a nutshell, they interact with certain parts of your body, more often than not parts of your brain, causing it to function differently.

    What does this do again?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  7. Army once again leads the way by TJHook3r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm beginning to wonder if the military is not just a clever invention by scientists to get funding for cool stuff like the internet, VR, smart drugs and electrical brain zappers... If academics asked for this research directly they would be laughed out of the country, but if they dress it up as new ways to kill foreigners it's suddenly ok... people have such weird priorities!