Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/07/18/employees-at-silicon-valley-st.html
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Surely there’s some sort of drinking game or bingo for people with overly appropriate last names, right?
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Won’t comment on the relative merits of Nootrobox based fasting.
However…
An underwear subscription service… Really?
And here I thought Pets.com was the ultimate expression of Silicon Valley stupidity. Welcome to Bubble 3.0!
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“It was just endless suffering and wanting to die,” she said.
Yes, starvation is like that.
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Sigh, so quacks are called start-ups these days. Well I suppose they’ve gotta shift that snake oil some how…
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Visionaries, they prefer to be called visionaries. (Italics are part of the title.)
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One assumes they’re fully self-actualised & quantum conscious chakra activated level of understanding type visonairies, not your common or garden type…
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Their quantum state of being permeates the axioms of their inevitability.
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I would hesitate to call nootropics “woo”; there are well-documented effects out there including substances like good ol’ fashioned caffeine and non-chemical interventions like transcranial direct current stimulation.
I personally love the stuff that falls under what I would call lifestyle hacks. I have been playing around with intermittent fasting lately (mostly on the days I go running, skipping breakfast and lunch with a butter coffee to tide me over), and I can definitely notice a change in my body/mood/hunger levels. I go for a run instead of eating lunch, and don’t feel super hungry until late afternoon when it is almost dinner time anyway. It’s also really interesting coming to recognize hunger for what it usually is: boredom.
I would like to try something longer, but I have a family and they already think I am wierd enough as is 
ETA: I am still generally suspicious of any sort of commercial enterprise that trades financially in any sort of health promises. But that’s also because I hate buying stuff.
At levels of morphic resonance we mere mortals can only dream of no doubt…
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I think there was a paper a month ago proposing a biochemical mechanism for good brain effects. Ketone bodies eventually up-regulating BDNF, if I have that right. (It caught my eye because I’d just finished a two-week keto with exercise, bodyweight-=10; and was feeling very fine.) #NotANeurologist
Looks like millennial Geritol sold in packaging designed by Apple.
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Also: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-pied-piper-of-nootropics/
[quote]If you are otherwise healthy and want to optimize your cognitive function, there are some things you can do that are likely to have a dramatically greater benefit than any smart pills on the market:
Get enough sleep
Get regular exercise
Keep mentally active
Do not skip meals
Avoid alcohol or other recreational drugs[/quote]
That shit’s hard. Taking pills is easy.
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I’m prepared to believe this is probably fine for some people, but for myself I find I have to manage my blood sugar pretty carefully - I can skip a meal if I’m not doing anything too physically active. Skipping two consecutive meals turns me into a complete idiot who’s either 90% shut down or extremely cranky.
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You lost me at ‘butter coffee’ Tried it. Blech.
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Who’s to say what’s woo, though? Taxonomy is always controversial.
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Well… For otherwise healthy people, we already have well-understood drugs that will boost cognitive function reliably and powerfully, if only temporarily. Amphetamines are great for that. But they don’t really make you think better. Just more.
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I make it with a dash of vanilla, cinnamon, cardamom and the most coconutty coconut oil I can find. The extra spices give it a sweet flavor without sugar, but I usually drink my coffee black anyway, so it’s not a huge loss.
I’m on the fence about the whole thing overall though. One of the main ideas behind it is that intermittent fasting is supposed to induce ketosis, but I am just not sure that on this relatively short timeline it really makes that much of a difference.
I am pretty sure that I will just move back to bringing a small lunch as a mid afternoon snack, and start the day with a big plate of eggs fried in coconut oil and smothered in hot sauce (aka “The Dornish Breakfast”).
It was a fun experiment, though.
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I’m of mixed feelings about this. One the one hand, for nootropic purposes? Ummm… On the other hand, there’s considerable evidence that a an 8+ week ketogenic (fasting) diet (with provided supplements, but absolutely no cheating) can CURE (yes, CURE) type II diabetes. As I understand it, going full ketogenic reboots insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.
Kaiser has set up a program for exactly this. Once you start the program, the first thing they do is stop all your diabetes and hypertension meds, then re-medicate as needed.
