1 Like
All I know is that if I ever have to have work done with this machine, I will be taking xanax ahead of time. Just like the last time I got a cavity filled. Iām fine with routine cleanings, but I donāt like paying too much attention to what any medical professional is doing to my body. Iām happiest not seeing them stitch up my cut, or remove my toenail, or drill a hole in my tooth. They do their job, and Iāll just focus on moving as little as possible and carefully studying whateverās on my phone at the moment, preferably with headphones in.
2 Likes
Xanax is a good stuff. Whether for dealing with doctors or with airports.
What also helps me with doctors is paying attention to the procedures and tools. After all, they are also engineers/technicians/servicemen of sorts, just dealing with a bit squishier wetter stuff that has limited self-repairing capabilities. And they have some pretty nice toys.
1 Like
Iāll pay attention when my body parts are snap-in field replaceable and serviceable modules that I can buy a dozen of off the shelf at my local pharmacy.
Until then, I really hate dealing with the goop. Iām fine doing medicine on other people (Iāve stitched up a few kids at scout camp, that kind of thing), and I do it on myself sometimes, but I just really canāt emotionally deal with watching someone else work on me.
Weāre heading there. A bit too slow for my tastes, though.
I have problems with the environment and the people and the waiting, but once the work starts I get okay as long as it is not painful.
Maybe it is related to my tendency to consider my body just a vehicle for the āselfā, not something integral to the āselfā.
1 Like
It must be a blast watching you undergo conscious brain surgery then 
ETA
Iām of the opinion that the body is the mind. I mean, all your sensory neurons and stuff are all that your brain has known, and while I do agree the body is basically just a robot for getting the brain around, the mind has built up strong self-image taking in all this data supplied by our senses, and has gotten very used to how its body works. So it makes sense to me, at least, to have emotional salience for stuff happening to oneās body out of control.
1 Like
That could be an interesting experience.
ā¦especially if installing of some really functional wide-bandwidth brain-computer interface would be involvedā¦
1 Like
Iād rather wait till the nanotech gets good enough that all itād take is an injection of some robots, thatāll just figure out how to integrate themselves into my brain. Then as I get old, and the meat cells die, the robots would just take over the neuronās function one-by-one, and I wouldnāt have to worry so much about how much of my brain is original.
Ship of Theseus has its uses.
1 Like
True, but somebody has to do it, and it can be done faster with a Mk.1 BCI. 
1 Like
Let the monkeys be our guinea pigs 
Mice first, monkeys then, hardcore grinders afterwards, then me.
(Okay, tissue cultures zerothā¦)
1 Like
It was a joke. But yes, thatās the typical progression of biomedical research.
1 Like
Thereās an episode in the first season of the Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex TV show, where an ex spec ops guy would solicit sex workers, hook up their BCIs to his, and then make them watch him skin them from his point of view, and release the combined recordings as āpsychological warfareā.
That guy ended up better off than most of the cases in that series. He was captured alive and got help for both his meatbrain and cyberbrain. But his victims still ended up with full prosthetic bodies. At least the ones who survived.
Itād be interesting being able to experience a surgery on myself from the doctorās point of view and including everything going through their mind.
1 Like
Neat idea. I hope they can pull it off. Dentistry needs some advancement. Then again, we have a cure for cavities but since itās a GMO oral bacteria, we have to be duly terrified of it.
1 Like
My friend d did his dentistry PhD on little tooth-fixing nanobots. I keep asking, but as yet, no invitation to any trials. Bah.
2 Likes
Could the culture be obtained on the black market? I see this selling like hotcakes on Silk Road like places. And given the nature of the germs, once you get the sample you can grow and resell it ad infinitumā¦
Is that published? URL? Details, details, details? Pwetty please? 
Finally! Someone got my reference. I must be getting too old for the Boing Boing crowd!
YES! Finally someone got my joke! Thank you! I was thinking that maybe I was too old for this crowd and Iād have to update my material, but you restored my faith in my joke references.
