| ▲ | garethsprice 4 hours ago |
| From the article: > The brains are already almost devoid of the coordinated neural firing necessary even for minimal consciousness, says Brendan Parent, a bioethicist at New York University Langone Health and one of six ethicists on Bexorg’s advisory board. But the company also forestalls any electrical activity with the anesthetic propofol, among other measures. |
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| ▲ | Barbing 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I recognized that anesthetic from its famous irresponsible use- "Attention to the risks of off-label use of propofol increased in August 2009, after the release of the Los Angeles County coroner's report that musician Michael Jackson was killed by a mixture of propofol and the benzodiazepine drugs lorazepam, midazolam, and diazepam on 25 June 2009." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propofol Used properly, however: "To induce general anesthesia, propofol is the drug used almost exclusively, having largely replaced sodium thiopental." |
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| ▲ | stavros 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Apparently MJ was taking propofol to sleep, which another commenter said was akin to "getting a haircut by undergoing chemo". | | |
| ▲ | poszlem 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That "another commenter" was Robin Williams - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fZkFooaaaSo | | | |
| ▲ | hungryhobbit 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Between what he did to children, and what his parents did to him, it's hard to really blame the guy for having extreme sleep problems though. | | |
| ▲ | applfanboysbgon 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > what he did to children The media and the people who bought into their shameless attention-grabbing lies are the reason he had sleep problems. He was unanimously acquitted of all counts, but the media made his life into a living hell by consistently portraying him as a pedophile because it drove incredible engagement numbers. A justice system should be "innocent until proven guilty", and yet MJ was deemed guilty even after proven innocent. Longform read from an actually good journalist, if you care to learn for yourself: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/one-of-the-most-shameful_b_61... | | |
| ▲ | openasocket an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | That article was written 16 years ago and misses a lot as a result. it doesn’t mention the new allegations, including those documented in Leaving Neverland. It also glosses over the accusations in the 1990s. It’s papered over that those allegations were lies, but he settled the lawsuit with them for over $23M. | | |
| ▲ | applfanboysbgon an hour ago | parent [-] | | Settling isn't an admission of guilt. It's plausible that he wanted to avoid the media circus that would inevitably result, and given that fighting it out in court was significantly more damaging to his reputation than settling the 90s case was despite being exonerated, he was probably right to settle. The article does also touch on the indications that those allegations were also not credible, although it doesn't do a deep dive. I don't give much credence to new allegations. Where were these allegations when he was alive, and why are people still publishing documentaries? You don't need a documentary to make an allegation. They're doing it because they want to make money, then. Off a dead man, who can't defend himself. |
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| ▲ | iwontberude 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I mean, he may have never done a sexual thing but his pedophilia was quite obvious and the degeneracy of parents to allow their children to spend the night in the bed of a grown man is not really good for society. | | |
| ▲ | lukan 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | "he may have never done a sexual thing but his pedophilia was quite obvious" How is it obvious pedophilia, if you say he may have never done a sexual thing to them? | | |
| ▲ | hilariously 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | because he paid families to sleep in beds and hang out with their children, this is not a normal adult man behavior, and defending it on the internet is weird. | | |
| ▲ | applfanboysbgon 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There is a wide, wide range between "normal behaviour" and "sex offender". I'm fine with being weird, and have no qualms defending the right of other people to be weird. Maybe he liked playing with children because adults are evil and only saw him as a moneybag to try to extricate a payday from. If he wasn't harming them, it's not my business. | |
| ▲ | lukan 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It is not normal adult behavior and he likely should have had therapy. But it is not necessarily pedophilia. Because that means wanting to have sex with children. The explanation I heard is he wanted to be close to children to compensate for his own lack of innocent childhood. Children don't do sexual intercourse. Now if he was a child in his mind, then I as a parent would surely not have gave my children to his care, but this is still something very different from child molesting. |
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| ▲ | jp_sc 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And you know this because of your firsthand experience observing it... or because the media told you so? Considering how readily the media is willing to lie for engagement, the truth is more likely to be the opposite of what they report. | |
| ▲ | jvanderbot 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | According to you. (And me, but just saying, society is a big place to be homogenized) |
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| ▲ | malbs 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Here's a podcast deep diving into what it was he did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J1JQaIrxRU | |
| ▲ | falsaberN1 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's not only not been proven, but the island man stuff and testimony of people like Culkin suggest he actually did the opposite of doing bad things to children and was most likely a scapegoat for the "elites" of Hollywood because of his race. At the very least drop an "allegedly" or something to make it sound a little tasteful. |
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| ▲ | joegibbs 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I don't trust them to always give the brain propofol. The subject has no way of reacting because they have no body, so what are they going to do? |
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| ▲ | raffael_de 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| oh, look, seems like we found the guy who can define what consciousness is! and not just that ... he even knows the lower boundary of it, too. |
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| ▲ | trklausss 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think there is worlds between definitely defining what consciousness is, and what are some of the scenarios and conditions under which consciousness cannot ever happen. And on top of that, they put a sedative, just in case. | | |
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| ▲ | 1234letshaveatw 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I could've done without reading the word almost |
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| ▲ | pavel_lishin 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That's before they apply the anaesthetic. | | | |
| ▲ | hypfer 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Honestly, there is so much terrible terrible terrible stuff going on in the world and happening to real people, I think it is safe to say that those brains are having a blast. Relatively speaking. It just invokes a strong emotional response because it's so "abnormal", but if you think about it, there is so much more pain going on where no one bats an eye. Perfectly avoidable pain even. So it's not even that aspect. ___ OTOH, this is HN, I guess.
Having empathy for real people would be harmful to the business model of most people's employers. So instead, mostly performative outrage/empathy with something that is effectively dead can fill in that gap. | | |
| ▲ | wewtyflakes 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I think it is safe to say that those brains are having a blast How could you possibly say that? You are positing that the brains are both conscious and happy. Both of those are leaps. > It just invokes a strong emotional response because it's so "abnormal" You are making an assumption about why people find this horrifying, and the assumption you made was uncharitable. > OTOH, this is HN, I guess. Having empathy for real people would be harmful to the business model of most people's employers. I do not see how people on HN being horrified by human brain experiments means they do not have empathy. |
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