No more rfid and magnets - It's time to dive in

[Blackstar]

Look, we’re all here for the same basic reasons… but the Grinders will understand me first because we’re willing to jump.

On the whole, as biohackers we are a fringe that most people don’t understand. Why should they, really? We implant magnets and id tags and call it progress. They look at this and laugh, and I can’t really blame them. The things in press are, frankly, embarrassing exaggerations - they print things about opening doors with an implant and show some hippie with a magnet tripping a reed switch. The shame is justified.

This brings me to the point. There are AAV vector genomic cassettes that do - in non-human simian models - make an impressive impact (if you don’t know, get back to us when you do). Do we have the means to obtain the AAV vector… well, yes, we actually do. We have a community with the means to use this, but not the will. Bio-ethicists inside and out of our ranks talk about the divide between the haves and have-nots, we fret over requirements from suppliers that the vectors be shipped to labs, we worry about medical expertise without really knowing what expertise is needed.

It’s time to break away. Screw the ethics of it, the entire point of augmentation is to break from human constraints. The “have-nots” - at this time, they are the “choose-nots” who aren’t willing to accept the risk and, honestly, do any of us think that if we do something truly great we can trust the public to use it? These are people who can’t be trusted to vote - we hold the keys pieced together from study after banal study that only hold the ancillary hint at the greatness we could achieve because we are the ones who sifted out that data. We know that medical ethics are fine with impossibly ill proportioned silicone butt implants to alter anatomy in unnatural forms, but hint at making physiology more functional and the medical ethicists recoils at the idea.

The bottom line is we need to cultivate the network of connections we have to nurture those resources. A member of the community with access to a student lab can order things most of us are denied. Any EMT, nurse, veterinarian… even embalmers among us can start an IV infusion. Piece by piece, we have the expertise and clearances to make this happen within the month.

So, I ask you, the biohacking community why are we beholden to the ethicists? We have everything we need, even those like myself who are willing to accept the risk of testing because, we sifted the data - who better to make informed consent - and if it works as promised, we profit in ways ethicists would find aberrant and grotesque, but that we covet.

We need you, the human resources - did you not realize this is a recruitment message?

We move forward by forcing progress to march for us and leave the ethicists and baselines behind…

[Naus3a]

such a bold first post: please don’t take my answer as blunt, but I gotta ask a few questions:

1. How old are you?

2. What’s your background? I mean: were are you in the spectrum ranging from “I read a couple articles about AAV” to “I got a phd or equivalent”?

3. Are you cop or journalist with delusional fantasies about outlaw grinders? Gotta ask, cause you you suggesting unlicensed practice of medicine on a public forum.

[Aoxhwjfoavdlhsvfpzha]

[XEMON]

@Blackstar

as biohackers we are a fringe that most people don’t understand.

What’s your experience? What implant do you have?
It’s always better to share than making broad vague general statements.

[enginerd]

@Blackstar

did you not realize this is a recruitment message?

Well, that post did remind me of an idiot who tried to recruit me into a cult…

@Naus3a

Are you cop or journalist with delusional fantasies about outlaw grinders

Get out of my head!

[BroadcastingDutchman]

Progress isn’t something that happens overnight, it’s a slow burn. You might making things happen faster by dumping ethics, or the scientific process, or any number of things overboard. But that’s not really progress then. As much as we like to joke that we’re a bunch of idiots putting metal in our bodies, what you’re proposing really is that.

we fret over requirements from suppliers that the vectors be shipped to labs, we worry about medical expertise without really knowing what expertise is needed.

Yeah?? These are all reasonable, necessary, things if you care about safety or best practices. And if you don’t care about those things, I’m not sure that this is entirely a space for you. You can do whatever you like to your body, but don’t advocate for unsafe practices on others…

You come off as frustrated that this technology is not where you’d like it to be. Deciding to monologue into the void about it, which is fine. But not at the expense of rationality. Yes, things could be better, or move faster, or be more exciting. But they can always be those things, what we’ve got right now is an incredible, intelligent, community continually exploring and probing new ideas. And it’s exciting!! Don’t take that for granted.

[Satur9]

I just got back from Prospera/Vitalia in Roatán where a company called Minicircle is doing clinical trials on gene therapies if you’re interested in helping out in that space. Currently they’ve “completed” trials on a follistatin knockout therapy with an antibiotic kill switch, and they’re working through the same process for Klotho. It’s not really legitimate at this point, but they have an IRB and are taking safety much more seriously than you seem to want to. You should go read up on that and see if you can contribute in some way.

We mostly do technology implants (the definition of “Grinder”) here. You’re more talking about DIYBio, and the riskier side at that. I’m very pro experimental human augmentation, including gene therapies, but they’re not garage activity. It needs hundreds of hours of rigorous research and testing (and at least a moderate equipment investment) before you’ll even do it on yourself, never mind other people.

I get that biohack.me is going down, so there’s not really a haven for general biohacking practices (other than Reddit but…). This forum could serve as a place for conversations like that, just try and remain respectful and take it out-of-band if you’re gonna talk about crimes. This is technically just a customer support forum for a business.

[Hamspiced]

@Satur9

I just got back from Prospera/Vitalia in Roatán where a company called Minicircle is doing clinical trials on gene therapies if you’re interested in helping out in that space. Currently they’ve “completed” trials on a follistatin knockout therapy with an antibiotic kill switch, and they’re working through the same process for Klotho. It’s not really legitimate at this point, but they have an IRB and are taking safety much more seriously than you seem to want to. You should go read up on that and see if you can contribute in some way.

I watched this video not to long ago and realized how far we have advanced where someone was able to create their own virus that will alter biology to fix ones self’s allergies. This video was about a guy that made his own virus to reduce his own lactose intolerance.

I Genetically Engineered *MYSELF* to Fix Lactose Intolerance

[Satur9]

Yeah that was Justin Atkin. He’s been in the game awhile, he was also a big contributor on biohack.me. He’s been through multiple iterations of that therapy. You certainly can do things like that as an individual these days, but Justin has spent a decade mastering the skills necessary to understand how to target, create, process, and administer the therapies. They also have a substantive lab space with fume hoods and PCR machines and incubators. Even so, they appear to have only tried a few based on existing papers. Trying something truly novel would be quite an exercise.

[Hamspiced]

All of it is just amazingly surreal to think that we have come to this level.

In my current profession i have sat in and observed hundreds of different novel research presented regarding crispr and cas9 gene editing and every time a breakthrough is announced it is surreal. I am at awe at the advances we have been able to achieve in such a short period of time.

[ODaily]

Technology begets technology. Exponentially.

[Koschei]

While a bit melodramatic and over the top, the core of the message resonates with me. An NFC-chip implant is pretty useful, but tbh a ton more is already possible and tested.

@Hamspiced

I watched this video not to long ago and realized how far we have advanced where someone was able to create their own virus that will alter biology to fix ones self’s allergies. This video was about a guy that made his own virus to reduce his own lactose intolerance.

Like yeah, I watched that video too and the actual process and mechanisms behind that are beyond me, so I could never DIY that myself. I really wish I could just buy that from someone who does (Yes, I am lactose intolerant too), but I and them would be commiting several crimes in the process, which to me is crazy, I mean it is my body after all, why shouldn’t I be able to fix it. This wouldn’t bother me so much if there was an actual push to get things like that passed through all the medical channels and sold as a treatment. It just annoys me a lot how barely anyone cares about actually improving humans, even though we have so many tools to do so.

[Satur9]

@Koschei

It just annoys me a lot how barely anyone cares about actually improving humans, even though we have so many tools to do so.

Barely anyone is still a ton of people we’re working on it, it’s just an uphill battle. Human augmentation is only gaining momentum though, and as you’ve seen the technology is advancing rapidly.

It’s totally fair to get disheartened because people are boring and shitty and systems get in the way of progress, and you’ve earned the right to whinge about it occasionally. Don’t wallow in it though. Even if something seems hopeless intellectually you can still move forward with it, running on the motivational fumes of the inherent uncertainty the future holds. Things might be different then, and there’s no way anyone can know for sure, and we’ve been surprised before. Don’t give up on that opportunity.