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[RedKing]

Except you're reading way more into it than actually resulted. The effects are, from everything I've seen, fairly equivalent to Adderall. It does not diminish your ability to make intelligent decisions. It just drowns ou the background noise. And most smart people? They can already turn that shit off. This probably won't even do anything to help them.

See, I'm one of those people that CAN'T turn that shit off. Maybe I should look into this.

[Bauglir]

Wikipedia suggests that there are not lasting side effects, but note the top of the article that points out that the article seems overly promotional. It's an important note.

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah, the article certainly oversells it, but the effect is there. And placebo is unlikely, because depending on where and how they hook it up, the effect changes, I believe. They've also run blind studies, which make it likely the effect is real.

[Skyrunner]

Now all we need are the double blind studies...

Also the long term effect studies.

[Leafsnail]

Even then, this already happens naturally for most everyone now and again! Like the article says, this happens whenever someone goes "into the zone" - a state many professionals spend a lot of time seeking out, and those who are really good can almost slip into it at will. It does not make you start shooting people indiscriminately or otherwise turn you into an unthinking machine. :/

No, people do not naturally apply current to their brains.  Maybe it's similar to a natural state that can be induced, but we should be really careful about saying it's the same.

I'm really not convinced that "background noise" is all useless.  Sometimes my "background noise" stops me from doing stupid or dangerous things.  Or indeed immoral things.  There are times where being in the zone is useful, and times when it really isn't.

People saying that there are definitely no side effects when as far as I can tell there have been no studies into whether there are long time side effects also somewhat concerns me.

And the effects last only as long as the current does (though there are supposedly general increased mood effects for a couple hours afterwards in some subjects)

The articles you quoted quite clearly said that it's supposed to last for quite a while after the treatment (like the blogger said it lasted 3 days).  If you kept having it the amount of time it lasts for could be longer.

Yeah, the article certainly oversells it, but the effect is there. And placebo is unlikely, because depending on where and how they hook it up, the effect changes, I believe. They've also run blind studies, which make it likely the effect is real.

If you tell someone that the effect is going to change when you change the input then the placebo effect will cause them to feel a different effect.  Blind studies would be great - but while wikipedia mentions a way in which you could do a blind trial, I couldn't find any linked from there.  When I google for double blind tDCS trials I mostly get trials saying that there is no significant difference between tDCS and placebo at treating depression, although it doesn't say anything about flow.

[GlyphGryph]

No, people do not naturally apply current to their brains.  Maybe it's similar to a natural state that can be induced, but we should be really careful about saying it's the same.

This is frustrating. I wasn't talking about this, exactly. I was responding to you talking about the "state" itself. It's irrelevant to the issue that was actually being discussed in that quote.

I'm really not convinced that "background noise" is all useless.  Sometimes my "background noise" stops me from doing stupid or dangerous things.  Or indeed immoral things.  There are times where being in the zone is useful, and times when it really isn't.

Then you should probably stay away from something like this.

And I'm well aware of what a placebo is. Hence why I said blind studies. I honestly feel like you're not really paying attention to me longer than you need to in order to write a response.

Regardless, my whole point here was just to show the idea isn't as crazy as people were acting like it was. I've done that, so... yeah.

[ChairmanPoo]

IIRC from neurophysio class (the guys of that dept apparently ran some experiments on the lines of electrical stimulation of the brain), there were concerns about repeated exposure resulting in epilepsy. Also, the shocks were rather painful (at least the system they used) and were looking into magnetic stimulation (but they weren't able to pinpoint as much with that, though. I dont recall the details...)

[Leafsnail]

This is frustrating. I wasn't talking about this, exactly. I was responding to you talking about the "state" itself. It's irrelevant to the issue that was actually being discussed in that quote.

Then we were at cross purposes.  I was talking about the state described by the blogger in the article you quoted.

And I'm well aware of what a placebo is. Hence why I said blind studies. I honestly feel like you're not really paying attention to me longer than you need to in order to write a response.

I know... that's why I said that there don't seem to have been any blind studies on this that I can find?  I'm not sure why you're saying this because it's not like I acted as if you didn't know what a placebo is.

[zchris13]

Comeon, man the brits' just clarifying for anybody who might not know what we're talking about here. No need to get your feathers up, GlyphGryph.

[GlyphGryph]

Mm... I like the idea of being able to get my feathers up. Heh.

* GlyphGryph slowly sinks into an odd yet elaborate fantasy in which he has feathers, and bristles them, and them some other stuff happens.

[Karnewarrior]

Dammit Chris, now GlyphGryph is a furry.

[Scelly9]

Eh, furries ain't bad.

[Flying Dice]

I was gonna say, that's a bad thing?

[Twi]

I was gonna say, that's a bad thing?

[kaijyuu]

Furries are fuzzy and wuvable.