
I hacked my body for a future that never came - ValentineC
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/21/15999544/biohacking-finger-magnet-human-augmentation-loss
======
Terr_
> Another panelist shut them down immediately: doctors and scientists aren’t
> even close to solving the phantom pain and limited mobility that most
> amputees face, let alone building something uniformly better than a human
> limb.

To repost a slightly tounge-incheek description of features your "standard
model" has:

1\. Supports a very large number of individual movements and articulations

2\. Meets certain weight-restrictions (overall system must be near-buoyant in
water)

3 Supports a wide variety of automatic self-repair techniques, many of which
can occur without ceasing operation

4\. Is entirely produced and usually maintained by unskilled (unconscious?)
labor from common raw materials

5\. Contains a comprehensive suite of sensors

6\. Not too brittle, flexes to store and release mechanical energy from
certain impacts

7\. Selectively reinforces itself when strain is detected

8\. Has areas for the storage of long-term energy reserves, which double as an
impact cushion

9\. Houses small fabricators to replenish some of its own operating fluids

10\. Subsystems for thermal management (evaporative cooling, automatic micro-
activation)

~~~
Houshalter
Many of the things the human body was optimized for aren't really that
important in the modern world. E.g. I'd take a body (or brain...) that was 10
times stronger but required ten times more energy. Energy is abundant now.

Another serious downside is fragility. Sure it can self repair. But it's very
slow and only works for minor damage. Id prefer to just swap out the broken
part and fix it quickly.

And the whole fluid system is connected, so if a single part breaks it can
drain the whole system. Not to mention the whole pain thing. It can't even
extreme temperatures or environments at all.

~~~
rodgerd
> Energy is abundant now.

Good luck paying for energy equivalent to ten times your food budget, and the
time taken to charge.

~~~
Terr_
Currently in our civilization, blind calories aren't that expensive. I think
the bigger issue is how you _carry_ that energy while moving, since I don't
think anyone wants to operate tethered to an outlet.

In terms of stored energy per kilogram, regular old fat kicks the ass of any
consumer battery tech.

Suppose that your augmentations rely on battery-fed electricity, and you eat
2,000 kcal per day for your bio-bits, and charge 18,000 kcal each night for
your mech-bits...

In that scenario, you'd need to carry around an extra 120 kilograms of
lithium-ion batteries to cover your daily activity, which probably won't
involve much jumping.

~~~
fulafel
Affordability of food is because food prices exclude most externalities (and
subsidies). Food is one of the biggest global warming drivers. So we cannot
afford more food consumption unless our diet composition changes.

~~~
Terr_
> Food is one of the biggest global warming drivers.

I'd say _meat_ is one of the biggest global-warming drivers. That's why I
referred to "blind calories", as in, calories and you don't care where they
came from.

~~~
fulafel
But you can't not care of course.

------
xaa
Obviously this article is full of self-modification for fairly whimsical
reasons. It's easy to make fun of.

But this kind of problem is more serious and discouraging when you think about
aging. You know cells in each organ are going to mutate, get protein
aggregation, fibrosis, and so on. Instead of trying to figure out something to
do about each of those things individually at the molecular level, it might
seem simpler to just replace organs periodically. Every 20 years, just get a
new heart, etc.

Nontrivial and risky, of course, but perhaps less so than the even less-
developed alternatives. But as TFA points out, surgery is hard on the body,
and the body likes to reject transplants, be they biological or mechanical.
Integrating vasculature is hard, integrating nerves is REALLY hard.

So in short, I think even if these particular applications are frivolous,
hopefully people who are doing this will help push forward knowledge on the
general question of "how do you add/replace/integrate body parts safely and
robustly". They are truly pioneers, in all senses of the term -- they're
pushing forward the frontier at great personal risk.

~~~
kanzure
Replacing organs (for now) is a task that often involves immunosuppression.
Perhaps it will be possible to work around this with techniques like gene
therapy + xenotransplantation: [http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/hgp-
write/2016-05-10/trans...](http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/hgp-
write/2016-05-10/transplantation/)

In the mean time, there's also some work that can be done on the the anti-
aging front by picking very simple mutations that cause delayed aging
phenotypes (skip to "longevity" section): [http://diyhpl.us/wiki/genetic-
modifications/](http://diyhpl.us/wiki/genetic-modifications/)

~~~
xaa
I work in aging research. A very nice set of notes you have there. The field
is not really thinking in this direction. By "picking" mutations, I suppose
you mean gene therapy.

As you probably know, NIA does not consider aging a disease, just a risk
factor for other diseases. So we cannot possibly test anything remotely risky
in humans for the treatment of aging, and that certainly includes both
transplants and gene therapy. We have to backdoor our way in via stuff like
Alzheimer's, dementia, sarcopenia, etc, and it seems unlikely that most gene
therapy interventions that target aging per se would have enough efficacy on
that kind of disease to justify the risk. They are too advanced already.

Even so, this is the kind of thing I think about while driving to work,
frustrated at the slow pace that occurs while working within the system :)

I am inclined to agree that the problems with transplantation, both biological
and mechanical, are mostly solvable though. I think the kinks will have to be
worked out in other fields where prosthetics, surgery, and gene therapy have a
better perceived risk/reward ratio than aging.

~~~
kanzure
Well dude, I have some funding for crazy gene therapy projects, so let me know
if you want to work on things that matter. But it's all somewhat outside of
academia, so it doesn't really appeal to everyone.

Some very high-level background on where this is coming from:
[http://diyhpl.us/wiki/hplusroadmap/](http://diyhpl.us/wiki/hplusroadmap/) (we
hang out mostly on IRC and would love to hear your project ideas).

Much more modest in scope, this is one of our recent projects:
[https://blog.kitmatic.com/2017/06/28/electroporation-is-
now-...](https://blog.kitmatic.com/2017/06/28/electroporation-is-now-quick-
high-yield-and-commodity-priced/)

~~~
skrebbel
Just wondering, if you "have some funding for crazy gene therapy projets",
what does that mean? Where does "outside funding" usually come from? I imagine
Larry Ellison flying you over in his private jet and saying "kanzure, I want
to live longer, here's some cash please make it happen". Is it like that?

~~~
kanzure
Yes, it's exactly like that.

.... Eliezer leaned back in his chair. "Mr. Musk, what can I do for you?". The
two engaged in a blissful staredown as their eyes locked. After several
overbearing teary-eyed moments, Elon replied with a simple request. "World
peace." And thus began a long, unproductive partnership between Big Yud and
Peter Thiel-- I mean, Elon Musk -- a partnership focused not on the practical
realities of actually building relevant transhumanist technology, but rather a
venture focused on theories of world peace-- er, I mean, friendliness-- and
writing fanfic instead of executing on important engineering/lab skills to
achieve technological goals.

This story continued here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXARrMadTKk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXARrMadTKk)

More seriously... Some projects don't really require that much funding to
happen. Often you can use specialized knowledge to forego otherwise hugely
expensive efforts. It mostly starts with skill and knowledge, not money. As an
example, trying out random CRISPR-Cas9 projects can actually be really cheap,
less than $5k/project if the projects are structured just right. The trick is
to pick projects that happen to be within budget and interesting enough to
everyone involved. And if there needs to be a larger budget, sometimes the
project is interesting enough to attract outsider funding.

------
FullMtlAlcoholc
I never asked for this.

If you can perform all these tasks with your smartphone cheaper and without
invasive surgery, you can't really call it an augmentation or upgrade.
Frankly, if implantable magnets and NFC/RFID chips are the full extent of the
contributions of the biohacking community, then the community completely lacks
imagination and creativity.

We can use radio waves to measure heart rate and breathing and use that data
to measure a person's emotional state. It would be interesting to see someone
hack together an internal sensor that does this and have it attached to
implantable led's, so your body could "glow" particular colors based on your
emotional state. Or use electronic ink tattoos to make an animated gif on your
body.

Just copying the same two uninspired trends isn't what I would call hacking.

~~~
kanzure
> Frankly, if implantable magnets and NFC/RFID chips are the full extent of
> the contributions of the biohacking community, then the community completely
> lacks imagination and creativity.

Don't let the grinders get in the way of progress :-) There are many at-home
genetic engineering folks that don't proselytize implants every n seconds:
[https://groups.google.com/group/diybio](https://groups.google.com/group/diybio)

The downside to this other community is that the general public has an
overbearing fascination with bioluminescence (sigh): [http://www.the-
odin.com/gene-engineering-kits/](http://www.the-odin.com/gene-engineering-
kits/)

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
iGem always produces some fascinating projects, amazing high school kids! :
[http://igem.org/Main_Page](http://igem.org/Main_Page)

There's also this BioHacker Space in SF that seems to have interesting
meetups: [http://biocurious.org/projects/](http://biocurious.org/projects/)

Although it's not auto-biohacking, some group created yeast that produces thc,
allowing for marijuana infused beer

~~~
kanzure
agreed about igem, i worked on a list of one-sentence summaries of all the
previous igem projects:
[http://diyhpl.us/wiki/dna/projects/#igem-2014](http://diyhpl.us/wiki/dna/projects/#igem-2014)

------
leggomylibro
Yeah, I got mine out after a few years. It lost sensitivity as magnets do, and
I didn't want to pinch a nerve. They have new ones that are much slimmer now,
but also much more difficult to remove...I passed.

We actually do have promising 'batteries' for this sort of application as of
2017, though; lithium hybrid supercapacitors. They're roughly an order of
magnitude worse than Li-Po batteries today, in energy density and cost. But
the advantages over LiPos are a higher ~10C charge/discharge rate, no thermal
runaway "Galaxy S7" issues, and a maximum charge retention rate on the order
of 80-95% after 10,000 cycles should let them last decades at least. A very
compact 100F/24mAh module is available today at 1.8-2.7V from Murata, and I
think Taiyo-Yuden has offerings too.

I think we're still making progress. Anyone buying one of those magnets knew
they were buying into an alpha version of a product; it's not like we asked
the FDA to approve things first.

~~~
Animats
Not a good choice for implanted batteries, but possibly the replacement for
the power storage unit for EMALS. The electromagnetic catapult on the Ford-
series carriers apparently works fine; it's the flywheel energy storage system
which powers it that's giving trouble. They need something they can charge up
in a minute or so and then discharge in a few seconds. Ultracapacitors are
starting to look good compared to the flywheel thing.

------
LeoNatan25
Just the description of the nonsense these two have done gave me a shiver. The
toward the MRI part, I prepared for the worse. Had he forgotten about the
magnet, it could have gone really bad.

And I think to myself, what a ridiculous world.

~~~
Houshalter
Do they run patients through a metal detector before putting them in an MRI?

~~~
Herodotus38
The hospital/clinic will ask a series of questions that are risk factors for
having metal in your body. Here is a typical form (no association) [pdf]:
[http://radiology.ucla.edu/workfiles/referralforms/MRI-
safety...](http://radiology.ucla.edu/workfiles/referralforms/MRI-safety-
screening-questionnaire-outpatient.pdf)

If the patient isn't able to answer or is unsure it gets a little complicated
based on the risk factors, how soon the image is needed, etc.. Sometimes
screening imaging of the orbits (eyes) is done if there is a history of metal
working or a CT head/orbits (bullet fragments in brain = no bueno), chest
X-ray if you can't get documentation on a pacemaker, and so on.

~~~
Houshalter
That seems a lot less efficient than a metal detector. Perhaps they just
aren't sensitive enough?

~~~
Sleeep
Metal detectors don't (typically) detect body jewelery so I don't think they
are very useful in a clinical setting since they'd have to detect that sort of
thing.

Source: I have a bunch of body jewelery and been through a bunch of metal
detectors and never set any off.

~~~
Houshalter
Well yes the ones used in security checkpoints are probably only set to detect
big pieces of metal like guns and knives. It's a pain if they go off every
time someone walks through with an earring or a metal button or zipper.

But people do use metal detectors to reliably find bottle caps, jewelry,
coins, etc, under several inches of sand and soil.

------
Mothra555
It's merely a future that is much further out. Scientists and doctors aren't
even close to being able to interface man made technology to nerve endings and
brain waves in a way that could compete or enhance the natural. The same is
true with AI and machine learning that is supposedly due to destroy humanity
any minute now. It's all a bunch of hype.

I quit subscribing to Popular Mechanics and the like many years ago because
they were always so hyped with the next big breakthrough that never happened.
It was science fiction (which I do love to read, but not when it is proclaimed
as reality).

People buy into these cults and do bizarre things like this all the time,
people want so badly to believe the comic books.

The narcissism of man is on full display with things like this. Do you realize
just how little we understand about anything? Any field of science, medicine,
exploration, psychology, philosophy. All whose pillars of truth are overturned
regularly. I wonder why people are so stupid as to believe the next thing the
surgeon general recommends them to eat or not eat, just to have that
completely changes 5 years later. People basing their child rearing on
psychologists whose studies cannot be reproduces almost 90% of the time.

Here is my philosophy. Wither you believe in creation or evolution, look back
to learn how our bodies should stay healthy. The things we should eat and not
eat. The exercise we should do. Look back before man started screwing things
up (I'm talking hunter gatherers here). Use common sense when taking care of
the planet. Look how interdependent everything is and don't screw that up.

Use your head, don't listen to someone else's hype. They are just trying to
make a buck or gain power and influence.

~~~
bitwize
The things that get hyped when they're fiction stop being hype when they
become real. I used to watch Beyond 2000 and marvel at the tantaluzing future
it promised me: wireless phone calls using a grid of "cellular" microtowers,
vision corrective surgery with tiny cuts made into the cornea, athletic shoes
that provide extra cushioning with small gas-filled chambers in the heel.

Cellphones, LASIK, and Air Jordans are just part of the fabric of everyday
reality now. We've seen their benefits but also their drawbacks. As they
became widespread consumer products and services, not just experiments in a
lab someplace, thwy lost their sheen and became the new normal.

But we still live in wonderful times, even if we choose not to see it.

------
FRex
I came to the same conclusion instantly at the moment of my first encounter of
a finger magnet idea on YouTube - "Cool, but I want a ring that does that and
that I can tune, replace and put on and take off at will...".

Alternatively: nanites like in DX1 and DX2.

~~~
Mz
From the article:

 _The better wearable devices get, the less sense it makes to permanently
modify your body. Things like exoskeletons, smart glasses, and external brain-
computer interfaces are safer and much easier to upgrade than their implanted
counterparts. Plus, you can take them off in inappropriate situations: you
won’t get stuck trying to swim with a metal limb, for example, or wearing a
permanent version of Google Glass to a laid-back dive bar._

I really think wearables make vastly more sense for enhancing ourselves than
this kind of body modification.

~~~
FRex
Yes, I read the article, that's why I said I came to the same conclusion
("wearables > implantables").

My 'ring' answer for magnet in finger was just an example of a counterpoint in
such a debate between these two transhumanism approaches. I of course approve
smart glasses, rings, bracelets, wearables, exoskeletons, etc. over implants,
surgeries and metal bones (Wolverine from X-Men excluded ;). Of course nanites
easily trump wearables but they are way too far into the future at this point
I'd think.

~~~
Mz
I think I misunderstood your comment.

------
knolax
I checked out the biohack.me forum mentioned in the article and it's really
disappointing that the only implants currently being tried are either magnets
or NFC/RFID chips. I was expecting to find a vibrant sub culture with all
sorts of new ideas for implants being tried out.

~~~
kanzure
nah just skip the NFC/RFID stuff and go straight to actual research projects
[http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/neuro/implants/](http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/neuro/implants/)

I think wireless power induction should be one of the minimum requirements.

Also this is another related community:
[https://groups.google.com/group/diybio](https://groups.google.com/group/diybio)

------
elvinyung
The bit about wearables reminds me of this quote from _Neuromancer_ :

> He stared through the glass at a flat lozenge of vatgrown flesh that lay on
> a carved pedestal of imitation jade. ... it was tattooed with a luminous
> digital display wired to a subcutaneous chip. Why bother with the surgery,
> he found himself thinking, while sweat coursed down his ribs, when you could
> just carry the thing around in your pocket?

------
mirimir
I did the opposite, in a sense. I ignored my body for a future that did come,
contrary to expectation. During the 60s-70s, every year without nuclear
holocaust seemed like a gift. Now I deal with it. So it goes ;)

------
nextlevelwizard
The thing is there hasn't been many (if any) technological break throughs in
past 7 years (since the end of 2010) that would conceivably be used for bio
hacking. The title is bad and the author should feel bad. How did she think
magnet in finger would be "prepare" her for the future? It was a gimmick and
it worked for years. What more could she ask for?

------
tzs
Would it be possible to re-magnetize an implanted magnet that has weakened
over time? Or would that require exposing them to very strong magnetic fields,
which would rip them out of the body? (I've seen videos of magnet
manufacturing, and when they exposed the new magnets to strong fields to
magnetize them, they were always firmly clamped in place so they would remain
stationary).

~~~
raziel2701
Yes you need high magnetic fields to re-magnetize a magnet. Seems like you
need between 1 - 2T magnetic field to saturate a rare-Earth magnet. So it's
not something easily achievable in a homemade setup.

------
beambot
Body hacking of this nature hasn't gone away... It's just getting more
sophisticated with actual medical uses. For example, a paper I coauthored at
RFIC 2017 based on work done at Google[x] / Verily Life Sciences:

[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7969066/?reload=true](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7969066/?reload=true)

Abstract: A wireless system-on-chip with integrated antenna, power harvesting
and biosensors is presented that is small enough, 200µm x 200µm x 100µm, to
allow painless injection. Small device size is enabled by: a 13µm x 20µm 1nA
current reference; optical clock recovery; low voltage inverting dc-dc to
enable use of higher quantum efficiency diodes; on-chip resonant 2.4GHz
antenna; and array scanning reader. In-vivo power and data transfer is
demonstrated and linear glucose concentration recordings reported.

Edit - PDF copy of paper:
[http://www.travisdeyle.com/publications/pdf/2017_rfic_implan...](http://www.travisdeyle.com/publications/pdf/2017_rfic_implantable_sensor.pdf)

------
anotheryou
north, electro magnetic fields. Before we implant anything, we need an
interesting small sensor in general.

Any small sensor that does anything interesting for me? Requirements: For
prosthetic learning it must react fast and the signal should change with
muscle/body movement.

How I wire the signal to my body is antoher issue, but first show me an
interesting sensor. Best I can come up with is remote temperature sensing,
still booring.

~~~
QAPereo
I wonder if enhancing existing senses might end up being easier than
engineering new ones, at least in the short term.

~~~
anotheryou
Right, while I still want X-ray vision, night vision might be more feasable.

Our body is pretty good at all the relevant stuff of our physical world :).
And in the digital the interesting stuff is high-level or can be automated or
removed.

~~~
icebraining
I disagree, our body is pretty limited. Pretty limited field of vision and
weak detection of dangerous gases and liquids, for example.

Also, flaky sensors too. My mother recently had a couple of episodes of
BPPV[1], and in the process I found that a _lot_ of people have it at some
point in their lives. A friend of ours had vertigo for almost a month(!) and
was absolutely incapacitated.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benign_paroxysmal_positional_v...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benign_paroxysmal_positional_vertigo)

~~~
anotheryou
I nearly never encounter undetectable dangerous gases or liquids. A simple
beeper or probe would do there, no need for a new sense.

Flaky sensors is something else, when a sense breaks down it makes very much
sense to replace it.

~~~
icebraining
What about the field of vision? As cars become quieter, I'd love to be able to
"sense" one coming from behind, especially when I'm walking in rural roads
with small shoulders.

~~~
QAPereo
I'd rather have the cars sense me, if we're that sophisticated, and skip the
neurosurgery.

------
rubatuga
Didn’t people do this to seem counterculture/edgy? I mean, it looked kind of
cool the first time I read about it, but that was only because of the novelty
factor. That sixth sense doesn’t really help us, and I’m pretty sure that more
animals would have a magnetic sensor if beneficial. Some pigeons have magnetic
sensors to determine their orientation to the earth.

~~~
lithos
A little glad I missed out on this when it was fadish (even unused ear
piercing can get males in trouble for being out of regs in the military).

Though it did for a while get me interested in senses we lose because we don't
have words for them. Color identification along cultures/languages being the
easiest to actually prove.

~~~
kaffeemitsahne
In what way do you suppose we've lost "color identification"?

~~~
colorsarefun
People who speak a language where two given colors have the same name will
have more difficulty telling them apart than someone who speaks a language
where those two colors have different names.

[https://vimeo.com/120808489](https://vimeo.com/120808489)

------
PhasmaFelis
Magnets wear out? I didn't know that. How come?

~~~
jimmies
Entropy man. You think that a whole bunch of neatly aligned atoms would stay
that way over time?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Eventually, sure, but I have crappy old fridge magnets that are still going
strong after 30 years. What's different about little neodymium rods that they
fail in 5?

------
im3w1l
I feel like a magnetic piercing would be more practical than putting it fully
under the skin.

------
zitterbewegung
I think that bio hacking has lost it’s initial hype but it does have a chance
to jump the chasm if it got a killer app. Or even creating non invasive ways
to perform the current set of tasks.

------
p1mrx
Has anyone attempted a modification (electronic or pneumatic) that lets you
hear your own heartbeat 24/7? That might be useful for monitoring and
controlling your health and emotional state.

~~~
rcarmo
Believe me, you don't want to do that. One of the side effects of my sinus
trouble is that I "hear" my heartbeat (not just throbbing), and it took me
years to learn how to tune it out and not have it feed a feedback loop that
led to some very stressful moments (140bpm resting).

~~~
StavrosK
I second this. I don't know why, but I can feel my heart beat at all times.
After strenuous exercise, it throbs very forcibly, but it's also very
noticeable when lying in bed (I sleep in a prone position). It's not a great
feeling, because, for one, it reminds you that you have a thing that's beating
all the time and would kill you if it stopped, and also because it's just
annoying to be feeling your heart pulsing inside you every moment of the day.

~~~
dennyabraham
For me it's a lovely piece of mechanical sympathy I can have with my own body:
it lets me tell if I'm agitated or soothed in ways I'm not immediately aware
of.

------
Mz
_one futurist gushed over a visually striking prosthetic arm, musing that it
might be worth amputating for the “upgrade.” Another panelist shut them down
immediately: doctors and scientists aren’t even close to solving the phantom
pain and limited mobility that most amputees face, let alone building
something uniformly better than a human limb._

You can upgrade your current arm by eating better and going to the gym. If
that isn't enough to get the visually striking look you are after, tattoos and
the right clothes can help.

I can't believe there are nutcases in the world ready to embrace becoming a
Borg. This is bizarre.

~~~
nawitus
Your comment is silly. Accusing someone of being a "nutcase" is not
constructive, nor is a comment about becoming a Borg.

Yes, at the moment it's not plausible to upgrade one's arm. In the future it
will become plausible, though, and the upgrade will at some point be much
better than what you can do at a gym. In fact, you can only get a stronger arm
at the gym (or an arm with more endurance), but a bionic arm can be much
better.

~~~
Mz
Much better in what way?

I have had reason to become somewhat familiar with what happens to the body
when organs are transplanted with natural organs from other people and when
metal pins are used to repair damaged parts and so forth. None of it is
anywhere near as good as keeping your own parts functional and healthy to
begin with. It all comes with serious complications, and I think people vastly
underestimate just how bad it really is. I think it is far worse than people
think.

~~~
icebraining
Sure, _currently_ it is. But that's not written in stone. Lots of medical
procedures used to have huge mortality rates and extreme side-effects, and are
now much better, often even just a couple of decades afterwards.

~~~
Mz
The component parts they use are inherently problematic. You put enough metal
in the body, it causes metal poisoning. This is a fundamental problem. You
solve it by moving to other materials entirely. Other materials that have some
hope of working tend to be more organic, and then we aren't talking cyborg-
like outcomes anymore. We are talking some other paradigm.

So, I don't see it.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I think you're focusing too hard on the chromesteel cyberpunk angle. A
prosthetic made of silicone, plastic, and carbon fiber is still just as
"cyborg".

And metal will still have its place. _Most_ people are quite tolerant to
titanium, and there's been some advances lately in hydrophobic coatings for
implants that keep them from interacting with your blood. I think it's
unlikely to be a _primary_ component, though, because it's heavy and expensive
and its primary advantage--strength--is useless if the body it's attached to
gives out first.

~~~
Mz
Look, I am not arguing against creating prostheses for people who need them
for some reason. If you are going to die without it or if your functionality
is sufficiently impaired due to lack of a body part, there are certainly cases
where it makes sense.

But I have difficulty imagining it will ever not be crazy to be willing to lop
off a perfectly healthy arm to "upgrade" it. That was what I was reacting to.
It isn't like I am decrying the _evils of cochlear implants_ here.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _But I have difficulty imagining it will ever not be crazy to be willing to
> lop off a perfectly healthy arm to "upgrade" it._

Then say that and be done with it. Don't cloud the issue with misdirection
about metal poisoning.

~~~
Mz
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14829343](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14829343)

That is exactly what I said in my first comment. And then a bunch of people
piled on to have a cow about that statement. And the longer this discussion
has gone on, the weirder it has gotten in terms of people trying to put words
in my mouth and claim intent that isn't there.

You could just give it a rest yourself. It takes two to make for good
discussion. Both people need to be engaging in good faith. It only takes one
to undermine that process.

------
libeclipse
Cody from Cody's Lab on YouTube did this a while ago.

It was _really_ cool. He's done a few videos on it, including putting it in
and taking it out.

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booleandilemma
"Hacking your body" the way this article describes seems more pathological
than anything.

It's like people who fetishize about getting amputated.

~~~
icebraining
People have always altered their bodies for improvement. Cutting off parts of
their penises (circumcision), perforating their skin for earrings and
piercings, shooting lasers at their skin to destroy their organs that produce
hairs, etc.

~~~
collyw
I am struggling to see the "improvement" in having a magnet in your finger.
What use was it, because she describes a number of downsides?

~~~
icebraining
I'm not talking about that particular modification, just in general.

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micimize
Author throws their uninformed and limited view of injectables against their
previous empty and uninformed optimism for wetware grinding due to their
#fingermagnetennui (which to be fair is No Joke™), is saddened.

Includes such deep insights as:

• Stitching a cellphone into your arm maybe isn't the future

• Replacing body parts for fun doesn't make sense yet

• biohacking is in decline because Trump was elected

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analognoise
Not many people are impressed with this silly shit to have it done to them?

You know, I don't often say this, but the general populace was right on this
one.

