[FRIAM] the cancellation arc

Thu Sep 16 18:08:15 EDT 2021

Steve, 

Yes.  I like your example of idio-giggles.  Yes, I have seen that happen, although never experienced.  Going to have to do a rethink about how I describe the phenomenon.  In fact some of the most persistent cases of The Giggles I have ever been around are cases where the Giggler finds it further funny that nobody else in the room gets the joke, and so, the more the group pleads for an explanation, the more the Giggler is incapacitated.  

You encouraged doug in that path!  Tsk! Tsk!  And here I thought you were a Friend of Noodling.  

Somewhere, in John Brown’s Body, Benet gives Lincoln a soliloquy in which he speaks of ambition as a ring put round a tree, which, if not expanded, will ultimately kill the tree.  If video games are not examples of the principle that the voyage IS the destination, I don’t know what is.  

Thanks for writing, Steve.

n

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2021 5:33 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the cancellation arc

NST -

Well, Steve,

Again I ask,  What exactly are you seeking.  And why are you seeking THAT?  

I'll take this as a literal question, directed specifically *to* me based on the text I just shared.    The simple, glib answer is "I don't know" to both questions.   A similarly simplified but not as glib answer is that I am seeking A) pain/discomfort relief for myself, using the device as marketed.; B) an operative/intuitive understanding of the basic effects of high frequency/low voltage stimulation of the skin/musculature/ligature/fascia out of curiosity and a hope to be more efficient with A for myself and others such as Mary who is the one having acute issues right now; C) A professional/academic interest in simulated sensoria.   

Most here seem happy enough with visual stimulation, and in general the most blunt of visual tricks.  Others  may also be familiar/experienced with audioscapes, etc.  Gamers likely experience visual/auditory simulated experiences with interaction (within a narrative/setting/character framework).   Advanced/avante-garde games my also indulge the gamer in world-building (again, within a framework).    "cheap" haptics like simple vibration of a mouse/controller or holding other props in one's hand such that impingement between body parts and props or props and props (e.g. chopsticks) are an interesting start, but the various e-stim electrode arrays (mostly for performance/toning enhancement) would seem to provide an entree to full-body simulacra.  The various (I'll avoid the acronyms) *sensors* coupled with *activators* seem like they might, for example, support being able to *feel* the air currents under my avatar-Raven's wings whilst allowing me to tweak my pin and tailfeathers to trim my glide/soar all while in VR.  Maybe this will be no better than the lucid-dream versions of this, I don't know, but it is one of the many things that compels me.

 Just TO head off the usual, this is NOT for me a kinky question but a very abstract one.  And, to be honest, it is a bit rhetorical; ie. I already have the arrogance to think that I know the answer.  I think there is a sense in which the search is the “goal”, and if you provide the goal, without a search, you will obliterate it.   

Occasionally, when I try to raise an issue on FRIAM I get dragged into kink as a kind of raillery, and I think, distraction.  The best example was Doug who completely short-sheeted my attempt to discuss vortexes and entropy by talking about “Swirlies”  (NOT Shirleys, to be clear).    

I do find that episode in the Doug-with-a-bone show, now most of a decade behind us, quite seminal in the Friam-Weave...   I am mildly abashed at having encouraged Doug to dive down that particular rat-hole.  I can't find any compensating value to his "swirlies" tangent beyond being a rude caricature of your fascination (at the time) with vortex formation/maintenance.  I agree that those kinds of tangents *are* a distraction almost exclusively.  On the other hand, this group is so diverse (within our narrow techno-centric,  white-male-mostly, academic-ish spectrum) that we each bring our own parallaxical mirror to the party.   A few months back Marcus threatened to write a text-generator that simulated some of the more obvious personalities here which implies that we are all *quite* predictable (at least en-caricature), and all the attempts at straw/steelmanning here seems to include a skinning or stylization intended to reflect the recipient/subject of said steel/straw-man.

Let’s take an example that cannot be kinkified.  

Let’s take, Getting the Giggles.  The Giggles is, for me, one of the holiest states one can achieve.  I know also that it can be produced when a group of people, familiar and comfortable with one another, happen on a bit of silliness together.  I know also that it can be produced by smoking pot.  So, why bother with the people and the silliness.  Why not just take the drug?  To which my answer is, Why take the drug?  

I'm not big on chemical mood-altering myself... even coffee/alcohol are things I avoid (ab)using often.   I like me a cup of coffee in the morning and a swig of rye or wine or beer occasionally and they *do* alter my mood/metabolism in ways that I find convenient/desireable, but it has been decades since I deliberately tried to use either to kick me into an entirely different modality.   The trope of mean/sloppy/sappy drunk or of caffiene-wired/deprived aren't very interesting to me.   The "harder" drugs don't appeal to me either (by extension) particularly?   Same for non-chem tech...   while I am very interested/practiced in VR/AR I'm not really aiming for a psychedelic experience and in fact would generally avoid those as available (how different is cybersickness from the disorienting/nauseating experiences attributed to amatoxins and alkaloids in psychedelic/entheogenic  substances?)

That said, I think you are asking roughly about the metaphysics of shortcuts and proxies and simulacra?   I think that would be a good discussion to have here, but not clear I can even stimulate one much less lead it.

Anecdotally responding to your question of "the Giggles", early in my professional career, my best boss/team ever was having a small technical meeting (6 around a table) when the team leader made the observation: "well, this isn't set in concrete or anything, maybe silly-putty, but not concrete".  

Silly Putty being in the pantheon of ubiquitous childhood toys (Slinky/Etch-a-Sketch/Hula Hoop/GyroTop/etc) of the 60's and having unique visual/tactile/olfactory bindings (who else knows the smell, the unique way it went from "fluid" to snappable/bounceable-solid, the uncanny-flesh-not-flesh color and the quality of being able to (seemingly without corruption) transfer newsprint forever?), I started cross-binding those qualities with the topic of the meeting (somehow trying to nail down a specification for a subsystem of the big system we were developing/maintaining).   The emotional-cognitive dissonance was wycked... I started giggling and after a few minutes of trying to stifle it I left the room, only to return and start again.  Nobody else was effected by these giggles, though I could tell my incessant giggling (not my style one whit) *was* fascinating to the others.   It has been most of 40 years and I doubt anyone else remembers that incident, but it was the worst/most-unanticipated  experience of involuntary response to something higher than what is normally considered autonomic (hiccoughs, sneezes, knee-jerks, blinking, etc.) 

I endured too many parties where I was the only one in the room who was (absolutely/relatively) sober/straight.   I was mildly envious of those who seemed to find *everything* heyelarious, both individually and collectively, and yet... really?   For the longest time I thought I was just wired wrong/different, but now I realize it just reflects the paradox of how much we are all alike in entirely different ways. Or is it vice-versa?

Nick 

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam  <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2021 2:41 PM
To: friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] the cancellation arc

Marcus  wrote:

Why did the big bang occur?  Was it because God had an orgasm?  Jesus.

The unfolding universe *is* the orgasm?

        ... induced by the meta-Goddess-as-Dominatrix wielding Dark-Energy-Stim?

I *was* aware of the sex-application, though I would question Dave's 10,000x purchases compared to medical relief/rehab and performance enhancement.   When shopping for the (ultimately $30 device) i tripped over the whole range of applications including a wide range of sexual kink it would seem.

I believe electrostim has been used by horse (and maybe more importantly cattle) breeding for many decades to collect semen for the turkey-baster work (to be crude)?  I hate to guess what the scene looked liked *developing* this technology... I think that kind of behaviour would be illegal in most states today.

The closest I came to "biting" on that application was the conductive gloves designed to morph amongst traditional electro-stim/massage/accupuncture...  but most of the "unique" electrode types cost many times the stim unit itself (I suspect it is just a compact CPU with some D/A converters... probably running Linux...  there are probably DIY Arduino builds or even amplifier circuits to drive these electrodes from the headphone output of a smartphone.   For my more general interests in synthetic sensoria,  I should check the options of what can in fact be driven from the headphone jack in consumer HMDs (e.g. Oculus Quest).   

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