Serotonin Creates Obedient Zombies - The Ultimate Government Wet Dream

[aguilaroja]

...if serotonin turns people into manipulable zombies capable of automatically marching to the orders of the powers that be (even to their own peril/demise), then serotonin and SSRI drugs are the perfect public policy instruments ...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635717305661
https://www.the-scientist.com/?arti...lved-in-a-Slug-Host-s-Response-to-a-Parasite/. ..They found that increasing serotonin in uninfected slugs made them seek out nematodes, while decreasing serotonin in infected slugs removed their affinity for nematodes....

"...Other parasites also use serotonin to manipulate hosts for benefits. Spiny-headed worms(Acanthocephalus), for example, change the behavior of their aquatic amphipod hosts to gain access to their next host, a duck. The worms increase serotonin in the infected amphipod, causing them to swim up and linger at the surface to be eaten by ducks. In a similar manner, the trematode Euhaplorchismakes their killifish host easier prey for birds by decreasing serotonin in the killifish and making them dash to the surface."

This is a excerpt from Stanislaw Lem’s 1971 science fiction novel “The Futurological Congress” (Kandel translation).

“Spent a few free hours this morning in the city. Could hardly control my horror as I looked at all the displays of wealth and prosperity. An art gallery in Manhattan practically giving away original Rembrandts and Matisses. And next door they have fabulous furniture, Louis Quinze and Louis Quatorze, marble mantelpieces, thrones, mirrors, Saracen armor. Auctions everywhere—houses selling like hotcakes. And I thought this was a paradise, where every man could bepalacize himself! The Self-nominating Nobel Prize Candidate Registration Center on Fifth Avenue is no less a fraud: anyone can have a Nobel Prize, just as anyone can grace his compartment walls with priceless works of art—when both are nothing but a pinch of powder that stimulates the brain! The fiendishness of it all is that part of this mass deception is open and voluntary, letting people think they can draw the line between fiction and fact. And since no one any longer responds to things spontaneously—you take drugs to study, drugs to love, drugs to rise up in revolt, drugs to forget—the distinction between manipulated and natural feelings has ceased to exist.”

 

[michael94]

Did everyone skip over the last part where decreasing serotonin made the fish easier prey? ...

 

[jandrade1997]

This study shows that in a different organism, parasites /lower/ serotonin to cause the fish to be more easily consumed. I don't think this can tell us much about serotonin' general effects.

 

[LUH 3417]

This is a excerpt from Stanislaw Lem’s 1971 science fiction novel “The Futurological Congress” (Kandel translation).

“Spent a few free hours this morning in the city. Could hardly control my horror as I looked at all the displays of wealth and prosperity. An art gallery in Manhattan practically giving away original Rembrandts and Matisses. And next door they have fabulous furniture, Louis Quinze and Louis Quatorze, marble mantelpieces, thrones, mirrors, Saracen armor. Auctions everywhere—houses selling like hotcakes. And I thought this was a paradise, where every man could bepalacize himself! The Self-nominating Nobel Prize Candidate Registration Center on Fifth Avenue is no less a fraud: anyone can have a Nobel Prize, just as anyone can grace his compartment walls with priceless works of art—when both are nothing but a pinch of powder that stimulates the brain! The fiendishness of it all is that part of this mass deception is open and voluntary, letting people think they can draw the line between fiction and fact. And since no one any longer responds to things spontaneously—you take drugs to study, drugs to love, drugs to rise up in revolt, drugs to forget—the distinction between manipulated and natural feelings has ceased to exist.”

Separating drugs from food from drink is a very modern and industrial idea. Drug originally meant an out of use commodity. Only with the development of the hypodermic syringe and fast living did addiction and drug abuse become part of modern parlance. Other cultures tended to not delineate substances in such a stark way.

 

[LUH 3417]

This is a excerpt from Stanislaw Lem’s 1971 science fiction novel “The Futurological Congress” (Kandel translation).

“Spent a few free hours this morning in the city. Could hardly control my horror as I looked at all the displays of wealth and prosperity. An art gallery in Manhattan practically giving away original Rembrandts and Matisses. And next door they have fabulous furniture, Louis Quinze and Louis Quatorze, marble mantelpieces, thrones, mirrors, Saracen armor. Auctions everywhere—houses selling like hotcakes. And I thought this was a paradise, where every man could bepalacize himself! The Self-nominating Nobel Prize Candidate Registration Center on Fifth Avenue is no less a fraud: anyone can have a Nobel Prize, just as anyone can grace his compartment walls with priceless works of art—when both are nothing but a pinch of powder that stimulates the brain! The fiendishness of it all is that part of this mass deception is open and voluntary, letting people think they can draw the line between fiction and fact. And since no one any longer responds to things spontaneously—you take drugs to study, drugs to love, drugs to rise up in revolt, drugs to forget—the distinction between manipulated and natural feelings has ceased to exist.”

Also I believe the problem to be wealth - especially inequality - rather than prosperity. Prosperity is good and welcomed.

 

[Lucenzo01]

Did everyone skip over the last part where decreasing serotonin made the fish easier prey? ...

Yeah, Jordan Peterson thinks that high serotonin is equal to be in the top of the social hierarchy...maybe an aggressive behavior is necessary in a highly competitive environment where violence is the only way of winning.

 

[LUH 3417]

Yeah, Jordan Peterson thinks that high serotonin is equal to be in the top of the social hierarchy...maybe an aggressive behavior is necessary in a highly competitive environment where violence is the only way of winning.

I think that’s definitely true. The guy at my job looks like a lobster (literally red and sweaty all day), makes the most money, and is the most aggressive and commanding employee who basically runs the show.

 

[michael94]

Yeah, Jordan Peterson thinks that high serotonin is equal to be in the top of the social hierarchy...maybe an aggressive behavior is necessary in a highly competitive environment where violence is the only way of winning.

Serotonin can protect one from getting caught up in dangerous activities. And I am not just talking about physically dangerous... but also emotionally/spiritually dangerous. This can be just as damaging as learned helplessness. Obviously serotonin is not "good", but the training wheels need to respected for what they are.

 

[LUH 3417]

Serotonin can protect one from getting caught up in dangerous activities. And I am not just talking about physically dangerous... but also emotionally/spiritually dangerous. This can be just as damaging as learned helplessness. Obviously serotonin is not "good", but the training wheels need to respected for what they are.

What would you compare low serotonin to, if high serotonin is equated with learned helplessness? Just wondering if you have any analogies

 

[Frankdee20]

Serotonin can protect one from getting caught up in dangerous activities. And I am not just talking about physically dangerous... but also emotionally/spiritually dangerous. This can be just as damaging as learned helplessness. Obviously serotonin is not "good", but the training wheels need to respected for what they are.

For example ?

 

[BrianF]

I posted a study recently showing that crabs exposed to very low levels of SSRI drugs (as found even in processed sewage) become reckless, aggressive, homicidal and generally psychotic.
https://raypeatforum.com/community/...ed-violent-homicidal-even-at-low-doses.20528/

While this effect of the drugs can easily be ascribed to some peculiar toxicity of the SSRI class molecules, the study below suggests that it is actually serotonin that is responsible for these bizarre behaviors. The study below demonstrates that by elevating serotonin in an organism (this time the study model was a slug) that organism can be made to behave almost automatically and in a very self-harmful (even lethal) way. As the study also says, this zombifying effect of serotonin has been confirmed in other lower species like ampipods and fish. The study even directly names the poison and the remedy - Prozac and cyproheptadine
I have also seen studies confirming these effects of serotonin in higher animals and even primates. So, there should be little surprise that modern societies are becoming more and more whacky - i.e. SSRI prescription rates continue to rise and even if a person is not directly taking such a drug they are exposed to it ubiquitously through tap water used for beverages, commercial food preparation, showering, and washing machines (clothes). In fact, as I posted in another thread the ability of SSRI drugs (and serotonin in general) to induce criminal behavior is apparently well-known to governments.
https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/ssri-increase-risk-of-violent-crime.7829/
https://raypeatforum.com/community/threads/ssri-increase-risk-of-violent-crime.7829/#post-100107

So, if this knowledge is available and well assimilated then something more than incompetence is probably at play at the public policy level. I think that this study below gives a hint what the reason may be - if serotonin turns people into manipulable zombies capable of automatically marching to the orders of the powers that be (even to their own peril/demise), then serotonin and SSRI drugs are the perfect public policy instruments and the dream of every government official on the planet. The powers that be are the "parasite" analog from the study below and we are the unsuspecting "slugs". I find the study ironic precisely because the term "slug" is commonly used in the military and high-ranks of government to describe the working, obedient, slow-moving masses. No wonder LSD is a Schedule I substance and dopaminergic drugs are banned by WADA and officially frowned upon as gateways to "addiction". I think Ray already hinted at the deliberate nature of pro-serotonin propaganda stemming from the realization back in the 1960s that LSD and other serotonergic drugs making people "crazy" and defiant. Strangely enough, the term "oppositional defiant disorder", which is now part of the officially diagnosed mental disorders codified in DSM, was coined back in the early 1970s when civil unrest was at its highest levels. Not long after, the first SSRI drug was synthesized. Do you think this is a coincidence??

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635717305661
https://www.the-scientist.com/?arti...lved-in-a-Slug-Host-s-Response-to-a-Parasite/

"...Some parasites manipulate their hosts to behave in ways that help spread the invaders to new environments or hosts. A study published online last month (February 27) in Behavioral Processesreports that the parasitic nematode Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita infects slugs and directs them toward more parasites. The researchers found they could reproduce this behavior by increasing the slugs’ serotonin levels, indicating that the parasites might be using the same mechanism.

"...The investigators then ran another experiment with the same setup but fed the slugs drugs that increase or decrease their serotonin levels, namely, the antidepressant fluoxetine (Prozac) and the anti-histamine cyproheptadine (Periactin), respectively. Serotonin makes the most logical target because it has been implicated in host-manipulation by other parasites, says Rae. They found that increasing serotonin in uninfected slugs made them seek out nematodes, while decreasing serotonin in infected slugs removed their affinity for nematodes. The results hint that serotonin is part of the nematode’s control over slugs, but this still has to be confirmed directly, says Rae."

"...Other parasites also use serotonin to manipulate hosts for benefits. Spiny-headed worms(Acanthocephalus), for example, change the behavior of their aquatic amphipod hosts to gain access to their next host, a duck. The worms increase serotonin in the infected amphipod, causing them to swim up and linger at the surface to be eaten by ducks. In a similar manner, the trematode Euhaplorchismakes their killifish host easier prey for birds by decreasing serotonin in the killifish and making them dash to the surface."

I pretty much supplement with with 20mcg of Loratadine every night at bed time. I haven't had a 'black dog' episode in nearly 7 months. I think this is no coincidence. Of course generally, since trying to cut down on PUFA etc, my mental outlook and and depressive episodes have lessened over the last three years. That said, nearly seven months without one is the longest since I was a teenager. I learned about serotonin and the dangers of it on Peat's website and this forum. For that, I am eternally grateful. If you haven't suffered from depressive episodes, you really have no idea how devastating they can be.

 

[BingDing]

Great title @haidut! Swarms of locusts are normally docile grasshoppers on serotonin.

When Grasshoppers Go Biblical: Serotonin Causes Locusts to Swarm

 

[Travis]

Nice post. I think it would be interesting to look deeper into the initial funding behind early SSRI research, to see if it was merely the work of capitalistic Phizer™ executives or a Government agenda—perhaps even finding proof!—eventually leading to the marketing of social compliance as 'happiness' to millions of television viewers and readers of magazines. Jon Rappoport is always informing us how many suicides these drugs have caused, but this is hard to prove because nearly everyone expects people actually taking SSRIs—the chronically 'depressed people'—are inclined to do such a thing anyway. Regardless, these drugs are bound to produce the brand of psychology no self-respecting person would want. Better would simply be coffee and tobacco, as these two contribute a dopamininergic anti-opiate (caffeoyl quinide) and and a chlolinergic drug (nicotine), respectively, which would be more than helpful for a person attempting to overcome a particular circumstance.

Separating drugs from food from drink is a very modern and industrial idea. Drug originally meant an out of use commodity. Only with the development of the hypodermic syringe and fast living did addiction and drug abuse become part of modern parlance. Other cultures tended to not delineate substances in such a stark way.

And don't forget about the invention of column chromatography! and even distillation before that which had given humans the solvents needed to extract the most powerful molecules from plants. But I suppose before even that: Fire had given the new ability to smoke both cannabis and opium—being perhaps the first deviation in the route-of-delivery away from oral ingestion. But even smoking opium is hardly fatal (I think there are only a few case reports of this out the millions who'd been addicted to it)—certainly smoking cannabis never is—so it certainly did take some further refinement to concentrate and purify recreational drugs to the point of lethality (and had also allowed the insufflation of cocaine hydrochloride, representing another novel route-of-delivery). I would assume that the chewing of the coca leaf can be addictive, but it certainly will never kill someone (and it could perhaps rightly even be considered 'a habit' instead of 'an addiction'—little different than drinking coffee).

 

[Travis]

I pretty much supplement with with 20mcg of Loratadine every night at bed time. I haven't had a 'black dog' episode in nearly 7 months. I think this is no coincidence. Of course generally, since trying to cut down on PUFA etc, my mental outlook and and depressive episodes have lessened over the last three years. That said, nearly seven months without one is the longest since I was a teenager. I learned about serotonin and the dangers of it on Peat's website and this forum. For that, I am eternally grateful. If you haven't suffered from depressive episodes, you really have no idea how devastating they can be.

The ω−6/ω−3 ratio can impact psychology directly, as the 18−22 carbon fatty acid alkylamides and 2-glycerides are our endogenous cannabinoids. The first discovered, and the strongest-binding, are 2-arachidonylglycerol and arachidonylethanolamide (20∶4, ω−6). These are found in the brain and represent most people's endogenous cannabinoid ligands, but their oleic (18∶2, ω−9) and Mead acid (20∶3, ω−9) analogues are also effective. The ones not derived by ω−6 fatty acids have been less-studied on account of them being weaker ligands, and also because Mead acid's ethanolamide and its 2-glyceride are rarely found in most brains (it takes 'ω−6 deficiency' before the body will synthesize Mead acid). So neuro-signalling is greatly influenced, believe-it-or-not, directly by both by the dietary ω−6/ω−3 ratio and also whether-or-not a person can manage to completely eliminate linoleic and γ-linolenic acids. I think I had been getting rather close to making some Mead acid myself but had eaten some avocados a few days ago, an event which had stimulated my interest further in endocannabinoids because of the subtle mental shift I believe they had caused.

 

[haidut]

Great title @haidut! Swarms of locusts are normally docile grasshoppers on serotonin.

When Grasshoppers Go Biblical: Serotonin Causes Locusts to Swarm

Yep, thanks. We posted this in a separate thread but it is good to see other people found it on the web as well.
Genes Do NOT Matter (much)

 

[haidut]

Still the question remains: Does psilocybin reduce serotonin or increase it?
LSD and Psilocybin are 5HT2A agonists, so they agonize that serotonin receptor.
Does this increase or decrease the exposure to serotonin?
This is important, because overactivation of the 5HT2A receptor is associated with serious health issues.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) May Be Caused By Increased Serotonin Sensitivity
Serotonin As The Cause Of Acute Pancreatitis

I think the negative feedback mechanism on serotonin is through 5-HT1. Not sure which subunit, but some 5-HT1 agonists have been shown to decrease serotonin synthesis. All the ergot derivatives, with the notable exception of metergoline, are mixed agonists/antagonists on serotonin receptors but the anti-serotonin effects prevail. Some of them like cabergoline and bromocriptine have to be used carefully due to fibrosis effects through 5-HT2B. Also, the mechanism of action of LSD is not completely elucidated. Very high dopamine levels can also produce some of the effects of LSD, without much effect through 5-HT2A. I think we will see the legalization of LSD soon for some specific conditions that pharma companies cannot develop anything effective for. So, PTSD, intractable depression, psychosis, etc are all in the list of things currently LSD is being tried for. And of course, it will cost an arm and a leg and will still be a Schedule I substance. What a perverted and corrupt system...

 

[sladerunner69]

@haidut Thank you for this... You're like the Roy Jones Jr of the Ray Peat Forum i.e. everyone knows your great but a lot of people think you're overrated (but still great) when in reality you're criminally UNDERRATED. I mean you beat bernard hopkins and james toney in their prime... I mean Roy Jones jr did. Some chump learns a few things about boxing and they think they sound smart saying "Oh roy jones had great reflexes and speed but he didn't have good fundamentals" HE HAD GREAT FUNDAMENTALS but he just didn't like to stick to them. Dude had one of THE BEST jabs ever but just didn't like to use it, PROBABLY for aesthetic reasons, I mean how insane is that? But yeah it's the same kinda cycle, when you first get into the Peat world you get amazed by haidut and then you learn a few things and you say "he's not so great" then you get deeper in and you realize haiduts one of the best and the baddest.

Well now thanks for sharing cat-liker! We could use a few more affable individuals like you round these parts.

Curios, what rumours did you come across that got you thinkin' Mr. idealabs wasn't so great after all? That sounds a little silly to me heheheheheh

 

[haidut]

@haidut Thank you for this... You're like the Roy Jones Jr of the Ray Peat Forum i.e. everyone knows your great but a lot of people think you're overrated (but still great) when in reality you're criminally UNDERRATED. I mean you beat bernard hopkins and james toney in their prime... I mean Roy Jones jr did. Some chump learns a few things about boxing and they think they sound smart saying "Oh roy jones had great reflexes and speed but he didn't have good fundamentals" HE HAD GREAT FUNDAMENTALS but he just didn't like to stick to them. Dude had one of THE BEST jabs ever but just didn't like to use it, PROBABLY for aesthetic reasons, I mean how insane is that? But yeah it's the same kinda cycle, when you first get into the Peat world you get amazed by haidut and then you learn a few things and you say "he's not so great" then you get deeper in and you realize haiduts one of the best and the baddest.

Lol, thanks for that - I am honored and humbled to be compared to "Captain Hook" Just saw that the guy holds a Russian citizenship as well!! This is probably the only US athlete to have such Russian aspirations, which makes him even more unique.
Truth be told, I miss the mark many times but I try to evolve by learning something new every day. So, as long as there is progress in my knowledge in the long run it is all good. As Peat says "when you ask a question and you find an answer you are changed" - i.e. as in not even the same (and hopefully better) person any more.

 

[haidut]

Well now thanks for sharing cat-liker! We could use a few more affable individuals like you round these parts.

Curios, what rumours did you come across that got you thinkin' Mr. idealabs wasn't so great after all? That sounds a little silly to me heheheheheh

You do know about the .ORG website, right? Quite a few people on this forum, myself included, are not very popular over there and I get hate mail pretty much every day.
I never made claims to be anything special. I simply try to learn every day and share what I have learned. Nothing more dangerous than a self-proclaimed "expert".

 

[haidut]

The fiendishness of it all is that part of this mass deception is open and voluntary

Thanks. I think the more sinister part is that nowadays very little of it is voluntary. The environment is consciously designed to be ever more unstimulating and many of the choices people try to make to improve things have been sabotaged from the start.