TheAgitator.com
The First Download Is Always Free
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008Tech radio host Kim Komando sows panic about . . . digital drugs?
But websites are targeting your children with so-called digital drugs. These are audio files designed to induce drug-like effects.
All your child needs is a music player and headphones.
Digital drugs supposedly synchronize your brain waves with the sound. Hence, they allegedly alter your mental state.
Binaural beats create a beating sound. Other noises may be included with binaural beats. This is intended to mask their unpleasant sound.
Just like mixers do with alcohol!
Some sites provide binaural beats that have innocuous effects. For example, some claim to help you develop extrasensory powers like telepathy and psychokinesis.
Other sites offer therapeutic binaural beats. They help you relax or meditate. Some allegedly help you overcome addiction or anxiety. Others purport to help you lose weight or eliminate gray hair.
However, most sites are more sinister. They sell audio files ("doses") that supposedly mimic the effects of alcohol and marijuana.
But it doesn’t end there. You’ll find doses that purportedly mimic the effects of LSD, crack, heroin and other hard drugs. There are also doses of a sexual nature. I even found ones that supposedly simulate heaven and hell.
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Companies that sell digital drugs claim they’re safe. Supposedly, they won’t affect your physical health.
Let’s think about this for a moment. The sites claim binaural beats cause the same effects as illegal drugs. These drugs impair coordination and can cause hallucinations. They’ve caused countless fatal accidents, like traffic collisions.
If binaural beats work as promised, they are not safe. They could also create a placebo effect. The expectation elicits the response. Again, this is unsafe.
At the very least, digital drugs promote drug use. Some sites say binaural beats can be used with illegal drugs.
The sites also look favorably on the effects of illegal drugs. So, talk to your children. Make sure they understand the dangers of this culture. It could be a small jump from digital drugs to the real thing.
The Internet sure is a scary place. Probing journalist that I am, I downloaded the "marijuana, cocaine, peyote, and opium" pack from the website I-Doser. The tracks are ambient and soothing, but that’s about all they did for me.
Cue legislation from outraged elected officials in 5 . . 4 . . 3 . . .
Wait. She’s complaining about a concept whereby you can get high by downloading something from the internet? The only thing bad about that would be that it isn’t true.
It’s a perfect delivery mechanism for Ritalin….
Reminds me of my childhood church’s warnings about popular music masking hidden satanic messages…..
Humans are nuts.
I’ve always wanted to try binaural beat heroin.
Wait, so there are some people who will believe anything and who get swindled? Knock me over with a feather.
This has all the credibility of “that Mikey kid from the Life cereal commercials died from drinking Pop Rocks and drinking Coke.” At least the one expert she cites pretty much came out and said it was hokum. Still, she gave it more attention than it merits.
The only real danger here is that some dimwitted activists and politicians will use this as a pretext for more Internet regulation and surveillance power “to protect the children.”
Sounds like a job for the mythbusters.
It’s got all the elements of a scam.
“It’s totally awesome man”
“But it might not work for you”
“It’s like doing drugs”
Was she just at her deadline and needing a column, like, 5 minutes ago?
I am surprised that Kim Komando even bothered to comment on this. She always seemed pretty level-headed.
Can’t wait for the flood of anti digital-drug ad spots like:
“He listens to beats, so he can do more work, so he can earn more, so he can buy more beats, so he can do more work, so he can earn more…..”
“This is your brain. [shows Zune screen] This is your brain on digi [shows a locked up ZUNE screen]…Any Questions?”
“Beethoven. Bach. Mozart. MY anti-drug”
Way to be on top of things, ABC… My buddy wrote about this over a year ago: http://www.litmuszine.com/stereolab/5.29.07.html
Given the fact that it’s been on the market for over a year now and we don’t have any reports of adverse effects, I think it’s safe to say 1.) we don’t need to worry about them, and 2.) they probably don’t work in the first place.
Funny, i was talking about the threshold of event fusion nearly reached through listening to d&b music, and it possibly being useful to synchronize the rehearsal cycle of short term memory to an external conveyable source, and slipping in funny vocal lines (such as movie quotes or phone numbers) as a learning process. But a PWEI song with “music is just organized noise” and “i don’t like noise; it poisons the mind” had popped into my head, which made me think of poppies and caused an intense craving for a big mac and fries, to go. Alpha waves should be made illegal. If einstein hadn’t had his violin a hundred years ago, we wouldn’t be worried about nuclear bombs today. Tipper Gore saw the problem 20 years ago.
Sometimes I feel like we’re living in a Max Headroom episode.
I personally like that she said that not only that ‘If binaural beats work as promised, they are not safe. They could also create a placebo effect.’ How can something work and produce a placebo effect. I always thought is was one or the other…..
Some sites provide binaural beats that have innocuous effects. For example, some claim to help you develop extrasensory powers like telepathy and psychokinesis.
Wait till your kid develops psychokinesis and tell me how innocuous you think that is. Hasn’t she seen the X-Men movies?
At the first sign of a politician taking this seriously, I’m giving up. Does anyone know where I can get some comfortable sweatpants?
Cue legislation from outraged elected officials in 5 . . 4 . . 3 . . .
I’m kind of tempted, because that’s the type of guy I am, to go up to our state house of legislator and speak out against binaural, telling the tragic story of how my brother got addicted to such a horrible, horrible drug.
Then I’ll laugh and laugh and laugh once it’ll get banned.
Shon:
I think what she is saying is that if they work they aren’t safe. And if they don’t work, they still aren’t safe.
I wonder…If I become addicted to digital drugs and can show the self-destructive aspects of that addiction will I henceforward be covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act?
This music sounds awesome!
I want the ability to fire people from life.
Don’t know much about binaural, but if it’s anything like the Pearl Jam album Binaural, it’s a steaming pile of crap.
Radley–I hear they work best if you smoke a little first…
Is it true that if you play these binural beats backwards, they contain a message telling the listener to worship satan and commit suicide?
ROFLMAO! (Raucous blasts of laughter) Oh, jeez, is this like those dumb-as-posts ads in the back of comics, advertising subliminal seductions tapes (give this to the girl you want and she’ll play it and fall in love with you!) and other pathetic crap?
Hmmmm…maybe I can convince this person to buy some oceanfront property in New Mexico…
Technologies and times change but people don’t.
Digital drugs = digital snake oil
Just say no to Snow Crash!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash
Bolero: the date rape download.
I remember when this sort of article was satire. Of course the sounds alter your mental state. That’s why our ears are connected to our brains. The sound of your family singing “Happy Birthday” alters your mental state too, by making you ashamed of them and hungry for cake.
Seriously, if sounds are a real problem, then education is the solution. Parents should sit their children down and mime the dangers.
If you think like that, you should see if you can pick up a copy of Taylor Caldwell’s Devil’s Advocate (pops)
Yeah, these things really don’t work. I imagine most people who have them work are people who are having some wishful thinking or flashbacks.
Dude, I can get telepathy and psychokinesis from listening to music? Well, now I totally have to go download some of these.
#18
You already have it. It’s called the Second Amendment.
From the I-Doser website:
“A simulated state can be achieved through the use of our advanced Binaural Methods.”
Jeez. It looks like they hired the guys from Firesign Theater to write their ad copy.
So how do I mask this should I have to do a piss test for work?
What happened to that guy in New York that used to release nonsense press released to the gulible media? Anyone seen him around lately? This sounds like one of his.
I want some binaural brownies!
Go do a youtube search for Virtual Haircut and grab some headphones. Probably a lot better than the digital drugs :)
at Big Mike…yay for the poppies! Have you heard the reformation live disks they came out with a year or two back?
The binaural beats produce a hypnotic state and while in a hypnotic state you can be convinced of pretty much anything (i.e you’re on acid or your uncle touched you in the bathing suit area when you were two) Of course hypnotism is only effective if you believe it works to begin with. The mind is a playground.
[...] On arrête pas le progrès! [...]
Binaural beats are poorly understood. Poorly understood. It’s a shame Kim panic’d about this. In an adjacent section of the mind playground, left-right beats are used in EMDR and other therapies and DO engage (again) poorly understood syntheses of areas and functions of the brain/mind; and work only to assist the very difficult work by client with therapist. But that’s not binaural beats. There’s so much to learn about things. Panic about marketing hype is just a shame, really.
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