…and this is your brain on local news.

Someone needs to tell News 9 and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics that as far as facepalm-stupid attempts to scare the crap out of parents with hysterical "next new drug" stories go, the "digital drugs" thing is so 2008.

(Thanks to Michael Chaney for the link.)

Comments

[roystgnr]

2008? The Ashley Judd episode of Star Trek came out in 1991!

[Episiarch]

That was a Wesley-heavy episode, and I hate you for reminding me of it.

[Tulpa]

A Wesley hot-and-heavy episode, no less.

[Episiarch]

Now I'm even more disgusted.

[Astrid]

I just throw up in my mouth.

[Astrid]

I just throw threw up in my mouth.

[R C Dean]

Not even 2008. More like 1993. If memory serves, you should be able to Google up Jarod Lanier for some pathbreaking noodling on the mind-altering potential of the digital world.

Speaking of which, I wonder what he's up to now?

[dbcooper]

Wired had something on David Byrne and a computer "halucination machine" (or words to that effect) back in the mid 90's.

[oncogenesis]

Speaking of digital drugs: watching that "news" report definitely increased my urge to kill.

[anon]

Anybody catch the clip at 0:45 of this East Buttfuck, Oklahoma TV station being told to upgrade from IE6?

[Bingo]

Are altered brainwave states now illegal? Are we going to have sleep monitors to make sure no one is having a lucid dream?

I don't even know what to say about this idiocy.

[Episiarch]

Not if Eddie Jessup has anything to do with it!

[Duckie]

The stupid, it's... intoxicating.

[Irwin Mann]

Does it cause flashbacks?

I'm still waiting for my acid flashbacks, 38 years now.

I think this all means we can't trust the government or the news media.

[Irwin Mann]

Does it cause flashbacks?

I'm still waiting for my acid flashbacks, 38 years now.

I think this all means we can't trust the government or the news media.

[Graham Wellington]

?I see what you did there?

[Jerry]

Those Onion News Network clips keep getting better.

[Isaac]

If only...

[Playa Manhattan]

They keep talking about how this causes "physiological effects"....
I had a double double from In 'N Out Burger this morning and there are still ongoing "physiological effects", namely mud butt...

[West Texas Boy]

I saw this yesterday and was dumbfounded.

What's next, meditation? Yoga? Holding one's breath?

[Schempf]

Don't forget - dogs eating grass

[jasno]

Would you really be surprised if meditation and Yoga are made illegal in Oklahoma?

Huffing dust-off, on the other hand, is poised to become an intercollegiate sport.

[Tulpa]

Psychology Today with the straight dope on I-dosing:

Idozer (or I-doser as it is also known) is extremely old drug in a new package. And breathe easy my fellow parents?because it's not really a drug?it's binaural beat therapy.

In 1839, Heinrich Wilhelm Dove discovered that two constant tones, played at slightly different frequencies in each ear, cause the listener to perceive the sound of a fast-paced beat. Calling this phenomenon "binaural beats," Dove helped launch two centuries of legitimate research and, as is almost always followed by exciting empirical study, money-grabbing pseudoscience.

First, the facts: Binaural beat therapy has been used in clinical settings to research hearing and sleep cycles, to induce various brain wave states, and treat anxiety.

[jasno]

Those scientists and their satanic schemes to steal our children's souls...

[mr simple]

I thought it sounded a lot like my sleep machine.

[Gene Berkman]

In 1965 I saw Rev. David Noble on the Joe Pyne show warning that the Beatles used two-beat music to cause mental instability in our young people, making them easy targets for the Communist Conspiracy.

Seems vaguely similar, in an abstract way, to the issue here.

[LarryA]

There were equivalent warnings about jazz.

And the waltz.

[Tulpa]

Speaking of totally legal and harmless "gateway drugs", does anyone else remember candy cigarettes? Those things were the bomb when I was a kid. I saw someone eating them the other day and was surprised they're still legal.

[Mister DNA]

Hard to find, but still legal. I got some for Christmas a few years ago.

[Almanian]

Those things are the shit. Love candy cigarettes.

[WTF]

I also remember bubble gum cigars. They were individually wrapped and even had the little paper band around them.

[Almanian]

Good call - those were (are) epic, too.

[Pope Jimbo]

When my kids were born, I handed out either bubble gum cigars or the real thing (even not so bad ones at that).

It was amazing how fast the bubble gum versions went compared to the real thing.

[hmm]

I bet it helps if you drop acid or eat shrooms before listening and watching this.

[Kate]

I smoked a doobie and then listened to this and it made me really hungry!!

[Isaac]

Proof that local news is a gateway drug.

[theocrat]

Do they got digitall liquor?

[John-David]

A nice touch was the cell phone accessing YouTube... at 4:20 pm.

[jasno]

Maybe the whole story is just a ploy by the stoners in the newsroom to divert attention from marijuana enforcement?

[Mr Whipple]

It sounds like a form of sensory derivation to me. There was this isolation tank place I went to a few times back in the 80s that had helmets that covered your entire head, with pretty blinking LEDs and some sort of tone. They said it was another form of sensory deprivation, like the isolation tanks, only cheaper and not as intense.

[Mr Whipple]

It sounds like a form of sensory derivation deprivation to me.

[juris imprudent]

First Astrid then Mr Whipple - something about a drug thread causes mis-spelling.

[WTF]

Are you sure it's not sensory depradation? Or sensory depravity?

Be careful - might end up in an Altered State.

[Brian E]

Ah, yes, the local news. They'll have you believing that twenty million kids are eaten by bats every second if it scares you into watching the program.

[Kristen]

Awesome comic! She be goin' on Facebook right now.

[cynical]

Digital drugs harmless? Tell that to Da5id.

[Jeff]

Wait a minute, digital drug?...this is the plot of 'snow crash'.

[Me]

Someone, please shoot me. I'm waiting for the Congressional hearings. I'm hoping Tipper Gore takes up the cause.

[gaoxiaen]

We don't use computers in Muskogee...

[Merle Fan]

I was just listening to Merle. I almost ended up with coffee all over my monitor!

[BarryJV]

But are they warning about the dangers of cake?

Cake started in the dance clubs of Czechoslovakia.

Unlike cannabis, which is natural, cake is artificial, a made up drug.

[?]

I downloaded one and it was just a digital version of Louie Louie.
But it did make me freak out a little and want to kill my parents.

[Tim]

Blog posting gives me pleasure. Am I a criminal?

[AndrewGurn]

Sergei Rachmaninoff's Op.21 no.5 "Lilacs" gives me chills. Maybe we should ban that too.

[xenia onatopp]

It's all a big joke to you people, but what about the children? I'm worried, because as a parent I have to be constantly on the lookout for new threats. The second I let my guard down somebody might expose them to something that feels good. Thank God they've removed all the potentially pleasurable foods from the schools here, but now I have to worry about music?

[Raven]

Being from Oklahoma can be so embarrassing sometimes (often, actually).