We absolutely know they had this program because we have living victims from it, and we have documentation from government files about it. The only reason we have government files about it is because someone misfiled a box of documents so it didn't mysteriously get destroyed.
@Nudhul some people were inclined to believe in havana syndrome because there has been talk for years about weapons that do this, some people think that spies know about this stuff but every side is keeping their existence a secret because everybody uses them
@Nudhul not sure if real or just schizo, but I bring it up because it's interesting. the claim was it was used to embarrass people by making them constantly cum and finally to sexually injure people in their sleep
@sun you would run out of juice after the 2nd time. after that its just muscle contractions. maybe you could overwork them somehow but i just dont see it happening, especially if there's no physical or chemical stimuli
@toiletpaper@Nudhul I am convinced that there are actual pharmaceutical aphrodisiacs, there's no reason to believe this single psychobiological function is the only one that can't be chemically induced
@sun@toiletpaper did you know that there are high powered vibrators made for veterinarians to collect semen samples to help preserve endangered species?
I know there're herbal aphrodisiacs. One priestess I circled with years ago used to make a mean May wine using Turnera diffusa and Galium odoratum primarily, that had extremely potent arousing effects on all who consumed it. Some people also suggest to use Pausinystalia johimbe, but that can be a bit dangerous (potentially heart attack inducing). But yeah, suffice it to say these things aren't a mere myth (speaking from experience).
Uh... no. I almost did myself in back when I was young and stupid by anointing myself with hemlock essential oil. Very bad news.
But herbalism is very legit when you aren't taken in by all the woo. Almost all the big-pharma prescribed by doctors is derived from ethnobotony plagerised from indigenous medicine keepers anyway, even if they synthesise it or tweak the molecule in order to qualify for a patent. The real herbs though are generally way more effective because of the entourage effect, and if you know enough about foraging, can be obtained for $0 with a little bit of elbow grease and know-how, and maybe at most a mickey of vodka and a mason jar.
@toiletpaper@sun herbal stuff can be sketchy cuz sometimes there's real chemistry there and other times its new age crystal women with every neurosis ever documented telling you hemlock extract is great for curing migraines
@toiletpaper@Nudhul from what I can tell 30-40% of new drugs incorporate protein folding simulation, which has been massively sped up by AI. I in fact used to do work for this industry
I don't know about that. I don't have any statistics to speak of, but I rather doubt that's true. That said, they do use a lot more AI to try and engineer bioactive molecules these days (particularly if protein based).
@toiletpaper@Nudhul I am just kind of skeptical because there just isn't any low hanging fruit anymore where you can grind up bark and get aspirin. in every modern case I have seen, there is some traditional medicine and scientists figure out that it really does have some kind of medicinal properties, then they spend a billion dollars to take make it 1000x more potent and usable for more things. I am acknowledging they contributed to the process but the traditional use isn't really anything like the pharma product
There're a lot of folknames for stuff like that. Like all the ingredients in the witches' potion in MacBeth are references to herbs (eg. eye of newt = mustard seed). One of my favourites is "baby fat" which is a rendered goose or duck fat used as a base for herbal salves (not fat from infants blood sacrificed on a Pagan altar like some retards believed it to be). It can be a bit challenging to decipher some old timey recipes because of that, and overlap in names, or multiple different names for the same plant, etc. But once it's figured out it's usually really a gold mine.
@toiletpaper@sun@Nudhul My grandma used to make an onion poultice that works great. Or a potato soup with a ton of onions and black pepper....black pepper used to be thought of as medicine and has tons of benefits
Exactly. So much of herbal medicine can be turned into gourmet food. I cured myself of severe chronic gastritis (Heliobacter pylori infection) over the past month using a tea and soups made with fresh turmeric, ginger, cumin and for good measure some burdock and dandelion root. Worked like a charm.
I use wild lettuce tincture to treat my own headaches, but you can also still use willow or poplar cambium. It works. That said, what you're getting in the bark isn't asperin from the drug store. It's an unrefined precursor to asperin which has a much more potent but also short duration effect. Also you need to be careful with it because in larger or long term doses it can result in internal bleeding. This stuff still all works very well, but it's not all exactly child's play. You have to have some caution and experience, and ideally one or several good mentors. Plantago major is another good painkiller, which though milder is still quite effective, and like wild lettuce you can use it as a salad green and get all the same benefits that way and then some.
@toiletpaper@HarryNuggets@Nudhul I ahve been too lazy to find that leaked guide on how to actually make the philosopher's stone. a real no-bullshit guide was published a few years ago
Yeah. Alchemy is a whole other kettle of fish that get's stuck in the blender with herbalism largely thanks to Paracelsus (father of modern toxicology), due to his invention of Spagyric medicine. Back in those days there was a lot of rivalry between different practitioners so they invented a bunch of convoluted symbolic ciphers and cockamamie theories to explain how it all worked. Partly to keep things proprietary so they could get paid/famous, and partly to prevent one's self getting burned at the stake by insanely superstitious Christians who wilfully misunderstand things like that. Gods forbid you were a woman trying to ply folk medicine, because that was illegal/Satanic. The earlier stuff pre-Paracelsus that didn't have as much Alchemy woo infused into it was much more down to earth though, provided it was ever recorded and that we can decipher the nomenclature. Linnaeus was a big help thankfully. But also the Greeks and Egyptians recorded a lot of their medical practices in plain language which has largely come down in tact, even if it's hard to identify sometimes precisely what plants they were indicating.
There are a lot of different traditions surrounding that depending which branch of alchemy specifically involved. Though it's definitely not traditional, I consider the "philosopher's stone" to be a collection of perennial truths and wisdom about the operations of nature which survive the ages and all attempts to debunk them. But truthfully in the original alchemy (literally al Kemet, from black earth, ie. "from Egypt") it was meant as a physical object tmk.
This is a somewhat related video from Dr. Justin Sledge about his attempt at recreating an alchemical potion for depression, albeit minus the dangerously toxic ingredients. It will give you an idea just how bonkers some of this stuff was. They literally often came up with a theory (frequently based on some superstitious nonsense from the BuyBull) and then backwards rationalised how a recipe and how it should work, mostly a priori knowledge.
My personal favourite herbal lore is the "Doctrine of Signatures", because people get it completely backwards. They think if the flower is yellow it's therefore good for the urinary tract. Or if it's heart shaped it's good for the heart. But in reality they knew what the plant was good for FIRST based on experience, and then decided on a feature of the plant that would make it easy to memorise for purpose of identification and associate with it's usage, and to be able to teach it to others (a posteriori). It's the different between the science of mnemonics, and the superstition of some crystal cruncher who learned it off a tiktok video (or modern doctor with their arrogant conceit).