Elon lied about the monkeys — and he shouldn't be trusted to put his Neuralink chips in human brains.
"They are claiming they are going to put a safe device on the market, and that's why you should invest," Ryan Merkley at the Physicians Committee, told Wired. "And we see his lie as a way to whitewash what happened in these exploratory studies."
Really heartbreaking reading what happened to the monkeys.
People quite rightly think of Elizabeth Holmes as a fraud for making false medical claims about what the Theranos machines could do. So why aren't Elon's claims at Neuralink being held to the same level of scrutiny?
I say let him do that and then let congress legislate this once the grim details of how the human subjects died creates a scandal and political unity across the aisle. It’s the American Way®
I don’t think many people are but enough are and they’re the ones with political influence. Not to defend Elizabeth Homes but why Elon Musk gets away with it is sexism, and being able to deliver on the odd promise then highlighting that success to cover for his failures. He’s done much worse but he’s given a pass because he presents the image of a male entrepreneur. Maybe not you or I but enough of those people with political influence are sexist and that’s why the hammer came down on Homes. They both deserve to face justice but only one did.
Didn’t we already go through this with Whatsername and her fake blood tests?
Maybe read more than the title before commenting? I know, it’s a novel concept.
People quite rightly think of Elizabeth Holmes as a fraud for making false medical claims about what the Theranos machines could do. So why aren’t Elon’s claims at Neuralink being held to the same level of scrutiny?
@ajsadauskas@autolycos@technology Because he has the most money. Because any who should hold him accountable have their hand in his pocket. Because he has government contracts with every single one of his businesses. He is a monster created by those who are supposed to protect us from the monsters. It is not remotely possible to control him. He is the worst case scenario.
TERRIBLE THINGS HAPPENED TO MONKEYS AFTER GETTING NEURALINK IMPLANTS, ACCORDING TO VETERINARY RECORDS
What are these terrible things?
Up to a dozen monkeys suffered grisly fates after receiving a Neuralink implant, including brain swelling and partial paralysis.
First is the case of the monkey “Animal 20.” In December 2019, an internal part of the brain implant being inserted into the primate “broke off” during surgery. Later that night, the monkey scratched at the implant site, drawing blood, and yanked on the implant, partially dislodging it. Follow-up surgery discovered that the wound was infected, but that the placement of the implant prevented treatment. The monkey was euthanized the next month.
Before that, a female monkey designated “Animal 15” began to press her head against the ground after receiving the brain implant, pick at the site until it bled, and eventually lost coordination, shivering when personnel entered the room. Scientists discovered she had brain bleeding, and in March 2019, she too was euthanized.
The following year, a primate called “Animal 22” was put down in March 2020 after its brain implant became so loose that the screws attaching it to the skull “could easily be lifted out,” according to a necropsy report.
“The failure of this implant can be considered purely mechanical and not exacerbated by infection,” the necropsy states.
As Wired notes, that statement alone seemingly contradicts Musk’s claims that no monkeys directly died from Neuralink brain implants.
And so would the account of an ex-Neuralink employee, who told Wired that Musk’s claims that the monkeys were already terminally ill are “ridiculous,” even a “straight-up fabrication.”
“We had these monkeys for a year or so before any surgery was performed,” the ex-employee said.
The testimony of an anonymous scientist conducting research at CNPRC seems to corroborate the ex-employee’s allegations.
“These are pretty young monkeys,” they told the magazine. “It’s hard to imagine these monkeys, who were not adults, were terminal for some reason.”
Unfortunately, these experiments are being performed by people who know EXACTLY what they’re doing. We’re not in the 1940s any more. Fucking hell. If I had the personal power, I’d gladly rain holy hellfire upon these wholly inexcusable, inexorable, inexcrimentinable human fecal chunks.
@ajsadauskas@technology
The only reason something happened to Deep Voice Barbie was because some Very Important People were publicly embarrassed by their association with, and gullibility of her.
Whenever I see these Musk posts, I always marvel at how people seem to think one man builds spaceships, programs self-driving cars, pushes all the buttons on Twitter, and does all the research himself on monkeys.
First time I’ve seen a post from that side of the verse. This seems pointless and harder to read than standard Lemmy 😅 I’m assuming the mastadon UI makes it make more sense.
That’s probably one of the biggest cancers of mastodon at the moment; because of the near-useless search functionality, you have to spam hashtags everywhere. Thankfully it’s being patched out but for the time being it’s just something you have to put up with.
Remember that time Elon said he totally was not going to ban a single specific person when he bought Twitter and then turned around and did exactly that just a few days later?
I wonder what you guys thought animal testing is about, if this is somehow surprising to you. This is just another day at the office for the people running these experiments. The issue is not “Elon doing animal testing” but animal testing in itself.
However - if you think we shouldn’t do it then you should also be aware of the tradeoffs. Without this cruelty there’s no modern medicine either. Also, if you complain about this but eat meat then you’re a hypocrite.
I don’t think the sentiment of this discussion is concern that this type of test happens. I think the concern is that the outcome of these tests has been misreported prior to beginning human trials.
Well they didn’t handle the monkeys up to the standard they where supposed to. That is an issue. Also saying not one monkey died due to the implant is also false.
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