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Post ridiculous munchkin ideas!
sclamons00

Also, vitamins deficiency might set in at different times for adults and children. Children grow a lot, so their nutritional needs are probably different from adults.

No source, just speculation.

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Rationality Quotes: July 2010
sclamons10

There are cases of people with no sense of pain. Here's an article about it:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_25_170/ai_n26713199/

...and a link to the primary it references, if you have a subscription to Nature:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7121/full/nature05413.html

A relevant quote from the review:

"The team's first research subject, a 10-year-old boy, was well known in his community for street performances in which he placed knives through his arms and walked on hot coals. Despite tissue damage, he apparently felt no discomf... (read more)

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3Cyan
They don't. People who develop pain asymbolia from various insults to the brain are not strongly motivated to avoid pain. (And these are people who have functioning nociception, unlike the family described in the article you link.)
0red75
Knocking out nociceptors? It's not what I thought about. Knocking them out reduce available infomation to make decisions. I meant deliberate suppression of goal-shifting and brain resource allocation effects of nociceptors activity (in a sense proposed by Marvin Minsky). It is hard to evaluate effects of this change on child's pain aversion behavior, but I can hypothesize that this kind of pain control could be ineffective until "central executive" is sufficiently developed. Edit: In the case of mild pain this way of dealing with it can be exercised on our current brainware.
2WrongBot
Yeah, knocking out pain receptors in children seems like a very bad idea. Pain is unnecessarily harsh if you already have a strong interest in preserving your body; then all you really need is to know that you're doing something bad to yourself, and that's more than enough reason to stop. But for those who are not yet sufficiently rational, like (most) children, it's probably not something to be messed with without serious consideration. It sounds like that kid has some of the worst parents in human history. How do you let your kid get a reputation for self-mutilation and not, y'know, stop him?
Welcome to Less Wrong!
sclamons60

Hello from the lurking shadows!

Some stats:

  • Name: Samuel Clamons
  • Birth Year: 1990
  • Location: College of William and Mary or northern VA, depending on the time of year
  • Academic interests: Biology, mathematics, computer science *Personal interests: Science fiction, philosophy, understanding quantum mechanics, writing.

I've pretty much always been at least an aspiring rationalist, and I convinced myself of atheism at a pretty early age. My journey to LW started with my discovery of Aubrey de Gray in middle school and my discovery of the transhumanism movemen... (read more)

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-26n5x1hn1sq
Didn't know where else to find S. E. C. Don't know if you'll see this.
Attention Lurkers: Please say hi
sclamons80

Hello, I'm an undergrad student who's been reading LW for about six months now. So far I've stuck to lurking for a couple of reasons. For one thing, most of the comments I have are already made by other people. Also, there's enough information on LW that it seems more fruitful to move on to a new article than to post a question.

There's a LOT of background reading available here on LW, which is intimidating to a new reader. I can say for myself that it's difficult to bring myself to post when I know there are dozens of background articles I still need to re... (read more)

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