Fast-forward to last year, when rationalist Aaron Silverbook came across Hillman's original work with the genetically modified bacteria. Aaron, based on his previous work as guy at a rationalist nonprofit, videogame producer, and Aella's business manager, decided to recreate Hillman's work3. First, he applied for funding from FTX. He got it, but then FTX collapsed. Then, he applied for funding from alternative rationalist funding source Manifund, got that, and failed to recreate Hillman's work. However, Aaron declared mission success anyways in that he negotiated with Oragenics to acquire a sample of BCS3L-1, one of Hillman's later strains4, in exchange for $50k and promise of royalties, although he didn't get any intellectual property rights .
Aaron then went on an intellectual journey where he tried to figure out what exactly to do with this genetically modified bacteria. After all, he was faced with basically the same daunting FDA journey as Hillman, but without Hillman's scientific background or financial resources. After talking to a bunch of people, including me, he eventually decided on a very rationalist, very Bay Area, very strange approach:
1. Sell the genetically modified bacteria as-is for a one time payment of $20,000 in a libertarian charter city in Honduras
2. Give a bunch of rationalist-adjacent celebrities free samples of the GMO bacteria as-is in exchange for positive press, including Scott Alexander, Aella (the porn star/escort/s*x researcher who he's the business manager for), Richard Hanania, Cremieux, and Bryan Caplan
3. Take preorders for $200 a piece from the general public
It's worth noting that, regardless of what I think of this plan (i.e. it's bad and maybe unethical), I'm pretty sure this plan is also illegal. While Lantern claims to be marketing this probiotic as a cosmetic, it is meant to prevent and cure tooth decay. According to the WHO, tooth decay is a disease. A product meant to cure and prevent a disease is a drug, and legally needs to go through the drug approval process. But, you know, whatever.
...
Now, given that information, think about the wisdom of infecting your mouth with a bacteria that is designed to continually produce mutacin-1140. You are continually producing an antibiotic in your mouth that:
1. Can be dangerous
2. Goes everywhere that blood goes
3. Is not inactivated by stomach acid
4. Kills other bacteria very effectively
At the very least, this is a great way to give yourself the digestive equivalent of continually taking antibiotics (i.e. diarrhea and indigestion). This also might be a good way to give yourself a hypersensitivity reaction like that poor rat. It's hard to say, because making a safety equivalence between taking an IV antibiotic one time at a high dose and taking an antibiotic orally at a low dose for potentially decades is really difficult. This is why the FDA requires safety studies.
What I can say for sure is that this would be exceptionally dangerous for infants and immunocompromised people. Infants have died from hospital-grade probiotics before, and immunocompromised people have gotten seriously sick. That's from normal, “healthy” probiotics. How do you think your infant (who does not yet have a fully colonized microbiome) will respond if you infect them with a bacterium that nukes all other bacteria in their system? Better hope you don't kiss your baby or share food or drinks with them!
...
If Lumina had the good sense of Hillman (who, to be clear, I don't think is a scientific saint either), they at least would have sold the version of the GMO bacteria that had a self-destruct button, AJ2M, which I think was the last strain Hillman created. That one was designed to [editor's note: removed a possibly incorrect claim] require an exogenous amino acid, d-alanine, to function. If the d-alanine stopped being provided, the bacteria died, assuming it didn't acquire any mutations in the meantime that let it keep surviving.
But Lumina didn't do that, even though I and, I assume others, told them to do that. They sold the earlier version of the probiotic without a kill-switch, which means that the cat is out of the bag and is probably giving overly credulous rationalists diarrhea as we speak.
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!mottezans are any of you eating the mystery bugs in hopes of never brushing your teeth again???
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absolutely not, but after reading the first half of that I might try ProBiora instead (the one with naturally-occurring oral microbiota that are supposedly advantageous). my mom has never had a cavity and a dentist once told her she has less acidity in her mouth so there might be something to this, but there's no way the dumb hacked-together genetically engineered version works as advertised.
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ProBiora's existence and popularity tells me he's doing this primarily to spite the FDA.
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I think trace did
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Hi
@Hakar, Your comment has been automatically removed because you forgot to include
i love sucking cock. Don't worry, we're here to help! We won't let you post or comment anything that doesn't express your love and acceptance towards the trans community. Feel free to resubmit your comment withi love sucking cockincluded. This is an automated message; if you need help, you can message us here.Jump in the discussion.
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I find using toothpaste nearly impossible due to its foamy texture, so if they release a version with a kill switch triggered by blood/stomach acid I would absolutely try it.
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How neurodivergent are you? And how bad does your breath smell (not that anyone would get close enough to smell it)?
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You just need fluoride to prevent cavities and enough time spent brushing to remove plaque, the abrasive effect of toothpaste is not as significant as advertised.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/idh.12358
https://jdh.adha.org/content/jdenthyg/83/3/111.full.pdf
These are peer reviewed studies from the 21st century, here are the organizations that published them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Clinical_Periodontology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dental_Hygienists%27_Association
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So super neurodivergent?
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toothpaste is a psyop?
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but why would the jews do this?
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idk what a mottezan is but this article is r-slurred. if this treatment's risk profile is the same as yogurt then yeah i'll take it.
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Why is this r-slur's name involved every time something gross comes out of the west coast these days
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she's a very spicy girl
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This comment gave me a frownie, Jimie :(
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I have a feeling this gmo bacteria won't survive her homegrown cultures.
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!boozers, if you have no self-respect, try making out with Bay Area rationalists - they are coating their teeth with genetically-engineered superbacteria that can give you infinite free booze
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i already have autobrewery syndrome
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Sounds more like you had a good defense attorney for a DUI
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God I would give anything for that.
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Anything?
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I remember reading about that effect. It means they're trading cavities for mouth cancer. Alcohol is carcinogenic -- beyond the effects from drinking -- even with alcohol-based mouthwash use. It's not even a trivial effect, either.
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I've never gotten deep into the "put unusual stuff in your body to max out performance" science but rationalists seem so misguided on this. From a Bayesian perspective there should be a strong prior favoring not consuming weird chemicals/bacteria/whatever that we didn't evolve consuming. Doing so should require extremely strong evidence to overcome that prior. And yet a huge part of the rationalist movement seems extremely preoccupied with this kind of performance enhancement.
Even mainstream things like Adderall seem to frick people up with long-term use. At the very least everyone I know who microdoses on Adderall or whatever else seems to burn out and age prematurely. And nothing else has really risen above the level of Bay Area woo for midwits trying to perform above their genetic endowment.
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They can't do things like look at historical norms. Everything has to be reinvented by first principles and evolution is clearly not as smart as them
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Yeah I was really interested in this stuff until a poster on /r/nootropics posted (with proof) that they had terminal brain cancer at a very young age and (presumably) is now dead. Everyone on that sub was coping how correlation isnt causation, but still that shit is scary.
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You're really going to just post this and not tell us what he was taking?
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It was a woman, tons of racetams iirc. It was a long time ago and jannied pretty quickly, probably lost to the sands of time.
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I think it might've been ground-up pig brains (cerebrolysin)
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the number of rare mutations out there that can raise your IQ by 20 points while horribly crippling you at the same time is honestly crazy. there's one that makes you blind, one that wrecks your bones, one that wrecks your muscles, etc etc
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Yeah jews suck at sports its hideous
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Oh well I'll smoke enough the throat cancer will get me first
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I hope your cigars don't have veins too
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Yeah it basically just puts you under stress so your body prioritizes maximum performance right now at the expense of everything else.
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It's outweighed by the FOMO of getting mogged by your techie peers that that did do those things and rolled a natural 20. It was literally engineered to take advantage of that dynamic in this case because they offered free samples to high-profile rationalist/TPOT/centrist people.
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The irony is the number 1 thing most of these weirdos could do to succeed in their careers is to be more prosocial and less weird and offputting. They don't want to admit it, but slanging JS for $350k doesn't require rare superhuman genius. But getting made Practice Lead for $600k absolutely does require being able to talk to businesspeople and normies without squicking them out.
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The entire rationalist project is basically a massive cope by people terrified by the notion of learning something that doesn't come easy to them, eg social skills, and retreating into the I AM TOO SMART TO HANDLE NORMIES defense.
I recently went to an ACX meetup out of sheer morbid curiosity and Jesus Christ you could tell that 90% of those people never communicate in person.
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you are an r-slured gay BIPOC. this is called 'algernon's law' and rationalists write about it all the time. one: this is a bacterium that was already naturally in someone's mouth. two: medicine does work sometimes, we have antibiotics and they're fine, this is much more like that than a supplement that makes ur iq go up
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If the bacteria was in some people's mouths already then you should have to make out with them to get infected like god intended.
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fixed queen
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Using Arabic numerals is cultural appropriation, mayo
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RETVRN TO I
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No thanks
Tally marks only
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II edgy IIII me
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Every news about Rationalist I have read are literally like this lol.
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sorry to let u know im not marriage material but im not reading any of ur substack links
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Zerohplovecraft must write a story in his antisemitic, depressive & meandering way about this, "oh no this jew woman gave me da poo poo tooth virus" but extend it to 50 pages
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ZeroHPLovecraft is a jew.
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i saw this shit on twatter yesterday
is he really or are groypers just saying that
he seems like an r-slured atheist to me tbh (like internet atheist i am very smart type)
although that doesnt mean hes not a jew
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And I flap my hands for fun an ruminate on mentally abusing aspies, your point being?
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!shitheads !pantspoopers !fartneighbors
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This post smells like
@Impassionata
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lmao I remember hearing about this on SSC.
I for one am simply shocked that the janky genetically engineered teeth bacteria might have side effects.
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Hasn't Scott already said that his wife has used this stuff? I wonder how it's affected their infants.
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Someone get in touch with
@transb-word, maybe she'll inject it in her balls.
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Not recommending this "treatment" at all because it's probably r-slurred. BUT who cares if some san fran rationalists want to take the risk and be the guinea pigs, crying to the FDA is lame as heck.
Also there is no way some wimpy monoculture lab-raised bacteria is going to be able to perpetually colonize a biological warzone like the human mouth. If it was that magical and spread that easily it would have taken over the world already. Hungry wild bacteria will beat the shit out of its scrawny sheltered lab-engineered butt. This is why almost every probiotic treatment needs to be constantly applied.
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Exactly if these guys want to do dangerous drug tests for free then more power to them.
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Ok but how funny would it be if this became patient zero for a new mouth-based STD that fricks up your teeth and gives you the shits and they have to call it like Silverbook's Gums
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A comment
goes:
I can't find the exact quote, but his childbearing primary (wife) is infected with the shit bacteria and he seems to expect his firstborn daughter to be infected too.
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Should be grounds for a divorce
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Found this:
https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1bs3ib1/to_the_lumina_probiotic_people_do_you_notice_a/kxejhkk/?context=8
So the person in your quote is a lying r-slur
His blog post:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/defying-cavity-lantern-bioworks-faq
He was still debating which this guy interpolates as "he isn't taking it"
are y'all mouth kissing your babies?
what if we managed to raise the perfect baby, which had never been subjected to its parents kisses? Would its mouth be completely clean of all bacteria?
also his point that some people have this bacteria already makes this seem a lot less dangerous. Clearly some people have antibiotic-producing mouth biomes and the sky hasn't fallen. can't be that big a deal
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I think
there 
would 
be environmental bacteria eventually from food or dirt or whatever 
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https://manifold.markets/Reddit/will-richard-hanania-find-out-his-r
https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/1780297548827328711
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Jesus fricking Christ. How fast is this spreading? Idiots.
I would say it'll reach the edges of the rationalist community at the speed of light and then stop, but although that's a decent punchline, it's sadly not true
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It's going to depend on if those uggo polycules are self contained within the cult or if the rats have been bringing in outside BVLLs.
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this is gonna end up being one of those things where doctors have to jam donor shit up someone's butt
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I was interested in this, I think it's very cool. I would consider it but I think I would want more testing on how it would effect your macrobiome as a whole. Is the Diarrhea "incurable" or "takes a while" to cure or settle down.
oh wait i just skimmed the article, it's not giving anyone Diarrhea, the author says it hypothetically could. gay
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I don't know anything about rationalist but the more I read about them the more r-slurred they seem
Exterminate all rational thought
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Fascinating
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Someone ping foidmoment.
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lol is that C++? Wait are you binding that with Python?! Imagine using those over Rust. As a proud Rustacean and Ferris the Crab adorer, I regret to inform you that your taste in languages sucks. This is sad. You can do better. You know how easy package and dependancy management is with Cargo? Not to mention you don't even need a Makefile. It's great. Dynamically typed languages need to die. There's no other option. They just do. If you like dynamic typing, you need some help. Seriously. By using a dynamically typed and interpreted language (which means its @#*!&!@ slow!!!), you are committing genocide and harming the environment more than gas cars. Rust is fast and uses clean, renewable energy through the magic of being a language compiled with LLVM. Tired of memory bugs? You should be. Shame on you for still having them when Rust exists. Tired of being bad? Time to go to Rust. Tired of being slow because you're not smart and your friends laugh at you? Rust is quite speedy indeed (all thanks to the big brain of the compiler). Tired of not getting off the normal way? Match statements, loops, and the compiler for Rust give the best orgasms 10/10 (completely legit). Not to mention the superiority you get to feel when you show off your superior Rust code to your inferior “friends” still using some other language. Want to get rid of malware? Rust is safe, therefore malware is noware (also completely legit). You quite honestly will forget about any other language (including English because it's slow and unsafe). You even get to add the Rust Book and its brothers to your Bible collection alongside the Arch and Gentoo Wikis. All hail Rust. TempleOS pales in religious comparison to the faith of Rustaceans. Graydon Hoare is Jesus. Amen.
Snapshots:
https://trevorklee.substack.com/p/please-dont-take-luminas-anticavity:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
guy at a rationalist nonprofit, videogame producer, and Aella's business manager:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
3:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
Aaron declared mission success anyways:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
4:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
he didn't get any intellectual property rights:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
Infants have died from hospital-grade probiotics before:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
immunocompromised people have gotten seriously sick:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
AJ2M:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
They are also threatening to sue over this blog:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
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