Combat Stims: Better Warriors Through Chemistry

Combat stims and pharmacological power-ups are a staple of our gun-blazing video games, enabling players to rack up atrocious body counts. But what’s the reality of combat drugs? How do we separate legends from reality and just what our soldiers currently taking to enable, survive and live with the violence of their profession? Robert and Christian explore in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Episode Transcript

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Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

(00:48):
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger. So, Robert,
you and I both play video games. We do. We've
both been playing Fallout for Yeah, I was playing fall
for Now I'm playing x coom To. But both have
one huge thing in common, and that is that they
both of these games involve soldier characters essentially engaging in

(01:12):
sci fi battles and and then consuming various pharmaceutical products
in order to survive. The horrors of war, to heal themselves,
to avoid going crazy, to go just the right amount
of crazy to overcome the obstacles. My my fallout for
character is a big time drug addict, like major issues

(01:35):
with drugs, because I just constantly and like putting what
like jet and psycho and buff out into my like
system so that I'm like better fights and um and
you can combine them in this game, can Yeah. So
he's also or it's actually ah, is my character is
she in this one? No? In Fault four, I have
a male character. But anyway, Yeah, he's constantly brewing up concoctions,

(01:58):
little cocktails of stimulant drugs and then you know, of
course and follow you eventually get that thing where if
you take too many of them you start seeing side effects.
So my character is to the point now where he's
always carrying around whatever the like detox drug is, yes,
and like popping those so that like he can sober up. Yeah,

(02:19):
my character she did. She never she never had a
lot of stuff and abuse problems in the thought for
but I did reach the point where she was having
to carry around the the anti addiction medication and just
tons of buff out, which is like the steroid that
allows you to carry more items because going out fighting enemies,
having to loot the enemies, and then can't move because

(02:42):
I'm carrying so much stuff, I have to start using
the buff out. Yeah, that's an you know what, I've
never thought about using buff out to do that before,
but that totally makes sense. I usually just turned my
companions into pack mules, just make them carry everything. Well.
So the reason why we're talking about this this isn't
the hasn't become a video game podcast if you're a
regular listener, But we are curious about the science of

(03:06):
combat drugs and where we're at with that in modern
day society. And what seems to have sparked this was
a recent episode of Black Mirror. Yeah, yeah, the I
want to say it's the fifth episode in season three,
an episode titled Men Against Fire. We're not gonna go
into any spoilers to that episode until perhaps the very
end of the episode. We'll give you fair warning, uh,

(03:28):
but suffice to say it deals with this topic in
um and I thought a rather rather thought provoking manner,
and so we did the research on this. We've got
some science on military chemistry to share with you today.
The phrase that I came across that I really like
is better warriors through chemistry. Um. It is a complicated,

(03:51):
uh topic, especially in terms of ethics. And I didn't
you know, I guess, like in the back of my head,
despite the fact that, like you and I read science
articles on a pretty regular basis, I thought that it
was a little more sci fi than it actually is.
Like my version of it, I was like, oh, yeah,
like sure, there's got to be a drug that gives

(04:11):
you better eyesight right now or something like that, you know. Um,
And I think what it's reminding me of is our
episode on cyborgs. And one of the articles for this
research did refer to the ways of using drugs on
soldiers to make them better warriors as a version of

(04:32):
cyborg ism. Um. And and actually this is a good
way to lead into there's article in the Bulletin of
Atomic Scientists called the Enhanced Warfighter, and in that they
argue that there are four different categories for the potential
enhancement of military personnel, and the ones they list our
genetic alteration of the human body, which is very controversial,

(04:56):
physiological monitoring, and a tighter coupling between man and sheen.
Pharmaceuticals was what, which is what we're mainly going to
focus on today, and then nutrition and supplementation, which we
will also talk about today. They they in that one
on that's kind of a positive note, right like the
other three or varying levels of creepy. But then oh, well,

(05:16):
you know they should eat. Well, that's there's nothing intrinsically
horrible about that. Well, it turns out, and we'll get
to this later that there are some issues surrounding dietary
supplements of the military as well. Um, but today we're
really interested in the pharmaceuticals. One. As of eleven, nearly
a hundred and ten thousand active duty army troops and
we're talking about United States troops here because that's where

(05:38):
we're based in UH they were prescribed with either antidepressants, narcotics, sedatives, antipsychotics,
or anti anxiety drugs. This is eight times the amount
that was reported in two thousand and five. I guess
you could some people would just chalk that up to
a higher usage of those UH medications in society in general. Yeah,

(05:59):
I think I mean that's one one take you can
you can have on it, is that certainly we live
in a more medicated society. Yeah. But then of course
the other side is that like this is war, and
war has always been a traumatic endeavor absolutely, um. And
so the ultimate reason why science is reviewing all of
this information is the continual belief that the government and

(06:21):
the military must balance long term health hazards with the
drug effects that are designed to reduce a soldier's risk
for injury or death. So, of course you want to
make sure that your soldiers survived the experience, but you
also want to make sure that in the long term
when they get back, they're they're healthy both physically and mentally. Um,

(06:44):
that you're not subjecting them to something that they didn't
sign up for. Yeah, because you know, we we turned
to these sci fi examples. But a real life soldier
is not a space marine. It's not this, uh, this
inhuman individual who goes out and just battles bad guys
his or her entire life and you know, and it
doesn't have a family or other concerns. There are individuals

(07:06):
who who go off into this endeavor and then I
want to come back, expect you to come back and have,
if not a completely civilian life, then at least have
these these non warfare modules to their existence. Yeah. Well,
one of the articles that I read described it as
it might have actually been this atomic scientists one. Um.

(07:27):
They said, you know, we need to remember that these
are people and not machines. Um. And yeah, like you may,
military officials may treat them like machines, like when they're
strategizing war. Right. But yeah, like you said, like they
you eventually want them to be able to return to
civilian life, and presumably so do they. Yeah, it's not

(07:47):
something you have to worry about an x com right exactly,
nor in fallout. There's no real civilian life except for
I don't know, hanging out on the beach with your
with your dog. I guess that's a little bit of
a civilian life. Us. You could the game is open
enough that you could carve out a civilian life. But
you can get married or where I don't know, married
isn't the right term. But I have multiple uh uh

(08:09):
spouses throughout the waste land. Oh well, my character is
polygamous in that. Uh So, yeah, let's get into it.
Better warriors through chemistry. So for military officials, performance enhancing
drugs are seen as the key to the success of
military conflicts. What they're imagining is the ability to keep

(08:31):
soldiers fighting for days at a time without rest and
with the ability to perform in ways beyond the level
of most of today's enlisted people. Specifically, we're talking about
the ability to operate without sleep. That is seen as
a game changer for military affairs, and it changes the
concept of what is referred to in strategy as operational tempo.

(08:54):
This is beyond dealing with sleep deprivation in PTSD as well.
There are also hopes that chemistry will allow soldiers to
reduce their acclimatization to high altitudes or to being under water.
And of course, if you're a soldier, why wouldn't you
take a performance enhancing drug that's going to increase your
chance of coming home alive? Right, Um, So there shouldn't

(09:15):
be I'd like to stress this, like, there shouldn't be
like negative value judgments on the soldiers that are doing this,
especially like in some cases we'll find out like it
is required of them as part of their military service.
But the reason why it's becoming more prevalent is we're
moving into this era where more wars are going to
be fought using attack aircraft that are flown for really

(09:38):
long distances, and as more adversaries developed ballistic missile technology,
we are going to attack from further away. Right, there
will be further back, longer flights. And you'll find out
today like a lot of what we're going to talk
about with stimulant uses is based around air force pilots,
long flights, long bomber runs. Historically, that sort of thing. Uh.

(10:00):
And so according to ABC News in two thousand and seven,
the military spent a hundred million dollars a year. That
was ten years ago, so it's probably I don't know
what it's up to now. I couldn't find research on that,
but they were spending that much money a year on
research to find ways to reduce soldiers need for sleep
while retaining their cognitive functions. So that's hugely important to them. Um,

(10:26):
So let's segue into this. That is of course a
major reason to stay alert, to be motivated, But what
are the other reasons? Why would you What are the
other reasons you would take various drugs? Right? We think
about like the video game ones. While there's like healing
drugs or strong drugs, steroids, Uh, there's ones that slow

(10:48):
down time. I don't think we have those in real
life yet not not exactly um like I guess you
could say relative relativistically speaking. But and then there's those
that make you work se as well. I'm reminded again,
like time and time again, of the the old adage
that that a battle is one not necessarily by large,

(11:10):
sweeping advantages, but by a whole lot of small, sometimes
petty advantages that are stacked one on top of the other.
So like every advantage that you can take, you take
because it it all can add up and uh and
and so it's kind of like filling out the character
sheet of the average soldier is like, yeah, of course
we're gonna buff that stat. Of course we're gonna buff

(11:30):
that stat. If we can buff that stat, will buffet
because buffing all of these stats improves the potential for
victory and both small and large victory, and of course
survivability of the soldier. Now we run into their additional
concerns when you start talking about long term survivability and
start talking about mental health. But we'll get into some
of that. Yeah, but I never thought about that before.

(11:51):
It is we're what we're talking about is essentially like
the minimaxing of warfare in the same way that like
people do with video games like World of Warcraft or
or tabletop games like D and D or something like that,
And like they're they're trying to fine tune uh their
warrior so that like it has all of the advantages

(12:14):
available to it, right, all the tools in the toolbox
are there. Uh, well, outside of being alert and motivated,
of course, being better and stronger and faster. Right the
old Daft Punk song, Uh, that is hugely important war
for the most part, outside of well, even with drone

(12:35):
drone use in some cases, I mean, you're still talking
about war as a physical exercise. Yeah, So steroid use
is up in military personnel, and in two thousand eight
it was one point nine percent. Uh, in two thousand
two it was only point nine percent, So there seems
to be a gradual rise going on there. But let's
be clear, the possession of steroids without a doctor's prescription

(12:57):
actually counts as a violation of the Uniform Code of Justice.
But some soldiers take them anyways to enhance their physical
abilities during combat. Again, as I was saying earlier, like
if you think that's gonna increase your chances of coming
home alive. That makes sense, right, Uh, so they get
them smuggled in mail order packages or they pass them
along by American contractors. But officials really keen to a

(13:20):
whole lot about this because it apparently would cost hundreds
of dollars just to screen each package in person, which
is outside of you know, the military's budget. The most
popular one. And I read this and I thought, wait
a minute, that's not steroid. Is five hour energy, which
you know you see commercials for all the time. We
keep boxes of it here at work. That's right, yeah,

(13:42):
we do. Um get this, the military alone makes up
nine point two million dollars of that company's sales. But
then this is even crazier. That's only one percent of
their annual sales. I had no idea five hour energy
drink was that big man, I mean me neither. I
mean I know that it is everywhere, like literally, anywhere

(14:04):
you can buy something, there's gonna be a little a
little cube of those tiny bottles. So there's a lot
of it being used in the military, But it's also
only a fraction of what that company is selling to
the world. I think I've maybe had it once. Um,
it's just never been appealing to me, But well, it's
not supposed to taste of right, Yeah, yeah, I have.

(14:28):
I've taken them more times than I than you care
to admit, would care to admit her account in my head? Um,
But you know that's the thing is like, sometimes it's like,
all right, I can shoot this thing, or I cannot
shoot this thing. If I shoot this thing, I'm gonna
have a momentary scowl on my face. But maybe have
you know a few more hours of energy to devote
to this test? Well in the concern and again like

(14:49):
five hour energy. I just kind of thought of it
as being like red Bull. But apparently the concern is
that the drink is actually impairing personnel performance and it
causes soldiers to sleep less, so much so that they're
dozing off while they're on duty. So there is a
little bit of a problem associated with it. Some soldiers
also take over the counter diet pills, diuretics, and laxatives.

(15:10):
This is what I was talking about, nutritional supplements so
they can meet the military's weight and fitness guidelines. I
didn't think about this either. So a two thousand three U. S.
Army Research Institute study on non prescriptions supplement use. Found
that nine of Special Forces soldiers used supplements of some sort,

(15:31):
so that's a lot um six sorry, seventy of support
soldiers also used them. And then the big example that
popped up here that made it that highlighted it tennis
player Maria Sharapova. Do you remember this when she used
a drug during like a tennis I think it was

(15:52):
the Australian Open maybe um and so she was subsequently
banned from this. It's a drug that was developed by
the Soviet military during their invasion of Afghanistan so that
their soldiers could focus under stress. And it's called meldoni um.
It's used to treat heart disease and other chronic conditions
pretty much on a regular basis in Russia and Eastern Europe.

(16:13):
It's also referred to as mill drawn eight and it
was developed by a guy named Ivars Kelvin's when he
was studying mechanisms of stress on the human body. Well,
so it was used in Afghanistan by Russian soldiers because
it helped them with high altitude oxygen deprivation. Now to
be clear here, Sharapova said the reason why she took
it was because she had a family history of diabetes

(16:36):
and low magnesium levels. She wasn't even aware that it
was illegal outside of Russia. Calvin's the guy who invented it, essentially.
For his part, he said, he doesn't even think that
it should qualify as as being something that provides an
unfair athletic advantage. So there's a lot of little little
ways out there, from five hour energy drink to these

(16:57):
like obscure Russian medications soldiers can take to enhance their performance.
It's interesting and looking at both this um this Russian
medication and the use of the five hour energy drinks
because we kind of get into this whole uh like
the hopeless Ebo effect again, and and and sort of
just putting a mild supernatural faith in whatever you're taking,

(17:17):
like is it actually helping you out? Is it providing
an athletic advantage? Is it actually is it actually making
an impact and your performance as a soldier, or is
it just hurting you when the pendulum swings back the
other way? It's uh an open question. I didn't add
this to the notes here, but one of the articles
that I was reading, like, I was talking about how
when he was at West Point he was basically doing

(17:39):
like an op ed piece for The New York Times
about his experience in the military and the various drugs
that came along his way while he was serving, and
he said it started when he was at West Point
and that, like everybody where, it was taking adderall to
help them to just be able to take their tests
and do the physical uh, you know, completion of of

(18:00):
their service required there. So yeah, I think it starts early.
It seems like it's common. But like you said, I
mean Adderall five hour energy drinks, Like this is stuff
people I went to high school with. You know, we're
using We didn't have five hour energy back then. It
was different stuff. But uh, you know what I mean, Like,

(18:21):
it's not like they're shooting heroin to get through classes. Yeah,
I mean, I mean Adderall is a prescription medication. Yeah,
it's pretty pretty potent stuff, it is. Yeah. That and
and that actually leads us, speaking of heroin, uh to
the next reason why a soldier would need drugs to
kill pain obviously. Yeah. Physical, It's like you said, war

(18:42):
is a physical is a physical enterprise, and it's a
bit of physical enterprise in which both sides are trying
to hurt and kill the other. So they're gonna be injuries,
and you're gonna want to kill the pain in those injuries.
So combat medics often prescribe pain killers, and that includes ox, cotton, vicodin,
and morphine. Uh And in fact, like on a long

(19:05):
term basis to like they'll give them, you know, prescriptions
that last for a number of days so that they
can keep them on their feet. And this has always
been a h an issue soldiers coming coming back from
the war effort having to deal with injuries, having some
sort of medication uh in in in the mix and
it becoming a problem. Like I'm always so reminded of
the John Priyan song Samstone, I don't know that one

(19:29):
of the most depressing songs you ever heard, with the
about a guy who comes back from the war addicted
to morphine, with the course there's a hole in Daddy's
arm where all the money goes. It's a wonderful song,
but it'll it'll destroy yourself. Well yeah, I mean it's
a very real thing. And of course, the military doesn't
want an injured soldier to leave the war zone, so
they've designed these pharmaceutical prescriptions so that soldiers stay on

(19:52):
their feet. They're they're continually in the war zone unless
they're you know, significantly injured. The downside is, like you said,
addiction and medication swapping is real common too. Okay, so
what about soldiers who come back from war and they're
dealing with trauma. We've talked about this a lot on
the show before, especially on We have a whole episode

(20:12):
out there about using m d m A to help
with PTSD. That's right. We also have one of the
Tetris episodes that Joe and I did a wombat gets
into ways that that may be used to help PTSD,
as well as our recent dream episodes that discuss some
of the ways that dream management software and dream manipulation
could be utilized, as well as other techniques involving the

(20:34):
selective deletion of memories. We also past podcasts to do
with that. Now, there are a few different PTSD medications
that are currently in use, and we'll get to those
in a bit. But of course, where is the post
traumatic stress coming from. It's coming from the traumas of
war and and this gets into another possible area, another

(20:54):
possible reason a military might want to augment their soldiers chemically,
and that is to make killing easier. Now there's this
is not something where there is you know, this is
this is not an area where you see a lot
of actual uh you know, research popping up was saying like, oh,

(21:14):
here here's something that certainly nothing where you see the
military saying, oh, they give this to soldiers to make
them make them more okay with killing. But a great
deal of the of military training is about trying to
hone soldiers performance so that they can kill when it
is required of them. And then a lot of the
problems with PTSD is sort of fixing things afterwards, because

(21:36):
one of the things it's easy to forget, especially as
we're you know, we're watching movies, we're playing video games,
is that is that killing is not easy for the
vast majority of pete UM. Most of us don't have
the experience of taking a human life in a combat situation,
so we can't even really compare it. We can only
compare it to these fictions. But it's actually quite a

(21:57):
bit of evidence out there that backs up the notion
they we have as humans a natural aversion to killing
each other, and aversion that is that is present in
typical human specimens and must be circumvented in the name
of war, and a lot of of the evidence for
this comes from military researchers who have a vested interest
and of course mapping and breaking those barriers from training. Yeah, again,

(22:20):
like it comes down to I don't know, maybe this
is a cress uh metaphor, but like I'm thinking again
about this, like minimaxing of a soldier, right, and this
is like you want to negate the effects, the emotional
and psychological effects that would go along with you know,
any quote unquote normal person killing someone else. Yeah, like

(22:43):
I come back to xcom or and and and X
calm to where you're moving these soldiers around, and yeah,
you're becoming attached to them. You don't have to treat
them as actual human beings in staid. You you look
at them, and you you look at their percentage to hit,
their aim and their will, and you're in you're criticizing
some of these character like why is that why can't
this one not actually hit any of the enemies? When

(23:03):
why does this one uh panic and start shooting at
random objects just to the drop of a hat um.
But of course these are all sort of legitimate concerns
of taking uh taking humans who are not you know,
not not built for this, that have not evolved to
engage in this kind of of of warfare. So here's
the thing I've never thought about before. I wonder if

(23:25):
there's a video game out there, like a first person
shooter type game that takes PTSD into account. Um, maybe
there is. And I'm just not familiar to be something
in the in the indie realm, because certainly the big
blockbuster war games are seemed to be all about this uh,
this fantasy world war fair where there's there are no

(23:47):
real consequences to killing other individuals. Well that's so all right.
A little bit about myself here is like with these
video games, I personally just don't enjoy playing, especially shooter
games that are based down real life scenarios. I can
have some demons or some exactly yeah, like make it
like throw in some sci fi fantastic elements and I'm

(24:08):
right there. I'll enjoy it. But as a game, but like, yeah,
like the call of duty stuff doesn't appeal to me.
But then I think of like, well, what if there
was call of duty colon PTSD, you know, and it
was just like well, and I guess like I'm not
saying this as a joke, but more as like I guess,

(24:29):
like a way to make people aware of the actual
like effects of what's happening to the people in the
real world and acting these events and and um, you know,
we just listed like all these episodes in which we've
talked about ways to help people with PTSD. We've heard
from a lot of listeners who have PTSD and if
I tried some of these things, we have tried other things,

(24:51):
and it's very real affliction for them. So I guess
I just am thinking, like, one, I'm glad that it's
more out in open than it was twenty thirty years ago,
and like we're able to talk about it at least.
But I think I would like to play a game
like that, not in the sense of like, you know, uh,

(25:12):
enjoying the experience of PTSD, but that it would be
like a richer story because it's it's it's sobering when
you're playing one of these games I've been talking about,
like going to fall Out and pull up your your
kill stats for your God and it's like it's horrifying
because this character has killed your mess thousand people. Yeah,
they're a mass murder they're they're abhorrent, Like even those

(25:33):
world is is pretty abhorrent. Uh Like they're a part
of it and they're causing all of this pain and suffering. Yeah. Absolutely,
Now it is opposed to real life where you're you're
ultimately your average like kill ratio and hit ratio is
typically going to be uh far lower. Yeah, so get

(25:55):
into this. This is really interesting to me and I, um,
I only learned this for the recent it's for this
episode end. It's connected to the black Mirror thing where yeah, yeah,
this is this is interesting. A lot of it and
again a lot of this comes from military researchers who
are trying to to to figure out how to improve
performance of soldiers. So soldiers tend to intentionally fire over

(26:16):
the enemy's head or to not fire at all. That's
a just speaking broadly about um, the more or less
modern era of combat. I had no idea. I didn't
know that you have studies of Napoleonic and civil war
fighting that revealed that given individual ability of the men, range,
AMMO capacity, all that the number of enemy soldiers hit

(26:36):
should have been well over fifty, resulting in a killing
rate of hundreds per minute. But the hit rate was
only one or two per minute. Uh. This high firing
phenomenon continuing into World War One, and according to David
Grossman and Martha Stout in the Sociopath next Door, World
War two fire rates were also low. Historian and U S.

(26:57):
Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall report that that the
firing rate was fifteen, so that out of every hundred
men engaged in a firefight, only fifteen to twenty actually
use their weapons. In Vietnam, for every enemy soldier killed,
more than fifty thousand bullets were fired, so that one
of the Vietnam was of course, you know, drugs, we're

(27:20):
being used more prevalently than in the battlefield. Indeed. Yeah,
and it's uh, it really at all. It all underlines
that like one of the challenges of training soldiers, and
really one of the inherent you know, monstrosities of of
warfare and and and military is that you have to
desynthesize soldiers to killing, and like how do you do that?

(27:43):
How do how what is the possible ethical framework for
pulling that off? And then you know, and then counting
on these individuals to reintegrate into society exactly. Uh, well,
so why don't we take a quick break and when
we come back, we can take a look at some
historical uses of drug in warfare UH and whether or
not those provided an opportunity for those soldiers to come

(28:06):
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(29:30):
an episode before on Aconite also known as wolf Spain,
and we talked in that episode about how there were
legends of berserker warriors that would rub aconite on their
lips before they wouldental enter battle, which you know, if
you've listened to that episode, aconites extremely poisonous, but it

(29:51):
would like, you know, make their mouths foam. Uh, and
they were basically going to like a death berserker rage you,
making them more effective warriors and combat or at least scarier. Yeah,
I mean you you see examples of of so called
berserkers in we see it in the Iliad. There are
accounts of berserking American soldiers. Um, there's a there's a

(30:15):
book by a psychiatrist, Jonathan Shay titled Achilles in Vietnam,
and he says, quote berserking American soldiers invariably shed their
helmets and their flat jackets. They had no other armor.
As one veteran said, got rid of my helmet, got
rid of my flat jacket. All I wanted to do
was kill um. That being said, the when we think
of berserkers, we tend to think of the Vikings. We

(30:37):
think of the norseman um. This is the classic idea,
the classic notion of the berserker warrior. So our modern
conception of Vikings is often a bit confused. There they
were far more fascinating and intricate uh culture and people
than we we often give credit to. I feel feel
like maybe in recent times it's gotten better. There's that

(30:58):
Viking show that I think has little more nuanced to it.
You know, I was just thinking about that. I have
never watched that Vikings show. Um. But like one of
the things that's creeping up in the back of my
head while we're talking about this, and maybe you the
listener experiencing this too, is I keep thinking about like
all of the various forms of entertainment that we engage
in there about warfare, not just video games, but televisions whatever.

(31:21):
We keep coming back to. Yeah, and vikings hit me.
Game of Thrones hit me, like even though that's this
big fantasy. Uh, I'll watch a game Game of Thrones
and they have those like big siege battles, like what
was the one they had, like a huge one recently,
Battle of the Bastards that was what it was called,
And people went nuts for it the next day, like,

(31:44):
oh my god, that was the best ever, you know.
And those were not soldiers who were shooting over each
other's heads, right, it was just this gory bloodfest. Um. So, anyways,
the Viking thing brought to mind. There's a comic book
actually that really recommend called Northlanders, and it's written by
Brian Wood, drawn by a variety of artists. But it's

(32:07):
an anthology book about Viking culture and it kind of
hops back and forth through different eras of Vikings in time,
showing you what it was actually like. It's like heavily
heavily research stuff, and I think it's a much more
nuanced look than some of the stuff we're seeing. Yeah,
because if you look back and you read some of
the old Viking sagas like these are intricate stories with

(32:27):
nuance and political entry. You know, it's not just a
bunch of barbarians running all over the place, because you
had on top of all that, either this was a globe.
They had globe spanning travel and trade. They had culture,
they had literature um and perhaps we can you know,
attribute some of this to a you know, a rather
outstanding and savage example of their war efforts. Not the

(32:49):
typical Viking warrior, but this special class a soldier known
as the berserker, so a berserker or a berserk. These
were again Norse warriors. They were sworn to and but
they believe themselves protected by the god Odin. In battle.
They engaged in pre battle rituals that allowed them to
enter into a frenzied state of supposed invulnerabilities, and they

(33:12):
were able to disregard pain and wounds. And they served
as shock troops. So these would be these would not
be your core uh soldiers. These would be the guys
that ran in first. They were they were unpredictable that
threw off your enemy and then came in the more
dedicated troops it's been theorized to get to the drug

(33:32):
angle here and theory. There are a few different theories
about what actually was going on with the berserkers. So
one is that they utilized a mix of mead, so
you had an alcohol and psychoactive hallucinogenic mushrooms, particularly the
hallucinogenic fly a Garrick mushroom, is a popular choice among
those who trying to figure out exactly what was going on. Others, however,

(33:55):
have theorized that this was was more of a just
a social exercise, not like the self induced groups stimuli
of a of a sports team, you know, getting rampship
of amped up in the locker room. Um. Also, you
know it could have been just the meat that they
were drinking. Uh, that's another possibility as well. But but

(34:15):
it's yeah, it's interesting to try and piece together exactly
what was going on here because it was said that
no iron could hurt them, that they charge and nothing
could withstand them. Again, they were unpredictable. They'd how they
bite their shields. Um. They wore only wolf skins and
were sometimes known to fight with a blade in each
hand without care for life. The wolf skin is another
Another possibility is that a lot of this could have

(34:37):
been sort of not not only amping up, but a
an animistic ritual where they start to believe themselves to
be more more beasts. We're talking about that in the
wolf Spaine episode that they're that that was part of it,
that they the association with wear wolves. Yeah, now it's
it's often said that that the berserker might attack friend
as well as foe because they couldn't tell them apart,

(35:00):
and therefore they were both admired and despised because they
only fulfilled half the Viking ethos. They were. They were brave, certainly,
but they weren't completely loyal to their fellow Norsemen, like
they couldn't be counted on in the same way you're
supposed to be able to find to count on your
your your your Viking, your fellow Viking warrior. They weren't
wingmen right now. Another aspect here that's interesting to think

(35:23):
of in light of possible um psychoactive drugs, is that
allegedly they wouldn't remember the battle afterwards, and we're plagued
by a terrible fatigue in the days that followed on
that um And there's also there's another interesting theory and
This comes from the work of Jonathan Shay, the psychiatrist
that I mentioned earlier, and that's that berserkers exhibited PTSD

(35:48):
that even in which is interesting because we think back
on Vikings and medieval war and it's easy to dismiss
it all and think, oh, well, just everyone was just
totally okay with the horrors of combat. Killing a bunch
of people a big deal. But Shay argues that, you know, what,
what are we looking at here? We're looking at states
of hyper arousal following depression, inactivity, emotional deadness, and vulnerability

(36:11):
to explosive rage um. And his argument is that you know,
we could be seeing some form of that here. So
it sounds like it was a combination of organic chemistry
and psychological Uh. I guess like community, like a communal

(36:31):
experience psychologically that amped up their adrenaline. That's what I
would assume is like why they were able to ignore
blows and things like that was like they were so
full of adrenaline that they just kept going. Yeah. I mean,
you hear you hear accounts of of athletes where they
have an injury and they're able to keep going just
because they're all there. They're all amped up, you know.

(36:51):
The it's only afterwards they realized, oh wow, I really
injured myself out there, and maybe I shouldn't have kept
going that sort of thing. So there's that possibility now.
On the psychoactive properties here, I've always wondered about that, like, like,
what is the Is there really a combat advantage to
being high in mushrooms in battle? It seems like that
would ultimately be more of a detriment. So you and

(37:14):
I were sort of talking about this the other day,
and I thought about it a little bit more as
we were doing the research. I'd love to hear from
the listeners on this, because clearly I'm not an expert,
but based on what we've talked about, especially about treating
m d m A, right, it seems like the benefit
of psychoactive drugs is that it puts you into a
state that makes therapy easier, and in this case, like

(37:40):
in the m d m A case, it makes it
easier to treat PTSD. But I wonder if there's an
opposite manner in which you're you become more trusting, you
lose fear, and subsequently maybe you're more suggestible to being
a better warrior. Maybe Yeah, it's just I guess I'm
just so used to a the more sort of hippie

(38:00):
dippy interpretation of hallucinogenics. As well as having read plenty
of these accounts about, say, the use of psilocybin and
treating of various emotional and psychological problems, it just seems
like it's hard for me to to think about the
reverse of that and see how it would be helpful
that you're taking this magical property, unless it's just part

(38:21):
of believing one is magical. It helps if you have
a slightly tweaked reality. Now. The other possibility, too, is
that it doesn't matter what the fungus was because you're
mixing it with meat. And we do see plenty of
examples of people drinking to get themselves ready for violence,

(38:42):
getting too ready for combat of some form as well.
Um the in fact, we have this term Dutch courage.
Have you ever come across this? So that was a
new one from Boston? Okay, so that everybody talks about
Dutch courage? Ok? Yeah, but rely this can This is
reputed to have come from the Thirty Years War of

(39:03):
the seventeenth century. English soldiers depended on Dutch gin to
stay warm and to calm themselves before battle. Yeah yeah,
um yeah, I have unfortunately heard it a few too
many times before people got into fights. Yeah. Now another
one and our next spent a lot of time on
this one. But in our marijuana episodes we mentioned the

(39:24):
whole hasheesh assassin thing. Uh. And this was the idea
that you had, Hassana Saba again right, that whole mythology
slash history. Yeah, this is the idea that you had.
You had a sect of Islamic warriors fighting against the
Crusaders who engaged in ritual use of hasheesh before going
into battle. Um, which again sounds like yeah, yeah it does.

(39:49):
And and by all accounts like there doesn't seem to
be any real dated to back that up. The idea
that the dreaded uh um Hashasan lawyers imbued in hasheesh
uh seems to have come just from the Crusaders and
they had a vested interest in downplaying Muslim bravery. You
know what I'm saying. Oh, well, of course they're these
guys were good and good in combat. They had some

(40:11):
sort of you know, dark secret and some sort of
help from uh, from nefarious chemicals to pull it off. Huh.
And of course that's that kind of demonization of marijuana.
As we discussed, you would see that used later on
in the United States, you know, the reefer madness interpretation
of Oh, people are smoking dope and they're just going

(40:32):
crazy with assassins. Yeah, because really it's it's hard to
imagine from the yeah unless the one was I guess
taking it to sort of ease the yeah. Right, it's
like a tranquilizer desensitization. I guess. Um, I'd love, I'd love.
Maybe we should do like an episode just on that mythology.

(40:55):
And well, we've certainly done our marijuana episode, but um,
I would be curious to see if there's any research
out there about the effects of it in terms of aggression. Yeah, yeah,
that would be that would be a worthy deep dive
I think. Now, um, let's move on though, into those

(41:16):
who we've been talking about. You know, chemicals that might
somehow make you like a little crazier in combat or
more efficient in combat. Uh. Yeah, but really one of
the we keep coming back to one of the big calls,
uh that one of the big demands in in the
military is to simply keep everybody awake, keep everybody focused

(41:36):
in doing their job. And I guess in that sense,
like you know, squeeze more blood out of the stone,
it is. It is very much the focus. Like I
said earlier, you know, the the amount of money that
the Department of Defense spends on just this is huge. UM.
In one of the New York Times articles that we
looked at for research on this, the author research documents

(41:57):
in two thousand and ten, by going through the Freedom
of Information Act, they found that the Department of Defenses
health care Services have written riddling and adderall prescriptions for
active duty service members. Uh, and that these there was
an increase in these by a thousand percent in five years.
So from two thousand five to two thousand ten it

(42:19):
went up a thousand percent. It originally was only three
thousand service members, and then in two thousand and ten
it was up to thirty two thousand service members. UM.
A spokesman attributed this is a military spokesman attributed this
sharp rise to the increased recognition and diagnosis of a
d h D by medical providers. Which you say, well,
that might be a good thing, um. And while that's true,

(42:42):
the author notes most of those diagnoses, though, are in children,
and adolescence. So is the military using stimulants to keep
troops alert and awake? They definitely are, we know are.
There's lots of evidence, but let's go through it. Uh,
starting with a historical example, which I understand, coffee was

(43:02):
apparently prevalent in the Civil War. So well, coffee, of
course is gonna it remains prevalent pretty much pretty touch
any military encounter you're talking about, and really, like so
many people's lives, like like, coffee is the thing that
wakes you up, keeps you focused, gives you that second there,
maybe even a fourth wind, until you just you know,

(43:23):
you can't think straight anymore. Um, yeah, I mean, because
after all, coffee is a psychoactive drug. Caffeine is a
psychoactive drug. Uh. And you know, despite the fact that
it's everywhere and it's just we're totally used to it,
it is a central nervous system stimulant um. It's and
if you're a coffee drinker like like us, you can
attest to it's the powerful encouragement and stamina that comes

(43:47):
with a strong cup of joke. Yeah. Yeah. In fact,
all right, maybe this is a bit of a side tangent,
but I understand that you tried for a while. What's
that thing called bullet the bulletproof coffeellet the coffee butter
in it? Yeah? Yeah, how'd that go? Um? I mean
it went well for me. I'm not gonna I'm that's
a whole separate podcast, I think to get into like

(44:09):
the claims made by people who who who pushed that
style of coffee versus what the research has to say
about it. My experience with it was positive in that
it it was kind of like having a you know,
a full meal at a cup of coffee. And then
then I wasn't like snacky. But as for any additional

(44:30):
or certainly sort of supernatural powers gained from it, I
would say they were not there. And then we ended
up just sort of phasing back into using just no
our normal coffee and smoothie practice in the morning. But
but but but still, it kind of comes back to
like if it was if it was successful, it's really
because that coffee was great. It's really because of the coffee.

(44:51):
Is uh is this powerful psychoactive studal And I imagine
putting butter in your coffee probably tastes good too. It
does Like some people like what would that taste like
it tastes great. It's really it's really rich. Anything it
tastes great. Yeah, don't be surprised when butter makes something
tastes good. But in terms of like caffeine's effects on troops,
you can't. You have to kind of go back to

(45:12):
a time when caffeine was was used by everybody, but
maybe it was in short supply, or supply was uncertain,
or in some state of flux. And that's what we
find if we look at the Civil War, the American
Civil War. So author John Grinspan has a wonderful New
York Times article titled How Coffee Fueled the Civil War.

(45:33):
It was published in two thousand fourteen and still out there.
It's a great read. It paints paints a fascinating picture
of caffeine consumption during that conflict. So it turns out
that the Union army absolutely depended on coffee. It was
their their nerve, tonic, it was their sustainer soldiers attributed
to their survival, their drive, and their ability to carry on. Uh.

(45:54):
There's a there's even a general, General Benjamin Butler. He
considered it a decisive srategic factor. He told another general
before battle in October of eighteen sixty four. Quote, if
your men get their coffee early in the morning, you
can hold meaning meaning if you can, if you can
get them their coffee, if they can have their coffee
in the morning, Yeah, you might. We might win this encounter.

(46:16):
You're gonna be all right that it's going to be
the decider. The Confederates, however, they weren't so lucky. Coffee
shortages plagued them. One British observer stated that it quote
afflicts the Confederates even more than the loss of spirits
or alcohol. Um. Still, Union troops sound a bit like
caffeine junkies uh in in Grinspan's article, just rampaging across

(46:39):
the landscape like something out of a Cormac McCarthy novel.
Here's my favorite quote from the article. Quote. Union troops
made their coffee everywhere and with everything, with water from
canteens and puddles, brackish bays and Mississippi mud liquid their
horses would not drink. They cooked it over fires of
plundered fence rails or heated mugs and scalding steam vents

(47:01):
on naval gun boats. When times were good, coffee accompanied
beef steaks and oysters. When they were bad, it washed
down raw salt pork and maggoty hardtack. Coffee was often
the last comfort troops enjoyed before entering battle and the
first sign of safety for those who survived. I don't
know about you, but like there's just something about like

(47:22):
a good paragraph like that about food. Even when even
the word maggoty hard attack, I kind of go, that
sounds good. Well, you know, it's like, like I said,
even though most of us don't know what it's like
to engage in life or death combat, we know what
it's like to have a good cup of coffee to
have a bad cup of coffee. And the reason I
ended up researching this was because I ran across this

(47:44):
thing called the Essence of Coffee, which was a horrible,
by most accounts, horrible industrialized coffee product that came out
during the Civil War that was essentially evaporated coffee, complete
with milk and sugar, and everyone just described it as
this thick brown sludge is obnoxious black grease, and the
Union troops just have I'm just picturing like the worst

(48:06):
folders ever. Yeah, my grandmother, the way she drinks coffee,
she takes folgers out of the can, pours it like,
just dumps it into a cup, adds water, and puts
it in the microwave and then drinks it black like that.
And she's nineties six years old, as hard as nails.
But maybe that's where she picked it up from. But

(48:29):
at any rate, that, I think the use of coffee
in the Civil War, like some ex antidotes here, it
does help to sort of drive home just how how
much of a game changer having that coffee can be. Like, No,
nobody's arguing that the coffee is the reason the Union
army one. But certainly they had access to coffee and
that and and along with that, they had access to
various other uh comforts and provisions that helped help give

(48:53):
them the overall advantage. Well, like you said, I mean
it's a um, every little advantage helps, right, And like again,
like if we're gonna keep using this character sheet metaphor,
it's like there's a plus one in some column every
time you have a cup of coffee, whereas these Confederate
soldiers they weren't having coffee, so they had like maybe
a negative two to dexterity. Uh Okay, So this is

(49:18):
something that I was wondering, let's get into the amphetamines use,
which is incredibly prevalent today and has actually been for
you know, a good while in the last century of warfare. UM.
But I kept thinking while I was here, I was like,
why don't they just drink a lot of coffee? Uh?
And you know, I haven't taken that many amphetamines, but

(49:41):
they are certainly far and above what you would get
out of about. Yeah. There there's coffee, and then there
is and then there's metamine stuff like adderall where it's Um,
it's a if one is like a mild sharpening of
the blade. The other is is it is a more
intense like razor edge to it. I guess yeah. I
kept thinking to myself, I'm like, why don't these pilots

(50:02):
just get like a curig machine and their planes or something,
you know, they wouldn't have to have these strong side effects.
And so that's actually what's been going on. The U. S.
Military has been making use of amphetamines since World War Two.
UM Pilots in the American military are taking speed, usually
amphetamines to enhance their performance. Military officials believe this is
necessary to keep them alert and focused, especially on long

(50:26):
range bombing missions. We talked about about those at the top.
These are where they're flying for up to nine hours
or more and it despite the potential side effects of hypertension, depression,
and addiction, they still do it. Now. Usually what they're
taking is decks adrene uh and it's part of a
cycle where they take the speed for missions to fight fatigue.

(50:47):
Then they take sedatives so they can get back to sleep.
So they're referred to as go pills or no go pills.
And to clarify, these are legal in the military. The
pilots are not required to take them, but you know
it helps on the missions. If they need them, they're available.
No go pills include ambient just to give you an

(51:09):
idea of what they're taking. Some some of them are
also hypnotics from what I understand, well, mamban is can
certainly have modly hypnotics. Yeah, yeah, uh So. The article
that I looked at that gave me a lot of
information on this was from Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine
was published and it's called Fatigue and Stimulant Use in
Military fighter aircrew during combat operations. So the authors their

(51:33):
concern was that most of the studies that looked at
stimulant use and soldiers. We're looking at sleep deprived military
aviation that they were in situations that were totally under control. Right,
It was just based on lab conditions essentially. Uh. So
they were wondering, well, what happens when you're in combat?

(51:54):
What happens when you throw variables at these pilots. So
they asked twenty nine f one on five E aircrew
participants to fill out a survey after their active combat operations,
and it was about their drug use, their fatigue, the
physical symptoms that they had, and so on. And they
found that stimulants were used thirty five percent of the time,

(52:16):
so not as much as we would think, but you
know it's there. Uh. On average they were taking about
three hours after takeoff. They concluded that the drugs decreased
fatigue without significant post flights symptoms. I just want to
pause and take a second, Like when I was reading
this article, it didn't really seem to adequately address the

(52:38):
variables that they were concerned with about combat, And they
themselves said at the end of the article, look, we
understand there's limitations to this. There needs to be more
research done. Um nor does self reporting seem like the
ideal way to get to the bottom of of you know,
how the use is done uh and and what its
effects are and whether or not there they have negative

(52:59):
post flights emptoms. Another measure that came out of this
we hadn't really heard of yet. In between missions, these
hypnotic medications I referred to those are being used to
induce and improved sleep. They also found that the reason
that pilots were using the stimulants were because their circadium
rhythm was broken, like maybe they had been woken up

(53:21):
in the middle of the night or something like that,
or they were on long flights like we described earlier,
or they were trying to get off of the effects
of the pre flight hypnotic meds that they had taken.
So these guys might have taken ambient or something like that,
been woken up and then it was like, we need
you to fly and do a mission right now, and

(53:41):
so they take dexadrine immediately afterwards to try to counteract
the effects of the hypnotic medications. So, as you might imagine,
this isn't without controversy, despite being practiced for decades. In
two thousand two, there was an incident. A lot of
you may have heard of this too. Air National Guard
pilot bombed and killed four Canadian soldiers by accident, and

(54:04):
the speculation was was that they had taken dexadrine had
impaired their judgment. Likewise, an Air Force investigation in found
that there was a crash that killed four special operators
and that that might have been caused by the pilot
using ambient. So there's some concern about this whether incidents
like that will repeat themselves. And then again, you know addiction.

(54:28):
You know, like, once these guys are done, what what
is this doing to their sleep cycles, to their personalities, etcetera.
It's kind of like a like the no go and
go pills, the back and forth and adding hot water
because the paths too cold, and then adding cold because
it's too hot. You know, you're running the risk of
overflowing the bath at some point totally. So here's the

(54:50):
big problem. Though stimulants actually strengthen learning and memory formation.
This works the same way when we form long lasting
memories from our strong emotional experiences. So this is the
big problem. These stimulants could be increasing the risk of
soldiers getting PTSD because their pathologically forming memories while the

(55:15):
drugs are in their system of horrible scenarios. Um So,
just to recap, because we've talked about this a lot
on the show, stimulants release neuro epineffern in our brains,
potentially enhancing our emotional memory and research into this. Do
you remember on our Creepy Post episode that we did
two weeks ago about the SCP we talked a lot
about chemicals and memories. Well, there's lots of ways chemicals

(55:37):
can form or erase memories. More neuro epineffrin enhances our memory,
but if you add propran and al in you can
block that impairing emotional memory. Remember we talked about rats
in that episode. When you tested them, uh, and you'd
give them propran and all, they would forget about electric

(55:57):
traps and a maze and get electrocuted all over again.
So all of this leads us to the drugs that
are used to help soldiers with PTSD. But also keep
in mind some of these drugs might be contributing to PTSD.
So let's take a quick break and when we get back,
let's really get into the chemistry that's being used to

(56:20):
treat PTSD. Hi, I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson,
and we're the co host of Stuff You Missed in
History Class. We are a history podcast that tries to
look at the things that maybe we're overlooked in your
history classes, maybe not covered in as much detail, or frankly,
maybe covered in a way that was not accurate. New

(56:40):
episodes come out every Monday and Wednesday on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify,
or anywhere else that podcasts can be listened to. All right,
we're back. So we already mentioned some of the more
like near future forms of DSD treatment, but in terms

(57:01):
of actual medications that are used right now to aid
the treatment of PTSD, basically everything, it can be divided
into three categories. So, first of all, antidepressants. These are
of course medications that help symptoms of depression and anxiety,
and they can also and help improve sleep problems and concentration. UM,
so we're talking about selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or s

(57:24):
s r I medications, and the big ones here are
Zoloft and paxel. Uh. Then there are more dedicated anti
anxiety medications and either drugs that can improve feelings of
anxiety or in stress for a short time to relieve
severe anxiety and related problems. And because these medications have
the potential for abuse, they're not usually taking long term,

(57:46):
and so they're their whole host of of anti anxiety medications. UH,
they fall into that category. And then another frequently used
medication is a drug called praso sin or mini press,
and this is if if symptoms include insomnia or recurrent nightmares. UH,
this can potentially help. Although it's not spec specifically FDA

(58:08):
approved for PTSD treatment, UM, it may reduce or suppress
nightmares in many people with PTSD. Yeah, and we have
talked about, like I said, you know, we've had a
couple episodes where we this is one of those topics
that stuff to blow your mind. I think, circles around again,
over and over. Uh. We are interested in it, but
it's also connected to a lot of different themes and

(58:31):
topics that are interested in. UM. So one thing that's
come up is beta blockers. They've blocked the effects of
neuro epineffer and that's the propran and all I was
talking about earlier. They've basically stopped fear conditioning. UH. In
two thousand, to a psychiatrist named Roger Pittman. He was
from Harvard Medical School, and he led a study where
they randomly assigned emergency room patients either with a beta

(58:53):
blocker like propran and all or with the placebo. And
this was within six hours of experiencing a traumatic event.
After a month, they went back to these subjects and
they said, those of you that took the beta blockers,
what's going on? They gave him a survey questionnaire interviews. Uh,
these people felt significantly fewer symptoms of PTSD based on

(59:17):
their emergency room event than the subjects who had not.
So and and you know, go back and listen to
that SCP episode. There's been lots of research in the
beta blockers in memory. Uh. We also have done an
episode as I referred to earlier on M D m A.
See see that for a real deep dive. But M

(59:38):
d m A trials have been used to help survivors
by increasing their trust and decreasing their fear in therapy.
There is a lot of other options. Like you mentioned,
you guys talked about tetris on another episode. Yeah, and uh,
and I encourage people don't go back and listen to
that episode if you want more. But Like the basic
idea is interrupting the formation and in the hard coding

(01:00:00):
of traumatic memories. Like the simple version would be something
traumatic happens play Tetris because because Tetris is an example
of a game, an excellent example of a game that
has an ability to, uh to interfere with the formation
of those traumatic memories. Yeah, okay, So then the big
question then is are there drugs And you know, we

(01:00:22):
talked about this a little bit earlier, but other drugs
that make killing easier sort of the opposite of this
PTSD thing. We've we've talked about some historical examples through
this episode, but yeah, I wonder if it's something that's
currently being developed, especially when I think about that Black
Mirror episode, because we've already established that, like like fixing
the soldier, addressing the mental health concerns that occur after

(01:00:47):
engaging in in this kind of combat, like those are
costly those uh, not only in terms of dollars, but
in lives like this is it's a major issue. Uh,
you get into weird ethical waters, to say the least,
when you start saying, well, what have we fixed it?
On the other end, what have we just made it
more okay with killing, but then what are the what

(01:01:08):
are the long I mean the long term effects there
are potentially even more monstrous. Yeah, it does seem horrific
to me, and I just I can't imagine it. It's funny.
So for this episode, I watched that Black Mirror episode
that we keep referring to, and now I can't think

(01:01:29):
of it except for outside of Um. Okay, let's go ahead.
Let's go ahead and enter. We can enter into a
spoiler zone for that episode if you if you haven't
seen it, uh, and and when wished to see it,
go see it and then come back and check out
the end of this episode. Uh. But for the rest
of you will go ahead and press on without without
fear of spoilers. For Men against Fire. Yeah, so this

(01:01:50):
episode is called Men against Fire. Uh. And the essential
premises that they have what would you call it, like
a like an implant, a brain plant. Yeah. I think
that there are a few key technologies that are going
on there, some sort of a brain implant um a
a of contact lens that alters their visual perception. And

(01:02:10):
then there's also dream management software, dream intervention software that's
part of it that's controlling their dreams, pushing down traumatic nightmares,
and even rewarding them with particularly pleasant sexual dreams. Yeah.
And so all of this is revealed masterfully over the
course of the episode, very slowly. Uh. The ultimate reveal

(01:02:33):
is that you think that these soldiers have been fighting
like they call them roaches. You think they've been fighting
like I don't know, vampires. Do You think they're must first,
because there's a there's a eugenics vibe going on there.
The enemy is genetically inferior and fighting them is important
for the future. Uh. And and you see these monsters.
You see like a firefight, and there they fight these monsters.

(01:02:56):
And then uh, essentially throughout the course of the episode,
one of the soldiers implants stops working and he sees
that they're actually just people, but the implants are making
it so that he and the other soldiers see them.
They literally demonize the opposition so that it's easier to
kill them, and it it uh influences their sensory systems

(01:03:19):
to like so that they're not smelling blood or they're
not hearing the screams of the people they're killing. Um.
All this to the end of subsequently making it easier
for them to to kill the enemy. And now I now,
as a good Black Mirror episode does, I can't help
but think about this idea in those terms hard time

(01:03:41):
thinking about like a medication or chemistry. I didn't really
find a whole lot that that would actually do this.
The US Special Operations does have a memo that I
read about outlines technology objectives that look to what are
they say, quote ergogenic substance says to manage environmentally and

(01:04:02):
mentally induced stress um. So they're basically looking at this
as a way to and uh manage stress in the
battlefield rather than after the battle. So I guess that
would be somewhat similar. But I think this is like
a whole another level. Yeah, I think that what we
see in the episode kind of represents the long term

(01:04:23):
fear that anxiety about like tinkering with these things, because
for those soldiers, not only are they they tinkering with
their perceptions of the battle and of war and of
violence and of killing in war, they're also tinkering with
their reward system. Like the final scene in the episode
is him returning home and he doesn't see his home
for this ruined shell that it is, and he and

(01:04:45):
in fact he sees the woman of his dream on
the porch waiting for him, there's actually nobody there. Um,
So yeah, what when you start war is you know,
it's it's it's part of human history and human culture.
It's impossible separate war from who we are in many respects.
And yet, as we've already established, like, war is not

(01:05:05):
a natural thing for us. It is a traumatic experience,
it's a it's a horrifying thing. And if we start
trying to change who we are for war, uh, you know,
what are the end results? What are the ramifications there? Yeah?
It is obviously, like even beyond what we talked about

(01:05:25):
earlier with the ethical implications related to the side effects
of all of these different medications and narcotics and drugs
for soldier use in battle, this one, most of all,
seems to have a real philosophical like question mark over it,
which is kind of like should we even do this?

(01:05:46):
Like is it moral? Um? I think we covered Black Mirror? Yeah, yeah,
I think so. All right, So if you want to
come back in, we're no longer gonna talk about Black Mirror.
Let's close out. And I just want to say that
based on the above of everything that we've talked about

(01:06:07):
this episode. Some have proposed that there should be four
ethical criteria for the use of drugs in the military,
and and and these are the criteria. I don't know.
Maybe maybe these would work, maybe they wouldn't. The first
one would be that the use must be voluntary, and
that seems to be the case with dexadrine, right, like

(01:06:27):
they choose to use. That sounds like a good idea.
At the same time, though, I mean, you have situations
where still where individuals can still be drafted into militaries.
Uh so if there's if there's a possibility for a draft,
it seems kind of ridiculous for like, you get into
whole questions about why why do I have a choice
in this matter? But I don't have a choice serving
in the military to begin with. Absolutely, That's that's the

(01:06:50):
whole candle worms itself. The second criteria would be that
the medication must be safe. H third is that it's
use must be in accord with medical standards. Those two
are kind of connected. And the fourth is that alternative
measures must be utilized first. So I guess in the
example of dexadrine, it's kind of like what I was

(01:07:11):
joking about earlier, like how many cups of coffee can
these guys have on a nine hour flight? Before there?
You know, it no longer works as an alternative. They've
got to take dexadrine or else they're gonna you know,
bomb the wrong location or something. Um, So I would
just bring this back to what we talked about the beginning.
Remember that soldiers aren't machines, and the ideal here is

(01:07:35):
that they will will want to return to civilian life.
So maybe there should be some kind of ethical principles
in play regarding whether it's dietary supplements or or drugs
or even you know, if we jump into the sci
fi scenario of some technological implants or something, what the

(01:07:55):
long term effects of that are going to be. Yeah,
And I think in general, like just in and this
is me speaking, but as far as military use in general,
I I love that fourth ethical criteria. Alternative measures must
be utilized first, and I think the more we explore that,
the better off will be. Yeah. Well, I mean, given

(01:08:16):
how much money the Department of Defense is spending on this,
I would imagine they're exploring every avenue that's available. So
we'll see, we'll see how this evolves. In the future.
I'm curious though, Uh you are, audience. I know a
lot of you out there have experience with PTSD or
family members who have um gone to war come back

(01:08:38):
from war. Uh so what's your take on all of this?
Like the better living through chemistry for a warrior? How
how how should we approach that going forward in the future. Uh? Well,
you can let us know. First of all, visit us
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(01:09:02):
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(01:09:23):
Mind at how stuff Works dot com. Well more on
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