self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
I'm a transhumanist doctor. In a better world, I wouldn't need to add that as a qualifier to plain old "doctor". It would be taken as granted for someone in the profession of saving lives.
At any rate, I intend to live forever or die trying. See you at Heat Death!
Friends:
A friend to everyone is a friend to no one.
User ID: 454
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
4hr ago
It says... something that I read that last line 3 times and for every single instance, my brain autocorrected "least" to "most" lol. My priors on the Motte's personality are just that strong.
Thanks. It's hard being an ADHChud in an autist world.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
12hr ago
A contrast to this would be Deleuze and Guattari: I think they're amazing
There you were making a rather convincing argument, and now I think you've got a case of rhizomes on the brain /jk.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
12hr ago
They're rude, smelly, mostly idiotic beasts who think only with their stomach and are incapable of love.
Dogs aren't known for table manners or calculus skills. My dogs certainly think with their stomachs, they delegate to their small intestines if that's not enough intellectual horsepower. Incapable of love, however? Are you sure you've met a real dog and not a coyote?
My dogs spend weeks waiting for me at the border of the property after I'm gone. They drown me in slobber and leave muddy pawprints on my white shirt when I make the mistake of greeting them right after a flight. If that's not love, I don't know what is.
Some claim humans don't deserve dogs. I disagree, we do. We took the slinking, hungry, ravenous beasts that circled our campfires in the night and made the perfect companion out of them.
/r/dogfeee is one of my favourite subreddits
I am surprised to hear of a sub that is almost certainly more insufferable than /r/childfree. I must hate-browse it at some point. If dogs aren't for you, so be it. But actively hating on them confuses me, even after an essay on moral mutants.
She can't live without maids. Maybe I need MAID after this interaction.
Can this woman really be happily married to anyone? I would feel pretty bad for the rich guy if it really did happen. With all that money, he cannot help but buy a narcissistic cheating woman who cruelly makes him give up his pets.
I don't know if she was always this way. She was in serious relationships before, and as far as I know she was content and didn't cheat. Not that I know her that well.
It's possible that it's a trauma response. She's been burned by assholes so many times that her defense mechanisms include a terminal inability to commit, there's always a monkey with a juicier fruit on the next branch, and why let go of the one you're swinging on till you absolutely have to?
Maybe she'll settle down willingly. Maybe she'll find a controlling husband who makes her settle down. She's raised in a rather paternalistic society, if you didn't see my last post and her mom's reaction to her revelation that her ex was sleeping with hookers on vacation. Not did she seem to mind that Rich Guy demanded her whereabouts around the clock.
And you know what? I don't blame the guy one bit. It's not paranoia if they're out to get you. Insecurity is justified if your girl is cheating on you, denying you sex while sleeping with another man, and trying to fuck me into fraud.
It is surprising to me that this kind of archetype exists in India, too. And if it exists in India, it probably exists in the whole world. Except maybe in Muslim countries?
I'm somewhat tickled by the innocence in that question. Human archetypes are nigh universal. Muslim countries? If Saudi Arabia didn't have ditzy women ready to turn tricks for a bag, they did after the Sheikhs discovered Instagram.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
17hr ago
Cut-rate? I can't help it, I'm sure he makes a lot more than I do. I charge as much as the market can bear, which is very little.
Funnily enough, the pastiche was intentional-ish. I was re-reading his blog. I was also rather mad, which probably culminates in something unusually cynical. I've already been compared to him a grand total of two times, in different contexts. That's not a lot, but it's funny that it happened twice. I guess there aren't that many psychiatric bloggers in the Ratsphere.
I do recall that you offered to pray for this lady. I'm not sure if you did, but I get the impression she needs it all the more now. I started off as sympathetic to her plight, but I think she's gone from being the victim of forces outside her control to actively making things worse for everyone else. Right now I just want to see how this ends, and maybe wrangle a wedding invite so I can eat at a buffet again.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
1d ago
If it makes you feel better, this story is perhaps 50% more cynical than I actually am. I was going through TLP's Greatest Hits of Misanthropy and some of it rubbed off. It won't stick.
I hope you find love someday friend.
That's the rub isn't that I didn't find love, it's that it didn't stick. There is someone new in the picture, but as infatuated as I am, I know it can't really work out.
And I hope this model lady wises up before its too late.
Don't we all?
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
1d ago
Alright, I must say that this information has raised the level of esteem I hold Heidegger in. If you screw barely legal teens so good they're willing to go to court to testify on your behalf twice-as-many-years later, you're doing something right.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
1d ago
Thank you. Cheap local bottles have never tasted so good. And I've got some fancy stuff from Scotland to crack open later with family, friends and cute girls haha.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
1d ago
Especially since there a lengthy gap between the post and the submission statement. I can understand that the others pattern matched in a bad way.
In the future, if you run into issues, please DM. I'll try and sort it out, since I value your presence here.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
1d ago
Apologies, this got stuck in the queue as other mods less familiar with your work assumed this was blogspam. I've let it through now!
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
1d ago
That's... Not the worst idea I've heard. Not the best either, but you could do worse. I will certainly party somewhere, with someone. Thanks haha
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
1d ago
Thank you, and I appreciate you risking electrocution or your phone joining you for the shower to tell me haha.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
2d ago
I could name names to the contrary, but I'm enjoying my vacation too much to crave the drama!
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
2d ago
I wish I could continue bitching about the exam and claim that it was entirely useless, but that would go from honest anguish to outright slander! 50% of the material was materially useful, so I do think I learned some tricks which actually make me a better shrink.
(I just wish that I didn't have to study the other 50%)
Especially neurology and neuropsychiatry. I will admit that I find it profoundly boring and would have continued avoiding it if given the choice.
Regardless, congratulations!
Thank you!
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
2d ago
Thank you!
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
2d ago
By all means, carry on. I'm just noting the theme being unusually morbid of late.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
2d ago
Thank you! It's quite a load off my back, at this point "doing well at exams" has becoming core at my identity. I should take up something cooler, like playing Wonderwall on the guitar haha.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
2d ago
What am I, the protagonist from Evangelion haha?
(Thank you!)
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
2d ago
Thank you! Hopefully it's just you as the only person of (highly probable) feminine persuasion, otherwise I'm going to have to edit my post. Or perhaps pivot to claiming that "odd lady" refers to other facets of their personality. We've all got our quirks if we're posting here, men, women and LLMs alike.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
2d ago
Some weeks ago, I shared a court case regarding whether a firefighter's failure to resuscitate two dying babies with CPR counts as "abnormal working conditions" that give rise to a valid PTSD workers' compensation claim, rather than being merely part and parcel of working as a firefighter.
We're really stretching the definition of "fun" today, aren't we? But I suppose type 3 fun is still technically fun, in the same manner that "off" is a TV channel. Everyone needs a hobby.
I haven't consumed commercial pornography in like a decade now. I would like to pretend that I quit watching porn for moral reasons, but I actually just found that while I was aroused by porn, the actual moment of orgasm when I was masturbating inevitably happened while I was looking away from the screen and remembering/remixing memories of partners I had. I realized that porn wasn't really serving any purpose for me.
If we don't want porn stars to make money, if we don't want their names to be common bywords, men need to stop consuming porn. I'm not even asking you to stop masturbating! Just use your imagination and your memories! Think about that time in the back of the car after Kaylee's graduation party, or that girl in the bookshop who never wears a bra.
I usually find myself visualizing past sexual experiences while, uh, watching sex education films. I don't look away from the screen in the process, that's the whole point for me: that the person on the other end is a stand-in and stimuli-enhancer. I also have neutral-to-positive attitude towards porn, so I have zero interest in undercutting the industry or even decreasing my own minimal use
How good is your imagination in this arena? Do you have a "mental spank bank" that surpasses the one on your hard drive?
A hard drive? What is this, 2005? I've got 6 TB's worth of SSDs, and about zero bytes of them dedicated to porn. It lives on the internet, for free, all you need is a VPN if you live in Britbong land (or India).
That being said, I was raised in intellectual poverty, my adolescent awakening coincided with no regular internet access. I got pretty fucking good at doing without. Or course, back then, it was pure imagination. With actual experience under my belt, there's far less fervent dreaming of the texture of bags of sand. Porn is still great, wouldn't want to live without it, even if I could do without.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
2d ago
Gentlemen, and the odd lady: I passed my MRCPsych Paper A. And not just passed, but passed well.
This is one of those moments where I should probably reflect on the nature of medical education, the arbitrary gatekeeping functions of credentialing exams, or maybe the peculiar psychology of test anxiety. Instead I'm just going to say: thank God that's over.
Walking out of the exam hall, I felt that distinctive mix of mental exhaustion and fatalistic acceptance you get after three hours of multiple choice questions. You know the feeling. Your brain is simultaneously convinced you failed catastrophically and that dwelling on it serves no purpose whatsoever. I spent an hour debriefing with fellow trainees (mostly commiserating) and ChatGPT (mostly useful), and gradually my mood upgraded from "exhausted fatalism" to "cautious optimism about probably passing."
Turns out my intuition was underselling it. The Royal College doesn't release exact percentile scores (because of course they don't), but reading between the lines of their deliberately vague feedback system, I'm guessing somewhere around 90th percentile. Which means I almost certainly overprepared.
But here's the thing about pass/fail exams: you can't really overprepare. Or rather, you can, but the expected value calculation still makes sense. The cost of overstudying is maybe fifty extra hours of your life. The cost of failing is retaking the entire exam, paying the fees again, and explaining to your training program why you need another attempt. Better safe than sorry is one way to put it; another might be "pathological risk aversion masquerading as conscientiousness."
I got the results today while sitting on a beach, drinking beer, under what I can only describe as an unreasonably hot sun. As far as settings for receiving important news go, this ranks pretty high. It occurs to me that this might also be one of the better settings for receiving bad news, actually. Hard to catastrophize properly when you're slightly tipsy and the ocean is right there.
The bad news (there's always bad news): the reward for winning a pie-eating contest is more pie. I now have to start preparing for Paper B.
Paper B is generally considered harder, though "harder" here mostly means "has more statistics and critical appraisal of scientific papers," which are exactly the things most doctors struggle with. I'm cautiously optimistic about continuing to be above average in this specific domain. We'll see.
Thanks again to everyone who wished me well. I am now 1/3 of the way (measured in major exams, not counting the years of supervised practice or any of the other requirements) to being a fully qualified psychiatrist. Only [checks notes] several more years of training to go.
Onward.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
6d ago
Hmm.. I see an opportunity for a medical counterpart. Double or nothing for non-insured conditions. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to exploit this opportunity. In the NHS, it's a chance of £0 vs 2x £0.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
6d ago
Would Scott count? I'm sure he needs no introduction in these parts, and if he does, then lurk moar.
He's got a pretty squeaky clean image, and is definitely charismatic (over text), and I think he's made a meaningful impact on the world. This site, at the very least, owes its existence to him. The closest thing to controversial in his life was the drama over his ex's new husband leaking emails where he gave HBD more credence than he had done publicly, and to his credit, he's expressed support. So yeah, I don't know anyone who really has anything bad to say about him, and I think he deserves his success.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
6d ago
There's a Chinese Escape From Tarkov clone that showcased pretty solid AI for NPC teammates.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=gNZ7fGl5CHc
That was over a year ago, and AFAIK it wasn't implemented in the live game, though I don't play AB. Still, it's a real-time FPS, and we're long overdue for bots that are meaningfully smarter than those in Half Life 2 or FEAR.
This Pagliacci becoming a doctor for clowns territory. I can't cure my own urge to get into a relationship! I'm doing that right now, by which I mean getting into one and not the curing. (it's not with the model).
By all means, do enter into relationships. We live in a fallen world, in an age of declining TFRs. Everyone needs to do their part. Find love, expose your heart to being flying kicked and then curbstomped. It's a learning experience. Most women are actually nice, I just have very little to say about them that isn't better articulated by some romance blogger with a bazillion followers on Substack.
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