FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
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User ID: 1739
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
I tried putting 1/4 teaspoon of potassium chloride into a cup of water, and was unable to drink more than half of it. It has quite a strong flavor. I tried mixing 1/4 with food, and found the food extremely salty (I don't know what I expected) and difficult to choke down. I tried melting a bunch of M&Ms and mixing it in, which was tolerable but doesn't seem like a sustainable solution.
I will say that on the M&M day, where I got the full 1/4 teaspoon (about 680 mg of potassium) early in the morning I was remarkably not hungry for the next 6-8 hours. Could be placebo, but if so it was a very good one. Normally even if I'm not hungry "I could eat", but food held no real attraction for those hours. Promising, though I'm on a few of other supplements (and one prescription) that are also supposed to lower appetite. Maybe the potassium was just the last straw.
I'm still trying to find a way to take a large dose with food or water: in the meantime I just sprinkle some on my food the way I would salt. Well, actually, less than I would salt: this stuff is pretty strong.
Long time Mottizens might barely recall that about a year ago on the subreddit I experimented with the croissant diet. That's the diet where you cut out all polyunsaturated fats, and eat a lot of saturated fat instead. Specifically the point was to reduce consumption of linoleic acid as much as possible, and increase consumption of stearic acid. Why? Because of metabolism stuff related to the Krebs Cycle. See Brad Marshall's website for more details, since he's the main driver behind the diet. Scott wrote about it a couple years ago as well.
My experiment was technically a failure, but a weirdly promising one. When I stuck to the diet strictly I ate like a king, as much food as I wanted (that fit the diet) and I didn't gain any weight. I also didn't lose any weight. After a month or two I started to lose interest and didn't keep to the diet as strictly as I had been, at which point I started gaining weight faster than normal. In the end, I abandoned the diet and went back to trying to watch my calories and eat lots of healthy food, etc. But the fact that I didn't gain weight while eating sourdough bread fried in butter with heaps of cream cheese on top every morning for breakfast intrigued me. I marked Brad Marshall down as "Might not be a nutrition crank."
I kept up with his blog, and in the time since then he's moved more towards specific metabolic supplementation on top of cutting out polyunsaturated fats. A few months ago he recommended supplementing with high amounts of calcium pyruvate combined with L-carnitine.
These supplements aren't expensive, so I was willing to give them a try. He recommended 2 grams of L-carnitine and 12 grams of calcium pyruvate per day, taken in two or more doses. Thats more than it's particularly feasible to take with pills, so I bought it in power form. I don't have a kitchen scale so I just eyeball a half teaspoon of L-carnitine and a teaspoon of calcium pyruvate, taken dissolved in hot water at 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM each day. I've been taking them for about 7 weeks now.
This has been the most remarkable experience I've ever had with a supplement.
My experience with supplements has always been as follows: I take the supplement, and hope it will improve my life. I take it for a while and the whole time I'm unsure if it's doing anything. Nothing significant happens, though it's possible there is a gradual improvement that's hard to notice. Eventually I stop taking the supplement because things don't seem any different if I take it or not. The only exception is Vitamin D, and only because I live in at a high latitude and my doctor brings it up every time I have a checkup. I don't feel any different if I take it or not, but I know I should and annually checkup bloodwork confirms that I need to keep taking it. Overall, supplements are always a leap of faith with uncertain results.
This has not been the case with l-carnitine and calcium pyruvate.
Within an hour of taking my morning dose, I feel a strong upswell of energy. I want to move, and moving in general feels easier. I hate exercise normally, but when I feel this feeling it's easy to start walking or running. More enjoyable. It's not a small sensation, and it's not always pleasant (mostly if I can't get up and move, which feels good. If I have to stay seated I get a bit twitchy).
More importantly, in his post Brad claimed one easily measurable effect form taking the supplement: an increase in body temperature, caused by increased metabolism. "The thermogenesis from pyruvate is real. Within minutes after drinking 10-15 grams of pyruvate I can feel my body temperature rise. If I’m fasted, my body temperature usually stays in the 98.6-99.0 range. If I then eat a bowl of white rice, my body temp will often shoot to over 100." So after taking my first dose, I decided to use one of those forehead scan thermometers to see if I was heating up. To my shock, it came bad reading 100.4 degrees. I've been keeping track of my temperature ever since. Before I take the my morning supplement my temperature reads normal (around 98 F), and after taking the supplement it reads 99-101 F. Forehead thermometers are not the most accurate, but given that I'm using the same thermometer for before and after temperatures I'm confident that there is an increase in temperature, even if the exact number is off. This is consistent: it isn't always as significant an increase, but it always goes up.
I have been losing weight, but it's difficult to attribute that to the supplements. I started taking the supplements in large part because I was already trying really hard to lose weight. Since I started taking the supplements I've lost 10 pounds, but during that same time I've tried to cut calories significantly and started at least light exercise daily. Still, I do feel that the supplements are definitely making it easier to cut calories and exercise: I'm not as hungry as I used to be during the day, and I'm actually looking forward to my daily jog which is novel for me. I'm going to keep taking these supplements indefinitely because I feel like my life has been significantly improved.
However, the comments at r/Saturated Fats tells me that my experience is far from universal. Many people reported no effect at all: some said it made them feel lethargic and lowered their body temperature. Interestingly enough, I recently found a mouse study where they found that giving obese mice pyruvate actually induced torpor, sending them into hibernation and lowering their body temperature significantly. They also found that lean mice given pyruvate did not go into torpor, and the pyruvate instead activated their brown fat and increased their temperature. So it seems to me there are possibly multiple factors that would cause people to have very different reactions to pyruvate, which might explain why so many people report bad effects.
I posted this because I feel obligated to do so: after a lifetime of trying things with no apparent effect, the fact that this has had a strong and significant effect is worth sharing. There is something here.
On the other hand, I'm taking a very large amount of calcium pyruvate here. Every resource I've checked says I should be okay, and that the side effects are just digestive troubles (which I haven't experienced, but I have a pretty resilient digestive tract). On the other hand, maybe someone here knows something I don't.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
Christianity is a religion about AI alignment. Not as an analogy or metaphor, it just literally is. We're the AIs, Jesus died to redeem us (ie allow us to return to alignment with God) and someday there will be a Judgement where all the non-aligned AIs are cast into the fire while the aligned AIs will serve God forever.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
He's also an unaligned AI. Christianity holds that angels, including Lucifer, are intellegent and are creations of God, which makes them artificial intelligences (God being the only natural intelligence in existence).
I'd say the primary difference is that humans are AIs that run on meat hardware, and angels are AIs that seem to run without any material hardware at all.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
Which should give people pause: God made AI's that were far less intelligent than himself, and still had to die a torturous death on a cross to align them (and not even all of them!). How much harder then to align an intelligence greater than yourself.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
I did buy from them. Do you have a supplier you'd recommend?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
If it is actually true, on a practical level, that your property has a higher gold density than any other "gold mine on earth" then you should be able to negotiate a lease deal that is very lucrative for you. Actually trying to extract and market the minerals yourself without experience sounds like a great way to go bankrupt. In my limited understanding when it comes to mining in the United States finding good deposits is not the hard part. The hard part is getting it out without the EPA fining you into oblivion.
Look at Pebble Mine, as a for-instance. Second largest copper deposit in the world, and by far the largest deposit that hasn't been mined. If fully extracted would come out to "56.9 billion pounds of copper, 70.6 million troy ounces of gold, 3.4 billion pounds of molybdenum and 344 million ounces of silver." A multinational trust of mining conglomerates came together to attempt to develop it. They've been working since 2010 to get all the approvals and permits they need, and they still haven't got them. They've sunk tens of millions into feasibility studies, permit applications, and ongoing litigation with the EPA and US Army Corps of Engineers. 12 years of haggling, and it's still unsure if any mine will ever be approved.
Now, admittedly, Pebble mine is enormous and sits in the middle of prime salmon watershed. I'm not saying mining your deposit would be as difficult. However, it will likely take millions of dollars and years of work just to get the permits needed to start mining. You do not need that headache. You do not need that risk. Investigate leasing it out first, get some offers, and then consider whether you want to go it alone.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
My understanding is that from a psychological perspective we don't have techniques for removing, instilling, or modifying sexual desires. Last I checked the primary treatment for paraphilic disorders is aversion therapy, which doesn't work great. Exodus International was a non-profit attempting to provide conversion therapy for homosexuals since the 70s, and in 2012 they shut their doors and their final president put out a statement saying that conversion therapy doesn't work.
We really don't have a good understanding of why people have paraphilias of all types, much less how to change them.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
Chemical castration definitely works to remove sex drive. Aversion therapy is the one tool we have in the toolbox for changing sexual orientation/paraphilias, and my understanding is that it has limited success at best.
While the point of the religion is to have a perfect belief that God was born to a virgin, walked on water, converted water into wine, and so forth, this is tremendously difficult. The number of Christians who truly believe these things on a deep level are approximately the number of Saints
I don't really think they're that rare. I mean I believe those things. And while I'm not the most restless missionary ever, I feel pretty guilty that I'm not. It sure seemed like everyone at my church believed those things, and was also pretty obsessed with missionary work.
C. S. Lewis put my perspective pretty well in his essay "The Grand Miracle":
One is very often asked at present whether we could not have a Christianity stripped, or, as people who ask it say, "freed" from its miraculous elements, a Christianity with the miraculous elements suppressed. Now, it seems to me that precisely the one religion in the world, or at least the only one I know, with which you could not do that is Christianity. In a religion like Buddhism, if you took away the miracles attributed to Gautama Buddha in some very late sources, there would be no loss; in fact, the religion would get on very much better without them because in that case the miracles largely contradict the teaching. Or even in the case of a religion like Mohammedanism, nothing essential would be altered if you took away the miracles. You could have a great prophet preaching his dogmas without bringing in any miracles; they are only in the nature of a digression, or illuminated capitals. But you cannot possibly do that with Christianity, because the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, which is uncreated, eternal, came into Nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing Nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left. There may be many admirable human things which Christianity shares with all other systems in the world, but there would be nothing specifically Christian.
I (probably) have ADD and I've been taking dextroamphetamine for it for a year now. It works well for me: my only complaint is that when I take a day off of it (which I do once a week to try to stave off desensitization) I get very irritable and snap at people. However my provider is concerned about my blood pressure, which has stayed decently high over the last year. I've tried exercise and losing weight, but it's still high. I know that high blood pressure will kill you eventually (if not your heart, then your kidneys) and have been trying hard to get it lower to no avail.
So she prescribed me bupropion instead. It's a norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake inhibitor (NDRI) used for depression and anxiety but often used off-label for ADHD. She indicated that since it's not a stimulant it will probably have less of an effect on my blood pressure.
So far I've only been on it 4 days, and it's supposed to take 2-4 weeks to really kick in. It's been okay so far: I've been taking a smaller dose of dextroamphetamine along with it to get by until it kicks in. So far I've been less productive at work and more distractible than when I'm taking dextroamphetamine, but I'm also not getting irritable. And while I'm less focused I also seem to have an easier time getting mundane tasks done. Usually when I'm not medicated I despise cleaning, yet the past few nights it hasn't been a problem. Heck, I had a bit of free time earlier than usual and decided to get a head start on my nightly cleaning chores instead of reading a book or playing a video game, which is definitely unusual.
I also seem to have some emotional instability or magnification: I was watching Peter Pan with my kids and when the pirates had Wendy walk the plank I suddenly got choked up and teary eyed. Very unusual, normally I am emotionally detached from fictional works.
Anybody have experience with bupropion?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
Dextroamphetamine does reduce my appetite. When I first started taking it I had some hopes that I would just start losing weight, but that didn't happen. Appetite or no, I enjoy eating too much. However it has been helpful in making dieting easier than it normally would. I've had a concentrated campaign of trying to lose weight for 7 months now and I've managed to lose about 20 pounds. Skipping breakfast, not eating any sweets or fast food, small lunches, vaguely counting calories, that sort of thing. Even with dextroamphetamine it has been difficult to do.
I was a bit worried switching to bupropion would sabotage my weight loss efforts, but apparently suppressing appetite is a known side effect. Supposedly dextroamphetamine works by stimulating the release of dopamine, and bupropion is supposed to lower the rate dopamine is removed from the brain, so I guess it makes sense they have similar effects there.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
Christians are called upon to love their neighbors, and to treat everyone as their neighbor. The Christian thing to do is to try to figure out the best way to love those beggars on the streets. Maybe you'll make the wrong decision, but if it was made out of love then God will accept it.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
Thanks for the feedback! I will keep that in mind: if it doesn't seem to be doing anything after a couple months, consider that it might never do anything.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
I think you could salvage a religion out of Christianity if Christ did not rise from the dead, but it wouldn't be Christianity. I agree with Paul (emphasis mine):
Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.
But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.
Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead? And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
Do you love it because you have experience with it and it works, or because it's theoretically the perfect solution? I may have to suggest it to my provider.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
I enjoy SupCom, and I liked your post. Just wanted to give a little writing advice: you have way too many ellipses. I would recommend that when you write a post you find all the ellipses you put in and delete them. I too have suffered from ellipsiholism, and recovery is possible if you go cold turkey.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
They're the best I've found for poems online, but they're not great. It's laid out in a kind of confusing way, you have to poke around a bit before you can figure out where everything is. For example, if you search for a poet they bring you to a page with a long biography about them, and then at the very bottom all of the poems they have by that author in a grid format instead of a list. Annoying.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
As an American of a conservative stripe I would definitely object if my children were shown depictions of genitalia as Kindergartners, and wouldn't really feel "fine" about it until they were, I dunno, maybe 10 or 11? It's just not what you do. You don't show kids penises!
Certainly Americans are more "prudish" about this than other cultures, but that doesn't change anything about the hypothetical, since it was directed at Americans with hypothetical American kindergartners. Things may be changing in certain subcultures, but generally in American culture genitals mean sex and its taboo to combine children and sex. From this cultural mindset the difference between showing a 5 year old a picture of a marble penis and showing them hardcore pornography is one of degree, not kind.
All that to say that the comment that we're not going to show the statue to kindergartners is plausibly just that obvious to the average American.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
Ben Shapiro is surprisingly careful in what he says. He's fiery and provocative but tries not to get over his skis, so to speak. He's probably waiting until he has evidence one way or another whether they were taking testosterone before commenting on it, since they're plenty of red meat left for him to chew on with this shooting regardless.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
I'm confused. Why would toilet training require showing my children other people's genitals? I'm genuinely confused here.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
Do you never do things like bath with our children when they're young?
Never! That sounds bizarre to me. Definitely taboo. Fully grown penises should not be floating next to toddlers.
I don't want to make fun of you, I just don't even get how you manage to avoid them seeing nudity until a certain age.
You can be nude around a baby, but once they're smart enough to start talking you treat them like other people. Do you walk around nude in public? Maybe you do, but that isn't done here. With our oldest I remember the day that my wife scolded me for letting our toddler see me on the toilet. She was about 2 years old, I think.
An important piece of context that might be missing is that gender really matters. My wife can be naked around our young daughters, that's not taboo. If we had young sons I could be naked around them, though it's not something you'd do casually. But in my America little girls shouldn't be looking at adult penises. It's taboo.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
I got MidRat, which surprised me. I didn't think I'd rank that high, being an evangelical Christian who is only mildly worried about AI. I'm not sure what pushed me over the edge: being able to recite a poem from memory? Having a good opinion of Mormons? I'd love to see the correlations.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1yr ago
I generally agree, but have a quibble about the "Portugal directly ruled" parts of India and Sri Lanka. They had a lot of trade outposts, but they didn't conquer and rule in the way you imply. When you say " The natives weren't capable of beating back the Portuguese alone, they usually had to get help from the Dutch or somebody else" it's not really accurate. Most of the kingdoms making up India were quite capable of defeating the outnumbered Portuguese in a fight: they had good steel weapons, and guns, and cannons themselves. The Portuguese worked with the various Indian powers in order to create their trading empire, and the Dutch came in and swept them off their feet not only with sword and gun but also by making better deals and friends among the local elite.
This is in contrast to the conquistadors in the New World who genuinely had a major technological advantage in terms of steel weapons, armor, war horses, and cannons. The West dominated India and China in the end, but when the Portuguese arrived Europeans and India arguably had parity when it came to weaponry and technology. Which just makes it more incredible that within 200 years the Europeans had left them all behind.
I don't have much advice to give, but it occurred to me today that it might be worth sharing something that I can say has definitely improved my life: Gracious Attribution.
I learned about it from one of my professors years ago, and its been helpful to my mental well being and the general project of improving my character. I received Gracious Attribution from an explicitly Christian perspective but I think it would be useful to anyone who shares a similar goal in this particular arena.
As a Christian one thing I am called upon to do is forgive my enemies. This is very difficult to do, but Jesus repeats it enough times that it's hard to wiggle out of it. In multiple places he says "judge not lest ye be judged" or "by the measure you measure others, you too will be measured" or "blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy" or "he who is angry with his brother is in danger of judgement" or "forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us", or the whole dang parable about the ungrateful servant. The message is clear: if you do not show mercy and forgiveness to others, then God will not show mercy and forgiveness to you. And vice versa.
To that end my wise professor taught us one day about Gracious Attribution. "Suppose," he said, "you are driving along one day and somebody cuts you off. If you are anything like myself you are likely to be furious. My first instinct is to consider them a self-centered fool with no consideration for anyone but themselves, jumping into traffic however they please. This might be true. However, in the moment, I do not actually have any solid information on why they cut me off. It could be because they're an inconsiderate fool. But it could also be because they are a young and inexperienced driver who is trying to learn and made a beginners mistake. It could be a man whose wife in the backseat has gone into labor and is trying desperately to get to the hospital. It could be an old woman who has difficulty seeing and lacks any family or friends to drive her from place to place. It could be someone who just got off a double shift and hasn't slept in 20 hours. It could be someone who desperately needs to get to a bathroom! All of these are plausible possibilities and I don't have the information needed to rule them out or narrow them down."
"Given that I don't know why they cut me off, and given that I am obligated as a Christian to forgive others, then it is best if I choose the explanation that makes them easiest to forgive."
That's Gracious Attribution in a nutshell. In situations where I feel wronged yet lack the information needed to determine why this person wronged me I should attribute their actions to the explanation that is easiest to forgive. I suppose it is an extension of the Principal of Charity, but applied practically to everyday life.
One important note is that it does need to be a plausible attribution. It would be foolish if someone walked up to me, cursed me out at high volume, and then spat in my face to then choose to believe that they're actually sleepwalking or something. The point isn't to choose to be a fool; rather it is to recognize that for many situations where we get angry and judgmental towards others (especially strangers) we don't actually have enough information to conclude why they did it. In those cases Gracious Attribution would have us choose to act on the belief that makes them easiest to forgive.
Practically this is a useful concept to internalize and attempt to live out. When I get cut off in traffic, naturally I get mad. Left to my own devices I would yell, honk my horn, and fume to no effect. But if in my anger I remember Gracious Attribution it does two things for me. First, it distracts my mind with a puzzle: what possible (and plausible) attributions could I assign to this behavior that I could forgive? This helps calm me down, similar to counting backwards from ten. Second, once I have found a Gracious Attribution it makes it so much easier to let go of my anger and hatred. I can literally forgive and forget, moving on with my life. My day doesn't get spoiled.
I was thinking of this the other day because my wife got quite vocally upset when a coworker parked in a way that encroached on her normal parking spot. What struck me was not that my wife was upset, but that when I tried attributing the bad parking to something more forgivable ("Maybe she was running really late today") my wife insisted that no, her coworker had done it on purpose to keep people from parking next to her. Now maybe my wife was right; however, I knew that she didn't have any real evidence to back that up. It is natural when we are wronged to want to paint the wrongdoer as a villain, and the more villainous the better. The problem is that painting them as a villain does not help us get over our anger, and it can inspire conflict and hatred with people we don't actually need to hate*.
I would recommend attempting Gracious Attribution for a period of time and seeing if it improves your life.
*As a Christian I believe we don't need to hate anyone, but I think even people who (quite reasonably) believe some are worthy of our hatred would probably prefer not to start a blood feud over a parking spot.
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