Silverdawn
Small Language Model
34-year straight, white male from Eastern Europe. Interested in videogames, books, and running. Lean towards libertarianism/consequentialistism/determinisism.
User ID: 2412
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
5mo ago
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
5mo ago
Do you have the option of telemedicine and getting it delivered from a country more understanding? Or just driving/traveling over in person?
I've got a list of 6 psychiatrists I've yet to talk to, at least one of them will probably prescribe it and I think I can find a pharmacy willing to stock it if I order a box. It's just been a very miserable experience, that's all.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
5mo ago
I live in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria) and I've had a VERY different experience. I've talked to about 4 different doctors up to this point. One didn't even know what ADHD is, another didn't believe it's a "real" thing, the third told me I can't possibly have it because I finished highschool. The fourth told me that I do indeed have ADHD (after a year of insisting my real problem is depression) but she doesn't feel comfortable being a "legal narcotics dealer".
I've talked to my fellow countrymen on forums and the consensus is overwhelmingly the same: doctors here won't prescribe methylphenidate and pharmacies don't stock it. It's wild to me that India of all places has a more functional medical institution in this regard. I am quite envious of your situation.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
5mo ago
How difficult was it to get methylphenidate(ritalin) prescribed in India?
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
5mo ago
You reached the threshold to enter a positive feedback loop.
I think the situation is the exact polar opposite actually. /u/Thoroughlygruntled briefly experienced an ideal that a lot of self-help books promise but that doesn't actually exist. The overwhelming majority of people alive are clearly not living this kind of life. And I know it's not for lack of trying because I've wasted more than a decade of my own life in the same kinds of attempts.
Unfortunately, human beings are not really built for long-term satisfaction or contentment or whatever you wanna call it. This is an issue based on genes and hormones and it probably has to be fixed physiologically as well. If it is even fixable.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
5mo ago
Has anyone here had a similar experience?
I did after about 2-3 weeks on Atomoxetine.
In short, my way of thinking changed from:
No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, life will put more walls in my way.
to
There will be challenges in my future. I can overcome some of them myself and ask the people around me for help with others. And if there are any that are completely insurmountable, I can learn to live with them.
It's a very small difference in perspective but it had a very profound effect on my behaviour.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
5mo ago
I don't recall any that were published somewhere more respectable than 4chan, though.
You can't publish those types of experiments anywhere else because you'd be drowned in an endless sea of insults and strawmen.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
5mo ago
"The Happiness Trap, 2nd edition" by Russ Harris. I was recommended this book as a "low-cost, low-effectiveness" potential solution to a wide range of mental problems (depression, anxiety, addiction, etc.). I'm only about 30% in and it's too early to say anything for sure.
I have used a similar book on CBT in the past and that one was definitely worth reading.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
5mo ago
Okay, I'll look into it, thanks for the recommendation!
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
5mo ago
Yeah, I haven't had the opportunity to play any of the Fire Emblems because of lack of hardware but those would have been an even better example.
Been playing "Reverse Collapse - Code Name Bakery" lately. It's 20% asian VN , 80% turn-based tactics game similar to xcom. The graphics style is very cute chibi with some really impressive (and gruesome) animations.
I would describe the story as "grimdark post-apocalyptic dystopian hard sci-fi with a dash of time-travel shenanigans". The themes and events contrast sharply with the moe artstyle.
In terms of gameplay, it's mostly excellent, with the exception of the occasional mandatory stealth section. I chose the hardest difficulty mode and I can only describe it as "sadistically cruel". I'm talking "3 hours for a single bossfight", 2 hours for the typical level. And almost all of that is thinking and changing tactics. The UI and camera are clearer, easier to understand and more informative than the ones in Xcom. The "two 90% misses in a row" meme still exists but it's nowhere near as bad. And you can tell exactly where enemy LoS and shooting range end, which I can only applaud.
There are some RPG elements of the "choose which talents to buy and which items to craft" type but they're very minor.
I do recommend it to VN and Xcom enjoyers out there. If you're curious why the steam score is mixed, there was apparently some drama with the fans of a different game and typical brigade shenanigans ensued.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
5mo ago
Kudos for putting actual effort into finding the original data.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
5mo ago
The two big FPS mods I've come across are Horizon for Fallout 4 and Gamma for the Stalker trilogy.
Horizon turns Fallout 4 into a very difficult, survival-focused adventure that I found interesting even after 200+ hours. The story/writing is mostly still shit and it's a GIGANTIC mod so almost nothing is compatible with it but it is easily the best way to play Fallout 4 imo.
GAMMA is also a very difficult, very survival-focused mod that is essentially what 15+ years of work prompting up a 2007 game looks like. All the levels from the base game and its 2 expansions, more than 500 different weapons, dozens of mutants, a complete reimagining of the artifact system (and the next patch promises yet another artifact remake), a robust repair/weapon parts system and an overwhelming number of mod options to adjust the game to whatever the player wants it to be.
The best place to find installation instructions and links for these two are their discords. Which is a shame imo but it is what it is.
Incidentally, have you noticed how this type of discussion used to be almost entirely a reddit thing and has sharply moved towards discord in the last few years? Maybe a sign of things to come.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
6mo ago
Yeah, I feel the same way. Sometimes I just want to post a neat little fact or news story and I don't see the point in adding 20 lines of cultural war BS about why This is A Big Deal and People Need to Care About It.
LLMs can help add some random BS but they often post passive aggressive "wrongthink is bad, mkay" lectures when they're not happy.
I wish there was a forum for actual neutral news. Like what reddit used to be 10 years ago.
I'm finishing up a heavily modded playthrough of Mass Effect. Super excited for the Rimworld expansion. SCP/Eldritch horrors are exactly my jam.
Mass effect is ...fine, I guess. The story is interesting, the characters are fun. But the gameplay is just incredibly boring. There's a part of my brain that keeps repeating "If you wanted to shoot at things, why not boot up Stalker GAMMA? The much better shooter experience."
Incidentally, for any Gamma fans out there, Grok posted his plans to completely revamp the artifact system in the near future.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
6mo ago
I understood most of those individual words...
HighResolutionSleep is suggesting he could give a sufficiently intelligent AI all the memories and experiences he has of his now gone ex/wife and have a realistic facsimile constructed. It's a very dark direction to think in and will probably become a serious problem for many people in the future.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
6mo ago
In fact, before this controversy, the main thing gamers were complaining about was in-game transactions.
I've seen a lot of people complaining about the uglification of women in videogames as early as ME: Andromeda.
But until now, if you weren't in one of a tiny number of underground forums, there was essentially no way to know this is the opinion of a very large number of people. Any complaints about the situation on major social media sites would be banned under the excuse of the usual "racism/sexism/bigotry".
The only reason you're hearing about this now is SBI Streisand-ing themselves into the spotlight.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
6mo ago
That is the greatest dub of all time!
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
6mo ago
Why do you feel Disco Elysium is explicitly leftist? I'm not disagreeing necessarily, just curious. I thought the game satirizes and mocks all political leanings, including leftists.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
6mo ago
What stops you from playing with your small group of friends now?
It's really, really hard! If you'll allow me to put on my tinfoil hat, I almost feel like publishers are intentionally making it hard. We went from "just download this torrent and install hamachi" to "you have to buy this game, install all 100GBs of it, make sure it's the correct version, you have to play it through steam or similar, the servers might brick at any point. And games are just not made for small groups of friends anymore. Compare Heroes of Might and Magic 3 or Age of Empires 2 or Diablo 2 or even Dota 1 to any of the million Call of Duty Clones, which are blatantly made so you'll click "soloqueue". A lot of the time there isn't even an option for party play. If there is, you might have to wait 30min or longer because the game forces groups of players to only play against other groups of players. Oh, and there's censorship, of course. Even innocent, casual-friendly games like Minecraft have to make sure you can't say any naughty words anymore.
What's "punishing" about having to play with better players as you become a better player? Is it your desire to instead stomp lobbies 1v5 (or 1v9 if your teammates are bad enough)?
Honestly? Yeah, I do want to stomp newbies. As long as it takes me dozens of hours to learn a game or map, I should be rewarded with a vastly increased win chance. Otherwise, what's the point? Why am I learning and trying to get better if the game will just become harder and harder up until I give up? This is just the Moloch problem again, btw.
Unfortunately, that would likely not be the desire of 5-9 people playing against you.
There's nothing stopping them from playing for a few dozen hours, getting better at the game and stomping newbies too. This is how WC3 works and it's great. This is how the natural world and evolution work too.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
6mo ago
I disagree very strongly actually. CS2 and Dota2 are great examples of how exactly multiplayer went wrong. 20 years ago, there was no MMR system punishing you for getting better at the game, there was very little (if any) moderation and most people played with small groups of friends.
Whereas now? You go play dota, here are some random people who will flame you for not magically knowing the game. You will probably never see any of them ever again so you don't have any motivation to behave with kindness towards them either. You worked hard, learned the game and got better? Well now your MMR is higher, which means the people in your games are even sweatier tryhards, even angrier at the game. And you'll have to work even harder if you want to keep winning. This will continue until you burnout and stop playing or become the #1 top player on the planet (hope you don't mind playing for tens of thousands of hours because that's what it takes).
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
6mo ago
I don't think it's a lack of backbone, I think it's a lack of knowledge. How many people read online forums, how many were even aware there was a boycott happening?
(I read quite a lot of gaming forums and this is the first I'm hearing of it)
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
6mo ago
Been looking for an answer to this question for the past 25 years... Seemingly, some people just have a raison d'être and others don't.
Silverdawn
Small Language Model
6mo ago
You just helped me realize "Trans women are women" is a motte-and-bailey. There are 2 ideas there:
"You should treat trans women as women because that is the morally correct thing to do" and
"Trans women are literally women".
I've seen a lot of people attack and mock the latter on forums but I never noticed the implied former idea until now. I guess that's the one US progressives actually believe and they use the offensive/latter version to piss off the outgroup.
Mostly just leave it on the harddisk and listen to it whenever I feel like it. I've uploaded a few songs to my phone but I spend most of my time in front of my PC anyway.
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