SkookumTree
2yr ago
Sure. Now your war is being fought essentially by tweakers. That...can work, for certain values of work; Nazi Germany used meth'd up soldiers for their Blitzkrieg and the Imperial Japanese used it as well. However, they kind of acted like savages. I think that you could have soldiers judiciously using shit like this and do OK but you can't have a whole damn tweaker army. There's a limit to 'average mgs/day of amphetamine/soldier' you can have and still have a decent army.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
Things that would be risky or deadly in 1950 are actually not risky or deadly now, from sex (safer from pregnancy and disease, but far more restrictions on it then ca. 1970)
Hmm. With respect to sex, it was probably least consequential (socially and physically) from the late 60s until maybe 1985 or so, with the rise of AIDS.
physical activities (we can fix injuries we couldn't before)
As far as physical activity: trauma medicine is great at saving lives and also a very mixed bag. For the most part, if you're alive after suffering an injury that would've killed you in your father's time, you're going to be crippled for life and in chronic pain.
I think that a lot of it is that the Boomers were the first generation, or one of the first, to grow up in a world where the idea that no parent should have to bury a child was an accepted truism.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
Said soldiers now need access to the Ritalin. It's not a great analogy but think about shit like type 1 diabetes and insulin, or hell stuff like depression that's stable on SSRIs. Sure, we might have the logistics capability to keep ADHD troops supplied with Adderall for months and months, and the shit can be vacuum sealed or something to last for years. However it's something else that can go wrong in your war operation.
I'm not doubting that the US has the industrial capacity - puny as it is - and the logistics capacity to start making Adderall by the ton and shipping it to soldiers, however.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
Not only the medical records themselves. Yes, 25 years ago, it was pretty likely that the records of Private Scuffedup's ADHD treatment only existed in a single doctor's office in Peoria instead of a nationwide system. Yes, the system was designed to weed out the very unhealthy when most of the concerns were about weeding out malnourished and literally retarded recruits. You also have more medical treatment for things like ADHD and autism. I wouldn't have been diagnosed if I'd been born 20 years earlier; the guy on Ritalin now might've just been called "rowdy" and either grown out of it or not. At some point they'll figure out something that works. If there's a real war, God help us, we'll be handing out waivers like candy.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
For every Chris McCandless, there are probably a hundred dead fools that aren't made famous like this and don't have pilgrimages.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
Jesus. If I survive the Hock and then get a girlfriend, and manosphere types then pile onto the Hock...
Andrew Tate 2.0 in the Alaskan wilderness as a kind of Bear Grylls-esque manosphere grifter is going to be dangerous. That'd get a lot of few young dudes killed. I'd probably be collateral damage as the first jackass to do this, too.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
Find me an example of a woman who was diagnosed with literal PTSD after being in a relationship with a kind but socially awkward autist, or whose kind but socially awkward autist boyfriend tried so hard to be nice to her that he landed her in the hospital with a split lip and a broken arm - then we can talk. Your worldview is not merely wrong, not merely ridiculous, but actually grossly offensive to victims of domestic violence.
I had said earlier that it was at best counterintuitive and at worst - yeah, grossly offensive as well as ridiculous and wrong sounds about right. Best steelman is that awkward dudes isolate their partners and loneliness is as bad as 15 cigarettes a day. It's not a great steelman.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
What do Alaskans think of Chris McCandless?
SkookumTree
2yr ago
The stereotype you have of me, Skookum the Hockman...or the stereotype of people that get around a lot or are adrenaline junkies? For 1) it was surgeons and OB-GYNs plus a handful of ER docs. For 2) the same, plus (oddly enough) psychiatrists and pediatricians.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
The distance runner was just a very skinny and fitter-than-average special case of 'untrained dude attempting weightlifting'. For someone who may step foot in a weight room twice in a good year this is pretty decent for a complete and total n00b. Sure, anyone who's not a total stranger to a weight room (unlike this guy) will smoke him, but the guy's a runner, not a lifter; he'd smoke us in a 5K for sure.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
40% chance you have a psychotic break
Reasonably sure that this is unlikely; 28 is a little late for a man to have a first psychotic break and I have no first- or second- degree relatives with a history of either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
So. I'm reading that you think that I'll actually survive the Hock, two or three weeks of trudging through some godforsaken wind-blasted frigid tundra in the middle of nowhere...but mentally more fucked up than before. Interesting thought here...
SkookumTree
2yr ago
Hmm. At my medschool...future surgeons and OB-GYN students seemed to be the wildest. Future pathologists and radiologists? We were sticks in the mud. I know a mountaineering neurologist, backcountry skier surgeon, and pilot anesthesiologist.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
I have people that think the Hock is a good idea. And also: "boyfriend-free girl" - I don't care too much about how many previous partners she's had, to be honest. Also, I get the Chris-Chan reference; don't you think I'm at least more competent and less of a weird asshole than that motherfucker? Come on. Even in their prime, that person had to think "Bruh, I'm out of shape AF, I'd be a goddamn popsicle." And I'm in good enough shape to think I can make it through the Hock, I'm well educated, decently determined...the Hock provideth, brother.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
Yeah. I first learned about lobotomy when I was 12.
I decided that as far as I was concerned: if that was me, they might as well save the doctor's bill and finish the job with a 12-gauge instead.
Haven't changed my personal view on the procedure; if lobotomy instead replaced a troublesome child with a roughly-equally-capable child who was less troublesome and had an entirely different personality, my thoughts would be different.
IIRC it's done occasionally as an absolute last resort for refractory cases of schizophrenia in Europe. I don't really have a position on this; by the time you are so far gone that you're in the worst 0.1 percent of schizophrenics you're pretty far gone. You might be living on a Christmas tree farm, eating food from dumpsters and pine needles because you think they contain microchips that connect you to Lord Elon Musk. And you're covered in tick bites and you're starving. You fight anyone that tries to stop you like a wild animal, which has gotten you beat up, hospitalized, and sometimes jailed. Pretty much every psychotropic medication under the sun has been tried on you, but you're either a zombie on them or screaming to be let out and given access to pine needles almost 24/7.
There are no good solutions for this guy.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
Rae: I'm glad that things worked out well for you, and I think that most people would be best served by treating transition more or less as you had: a last resort. I see it as a largely irreversible and major medical intervention that should be seen the same way we see things like spine surgery for herniated discs, or elective amputation, or other big, irreversible medical procedures. I'll also chime in as someone who's had mild to moderate gender dysphoria for a decade or more - from 9 or so till 19 - and decided against medical intervention: there's a spectrum of gender dysphoria or transness, and you're unfortunately at the far end of it. I wish medical science was better, to be honest.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
I am not always clear on what his argument is, other than he has a rather burning self-hatred, finds himself
physicallyrepulsive, and projects that self-image in such a way that he assumes women feel the exact same about him (visceral loathing).
Most of the repulsion's not physical, although my decidedly below average physical appearance doesn't do me any favors. I'm no Quasimodo, which I'll admit to here.
Also apparently he has seen, heard about in his own social circle, or somehow internalized the idea that women are homicidal and one of them might kill him at some point for something he inadvertently does. Or that he will be somehow attacked for showing interest in a woman. Or whatever. And finally, that an act of MegaChad adventure bravery (The Hock) will be the redemptive quest that will make him into...something better than what he feels that he currently is. (Instead of the suicidal misadventure of a man with an all-but-clearly stated deathwish, which is how I see it.
This guy put it better than I could have done myself.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
If you don't have something you want, by the dictates of the efficient market it can only be because you don't deserve to have it.
The Market provideth. Interesting way to cut this Gordian knot here.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
With the exception of the infertile (or those whose spouse is infertile) and extremely ugly, I really don’t have much sympathy for people who don’t have children.
Hate to be hopping back on the hobbyhorse again. No, it's not the Hock. It's this:
Most people, except those who work in the healthcare industry or are connected to it in some way, simply do not understand that ~5% of the population are poor candidates for marriage and children. If you're looking at people from 18 to 45, most of that isn't because they wound up being burned in a house fire but are otherwise healthy and mostly functional. No. It's health problems that make people unattractive; you don't see them because they don't get out much. Two percent of people are intellectually disabled, one percent of people are schizophrenic, add in other physical disabilities, autoimmune conditions, and "is just a giant raging asshole" to the mix, and you have your five percent. Most of these people don't get out much.
As for the end of life situation: my parents have made it very clear to me and my younger sibling that they did not want us to spend time and energy taking care of them but rather that they wanted to go into a nursing home. I'd think that in a modern society we'd just adapt to increasing lifespan (but not similarly increased healthspan) by having essentially assisted suicide as more of a live option. I might drink hemlock if I couldn't wipe my own ass anymore.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
I'm inspired by Who By Very Slow Decay: I honestly think that modern societies are going to go the MAiD/Athenian route, more or less. As I understand it, any Athenian citizen could request a lethal dose of hemlock poison; permission had to be granted by the Athenian Assembly. It could be that elderly people with no children or grandchildren sometimes ask for their hemlock from the government.
Why were things different in the past?
-
Closer families and more family support.
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Modern medicine. The frail elderly who would've been killed by pneumonia or a heart attack or stroke 100 or 200 years ago now are able to survive and as such more time and effort is spent taking care of them.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
5'6"
SkookumTree
2yr ago
Yeah. Like, the teenage boy is being kind of dumb IMO, the prostitute is even worse unless she genuinely got fooled into thinking he was 18. That being said, I think that the terminal illness makes this a pretty different thing. Terminally ill kids have much stronger autonomy interests; there aren't any future adult selves that parents and society are trying to protect.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
I think the request for others to help her is unreasonable
Disagree here.
anyone would be justified in refusing it.
Agree - it's a difficult issue and reasonable people can be on either side.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
Played straight: I have a lot of respect for the concept and support it - but for practical reasons it would need to be done discreetly and quietly. It would be nice if Make-A-Wish or something like that very quietly facilitated things like this.
SkookumTree
2yr ago
The question is more about your desire for casual sex and your attitude towards it - not how competent you were at getting it. If Johnny McHorndog enters nursing school or the Army hell-bent on casual encounters and piss-poor at achieving them, then spends a few years as a soldier or nurse, gets good at having casual sex, but desires it much less due to viewing sex as sacred or meaningful to him personally...Mr. McHorndog didn't become a higher decoupler from the experience. It's Mr. Prude (and maybe Mrs. Prude), very sociosexually restricted, little to no interest in casual sex...until they see some shit and aren't deeply disinterested in it.
Eh. Limit it to 50 mg/day/soldier, 100 with approval of IDK a medical guy and a Captain or above. Special Forces get to do what they want within reason. Like shit has value but we don't want a tweaker army either. You also are going to have a lot of veterans with Adderall dependencies and you will need to address that somehow too.
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