SkookumTree
1yr ago
Hmm. That...I have some ideas, but they are rather torturous and would be considered unethical and barbaric by Western powers. I think that it might be possible with current science if we didn't have any or many ethical restrictions, although in any case it would be expensive. Some ideas:
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Man vs. hog combat. Guy gets a Ka-Bar and maybe some chainmail or something and has to kill a hog with it.
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Some kind of pain tolerance/threshold test, ice water seems to be a fairly common one. Maybe pair that with something like the Milgram shock experiment, plus or minus some (contrived) medical gore/torture...find a way to make them genuinely believe that they're inflicting pain on another human being. Of course, it's all bullshit special effects, but hopefully they'd believe that.
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Maybe starve them for a few days or a week or two and dump them into the woods in winter, with those hogs from before and the knives. The hogs could somehow be handicapped to make them easier to capture and slaughter.
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I have heard that combat can be surprising; maybe you could bushwhack people with a simulated hog ambush or something. Or have a classroom or something outdoors...which turns out to just be a test, and you're actually being tested on your ability to react to having a bull poker game sprung on you without warning.
Of course, the hogs and bulls are going to generate casualties and as such this test would be expensive. It could also be considered both barbaric and animal cruelty.
My (peacetime) military officer father told me that the infantry liked people that came from poor backgrounds because they were more aware of their surroundings and accustomed to discomfort and privation - and that middle class guys were too "soft" to make good infantrymen, at least initially. From what he heard, though, war hardened the survivors, soft suburbanites or not.
Maybe you could ask @self_made_human; he's an Indian physician. I don't know if he's an attending yet, but he most definitely saw some shit - and probably a little more of it per unit of time than his American counterparts. For what it is worth, I'm a fourth-year medical student at an American teaching hospital.
For what it is worth, I have never been to war, served in the military, or ever had anyone try to kill me. Other than maybe three fistfights growing up - all of which I either drew or lost - I haven't been exposed to violence. I've never feared for my life at the hands of another human being. My father was a peacetime military officer that grew up in a very rough neighborhood and managed to claw his way out; that experience left him with scars that he carries to this day, nearly fifty years later.
I guess I'd like to muse on what I saw so far in the healthcare field, the effects it had on me personally, and the effect that I've observed it having on my classmates and friends, some of whom are more senior to me and who are residents. One of them is already an attending. It is not at all a traumatic or painful experience for me to put into words. However: Scott Alexander himself - no slouch in the writing department - wrote in his blog entry Who By Very Slow Decay about the kinds of things that went on in hospitals. What I saw was rather similar, but more incurable disease and fewer elderly people with dementia. He believed, and correctly I might argue, that he was not up to the task of attempting to describe what he saw in words. I'm trying to do so, and I don't mind - I even enjoy it - but I'm not the writer that Mr. Alexander is, and Mr. Alexander is not the poet that Wilfred Owen or Oscar Wilde were.
I wouldn't want to bore you with cliched or inadequate descriptions of the kind of Hell that hospitals are; Scott's done a better job of that than I. I'll say that as time goes on, healthcare providers, hell pretty much anyone exposed to the healthcare industry for any length of time, become basically slightly cheerful nihilists. They're not cynical, more like nihilistic in the sense described by Camus. The more that you know about what is happening to the patients, the more or faster that happens - but a nurse's aide who works for a couple years also experiences the kind of transformation I'm talking about.
I've tried to describe it - especially the experience of rotating through a pediatric cancer ward. I've always come up short, but the best way I've come up with is this: Imagine being a combat medic. But: unlike real-world combat medics, you get to work in a magic suit that is damn near bulletproof. The personal risk that you deal with is relatively low. Maybe if you're rather unlucky you'll get punched in the face by a parent once a decade or so. Usually security deals with this kind of thing effectively. You also get to eat three meals a day, work maybe eight or twelve hours a day in a comfortable, temperature-controlled hospital, and go home every night to sleep in your own bed.
You see the good, the bad, and the ugly of humanity. Dipshit parents trying to take their kids, being treated for a type of cancer with an excellent prognosis and an 85 percent chance of surviving five years, a 70 percent chance of full cure...out of the hospital for "treatment" with essential oils and herbal remedies that will ensure their death within two months. Parents trying but failing in a noble, sad, gross, admirable way to shield their kids from the reality of their impending death. Children, twelve years old, never letting on how bad things truly are. Doctors becoming nihilistic and weeping in between patients. None of us had the skill with words to describe it, and I know this description like every other I have tried to attempt has fallen short. I am not Wilfred Owen reincarnated, and it would take someone with his skill to describe the things we saw.
If there is a God, the Almighty works in ways beyond our understanding, or else set the universe in motion and does not intervene in human affairs, or does so maybe once or twice in a thousand years.
A more metaphysical musing: War and disease are Gnon's prosecution lawyers. They decide, or make the case: This person should die, that person should be maimed for life, this person will be exhausted and fatigued for a year and a half but mostly recover. The healthcare system are the defense attorneys: they say "Not today, not here". As I understand the practice of lawyers, often the prosecution and the defense make deals, are friendly, understand what is likely. Something similar obtains in healthcare - healthcare providers have a pretty fair idea of the ultimate course of a disease, and do their best to keep patients aware of the outcomes that can be had. I know next to nothing about the day to day practice of law, but if this guy is anything like the average public defender, doctors for the most part operate in a pretty similar way.
I am not saying that the average physician is some kind of brilliant hotshot badass; I think that the medical profession gained an awful lot of status by being essentially the delivery system for the advances that university researchers and research doctors managed to produce: germ theory, vaccination, antibiotics. More than a few attendings have essentially said that physicians were more or less a kind of very well-paid tradesman working on very expensive machines, and that the lion's share of healthcare advances came from germ theory, vaccination, and antibiotics plus obstetric care. Everything else was just marginal gains and window dressing.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
LOL - you're talking about the Hock, right? I also think that the Hock is cool as hell; I've written before about using it for college admissions and my reasoning behind why I like the aesthetic of the Hock, even if as a practical matter it is both insane and idiotic. I believe that the Hock provideth, either through victory or death, and that everyone chooses their own Hock - or abstains from Hocking.
If the Hock wouldn't make me any more attractive to women, I'll be honest - I'd be less excited about it, but I'd still think it was cool as hell. It's the culmination of what was basically a years-long thought experiment and a set of personal beliefs about suffering and ordeals building character, especially if voluntarily done.
If some deity came down from the Heavens and told me that no one would ever be interested in me...I'd be sad. I don't know whether I'd go on the Hock or not in that case. Leaning no - but maybe I'd do some kind of lesser Hock in Montana or something, IDK. Hockism as a homebrew philosophy is personally compelling to me.
Ask the ACN discord about the Hock; you'll hear a lot about it.
Besides. "Skookum, the First Hockmaxxer" has a nice ring to it to my ears even if it is also dumb as all hell and unlikely to work. I'd at least be the first fool to try "chucking yourself and some survival gear and food and shit into the Alaskan wilderness in winter and walking out" as a solution to romantic woes, which is at the very least some novel foolishness instead of garden-variety dumb shit. You've said it yourself...that I am likely to wind up in a unique flavor of train wreck.
My post history is partly an experiment log and partly something for posterity, especially if I don't survive the Hock.
Some things can be done as well as others; I know I'm three parts Chris McCandless and one part Don Quixote, but I've heard tales that native Alaskans respected Chris McCandless. I respect the guy: he was starving but functional until he got got by a relatively obscure poison and was fatally weakened by lathyrism. It was the potato seeds that did him in! He had the strength to live and die by the courage of his personal convictions, just like I would if I set out on the Hock.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
War changes a man, and a lot of it changes him a lot. They strike me as having become something both a bit more and a bit less than completely human. Like a guru or a hooker.
I'm interested, as someone in the healthcare field, to hear your take on whether being exposed to the kind of shit you see in hospitals also changes people. I hope I'm not insulting you here.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
I suspect you might be able to find such a test, but it would be difficult to create and administer and perhaps even unethical.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
If that ex-Nazi is damn near bedbound and suffering from terminal cancer or ALS or some shit, yeah, I wouldn't want to prosecute him all that hard. He can't commit lesser crimes for shit and he's going to be dead soon enough.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
I am also still waiting for a picture that proves your irrecoverable unattractiveness.
While I'm solidly below average physically, I'm no Quasimodo. The unattractiveness isn't the kind that can be readily captured in still photos.
For an extreme example, consider Elliot Rodger. Was it his physical appearance that was the problem?
SkookumTree
1yr ago
I mean...several things need to happen.
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I need to die on the Hock.
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They need to connect my frozen corpse to the Motte.
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There needs to be at least a small media circus around the dumbass that thought this was a good idea and that he could survive.
Some dumbass dies trying to climb a mountain or something without proper equipment, and it's basically local news.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
I don't know. I feel as if the process of training in earnest for the Hock is already paying dividends in the form of better and healthier habits. It's still early days yet, but I am working out more and being more organized, which is something I've often struggled with. I'm more conscientious, I think, and maybe slightly less neurotic, too. Seriously considering the prospect that you may be a frozen corpse in four months' time seems to have that effect.
On whether or not Hocks work: I have heard it said that if Hocks worked, Hocking would be normal; my counterargument is that Hocks work reasonably often, but they're expensive as hell in blood and treasure and so not usually worth it. For me...I feel deep down in my bones that if I survive this, I'll finally be average in terms of grit, determination, and willpower. Also, I might still be disgusting, unattractive, etc. after this, but one thing I won't be is a hypocrite. My father was a peacetime military officer, and he always told me that an officer should never ask his men to do something that he is not willing to do himself. If I'm asking someone to endure a bunch of pain and shit for a basically pointless reason - even if I do my very best, no matter how much lipstick you put on a hog it's still a hog - then I damn well ought to be able and willing to do the same.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Eh...it can't be as bad as dealing with things like chronic pain, or going to war, or making it through selection for the Green Berets - and I know people who've done all of the above.
It's interesting that the guys I knew that went to war were doing well with girls...even when they were literally at death's door from alcoholism-induced liver failure. I think that it's being able to exert immense levels of willpower and learning to be graceful and effective when your life is in danger.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Yeah no, rape is still evil as hell. So is damn near killing your husband after an argument or some shit. Freely accepting the risk of that is admirable, though.
But in all seriousness your odds are less than 100%. People have died doing this. Is that the point of your hock?
yeschad.jpg; the Hock is basically my homebrew substitute for war with far less potential for moral injury and far less potential to live as a horribly maimed cripple; the Hock provideth through victory or death. Like Everest or even K2: most people that attempt it either come back more or less in one piece, or not at all.
The real Hock is trying to meet women and getting turned down seemingly-endlessly. It's torture
Probably a good deal less torturous than a 100-mile solo ski journey through the Alaskan wilderness in temperatures that may be colder than 40 below zero, staring your own death in the face.
elaborate fantasies
Elaborate fantasies, my left foot. If all goes according to plan, I'll start the Hock at dawn on February 13, 2024. If you do not hear back from me by April 1, I have most likely died in the Alaskan wilderness; I will have left instructions for my next of kin and anyone that would search for or attempt to rescue me to NOT endanger themselves and expend resources by attempting to recover me, dead or alive. These writings are at least partially something that would explain or describe for posterity the thought processes of Skookum, the First Hockmaxxer, if he dies on his most excellent adventure. I know I'm maybe three parts Chris McCandless to one Don Quixote, but hey, what the hell...
Do I need to post proof that I am in possession of a one-way plane ticket to Fairbanks?
SkookumTree
1yr ago
I gather that you are not terribly optimistic about my chances of surviving the Hock.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Yeah - the medical profession in present day America would not like that. Maybe a doctor could get away with that kind of crap in 1950 Alabama, but not in 2023 Alabama, not openly claiming racial animus. Even if it was legal.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Is it at least novel, interesting, or cool?
SkookumTree
1yr ago
The Hock provideth.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
It is likely that it will be more or less understood that you will never have a partner. You aren't making a million a year, you don't have enough charisma for a career in politics, AND you are fundamentally disgusting on a deep visceral biological level due to autism or shortness or something like that. The best you can realistically hope for is someone that holds their nose and endures that disgust due to religious or personal convictions.
Are you charismatic enough to convince people to more or less go through Hell basically to make you happy? Are you able to hang in a contest of wills against a Navy SEAL or better yet the Saigon monk who calmly burned himself to death? Are you OK with being maimed, even killed, by your partner? Being a nurse and caretaker to someone who's addicted to something and only using you as an enabler? If you are OK with all of these things - and a goddamn saint to boot, AND you never make a social blunder large enough to be described in words - congratulations. You have The Right Stuff to be in a relationship.
Climbing Mt. Everest is probably easier; I think K2 is on a par with being in a relationship. Or maybe Everest - if you're doing it without oxygen and maybe solo.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
Both, I guess - and that if you are unattractive, whatever your gender: where do you want the ambulances? What kind of tragedy would you like to endure? Is it worth it to be married with three children if at age 47 your drug-addicted wife runs you over with a truck while on a PCP bender, nearly killing you and costing you your right arm? I think it is.
I mean, hell: I think that people should freely choose to endure hardship and misery - up to and including death - rather than be awkward. Basically: the ideal man would sincerely prefer, in the absence of any compulsion, to be dead rather than have done his utmost to have become graceful. Something vaguely akin to the Spartans' conception of military honor, basically shaming a guy who was absent under orders from the Battle of Thermopylae into committing suicide-by-Persian, or the Samurai's conception of bushido, applied to social grace and to a lesser extent physical fitness, conscientiousness, and general life skills. And yes - if someone is not doing their utmost, occasionally they may need to follow the fate of Admiral Byng. But only occasionally, and even then I don't like the State participating in it that much. If some awkward guy gets killed for being awkward around a volatile bully and the bully gets a slap on the wrist, however...I think that is a good thing if it happens very rarely.
It is entirely reasonable to expect our young people to prefer being dead to failing to do their utmost to become fit, graceful, productive members of society, and I also think that in this country it is necessary for a lazy person to be killed from time to time to encourage the others. Better yet is that they freely choose to embark on a course of action that will make them graceful or dead. Although - again - I think that this should be very rare indeed; Byng was the only admiral executed by the Brits.
You need to work on yourself until you're attractive to women. Get into a long-term committed, monogamous relationship with a woman who can stand being in the same room as you. Your mindset will improve.
For that - as I am - I need to decide where I want the ambulances, more or less; I hope that this can happen without doing things that are considered predatory such as trawling homeless shelters for girlfriends. That being said - and it's gross and nasty as hell, as well as at best morally murky - maybe relationships for the unattractive are just straight up hell and fucking suck, and part of the whole point is being able to bear the opprobrium of society AND whatever shit your girlfriend is slinging. For what it's worth, I know guys that have been attacked by knife wielding girlfriends; one of whom nearly died to blood loss. This is reasonable to expect from people, in my opinion: who cares if you die to blood loss at age 29 because your crazy girlfriend stabbed you, you've been in a relationship and she probably goes to jail or some shit, meaning that your betters are better off and you serve as an example and warning to others.
This is part of why I am going on the Hock on February 13, 2024, in the Alaskan wilderness somewhere north of the Arctic Circle: because I sincerely believe that this is a kind of preparation for a kind of struggle that is considered idiotic and stupid by the standards of my society. Also, the Hock will expose me to life and death struggle, which I think makes men more attractive. It is also going to make me more used to enduring pain, misery, privation, fear, cold, and hunger for no good reason. That's valuable when you wake up in the ICU thirteen days after being very nearly killed by your crazy girlfriend, one leg laying useless and crippled for life, rasping out statements about how you loved her and it was worth it.
Dulce et decorum est, boyos.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
WWI poetry - especially Wilfred Owen. Gone too soon.
This is something I've been mulling over for a while: if you aren't lucky and fairly determined, as a man - maybe as a human being - you need to decide where you want the ambulances and the tragedy if you want a relationship.
This is a stage that many people pass through at one point or another, and it is admirable to have strong enough personal or religious convictions to attempt it. Maybe that means being stoically resigned to being sexually assaulted or raped because you're a somewhat awkward but physically attractive mildly autistic 17-year-old girl who wants to experience life and have a family someday. In that model, you accept that you are going to need to kiss some frogs to find your prince. And you have an immune deficiency, so you genuinely make your peace with the fact that those frog kisses are likely to lead you to a couple of hospital stays that hopefully don't give you permanent damage. Maybe it means accepting that your girlfriend might stab you because you stuck it in crazy to get whatever wisdom comes from sex or relationships; maybe it means being maimed at 48 by your wife and the mother of your three children and winding up nearly dying, losing a limb, and spending three weeks in the local ICU.
I think that this is admirable and respectable, that in ages past men and women endured similar dangers in order to be worthy, and that war for men and childbirth for women have been how these tragedies played out until very recently.
What's your take on this?
SkookumTree
1yr ago
English is not my native language
It is mine, and you could've easily fooled me into thinking you were a native speaker.
SkookumTree
1yr ago
The Hock provideth.
Fair enough - I'm just some random guy talking about siccing wild boars or something on future soldiers. It's possible that the US military does have something kicking around, but they've discarded it because it's too expensive or infeasible.
Also: if you've heard about the Hock, what are your thoughts on it? I was thinking that it allowed a person to experience some of the privations of war with far less of the risk of moral injury or returning physically crippled; for the most part, you return from the Hock either in one piece or not at all.
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