cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
2d ago
I had a sort of mild depression my whole life, that would sometimes escalate to above mild. Felt like I always had a reason for it for a long time. About a decade ago life was going stupidly well. I was getting married, had a good job, lots of friends, etc. And I still felt kinda like crap. I reached out to Scott and he pointed me to his old article Things That Sometimes Help If You Have Depression. Followed his advice and just talked to a regular doctor. They were able to prescribe me a low dose SSRI. It helps. The mild depression is gone most of the time, and instead of occasional escalations to above mild depression, I'll have rare escalations to just mild depression. I'd say it has been a success story.
cjet79
4d ago
TheMotte is not for all purposes. Political jokes and political satire specifically do not fit here very well.
Go to X or reddit for that
cjet79
5d ago
Aww I wish I'd seen this when it was originally posted. I'm an atheist. Terry Pratchett is my favorite author. The only books I've ever managed to read twice. Your thought that he has such anger at the world feels so totally alien to me. It wasn't anger it was hope. And it wasn't an empty hope. The world of terry pratchett does in fact get better!
Ankh-morpork is a rotten, polluted, cesspit of a city. Its main defense against invaders is to allow them in and corrupt them so completely that they stop being invaders. The river can be walked on, when its not on fire. The magic university suffers accidents constantly that leave the surrounding areas of the city steeped in weird magical effects. But over the course of many novels it gets noticeably better to live in the city. Crime becomes more restricted to the darkest and worst places of the city. Races of all kind can go there and leave their old world prejudices behind. Material wealth is skyrocketing. New mail systems like the telegraph (clacks) are sweeping the city, trains are being developed to shorten the travel distances, and culture is booming enough for new music styles to be born.
The aggressive conquering religion of the Omnians is softened from something like Islam to something more like modern christianity.
Death learns to care about life in the form of his apprentice.
A wizard and his travelling luggage get to visit Australia and other interesting cities.
A war for a silly island is averted.
etc etc.
The stories of discworld are undeniably hopeful. Its in some of his other stories where he shares authorship that I realized hoe much the hope of his stories shines through. If you've ever read "The Long Earth" series, co-authored with sci-fi author Stephen Baxter you'll see what I mean. Terry Pratchett had failing health and eventually died before the full series completion. The story gets darker and more depressing as each book passes. What starts as kind of a hopeful series about new lands and places to explore, ends with self-sacrifice to thwart a species that appears to be a paperclip maximizer type threat. I thought this was maybe Stephen Baxter just being depressed about losing his co-author. But I read one of his other books, and no that is just how Baxter is.
cjet79
5d ago
You can generally treat anything said in a dating app as an aspirational preference. "I want a tall, handsome, rich man" yeah but she will settle for someone 5'10" ok looking and with steady employment.
"I wont date a republican" probably settles to something like "don't embarrass me in front of my friends with your icky conservative views". Meanwhile you are at a cookout with her girlfriends and all of their partners and lo and behold every other guy there is also some version of conservative-lite. With even the "liberals" being pro-gun or against extreme welfare state handouts.
Hysteria and hyperbole abound online, but the real world is full of lots of quiet compromise and people getting on with their lives.
EVE Online had a similar high stress feeling to combat. A loss in battle could cost you hours of your time because your ship is blown up and gone. The salvage from the wreck is now in your enemy's hands. It also had the added horror that large scale wars could erase years of your effort and progress.
It really got the blood pumping. Maybe too much.
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