self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
I'm a transhumanist doctor. In a better world, I wouldn't need to add that as a qualifier to plain old "doctor". It would be taken as granted for someone in the profession of saving lives.
At any rate, I intend to live forever or die trying. See you at Heat Death!
Friends:
A friend to everyone is a friend to no one.
User ID: 454
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3d ago
Very German/autistic of you. I'm glad everything is working as expected.
(I would have enjoyed that too, albeit probably only 1/6th as much)
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3d ago
Entirely within my expectations, ngl. I do think Aspergers deserves a place in modern psychiatric taxonomy, when up to 80% of people with autism have learning disabilities, then it at least served as a convenient shorthand for those of normal or above average intelligence. Well, I don't get consulted on either the ICD or the DSM, at least not yet.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3d ago
I was thinking of tagging you, but the bit works best when you show up of your own volition.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3d ago
I think it would be handy to have a per-user list too, and I am too broke/cheap to pay for Max.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3d ago
"Am I German or Autistic?"
http://german.millermanschool.com/
(I am neither German nor autistic, but it's good to confirm, through a psychometrically validated instrument that I'm a regular dude. Uh, I don't remember my results but I think it was 38% German and like 10% autistic?)
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3d ago
I don't think you, or the general user, can do that. It's in the mod log and our per user moderation history, but even there it'll lump multiple AAQCs together if they were in the same month.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3d ago
Would "all they did do" make you happier? Because that is clearly true. The EU couldn't afford serious bloodshed over Greenland or war with the US. If Trump wasn't held back by domestic factors, they would have been almost entirely powerless to stop the annexation. You think Macron really wants to start a nuclear war, despite being the most hawkish leader, leading a country with a doctrine of first use?
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3d ago
Less likely? Yes. But most people genuinely don't know how common accidental motion is during sleep. And I wouldn't consider it strong evidence of intentional abuse, even if he's got a reputation as a sneaky abuser.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3d ago
I never said they lost. I said they made a symbolic protest, and that was sufficient. I am not excusing the vagaries of the current administration, merely pointing out the power dynamics at play.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3d ago
The US can't entirely ignore Europe without serious ramifications (as seen by the rather disinterested response to Trump's call for support in Iran), but we all know who wears the pants in that relationship. The US can't entirely ignore that continent, but it can get away with bullying, intimidation and what can be charitable described as "tough love".
It's worth keeping in mind that the leaders of European countries, on average, do not behave in a way that is representative of public sentiment. It costs nothing for a Berlin or London art hoe to go on a Free Palestine march, Berlin and London themselves are not nearly as keen on the prospect. This also applies to the relationship with the US, the EU is not going to entirely cut ties, even if things cooled significantly. Even the deployment to Greenland was more of a symbolic/shambolic affair that would make for an excellent comedy.
Consider that. The most powerful power in the world is slamming you with indiscriminate sanctions, not significantly different to what it uses against its most hostile enemies. It threatens to annex Greenland, and all you can do is make press statements to "express concern" and send like a platoon of dudes off to get their balls cold. Which, in a way, is reasonable. I doubt Trump could have actually annexed Greenland by force without a serious risk of his own supporters making a runner. Why would the EU need to do more than save face?
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3d ago
The whole point of the drug development pipeline is to minimize the unknown unknowns. Sure, it's not perfect, but there is no good reason to spend very much time worrying about Knightian uncertainty in a clinic. While your claims are true, I genuinely don't think it changes anything in practice. Statins have been around for ages, and even semaglutide has had its safety established to a degree where I am more than comfortable putting my mom on it and taking myself, sometimes.
If the doctor says "you have to do it, or you're going to be in serious trouble, the pills are the only way" - fine, do it. But if they say "you may try to change your lifestyle, or if it sounds too hard there are pills, your choice" I'd personally choose to try the non-pills way first.
And that's fine, no issues there. But when the pills are pretty close to a free lunch? I'm not advocating for him starting warfarin or anything that would make me sit up and think thrice before the recommendation.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3d ago
Better than eyeballing it flaccid, I can grant that much.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
4d ago
Note that I'm not strongly endorsing the statins. But your actual doctor probably knows your situation better than I do, and I trust them by default. More importantly, in a way, you can just quit if the side effects are more nuisance than the (small) benefits are worth.
I'm skipping GLP-drugs because I want to solve the root cause, not just the symptoms. Sleep, diet and work outs first. Rest will follow.
Why not both? Seriously, even if you don't "need" them like someone with someone who is outright obese and diabetic, they'll help. There is no reason to think that you can't also make lifestyle modifications alongside them, and those are laudable goals anyway. You'll almost certainly lose weight, and it'll help the cardiovascular stuff. If your sleep is hampered by something like sleep apnea (which I do not know you have, but is not unlikely), then the weight loss will help with that too. It's easier to exercise and diet if you've already lost some weight and don't feel as hungry. The drugs should be easily affordable for you, you make a lot more money than I do.
If you had to choose between statins and semaglutide on my recommendation, then I would rather you pick the latter. Just talk about it with your doctor, as and when you see them again. If they advise against it, eh, that's fine by me.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
4d ago
The femme fatale archetype and the "hot BPD girl" archetype exist for a reason.
... I'm in recovery. It's going well so far, though I have my fingers crossed.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
4d ago
Do you have very good reason to believe that he was lying? I've obviously not been there, but it is not very uncommon to see parasomnias like REM-sleep where there really is unconscious acting out or uncontrolled muscle movement. All I am saying is that his claims are not prima facie false, if there's more evidence that suggests he genuinely was a sneaky abuser, that's fair (but it is possible for someone to be both a bad person and also physically sick, disease rarely cares about moral valence).
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
4d ago
I am not saying they are nothing. But statins are the annoying kind of drug where the benefits are hard to perceive on an individual basis, but we have strong evidence does help at a population level. And the harms are even more rare, barring the more common transient stuff like muscle aches.
In more formal terms, the NNT is high, and so is the NNH. But the former is still significantly smaller than the latter, almost by an OOM. Both are diminished by his age and reasonably good health, at least on the basis of information provided, but I would be rather surprised if it came out to a complete wash or net harm (however small).
(I have neglected to specify that NNT and NNH require specific metrics or endpoints to assess, but I'm talking about the serious stuff, like number of cardiovascular events avoided in expectation or new onset T2DM/rhabdomyolysis)
As it stands, I think that @DirtyWaterHotDog is an intelligent sensible individual, and that their doctor has done due diligence before making the recommendation. I'd love to see an explicit QALY calculation, but let's be honest and admit that those are desirable but not strictly necessary, assuming a competent doctor exercising clinical judgement. I'm sure he's going to do his own research instead of deferring entirely to an argument I made while suffering from a serious migraine (even if I think that my advice is fine). I see no significant risk from initiating them, since they're easy to start and easy to stop if the most likely side-effects become annoying. The benefits are also probably small, but I think his actual doctor has a better picture than I do, and I see no real reason to disagree with them.
(If I was his actual doctor instead of a friendly stranger on the internet, I would be poring over the reports and calculating QRISK scores.)
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
4d ago
There is a very good reason why I said the odds of a more favorable outcome go up, rather than making a stronger, deterministic claim in the passage you quoted.
"Good behavior" or submission is no guarantee of good treatment, but I think it is fair to say that it helps on the margin. The typical man coming home with a looted woman does not have three more waiting at home, the maths is unlikely to work that way. The way that royalty treats their new concubines is not representative of the average. My understanding is that even for the Sabine women, the typical Roman kidnapper only got the one, but correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't specifically checked, though this is mostly because I doubt a clear-cut answer is easily available. Even when the kidnapper/victor is successful enough to have multiple female captives, I do not think it is an unjustified leap in logic to think that compliance and feigned/real affection would improve material circumstances on the margin. If your new "husband" has three docile wives already, do you think anyone is going to treat you better for being uppity?
Even within living memory in the West, it is hardly uncommon to hear of women who deplore their abusive husbands but are forced to stay by them because of the financial ruin or social opprobium they would face after separation. Situations like that even happen today, though not nearly as often when Western culture (and much of the world) has tighter welfare nets and feels the duty/need to intervene.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
4d ago
I am not claiming that this is a universal experience. I am only claiming that situations like this can and do happen, including in well documented histories as well at present, in the parts of the world that can be impolitely but accurately be described as shitholes. And we know the past was much more violent than the present, or the fact that far fewer men passed on their lineage than women did, or the recent evidence that Neanderthal-Cro Magnon crossbreeding usually involved Neanderthal men and CM women. I wonder why.
You don't even need the maximal "consent to rape or die" version. Even the ability to tolerate and ameliorate flawed men who are otherwise good providers is adaptive. As you've noted, societal norms didn't even switch to condemning such behavior till well within living memory.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
4d ago
There is no end of nuance I could add, but this is a good point. I might as well mention that it's very common for the traits and tendencies expressed by genes to vary according to the sex of the organism that receives them (even if this is not an absolute either). The same genes on a different sex chromosome can do different things. So Genghis might well have had a submissive mother, while the same genes might not have manifested in him but might have in his daughters or sisters (or have been outcompeted by the tendencies from his paternal lineage).
The same goes for Ugg and Bride of Ugg. She might hate being raped and enslaved. But her sons might well be perfectly happy to do the raping and enslaving, propagating her genes as well. The question, which requires a lot of empirical grounding to answer, is which tendency wins out overall. But there isn't a unique winner at the very least, we observe a lot of diversity.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
4d ago
Perhaps and (probably yes), but just because an argument is compelling or the person making it rhetorically sophisticated beyond my ability to parse does not make it actually true. I'd say it's cheating, but I doubt an actually omnipotent being would care what I think if it was trying to make me believe false things on purpose.
I will forward an evo-psych explanation that I have found somewhat compelling, while letting you take the opportunity to remember that evo-psych arguments are far less specific or empirically validated than anyone would like:
In the ancestral environment (by which I mean from pre-history to last Tuesday), it was unfortunately common for intergroup violence to culminate in the slaughter of all the men on the losing side, and the lamentation of their women (who were often taken captive and put to reproductive toil, with modern norms of consent not a concern for anyone involved).
Picture yourself as a woman, of reproductive age. You have just been taken captive by Ugg, who has only just finished cleaning his club of the blood and brains that originated from your husband (Grug) and your father and brother (Ooga and Booga respectively). Ugg has, if he's being polite, told you that he's going to take you as his wife. If he is less polite, you have already been raped. Neolithic cavemen or victorious pillagers are not known to be polite, but I do not wish to slander them unnecessarily.
You have very few choices in the matter. Active or passive refusal or disobedience will likely only result you in being beaten +- raped. There is no one in a position to help, and you do not necessarily even think that your fate is morally incorrect or unjust (if you're the introspective type, you might remember the story of how Ooga met Mrs. Ooga, your mother. The circumstances were not that different, even if it feels awful to be on the receiving end.).
If you submit, your odds of going from a glorified concubine or sex slave to a genuine wife (with whatever degree of protection and in-group endorsement that implies) goes up. If you demonstrate enjoyment and do your best to make Ugg happy, he might genuinely grow fond of you, which he is unlikely to do if you fight back. You may end up pregnant with his child (you have little choice in the matter), and a caring husband and father is a better one than one that holds you in contempt. You close your eyes and think of the Dogger Bank (this story predates the formation of the English channel).
Your story is not unique. I have already mentioned the tale of Mrs. Ooga, your mother. This might be the fate of your daughter, and is almost certainly the fate of many of your distant female descendants.
The thing about evolutionary selection pressures is that they do not necessarily act in the direction anyone likes, or endorses on reflection. Another fact about human cognition and social roles is that it easier to feel a certain emotion than it is to consistently fake it. Less cognitively taxing, in the sense that feeling good about your buddies and expressing it naturally is a better signal than smiling at a boss you don't particularly like. The best lies are the ones you internalize, and come to believe sincerely to a degree that no longer feels like lying. It might well no longer even be a lie, it is your honest reaction and desire, even if that is for something others might consider torment.
What are we selecting for? Women, who when in a situation where they perceive that their welfare and wellbeing (and that of their offspring) hinges on staying in the good graces of a male partner: put up, shut up, and genuinely like the abuse, in a seemingly paradoxical yet very true sense. Stockholm syndrome could be adaptive, if your only options are making the best of the city's shitty weather without an opportunity to leave.
This selection pressure and the resulting trait is, of course, clearly not absolute. There are plenty of women who, at least in a modern Western context, will leave an abusive relationship, or seek help from third parties. I dare say that is most women. I think that is not incompatible with my thesis, because evolution often reaches a stable equilibrium with a variety of different traits, some of which are adaptive in certain contexts and not others, but neither of which strictly dominate.
You might just have been an exceptionally unlucky woman. Perhaps the modal woman in your reference group would stand up to an abusive partner. Perhaps they would marshal their blood-kin to step in on their behalf, perhaps they would rely on social shaming. In that situation, having a spine and protecting yourself is compatible with your genes spreading, but in some cases, you must sacrifice the spine to save your life.
Many factors and traits exhibit this phenomenon. Why are there any short men in a world where height is almost always rewarded, even in the distant past? Because height comes at the cost of health, you might starve to death because of the additional baseline metabolic requirements. Sometimes, the Short Kings win and spawn more short kings and queens. Why is every man not an "alpha" male (a term I use as a convenient shorthand, not an endorsement), despite those traits often being attractive? Well, because sometimes being a submissive, obedient man in service to a greater power was beneficial, from the perspective of your genes, perhaps your memes in the context of group selection. Our selection pressures are reduced, but not nonexistent today, so it is easy to forget the time when evolution was more aggressive about quality control (and with a very bottomline take on what constitutes quality, which rarely acknowledges customer satisfaction).
My point is, most of the people reading this take for granted a society with robust social safety nets for battered women. Cultural norms that make them expressly deserving of sympathy and care. This is true in India, but perhaps not in Afghanistan (though even such a patriarchal society might have brothers and fathers stepping in, perhaps because they see it as their patriarchal duty to do so). But there's no dedicated women's shelter around for most of recorded history. Sometimes you must learn to eat shit, say you enjoy the taste, and then, through selection pressures over long eons, end up liking the taste. Unironically. Maybe enthusiastically, albeit with shame. Despite people stopping by and asking "are you okay hun, you know you can just stop, right?" and meaning it.
This explains many things: battered women. Girls who like a domineering and assertive husband. The women who have asked me to choke them, slap them, spit on them, or leave handprints. And those who do not (not that I mind particularly, at least if it doesn't have any serious risk of bodily harm).
Your body and your instincts can be awfully out of date for the environment you find yourself in. You might know that being fired from your job or being ghosted by a date doesn't matter, in the strict sense, but you still feel awful about it. You might spiral into depression or have a breakdown. This is because these were matters of life and death (and sex) for your ancestors. Your genes do try to adapt your phenotype to the environment you find yourself in, but they are very out of their depth.
The usual arguments about superstimuli like porn or calorie dense foods has a corollary: some stimuli today are not as meaningful or compelling as they would be to your ancestors (losing a job, rejection, as I've already said), but were very very bad for you in the past, to the point that your body and mind is primed to panic.
Just to be very clear: this is not a claim about all women, probably not even most women. I do not think that they're all hiding rape fantasies, or that those who do express their fantasies are necessarily cover for a sincere desire to be abused or raped. Or that they would secretly like it, if actual rape happened to them. Explaining something is not the same as condoning it. Evo-psych arguments are notoriously susceptible to overfitting. Judge accordingly.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
4d ago
I would argue with God if he tried this, or at least I'd ask for reasons to believe in objectivity beyond the fact that he's God and thus could be expected to know better. So would I if he claimed that 1 = 2 (without definitional trickery). Of course, I don't think such a perfectly neutral observer exists in the first place, which makes the whole thing moot.
I've already been writing a detailed essay about the topic, and this is something I will address in more depth. Otherwise I agree with the rest of your arguments and their implications.
The thing that gets me about this is, the innate subjectivity of something like taste doesn't prevent us from making objective measurements and coming to objective conclusions.
E.g. with something like beauty standards, it's possible to ask and answer the question objectively: "If a bunch of universities make a bunch of grad students research the patterns of beauty standards throughout different cultures in society, what, if any, is the conclusion that comes out about what beauty standards different human cultures have in common when they all publish their papers and argue with each other through peer review?"
My answer is that you aren't talking about "true objectivity" but something that is about as close as we can get in practice.
When you that kind of study on aesthetic standards, what does emerge is not some kind of agent-independent, viewpoint neutral fact. What you have you established is a fact about the very subjective people and cultures you've studied.
(Assuming the statistics was done correctly, which does not happen as often as anyone would like in sociology or anthropology.)
It is an "objective" fact that X beauty standard is the most popular for Y (most humans, assuming your sampling was representative). That does not make it truly universal. Language is imprecise, so I will say that have found out an empirical truth about the specific subset of entities you have surveyed. In the same manner as we normally talk about truth, of course.
In other words:
Let's say we did a survey and found out that the majority of humans think blue is the best color. Then we can be confident in the claim "the majority of humans prefer the color blue over all other colors tested". That is not the same as blue being the "objectively" best color. You have a frame of reference, just a reasonably well specified one. An alien would possibly disagree, or the people who are colorblind and simply can't see blue. What you have won is a popularity contest (done scientifically), and not one about ontology.
You can't dodge this metaphysical headache, but most of the time, it can be ignored from a pragmatic point of view. If the NIST clock has the endorsement of the best physicists, if it predicts temporal events with better accuracy, if it matches the consensus of other clocks better? Then I will say it's the best clock, without worrying too hard about the fact that I can't help smuggling in my own preferences about what it means to be a better clock or even the importance of telling time.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
4d ago
I'm sorry to tell you that the other mods disagreed with me, and I ended up changing my mind. You might have missed my second reply saying so. Not because of anything you've done, but because we expect the replies to immediately go into CW territory.
I mean, that's the standard psychiatric consensus. And an opinion I share. They are very distinct clinical entities, though there definitely exist large numbers of people who are "AuDHD" in the sense they have both conditions. But that isn't special or worthy of a distinct diagnosis, anymore than someone with ADHD and depression has ADepressionHD.
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