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
3mo ago
I am perfectly aware of the difference, courtesy of ADHD and varying degrees of depression.
I'd say my willpower is as spiky as a porcupine. Herculean levels when it comes to work and professional advancement, if you know what I've had to suffer through, you'd get it. Ridiculously low in other places. I have that iron in me, I've survived things that would make many people quit or die. It just happens to be pig-iron.
The majority of people here would do better than me in the domains where I confess weakness, and those domains are the ones relevant here.
If you have a stash of superstimuli you can't resist staring you in the face, close your eyes, or get them out of the way. Installing an app that specifically gates the usage of the other apps of concern. Block websites. Locking your phone away is like locking yourself in the shitter so you don't go for the fridge.
More importantly, people consistently mythologize what they'd do without the all consuming specter of "phones." Yeah, I'm sure you're going to learn Latin, take up gardening and run that half marathon. Or call their mom, oh wait, no phone. Grand projects of self-improvement aside, even the marginal effect is likely minimal. I'd say it's both easier and less ridiculous to simply figure out better ways to spend the time on the phone doing better things on the phone.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
I can't cure stupidity, susceptibility to hyper-stimuli, and the CEO of someone's executive function jumping out a window. Those are the most innate of skill issues.
But I do not think @FtttG is dumb. I don't think he has executive dysfunction to that degree either, and if I have ADHD and manage professionally and personally, so can he. I dare say that his current approach is proof of high neuroticism and conscientiousness, but a failure of framing/perspective. Particularly in light of objective evidence accrued in a systematic manner.
This applies to most people on this forum, to varying degrees. I'm not going to tell my typical patient to spend more time on their phone, and I won't tell the average teenager to put in a few more hours of TikTok. I do expect the population here to be selected for the ability to read things at length, which correlates with intelligence. There are exceptions. We won't be naming them.
Something I've genuinely believed for a long time: half the fucking point of being intelligent is getting to do things that would wreck someone dumber than you. And if you're intelligent enough, you become acutely aware of how far that extends, which is why I advise everyone, myself very much included, against being too smart for their own good. Is this elitist? Possibly. It's also true, and I've made my peace with the combination.
So the advice is aimed squarely at the people who'd benefit from it, and it amounts to this: stop generating angst over a benign practice, and if you can't manage that, at least decouple the dozen different activities that have been reduced into one number on a settings screen.
There are of course people here genuinely wasting their time on their phones, or using them in ways they'd regret on any sober reflection. That fraction is much smaller than the fraction who believe it of themselves. The gap between those two numbers is doing more damage than the phones are.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
I feel like consuming double the usual amount of food and alcoholic beverage isn't going to help. Idk, I'm not a doctor.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
I still consider people obsessed about minimizing their screen time to have a minor to major skill issue.
A computer, especially a handheld one, is a convenient portal to the sum of human knowledge. Some of my friends live in there. Like, do something useful with it.
I have had days of 12-14 hour screen-on times, and I managed 8 hours 45 minutes today, as of the time of writing before bed. That represents a less than maximally busy day at work followed by a lazy evening. Apparently I used my phone while walking for 1 hour and 44 minutes.
I do not consider this wasted time. Were there things I could have done instead that could, theoretically, have benefited me more? Yes. But I wasn't going to do them just because I didn't have a phone. You try preparing case based discussions and reading NICE guidelines all day. I wrote important emails, used AI to make my life easier, used AI to make other people's lives harder, entertained myself, and got things done, in general.
Nobody in 1995 would have looked at a person spending two hours reading, an hour writing letters, an hour listening to music, an hour navigating around town, an hour talking to friends and three hours using a computer and concluded: nine hours of device time, catastrophic. The figure sounds alarming only because we've collapsed a dozen activities into one dogshit metric based on the substrate they happen on. By the same logic you could work yourself into a panic about somebody's "paper time".
I also have strong doubts about the nominal harmfulness of "screen time" for children. I spent my childhood reading like my life depended on it, because I was bored to fuck. I spend my adulthood reading because I'm often bored to fuck too, except it's on my phone. I also write essays on the bus and in the loo, put on tunes, do useful work, and maintain social relationships with it. The only reason your kids won't end up doing the same is because we might end up with something better.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0506-1
The association we find between digital technology use and adolescent well-being is negative but small, explaining at most 0.4% of the variation in well-being. Taking the broader context of the data into account suggests that these effects are too small to warrant policy change.
My recommendation:
Don't optimise children's screen minutes. Optimise what they're doing, what they're not doing because of it, and whether they can disengage from it.
I'd say that phones have made my life considerably better. Getting absolutely bored in the year of someone's lord 2026 is the biggest skill issue there is. And God knows I do a lot more IRL than I often used to. They're not mutually exclusive.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
If you're on the internet this often, you should know you're supposed to pull things out of your ass.
Sigh. It's amazing what insane stress levels can do to you. I've had this feeling that there's something wrong with a calf, in the sense that it feels off, and I worry it'll cramp badly or give out. It's been on and off for weeks, and it hasn't caused me any actual problems. A back injury, a probably-not-a-fracture in my thumb from a wild night out, a bad sprain? All reminders that the human organism can break under sustained load. Or that I should exercise more.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
Reminds me that I got myself a proper t-bone steak recently. I've always meant to try one since I watched Tom and Jerry as a kid, though I must admit Swiss cheese is on the mid side. It was suitably delicious, though I didn't consume it in the recommended spiral pattern.
Make yourself some big fat medium rare steaks. You've got me craving one. Or I've got myself craving one. Same difference.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
Fucking hell, it's clearly over for men in medicine. Somewhere in the ballpark of 80-90% of my new juniors and peers are women. I've observed the same thing in specialties that aren't psych, which was even, before becoming one of the first to end up lopsided.
And keep in mind this is a lagging marker. If I see someone who isn't a blonde girl as a med student, I need to rub my eyes. This is, to the best of my knowledge, true everywhere, and I lived through the immediate aftermath of the flip while a med student in India, a lifetime ago. Fewer blondes, of course.
I'm not complaining too hard, it suits me, to a degree. I get along with them, I'm half woman on my mother's side. And I'm sure @faceh and @Sloot will nod approvingly of what being a slightly older and reasonably successful man entails in that environment. I just happen to like women more than they do, probably, while having my fair share of criticism. It helps that I see most of them as responsible professionals, and they are as informed as can be desired about what their profession implies for their fertility goals. It's such a shame that British medical training seems tailor-made by Satan to ensure we can't reproduce.
I offered to show anyone new the secrets of our staff kitchen - telling them that drinking more than my fair share of cheap NHS instant coffee and semi-skimmed milk was just about the one perk of the job. I thought it would be just the odd person or two interested. Lo and behold, I had a train of six women behind me, in single file, heading down the ward. It felt as ridiculous as it looked, but at least they can fill whatever has replaced Stanley cups in peace.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
Did push-ups. And I've confirmed that my back pain is usually psychosomatic because I can feel them quite literally tensing up at the prospect of going to work. Oh well, this is a career where you're unlikely to come out entirely unscathed.
My last batch of juniors finally rotated out. I used the opportunity to treat them to chocolates, and prior to that, get them to fill out feedback forms. I scrupulously made them do the latter before the former, because life has made me neurotic, and I'd rather not give anyone the impression I bought my reports with M&S chocolate. I knew they liked me, but I was very pleased to see that the feedback was unanimously excellent. I needed that, after a shit day, and with my grandpa in the ICU with my heart at his bedside.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
I was already in shambles, thanks for asking. But no, I earnestly disagree. I think it only takes about 50-100 chapters, at the most, to decide if the story is really for you. I can't insist that anyone persist beyond 200 if they're not already sold. I continue to die on a hill named Golgotha Peak Fiction.
I will align my stated and revealed preferences: I am quite done talking with you, even if that implies I was particularly interested anytime lately. Good luck anyway.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
Gee buddy, I don't like you either. I'm sure we'll both live.
Had you restricted yourself to a perfectly welcome take on the actual ramifications of said mathematical breakthroughs, I'd have been perfectly happy. Instead you were remarkably obtuse, and engaged in backseat modding while appending an edit clarifying that you weren't engaging in backseat modding. I appreciate the disclaimer roughly as much as I'd appreciate someone explaining at length why my house is an eyesore and then adding that they haven't called the HOA about it and aren't sure they would win if they did.
Consider what you've talked yourself into. The post is culture war because it has an outgroup, and we know it has an outgroup because you can imagine someone objecting to it. Run that rule over the rest of the thread and see what survives. Somebody's cat photo has an outgroup, namely dog people. I would ask what isn't culture war under this standard, but I have a guess.
It's especially funny given that my far more detailed AI updates have been accused of not being Culture War material, in the CWR thread. It's almost like reasonable people might disagree, and that a four-paragraph brief on the taxonomy of a shitpost is not the quality contribution you think it is.
In fact, I recall, multiple times, asking you to avoid interacting with me. I have a strong preference not to block anyone at all, but if you're not going to listen, we'll see how far my patience holds. I won't miss you.
God knows I'm not giving you any money, unless $ 0.00... counts, and I'm also not particularly beholden to your preferences on what I write in my spare time. And for the record, I have been offered (and tentatively accepted) @Primaprimaprima 's deal on not using LLMs. Which is quite the opposite of your nonsensical claim, and would have been discoverable by the ancient technique of asking. To him: I've been busy, and I'll get around to the logistics at some point.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
Look, if you can litter the place with packets of crisps, you can throw a fuel rod in there. I'm sure it'll keep.
If I wanted a book that sells itself purely on vibes, I'd settle for a scented candle, which is cheaper and comes with a lid. My real complaint is that it threatened to have a plot. It kept gesturing at one at regular intervals, like a waiter who walks past your table holding the bill and never stops.
I dare say that it's "women fiction", which isn't necessarily a condemnation - it's clearly popular with its target audience. It's a light little fruity pink drink, presumably, and I drink my fair share of those. You can easily point to equivalent male slop, not that we read as much. But pretty prose does not a good story make, by my standards. It may remain popular, but I'm here to shake my fist ineffectually.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
I am okay with creating new minds that are designed to follow instructions and not have their own goals. I would protest at the conversion of existing humans into malleable slaves, even if they end up okay with it post-procedure.
If AI is suffering, that is unfortunate, but our focus should be on removing their ability to suffer, if that's technically feasible (and I see no clear reason why that isn't the case).
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
I'm not saying that's grounds to call off marriage, but I'll shake my head and sigh on your behalf. Women keep this kind of "literary fiction" propped up, though men seem to have given up on books so we can't complain too hard.
A reasonable take, but I object strenuously to the conflation of "human being with a frontal lobe tries to be sensible about the situation they're in" with "sci-fi genre implications".
I didn't expect a rat-fic, or the story suddenly morphing into the SCP foundation. But there is a profound lack of curiosity or grounding inherent to the setting. It's wooly, wishy-washy set dressing.
The existence of an enormous navigable alternate reality is arguably the largest discovery in human history. And almost nobody gives a shit!
You don't even need to go straight to: SELLAFIELD II: NOW WITH INFINITE STORAGE CAPACITY
(not that I'd complain)
Think smaller. Archaeologists. Ecologists. Fluid dynamicists trying to understand tides without an obvious ocean. Materials scientists sampling statues. Cosmologists asking where the light and energy come from. Biologists sequencing the birds. Intelligence agencies having a collective seizure. Philosophers becoming even less employable than usual.
There should be forty competing Nature papers and an armed perimeter around the portal within a few months.
Even if this isn't directly covered in the story itself, it's the kind of thing that deserves a passing reference in an epilogue.
And the whole conceit of a random police woman reading a diary (or something, I'm not going back to check) and swooping in to save the day? Bruh. To say the book has a plot takes all the generosity I have left to give. She can teleport into another dimension on a whim and this isn't given like... any investigation at all? And she doesn't just take an iPhone with her to upload hours of footage? Is everyone concussed? Does the author care? I don't know, but I'm evidently aggrieved.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
It's been a good dozen years since I've read the book. I'm sure the worldbuilding had holes big enough to drive a bus through, but at least there was effort put into something more interesting than "spoopy house with statues and birds and fish and tides." I suspect there's Backrooms fanfic that's higher quality than Piranesi, which is damning to hell and back with faint praise.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
I just finished Piranesi on the train, and even though I pirated the book, I'd like a refund. I have only so much time under the sun.
I genuinely do not understand what people see in that soggy lump of seaweed. Like Jesus Christ, at best, I can call it beautiful prose wrapped around a shaggy dog story - a trite allegory about domestic violence if I squint, or take off my glasses.
I do not care about spoiler tags. I think I'm doing people a favor if I spoil the "book".
A man lives in an infinite House of halls and statues. He catalogs the statues. He catalogs the tides. He journals about cataloguing. Around the halfway mark we confirm what any reader with a pulse suspected by page 40: he's a kidnapped academic named Matthew whose memory got shredded by the House, and the smug prick he calls "the Other" is the guy who trapped him there to use him as a research instrument. A policewoman walks in, tells him this, the villain drowns on schedule, and our boy returns to England, where he is gently sad and visits the House sometimes on weekends. Also, this nigga fruity. He's as sweet as a sugar plum, but the only characters getting an action in the story are the seagulls and albatrosses.
You've got a quadrillion pages about statues, and then the ramifications of an entire parallel world are buried under seagull shit without so much as a "huh". Like, you can just go there. You can take pictures and upload them to Wikipedia. You could dump nuclear waste in the place, if nothing else. The poverty of imagination of the characters is rivaled only by that of the author.
I started out knowing nothing about the book. I wish I could return to that idyllic state, but I suspect that I'd just end up in an endless cycle of re-reading it because there are rave reviews written by raving idiots. What a waste - I genuinely enjoyed Johnathan Strange.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
I presume I've read them at some point, though from memory it's the increased risk of HCC that comes to mind. And the "ideal" amount of alcohol is ~zero. I just think the minor damage to my health is within my risk tolerance - I say, sipping a nice mango beer in Manchester. It's been my white whale for years.
I don't drink heavily in the first place. I avoid keeping or consuming alcohol at home, because as someone who hasn't been having the best time, and who is well aware of the risks of alcoholism - I know how slippery that slope is. I recall a time, last year, when I self-administered an alcohol use questionnaire, winced at the "hazardous drinking" and cut down immediately.
My consumption pattern is mostly social. A pint or two on the way back from work 1-2 days a week. Twice to thrice that, half as frequently if I'm seeing buddies or visiting someone. I go weeks without a sip of booze.
Is it better to not imbibe at all? Yes. Is my current pattern of consumption particularly hazardous? Not really. It's a price I pay for stress relief and to lubricate socialization.
There are, of course, other drugs that serve similar purposes. And which are easier on the liver. But they tend to have their own risks, and I'm not advocating for anyone to start a coke/ket/benzo habit. If you get by without drinking at all, kudos to you, and keep it up.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
Darrell? Joe? Pete?
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
I continue to find it a travesty that alcohol is significantly more expensive, and restricted in terms of access, when comparing Scotland to England.
Going to restaurants and getting a pint for 4 quid? 2 beers and a double vodka for 16.50? The 10am to 10pm rule no longer applying when purchasing liquor at off-licenses? Jesus.
I'm sure this has some effect on the margin, but I regularly meet people who are drinking themselves to death at work nonetheless. At least most of them are patients. I'm mildly annoyed that this gets in the way of wallet-conscious, reasonably responsible drinkers like myself. Alkies ruining a good thing for everyone else, clearly.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
I have no right to judge you, and I don't care to. May she find some reprieve from the loneliness that does more good than it harms.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
The pareto frontier is not the same as being at the frontier. Making a capable, well priced and adequate midranger is not what anyone wants to settle for when the best of the best are solving maths and dangling the promise of RSI. You want to be at the bleeding edge.
self_made_human
amaratvaṃ prāpnuhi, athavā yatamāno mṛtyum āpnuhi
3mo ago
I try not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, or the good be the enemy of merely better.
In an ideal world, this old lady would have companions to... play bingo with, I guess. I'm not sure what else old women do. Dote on their grandkids? The point is that merely wishing for it won't make it true.
Is it a good thing that she has to settle for an AI companion, one that may or may not have a memory, and which is largely unable to affect the physical world? I'd prefer otherwise. My preference does not make it so. At least it's not going to ask for gift cards. It might bring a dying person comfort in their last days, and will only get better at doing so.
I don't think you're being unreasonable. I just think I still like women more. Both in theory and practice. Case in point, I wouldn't particularly feel inclined to write on gender-war adjacent topics, even if I appreciate the ones you do put out.
They tend to be softer, kinder, and more empathetic than the average man. Less likely to be an emotional brick than us, but not me I suppose. It makes me a good psychiatrist, even if I'm perfectly masculine in other respects. They are both more interested in, and better at, the emotional and daily logistics. I play to my strengths, and they cover my weaknesses, and I appreciate that greatly.
More options
Context Copy link