self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
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
I'm making the argument against being stuck in a local maximum.
You probably mean minima.
One that relies on an international supply chain for its industrial production and the existence of a large enough empire to secure sea lanes. A type-2 technology.
Now, you define a "complex" drug as one that relies on international supply chains and "the existence of a large enough empire to secure sea lanes". I have to admit, this is a.. novel definition. Are you typing this on a "simple" device? The phone or computer you are using relies on a supply chain of such staggering, globe-spanning complexity that it makes Ozempic's look trivial. If you have taken a Tylenol in the past decade, there is an excellent chance it was manufactured in India or China and shipped across those same sea lanes. Unless you are a primitivist writing on handmade parchment, you are a beneficiary of these "complex" systems. It seems strange to draw the line here, at a medication that saves lives.
Saying diabetics are addicted to insulin because they would die without it is a tautology.
Oh, not all diabetics would die. They could, in an ideal world, live short but tortured lives! Is that a tautology?
So is saying men are slaves to biological necessity. These are realities well understood since antiquity.
So? Care to reproduce such arguments in full instead of waving at them?
You will not literally die without electricity or information technology. You seem to conveniently enjoy that particular fruit of modernity, while crying about this one.
Such addictions may well be natural, but they are cumbersome, and one of the common criticisms of modernity is that it has tricked people into novel addictions under the guise of liberating them from natural ones. I would have thought this line of reasoning to be popular enough as to not demand explanation. But here we are.
Once again, the number of people who eschew electricity or computers seems awfully small. Modernity is, on the whole, quite nice. It could still do with improving.
I could throw it all back in your direction, but I'm afraid I know too well the source of your confusion, and it is that you think American Psychologists among other colleges of experts have dominion over the English language and its conceptual space. As if they can declare the valence of things by fiat.
I am not an American Psychologist, nor do I think they have "dominion over the English language". I also happen to think you're twisting that poor thing to your own ends, with willful ignorance of your actions.
Spare me your sophistry. If you Google "definition of addiction", one of the first hits is the Wikipedia article for the same, which says that:
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behavior that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences
Ozempic doesn't cause "substantial harm". Any negative consequences are grossly outweighed by the upsides of not being obese, let alone diabetic.
Your definition is ridiculously archaic, and by that definition, one could be addicted to collecting stamps, to morning walks, or to breathing. You have diluted the word to uselessness.
But as we are now in a place that is open to people who are not adherents of this religion, I therefore enjoin you to consider that such authority is not self-evident.
I have no "authority" over you, and never claimed to. Short of mod-abuse by banning you, which I've never done and have little inclination to do. I still have little patience for such clearly confused, utterly sloppy thinking, with the added temerity of trying to take the moral high ground through word-play.
Does that make your guts come out? I would hope not! Without looking it up, I believe it's a rather superficial, if widespread, infection.
(You're Japanese, so I apologize for raising the specter of radiation poisoning in your presence.)
I don't have a sufficiently strong intuition about what the typical base-rate is in the West to have a very helpful answer.
If I had to guess, I'd say it's nowhere near as bad as say, a bad neighborhood in SF, where leaving something expensive in the car is incredibly foolish. Copper stealing isn't as bad as in a ghetto in a big city, maybe.
I've never had to worry about my car being broke into. Never happened to any friends or family. I've never had the power go out because someone stole the cables. I probably wouldn't leave a large amount of gold bullion visibly sitting in the backseat, but I'm sure you wouldn't either.
Look at my Total Fertility Rate dawg, we're never having children
Eh. I don't think this is necessarily catastrophic, but we better get those artificially wombs up and running. If AGI can give us sexbots and concubines, then it can also give us nannies.
Edit: If I was Will Stancil and this version of Grok came for my bussy, I wouldn't be struggling very hard.
I'm used to using the en-dash in the manner you've described, I just find em-dashes somewhat more aesthetically appealing. If em-dashes aren't supposed to directly connect with both words/collide with them, then I wasn't aware before you mentioned it and don't mind the look!
If memory serves, Marius went off the rocker in his old age, and was rather tyrannical, if not quite as bad as Sulla.
In what contexts?
"Clean your room. Take more driving lessons instead of lazing around. Start studying for the exams you've got ahead of you (this one is rather unjustified these days), don't skip the gym, learn to cook."
Or, in more specific contexts, things like applying for a visa earlier instead of nearly at the last minute.
I think these are probably nonidentical concepts, though I would likely have to spend some additional time thinking about it to be able to write on it eloquently.
I don't think they're identical either. But all 3 have a lot of overlap, the core being something like "doing unpleasant or boring yet necessary things, in a timely manner without prompting".
Whence your urge to find solutions to problems that actually work? When it comes, how does it manifest?
You mean professionally or personally? In the former, I do what any doctor does, defer to guidelines unless I am sufficiently confident in an alternative interpretation or treatment regimen.
The latter? What everyone else does, just later and more half-heartedly. I just told myself I'd go to the gym every other day, and in practise, it's been closer to every 4th day. I just skipped going this weekend despite promises to my dad I wouldn't, and plan to make it up tomorrow.
I also tend to do things at the last minute, and thus rushed as a consequence. Fortunately, I rarely actually let major deadlines slip and then face disaster. But it's stressful to live that way, and I know, on an intellectual level, that I'd be better off not procrastinating.
I know at least one doctor with full-sleeves, they were perfectly normal and worked in emergency medicine (which does have a bit of a reputation for wildcards).
I've got a single tattoo, that's usually covered up. It's really not a big deal.
I appreciate the advice!
My most recent ex gave me a taste for brioche buns, dipping in clotted cream with a drizzle of honey. Absolutely divine. Unfortunately, I've had an uphill struggle finding such extra thick cream anywhere nearby, so the availability can vary even within in the UK. She doesn't live all that far, just a few towns away.
No. A local maximum is a peak. You seem to be arguing that people on Ozempic are stuck in a state that is better than the alternative (obesity), but not the absolute best possible state (some imagined ideal of pure willpower). If we're torturing a metaphor, that's a local minimum of negative outcomes. But why let basic logic or the meaning of words get in the way of your grand philosophical pronouncements?
I suppose Jacques Ellul only died 30 years ago.
And? Darwin died 140 years ago, but we don't treat his theories as gospel just because he's dead. Age doesn't make an argument correct, and name-dropping French philosophers doesn't make your position any less incoherent.
Ah, an appeal to an obscure academic to justify your terror of the modern world. I don't need to have read him to recognize the staggering hypocrisy of your position. You lament the "complex drug" that relies on global supply chains while typing your screed on a device whose complexity makes a vial of semaglutide look like a sharpened stick. This isn't a coherent critique of "technique"; it's just selective, convenient moralizing.
I'm critical of modernity whilst living in it. What else could be reasonable?
What would be reasonable is to apply your critique consistently, instead of drawing an arbitrary line at a medication that saves people from suffering. You enjoy the fruits of modernity that allow for your comfort and your intellectual hobbies, but you condemn the fruits that rescue others from a life of pain and metabolic disease. It's the pinnacle of entitled, ivory-tower thinking.
So I was indeed right to believe you take the DSM-V to have the power to decide the meaning of a word that has existed since the 1500s.
Spare me. I didn't cite the DSM-V; I cited the common, modern, functional understanding of a word as it is used by virtually everyone who isn't deliberately trying to be obtuse. You're clinging to an archaic definition from a historical dictionary as if it's a sacred text, precisely because it allows you to dilute the word "addiction" into meaninglessness. By your logic, a marathon runner is "addicted" to running and I am "addicted" to washing my hands between patients. It's a semantic game to avoid confronting the vacuity of your argument. Context matters. If we're talking about cars, I don't define "transmission" as "the act of sending a message" just because that's what it meant in 1400.
This isn't about Oxford vs. Wikipedia. This is about clarity vs. deliberate obfuscation. You are using language as a weapon to feel intellectually superior, not as a tool to understand the world.
And let's be clear about what you're really arguing for when you strip away the philosophical fluff. You say weaning off the drug should be the goal to avoid "slavery." For many, the alternative isn't freedom; it's a return to the biological slavery of a body screaming for food, a slavery that leads to diabetes, liver failure, and an early grave.
You can sit there and pontificate about "novel addictions" and the failings of modernity. I have to look my mother in the eye. I've seen the "natural" state you seem to prefer, and it's ugly and it's brutal. So frankly, you can keep your dusty dictionary and your non-sequitur arguments. They are useless. The pill works.
They are written for a US audience, so you might need to make substitutions from time to time if things aren't available in UK stores.
The UK might be poor and shabby, but not quite that poor!
If the two of you are so keen on it, I'll keep my eye out for ingredients. I'm more concerned about the fact that I can't identify the make of my oven or what the settings do, and I'm entirely a noob at baking.
I just watched a few episodes of Elfen Lied before being rather turned off. I appreciate an anime that shows off some titties as much as the next man, but the characters seemed one-note and the plot and pacing were.. lacking. You call it "almost good", but I'd have to say that's a better assessment than I made, heh.
I think that association is more likely to be correlational, rather than strictly causal. The rates of sexual assault vary widely across India, and there are definitely large areas where you are reasonably safe from it, while also seeing small-time crooks get beatings.
I ate more than my fair share of bananas back home! They definitely didn't have the same pattern of spotting, just some discoloration. I did, however, eat them.
I didn't expect a banana to give me trypophobia today. Out of a desire to upgrade my diet from becoming 100% junk food to merely 90%, I bought a bunch of them.
They arrived at a non-ideal level of ripeness, and then I let them sit for a few days. Now they're nice and yellow, but have a pattern of spots on them makes my skin crawl. Just about the only image on earth that otherwise does that is a photoshopped pic of someone's tits with holes added on, purportedly from worms.
In this case it seems particularly evident that the issue with drugs that trick you into not feeling hunger at your normal rate is that it becomes that much harder to operate normally without them.
You simply regain your appetite, and around half the weight back in a year if you stop Ozempic. I don't see how that's not strictly better than not taking it.
Unlike OP, I think a world where people can only solve their problems by becoming addicted to complex and expensive drugs is a bad one.
The hell is a "complex" drug? Does it have a hard to pronounce name? Does it have a large molecular weight? Does it act on more than one signaling pathway?
Ozempic isn't particularly expensive. Most middle class people in the West can afford it, if it's not covered by insurance. There are legal or grey market sources that are significantly cheaper. And as more alternatives arise, including generics, it'll only get cheaper.
Gym memberships cost money too.
And Ozempic isn't "addictive". Do people not know what that word means?
Is insulin addictive to a diabetic, because they'd fall sick or even die if they stopped?
Weening yourself off of the drug should be the ultimate goal, otherwise you're just embracing a different kind of slavery.
I would like to see you wean yourself off oxygen and water. Perhaps, to be less challenging or immediately lethal, clothing or shelter. Otherwise what are you but a slave to biological necessity?
This is all such immensely confused thinking that I don't know how such beliefs can even arised. At the very least, it is factually incorrect.
I'll allow it. It doesn't matter if it's rare, if it happens at all.
Strongly agreed. Blindsight is in my top 3 list, and Lovecraft? The man was afraid of miscegenation, his own shadow, and presumably, General Relativity, given how much he hates non-euclidean geometry.
I found the general concept of unknowable, eldritch entities interesting, but his execution lackluster. The Laundry Files does it way better, if we're sticking to the Mythos.
I know, which is why I've resisted the blandishments of doctors trying to sell this to me. I know I'd be one of the patients who didn't stick to the stringent lifestyle changes you have to make along with the surgery, and I'd be one of the ones who over-eat to the extent of bursting the sleeve.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18586571/
Those high in dietary adherence had lost 4.5% more weight at postoperative week 92 than those low in dietary adherence.
In other words, it doesn't really matter if you're a good boy/girl and listen to your doctors after you've had most of your stomach removed. Of course, bariatric surgery isn't a truly permanent solution, weight tends to come back after several years, but it was a good option before Ozempic made it somewhat obsolete.
The kind of adoption process that involves traveling the world to find the perfect orphan is straight-up child buying, and has some moral similarities to eugenic embryo modification.
You say that like it's a bad thing. I consider both of them to be fine, not that I'm looking to adopt, or at the very least "not my business".
You make it sound like I'm an upstanding civic contributor who coincidentally has HIV haha. Jokes aside, thank you, I appreciate it!
That's fair, o3 has a conversational style that is rather unique, even when considering other SOTA reasoning models. It's like a bright zoomer intern with ADHD who will try just about anything.
if you’re not a domain-specific expert
I would hope that a doctor using o3 would be able to parse the jargon! If not, they have bigger issues than merely using an LLM. 4o might be more conversational, but for knotty problems, I'd rather use o3 itself to explain arcane terminology or have another model break it down for me.
I invite further clarification.
I wonder how well you'd do if asked to opine accurately on the range of topics that people demand of their humble chatbots. Better yet, how would you fare if you didn't have access to Google? Search is a relatively new feature for LLMs, and they do better with it enabled.
I doubt you could accurately answer questions regarding astrophysics, botany, niche psychological theories, Color Revolutions, the sexual habits of Australian Indigenes and Ska music.
You would definitely not fare better when it came to specifics like dates and names.
LLMs have grossly superhuman world-knowledge, but not crystalline intelligence. I don't care who you are, not even Gwern could match them.
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Better? I don't know about that. But worse? Almost certainly not.
If the very idea of "King Arthur" somehow fell out of the collective consciousness, then as far as I can tell, nobody would really notice or care. Maybe we might see an improvement in GDP figures when fewer awful movies come out every few years and then bomb at the box office.
Now, the current state of England, or the UK as a whole, leaves much to be desired, but I can recall no point in history, even at its absolute prime, when success or governmental continuity was load-bearing on watery tarts handing out swords. And even back then, people treated it as a nice story, rather than historical fact or the basis for their identity. England was conquered by the Danes and the Saxons after all, well after the knights of the not-square table were done gallivanting about.
On a more general level, I fail to see your case, or at least I don't think there's a reason to choose false stories or myths over ideas that are true, or at least not accurately described as either.
The French made liberty, equality and fraternity their rallying cry to great effect. I do not think any 3 of those concepts are falsifiable, but they still accurately capture values and goals.
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