reo
9d ago
i agree that practical walls (and roofs) serve real functions.
but do you ever assess which walls require mending? or do you mend every wall on reflex?
reo
9d ago
The military does it all the time to regulate soldier's personal lives and it works.
The military example actually supports my point. A soldier who stays within the system, gets to reap the advantages, but under a threat of court-martial. Which means it is an external earring, with harder edges. The incentive alignment has changed the cost of disobedience, not the mechanism.
My point is narrower than the social alignment. You have told about systems which may work better for the individual. my point is what should an individual do when the system, whichever it is, is not working for them? Not revolts, not reform the priests. Become autonomous- assess independently, act on the assessment, and live with the results.
The fifth column segment is very different from my argument line. i am arguing against all priestdoms equally, including whichever corrected (or broader) one you may prefer. Substitution of one earring with another is still the earring problem.
reo
9d ago
the fence in Frost's poem is a metaphor for inherited rules (and sayings). i am not arguing for removal of literal property boundaries but for assessing which traditions serve us before mending them reflexly.
reo
11d ago
Robert Frost poem Mending Wall
'He will not go behind his father's saying,' And he likes having thought of it so well
It is an allusion to people just following what their father told. And they never counter it back. It is a deep programming of the subconscious.
Over that, they will think that it is what they thought themselves. Kind of Inception, but without the sci-fi stuff. Deep ingrained system of thought which appears like the person has thought it out themselves (makes them feel rational too, so the counter logical arguments do not work easily). They call it conviction, when it is just inheritance.
They follow what the father told, and find that things (the world, their life) doesn't quite work well that way. And they still don't go beyond them.
They find someone with a new set of sayings, and again never go beyond them.
They continue to behave like Blind Bats with new Beepers, never considering that they have a built-in navigation system and never using it.
The father said. The mother said. The society said. The priests said. And the automaton follows.
The Whispering Earring also fits here. The perfect guide able to tell you what you need to do to have lot of money, social prestige, big house, car, kids, happiness, everything what one can want - you just have to follow what the earring says and you get that. All these people want their father to be that Earring.
But there is no such earring. No such perfect sayings exist.
Trying to correct the sayings, to correct the priests, or the earring, is still the same problem. Somewhere in that solution, you still want people to follow the new corrected system. You are changing the voice in the earring, not the ear.
Yes, there is wisdom in what one's father says. But there are also things which are wrong also. One needs to be able to differentiate the right from the wrong. Then have the courage to discard the wrong things and add new right things.
Stop blindly following your Maps app when you can see that there is no road in that direction, no bridge across that river.
Frost would have liked that son to be able to assess if the neighbor was good or bad. Look at the apple tree. and Decide for himself whether to mend the wall or let it fall.
reo
19d ago
- I cycle my perfumes across the week, while some remain more used than others.
- I am not sure if this is what you are asking: perfumes/fragrances, the ones being talked about, have different notes (the initial, the mid, the late). These perfume oils reside on your skin and mix up with your body (skin) oils and that combination is what comes out as the smell. Over time, the perfume releases different sets of oils and the combined mixture keeps on changing over the course of the day, so your nose doesn't actually get acclimatized since there is no single type of scent. This is why some perfumes sit absolutely great with you while not so good with some other people. Also, depending upon your own moods and aura and other mystical elements (which we cannot pinpoint), the effect of a particular perfume also changes with time. eg. (personal anecdotal experience) - when I am stressed, X EDP perfume (2 sprays) would completely vaporise over 3 hours, would have less intensity and less attractive; while if I am very relaxed, in bright mood, the same X EDP perfume (only 1 spray) would work all day (9 hours), would smell much much better. Contra this with the colognes or deo sprays - which tend to have only top notes. in those, you will have the acclimatization problem, both over the course of single day, and across multiple days.
- Perfumes are for yourself or someone who gets in very close to you (like low talking volume level or whispering even, or slow dancing!). becoming a perfume bomb is not a good idea. if you are feeling like that, then time to stop using whatever you are using, in the way you are using. Better not to wear any scent then.
reo
19d ago
opus 1870 Penhaligon is my most fav fragrance - i consider it the dad perfume. To always keep my kids remind them of me whenever they smell it.
Guerlain L'homme ideal is another fav.
reo
25d ago
- Source. Basically, for large open source projects, an application for max 20x for 6 months free can be made. I am unsure about its applicability for themotte. Details in the source.
i am just thinking aloud without actually deeply thinking about your situation. so ignore it, if it is too whacky.
- one way is that you allow someone else (whom you trust very much) to use it from your system. vnc or something. OR put a virtual machine, install a windows or linux machine, and allow ssh into it. OR put a cloud virtual machine and allow ssh into it from outside. this way, your account remains in your control, your password remains always yours, so it never gets shared with anyone else.
reo
25d ago
does that mean that it cannot jump to make cross connections.
or does it knows but it needs you to ask (in the prompt) to show you the jumps.
i think it is good idea to include the actual prompt in the shared text. sometimes it seems to make some difference.
reo
25d ago
that means now you can use Opus to analyse Whispering Earring from every side. :p and prolly some more insight, dunno about that part with the LLMs.
reo
26d ago
i think both of us agree to a basic yes/no point: whether Iran is/will be able to put a toll charge or not.
If Iran is able to, then it has won. If it is not able to, then it has lost.
There are new developments showing that Taiwan is in talks with China (for reunification). If it actually happens in that side of the world, US would have what we know as Pyrrhic victory.
lets see.
reo
26d ago
about the missiles, this is this account which estimated 20,000 missiles at 12-day war time.
https://xcancel.com/pati_marins64/status/2042087687406903788
Regarding Strait's traffic. The US has won, yet its ally is still fighting. The US has destroyed 80-90-95% of the opponent's navy, missiles, and missile production systems, and yet it is unable to:
- convince insurance companies or the tanker companies to feel safe enough to pass through the strait.
- not providing direct security to these tankers in their un-opposed navy through their passage.
While Lloyd's shows this:
Iran unveils its own Hormuz traffic separation scheme
- Vessels transiting the chokepoint must coordinate with the IRGC Navy (not US navy).
- Iran’s latest guidance explicitly warns of anti-ship mines in the main traffic zone of the strait.
- IRGC Navy continues to vet all traffic passing through the strait on the basis of geopolitical affiliation.
In reality, US appears to have been in a hurry to shut down the ill-conceived war while exaggerating its claims to have won. While in reality, Iranians haven't lost it. The existence of a toll (of $2 million, in yuan/crypto) will mean that Iran has the upper hand. And losers never have the upper hand.
reo
26d ago
-
It would be good to have the estimated number of missiles you think they had at the start of the surprise war and how many they have left? Since you are claiming "running out of drones and missiles" and "80-90% of their military.
-
If US has won, and Iran has come to the table in a defeated position, then why is the strait allowing <10% of traffic even now? and should be no tolls either.
reo
29d ago
First a list of various short ideas:
-
Feral Child: a young kid who has lived in isolation from (meaningful) human contact. This kid has grown during the formative years without any human social network. They suffer from permanent inability, to various levels, to form language or social behavior even after coming in contact with human society.
-
People who have been raised in strict religious dogmatic environments - in which blind following provides them with social prestige and all benefits while rebel behavior gets them to be kicked out alone in the world, where they don't thrive, or be killed.
-
People who have been guided by religion, or great philosopher-guide, or who have read ancient wisdom books, they follow the guidance perfectly and greatly benefit from it. And when they don't follow or go against those advices, they suffer losses, big or small. just like the Earring.
-
Cluely in the ideal state. As per one of its ads, it is a cheating tool which can use LLM to analyse real time conversations on your first date, checking upon the date's social media and giving clues (which you can read without applying your own brain) to what would impress her most. In a positive spin, and with some luck, it may be helpful to analyze such stuff (faster and faster) to give you clues to latch on in the initial meeting. And if we can extend that idea to lightning fast responses and even brain-silicon interface, so that the neurological time gap for the entire process of listening > analysing with thinking mode > giving the clues > reading by the user > and verbalizing it without making use of the frontal cortex (/neocortex), can be reduced to (actually a faster) timeframe of the whispering earring.
-
a person who uses state of the art LLM. There are two ways, as
Centaur and Reverse-Centaur
A "centaur" is a human who is being assisted by the AI/LLM, that does more than either of them could do on their own. A "reverse centaur" is a machine assisted by a human, where the machine is in charge and the human is a meat-puppet.
The common interpretation of the original fable is interpreted in terms of "reverse centaur". and it tends to create a visceral feeling of horror as the story progresses.
But. can the original fable be extended to imply that: (point 3 above) a child or adult (named X) follows the advice from ancient books, religious or not religious (like stoicism), or follow some real flesh philosopher-guide (some wise parent or grandparent). And by following that advice, come to the same situation as the whispering earring (WE, now onwards) situation in terms of when they follow the advice completely and properly, they gain wealth, fame, have good societal status, good family situation, etc. while when they don't follow it, they lose. Exactly the same dynamics as WE, namely perfect external guidance.
And after following this process continuously in a loop for all the life situations, X actually becomes like that "wise " old man, or sage-like, has X lost his own personality over time or has moulded it for the better?
A critical difference between the WE situation and a functionally attached human with a perfect guidance system is that in the latter, the human has to interpret and apply the advice, he has the ability to reject, modify, synthesize the external guidance and then he has to addtionally endure the discomfort of not knowing whether he applied it correctly. The activities of (1) interpretation, (2) application of the external advice and the (3) discomfort of what result will occur are what builds up the wisdom, the humanness. All these things are absent in the WE example.
On the other side, living purely in a biological way without any external advice, aid, support, guidance, etc. X will become something called a feral child (point 1 above). Such kids are not some "uncivilized brute which are close to an animal". Actually, they are much worse. They become something which is considerably worse than a normal animal - they have permanent, irreversible cognitive and language defects which persist inspite of intensive corrective interventions. Human cognition is not some pre-set biological seedling which will grow on its own, but it is created by the cultural inputs to the child during a critical developmental timeframe. Language, reasoning, theory of mind, emotional regulation - these all are created by the social and cultural inputs. overall, the feral child has a behavioral function below the level of non-human primates (who still have their own social learning).
Side-note: Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development appears more correct to me. his core idea was human minds are inherently social constructions, and not individual biological achievements. No external guidance produced no developed self. He also gave a concept of Zone of Proximal Development - this is sweet spot between what the child can do and what the child can do with help of others (MKO - more knowledgeable other, other can be parent, teacher, peer, LLM).
There is an intermediate situation also. In which, a person can be brought up in a very conventional religious environment or under strict parent(s), severely restricting the inherent agency and independent decision taking ability of the person. Starting from early childhood to late adulthood. Such people have a rule based compliance without understanding of those rules, fear-based obedience, and a confused sense of morality. They never get to develop proper moral reasoning and tend to have a shallow, brittle, externally regulated personality. if they are put outside their native environment, they are completely helpless. In a way, WE is this kind of situation - it induces a learned helplessness even though there is no situation, in the fable, when the wearer removes the ring. So, we never actually see such a situation, but we do have an inkling in our subconscious about it, which creates the horrific feeling.
Within the perfect guided external system, was X's personality lost or moulded ?
Actually none of the two. X constructed a self through the process of interpretation, partial acceptance, partial rejection, application, and synthesis of the external advice. This construction process is X's identity.
So the answer, to the question whether the personality of the wearer got uploaded into the earring, is "No, there was nothing to upload to the earring anymore". The human personality got fainter and fainter till it was no more there. The extreme version of reverse-centaur. There was the Earring and the meat-puppet without any personality.
A person born in a village, who assessed the pros and cons of living in village, then decided to go to a city, lived there, and then returned back to the village versus a person who lived all his life in the village without ever thinking about its pros and cons or going outside or even think about going outside his village. For someone who doesn't know the details, both the persons will look same (a villager), but the two have qualitatively different identity structures inside. The WE produces the latter person - a person who never explored his identity, never struggled, never got into the Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development.
Regarding the LLM part specifically - are you using it as a Centaur or Reverse-centaur? Are you using it as a Zone of Proximal Development or not? if you are using it to replace your cognitive skills, never trying to understand what the answer is, why the answer is what it is, where the answer has come from, whether the answer is true or false or somewhere in between, whether the answer is true from the completely unknown unknown or a complete hallucination, if you are not doing that, then you are losing your personality into the ether. Then you are acquiring learned helplessness, which if done for a long time, will atrophy your cognitive powers. You have adopted Cluely and have become Clueless. it would be such a fun experiment if the first date is also wearing the glasses of Cluely. Cluely boy meets Cluely girl, and they live together to have a Clueless Family.
Sources:
What to do right now?
- Call emergency services, mostly police. I dunno which country, but yeah, police. When the police finds her, then do give them the texts and whatever evidence is there with you for the suicidal ideations. some kind of psychiatric hold may need to be done - her consent would not be needed.
do this first.
EDIT: i have two scenarios (for my pov).
I. if she is really Bipolar (diagnosed by a psychiatrist):
bipolar + alcoholism is a dangerous combination. on its own, each of the two is dangerous on its own. The combination is "synergistic". 1+1 = 11 kind of thing. depending upon the actual phase of the bipolar disorder, alcohol will multiply the risk of suicide.
over the past several weeks it seems like both her mood and her drinking have gotten worse.
it seems to me, this is going into the depressive phase. Multiply it with the excessive alcoholism (which can trigger in any direction, in terms of suicide attempt/execution or runaway).
if she is diagnosed bipolar, her treatment would need to be assessed. and definitely, she needs to do rehab (stop alcohol).
you need to assess yourself too. you seem to be in a burnout phase yourself, in the way you wrote a long "confrontational" note. texts are usually not the best way to convey warmth or real emotional support. suggesting going to hotel with kid to her, in her depressive phase, would look like abandonment to her (so she pre-emptively ran away herself, kinda).
see, i am not blaming you for the current situation, what i am trying to say that you yourself are bearing the brunt of working all day, taking care of baby (with help, and by not creating long talking fights, etc.), receiving threats of suicide from your partner, etc. you also need emotional support (both by having some me-time, and actually able to talk your situation with someone who can understand you). it is an impossible situation for anyone to be in. in most likelihood, you would need your own therapy, either with someone close or professional level, for your own sake, the kid's sake and her sake.
II. if she is not a diagnosed bipolar. the above options get tinted in a different shade, but directionally, they will still be true.
reo
1mo ago
i make myself understand that there is nothing i can do about it. both of them have to manage as best as they can. i can only support both of them, as best as i can, and when needed (if there is). he is prolly not a bi. so, it is technically a problem. but other things are bigger issues. they are a happy family from social point of view.
seriously confront him, albeit with good intent.
i feel, it will become a very self-regarding move to relieve my own emotional itch, rather than something which he feels the need for. this is also why i feel that whatever be your bro's relative resilience as compared to yours, since he has come to you at this point (at the juncture of possible LTR breakup, there is a deeper need for you to be there for him actively. in any case, life is always interesting and worth (even in the worst of situations, there is always something to look for).
i watched "It's a Wonderful Life" few days back. and it is a must watch. it is a fairly common recommendation for US/UK people, but not for us (in general).
reo
1mo ago
regarding my own situation, ngl, sometimes i do feel (when i read post like this) to just blast off my bro - why the hell are you not telling me this and should have told me a long time back (whenever you understood that yourself). and i have come to know about it through a third person (although, that third person is more brotherly than him, tbh). etc.
his wife is the one who has the most difficult situation, from my POV. so for her sake, things remaining unknown to most is a reasonable solution. but it still is an emotional issue.
regarding the stoic nature of your bro. sometimes, it is just an outer shell (speaking from my own experience) while there is lot of internal emotional turmoil. personally, you should just be there for him, if and when he wants to have your support. that's all.
reo
1mo ago
truly complex situation, in which primarily you cannot be the unbiased psychiatrist (howsoever you may want to be).
- i think you need some time for this to emotionally process yourself. a possibility in the past has become a reality. take time. maybe many months (or years, i don't know or can predict).
- Impending relationship end - "I don't know what to do about it." prolly because you haven't processed it emotionally (point 1) partly. maybe because your bro cannot do so otherwise, he has come about it to you now (and not before). the main important thing which you should do is to not be passive anymore (=I can be the person he calls.). you will have to do regular (every day at 9pm type call to him from your side, without fail. you can talk normally without specific subject of the breakup (let him tell you that, if he feels like), and also without walking on eggshells mentality. normal but regular calls. another thing which can be done by you is to find a therapist who can understand this situation and help your brother out directly - can be one of your colleagues in India or UK or common circle, etc.
- whatever be the state of gay partnership in India, i would think that expanding the circle of potential mates in otherwise gay-friendly countries should be a good idea for him. you can discuss him spending some time in any of those countries (even UK should be ok, i dunno) for a residency or fellowship, etc. Also, becoming sole parent by surrogacy is not allowed in India, so this point becomes even more important (since he isn't interested in having a hetero marriage partner to do so).
(personally, i am in similar but precursor situation as you. i found about my bro is gay/bi through my very close friend who found out about my bro from his friend circle. so my bro has not come out to me, since he doesn't need to. he has two girls also, and for social sake (my mother), bro and his wife are keeping it under wraps. overall, a very complicated social and personal situation. i can just be an observer without untangling the problem).
in short, be active supporter (not passive). engage a neutral therapist for him, which need not leak info to you even (patient-doctor confidentiality, which your bro can trust). and ask/nudge him to pursue wider social net.
reo
1mo ago
I have a favorite set-rep system (from Andy Bolton, IIRC).
- Start with a weight which you can do 5 x 5, then slowly progress up to 10 x 5 (sets x reps).
- Then increase to 10 x 6 (10 sets of 6 reps each) and progress to 10 x 10.
- Once you can do that three times, increase weight.
Timing: there are two ways
- EMOM (every minute on minute) = when the seconds hand strikes 12, you start, complete the set, and rest for rest of the minute. At next 12 strike, you start the next set.
- 30X0 with 60-120 sec rest. For a biceps curl, read this as:
- (3) from completely flexed position with the dumbbell in hand, you extend the weight slowly over 3 seconds = eccentric phase
- (0) at the end of complete extension you don't wait and immediately start the next flexion,
- (X) you do the flexion as fast as possible = concentric phase,
- (0) at top you don't stop for next extension.
Apply that with any weight and any exercise.
reo
1mo ago
PS: I'm able to confirm that that child was slated to have an EEG.
Good, great, news. Hopefully, the kid will have a final diagnosis and may he get treated accordingly. Fingers crossed.
reo
1mo ago
Probably: [Do conservatives really have better mental well-being than liberals? by Schaffner.
reo
1mo ago
Sadly, that probably wouldn't help.
Most likely, it wouldn't help for this patient. But the discussion of such things (of course, without PII) helps in keeping in mind that sometimes (/few times / rarely), there is a possibility that there is an actual structural cause (which may even be treatable surgically) behind the patient's symptoms. If we are able to find that out, then the suffering of the patient and his near-dear ones (in this case, mother and sister) will be reduced. And when we are able to do that, that gives so much satisfaction. Yes, there are costs, there are frustrations of being unable to diagnose or unable to treat or the patient refuses to undergo or their kin refuse because of any of the million reasons. But that is part and parcel.
But. That discussion helps you, that resident doctor, me, any other doctor who read your substack / reddit post / this post, and can connect the dots. Something became from unknown unknown to known unknown. Something which has the possibility to become from a behavioral / social mind thing to structural-brain abnormality (the diagnosis has not been confirmed, so the jury is out on that).
so, please keep writing such brilliant and interesting stuff.
i think we are operating at different levels. my original argument was whether one should assess which inherited rules to maintain, not whether practical maintenance is useful. i agreed (later) that it is useful.
but "an ounce of prevention" applied universally to all walls, all rules, all traditions, sometimes with the urgency of leaky roofs, is exactly the unreflective position i was describing. the question is not whether to maintain walls, it is which ones, and why?
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