BC HEALTH
Saved by @jacobhtml

I know some people who seem (to me) more concerned with receiving VALIDATION for their mental health issues than solving them.

They seem to care most about other people BELIEVING their problems are real.

I'm curious about this.

 Like, it's more important to them that people know how debilitating their anxiety is, than to overcome the anxiety.

Or it's important to them that others believe that they're actually depressed, not "just sad."
Or they want people buy into the narrative that they've been traumatized, and might be something like offended if someone minimizes that.
What do we make of this?
1. One possibility is that if solving the problems seems hopeless or even just really hard, you need external support to be able to cope.

If no one cuts you slack because of your mental health stuff, maybe you're in a really bad place, so you need people to believe you.
(Though of course, just like any time you set up system that will grant resources to someone on the basis of a signal, there's now an incentive to fake the signal.
I'm sure there are people who are fooling themselves about how bad their mental problems are as a way to buy that slack for themselves.)
2. In some cases there is more at stake than simply getting slack in order to function. If you can claim to have been "traumatized" or "abused" (in a way that will be believed), you can use that to marshal political support,
because "abuse" like "racism" is loaded word that points out something that contemporary culture has coordinated to oppose heavily.

https://t.co/07v275i2gt
(A recent example of this is the AOC video about the capital attack.

While she said some things I agree with, I rolled by eyes at her use of the word "trauma" because it seemed to me a transparent way to show political support to folks who's trauma narratives are important to...
them, while simultaneously making a social attack on the other side, by claiming to have been harmed "a lot" by them.)

I guess there's a general thing here: the more you can claim to have been harmed, the more likely people are to rally to support you.
So, if someone is denying that you were traumatized, that's threatening, because they're making a move to take away the foundation of your social power.
3. Another tact: Assuming _I_ was engaging in this kind of behavior, what would be happening for me?

I was once in a social dynamic where I would construct things such that I was visibly sad or put upon, because that was the only way I knew to revive (a type of) affection.
So one plausible story is that the ONLY way that a person knows how to get sympathy (or maybe some particular kind of sympathy) is by dint of their mental health stuff.

They need it, and they need it to be believed, because that's the only way they can feel loved and supported.
4. Maybe the simplest story is that this doesn't have anything to do with mental health stuff, in particular. People just have a need to have their narratives validated, and this is just one special case of that.

(Though that begs the question of WHY people have that need.)
Notably, it seems that the mechanism of most therapy is "a prestigious person gives you attention for a while, validating that your problems / experience is real.
5. A more specific version of the above hypothesis is that people feel a latent shame about their mental health stuff, because some part of them thinks it is personal weakness.
But if the establishment certifies them as having a medical condition, or they otherwise construct a narrative about how this is a thing that is happening to them instead of a thing that they are doing, then they have a kind of security from blame and/or shame.
But if someone doubts that narrative, the latent shame comes roaring back, and so they feel threatened.
5.5. Another flavor of this basic idea:

The establishment certifies that this problem is HARD, you're not expected to just be able to trivially solve it. Which gives one protection against others' claims (or even demands) that you can and should.
(Which, surprisingly, seems to be almost a reformulation of my first hypothesis.)
Are other people familiar with this phenomenon, either in yourself, or in other people?

Do you have a story for what's going on?
(All of this was almost definitely influenced by and exchange with @HiFromMichaelV, plus some other stuff.)

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There's a particular kind of romantic partnership, with a certain sort of person, that I've wanted since I became a self-aware, directed agent at around age 15.

Empirically, this kind of relationship has been hard to achieve. It hasn't worked out yet, at least.

And this sometimes leaves me wondering if my standards are unreasonable.

In years past that desire was often very alive.

These days, I'm rarely directly or viscerally in contact with it.

I sometimes contemplate aiming for some other kind of romantic and/or sexual relationship instead. In part because I might be more effective if I...I don't know, got laid more? But that's not really the thing. More like, if I had someone around whom I could regularly relax.

But mostly, I don't pursue those alternative relationship-setups out of a sense of something like loyalty to myself + a vague sense of wrongness and/or sadness about it. It often feels like giving up or giving in.

[I might elaborate on the wrongness sometime.]
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CritRats!

I think AI risk is a real existential concern, and I claim that the CritRat counterarguments that I've heard so far (keywords: universality, person, moral knowledge, education, etc.) don't hold up.

Anyone want to hash this out with


For instance, while I heartily agree with lots of what is said in this video, I don't think that the conclusion about how to prevent (the bad kind of) human extinction, with regard to AGI, follows.

There are a number of reasons to think that AGI will be more dangerous than most people are, despite both people and AGIs being qualitatively the same sort of thing (explanatory knowledge-creating entities).

And, I maintain, that because of practical/quantitative (not fundamental/qualitative) differences, the development of AGI / TAI is very likely to destroy the world, by default.

(I'm not clear on exactly how much disagreement there is. In the video above, Deutsch says "Building an AGI with perverse emotions that lead it to immoral actions would be a crime."
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@EpistemicHope
@JeffLadish I think because the reward structure of being a bio-ethicist rewards saying level-headed sounding, cautious-sounding, conventional wisdom?

Though I'm not sure why that is.

I guess if you want to radically improve the world, you mostly don't go into a field that is about opining on other people's work, you go into something like Engineering and do the work?

I note that Nick Bostrom is what a Bioethicist should be: he thinks hard about tradeoffs and risks, and crystalizes concepts like the Unilateralist's curse and black ball technologies.

But this is starting from a place of "The world could be vastly better. How do we get there?"

I don't know why bioethics doesn't look more like a field of (less smart) Bostroms.

I guess because everyone's disgust reactions are triggered by the actually good proposals, and in order to make those proposals the consensus of the field a lot of people have to bite the bullet and stick their neck out saying "I know this sounds crazy / absurd / vaguely evil...
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My catch all thread for this discussion of AI risk in relation to Critical Rationalism, to summarize what's happened so far and how to go forward, from here.

I started by simply stating that I thought that the arguments that I had heard so far don't hold up, and seeing if anyone was interested in going into it in depth with


So far, a few people have engaged pretty extensively with me, for instance, scheduling video calls to talk about some of the stuff, or long private chats.

(Links to some of those that are public at the bottom of the thread.)

But in addition to that, there has been a much more sprawling conversation happening on twitter, involving a much larger number of people.

Having talked to a number of people, I then offered a paraphrase of the basic counter that I was hearing from people of the Crit Rat persuasion.
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@EpistemicHope
I was reading something that suggested that trauma "tries" to spread itself. ie that the reason why intergenerational trauma is a thing is that the traumatized part in a parent will take action to recreate that trauma in the child.

This model puts the emphasis on the the parent's side: the trauma is actively "trying" to spread.

This is in contrast to my previous (hypothetical) model for IGT, which puts the emphasis on the child's side: kids are sponges that are absorbing huge amounts of info, including via very subtle channels. So they learn the unconscious reactions of the people around them.

(I say "hypothetical", because all while this sort of thing is in my hypothesis space, I haven't seen clear enough evidence that intergenerational trauma is a meaningful category that I solidly believe it is real.

More like, "here's a story for how this could work.")

On first glance, I was skeptical of this "active trauma" story.

Why on earth would trauma be agenty, in that way? It sounds like too much to swallow.
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New Cannabis Based Menu for Chao Phraya Hospital patients (service being rolled out to other hospitals too)
"This cannabis special menu is bringing different parts of the cannabis plant to use with leaves to cook as ingredients in food" #cannabis #Thailand


Whilst patients in the UK are still being denied with almost no progress with #NHS Amazing to see how much progress is being made with #cannabis as #medicine in #Thailand is the same 2 year period:

A Thread: 1/10 #Thailand allowed #cannabis #medicine in Jan 2019, 2 months after the UK.
NOW:
Is approved for 160+ conditions (everyone!)
Village doctors, clinics and hospitals can supply approved products or grow and produce their own, from nearly 100 approved formulas

2/10 - Average monthly prescription cost is £20-£30.
Educational programs started for the Medical Profession within 3 months, for many others at 6 months and school kids after a year. (Google Dr Ganja - see photo)


3/10 - Shortly they will launch a new policy for any individual or collectives to grow #cannabis for #medicine for themselves and any surplus material can be sold to the government for use in centralised production.
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Now you know I love to sh-t in Harvard. But I also like accuracy. So I decided to go look at Harvard’s catalog to see its lack of military history that this article describes (they only teach history of pets it claims) and what I found shocked me! Shocked me! A thread: 1/


First off, Harvard students literally have multiple sections of military history that they can take listed. (It appears these ones are taught at MIT, so they might have to walk down the street for these) but... 2/


Say they want to stay on campus...they can only take numerous classes on war and diplomacy...3/


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ECTOPIC PREGNANCY

A woman just lost her life due to ectopic pregnancy!

It's a pregnancy in which the embryo attaches outside the womb. It can be life-threatening.

But we can save lives by helping educate women on our Timelines with this.

THREAD 🧵


In the human body, a fertilized egg hardly survives outside the womb. If allowed to grow, it may damage nearby organs & cause severe blood loss.

The bulk of ectopic pregnancies occur in/along the Fallopian tubes.

Some in the ovaries, cervix or a random location in the abdomen.


The usual symptoms of ectopic pregnancy a woman may experience esp. in early pregnancy are;

* Abdominal pain
* Vaginal bleeding, &
* Amenorrhea (missing your period)

Other pregnancy symptoms like breast fullness & occasional nausea may be there too.

But the common DANGER SIGNS of ectopic pregnancy that may signify rupture are;

🔴 Rigid abdomen

🔴 Severe abdominal pain

🔴 Shoulder tip pain, &

🔴 Signs of shock such as cold hands & feet.

With these signs, immediate medical attention is needed to save the woman's life!

Your chances of having an ectopic pregnancy are higher if you have;

1. Previous ectopic pregnancy

2. STI's like gonorrhea

3. Fertility treatments like IVF*

4. Fallopian tube surgeries

5. Pregnancy while using an Intrauterine Contraceptive Device

6. Smoking history! 🚭
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If you want to get in the best shape of your life by 2023 read this:

1. Get 80-90% of your calories from single ingredient nutrient dense foods.

2. Avoid processed foods as much as possible because they're addictive, devoid of nutrients & leave you feeling empty.

3. Eating similar meals every day is an underrated way to get lean.

4. Lift weights 2-4x a week. Use progressive overload to build muscle.

5. Progressive overload is simply doing more through reps, weight or frequency,

6. Eat .8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. This helps you build & retain muscle. Eat protein with every meal.

7. Avoid trying to lose weight. Focus on creating good habits. The first is focused on an outcome the latter is focused on your lifestyle.

8. Your aim is to become the type of person who stays in shape. In order to change your body your identity must come along for the journey.

9. Eat your meals on a schedule. This will help train your hunger & circadian rhythms.

10. Replace snacking with water & drink it before meals. You usually want to snack because you're bored or dehydrated. Water also helps you feel full & increases energy.
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Sarcomeres in cardiac myocytes (heart muscle cells) are mechanically coupled to focal adhesions through dorsal stress fiber-like structures. #cardiotwitter #CellBiology
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A thread based on Figure 1

A mature adult cardiac myocyte is packed with sarcomeres, whose contractile forces are coupled to the extracellular environment. With sarcomeres so close to the plasma membrane, how can we study the nature of this coupling?
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Short answer: find a model system where the sarcomeres are not so close to what the cardiac myocyte is attached to. Enter, iPS cell-derived cardiac myocytes. These are “immature” in culture as they resemble fetal or neonatal cardiac myocytes.
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Our previous work on iPS cardiac myocytes reported that sarcomere containing myofibrils assembled on the top surface of the myocyte.
https://t.co/xIBCu3hG1W
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The sarcomeres seemed to be connected to focal adhesions on the bottom of the cell by thin actin bundles that resembled the dorsal stress fibers (DSF) commonly found in non-muscle cells. This movie steps through a Z stack of a myocyte starting at the bottom of the cell.
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