egg changed the topic of #kspacademia to: https://git.io/JqLs2 | Dogs are cats. Spiders are cat interferometers. | Document well, for tomorrow you may get mauled by a ネコバス. | <UmbralRaptor> egg|nomz|egg: generally if your eyes are dewing over, that's not the weather. | <ferram4> I shall beat my problems to death with an engineer. | We can haz pdf | Logs: https://esper.irclog.whitequark.org/kspacademia
<galois>
[wikipedia] Martin (bird) | "The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae, are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The term "swallow" is used colloquially in Europe as a synonym for the barn swallow. Around 90 species of Hirundinidae are known, divided into 19 genera, with the […]"
<raptop>
Huh, between rain and smoke, we've had 2 nights of good observing this summer on the campus telescope
<raptop>
apropos nothing, I kinda suspect that I was somewhat depressed for decent chunk of the pandemic (going to go with past tense since apparently death rates *are* finally down to normal)
<SnoopJ>
hm
<SnoopJ>
glad that the past tense applies to the depression, at least
<whitequark>
what about newly acquired disability rates
<raptop>
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
<SnoopJ>
!date
<galois>
Today is 1235 March, 2020
<raptop>
I *suspect* that at this point they're not worse (on a per infection basis) than for the flu, but that has historically been ignored.
<whitequark>
like, the only thing i really care about is "will it kill/maim my girlfriend if i catch it"
<whitequark>
and the conclusion so far is "probably, so i will wear a respirator forever"
<whitequark>
is "depression" even a thing
<whitequark>
like, is it ever not an adaptation (when there's no organic cause like adrenal dysfunction or sth)?
<SnoopJ>
fuzzy distinction but my understanding is that most practicioners wouldn't disagree that it's (mal)adaptation
<SnoopJ>
OTOH I hear horror stories about practicioners so maybe any possible position is held by someone somewhere ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
<whitequark>
I'm not convinced maladaptations (in what I think is the common sense) are a thing
<whitequark>
i.e. adaptations that are ineffective at achieving their goals
<SnoopJ>
guess that pushes the fuzz into "goals"
<whitequark>
it does, but that's where you can drag the bullshit out in the open and expose it
<galois>
[mastodon] @zip: «What I’m trying to get at here is stuff that’s not just standard policy discussion but the fact that the obvious solution, one that would usually satisfy the purported aims of both sides of an argument, must be treated as impossible, ridiculous or invisible. One that reveals an often unspeakable underlying common value, such as “we need homelessness to exist in order to discipline labour”»
<SnoopJ>
mm
<whitequark>
e.g. people have called my 'anger issues' a 'maladaptation', so i fixed it. which directly ended up with me being in a cult that now exploited someone without an effective defense
<whitequark>
the actual issue i had was that i needed better friends.
<SnoopJ>
it's definitely not a useful word when treated as binary
<whitequark>
ones that don't instrumentalize their friendships for 'healing' that just amounts to controlling how someone exists while claiming to do the opposite ( cough fiora)
<whitequark>
'maladaptation' is a useful term in exactly one case: when someone describes their own adaptations and their effectiveness at achieving their goals. and even then it's tenuous
<whitequark>
(usually it's just that the stated goals and the actual goals differ)
<SnoopJ>
I think there's a case to be made that "the organism kills itself" is maladaptive in a less psychological sense, but I take your meaning
<whitequark>
isn't all life killing itself?
<whitequark>
in a very real sense your life is a resource that you burn, faster or slower, and with goals or aimlessly
<SnoopJ>
I would say all life is dying
<raptop>
Something something life is about dying as slowly as possible
<whitequark>
is it?
<SnoopJ>
not always!
<whitequark>
SnoopJ: consider extreme sports, which are widely socially accepted, and not described as maladaptive
<whitequark>
you know, like american football
<SnoopJ>
I think that falls into the "it's either maladaptive or it's not" binary bucket
<SnoopJ>
and I reject non-continuum notions of adaptation categorically, they're just not very useful except when building an ideology or whatever
<raptop>
anyway, indivdual vs group, conflicting goals, etc give a lot of fuzz
<whitequark>
SnoopJ: yes
<SnoopJ>
yea like, extreme sports are definitely hazardous to life and limb, no doubt
<SnoopJ>
but it's a multi-objective optimization problem
<whitequark>
yes
<SnoopJ>
!how much quality of life do you get from being turned into chunky marinara at 4 km?
<galois>
SnoopJ: 117 qualities
<whitequark>
which, if you look at it purely from a "live longer" perspective, amounts to the organism killing itself faster.
<whitequark>
my overarching point is, hm
<SnoopJ>
"question your priors?"
<whitequark>
one way of thinking about wants, adaptations, etc that i use is through the lens of desire, intent, and pursuit
<whitequark>
your stated goals are (unless you are lying) your desires
<whitequark>
but your actual goals, as in, the goals you are definitionally achieving, are the goals you pursue
<whitequark>
through this lens, whatever you're doing while depressed is your actual goal, and whatever you're claiming you want to do is the stated one, or desired
<whitequark>
the disconnect between the two is what a competent practitioner would engage with
<SnoopJ>
right, a lot of the "disorder" is the tension between them
<whitequark>
yes
<whitequark>
there are also the resource limitations; material, social, and so forth
<whitequark>
depending on the exact way a goal is stated it can interact with resource limitations in different ways
<whitequark>
which is another thing worth engaging with
<SnoopJ>
knapsack problem, but for serotonin
<whitequark>
heh
<whitequark>
yeah, kinda
<raptop>
Yeah, some goals getting pushed back until more resources are available
<whitequark>
anyway, i think most cases of depression are caused by "the life being so awful it is not really worth living" and without recognizing this as a valid cause and one worth attacking healthcare is useless
<whitequark>
of course it cannot be attacked in a model of healthcare revolving around the individual
<whitequark>
(the "most" is debatable--i for sure have a biased sample that influences my view. i do think it's a significant number though.)
<whitequark>
i mentioned how my life started getting a lot better, right?
<SnoopJ>
I don't think you did above, but I have seen a lot of your musings on birdsite and now masto
<SnoopJ>
seems like change in systemic surroundings has had a big effect
<whitequark>
instead of talking to like, rich women in tech who thought they know what 'healing' is and wanted 'only the best' for me, i started talking to ex-benzo-addicts who insisted they'll make my life worse
<whitequark>
oh, like, moving to the UK? na, that's the consequence
<whitequark>
whitequark: the difference is that homeless drug addicts know what it means to care, and tech buddhists do not.
<whitequark>
so interacting with the former made me want to live, while interacting with the latter made me want the opposite.
<whitequark>
everything else is incidental
<whitequark>
fiora in particular thought it would be cool to drive my friend to suicide, so if i ever meet her i'm gonna push her off a bridge. but the dislike of tech buddhists i have is more a reflection on the general level of profound incompetence.
<SnoopJ>
in the vein of "talk is cheap"?
<whitequark>
no, of the "missing the forest for the trees" kind
<SnoopJ>
ah
<whitequark>
there are useful tools strewn around here and there, but what are the tools used for?
<SnoopJ>
!or look at the finger or look at the moon
<galois>
SnoopJ: look at the moon
<SnoopJ>
!botsnack
<galois>
om nom nom 😋
<whitequark>
for example, if you push fiora on all the intentionally obscure concepts she mentions, she just gives more intentionally obscure concepts (because she doesn't actually understand what she's doing)
<whitequark>
instead of pushing all that shit she could have simply cared for her friends, which she consistently did not
<whitequark>
i even talked to her directly about it, some time before stopping talking to her a few years ago
<whitequark>
it's pointless, she's too invested in not understanding.
* raptop
doesn't understand a lot of the tools around spirituality, religion, or whatever, in a way that makes them feel incredibly alien
<whitequark>
... good?
<whitequark>
it's probably keeping you out of any number of cults
<raptop>
TFW you're too much of a robot to fall into a cult
<whitequark>
there are cults that prey on entities like you
<whitequark>
but there's like, fewer.
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