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If kiwifarms becomes the original public manifesto posting spot for national mediafest mass shooters, their views may change.

While social media is clearly doing a number on many aspects of individual life, the effects of massive sugar and lack of sun exposure on the body and brain have horrendous consequences, and are drivers of mental instability and physical disease.

I don't know how common this is among psychiatrists, but I started seeing a psych for major depression, ADHD, and OCD-type symptoms. I was badly depressed, getting no social interaction, or exercise, eating myself crazy, sleeping 12-20 hours at a time, no sunlight or time outside, and doing a lot of drugs (mainly opiates, which was probably the undiagnosed core of a lot of my issues). I was on 15 or so different anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, anti-epileptics from age 18-24. Much of the time I was on 3-5 at once, mostly different antidepressants and an antipsychotic or two, trying to "find a combination that worked." To treat a condition that's not treatable by psychiatric drugs. I was always 100% open and honest about all aspects and answered all questions. I wanted to get better. My psych appointments typically lasted 5-15 minutes and he was always in a rush.

As far as I can remember, there was never mention of things I should be doing differently - exercise, sleep hygeine, proper diet, sunlight exposure, socializing.

Worse yet, I found out from HN that one of the drugs I was taking permanently disables one of the serotonin pathways (of which there are 7 main types and each has subtypes) in rats, and apparently it's known that at least a couple different types of antipsychotics show reduced brain volume, with "not enough data" (not enough dead brains to study) to see their effects on humans.

> Macaque monkeys administered with the antipsychotics haloperidol and olanzapine over a 17–27 month period showed reduced brain volume. These results have not been observed in humans who also take the drug, due to the lack of available data.[24]

Anecdotally, I absolutely feel like a different person now. My wit, my creativity, my ability for great joy, my kindness, my problem solving and thinking abilities in general - all seem to be quite muted now, even though I'm now taking care of myself and arguably at a place in life where everything is finally good and stable. One drug had side effects, like being unable to talk without studdering and having any sense of urgency (if I had an important appointment, I couldn't force myself to get ready, so I just watched time go by) were reported to my doctor who said that I just needed to give it time and my body would adjust. That's the drug, called Fanapt, that I feel did the most damage.

24. https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fsj.npp.1300710

What country, if you care to share?

> TikTok is a short video app used mostly by younger generations. It produces highly accurate recommendations for videos to watch. We're not talking about something like a banking app, a healthcare app, or even a messaging app. It's a video-based social network. There are bigger fish to fry than TikTok in almost every single possible category of app. Yet, TikTok is always brought up because it's from China.

If the leaders in the West weren't concerned about the "average Joe" and their (mis)understandings of politics and situations with complex nuances, then the West would likely be a true Democracy (like ancient Athens, where the People vote on issues such as War and Taxes) instead of a Republic or Democratic Republic (where the People elect a small group to vote on their behalf).

Regardless, I think our Western leaders SHOULD be concerned with the "average Joe" mentality. That includes, by a wide margin, propaganda efforts by other nations.

https://rankingdigitalrights.org/2021/07/14/testing-tiktok-d...

There are _far less_ antisocial practices featured on Chinese TikTok than on Western (specifically American) TikTok. However, the comparison to Instagram and Facebook doesn't differ all that much, so maybe they're simply giving us the content we want.

When did you last vote? The 2016 election is when I first experienced them. I asked to vote by paper as I wasn't comfortable with electronic voting machines, so they gave me a paper and pen to fill it out, which I was then to feed into the computer.

LibertyX (cash to BTC company) did something similar - at first you could only buy from stores that had Qpay (mobile phone top-up provider) and had signed up with LibertyX. Then they came to an agreement with Walgreens/CVS to allow users to pay cash and get Bitcoin at most or all CVS and Walgreens locations in the nation.

USPS and banks already verify photo IDs on a daily basis and they're not afraid to work with companies to provide an additional service if the money is right. The problem for something like USPS would be paying enough up front to make it worth training and educating at least one or two individuals at every single post office in the entire United States on how to verify and reset the passwords.

Although I suppose a similar measure using existing systems would be to send a code via registered mail with a post office hold - ensuring that even if someone is able to request a password reset, they have to also be able to go to the local post office of said person, with a fake photo ID of that person in hand. If it needs to be even more high-security to ensure USPS is following protocol, then users can opt to send a current photo of themselves on registration and instead of a password reset code, they'd receive a video chat code which allows a trained employee at EmailCompany to see and talk to them briefly and verify it's the same user who registered the email.

I'm curious who this complex service would be used by - I'm assuming crypto exchanges, etc, but then that doesn't do anything for someone just getting your password and not needing to reset it. I suppose when you set your password you can receive a list of OTPs to use on session timeout/new device.

It would be interesting to make a new account to test that. I assumed it's because they have so many millions of customers locked in with free ("free") prime shipping that they know they'll be fine price matching upwards as long as it's a similar price elsewhere online, because they are who most people I know think of when you "need something like tomorrow" and don't want to go shopping.

I think a lot of sellers also include the shipping cost in the price of the item and ship it to Amazon so it can be PRIME-eligible.

I don't buy books much, but it's definitely an issue with electronic tools. Scales, calculators, heart rate and oxygen monitors, computer accessories, or really anything with cheap electronics that aren't _too_ complex and sells well is counterfeited. If you can find the components on tindie, then they can likely find them mass-produced and cheaper, and if it sells well and makes sense to have someone design a copy and manufacture it then they're going to. Whether it ends up on Amazon specifically is a different question. Typically it's a matter of when and how long, not if.

Obviously this becomes an issue with tools because unless it's an exact copy being made in the same factory (which does happen with outsourced Chinese products and this is typically when you'll see /almost/ exactly the same product with 10 different listings and 10 different brand logos on them), it doesn't have the R&D and QA that the original product has. Even if they are made in the same factory, they don't necessarily have the same quality, latest software, or warranty of the original. Where the American company that outsourced that oxygen meter may have opted for the medical grade, consumer-safe plastic and tests each batch, the counterfeiters are happy to use the cheapest materials they can find, which are at best only lower-quality, and not actively unsafe. Counterfeiters make money through active deception, and money is the goal, so they will _never_ pay for the best materials and tech. If they can source the metal made with lead for 5% cheaper than the non-leaded equivalent, it's not even a question. They are going for the cheaper option, because that's 5% more profit.

Often Amazon is more expensive or the same price as other retailers.

I assumed the main purpose of the app was exfiltrating information because they said it only sent one single GET request, not enough to DDoS anything. They don't say that, though.

The problem is that these usernames are used to represent companies. They say "Follow us on social media: @Swann" but "Follow us on social media: Swann#58139" would be much harder for customers and potential customers to remember, and could lead to fat-fingered phishing and other issues.

Now that YouTube has shorts I wonder how many creators are switching. Part of the reason you can get so many followers on TikTok is the video length. When it started you could only post a 15-second video. Later on they allowed you to link 15-second videos up to a minute in length. Then it was 3 minutes, and in February they changed the maximum video time to 10 minutes.[1]

Viewers can watch a lot more 15-second or 1-minute videos than 10-minute videos. If 5-10 minute videos start becoming popular, expect the reach new creators can get to drop drastically.

1. https://screenrant.com/tiktok-videos-minimum-maximum-length-...

Am I missing where this is quoted from, or is it like many other quotes where it could be attributed to the person, but nobody really knows?

Edit: if I'm reading right, it seems to be a quote from Dinesh D'Souza's book "What's so great about America" quoted by Henry Kissinger in his book "The White House Years"

https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger (Quotes -> 1980's)

Aside from the aforementioned countries, I'd say Israel is quite a strong ally of the United States.

> But a Slashdot/Sigh/Reddit/Hackernews

What's Sigh? I've searched but can't find anything.

It's worth noting that although there are neurochemical and synaptic differences in individuals with depression and individuals without, the vast majority of the time it's due to environmental factors from chronic, long-term stress and unhappiness. There is no evidence to suggest any form of "chemical imbalance" happens from birth, or is lifelong, on a large scale. Therapy, building a positive social support group, and proper sleep, diet, and exercise are just as likely to "fix the chemical imbalance" as antidepressants.

The chemical imbalance idea is an oversimplification of what is going on. There is evidence that giving a serotonin agonist helps symptoms of depression, giving a dopamine agonist helps ADHD symptoms, a dopamine antagonist helps with some symptoms of schizophrenia, etc. Therefore, you want to conclude that if blocking (or increasing) a neurotransmitter relieves symptoms, that the person did not have the right levels of the neurotransmitter in the first place, thus, a chemical imbalance. The problem with this idea is that simply changing the levels of a neurotransmitter does not necessarily cause a clinical effect. Take depression, once you start taking an SSRI, your serotonin levels start to increase right away, but you will not see the mood enhancing effects for a couple of weeks. This is likely because there are issues with serotonin receptors, and the flood of extra serotonin helps to reset them. For schizophrenia, if too much dopamine was the answer, we would expect to see increases in its metabolites, but we do not. More likely, there is a problem in the pathway that projects dopamine from the midbrain to the forebrain, which causes it to not function properly as negative feedback, therefore allowing over-activity of dopamine pathways from the midbrain to the limbic areas.

I personally believe this is why many invidivuals report post-trip lessening of depression or anxiety, cessation of smoking or other addictive behaviors such as gambling, and even improvement of cluster personality disorders symptoms in some cases. It's not an inherent neurological trait, but a complex interaction in the way that you view the self and society. Psychedelics allow people to view situations and experiences in a way they've never viewed them before, and in a way this is giving a key to a perspective that they've never heard before but resonates deeply with them, helping to initiate serious change.