creep

I was admitted before that, but while on the ward I had a few breakdowns (or "episodes"). I think the psych ward made it worse in some ways and better in others. It was safe, there was a routine, and other crazies to talk to, which made me feel like I had a community. But sometimes the nurses were condescending, rude, or lacking any empathy, and despite how safe it was I also didn't want to give up my freedom. I felt "bad" for being there, like the universe was punishing me because I didn't follow the "plan", so in that way it was even kind of traumatizing, especially considering that I witnessed other people on the ward having episodes and going through a really hard time. Sometimes it was like hell and sometimes it was the only place I ever wanted to be.

It depends on what kind of breakdown and what the problem was to begin with. Some people hurt themselves when they have an episode, and those people usually get another week or two tacked on, sometimes more. I didn't hurt myself so I was discharged on normal time (about three weeks). It also depends on how well you respond to treatment even after an episode. The main thing is showing signs of recovery and having an "action plan" that you draw up with your doctor and the nurses for figuring out your life after discharge.

I was in the psych ward a little while back and had an absolute breakdown while I was there. They had security put me in the observation room behind the nurse's station, which is just like a room with thick glass on three sides and curtains on the outside and a mattress on the floor. I was losing my shit. When I finally calmed down around 2 AM, a nurse came in with a little bottle of lavender essential oil. She asked if she could put it on my pillow. I had the best sleep of my time spent on the ward, and started using it when I was discharged. I had wonderful dreams, I was calm in the morning, I was comforted, I felt safe.

If you have a specific question I could answer it, but I think it ultimately boils down to the way I look at the world in general. I feel far removed from it, like I am borrowing someone else's human body and my "soul" (or essence, or whatever) doesn't have the experience of millions of years of evolution to back up my human DNA. It feels like I was dropped here by mistake, if that makes sense. I think everything can be extrapolated from that.

Not sure what it's caused by, but the whole thing is really apparent in social situations (which often include a lot of joking around). I never have been able to "sync up". My humor is scaled way way up, kind of like if you could hear God's laughter as he observes the universe, in the Russian style. It's not relevant to anything anyone cares about.

I hope that makes sense.

I have never understood humor in the sense that most people seem to. I have my own little world of things I find funny that almost nobody else does, and it has been at times a bit alienating. I laugh inappropriately, when it shouldn't be possible to "subvert" a situation. I make really stupid meta-meta-meta-jokes that are only funny to me because I've thought about the meta beyond what anybody finds value in.

But this analysis of humor makes sense. Subverting control. I suppose that's what it has always been for me, only I'm subverting a control nobody else cares about, or I'm subverting control that is in place in some context for very good reason, and therefore it's not funny when I try to break it up. Perhaps I don't deliver it with the right control.

Anyways, I found this analysis useful. I've tried to analyze humor before and got nowhere, and this is the first time anybody else's analysis has made any real sense to me. Thanks for posting.

Both

I don't have evidence the Ancient Greek gods were/are not real. I do believe they are real in a sense. At least in collective unconscious, they will influence humankind.

Remember the days when we all thought everything was deterministic?

You can't say that ritual and worship doesn't have material impact. You have no way to prove or disprove that.

I don't think worship is an "animistic" quality. I think the tendency to worship is very much a refined trait in highly intelligent organisms.

I think society understands alcohol more than we understand weed. We know what the signs of alcohol abuse look like, more or less, and we are increasingly becoming uncomfortable with our peers regularly drinking to the point of drunkenness. It's acceptable occasionally, but even in college I see kind of a trend towards people refraining from that kind of behavior.

It's completely different for pot atm. We don't understand it but still many people think it's perfectly safe and without consequence. Now that it's legalized in Canada we can start to get ourselves informed and observe the real consequences, whatever they may be. Perhaps people will choose to refrain in the future, perhaps people will have a couple joints a week similarly to how seemingly most adults partake in alcohol now.

I also want to make it clear that I don't believe pot or alcohol are without their benefits. Alcohol certainly gives me a tangible benefit when enjoyed in small amounts occasionally. I was only trying to make a point that weed is not consequence free, that we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking it is 100% of the time.

I like this point. Marijuana triggered my first series of psychoses, before which point I enjoyed it while listening to music and hanging out with friends like almost everyone else. Unfortunately, there are too many cases like this to classify weed as "not harmful". I also know of at least two people who almost smoked their life away. They'd be smoking ounces a week, or more, just listening to music, eating and sleeping, with no motivation to do anything else. I believe the one guy is still without a job.

Of course these are anecdotes, but the fact that they are true for myself and people in my life leads me to believe it's probably true for some others, which obviously leads me to the conclusion that it isn't some magical cure-all safety good-time fun drug you can use without consequences. Most people who have a good time with it and are smart about how they use it will praise its benefits to the moon, but I don't know if those kind of people are the majority, they are just very vocal.

In Alberta we have private businesses for selling pot. I know of two that cropped up in the same area.

A great majority of people would never do this, fearing for personal safety or personal well-being-- and that's okay, that makes sense to me. But the few who risk themselves in this way are more than you think, it's just that we don't hear of them because the true heroes don't consider themselves heroes. Also keep in mind that most people sacrifice themselves daily in order to keep their loved ones happy in small ways, and that's just as inspiring.

>The idea that there is even someone to argue with about the preferred state of society is off

I completely agree. The idea of someone, or a small group of someones, who control the world is another scapegoat, a kind of fantasy we sometimes revel in to explain why everything is going wrong. "At least someone's in control".

The fact is, we're all in this together. Certain people have more influence on the direction of certain societies, it's true, but the whole mass is some kind of undulating, chaotic consciousness constantly trying to adapt to itself. The people "not in control" compose most of the mass, influencing the people "in control" from the bottom-up, like how plate tectonics et al cause tsunamis, while those "in control" attempt to place restrictions on the crowd. There is not usually a state in which one body can contain the other, unless we do have a society akin to what we have in 1984, or unless we don't have class mobility (distributing influences).

Fortunately, in societies dominated by European and "western" philosophies, we have class mobility and we have sectors of the mass actively attempting to keep the upper influences manageable and the greater mass informed. Our focus on intellectualism, scientific thought, and individualism are, in my opinion, the biggest reasons why this is the case. We want to understand how the world works, we want to know where we fit as individuals and how our individual power contributes to the collective. We want to mark our place on the world, which means we generally strive to expand our individual influence radius as far as it can go, which means any top-of-the-pyramid actors do actually have much less control of anything that might shake the boat (since we tend to shake the boat very often).

I'm glad this is finally being talked about more openly. Most of the stuff I've seen regarding issues of false accusations comes from MRAs and the like. And while I don't see an issue with MRAs as a rule, the general public seems to take issue which means that most of the discussion coming from men's rights forums isn't taken seriously.

I've been nervous about this issue since the #metoo movement and "believe the victim" slogans first started making rounds. As a female who has been assaulted and violated sexually at various points in my life, my instinct is to support believing the victim because had I been believed, I would have gone through far less pain. But that's the problem. It seems like a good idea, especially to people like me who have experienced sexual violence, but it is not at all a good idea. You cannot sacrifice innocent lives to make sure that every victim has justice. That's not justice!

We face a really difficult obstacle right now. Many victims do not have proof that they were assaulted, especially if they were not penetrated or also physically assaulted, which means that many victims will never get justice if we do not automatically believe them. That's uncomfortable and painful, but that's an issue we have to sort out while also understanding that our axiom "innocent until proven guilty" is an axiom that also prevents abuse.

I don't think the person you replied to is advocating for punishment at all.

Do you think that because I'm young I haven't experienced significant or profound change? My opinions don't come from a philosophy class. That's a bit naive of you.

I "get" it. There's so much more left for me to experience. But you and I both stand from our positions and project these positions onto the future, inaccurately.

You can't say shit until you're dead, but there's no point in stifling your predictions until then ('cause you'll be dead).

Yeah, life happens, and I know what change is like, but from my viewpoint, my interests won't change that much. Maybe one day I won't want to work anymore, but I will still want to "do". Doesn't every body want to "do"? I like math. It's kind of hard not to like math once you start liking it, you know? It's a pretty broad thing to be interested in, and could mean a number of different things for my future.

This was very cool. I'm only 23, but I'm always thinking about the future, always planning for when I get old. I definitely don't ever see myself "retiring"-- and I mean that: I will never not be interested in what I'm interested in now. If I stop working formally I will start to work informally, and I never want to be cordoned off into an "island for seniors".

Whenever I think about growing old I also think about the statement "living while you're young". That statement is a little weird to me. There are people in society who lead unsatisfying lives when they're young so that they can have what they want now when they're older. Then there are those who are against the sentiment and choose to do everything while they're young, waiting to figure out the rest later. There's a balance to strike there and I'm looking for it. I don't want to restrict myself now while I'm full of energy and hope and potential, but I also don't want to blow my paycheque on some novelty toy, or even on trips around the world and possibly cripple myself for the future. I don't want to get into a crazy skydiving accident and permanently damage my body.

Anyways, that was a really very interesting article. I learned a lot.

Does anyone here play hellMOO?

>Devs/Publishers hiring psychologists and cognitive behavior specialists to design these loot box experiences

Honestly, I think this happens in children's television programming more than in electronic games, and I can actually find sources for this if given an hour or two (I used to be very interested in the developments that took place towards psychology around the 60's). If you can provide sources for your claim I'd be more inclined to discuss this seriously, but as it stands it seems unlikely that a small, 5-employee company pushing racing games for children would hire psychologists and CB specialists to advise their games. I am not specifically talking about the example used in the article, but most such games are released by very small companies and independent devs. I think they rely on heuristics and statistics to tell them which games work and why, for sure, but that's just good design.

> To be around people actually pulls me down into the superficiality of EGO which is not where I prefer to spend my time.

This is very true. Although I am not yet content to sit on a bench doing nothing (I'd prefer to read), solitude is a wonderful hiatus from the physical attachments that are sometimes needed in life. Making friends can often be a clashing of egos which eventually dissolves until you can see each other in a deeper way-- but before that, in a room full of people at a conference for example, all is just masks and shields and feints, the social game, which just comes down to beating around the bush. It's hard not to play the game, but the more comfortable I am in solitude, the more comfortable I am in subverting the game. I'm more honest now, willing to show people I am vulnerable without manipulation, that I am confident without arrogance, and I've formed deeper connections with others as a result. When you are authentic around others in the same way you are with yourself in solitude, the "right people" just come. I have found a lot of like-minded people this way, and having that enhances that inspiration and connection to "the massive pulsating power of our universe ".

>We can’t simply be. We feel compelled to always do.

>We can’t allow ourselves a moment of self-inflicted boredom.

>We’re scared of where this boredom will take us.

>Of what we will hear in our heads if we lapse into true silence: hopes, dreams, shame, embarrassment… Fear of failure.

>We want to be entertained, constantly. The alternative — introspection — intimidates us.

I don't know about this one. I'm sure it's different for everyone, but boredom to me comes from "being entertained". My inspiration to "do" rather than to "be" comes from introspection. I'm rarely satisfied unless I'm learning about something or contributing to something-- and usually I like to do this alone, because I know what I like to learn and contribute and only I can do that best. Everything goes wrong when I seek out entertainment, so I usually don't.

These lines are kind of patronizing, or feel that way. Not everyone seeks out online psuedo-connection because they're afraid of being alone; some of us, most of us, have an idea of our direction in life, know what we're doing and why.

Maybe the article is a message to those who actually feel lonely. I'm not sure. But I disagree with a few sentiments.

> Feel free to exploit young underdeveloped brains to addict them to gambling for profit

Games are designed to keep you interested and engaged-- that's just what a game is. Children's games have included gambling since toys have existed (dreidel, jacks, marbles, to name a few). Children learn about the real world through play, and gambling is a part of that. Risks give benefits or consequences that are often unpredictable. I don't see the explicit benefit of excluding these gambles from children's games.

I don't know why you're being downvoted. Your opinion is reasonable.

The Brother's Karamazov by Dostoevsky.

I gained an entirely new perspective on love for mankind. There was a passage about taking the blame for all of humanity's sins onto oneself, realizing that this is true, and then forgiving yourself. It's a hard idea to explain or even agree with, but the principle moves me, and the more I think about it, the truer it seems.

Ah jesus, that is terrible. He believed he was 4 miles away from a town called Galice. How could this be?

I have gotten lost on several poorly-maintained roads in my time in the Canadian rockies. To think this could happen to me and the people I'm with makes me feel ridiculous and stupid.

What should a group of people do if they found themselves in such a situation?

Everyone will be exactly equal in time, my friend. We just have to wait until we find the magic formula for equality. And then, finally, you and I will be like the exact same people, and we can throw off our human bonds and rise together to a land of common-good!! I love you, comrade!!!!

And everybody clapped, and all the chairs clapped, and the projector flickered in a clap-like way.

This is so sad. I am a woman-- a real woman-- and I constantly wonder if I am where I am because of shit like this. And now I can't even have womanhood because it's being claimed by men who claim to be women.

What the FUCK is going on???

A man I know has already done this in order to get cheap car insurance. Kinda sad, really.