self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
I'm a transhumanist doctor. In a better world, I wouldn't need to add that as a qualifier to plain old "doctor". It would be taken as granted for someone in the profession of saving lives.
At any rate, I intend to live forever or die trying. See you at Heat Death!
Friends:
A friend to everyone is a friend to no one.
User ID: 454
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
Your girlfriend still beats the average. I've seen a lot of clearly LLM generated text in circulation on Reddit, and the majority of the time nobody seems able or willing to call it out. Given the average IQ on Reddit, that might even be an improvement.
I find it quite helpful to submit my drafts to the better class of model, they're very good at catching errors, raising questions and so on. I do this for fun, so it's not like I have any plans to pay for a human editor.
When writing non-fiction on my blog, models like o3 are immensely helpful for checking citations and considering angles I've missed. There's nobody I know who could do better, and certainly not for free and on a whim.
You'll find that a lot of artists go out of their way to head off accusations of AI. In some circles, it's standard to submit PSD files or record a video showing you drawing things. Writers and readers don't seem quite as obsessed about it, but I'm sure someone has probably tried.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
I feel like this is a far too strict definition of "authentic". Most popular art is commercial to some degree or another, artists gotta eat, even if they accrue other less tangible benefits like street cred or pussy.
What does that leave? Mostly amateur art. I don't see how why it's not possible for something to simultaneously be both a work of passion and yet selected to make at least some money.
That isn't to say that the concept of authenticity is an entirely useless concept! I think Nickelback is far less authentic than say, Tame Impala or the Arctic Monkeys. The latter, even after finding a hit formula, ended up making multiple albums that are better suited to jazz lounges and only really loved by the most diehard fans.
And then you have people who make mixtapes and distribute them for free, play in a garage band or upload to SoundCloud. Maximally authentic, most of it trash. Authenticity isn't a reliable proxy for quality, and probably anti-correlates once you account for confounders.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
I'm used to using the en-dash in the manner you've described, I just find em-dashes somewhat more aesthetically appealing. If em-dashes aren't supposed to directly connect with both words/collide with them, then I wasn't aware before you mentioned it and don't mind the look!
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
A faith truly worse than death. I'd rather be a j*urnalist.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
I guess I have to agree. How could I not, when just a few weeks back I correctly called out our friendly neighborhood Count for using it? The normies have a point there, few people who aren't journalists or pretentious literary types use them by default.
(I wonder if I could get away with large disclaimers left, right and center saying that these are artisanal em-dashes, produced only by my hands with the assistance of Markov chains at most)
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
A hard hat and a safety vest will get you in most places. If taking up an entirely new line of work isn't in the cards, maybe you can hide in a toilet? Or befriend someone with legitimate reasons to be there?
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
I have discovered, by dint of fucking around, that SwiftKey keyboard for Android allows me to insert em-dashes with relative ease. I'm torn about using them—on one end, they're more expressive than standard hyphens or semi-colons; but on the other, in this climate, that invites accusations of AI writing.
I'm entirely fine with "it's not X, it's Y" becoming deprecated, it's a rather boring turn of phrase, but I'm still annoyed by the fact that I didn't even notice em-dashes as a distinct option before they went out of style.
Am I truly worried? Uh, maybe? My writing style is distinctive enough that it's not trivial to replicate using an LLM. They absolutely won't do it by default.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
If memory serves, Marius went off the rocker in his old age, and was rather tyrannical, if not quite as bad as Sulla.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
My own novel. I'm performing a much-needed edit pass on certain chapters, which necessitates close reading, to excellent effect.
(And Reverend Insanity, as usual. I wasn't kidding about it being a whopper, I've been at it again for around a month and half already.)
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1d ago
In what contexts?
"Clean your room. Take more driving lessons instead of lazing around. Start studying for the exams you've got ahead of you (this one is rather unjustified these days), don't skip the gym, learn to cook."
Or, in more specific contexts, things like applying for a visa earlier instead of nearly at the last minute.
I think these are probably nonidentical concepts, though I would likely have to spend some additional time thinking about it to be able to write on it eloquently.
I don't think they're identical either. But all 3 have a lot of overlap, the core being something like "doing unpleasant or boring yet necessary things, in a timely manner without prompting".
Whence your urge to find solutions to problems that actually work? When it comes, how does it manifest?
You mean professionally or personally? In the former, I do what any doctor does, defer to guidelines unless I am sufficiently confident in an alternative interpretation or treatment regimen.
The latter? What everyone else does, just later and more half-heartedly. I just told myself I'd go to the gym every other day, and in practise, it's been closer to every 4th day. I just skipped going this weekend despite promises to my dad I wouldn't, and plan to make it up tomorrow.
I also tend to do things at the last minute, and thus rushed as a consequence. Fortunately, I rarely actually let major deadlines slip and then face disaster. But it's stressful to live that way, and I know, on an intellectual level, that I'd be better off not procrastinating.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
It's pretty clear from multiple responses, including some of your own, that you don't simply lack willpower
Instead, you're trying to self-proclaim a lack of willpower, which is mostly contradicted by all available evidence.
?
I'm not sure anyone on this forum is in a better position to judge my willpower than I am. Just about the only people I would defer to in that regard would be family or close friends. My family, as much as they love me, still regularly sigh and tell me they wish I was less lazy or had more willpower.
Firstly, why would I lie about my willpower? What do I have to gain out of downplaying it? I can be accused of many things, but excessive humility isn't one of them. I don't like my relative lack of willpower, it's a curse.
One that I manage to work around, and still have a reasonably productive life and successful career. I'd be much more successful if I didn't have ADHD or laziness.
(One of the core criteria for ADHD is a lack of executive function, and trust me, my diagnosis is quite clear)
The things that George was kind enough to say were impressive about me are largely things that I am naturally inclined to do. I do them for free, as a hobby. Except medicine, which I kinda drifted into because I wasn't sure what else I'd do with my life, before eventually finding a passion for psychiatry.
There are many things which are far more important, which I don't do or put off till I can't anymore, which have major impacts on my life and wellbeing.
I'm not saying I've got literally zero willpower. I'm just saying that I probably have <25th percentile conscientiousness, which is an unfortunate failing. Every time I hear about people who made nothing of their lives, or the self-proclaimed "gifted but lazy", I shudder, because there but for the grace of God go I. That's while acknowledging that I have other strengths and talents.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
Thank you for that. But human memory, while capacious, isn't infinite, and I wonder if I'll ever want these neurons back.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
I appreciate the detail. Ah, would life be nearly as colorful if there weren't so many lolcows mooing out of desperation to be milked?
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
absolute bunker-buster of a post from Big Yud himself.
Hey! I was looking for an excuse to post that pic 😡
(I really can't get enough of the WS hate. I barely know what the guy did to become a lolcow, but I'm munching popcorn nonetheless)
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
I know at least one doctor with full-sleeves, they were perfectly normal and worked in emergency medicine (which does have a bit of a reputation for wildcards).
I've got a single tattoo, that's usually covered up. It's really not a big deal.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
I appreciate the advice!
My most recent ex gave me a taste for brioche buns, dipping in clotted cream with a drizzle of honey. Absolutely divine. Unfortunately, I've had an uphill struggle finding such extra thick cream anywhere nearby, so the availability can vary even within in the UK. She doesn't live all that far, just a few towns away.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
How do I get prescription stimulants without a prescription?
You need to know a guy who knows a guy. Or peruse the Dark Net, I suppose. If you were in college or uni, you'd probably know someone pawning off their pills.
If I had enough conscientiousness to be able to get a prescription, I wouldn't need the stimulants
I managed to get a prescription, and I certainly need the stimulants dawg. If you're in the States, then there's probably an online pill-mill that makes it easy, if you can't make yourself physically go see a shrink.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
No. A local maximum is a peak. You seem to be arguing that people on Ozempic are stuck in a state that is better than the alternative (obesity), but not the absolute best possible state (some imagined ideal of pure willpower). If we're torturing a metaphor, that's a local minimum of negative outcomes. But why let basic logic or the meaning of words get in the way of your grand philosophical pronouncements?
I suppose Jacques Ellul only died 30 years ago.
And? Darwin died 140 years ago, but we don't treat his theories as gospel just because he's dead. Age doesn't make an argument correct, and name-dropping French philosophers doesn't make your position any less incoherent.
Ah, an appeal to an obscure academic to justify your terror of the modern world. I don't need to have read him to recognize the staggering hypocrisy of your position. You lament the "complex drug" that relies on global supply chains while typing your screed on a device whose complexity makes a vial of semaglutide look like a sharpened stick. This isn't a coherent critique of "technique"; it's just selective, convenient moralizing.
I'm critical of modernity whilst living in it. What else could be reasonable?
What would be reasonable is to apply your critique consistently, instead of drawing an arbitrary line at a medication that saves people from suffering. You enjoy the fruits of modernity that allow for your comfort and your intellectual hobbies, but you condemn the fruits that rescue others from a life of pain and metabolic disease. It's the pinnacle of entitled, ivory-tower thinking.
So I was indeed right to believe you take the DSM-V to have the power to decide the meaning of a word that has existed since the 1500s.
Spare me. I didn't cite the DSM-V; I cited the common, modern, functional understanding of a word as it is used by virtually everyone who isn't deliberately trying to be obtuse. You're clinging to an archaic definition from a historical dictionary as if it's a sacred text, precisely because it allows you to dilute the word "addiction" into meaninglessness. By your logic, a marathon runner is "addicted" to running and I am "addicted" to washing my hands between patients. It's a semantic game to avoid confronting the vacuity of your argument. Context matters. If we're talking about cars, I don't define "transmission" as "the act of sending a message" just because that's what it meant in 1400.
This isn't about Oxford vs. Wikipedia. This is about clarity vs. deliberate obfuscation. You are using language as a weapon to feel intellectually superior, not as a tool to understand the world.
And let's be clear about what you're really arguing for when you strip away the philosophical fluff. You say weaning off the drug should be the goal to avoid "slavery." For many, the alternative isn't freedom; it's a return to the biological slavery of a body screaming for food, a slavery that leads to diabetes, liver failure, and an early grave.
You can sit there and pontificate about "novel addictions" and the failings of modernity. I have to look my mother in the eye. I've seen the "natural" state you seem to prefer, and it's ugly and it's brutal. So frankly, you can keep your dusty dictionary and your non-sequitur arguments. They are useless. The pill works.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
They are written for a US audience, so you might need to make substitutions from time to time if things aren't available in UK stores.
The UK might be poor and shabby, but not quite that poor!
If the two of you are so keen on it, I'll keep my eye out for ingredients. I'm more concerned about the fact that I can't identify the make of my oven or what the settings do, and I'm entirely a noob at baking.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
You've got your cognac, I've got a bottle of cheap rosé from the nearest supermarket. Life, if not good, is doing okay today.
My romantic meal that I strategically prepared for mt then gf my now wife consisted of cold beer and some homemade kebabs with basmati rice on the side. I marinated them, had the skewers all ready. The one food my wife doesn't like on planet earth? Lamb. My kebabs were made of lamb, which is itself hard to come by here. Plus never serve anything but regular Japonica rice to a Japanese person, unless you are calling it something besides rice (eg risotto). But we did get married.
Alas, I can't get much in the way of goat-mutton in Scotland. That's what I was used to back home, but to be fair, well-prepared lamb comes close. Evidently your culinary skills came in handy! If Mrs. Hale doesn't like lamb, you can't go wrong with making chicken kebabs. It's too late at night for me to order some, but the idea itself has got me hankering.
But yeah I take your points. I think I just hate semaglutide. I feel like if we were in a 70s movie semaglutide would be Soylent Green. Or similar. Something out of one of the darker Ray Bradbury stories. Just a hunch. Probably I'm wrong. Do let me know.
Your innate suspicion is far too common. Modern culture has primed everyone to be suspicious, to look for things that are "too good to be true". That might work for narratives or literary fiction, but reality isn't quite the same. Sometimes, the uncaring universe is kind enough to give us things that are unalloyed goods, and also good. So it was for antibiotics and vaccines, and so it goes for Ozempic.
While not literally perfectly safe (what is? No drug I've ever heard of, and I've heard of most), it is a paradigm shift when it comes to one of the most pressing issues of our time. It is a solution to the obesity epidemic, even if that is somehow dissatisfying to some. I can only stress that the universe is uncarinv, not actively malevolent. Good things happen, or are even discovered, every now and then!
If you need to lose a few pounds, or many, you can't do much better. You can always stop once you hit your target, and seek other ways to keep yourself there. I would hope that getting my own mother, as well as myself, on it would be a sufficient signal of confidence.
It's here. Do not have high expectations.
Followed, which costs me nothing at all. Hopefully you'll get around to writing more!
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
I appreciate the advice. It's even good advice! The failure I envision is on my part, and yes, I'm aware of the risk of self-fulfilling prophecy here.
Stop being lazy, and grab the goddam reins. Because no one else is going to.
My own dad has said the same to me, on many an occasion. He's the opposite of lazy, being an extremely hard working man who has, time and time again, worked himself to the bone to ensure his family and children wouldn't need to.
I say that, but it actually seems to me that you do a lot, and are not one of the perpetually unmotivated. Your substack is active, and mine has only one lonely post, so you're way ahead of me there. You mod here. You're a friggin' doctor.
Thank you, but a lot of that is simply a consequence of my natural proclivities! Everyone has hobbies, some people are lucky enough to have hobbies that are quasi-productive.
I intrinsically enjoy writing, enough to outweigh the chore it can sometimes be. I like arguing with internet strangers, and can usually stay polite while doing so.
Medicine? I hated med school, and was a slacker for most of it, doing my best to cram at the last minute. Most doctors are rather type A individuals, I somehow survived despite being the opposite.
I eventually got better, after graduation, I spent several years working very hard to avoid the fate of never entering higher training, and for the purposes of escaping India. I suppose that is a concrete example of me becoming better, the previous exams were ones I "had" to give. Everything after was something self-directed, and I'm justifiably proud of myself, even as I've found many things about life and work in the UK disappointing and a chore.
If you had to sum up my laziness, it is rarely truly catastrophic. If I'm worried about my house catching fire, I'd probably do something about it instead of waiting for a fire to tickle my ass hair. But my life would definitely be far better if I was more motivated to do the things that I really ought to do, and earlier. For the sake of privacy, I won't go into too many details, but it has had personal and professional consequences.
There are definitely people worse off. I'm not lazing in bed high on weed all day without a job, I have a relatively demanding one, even if most other flavors of doctor have to work harder. I occasionally do things that people appreciate, but can I really take credit for that? It's just a fact about my preferences that I like writing instead of say, only video games and going out clubbing.
Gym time will ultimately make you feel good. I am sure there is a physiological reason and I am equally sure that you know what this reason is probably better than I do, but perhaps haven't reached that point of that good feeling, and you perhaps doubt that it is a point you will likely reach.
I'm not sure about ultimately. Back in med school, after a messy breakup, I was motivated enough to lose about 10 kilos while working out at least twice a week, for 6 months. I was even doing HIIT on the side, dodging the odd cobra outside (not a joke). I think six months of solid effort should normally be enough to figure out if I enjoy something for its own sake!
I didn't like going to the gym at the end, the only thing that got better was that I stopped having DOMS after the first few weeks.
Have you read the studies suggesting there could be a relationship between macular degeneration and regular use of semaglutide? Admittedly there are many caveats by the authors (admirably so) regarding the design of the study and how it was not designed to establish causality. But still. How are the peepers?
I did read them when they came out, and was slightly concerned, but not to the degree it put me off. I'll probably have to look at follow ups, but the fact that, AFAIK, medical bodies haven't immediately begun recommending regular eye tests to patients on Ozempic is suggestive. I'll have to look more into it again, but I'm not worried enough to not take the meds.
My peepers are currently rather sore. But before you get alarmed, that's because I spent this afternoon looking at Magic Eye images on Reddit and ended up straining them.
(You should have fewer qualms about throwing most things you write onto your substack. Your slice of life and the odd wistful recollections are a pleasure to read, and I'd certainly follow along. Link your substack again, if you don't mind, I'd be happy to give it a follow)
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
I just watched a few episodes of Elfen Lied before being rather turned off. I appreciate an anime that shows off some titties as much as the next man, but the characters seemed one-note and the plot and pacing were.. lacking. You call it "almost good", but I'd have to say that's a better assessment than I made, heh.
I'm making the argument against being stuck in a local maximum.
You probably mean minima.
One that relies on an international supply chain for its industrial production and the existence of a large enough empire to secure sea lanes. A type-2 technology.
Now, you define a "complex" drug as one that relies on international supply chains and "the existence of a large enough empire to secure sea lanes". I have to admit, this is a.. novel definition. Are you typing this on a "simple" device? The phone or computer you are using relies on a supply chain of such staggering, globe-spanning complexity that it makes Ozempic's look trivial. If you have taken a Tylenol in the past decade, there is an excellent chance it was manufactured in India or China and shipped across those same sea lanes. Unless you are a primitivist writing on handmade parchment, you are a beneficiary of these "complex" systems. It seems strange to draw the line here, at a medication that saves lives.
Saying diabetics are addicted to insulin because they would die without it is a tautology.
Oh, not all diabetics would die. They could, in an ideal world, live short but tortured lives! Is that a tautology?
So is saying men are slaves to biological necessity. These are realities well understood since antiquity.
So? Care to reproduce such arguments in full instead of waving at them?
You will not literally die without electricity or information technology. You seem to conveniently enjoy that particular fruit of modernity, while crying about this one.
Such addictions may well be natural, but they are cumbersome, and one of the common criticisms of modernity is that it has tricked people into novel addictions under the guise of liberating them from natural ones. I would have thought this line of reasoning to be popular enough as to not demand explanation. But here we are.
Once again, the number of people who eschew electricity or computers seems awfully small. Modernity is, on the whole, quite nice. It could still do with improving.
I could throw it all back in your direction, but I'm afraid I know too well the source of your confusion, and it is that you think American Psychologists among other colleges of experts have dominion over the English language and its conceptual space. As if they can declare the valence of things by fiat.
I am not an American Psychologist, nor do I think they have "dominion over the English language". I also happen to think you're twisting that poor thing to your own ends, with willful ignorance of your actions.
Spare me your sophistry. If you Google "definition of addiction", one of the first hits is the Wikipedia article for the same, which says that:
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behavior that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences
Ozempic doesn't cause "substantial harm". Any negative consequences are grossly outweighed by the upsides of not being obese, let alone diabetic.
Your definition is ridiculously archaic, and by that definition, one could be addicted to collecting stamps, to morning walks, or to breathing. You have diluted the word to uselessness.
But as we are now in a place that is open to people who are not adherents of this religion, I therefore enjoin you to consider that such authority is not self-evident.
I have no "authority" over you, and never claimed to. Short of mod-abuse by banning you, which I've never done and have little inclination to do. I still have little patience for such clearly confused, utterly sloppy thinking, with the added temerity of trying to take the moral high ground through word-play.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
2d ago
Are you afraid of the long term side effects?
Not particularly. It is not literally risk free, but rarely is anything we normally call "safe". The worst of the side effects can be detected, and are reversible if stopped. It's certainly far safer than the longterm effects of obesity.
How long will you be on it?
I bought six month's worth and took it with me about a month ago. So that's about the minimum I envision. If it works super well, I might stop, if I start gaining back the weight, then I have no real qualms about continuing indefinitely. It's not breaking the bank, the biggest pain would be either getting more shipped from India or picking it up on a visit. GPs here won't prescribe without a strict cutoff, and going private in the UK would be far more expensive.
See that 123 symbol in the left corner? Then you'll see the - button in the middle of the keyboard, long press it and the em-dash is right in the middle. It's got 3 options ¯ — -, or as I like to call it, the stroke emoticon.
More options
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