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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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LitRPG/Prog Fantasy Recommendations (other than 12 Below): Mother of Learning, Cradle, Dungeon Crawler Carl, The Perfect Run (anything else by that author), The Game at Carousel. I find those all to be a higher tier than the rest.

I find those all much better than the rest.

Re: clinical work. Don't feel bad about not jumping in, medicine and adjacent fields are some of the most interesting stuff there is, but the life is often awful, and it can be ultra draining. If you like where you are at, just read for fun and avoid the shit show.

Re: drugs and psychosis.

I suspect when we get more information and knowledge we'll find that most drugs (and I mean that beyond the ones that usually get fingered for this) can cause psychosis, temporarily, and rarely permanently.

And at the same time we'll find that most drugs can provide a second hit to a genetic and behavioral predisposition to psychosis (chiefly schizophrenia).

As it probably does both....who the fuck cares keep these mother fuckers away from drugs.

In my experience people who are predisposed to psychotic illness (outside of atypical situations like an otherwise normal college student go on a caffeine and sleep deprivation bender pre-finals) look like they could end up psychotic. Odd affect. Weird thoughts. Seems a bit off. Keeping these people away from drugs is probably reasonable harm reduction and prevents Jimbob Chad the tech bro from being annoyed at hearing "MJ bad" after we just sorted out that its totes fine.

I think we are mostly on the same page.