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I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

theatlantic.com

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Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#51

Post by leoedin »

tyingq wrote: post #29
viburnum wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has nearly twice the car death rate of Canada (and Canada hardly has substantially better weather or density than America). It's crazy.

The US does rate pretty high in "traffic deaths per 100k people". But they also lead the world in how much they drive. 8,800 kilometers per capita, versus 4,300 in Canada, 7,000 in Germany and less than 1,700 in Japan. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/12/13/why-the-u-s-trails-th... I'm sure there are other factors, but that would explain most of the difference vs Canada. Twice as much driving means twice as many traf…

But even if you look at road deaths per billion km driven, the US still scores 7.3 - more than twice Norway's 3, or the UK's 3.4, and still a fair bit more than all those other countries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic...

Yes, the US drives more. But there's also room for improvement compared to the safest countries.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#52

Post by JoBrad »

teh_infallible wrote: post #39
throwaway205826 wrote: post #13

A few years ago I got some kind of brain illness. Doctors were unable to come up with a strong diagnosis, which is apparently quite common for such cases. One of the effects of the illness was that I essentially became stupid. I couldn’t focus on anything (even trivial activities like watching television), I couldn’t compose emails, I would get disoriented easily. It was absolutely terrifying not knowing whether or n…

I honestly believe that the dumbest software developer is smarter than the average doctor. Look at how they prescribe drugs for the side effects of other drugs. Imagine coding a software patch to fix a bug introduced by another patch.

This was sarcasm, right? I’m not one of the old-timers by any stretch, but I’ve seen plenty of code that compensates for workarounds introduced by poor planning or hastily-cobbled code.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#53

Post by cowanon22 »

throwaway205826 wrote: post #13

A few years ago I got some kind of brain illness. Doctors were unable to come up with a strong diagnosis, which is apparently quite common for such cases. One of the effects of the illness was that I essentially became stupid. I couldn’t focus on anything (even trivial activities like watching television), I couldn’t compose emails, I would get disoriented easily. It was absolutely terrifying not knowing whether or n…

> Like any other industry, 90% of medical “experts” are totally incompetent.

I would guess it's even worse, maybe 1-5% of doctors truly understand the underlying physiology and will holistically look at all of the information. Most doctors I've met use population heuristics and published guidelines, and if you have something rare they just throw stuff at the wall instead of trying to understand it.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#54

Post by zrail »

throw9239393 wrote: post #14

Really well written, especially considering the author's plight. Regarding this bit: > The day of the accident I had been working on a project to improve how homeless people are placed into shelters. I say out loud, “I don’t care about homeless people” to see how it feels. It doesn’t ring true; I do care about homeless people. I just don’t feel like working. I wonder if that's directly to do with the brain damage or…

I survived a not terribly life threatening form of cancer. Two people in my family died of worse forms in that same year.

Things haven't quite been the same since.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#55

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

throwaway205826 wrote: post #13

A few years ago I got some kind of brain illness. Doctors were unable to come up with a strong diagnosis, which is apparently quite common for such cases. One of the effects of the illness was that I essentially became stupid. I couldn’t focus on anything (even trivial activities like watching television), I couldn’t compose emails, I would get disoriented easily. It was absolutely terrifying not knowing whether or n…

> 1. Like any other industry, 90% of medical “experts” are totally incompetent.

Yeah, I've come to the same conclusion. When I was a kid it took 2 years to diagnose my, frankly quite textbook, hypothyroidism. Know who first diagnosed it? A friend of my mother's who worked the toll booth at the airport. Her dog had it, you see, so she recognized the symptoms. My mother had to go full Karen mode on a doctor to get them to order the simple blood test that would confirm it.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#56

Post by ROARosen »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #38
throwaway205826 wrote: post #13

A few years ago I got some kind of brain illness. Doctors were unable to come up with a strong diagnosis, which is apparently quite common for such cases. One of the effects of the illness was that I essentially became stupid. I couldn’t focus on anything (even trivial activities like watching television), I couldn’t compose emails, I would get disoriented easily. It was absolutely terrifying not knowing whether or n…

It's amazing that you made this name and another, both posting a comment in this thread one minute after creation talking about how great this article is while lots of other people in the thread are calling it terribly written clickbait.

... Or maybe the commenter is not interested in announcing their medical history under their "real" (nik)name.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#57

Post by b5n »

cowanon22 wrote: post #53
throwaway205826 wrote: post #13

A few years ago I got some kind of brain illness. Doctors were unable to come up with a strong diagnosis, which is apparently quite common for such cases. One of the effects of the illness was that I essentially became stupid. I couldn’t focus on anything (even trivial activities like watching television), I couldn’t compose emails, I would get disoriented easily. It was absolutely terrifying not knowing whether or n…

> Like any other industry, 90% of medical “experts” are totally incompetent. I would guess it's even worse, maybe 1-5% of doctors truly understand the underlying physiology and will holistically look at all of the information. Most doctors I've met use population heuristics and published guidelines, and if you have something rare they just throw stuff at the wall instead of trying to understand it.

If you have any questions or attempt to have a discussion most doctors assume a 'where did you go to medical school' mentality, proceed to type your symptoms into an app, and then simply regurgitate the output.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#58

Post by fellowniusmonk »

throwaway205826 wrote: post #13

A few years ago I got some kind of brain illness. Doctors were unable to come up with a strong diagnosis, which is apparently quite common for such cases. One of the effects of the illness was that I essentially became stupid. I couldn’t focus on anything (even trivial activities like watching television), I couldn’t compose emails, I would get disoriented easily. It was absolutely terrifying not knowing whether or n…

While I have no particular position, my brother is a molecular biologist and bioinformatics guy who has been published in nature, featured in NYT, etc. A true scientific nerds nerd, and he endlessly ridiculed the poor science and poor scientific understanding of people on the M.D. track that he interacted with in labs while he was doing research.

I do have this anecdote from deep personal experience though... pediatric cardiologists working at research hospitals are some of the kindest, most compassionate, honest and respectful people I have met. Everyone tends to treat children with condescension and patronization (and I feel safe to extrapolate that toward their views of people in general), but those doctors seem to know that as a child you've been weighed... or maybe they just comes from a place of true compassion and pity, people underestimate the importance of compassion, kindness and listening by doctors.. especially as issues become more complex.

I do think AI assistance is going to make a large difference in medical diagnostics work even if reality hasn't caught up with the hype yet.

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#59

Post by Tade0 »

eric_b wrote: post #11
pianoben wrote: post #2

This headline is like a bad r/nosleep title. Someday, somehow, I hope we move past this dumb clickbait style.

Yeah, I couldn't get very far in to it. Something about the author's tone and writing style was awkward and offputting.

To me it felt very self-centered. Like that bit about having the worst injury. Was it really worth pointing out?

Re: I know the secret to the quiet mind but wish I’d never learned it

#60

Post by aj3 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #35
qwerty456127 wrote: post #18

> Of all the injuries we suffered, mine is the worst. My brain injury has shaken my confidence in my own personality, my own existence. I don't exist. That's the secret. This concept took me years to grok but now I know.

That's not really very useful. Of course you exist! You share sufficiently many properties with other things that we would say “exist” that it is more useful to consider you extant than non-existent. What you mean might be a more useful, meaningful concept, but what you've said is kinda nonsense. If you don't exist, who wrote this comment? I'd be interested if you could elaborate.

They where probably saying that “I” doesn’t exist as brain doesn’t really work that way and inner voice/narrator is just illusion.
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