Yea, to "deprivation" thesis. There's always IRC.
How extreme isolation warps the mind
51–60 of 143 posts
Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would like to read more from your pen if it exists, please feel free to share more.
markpneyer.me is a blog i've been updating. i wrote that thing years ago during the "feeling alienated and alone" phase; here's a link to some of the good stuff: http://markpneyer.me/about/
You have a gift. I see you edited your post, but honestly your autobiography piece was enchanting, I've rarely read prose I've connected with more. Thank you.
I do not know you, but I can recognise some of your struggles as similar to those I've encountered. I can't summarise both accurately and succinctly but perhaps if I say that purposelessness is both disheartening and liberating you will recognise what I mean.
Aside from the content, I also thought the low key plain text presentation added to it, though that's a minor thing.
Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The extreme isolation described in this article bears little resemblance to "working on projects", so the connection seems spurious.
You seem to have missed the portion about "locked away". The fact is that there is a connection... isolation. And it may result in manifestation of less severe versions of the same symptoms.
If actually you've been locked away in the way the article describes and forced to program you should probably complain to HR
Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind
#54"Since then, researchers have found that in darkness most people eventually adjust to a 48-hour cycle: 36 hours of activity followed by 12 hours of sleep. The reasons are still unclear" This statement was interesting to me. I wonder if it resonates with anyone else on HN. My BF who works from home a lot can spend days/hours at home splitting his time between working (programming) and playing video games. He has said…
I did something similar for a couple years, I used to sleep 8-10 hours but only 6 times a week. People kept telling me that my rotating hours were bad for my body, but I was in perfect shape, ate well, exercised, etc. Eventually I came back to "normal" because of certain obligations and human interactions, but I think I'll return to my rotating hours once I'm done with that.
Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
markpneyer.me is a blog i've been updating. i wrote that thing years ago during the "feeling alienated and alone" phase; here's a link to some of the good stuff: http://markpneyer.me/about/
You have a gift. I see you edited your post, but honestly your autobiography piece was enchanting, I've rarely read prose I've connected with more. Thank you. I do not know you, but I can recognise some of your struggles as similar to those I've encountered. I can't summarise both accurately and succinctly but perhaps if I say that purposelessness is both disheartening and liberating you will recognise what I mean. A…
thank you sir or madam!
Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind
#56This is more "extreme sensory deprivation is bad" rather than "extreme isolation is bad". There is lots of evidence of extreme social isolation having minimal impact on people's mental stability over long periods. It's not that we need people, it's that we need to be able to form our own narrative. We need to know what we're doing, why and what it's getting us. Extreme isolation of small groups seems much worse, espe…
Any examples of isolation of small groups? Sounds like it would make a fascinating case study.
Vice has a show called Far Out, which documents people who have lived on their own for many decades.
http://www.vice.com/far-out
Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Subjectively, it seems I've been seeing a lot of odd downvotes lately, both on my comments and others'. Haven't measured anything carefully, though.
It could be as simple as a misplaced tap on a touchscreen when trying to scroll.
Any individual downvote, that's a possible explanation for sure. It doesn't very well explain a shift in downvotes vs. upvotes... but then, of course, 1) I don't have more than a vague impression that there has been a shift, and 2) upvotes are less visible than downvotes.
Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a family in Russia that lived in isolation from the time of the Tsars until the 1970s. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russ...
Tsars were in control before ww1 not ww2.
Yes, that makes the story more fascinating. They left home during revolution and actually, youngest daughter was still living there alone up until recently (2010-2011 I think).
Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind
#59This is highly tangential, but this bit in the beginning stood out to me:
> That summer, the 32-year-old had been hiking with two friends in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan when they were arrested by Iranian troops after straying onto the border with Iran.
I'd put "going hiking to the Iraq-Iran border-zone" to the bucket of bad ideas even in better times, and 2009 (when this seemed to happen) certainly wasn't a good time.
It is just common sense to keep away from borders, especially if behind that border is Iran which is not the friendliest of nations. Double-especially if you are an American, towards which Iran is openly hostile (for good reasons I believe).
You wouldn't go canoing Yalu River either, would you?
Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind
#60There is a prisoner in the US Federal system who has been in solitary confinement for 27 years : http://www.peteearley.com/thomas-silverstein/ A court recently ruled that his conditions did not constitute a violation of the 8th amendment: http://solitarywatch.com/2013/09/25/federal-appeals-court-co... It is scary to think that while this article start out with an example of "almost 10,000 hours" in isolation as somet…
and the courts have upheld this treatment as legal Well, given his track record, what alternative is there?
One could certainly try graduated adjustments.
Fast facts: Silverstein was imprisoned for bank robbery. While in prison he was convicted for murder of another inmate, albeit on questionable evidence. Silverstein kiled and was convicted of murder for killing another inmate who was seeking revenge for the first killing he was convicted of. He led the Aryan Nation prison gang for a time. In 1983, he was convicted for a particularly brutal murder of a prison guard. Since then he has been kept in ADX (aka Supermax) custody and had no visitors. He is seen by a prison psychiatrist once a month and otherwise only sees his guards when they deliver food. Like other supermax prisoners he occupies a cell within a containment suite, so there's no chance of him communicating with other prisoners by shouting or suchlike.
Now, obviously Silverstein is all kinds of bad, but I don't buy the argument that the risk profile he presents has not changed at all in the last 31 years. It's worth bearing in mind that male criminality peaks in the late teens and then the decline steepens after age 40. Yeah, of course it's risky to grant him additional privileges, but there's a big gap between the risk that he'll attack someone in a controlled environment, and the (unacceptable) outcome of him escaping and inflicting a danger on society at large.