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Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

bessstillman.substack.com

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Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#191

Post by cardanome »

autoexec wrote: post #163
cardanome wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I live in Germany where Hans Asperger oversaw the mass killing of autistic children. He decided which one were to be murdered or which had the "right kind of autism" i.e. Asperger syndrome and could serve the fatherland. (Just to be clear, the differentiation between autism and Asperger has not and had never any scientific leg to stand on.) The term Asperger syndrome was only removed from the DSM in 2013. For…

Germany is notorious for being shitty to people with mental illness. Even people with something as common as ADHD struggle to get the care they need there! On the subject of Asperger syndrome, after learning about the history I was surprised that there are people previously diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome who were (and still are) very angry about the term being removed resulting in them being lumped in with everyo…

> could mean anything from seeming a bit strange but being highly intelligent and perfectly capable

No, everyone that is diagnosed under ASD has some sort of care needs. If you are just a bit strange and it is not disabling in any form, then you are just strange.

People see autistic people on the internet and seem to miss that video editing exists and that the they are seeing just a very specific and carefully chosen part of this person. They are seeing the highlight reel not daily life that can look very differently.

One of the fears with removing Aspergers was indeed that some people diagnosed under Asperger might not be diagnose under ASD as it is arguably stricter.

> to being totally non-communicative, being drastically intellectually and emotionally underdeveloped and being unable to function requiring 24 hour care.

The problem is that many people see things as single line from low care needs to high care when in reality it is multi dimensional. Just being non-verbal does not mean that one is not intelligent, that is a huge stigma that non-verbal autistic people suffer. Many autistic people struggle with sensory issues but some don't. You might struggle heavily in one area but not so much in another.

If you know one autistic person, you know one autistic person.

> The still grossly overbroad "3 level" system is trash.

It is a step in the right direction because it realizes that care needs can change over the course of a persons life. You are born autistic but how disabling it is for you can change depending on how much help you get. It can get better or worse depending on your life situation.

Otherwise you have a current situation where people assume it isn't worth giving a non-verbal autistic child a proper education because they they think that they will never be able to life on their own anyway, acting like their outcomes are already predetermined. Or when someone with Asperger is assumed to never have serious care needs.

That said, people that have been diagnosed as Asperger, I don't correct them if they cling to their diagnosis. It is the diagnosis they have identified with for years or decades and if it what works for them then that is fine.

Still the new system is a good step in the right direction. Not perfect but better.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#192

Post by LAC-Tech »

In Taiwan there's usually a little shrine dedicated to someone deceased, and if you miss them you talk to them there, or maybe place some flowers or offerings.

I feel like this kind of ancestor worship is a pretty natural and normal way to deal with things. I'm not an expert but I believe many European religions had practices like this before we adopted Middle Eastern practices.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#193

Post by Shank »

qweqwe123 wrote: post #157

I wish someone mentioned DMT here (N,N-DMT). It's really that powerful that you can't ignore that. Look up DiMiTri ladder protocol, or even without a protocol. The thing is that DMT enthusiasts have advanced quite a bit. Now you don't need to smoke DMT to get a "breakthrough". The entire "breakthrough" moment is somewhat overhyped. But you can extract the molecule by yourself, and create your own vape, and experience…

I would argue that you’re advocating for hallucinogenic drugs in a relatively novel treatment and this seems fairly drastic even here.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#194

Post by jongjong »

I sometimes get jealous of bad people. Bad people tend to surround themselves with other bad people. So when their 'close ones' die, they probably don't feel much grief... And they probably inherit more money because bad people have more money.

It's like how some criminals describe feeling a sense of relief once they got caught. Some part of them is glad that they get punished.

Being a bad person is a win-win in this world; you win by cheating and then if you get caught, you can at least rejoice in knowing that there is justice in the world.

Being a good person is hard because everyone close to you is also good, so their death is unbearable and unjust.

The only thing which sucks about being a bad person is love... Because if you're good and you fall in love with someone and they don't love you back, it's much easier to fall out of love. "Maybe they're a psychopath" or "They're too superficial" you subconsciously tell yourself...

But if you're a bad person and you fall in love with someone and they don't love you back, you think to yourself "They must be a good person; they can see straight through me into my dark heart" and this sign of virtue makes you even more attracted to them. Hating you is proof that the person is sane, wholesome and perceptive... Which is very attractive to someone who is none of these things!

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#195

Post by qmr »

xyzelement wrote: post #117
krapp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What's significant though is the PREVALENT opinion. 100% of my religious friends want and have kids, while the majority of my secular friends do not. Do all of your religious friends subscribe to the same religion? If so, does this religion proscribe having children and raising families as a necessary, or desired, component of the faith or community? Because you could be confusing religion and culture here. Secular…

I am not sure "culture" and "religion" are separable in the long run but I don't think that aligns with the point you're making. Religious people see "be fruitful and multiply" as a literal command from G-d and one of the fundamental points of religion. So while religious culture can evolve, the evolution of this attitude isn't a flexible point. On the flip side, secular culture has no intrinsic reason for "family va…

Borderline militant atheist, my children are the great joy in my life and the best thing I’ve ever done.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#196

Post by Poomba »

khazhoux wrote: post #181
randycupertino wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still randomly gmail my dear beloved best friend who died of melanoma 18 years ago. It goes into the ether. I hope gmail doesn't reassign his account to someone else for inactivity, they will get my "thinking of you, miss you, this thing happened that you would have found hilarious" emails.

FWIW, there's no way gmail recycles inactive email addresses. That would wreck security worldwide.

Yahoo does recycle emails though if i recall

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#197

Post by marcuschong »

donatj wrote: post #47

One of my best friends died 12 years ago in our late 20s. I know he is dead, and yet a couple times a month I think, "Oh, I haven't talked to him in a while, I should text him!" before my logical brain kicks in and lets me know the deal. There is a dumb part of me that wants to believe, "Oh, he probably faked his death to get out of debt." He was such a schemer, if anyone would, he would. It was an open casket funera…

The fake death thought is very common. My brother drowned at the beach when he was only 17. We all stood there helpless, unable to find him. His body took some time to return to the shore, and a friend of a friend of the family was the one who identified him.

I was very young, only 7, but my cousin, who was 15 at the time, spent years searching for him, convinced the body had been misidentified. Later, when I grew older, I also went through the phase of thinking, "He was too smart and strong for that. Maybe he ran away somehow."

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#198

Post by smusamashah »

latexr wrote: post #3

Even before finishing the first paragraph, it all sounded familiar to me. Then I looked at the author’s name and remembered, this is the same person who wrote “The Year I Didn’t Survive”. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43020983 949 points | 7 months ago | 266 comments

Reminded of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41157974 1209 who was her husband

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#199

Post by tsimionescu »

xyzelement wrote: post #152
lotsofpulp wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>which is why, I think, atheist culture over time devolves to childlessness I don't think the data supports this, yet. Religiously affiliated completed TFR is 2.2 while unaffiliated is 1.8. However, completed TFR means this is looking at those older than 60, so expect those numbers to drop in the future. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/religion-fer... From my observations, TFR is not much different be…

Totally agree, even without reading your links. What matters is the actual faith in Gd. I see this myself. We're members of two temples - one more orthodox and one more what you'd call casual. The people that show up to the casual one once a year or even a few times a year aren't really "different" than someone who doesn't bother to show up. It's good they are there but the religion isn't influencing how they think a…

This doesn't seem to track with broader sociological trends. For example, let's compare the USA, one of the most religious Western countries, with the USSR, where 60%+ of the population was atheistic, and where the state promoted atheism. Between 1960 and 1980, the US population grew from 179M to 226M (a 26% increase). The USSR population grew from 208M to 262M (a 25% increase). So, despite massive differences in religiosity, the population rate was pretty similar. China, another largely atheistic state, grew from 582M to 1B in roughly the same period - a 73% increase.

So while it may be true that certain small deeply religious populations are more incentivized to have children, this doesn't seem like a significant effect at population levels overall. You'll also find small non-religious groups with similar behaviors.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#200

Post by NateEag »

xyzelement wrote: post #95
NateEag wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Atheism doesn't presuppose either hedonism or nihilism. And if the GP thought it did, he would not have bothered to qualify it with those labels. Since they _did_ specify "atheistic hedonism/nihilism," we know they're talking about those specific stripes of atheism, and can discuss that.

It looks like you were downvoted but for what it's worth you parsed and explained my intention accurately, and I appreciate that.

You're welcome. I'm glad I was able to clarify it.

It's not the first time I've made such a clarification - it's a very human impulse to defend your belief system from unjust attacks that aren't actually there.

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