I'm an addict • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm an addict

#411

Post by Guest19023892 » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC

jlongr wrote: post #355

Guest19023892 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Why” we exist is coincidence and millions of years of happy little evolutionary experiments blindly conducted by nature. I'm not religious either, but I always find this hard to believe. What are the odds nature happened to provide all the building blocks for us to be here to question our existence? It seems far more likely that (i) nothing would exist, (ii) the universe wouldn't have the right combination of prop…

Infinitesimally low probability doesn't imply impossibility. If the event is in the probability space then it can certainly happen, no matter how serendipitous we may find it. What is so remarkable about the iPhone or the spaceship? Why is it worthy of note when compared to any other phenomena in the universe? What brings you to make a distinction between a live human body and an inanimate celestial body?

> What is so remarkable about the iPhone or the spaceship? What brings you to make a distinction between a "live" human body and an "inanimate" celestial body?

I'm not trying to say that humans are more important or meaningful than a rock. I agree with you that nothing inherently has meaning and it's an attribute we create and assign. I'm only saying that we're intelligent beings that are capable of some rather advanced tasks, such as creating a iPhone. In my opinion, it seems far less likely for us to exist than either nothing, or a simpler universe without us.

Yes, it's not impossible, just like I could throw a handful of sand in that air that falls to the ground and happens to write the story of my life. It's so unlikely though that I can't help but wonder if it wasn't just chance that we're here.

Re: I'm an addict

#412

Post by kodah » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC

kayodelycaon wrote: post #371

kodah wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think your reaction is understandable, since "Everyone is/has a little X" is commonly used to dismiss or minimize the severity of a condition the speaker doesn't understand. Personally when I hear people speak like this I assume they're trying to root someone in an empathetic perspective. I'm not sure I've ever heard it from someone who was arguing against the seriousness of the subject.

I grew up my entire life being told everyone has a little ADHD and I just needed to try harder to pay attention. I've still heard it as an adult. My issue was using the phrase in the first place without some explanation of just how wrong the idea is.

Ah, yeah, I guess if it's being said to you about you, that's different. In this case, OP is speaking to a wider audience, so I see that as different, but I appreciate your perspective.

Re: I'm an addict

#413

Post by loves_mangoes » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:56 PM UTC

sirsinsalot wrote: post #387

annie_muss wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a better way to frame it is on a continuum. If you lose 1% of the strength in your legs you probably won't notice. If you lose 99% you're stuck using a wheelchair. There's no clearly defined point where it goes from "normal" to "problematic", but if it's bad enough to affect you functioning in day-to-day life then it's an issue.

Yes, but the clue is in the name. Disorder. It's like concern for having clean hands. A certain amount is sensible, normal and part of being a human. Too much of that concern, when it becomes life ruining anxiety ... is a disorder. Normal concern for clean hands isn't "a little bit of OCD".

Autism is also classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder, and yet it is a spectrum.

The fact that we, as humans, have to decide who gets the label of 'Has the Disorder' and who doesn't is just an artifact of how we like to label things.

For the same reason that you don't magically go from a child to an adult the minute you turn 18. There is a smooth spectrum of development as people age, but for practical and legal reasons we need a cutoff for officially calling people adults.

Some disorders are also on a smooth spectrum. Some people have a little anxiety, or show a few autistic symptoms without it ruining their lives. That doesn't invalidate the experience of people who have severe anxiety or a more advanced degree of autism. Don't imbue too much meaning to the where the cutoff for the label is.

There's no need to gatekeep mental illness, the goal is helping people. We're not competing for who has the real thing™ and deserves to be taken seriously. Let's just listen to people, let them describe things as they perceive them to be, and try to be helpful.

Re: I'm an addict

#414

Post by Jim_Heckler » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:56 PM UTC

anonymoushn wrote: post #291

burner22 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel seen. My mechanism for remaining focused and getting through work has been to consume harder illicit substances, mostly cocaine. It's effective but definitely not sustainable long time and I'm not too sure where from here.

Desoxyn 5mg is highly reviewed by people who have it prescribed for ADHD.

I don't see why one would jump to methamphetamine as a prescription when dextroamphetamine is usually at least as effective with fewer adverse effects

Re: I'm an addict

#415

Post by v-erne » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

swat535 wrote: post #257

Jaruzel wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I recommend religion and religious teachings which address this and many other daily worldly issues perfectly. This advice simply doesn't work if the recipient is an atheist. To me, Religious texts are made up fiction that hold no more meaning in my world view than Harry Potter or Game of Thrones. If you read enough fiction on a shared topic, you'll be able to pull the same number of 'enlightening' quotes from thos…

> Religious texts are made up fiction that hold no more meaning in my world view than Harry Potter or Game of Thrones I have been downvoted many times (not sure why?) for stating this on HN, but I will state it again: It's sad that this line of thinking has taken over the modern time. We now have "science", so we don't need any of that silly stuff like "philosophy" or "art" or "religion". All can be explained through…

>> More to it, to anyone who claims religious people are intellectual inept, I would simply challenge you to read any of the material written by the intellectuals of the tradition

That's a straw man - we all are idiots sometimes (I believe that most of times but that just me) and this little silly observation can be easily used to explain how otherwise rational and intelligent person can hold two opposite views in their had. Our rational abilities are greatly exaggerated by people like You who believe that there are magical others that can be rational all the time in all aspects of their life. Those people believe in God because they want to believe (by which I mean its an emotional decision and not an logical one) and the logic is there only to rationalize what their emotions are telling them. I suspect that if medicine will get advanced enough we will see finally that by just playing with memory and emotional state of person we can easily turn the most avid believer into Christopher Hitchens (and vice versa).

Re: I'm an addict

#416

Post by everyone » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #230

everyone wrote: post #166

I'm confused by this.. "over 6 hours watching youtube videos, an hour of reading through comments[1] on hacker news, 3 hours of sleep and poof, the day is gone." The day is only 10 hours long? Also author is only getting 3 hours of sleep per day!?!?

They are speaking figuratively about the day being gone.

That does not clarify things for me.

Re: I'm an addict

#417

Post by jodi » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

comboy wrote: post #342

wnolens wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we have completely different brains. What you said hits me like someone telling me to "be happy" when I'm depressed. It's not a matter of rationalization. I am jealous this works for you. Life would be so much easier if my intrinsic motivation was well-aligned with my rational thinking.

I suspect they are not that different. Rationalization doesn't work, it's what creates "I should be doing X instead" in the first place. I don't know if it can help you in whatever you want to achieve, but to me just realization that I always do what I want was huge. You can't honestly tell yourself you want to be doing this right now and that you don't want to be doing it right now. Once you unpack what does that me…

> Btw if somebody knows this kind of thinking from a different source I would appreciate some pointers, because I'm sure I'm not the first one to come up with this but I haven't stumbled upon it yet and I would much prefer to point people to that direction.

I just finished the book Four Thousand Weeks: Time management for mortals. Similar thinking in that a lot of suffering and procrastination is caused by not accepting the reality of our finite time on earth, that we can never do it all, and we have to make tough choices and most people try avoid the anxiety of facing those by distracting themselves. I loved the book, and your comment, as refreshing take on “productivity” but I recognize it’s also extremely difficult for many people to practice.

Re: I'm an addict

#418

Post by sirsinsalot » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

loves_mangoes wrote: post #413

sirsinsalot wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the clue is in the name. Disorder. It's like concern for having clean hands. A certain amount is sensible, normal and part of being a human. Too much of that concern, when it becomes life ruining anxiety ... is a disorder. Normal concern for clean hands isn't "a little bit of OCD".

Autism is also classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder, and yet it is a spectrum. The fact that we, as humans, have to decide who gets the label of 'Has the Disorder' and who doesn't is just an artifact of how we like to label things. For the same reason that you don't magically go from a child to an adult the minute you turn 18. There is a smooth spectrum of development as people age, but for practical and legal…

I agree, I think I was making the distinction between doing X due to reasons you're happy with and that are considered normal and doing X due to anxiety.

Those two X's are not the same, and it isn't useful to compare them even though they appear comparable or similar or the same.

The key bit is the anxiety (however small or large, frequent or infrequent) that makes the distinction.

Re: I'm an addict

#419

Post by bitexploder » Thu, May 19, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

Guest19023892 wrote: post #295

bitexploder wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fair response to my blithe and confident answer. In general, though, we have figured enough out to understand our origin well enough to rule out religious theories in our existence. To reduce things the way you did is a denial of progress at some level, while couching it in caution against trusting science too far. Our first bridges sucked, now they are better. Our first stabs at cosmology were not much better than…

> “Why” we exist is coincidence and millions of years of happy little evolutionary experiments blindly conducted by nature. I'm not religious either, but I always find this hard to believe. What are the odds nature happened to provide all the building blocks for us to be here to question our existence? It seems far more likely that (i) nothing would exist, (ii) the universe wouldn't have the right combination of prop…

I think you are struggling with something I thought a lot about too. It is difficult for our brains to actually internalize the /immense/ amount of time evolutionary processes have been happening. It is so long and vast and our brains are barely good with comprehending hours and days. It is a mind bogglingly loooong time. Like really, really, really long. A lot can happen in a few billion years :)

Re: I'm an addict

#420

Post by aswegs8 » Thu, May 19, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #332

supernihil wrote: post #160

I dont like the idea of replacing the time spend compulsively procrastinating with "learning a new language, getting a pet, going to the gym" is the right way. I see the root cause (for me atleast (used to read HN and blogs for 4 hours everyday)) is that i cant stand being with myself. During the last two months ive been trying to not panic when i'm idle. And not take out my phone or read the nearest material i can l…

> I hold unto my right as a mammal to be inefficient and sit drooling looking at trees. OK, I get this. Really, I do. I've spent many many hours doing "nothing" just like this, and those have generally been happy times. But ... how would that change if you had a lot more free time? Could you spend all day every day in such a state? Would it be healthy if you did? The reason I ask is that I've had to grapple with that…

This somehow points towards an interesting question. Is it healthy or "good" to procrastinate? Since this is a problem almost everyone has during their life, it must serve some evolutionary purpose.

What if it was disadvantageous to outwork everyone else during anthropogenesis even if it is rational in our modern world where the upside is practically unlimited and the downside is nearly always limited? A natural environment is almost exactly the opposite - Does that mean we are fighting our "natural" behavior every day? This question isn't meaning to be fatalistic, exactly what OP and the video by Luke Smith he linked criticize. But understanding the biological reason behind procrastination could lead us to some deeper understanding on how to win this uphill battle.