Alaishana

Alaishana t1_j1jgshl wrote

Reply to comment by sillypicture in Changes in Earth’s orbit that favored hotter conditions may have helped trigger a rapid global warming event 56 million years ago that is considered an analogue for modern climate change by giuliomagnifico

My oldest is four, so not quite there yet. Her bunny just died... this is the first little bit that she has to digest to understand.

No one can simply in short words explain to a child the why of wars. This necessitates a huge web of understanding and a child that asks this question is just about to pick up the first thread of this web.

Where do you even start? (You start with what's in front of you, of course.)

With every subject, you have to back up... If you touch politics e.g., you have to SLOWLY make her understand what politics is (not many ppl understand this at all), and why what we see on an international level grows out of group dynamics that play out even in the family, in the classroom. Grows out of chimp group dynamics, in the end.

All this takes time. she will have to grow into the understanding as she grows up.

And the most important part will take a very long time indeed: To see how the seed of all our problems lies within all of us. Not bc we are somehow 'evil', but bc we are human.

A monkey brain riding on a mammalian brain, riding on a reptile brain, riding on a fish brain. We can't just discard who we are. And true understanding won't come before a person sees all this in themselves and is able to accept it as 'yes, this is me'.

All our understanding will forever be partial. No one can grasp the whole, it is too big, too convoluted, we have too much resistance, bc we do not like what we see.

So to answer your question:

I drilled this into my kids from earliest childhood on:

How do you eat an elephant?

Bit by bit by bit!

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Alaishana t1_j1j57ct wrote

Reply to comment by sillypicture in Changes in Earth’s orbit that favored hotter conditions may have helped trigger a rapid global warming event 56 million years ago that is considered an analogue for modern climate change by giuliomagnifico

I've been thinking about your question for a few days now, and I honestly don't know where to start.

All explanation are pointless, if you, as a person, are not able to see this for yourself.

There are a thousand things that 'could' be done in our dreams, but won't be done bc reality is different.

All wars 'could' be ended, if only all people would agree.
All poverty 'could' be wiped out, if only we could make the rich share.
All hungry ppl 'could' be fed, if only the rich nations would stop exploiting the poor ones and share.
All homeless 'could' be housed EASILY, if only politicians would see that it is actually cheaper than letting them lie on the street and could make their voters agree.

These are points that actually, factually, for real COULD happen, bc we could make them happen. If we were logical, rational beings... which we are not, of course.

Stopping climate change is another category all together: We CAN not stop it, bc our very lives depend on the machinery that causes it. There is no way any politician could stop this machinery, the idea is ridiculous. We are VERY far away from having the tech to decarbonize the atmosphere.

I feel like having to explain to my grandchildren why we have wars. There is no single, simple explanation, it takes years of learning about politics, emotions, history and most importantly HUMAN NATURE to understand why no one has managed to create world peace. It takes a web of understanding to get a handle on the mess we are in.

To get back to your question: in short: We don't have the tech, we don't have the energy or the materials to build it, even if we knew how, we don't have the political consensus that would allow us to invest in it, we don't have the international consensus and the vast majority of ppl does not even see the need.

In the end, bc we are human, we are ONLY human, we are a type of chimpanzee with a slightly enlarged frontal neo-cortex. We hit on the trick of how to share info vertically (through time) and horizontally (between ppl) and this created a tension between what we understand and can do as a group and what we understand and can do as individuals... so that our power as group is vastly superior and we as individuals have lost control of the group entity we have created. And there is NO WAY out of this.

in short: humanity is smart, humans are stupid.

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Alaishana t1_j1a9zg0 wrote

Reply to comment by Electrolight in Changes in Earth’s orbit that favored hotter conditions may have helped trigger a rapid global warming event 56 million years ago that is considered an analogue for modern climate change by giuliomagnifico

No, we could not.

There is absolutely no way on earth to do this. Neither do we have the tech, nor do we have the political mechanism to push this through.

This is just a pipe dream. Like a child talking about 'just' stopping all wars: The child does not understand the WHY.

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Alaishana t1_j19u612 wrote

Reply to comment by giuliomagnifico in Changes in Earth’s orbit that favored hotter conditions may have helped trigger a rapid global warming event 56 million years ago that is considered an analogue for modern climate change by giuliomagnifico

When I read the article, my thought was "Yup, we are fucked." Seems to be a wide spread sentiment.

We are in the position of someone with stage four lung cancer, who is debating cutting down from six to five and a half packets a day... but doesn't really want to anyway. (Not that it would make any real difference.)

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Alaishana t1_j16fa5q wrote

Reply to In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study 60% of insomnia patients "no longer classified as clinical insomniacs" after just 2-weeks of using medical cannabis oil by BoundariesAreFun

Great, good news.

I got one problem with this study though: All sleeping pills have got a habituation effect, where the user gets used to the medication and consequently needs higher and higher doses. Everyone who is prescribed sleeping pills is warned not to use them constantly.
Same goes for those who just use Melatonin. It's a hormone after all, so if you take it orally, you would expect the body to produce less of it and you get a habituation effect too.

(My doctor grinned wryly: "They SAY it's not addictive, but of course it is.")

So, this trial was for two weeks for each group on cannabis oil and two weeks on a placebo. How will this look after 3 months, a year?

I'm well aware that the trial was not designed to answer this, all I want to say is: Before we know long term effects, we should be careful with thinking we found the perfect solution.

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Alaishana t1_iwmoukx wrote

Reply to comment by bit1101 in New psychology research rebuts Sigmund Freud's "wrecked by success" hypothesis: People with exceptionally successful careers tend to be healthier than their less successful peers by HeinieKaboobler

I like to put some effort into what I write, yes. It is rather difficult to convey one's meaning in the shorthand style that prevails on the web.

I'm sorry if I have overtaxed you. You can look up words you don't know, I'll wait.

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Alaishana t1_iwmdrre wrote

Reply to comment by bit1101 in New psychology research rebuts Sigmund Freud's "wrecked by success" hypothesis: People with exceptionally successful careers tend to be healthier than their less successful peers by HeinieKaboobler

Well, like everything to do with humans, or worse, human behaviour, or even worse than that, human thought, psychology tries to tackle an extremely complex field, where the number of variables is far too big to allow for easy if-then relations.

One of the soft sciences, definitely.

The word 'science' derives from an indo-european root meaning 'to cut' (sky, ski, scissors), and it is very difficult, maybe impossible, to cut thoughts into easy pieces that lend themselves to analysis.

https://www.snhu.edu/about-us/newsroom/social-sciences/is-psychology-a-science#:~:text=A%20Scientific%20Discipline,human%20behavior%20and%20mental%20processes.

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Alaishana t1_iwm9ai4 wrote

Reply to New psychology research rebuts Sigmund Freud's "wrecked by success" hypothesis: People with exceptionally successful careers tend to be healthier than their less successful peers by HeinieKaboobler

Freud was a fantasist. Sat in his armchair and made up 'facts' from whole cloth.

As far as I know, nothing he ever said is still accepted science.

The interesting and fascinating and INFURIATING bit though is, how many so-called psychologists and psychotherapists still adhere to his teachings. (Yes, it kind of works, bc every kind of psychotherapy 'kind of' works... espc if you don't look too closely.)

Yes, he kick started psychology... so?

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Alaishana t1_iwhdhkr wrote

Reply to Research shows land that often lies fallow or is poor in soil quality — across the United States would provide enough biomass feedstock to meet the liquid fuel demands of the U.S. aviation sector fully from biofuels, an amount expected to reach 30 billion gallons per year by 2040. by Wagamaga

It's been proven again and again, that once you take everything into account, so called Bio-fuels are hardly providing any excess energy, while being extremely destructive in their production.

The whole idea is a product of the US farm lobby. Like sugar. Like pushing meat products.

Land lying fallow? Sounds like Trump saying water from the rivers flows uselessly into the ocean. Turns my stomach.

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