We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
The US government keeps telling people what a "healthy diet" is. For years, they wanted 11 servings of carbs daily. Now they want "fruits and vegetables." Why?
Why do people with any fat stores ever feel hungry, or eat anything at all, considering they may have 1-5 month's worth of energy stored as fat? (We term the hunger experienced by overweight people "False Hunger," because it is.) Except in the truly malnourished or extremely fit, low body-fat athletes, hunger is rarely a signal of an energy deficit or of any nutritional need.
Think about it. Even normal-weight (neither overweight nor underweight) people carry 8-10 weeks of energy stored in fat if they can only access it.
You can consider appetite in the pudgy or overweight, not to mention the obese, to be a design flaw based on the hunting and gathering, and, earlier, just plain gathering condition of human existence, same as the other great apes who only become overweight in captivity. Agriculture and food abundance, along with sedentary life, exposed the design flaw for people who overnourish themselves. Of course, physical inadequacy is another side effect.
Monogamy is a good arrangement, especially for child-rearing, at least in the Western world. Marriage is (supposedly) a life-long committment to one person. When defied, it can cause serious damage.
Is monogamy "natural"? Of course not, because of the unrelenting sex drive of humans. Humans are always in heat, especially when younger but it never stops entirely. Regardless of how committed one is, all anybody needs to do is to check your fantasies. Temptation abounds.
The Executive Branch should tell me what to eat and drink as if I were an infant? Apparently people want to increase the $750/month SNAP poverty allowance for food.
Readers know that I view sex changes as a sort of cosmetic thing, an extreme version of nose jobs and tummy tucks. I have no problems with such things if people want to pay for them. Some people want to be taller and find a surgeon to lengthen their legs, and I have seen people who truly benefitted from breast reduction. Don't laugh, because huge breasts can be a sort of handicap.
So I do not hate cosmetic surgery. It makes plenty of doctors very wealthy, but it is not me. When it comes to elective sexual mutilation, though, I have to draw some sort of a line. In fact, I can't imagine a physician who would be willing to do it.
Many city people are asking that question.From a Psychiatric point of view, here are some of the difficulties:
First, prediction of dangerousness (like predictions of dangerousness to self) are notoriously unreliable. Only reliable after the fact.
Second, medical treatment without consent is typically illegal (assault, in fact) except in extreme circumstances.
Third, treatments for the chronically psychotic are commonly ineffective or only partially effective. Furthermore, many chronically-ill do not follow-up with treatments for a variety of reasons.
Fourth, perhaps the most dangerous category is Psychopathy which is a personality abnormality at its extremes. I doubt it is treatable, but it doesn't matter because these people lie and do not seek help anyway.
That's not to mention civil liberties.
There are other issues, but that's enough for now. AVI is an expert in the topic, so I hope he has something to add.
Physicians are trained to be skeptical. I am, sometimes to a fault.
There is a basket of vague medical complaints which include things sometimes diagnosed as Epstein-Barr, Long Covid, Chronic Lyme Disease, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and so forth.
I don't know what to think about these things. They used to be known as Neurasthenia.
This is not intended to be about either weight loss or weight gain. It's about feeling good and lively all day without a siesta.
According to the stats, adult Americans are overfed or, more accurately, are overeating. Food is a pleasure, usually. Too much of a good thing makes us slothful, if not foggy or sleepy. The trick is to consume food until the moment that any feeling of hunger disappears. It is a "Stop" signal.
The challenge for many is that the sensation of satiety lags behind food intake by 15 or 20 minutes. If you eat quickly, you can miss that signal especially when the offering is delicious.
My advice (feel free to ignore it) is, unless underweight, to quit eating when a feeling of hunger disappears. It doesn't take much food if you eat slowly and chat with whoever is with you. After all, the reason to sit down with others is to socialize.
Most restaurants have "small plates" these days. They are usually plenty for most people. The point is that there is no law that we must clean our plates anyway.
... the group of people who have done particularly well from the free-marketization of sex are men high in the personality trait that psychologists call “sociosexuality”: the desire for sexual variety.
…Worldwide, there is a significant difference in average sociosexuality between the sexes, with men generally much keener to sow their wild oats than women are. The full WSJ piece is here.
I believe that most humans are highly sexual and sexually-motivated creatures. Many fantasies, if not action. It's about mostly-private thoughts. It is not as if men are always ready to go (although it is true that men are easily interested or seduced). Still, womens' sexual interests and fantasies are underestimated. Women always check out other women's clothing, but they check out men just as often.
Here's the inside scoop: Few people in the field ever believed that depression was caused by a "seratonin imbalance." Far too simplistic. There is no single "depression" anyway.
What is termed "depression" is a grab bag of miserable signs and symptoms which can be associated with some (undiagnosed) cancers and Bipolar Disorder to neurotic and/or personality vulnerabilities.
SSRI meds help some people with depression remarkably well, but probably not most.
I think the now-old-fashioned intense feminists speak as if women lack strong sexual drives. I should say, "sexual and/or romantic" drives and desires.
Those things are strong in most women, young and old. It's biology.
I had a conversation recently with a new member of my team. She was explaining to me why her dog (I'd name the breed, but don't want to put anyone on the spot - suffice to say it's a little yippy dog) was very "anxious". My immediate thought was of two items. The first was the breed is of a nature that has a naturally anxious demeanor. I had several friends who owned these, and they are definitely "anxious" dogs. The second was that she was anxious and transferred her anxiety to the dog. It's probable both points are applicable.
However, as I discussed this conversation with Mrs. Bulldog, she stated "anxious times make anxious people" and we discussed how for the last 2 1/2 years we were basically bombarded with frightening scenarios of Covid and, more or less, given 'permission' to be anxious. As a result, she stated, many people who were naturally anxious got it ramped up a degree or ten, while others on the borderline of being anxious were probably pushed over the edge. "No doubt," was my response.
At fifty, and married, I do not need Perry’s guidance on how to find love and security — or why to avoid selling naked pictures of myself to pay my rent. But as someone who grew up in liberal north London in the 1980s and drank in many of the same ideas as Perry has, I found this book riveting. Like her, I am dismayed by the uncritical embrace of a simplistic credo of anti-repression. I, too, have noticed belatedly the extent to which feminists closed themselves off from evolutionary understandings of human behavior, with even the monumental achievements of scientists like Sarah Blaffer Hrdy mostly ignored in favor of ideas from the humanities and critical theory.
Please do not go around diagnosing people - or even yourself. Still, this is something to watch out for when dating. Interestingly, many men are attracted to women with borderline traits because of the drama. At first, anyway, it can be exciting. Borderline men exist too, but they are easy to avoid.
... researchers agree, MT is particularly worth promoting among the young, a stance that seems at least somewhat at odds with today’s self-care narrative. Says Chawla, “I would define mental toughness as grit. Tenacity. And a fairly big chunk of that is having some discipline over your own impulses—doing things even when your mind is objecting. This idea is now reviled in mainstream culture in favor of approaches such as, ‘be gentle with yourself.’ [But] if you’re always gentle with yourself you will stagnate and grow weak and fragile.” If our goal is to uphold and not erode mental toughness, it is surely unhelpful to applaud iconic role models for extolling fragility.
Not really. Sex toys for ladies have been around forever. The newer ones might be more exciting though. Women, of course, have sexual needs and wants which cannot always be realized for many reasons.
Males can easily take care of themselves but it can just be a chore.
They are, simply, far too rare. They are terrible tragedies, but entirely unpredictable. It is wrong to use these as news and political fodder. It encourages copycats, and, worse, it makes every odd kid a potential suspect.
Psychiatry has nothing to offer with this other than opinions on TV. These adolescent or late-adolescent boys never get to Psychiatrists, and even if they did there would be little to do. None would tell a doctor that their dream is to shoot up a school.
The problem with that book review, and maybe with the book, it that it sounds as if "mental illness" were a unitary phenomenon and as if treatment approaches were somewhat unitary too.
Believe it or not, we have many ways to be of help to people with all sorts of problems. True "cures" are relatively unusual in all areas of medicine.
I wanted to transition because my body was my enemy, and my body was the enemy of the world. I hated myself and wanted to punish myself. It was the same feeling that motivates cutting, binge-eating, anorexia, and lashing oneself. My very nature meant I deserved pain. I couldn't remove my whiteness from myself, but maybe I could remove my maleness...
