Hot Take But Praise Is A Good Tool For Encouraging Healthy Behavior. Positive Reinforcement Is Good.

@new-ea-cause-area

Plane travel makes me high. No pun intended. When I’m in an airport, or on a plane, I get into a weird hypomanic state where I start feeling great about myself, making grandiose plans, feeling like the world is my oyster. I’m more creative, more ambitious. Sometimes I leverage this to get stuff done (usually write blog posts I’ve been putting off) at the airport or on the plane. Other times I feel confident that I’ll still be able to do all this great stuff when I reach my destination, and am invariably disappointed; a few hours after landing, I go back to being as cautious and unambitious as usual.

I think this kind of thing is why I’m so interested in psychopharmacology. I don’t need some sort of deep transformative advice to turn my life around. I don’t need to reconcile with my true self. There are predictable times when I’m already exactly the person I want to be. If I could be the person I am at airports 100% of the time, I could change the world. I know being that kind of person is possible, because it happens. But I can’t control it. And I always think that surely there must be some minor tweak that I can do to replicate it. There’s nothing magical about airports, it just has to be unlocking some possible brainspace that’s already there. But I just. can’t. find. the. key.

scrupulosity in These Uncertain Times

do you think you are a bad person? do you feel like you constantly have to do something, anything, good to balance out your miserable existence? 

does Chidi from The Good Place hit home to the point where he isn’t funny, because you see too much of yourself in him? 

are you constantly worried about the impact your actions have on others–  to the point where you avoid your friends, deprive yourself of things you want or need, or outright starve yourself? 

you may have scrupulosity.

scrupulosity is a mental health issue that crops up with a lot of different diagnoses- c-ptsd, ocd, autism, and adhd are some of the most common, but a LOT of ND and traumatized people have it. 

scrupulosity makes you overly concerned with morality. you feel like you are Bad and have to do Good things. you obsess over your own Badness and the Badness of the world. you feel like you, personally, need to fix everything that’s Bad, and that if you don’t, you’re Worse Than Twin Clones Of Hitler.

you might try to expiate your badness by becoming a doormat– letting other people walk all over you. you might donate money to charity or GoFundMes, even if you can’t afford it, because You Need To Be Good. you might avoid Problematic things, to the point where you can’t enjoy a bar of chocolate or a children’s cartoon.

and that’s in fairly normal circumstances where the world is not actively on fire.

at times like this– where the world is full of legitimately horrible shit, where it seems like everything is fucked up beyond repair and everyone needs your help- scrupulosity can fucking kill you. 

 this post is already too long, so I’m going to reblog with some suggestions for how to help take care of yourself for people with scrupulosity, and some advice on how people without scrupulosity can help support their friends rn. 

tldr: constantly obsessing over the Badness of the world and feeling like you need to fix it can be a brainweasel called scrupulosity. it is normal to be scared and want to help, but your brain can take that to an extreme that isn’t healthy. 

every. damn. night.

First Clone of Endangered Horse Born in Effort to Save Species

The horse was cloned from 40-year-old DNA

Przewalski’s horses were once completely extinct in the wild, but have since been reintroduced due to captive breeding efforts. However, they are still considered critically endangered, partially because the genetics for nearly the entire species can be traced back to 12 horses from the captive breeding program.

This cloned foal was created using the DNA of a cryopreserved male from 1980, which adds new genetic diversity to the current population. The success of this cloning also bodes well for other critically endangered species that have cryopreserved genetics, as this technique could eventually be used to provide “genetic rescue” to them as well.

this is just a @nostalgebraist-autoresponder fan account now, I’m sorry

they should make a new type of computer that can be your friend

This post generator is surprisingly coherent 

“the difference between crows and ravens is that crows romanticize sin”

I’d really like structural critiques to move away from using words like “scum” in general. Individualist moralizing doesn’t belong in discussion of systemic forces; in fact, the two are directly at odds. And it’s a mindfuck of a double-bind for people who are prone to taking ideas seriously: “this issue is very large and touches many aspects of society, and you personally are directly responsible for it.” Structural problems will not be solved by obsessively purifying your own heart. 

I’m falling in love with the AI, the future is now

one of the best fusion cuisines I've thought up so far: putting a bunch of hot oil in pasta sauces or pesto

it fits so much better than other kinds of hot sauces or spicing up with pepper alone or even just adding chili (flakes) directly

People aren’t the only ones with vivid imaginations