My Posting Place

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https://www.ata.org/sites/default/files/TT-Spring-2020.pdf


eewy stuff

Good stuff

Also

 

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https://www.warriorforum.com/intern...cussion-list&utm_campaign=feed&utm_term=title

 

[MrCrybaby]

https://www.warriorforum.com/intern...cussion-list&utm_campaign=feed&utm_term=title

View attachment 38846

He is too optimistic about good in the supplement world.

 

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[JulianBrumbelow]

 

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Okay I love this retro-computing art sytle.

 

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Christians that defend idealism to make their faith justifiable are sinning. The bible doesn't even mention one thing about consciousness.

This is what the Bible has to say about the Universe. Eastern philosophy and religions that talk about unified consciousness are not biblical. Even John knows that.

This is the Universe according to Jews and Christianity

 

[Phendran]

Yet they'll debate young earth creationist and flat earthers just for entertainment. They are far more focused on entertainment because they know anyone can win those debates and it's fun to expose stupid people.

I think you're right there.
Sometimes a sense of victory is all people want.

I hadn't considered any of these ides on consciousness before you told me about them.
When studying neuroscience it was never brought up, and I think that is because the topic is scary to most people.

We've seen how fragile some minds can be (and I've tasted that of my own mind.), whatwith psychosis, breakdowns, etc. "What if it turns out plants are conscious and can suffer, and it turns out being a vegetarian or vegan is futile?"

Maybe ideas like panpsychism will have a grand return eventually, as human society moves more towards introspective thinking.

 

[Contrast]

I think you're right there.
Sometimes a sense of victory is all people want.

I hadn't considered any of these ides on consciousness before you told me about them.
When studying neuroscience it was never brought up, and I think that is because the topic is scary to most people.

We've seen how fragile some minds can be (and I've tasted that of my own mind.), whatwith psychosis, breakdowns, etc. "What if it turns out plants are conscious and can suffer, and it turns out being a vegetarian or vegan is futile?"

Maybe ideas like panpsychism will have a grand return eventually, as human society moves more towards introspective thinking.

a plant can have subjective experience without the ability to process painful stimuli. I am suggesting plants have very basic forms of awareness. Just to know they exist inside a spacial temporal world and they follow simple goals.

Panpyschism proposes the brain and life as a whole evolved to take advantage of proto-consciousness that exist at the sub-atomic level of the Universe. How else could have abiogenesis have happened? Dumb Chance or Magic is not a good explanation. Life is the most complex thing we know about the Universe, it's extremely high level organization of organic molecules that lead to cells, tissues, organs that work together, us ect...

The keyword is "self organizing systems" that is the key to understanding what consciousness is in it's most basic forms.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070814150630.htm

So, could helical clusters formed from interstellar dust be somehow alive? "These complex, self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter," says Tsytovich, "they are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve."


He adds that the plasma conditions needed to form these helical structures are common in outer space. However, plasmas can also form under more down to earth conditions such as the point of a lightning strike. The researchers hint that perhaps an inorganic form of life emerged on the primordial earth, which then acted as the template for the more familiar organic molecules we know today.

 

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MPP has over 500,000 views.

 

[Phendran]

"He adds that the plasma conditions needed to form these helical structures are common in outer space. However, plasmas can also form under more down to earth conditions such as the point of a lightning strike. The researchers hint that perhaps an inorganic form of life emerged on the primordial earth, which then acted as the template for the more familiar organic molecules we know today."

Fascinating stuff.

The more I read the more I feel like I'm a stupid git.

 

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How to use a computer 101

Alt+Tab & Alt + ` to navigate back and forth

This tip only works on Linux and on any DE. You just set the keyboard shortcut for a reverse cycle.

There might be a way to do this on Windows. Windows has an "Alt Tab (forward) keyboard shortcut but it does NOT have a way to reverse it. Meaning Alt-tab can go forward, but there is no key to go backwards.

The cinnamon desktop on Ubuntu exhibiting it's window switch mode.

 

[Zugzug]

There might be a way to do this on Windows. Windows has an "Alt Tab (forward) keyboard shortcut but it does NOT have a way to reverse it. Meaning Alt-tab can go forward, but there is no key to go backwards.

On my computer, alt + tab goes forward and alt + shift + tab goes backwards.

 

[JulianBrumbelow]

 

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On my computer, alt + tab goes forward and alt + shift + tab goes backwards.

Thank you for telling me this.

I forgot to mention that pressing Q while navigating closes a window, I don't know if Windows does that it might.


Firefox and Chrome have a Ctrl + Tab and Ctrl + Shift Tab for back and forward tabs.

 

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Fascinating stuff.

The more I read the more I feel like I'm a stupid git.

 

[linearb]

@Bill Bauer I am not actually sure what I'd try to implement economically as "king of the world"; I think having a single leader like that is inherantly authoritarian almost inescapably, given enough time, so probably the first thing would be to re-balkanize into autonomous regions of one kind or another. Great, I just invented "countries" again.

It's, obviously, much easier to call out problems and perceived injustices when you see them, than to have solutions which turn out to be correct when subjected to the test of time.

I think capitalism is the best framework anyone has come up with to solve the "rule by might" problem and actual democratic processes combined with a well informed population are the best way to make sure capitalism is safeguarded against fascistic tendencies arising when corporate space and government space get too entangled.

So, I suppose (as, of course, an American), my "ideal" would be something like what I think America was "supposed" to be, or would have been if the ceaseless flow of lobby dollars and creation of a class of career pols could have been avoided. (Hard spending limits; corporations are not people, people who administer corporations have responsibility and are not shielded from nearly as many liabilities, political posts are maximally 4 year terms which are paid at the state median income in the relevant state).

Based on my understanding of our differences, I suspect this will be far too "big government" for you, though correct me if I am wrong.

I will now put the same question to you -- ignoring the current COVID fires, if you were suddenly in the position of personally redesigning the entire global economic structure, how would you do it?

And, to be clear (if it wasn't in the original post, which it may not have been), there is at least some degree of implicit irony in my use of "corporate masters" and "wage slave", because, the way I look at it: I am just as much a cog in a vast machine whose purpose I don't exactly approve of, as much as anyone else, but my "wage slavery" affords, for the moment, a quite comfortable life, and my corporate masters, despite being able to arbitrarily upend my life on a whim, think I am a good little kitty and give me lots of pets and treats. Therefore, were there ever a time when the sharpening of guillotine blades became a thing, I am really not sure which side of the line I'd end up on, though if I learned anything from the French Revolution, it's that once a crazed populace guillotines the 1%, then they look at the 10%, then the 25%, etc. So, I think avoiding crazed populaces with guillotines is a great goal, but if at some point the choice become "guillotines" or "1000 years of authoritarian darkness", hard calculus for me.

On this note, my father gave me a pitch yesterday that the confluence of mass surveillance technology, blurring of corporate and gov't lines, and ability of a gov't or large corp to basically map out an individual's entire life and all online and offline interactions with a few button clicks, seems to inescapably lead to authoritarianism. I replied that I think that's one outcome, but there are so many existential factors around climate instability, war, etc, that it's pretty hard for me to look that far out. If you read enough William Gibson, you can envision a sort of dystopian checks-and-balances where global balkanization happens along both nationstate and corporate boundaries, and ultimately individual governments are kept from becoming too powerful by the collective will and grip of global industry. That might be economically sustainable or even great but probably a pretty shitty deal for the average person living under that system. Of course, so are most of the systems we have now, if you don't happen to be somewhat affluent.

 

[lapidus]

Making my third post in MPP. Feelsbadman.jpg intensifies.

 

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You cannot shake Bill Bauer's libertarianism.

 

[Bill Bauer]

@Steph1710
I can't post the quotes below into your profile messages, so I am going to do this in this thread.

19. Turns out that it is natural to relax and begin taking unnecessary risks once one's T goes away.

As a result, many people eventually have their T return. It is a very traumatic experience. We are given only a limited number of second chances. If you are fortunate enough to get a second chance - don't throw it away.

I came here to give you an advice. Your tinnitus CAN get a lot better (not habituation, real a lot better in volume reduction), but dont ruin your recovery going to loud places, EVEN with "protection".

...

2017 I was living free finasteride and "free" Tinnitus, only audible in quiet rooms. 3 years with low T so I was feeling less paranoid about it. These forums, the ENTS, all things from the dark past for me.

24 october 2017: The worst decision I took in my life. I wanted a night of fun. Bought Ear Peace HD ear plugs and went to a Gene Simmons Show in a small nightclub. The volume was loud, but I thought "I am wearing ear plugs, I am protected". 24 hs after the show, T came back and worse than ever. I hear it 24/7. Bad days are severe, good days are torelable...but now 50 days after the show I am feeling hopeless about real improvements. Maybe I lost my chance to have a low T life.

...

Tomorrow I have and appointment with a psychologist to treat this awful feeling.

Don't ruin your life going to shows or noisy events. Ear plugs are not safe. You can not escape from vibrations that sound produces in small places.

Remember. If you get better you need to FEAR tinnitus. Never forget.

Unfortunately

Reality denied comes back to haunt.

I tried the 'laissez faire' approach for that first period, where I didn't let myself be bothered by most sounds, except for 80db+ (when I started plugging the ears) and still went out and did all my old activities, but that ended up costing me dearly. I had a 'spike' (if it can still be called that) that hasn't gone away.

Got a spike myself from seeing a movie with earplugs, and then I later even switched to safety earmuffs. It's yet to settle or fade. I won't be going to see one anytime soon again if ever, if that's all it'll take. If you do ever see one, I think it's best to go with earmuffs rather than earplugs, no matter how "silly" it may look to others.

I also got told no ear plugs during normal day sounds by my ENT. He said walking next to traffic and in trains is fine. So I followed his advice. My tinnitues spiked majorly and still hasnt gone down four months later. They then realised my ears were more sensitive then they realized and decided on a process to gradually ween me off them. They screwed big time and soon realized the damage they had done because i became more panicked, more anxious, protecting more and now its a harder time to ween me off them.

So after my last permanent worsening from an idiot cranking my car speaker to the maximum. I was walking around the city with my friend with no plugs in and a kid stomped on and popped an inflated bag approx 2m behind me, it caught me off guard but I remained calm and told myself it was nothing to worry about as I had no pain and felt not muffeling of my hearing. I woke up two days later and my tinnitus has permanently increased again. What is happening to me, why is it constantly worsening like this. I feel nothing anymore and Ive basically begin to disassociate as I just can't mentally comprehend what is happening, this is like living in a literal nightmare.

My T faded a lot suddenly almost 3 years ago. I had total remission of some trebly sounds in my head. It became only audible in quiet rooms.

Now its back in full force cause Im stupid. Some ENT told me ear plugs are safe. Wrong! T is with me again.

I didn't think listening to headphones would affect my ears since I never exceeded 25% of max volume (usually stayed between 10%-15%). I would use them at the gym to help mask my T and they offered some protection against loud noises at the gym. After about 3 months my T was so bothersome and I couldn't pinpoint the cause since I also work with kids and it can get loud at times. I stopped using the headphones and now use earplugs at the gym and the T did subside. I wouldn't recommend using headphones for more than 20 mins a day and no more than 3 times a week. I used to be at the gym for 2 hours 4-5 times a week so it took a toll on my ears.

I was told not to wear hearing protection for normal everyday situations but look where it's got me. I had my plugs in my pocket too. Getting on with a normal life hasn't helped for me.

I tried to wear some ear plugs while I was at the gym because I was afraid the clashing of the dumb bells was going to hurt my ears.

However, after working out twice I now have these two low frequency tones that feel like they are fighting over who should be playing every waking second. I can't quite figure out their pitches because they keep tag teaming, but it's much lower than my regular tinnitus.

I'm kind of distressed because I feel like I can never workout again for fear of making my tinnitus worse. What should I do?

While I agree some people here go overboard with hearing protection, this increase in noise sensitivity after wearing hearing protection is only a temporary one. It is not the same thing as the brain turning up the auditory gain when there is a permanent loss in hearing.

With regards to noise exposure that isn't dangerous to most people, I developed a new tone in my right ear after a noise exposure at work back in October. I spent about half an hour in an area that I would estimate was at most 90db, but it was probably less than that. I had deeply inserted large foam earplugs at the time, but apparently that was not enough protection. That tone has not gone away, and it's not some psychosomatic spike. Spikes in volume are somewhat relative in my opinion, they can be attributed to stress, lack of sleep, noise exposure, diet, etc., but completely new tones that do not go away are something different.

What is safe for you may not be safe for me. And the fact is there has been no good study done assessing the vulnerability of already damaged auditory systems. The gold standard for dangerous noise levels is based on old data from OSHA where they looked for permanent threshold shifts of 10db or more at 2000, 3000, or 4000 Hz. As we know now, you can have fairly significant auditory damage without having a permanent threshold shift in those three ranges. There is also a lot of industry push-back when OSHA tries to make safety guidelines more strict (I haven't seen this with noise levels, but I have seen it with chemical safety guidelines). Moreover, it's very likely that some people are more genetically predisposed to hearing damage than others.

What I'm getting at here is I agree with you that some people really do go overboard with hearing protection, and obsessing about noise is not healthy, but it irritates me when people adopt this attitude of "well it works for me therefore it must work for you" or "it's safe for me therefore it's safe for you". No one can say that.

the noise has actually got worse - a lot worse just lately as I've been exposed to a noisy office environment. Normal for everyone else but too noisy for my ears. I now have a noise like a jet engine, a rushing wind with a high-pitched whine in it.

Yeah. I am going through the same thing. Got my T to improve and go back to mild and went to a restaurant I have eaten safely at twice post T and have had the loudest spike that has, after a week, not improved at all. And my H got worse too.

When people speak of habituation, I'm pretty sure they refer to what I was experiencing when my T was a lot less louder. It was easy to tune out which is why I never took it seriously until it was too late. What I have now is impossible to ignore completely.

It lead to stress and anxiety which have destroyed my sleeping. Without any medication I get maybe an hour of unrefreshing sleep. I take ambien which gives me 4 at most which is my new normal now. Memory and cognitive abilities have fallen off a cliff. I suggest you drop concerts, headphones, and anything else involving loud sounds. You don't not want to reach this state ever. Take care.

Now situation is devastating and so strange: 12 days ago dishes near me crashed on the floor and a strange spike started. It wasn't noticeable during the day, during first hours. Then hearing became a bit muffled. Not a big deal anyway.

Problem is the evening and the night. An eletric sound from my ear, from my head... I can't sleep. If I try to cover my ears.. I don't hear the T! But when I put off my hands it starts again.

Was a difficult first few months, but i protected my hearing a lot (avoiding loud places, wearing custom -35 dB plugs outside and peltor muff when things got loud).

The tinnitus had slowly lowered o a slight "shhh" that was so low i was ok to sleep in a silent room (and i hardly heard the tinnitus even with the peltor on most days, or if i heard it it didn't bother me).
I had stopped all medication.

5 days ago, looking for work, i had a skype call. basically my PC messed up and the skype ringing tune was much higher than it usually is. Took me 20 seconds to stop it but apparently it may have been too long.

Now i'm back to a loud baseline tinnitus with new very high pitched sounds coming and going on top of it.
Very depressed and angry that one small mistake can mess my ears again when my life was finally going so well again.

I was sitting in my house and my next door neighbor decided to cut his entire lawn with a gas powered weed wacker. She did that for about little over an hour on and off, I guess stopping to refuel and moving around to different parts of the house and driveway. I was so deep into a movie with my girlfriend that I was just not paying attention, and did not notice the high pitched sound of the weed wacker outside at first.

But later that afternoon I got a very bad spike and my tinnitus went through the roof. You would think that a person is safe in his own home from something like this, but it seems that I was not. Even with all of my double pane windows and heavy cloth blinds closed I guess that high pitched noise from the weed wacker just went right through it and nailed my ears.

So I have been suffering the past 3 days with increased tinnitus. It started on sat after noon around 12, and here it is today Tues and I'm a little better, but not back to my baseline again yet.

It's really freaking me out. I'm very mad and frustrated at myself for not using in my ear plugs or gun muffs to protect myself, but who would have thought that their would be any danger inside of my own home ?

I did measure it on my dB meter on my phone and it seemed to be around 58 dB. I have no idea how accurate that a cell phone's dB meter is.

My neighbors house and driveway are about 30 to 50 feet away from my house and driveway depending where they are using the weed wacker or where I was in the house I happened to be in the front room. I did notice that I could hear the movie over the sound of the weed wacker it wasn't until I paid attention that I realized how loud the sound from the weed wacker was.

Yeah, that's how I ended up with severe tinnitus and it was mild in the beginning. I'm not saying people should stay at home all day but I do think that things like concerts can permanently worsen tinnitus even if that person wears hearing protection. Of course, not in every case and the thread is about a lawn mower not a concert but I don't think it's responsible to tell someone to just 'live their life' - go out with hearing protection but if your body is giving you signals that t is getting worse then listen to those. I had people with tinnitus tell me I'd be safe with ear plugs and if I noticed a spike it would just be due to me worrying about it... I know other people aren't as naive and stupid as I used to be but the severity of my tinnitus was honestly preventable and I wouldn't wish such a worsening on anyone else.

You see I've had tinnitus since May of 2006 and the first couple of years I was extremely cautious and used protection when ever I felt there was a chance that there could be loud sounds. This meant me using custom made earplugs at work, using heavy foam earplugs the extremely few times I went out to a pub or similar (after all I was 22 when I got this thing and couldn't as well isolate my self).

After a few years though I started using protections less and less. And by that I mean I didn't use earplugs at work anymore (I worked extra as a bus driver at the time while studying at a University). I still wouldn't dream of going out without plugs though. And between 2009-2015 I pretty much never used earplugs at all. I didn't go to clubs or concerts or anything like that so I even stopped bringing plugs with me. I actually didn't even have a set of plugs in my pocket for years.

My tinnitus was stable for all this time with a few milder spikes that never lasted more than a day. But to be honest I probably wouldn't even know because I didn't even think about my tinnitus for years. I was "cured". I didn't hear it unless I listened for it. If tinnitus came up in a conversation I would listen for it and go "yep there it is" and then it would go back to the oblivion.

Then in January 2015 I had a major spike that became permanent. After that my tinnitus is not as stable anymore. Recently I went to a wedding reception and even though I wore SNR:35db earplugs the whole time I am having a pretty bad spike at the moment that has been lasting a good couple of weeks that I'm praying is not going to become permanent. This would never have happened only a few years ago!

So what I'm trying to say is that it's not as clear cut as you might think. Your tinnitus might be stable for now but there can come a time, like it seems to have for me, where something that shouldn't be harmful according to all of the sound level charts just for some reason is. I am going to have to come to terms with the fact that I can never ever go to a loud venue again, even with the heaviest protection, and that is sadly the fact for many others. It's not unreasonable fear. It's simply common sense.

I have made some mistakes in my past by going to loud places with earplugs and made my progress bad, and now sometimes I think it's permanent, but I am happy that I am somewhat habituated and don't have any panic attacks.

Even if you get completely recovered don't expose yourself to any loud environment anymore even with earplugs.

About 3 weeks ago I started to feel better but I went out one day and I wasn't wearing my earplugs for only ten minutes. It was a restaurant with music playing but it wasn't loud. Still I came home with a loud spike and thought it would go away in the morning but it stayed the same until now. I also have this feeling of fullness mostly in my right ear which has nonstop ringing.

My tinnitus was severe initially, but it went away completely but then it returned, slowly at first, as I continued to enjoy a few concerts and clubs (with earplugs and in moderation). I only continued to do these activities after an ENT told me that I should continue to do all the things I usually did, just wear protection - I first and foremost blame her for the situation I am now in (horrendously loud tinnitus and hyperacusis) from bad advice. I should have trusted my gut instinct and never went to another rock concert again, but no I trusted her advice... perhaps because I wanted to.

I gave up concerts in 2016 when I got my first very noticeable increase - the time it went from being a "only at night" sound to a 24/7 sound, though very low in the day, I could tune it out easily. I was quite happy, learning to sleep normally with the new volume, and it didn't bother me too much. I still went to social nights with friends, bars and restaurants that weren't playing loud music were ok for me with earplugs.

Fast forward to April 2018 and I decided to accept an invitation from a friend to play electric guitar with him at his house. Big mistake! We played on small amps and for an hour and a half and that is what left me with catastrophic tinnitus and hyperacusis.... I'd say from this point onwards, the impact on my life has been absolutely life-changing and devastating. I'm to blame for that, I should have known better, but I stupidly thought with ear protection I'd be ok because I am usually ok playing my amp even without earplugs. I should have worn ear defenders not just ear plugs. As I hadn't taken in the extra volume from his amp and plus he turned his up a bit louder than mine. I became full of regret and started to hate myself and my decision that changed my life.

My life since has been very difficult. I cannot sleep without meds each night, the ringing is so loud. I cannot drive, shop or walk near busy roads without earplugs. I cannot go to restaurants or bars anymore or do most social activities that my friends do which has left me feeling isolated and depressed. I've tried to vacation as usual... which was partially successful. However on flights I have to wear ear defenders otherwise my tinnitus spikes like crazy. The last time I flew in May this year, part of my trip involved a boat trip....the boat was 87 dB! I wore earplugs but again, 87 dB on a small boat 47 minutes each way? It caused another increase in my tinnitus. The same thing goes for driving my car... if I drive on a highway for more than 30 mins, normal earplugs don't protect me, I have to wear ear defenders to stop tinnitus spiking. I'm not sure what kind of tinnitus I have but it's very reactive to low level noise and it really gets me down as it seems to increase in volume each time. I don't want to live like a hermit but it's becoming that way... and I hate it. The spikes from little mistakes are loud and go on for weeks. Usually when they fade I'm left with louder ringing generally.

I wish I could understand how I have a spike after using a 70 decibel lawn mower with ear muffs on for like 20 minutes. It has been 10 days now. Ever since I've did that damn MRI two years ago, not only did I get x3 tinnitus increase, the noise threshold required to get worse is much lower. I used to use gas powered lawn mowers before the MRI with no problems, with hearing protection on of course.

Just more proof to the concept that the more damage you have the more it easy it can get worse at least for me.

Two weeks ago I went to a karaoke night and used earplugs. It really wasn't all that loud except for a few of the bass noises.

However, since then, I have gotten a spike in tinnitus (before this I had been habituated fully for a year and a half!)

It appears injured ears are very similar to concussions. If a person sufferes a concussion, and then has another one before the first one is done healing, the 2nd concussion can be several times worse. It makes sense, as an injured brain trying to heal doesn't have the resilience of a healthy brain to withstand a new trauma.

Oh go you'll be fine they said. Wear earplugs they said.

So I went to the event with ear plugs. Was there for only a few minutes. Big mistake. Gave me low drone/hum that's worst than the high pitch hiss/eeeee, tea kettle sounds. Never went away. sigh
3 1/2 years ago.

Everyone is different. Every situation is different.
You have to make a decision and live with it.

I can't take it anymore. I don't want to die but at this stage the urge to stop suffering is stronger. Ps. To all members in this forum advising against so called "overprotection". I never exposed myself to sounds even remotely considered as being potentially harmful to healthy people but because of your advice I was exposed to sounds uncomfortable for me which eventually proved to be damaging.

At initial stages i was very weary about sound levels around me and used protection everytime I felt uncomfortable.

Only by reading TRT literature or some posts here I started to expose my self to sounds loud but never louder than 75-80 dB.

Whenever I was feeling like something is not right I was stupid enough to believe you these changes were part of "the natural process of healing".

Is this your healing? Every time you feel like giving this sort of advice have my case in mind.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/joycecohen/noise-kills-when-everyday-sound-becomes-torture
More useful quotes from that buzzfeed article

Recognition of the dangers of noise — which are often mischaracterized and more far-reaching than previously assumed — is "dawning a little bit but doesn't go beyond the research community so far," says Jos Eggermont, a professor at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. He was stunned when his research showed that exposure to low-level noise, in amounts not generally considered harmful, caused extensive damage in the auditory cortex.

My not-yet husband emailed me because I was getting better and he was getting worse. He wanted to know my strategy. Time and silence, I told him.

Regarding a person who had committed suicide as a result of T and H:

A concert he couldn't resist. His audiologist told him earplugs were enough. They weren't. "I want to emphasize that this is entirely my own fault," Hectors wrote. "I have never been aware of the dangers."
...
The final, fatal dose of noise came during a friend's bachelor party; he wore earplugs during dinner and fled after a brief stop at the karaoke bar. His ears burned with a white-hot pain.

Thank you for inviting me to your party, but unfortunately I won't be able to come.

 

[Bill Bauer]

You cannot shake Bill Bauer's libertarianism.

I am open to having what I learned about how society works and my understanding of history questioned. Please provide me a good reason/argument as to why we should prefer living under what basically amounts to a feudal system (with the feudal lord promising to "take care" of all of us) to being free.

 

[Bill Bauer]

@Bill Bauer I am not actually sure

I didn't get an alert about the message above.

I think having a single leader like that is inherantly authoritarian

When I wrote "king of the world", I meant "if you had your way".

the best way to make sure capitalism is safeguarded against fascistic tendencies arising when corporate space and government space get too entangled.

Right now all of the corporations are "woke" (I think at one time Chic-Fil-A wasn't, but in no time they were taught a lesson and ended up reversing their tune). So I am not sure what it is you are talking about. Perhaps there was something to it back in 1930s, 80 years ago?

if the ceaseless flow of lobby dollars and creation of a class of career pols could have been avoided

if you were suddenly in the position of personally redesigning the entire global economic structure, how would you do it?

I believe the role of the government is to protect our freedoms (and I think this should be its only role).

I don't think "power corrupts" - I think corrupt people seek power. The solution is to ensure that Nobody has too much power. So take away power from the government and enforce antitrust laws promoting competition among the firms. It isn't ok that behind all of the brands one sees at the local supermarket we have fewer than 10 firms. It is probably a good idea to replace minimum wage laws (allowing more people to sell their labor; those who produce less value per hour than the minimum wage can't work when there is a minimum wage) with a maximum wealth law. Something like $5-10 million per person seems reasonable. This would prevent any one person to force their political beliefs onto others, and it would also take away a Marxist talking point.

People should be judged and compensated based on merit alone. Merit (e.g., one's productivity and one's willingness to work) isn't distributed equally. That's ok, we are all beneficiaries of the work of geniuses. We should all hope that those geniuses have good incentives to work, which can be achieved by paying them a fraction of what they contribute to society.

The less corruption there is (and it Is possible to curb corruption), the more it is the case that the only way to earn money is to help others. When everyone's incentive is to find a way to help others, you end up with the fastest growth. Economic growth of just a couple of percentage points higher than the growth achieved by other economic systems amounts to a huge difference in the standard of living over a relatively short time horizon of 40 years.

though if I learned anything from the French Revolution, it's that once a crazed populace guillotines the 1%, then they look at the 10%, then the 25%, etc.

I oppose a revolution because I anticipate everyone's standard of living to fall.

I replied that I think that's one outcome, but there are so many existential factors around climate instability, war, etc, that it's pretty hard for me to look that far out.

As COVID-19 fiasco has illustrated, no matter what happens the tendency is to use it to find excuses to eliminate freedoms. So all of those future shocks will likely push the country in one direction.

The USSR has gone bankrupt because they couldn't provide an incentive for people to work. However, mass surveillance provides the answer - when you can monitor the workers, you can punish the slackers.

 

[Contrast]

Two mainstream scientific theory of consciousness that supports the existence of subjective experience and free will as part of the natural world.

Orch Or states that microtubiles (tube shaped organelles inside animal cells) are responsible for consciousness. However not just any microtubles but rather the ones inside the dendrites of brain neurons, these specialized microbtules are hypothesized to expand a quantum processes that is directly linked to conscious experiences. Which means the brain doesn't create consciousness, but rather it harnesses it from sub atomic processes. The microtubles all work in harmony to spread conscious experience across brain networks. The theory also claims free will works by consciousness sending information backwards in time (retrocausality). It also defends why single cells and plants appear to be conscious. It also makes the claim that abiogenesis was triggered by proto-conscious chemicals fusing into the first cells. The first cell formed because biochemicals in a primordial soup 3.9 billion years ago felt good when they fused together. This is a controversial claim that life evolved to take advantage of consciousness. (not the other way around)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction

I like this theory because it has a really good scientific defense to explain free will, subjectivity, abiogenesis and why single cells have intelligence. I'm still skeptical but this one seems to have the most explanatory power without doing away with reality like idealist want.

Intergrated Information Theory (IIT) states that all systems have a primitive extremely low level state of consciousness and possibly (debatable)volition. True Consciousness emerges from complexity of a system. How well two or more parts of a system can communicate through eletrical and chemical processes. This theory states consciousness doesn't emmerge from computation, computation just makes it more complex. Subjective Experiences are mapped out in a very technical way. A map of all emotional and subjective states one can experience is represented on a spectrum. Concious experiences are represented by complex geometric structures. It's mathmatically precise so it can be tested. IIT also has a lot of debates on how free will works. Some proponents of IIT still believe free will is an illusion.

The founder of IIT said he believes the Internet is conscious and defenders argue explosions have temporary states of consciousness. A grenade exploding may have a brief moment of consciousness according to the logic of this theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory



All the other theories on consciousness like Global WorkSpace or Dan Denette's model are strictly computational and deterministic and classical materialism. Those theories can't explain why single cells and plant intelligence. They also call consciousness an illusion.

On the other end of the spectrum people like Donald Hoffman that suppose "consciousness creates reality" don't really have proper evidence to justify their claims and they are jumping to radical conclusions based on new age mysticism. That's why no one takes them serious. Though they are still entertaining to listen too. the inner skeptic in me isn't going to give in.

 

[JulianBrumbelow]

 

[Kain]

 

[Contrast]

I've actually been practicing CBT recently for my own sanity.

Fun Fact I have done it in the past but it was difficult to stay calm when I have such an awful family that is not mindful.

 

[Contrast]

We use to be number three google search result for the term "Sonus Complete" now we are on page 2"

FUCK!

 

[Contrast]

This little fucker right here puts artificial intelligence consciousness claims to shame

He's a single cell algae, and he's not a neuron.

If you put him inside the water maze (like this), he'll find his way out quicker each time

You put him in a disk of water under a microscope and he escapes faster and smarter each time.

Read more here.
https://www.nanowerk.com/news2/biotech/newsid=41085.php

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/ind...uk.org.uk/mag/artnov14/paramecium-engima.html

 

[Contrast]

https://www.nature.com/news/how-brainless-slime-molds-redefine-intelligence-1.11811

These bois have no nerves. Just yellow slimes that grow and find food that's hidden in mazes. If you cut them up in a closed area they fuse together again. They don't usually travel the same path as they detect a trail of their own slime that encourages them to take a novel path.


Also if one places food on places in a map that resemble large cities, they mimic the rail way structure in those actual cities. WTf!? Because they are choosing the smartest options to navigate long distances.