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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 9, 2020 18:21:28 GMT -5
I find it interesting how acceptable it is to say you have cancer or diabetes or whatever, but for mental illness, nope! I always feel like it’s very awkward if you do admit, yeah, I’ve had or do have this mental illness. It feels like oversharing? But why should it be? How is it any different from having cancer? It’s not like it was my fault my brain abruptly decided when I was 9, “Hey, serotonin’s overrated; I’m gonna stop making it, cool?”
I think mental illness is stigmatized still because it’s seen as a personal failure. If you just tried harder, you wouldn’t be that way! And it’s true, to an extent; you don’t get less depressed by doing nothing about it, and you don’t recover from an eating disorder unless you decide to eat, no matter how terrifying that prospect is. And mental illnesses are silent. You can see that a person with a broken leg can’t walk; you can’t see inside someone’s head to know, this sh*t is hard! People with mental illnesses aren’t exactly the easiest people to be around, so without the context of just how hard it is, it’s easy to judge. Physical illnesses don’t tax your mental reserves to recover the way mental illnesses do.
I’m split sometimes. The less you talk about mental illness, the more stigmatized it is. But what is TMI and what is standing up for the normalization of the experience?
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Dec 9, 2020 21:02:06 GMT -5
I don't think you're off-base in thinking of it like cancer or diabetes. If someone has cancer or diabetes and they make a point of it in our first few meetings, that gets weird. I barely know you, so sorry to hear it but what do you want from me? But if it comes up casually (say you're at a group gathering and someone says they can't eat something because of [medical condition]), that's perfectly fine. After I've gotten to know someone a bit better, I also get if they bring it up in a "by the way" thing. It's when "I have [illness]" is the jumping off point for the relationship that I get weirded out.
It's the same with mental illness. As I mentioned, I've started taking pills for anxiety. I don't feel the need to go broadcasting to random people that I have anxiety, nor would I bring it up with casual acquaintances. Not because I'm embarrassed about it, but because we've all got our problems and I'm not fishing for pity. But if I know someone a bit better then I'll make jokes about it. "2020: a year so sh*t I had to start taking drugs just to cope".
Basically it's just about when and how you bring it up. Everyone has problems. Bringing up any medical issues unprompted (especially to people you don't know well) signals pity fishing, even if that wasn't necessarily how you meant it.
But that's just my opinion: you're absolutely right in that people stigmatise mental illness. Rhetoric around it doesn't help though. Because it's not well understood, it's a catch-all for political issues. School shootings? NRA and Republicans champion that it's a mental health problem, then proceed to do nothing to invest in mental health. But good god if you so much as claim that Transgenderism is a complex mental issue that definitely needs more research, then you're just a bigoted pig who probably murders babies (nevermind the stupidly high suicide rate that doesn't seem to be going down no matter how much you peddle your BS "acceptance").
Basically the point I'm driving at is that I don't think the public at large genuinely cares about mental illness. It's trendy to pretend to care, but spouting random toss on Facebook and Twitter isn't acceptance. Likewise, it's a convenient scapegoat for whatever the hot-topic issue of the time is (remember when video games made kids murderers? then rap? then whatever?). Which is obscene, because I feel more and more people are discovering that their "issues" can be managed, but somehow it's easier to pretend to play along with the game even as you take your meds on the side.
I dunno, it's weird.
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Post by Umbra on Dec 9, 2020 21:03:40 GMT -5
While I can't say I've always regretted moving out of the big city to somewhere smaller (assuming where you live in NJ is smalltown-ish), I do have a rationale for living in a big city. I am in my late twenties, so still technically young, and people of my age range tend to flock to cities anyway. I'm not in anyway settled down so the fact that there's more people around means I can find friends and a relationship easier, at the cost of, of course, potentially contracting COVID. If I want career mobility, I should definitely stick to a city, because working at an okay job while paying high rent is better than working acrapjob and possibly saving a buck.
Of course, in a few months, the hardest thing I'm going to have to deal with is basically leaving my family, the nest I've been in, and my brother who is my best friend. That last part is going to be super difficult, but I'm committed now, as tomorrow is my last day in retail hell and I don't want to go back to that. The ONLY thing my liberal arts degree allows me to do is to check off the box saying I have a Bachelor's degree so I can teach English overseas (Of course, I went ahead and got a proper teaching certificate anyway.) Well, checking off that box while getting an otherwise useless degree is the reason I went anyway, because I knew attending an inexpensive college and getting that box checked was better than being in a ton of debt and possibly in the wrong field (music? audio engineering?) I better stop before this turns into my life story or a therapy session.
Still playing Persona 5: Royal and managed to beat that Madarame bastard. I'm expecting Shin Megami Tensei IV as a Christmas gift, which I've been told is comparable to Fire Emblem in difficulty. I like games that allow me to lose and become frustrated. Did I say that out loud?
And I've also started a new game of Diablo 3, this time on Torment difficulty. I'm playing as a Demon Hunter this time and I'm LOVING it. Meanwhile my brother is playing Crusader (I'm actually kind of glad he doesn't care about tier lists). The two classes seem to synergize really well.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Dec 10, 2020 5:30:01 GMT -5
I think bringing up mental illness can be a good thing to give some context for why you are the way you are, like Joey said. I'm not sure when is the best time to bring it up though. I personally do not mind if someone I know brings it up whenever. I appreciate the fact that they are being honest and not pretending everything is ok. But not everyone thinks like that, and if you don't know the person very well, being open about your mental illness can be really difficult. In my experience, people have started talking about them more openly in the past few years, which is good.
A small tip (which you might've heard already) for SMTIV. The beginning is really rough but after you beat Minotaur, so about 2-ish hours in, it becomes 1000 times better.
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Post by Umbra on Dec 10, 2020 21:30:21 GMT -5
I love rough beginnings, whether it be Dark Souls, Fire Emblem, or Etrian Odyssey. For Dark Souls, the Gargoyles made me rage quit more than once, but eventually I persevered. Dark Souls 3 was far worse, though, with that first boss five minutes into the game being challenging enough to effectively weed out casuals. And if that wasn't enough, then there was the Abyss Watchers. For Fire Emblem, I think Genealogy's prologue made me reconsider my reasons for picking up the game, but I was also really bad at that game anyway. But if we're talking about the first FE I've played, screw you Chapter 4 Blazing Sword (And you too FE6 Chapter 4). As for Etrian Odyssey, I never thought a boss could have so much HP. Also f*ck Etrian Odyssey III for being such a good game I couldn't beat and eventually ended up selling.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 11, 2020 0:00:41 GMT -5
I agree mental illness is very awkward to just bring up out of nowhere to people you've just met. In my experience, people who do this generally identify a lot with their mental illness (almost as if, say, being depressed is their identity in and of itself), and are lonely and looking for someone to talk to about their problems. Most people are hardpressed to give advice to someone they don't really know, and, well, "Hi, my name's Joey and I have [insert mental illness here]" really kinda forces the conversation down a particular path. To Grain's point, sorry to hear it, but I don't really know you, so I don't know what to say. I wouldn't know what to say with a stranger with terminal cancer beyond platitudes, either, really...
With that said, the head of my department is a really nice, upbeat, confident guy who everyone likes. He's one of those rare people who is just universally likable and someone even the most anxious person would feel comfortable around. He posted a LinkedIn update talking about the struggles with mental health he has had since COVID (actually what prompted my post). It was a really thoughtfully written piece, and I reached out to him after reading it to thank him for writing it. He expressed concern it was perhaps "too much", but I don't think it was at all. He's in a senior position in the company and someone you would think has it all together. Seeing him say, you know what, I'm not okay, the pandemic has had a huge toll on my mental health ... normalizes the experience for so many other people, in a good way. I respect that. It was not an activist post. It was just someone expressing this sh*t is hard.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 11, 2020 11:12:07 GMT -5
It kind of bothers me that I'm 10 posts away from 5,000 posts and have been for years. I should go post randomcrapin some other thread so I can stop being annoyed by it.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Dec 11, 2020 12:16:36 GMT -5
Did you ever calculate your actual post count with the scraper you made? I should be closer to a 1000 at this point, but can't remember what my count was when I scraped my posts using your scraper a while ago.
Tbh, I sometimes wonder if we should just make a separate thread every time we bring up a new topic, just so the post count would work properly and the board would seem a bit more active. But that would be a huge pain in the arse, having a single catch-all thread is more convenient.
On SMTIV: besides the difficulty, the early game is rough in a "am I really playing SMT?" and "I hope the rest of the game won't be like this" way. It is really bad at representing the style of the rest of the game.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 11, 2020 17:38:34 GMT -5
I can't remember what my "real" post count was, but I think it was definitely close to 10,000. I should rerun the scraper and store the results in a DB sometime. Also, I'm glad to see you were able to get it to run--I've never actually had anyone try to run my personal code before. Good to know I didn't f**k the instructions up too badly!
SMTIV is the only SMT I've played. I've been told it's really easy by SMT standards. I thought the game was fine? It wasn't a huge challenge and was ok, but I wouldn't be all "man you gotta play SMTIV".
I was pretty pissed that the Neutral path is the Lawful + Chaotic path together, though, plus a bit extra. I thought the three paths would be really different, so I went out of my way to do Chaotic ... then Lawful... then Neutral... wait a second, I already did this. The game wasn't good enough that I wanted to play it multiple times, so finding out I could have just played it once and experienced everything was kind of a bummer.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Dec 11, 2020 18:12:44 GMT -5
I remember having to change something in the code before I could run it, but can't remember what it was. But the instructions themselves were pretty clear, and the code was easy to understand. I should scrape my stuff again as well, I didn't take any backups the last time I did it.
SMTIV was relatively easy once you got past the beginning. I got the Neutral ending by accident (was just playing the game without worrying about which ending I get), and once I figured it basically included the other two endings I didn't feel like I needed to replay it immediately. I liked it a lot though. Not instant favorite, but one of the better JRPGs I've played.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Dec 12, 2020 2:46:56 GMT -5
So usually when I have a day where I forgo the Trinity (which now includes forgoing Pillars of Creation as well, because the whole point is to explore other stuff), I almost always listen to Slugdge. However, since the spirit is to listen to new things, I decided to listen to "Dim and Slime-ridden Kingdoms" again (their album previous to their latest). To my surprise, I found it way more enjoyable than last time I listened to it. It no longer felt like "not-as-good Esoteric Malacology", but rather an enjoyable listen on its own.
This, of course, pushed me to go back and listen to "Monarchy", which I've been enjoying more and more with every listen. It's long ago escaped the shadow of "Owls". And since I'd listened to two, why not go give the previous album from Black Crown Initiate another shot?
"Selves We Cannot Forgive" was easily the most complex album the last time I went through this four, and it remains that way. It's definitely proggier than "Portraits", with less of the explosions of violence and a more groove tone. But y'know, I'm starting to really dig it too. It's still BCI, just a different take on it.
I should've gone to bed an hour ago, but I couldn't in good faith leave Job For A Cowboy out. Thing is, they showed the most evolution between "Demonocracy" and "Sun Eater", so I figured I'd just listen to one or two from Demonocracy and go to bed. Not that it's a bad album, it just doesn't have the proggy elements that make Sun Eater so special. So I listen to one track. Then two. Then three... then I just queue up the whole damn thing, because it turns out I've listened to this album so many times that I actually just really like it on its own.
The constant theme here is "on its own". I don't need to stress here how much Sun Eater/Owls/Portraits mean to me: I never shut up about them. But I may have mentioned (either in a post or just conversation) that I have a hard time listening to their other stuff because "I could be listening to Eater/Owls/Portraits". It's nice to move past that into a phase where I can now appreciate these records on their own, and also appreciate the artists from a viewpoint of their discography (and feel less like a tw*t claiming to love them so much based solely on their latest albums).
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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 12, 2020 9:00:43 GMT -5
I think in places like the US or Europe, curtailing normal life as a result of COVID is the least damaging thing to do. In places like India, I think the cure is worse than the disease. Old people dying vs. plunging millions into poverty, (literally) depriving children of education, introducing risk of starvation, and forcing children into child labor? Yeah, both options suck, but I think old people should take one for the team in countries like that...
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Dec 12, 2020 10:47:11 GMT -5
Do you know why India's population is so high? Is it a religious thing? I can't really comment because there's too little I know about India. My mind went first to, "it sounds like COVID aside, they have some serious child labour problems" to "Why are there such large families if people can't afford it?" to "I wonder if it's a religious thing?" to "If it is, I wonder if this is what the future looks like in a truly pro-life future". It's a slippery slope, so it's not like I'm connecting A -> B -> C -> D, more like, I realise I don't really know jack crap about India, so I don't think I really can comment. It does sound like the population is quite dense, so I do wonder how effective a lock-down is (although I imagine the lack of one could be much worse).
My biggest concern with COVID isn't life or death, since the survival rate is fairly high for non elderly people. Rather, it's the long-term damage it can cause. Ostensibly one of f*ggot's friends had it so badly he was coughing up blood. I'm not a doctor, but I think when you're coughing up blood, that's going to cause long-term lung damage. Having grown out of childhood Asthma, I appreciate to some extent how much lung damage sucks. I'd really rather not go back to being unable to run half a mile without feeling like death, "99% survival rate" be damned.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 12, 2020 20:13:10 GMT -5
I was curious about your question, so I googled. Apparently, there are a couple factors: 1. Temperate climate. More temperate climates have historically more hospitable to large populations. India's always had a very high population to begin with (~300M in 1900 or so). 2. Lowering of death rates without a concordant drop in birth rates. India, like the rest of the world, benefitted greatly from increased hygiene and advancements in medicine, so people are living longer and more kids are making it out of childhood alive. In other parts in the world, like Europe, increased hygiene went hand-in-hand with increased wealth, so the death rate fell in concordance with the birth rate. That's not the case for a lot of countries, though. Hygiene and medicine are easier to institute than, say, solutions to poverty... 3. which brings me to the next point, the value of having a lot of kids. Children are a chosen luxury in the West; elsewhere, children are still an economic asset. India is still very poor, and having a lot means you have more hands on the farm. You'll note that as countries become wealthier and wealthier, the birthrate tends to decline accordingly. The US looks to be an anomaly on the surface, but our population is still growing because of immigration and the higher birth rate of immigrants. 4. It takes time for cultural shifts. Culturally, a "socially acceptable life" still involves marrying and having kids. Being childless isn't really a thing you do. 5. Boys are favored more than girls still. This incentivizes couples to "try again". 6. Sex is extremely taboo in India. Contraception isn't really talked about, let alone used.
So, yeah.
As for COVID, the chance of "long COVID" somewhat unnerves me too, but I still don't think it is as common or devastating an effect as crushing poverty in truly poor countries. I think long COVID is the least of some countries' problems. I mean, a lot of African countries still have a high infant mortality rate due to dysentery and malaria and the like.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 12, 2020 21:36:49 GMT -5
(ns alignment-analysis.utils (:require [clojure.set :as set] [clojure.walk :refer [postwalk-replace]]))
(defn- format-for-select "Replaces keys to make them acceptable for react select" [vals] (map #(postwalk-replace {:name :label :id :value :subteams :options} %) vals))
(defn- tree-seq-depth "Flattens multilevel and adds a key/val pair for depth" [branch? children root] (let [walk (fn walk [depth node] (lazy-seq (cons [(-> node (dissoc branch?) (assoc :level depth))] (when (branch? node) (mapcat (partial walk (inc depth)) (children node))))))] (flatten (walk 0 root))))
(def select-team-options (comp format-for-select (partial tree-seq-depth :subteams :subteams)))
(defn- tree-seq-path "Gets child keys of a particular node" [branch? children root & [node-fn]] (let [node-fn (or node-fn identity) walk (fn walk [path node] (let [new-path (node-fn node)] (lazy-seq (cons new-path (when (branch? node) (mapcat (partial walk new-path) (children node)))))))] (walk [] root)))
(defn get-child-teams "Grabs a particular node and finds child ids" [coll parent-id] (->> (tree-seq #(or (map? %) (vector? %)) identity coll) (filter #(if (and (map? %) (= (:id %) parent-id)) true false)) (map #(tree-seq-path :subteams :subteams % :id)) flatten))
Woohoo! I did it!
How does it work, you ask? No freakin' clue. (OK, I have a semblance of an idea after like twenty thousand years of tweaking some base code I found elsewhere for my own purposes, but "comprehension" seems like an overly generous term here.)
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