Quote from: BeardFisher-King on May 20, 2019, 03:10:25 am

Quote from: Srancy on May 20, 2019, 02:49:37 am

It took a bit but I really enjoyed The Three-Body Problem.

Very glad to hear it, Srancy! Keep reading; "The Dark Forest" is really good, also.

Dark Forest broke into my top 10 most enjoyable books so I'd say I liked it a bit!

Excellent! I loved the conversation between Da Shi and the protagonist at the end where the protagonist explains dark forest strategy. Chilling and eye-opening.

I dig the ending. Good call.

Quote from: TLEILAXU on May 06, 2019, 04:44:06 pm

Why? Maybe the incessant need to be in control actually fuels these things, and being told it's not your fault can be a relief.

That absolutely could be the case, and in those cases, something like a drug will likely work to get one out of a sort of positive feedback loop.

But, on the other hand, if you don't learn how to think in a way that can get yourself out of the mind-space that demands such a need for control, means that once you'd habituated to the drugs, you are right back where you started.  Locus of control is really not about an "all or nothing" position.  I mean, I drive to work, some of what will happen will be within my control, so I can "worry" about that, but I can't control what a meteor from space might do, or what the guy on the other side of the road might do.  So, indeed, it is a matter of fact that one can be a "victim of circumstance" and have little not no control over what might happen.  But at some point, you will likely have control over something, be it your reaction, your way of thinking about how to overcome what happened, or what you can do in the present to effect a positive outcome in the future.

In my work as a driver, I'm often observing driving situations and reviewing what could I have done better or differently to achieve a better outcome (for example, a smoother merge). Collisions are way more preventable than most people think; after all, nothing "comes out of nowhere".

Personal behavior change is hard. Taking pills is easy. And the placebo effect strikes at the heart of consciousness and will.

The brief discussion in the NPR interview of the history of lithium was interesting. Useful element, apparently, but unprofitable, since it's an element and not a compound. 

This may be of interest to some. A recent conversation between Scruton and Peterson at Ralston College, Cambridge.

https://youtu.be/kne-YULXUzU

Here's the book behind the NPR interview summary that sciborg2 linked above: "Mind Fixers" by Anne Harrington

Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness https://g.co/kgs/b57deo

From the conclusion of the introduction:

"I have written this book because I believe that history matters. We perhaps don't need history to see that psychiatry today is not a stable enterprise marked by consensus about mission, but rather a fraught one, where rhetoric still outstrips substance, where trust is fragile, and where the path forward is unclear. But we do need history to understand how we came to be where we are now and therefore what might need to happen next. Heroic origin stories and polemical counterstories may give us momentary emotional satisfaction by inviting us to despise cartoonish renderings of our perceived rivals and enemies. The price we all pay, though, is tunnel vision, mutual recrimination and stalemate. For the sake not just of the science but of all the suffering people whom the science should be serving, it is time for us all to learn and to tell better, more honest stories"

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...but what we got was a McDonald's hamburger that they took the wrapper off and stuck some literal bells and whistles inside of.

I love the "literal" bells and whistles, H.