adrice727

  address my issues with the platform

What are your issues? What could Substack be doing better for fiction writers?

About 10 years ago, I started having really bad low back pain and could barely get out of bed some mornings. Different doctors told me different things. I tried chiropractic, acupuncture, stretching - nothing was helping. Then I came across one of Sarno's books. I was very skeptical, but I found that within 20 pages, he had described my situation to a tee. I followed the advice in the book and was back to running and yoga within a week, and was lifting weights again a couple weeks later.

Sarno's books and theories are a bit outdated at this point, but we now have people like Howard Schubiner and Nicole Sachs, and things like Curable.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34586357/ [2] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cure-for-chronic-p... [3] https://www.curablehealth.com

  . . . which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being

Where are you getting this from? I don't know of any traditions that would describe it in this way.

Why does this seem to be different with software as opposed to other areas of engineering? Is it a generational thing?

Before jumping into the tech industry, I worked in the automotive industry and spent a lot of time around engineers. They were mostly all over 40 and they mostly all fit the stereotype of the frugal engineer. I don't see too many of those engineers in the Bay Area.

It's a far cry from actual pattern matching, but you can always tag your types[1]:

  interface Tagged {
    tag: string;
  }

  interface Circle extends Tagged {
    tag: 'circle'
  }

  // ... Other implementations 

  switch (myShape.tag) {
    case 'circle': {
      // Do circular things
    }
    // etc . . .
  }

You'll occasionally even see this in Scala code, since the @switch annotation optimizes pattern-match statements[2].

1. https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/advanced-types....

2. https://www.scala-lang.org/api/2.12.x/scala/annotation/switc...

No, he doesn't.

"...I got dismissed from Harvard because I had given psychedelics to an undergraduate. We had agreed with the dean that we would not give psychedelics to undergraduates.” Ram Dass flashes a mischievous grin. “He was an attractive kid.”

That's all that is said about the situation.

Any advice for someone 3-4 years into their career with the option to work on something that's a "good thing for the world" or something that is more technically interesting and will be better career-wise?

Johann Hari covers a lot of the history of antidepressants in "Lost Connections." Per the studies he covers in the book, most of the benefits are placebo effect. The remainder is somewhat of a mystery. Whether you give someone a medication that increases the level of serotonin in their system (i.e. an SSRI), or that decreases the level of serotonin, the effect will the be same. Replace the drugs targeting serotonin with drugs that target dopamine and you can expect the same effect.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/17/lost-connectio...

A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright is another good one that touches on this quite a bit.

https://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Progress-Ronald-Wright/...

I read "Lost Connections" by Johann Hari[1] a couple weeks ago. He spends much of the first section on the research and history of antidepressants. One particularly interesting thing is that drugs that decrease serotonin levels are just as effective as those that increase serotonin. The same goes for drugs that alter levels of dopamine. It seems that a great majority of the effectiveness of antidepressants comes from the placebo effect, and the remainder is somewhat of a mystery. Also, doesn't cure imply something that is permanent and not just a temporary measure?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/17/lost-connectio...

This was from the Michael Pollen episode.

How are you defining character? Is it only the look of the neighborhoods, or is it the people that live in those neighborhoods?

Dotty is moving in this direction with Implicit Function Types.

https://dotty.epfl.ch/docs/reference/implicit-function-types...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXDm3WHZT5g&feature=youtu.be

Terence McKenna's lectures from the Earth Trust Foundation conference are really great, if you're into that sort of thing. There are four parts, totaling ~6.5 hours.

https://archive.org/details/PsychedeliaRawArchivesOfTerenceM...

For me, it's the portability. I can work from my desk, a coffee shop, a park, or the floor of my living room, which is where I am right now. Working remotely is never an issue because I have everything I need with me.

Can't they do both? I don't think they're going to be in short supply of prisoners anytime soon. And running as a for-profit, they're going to have significantly more resources.

Part of the idea behind Redux is to keep components as pure as possible and limit side effects to one place, usually actions. You keep all async actions in components?

The article you're referring to[1] only talks about a single group of hunter-gatherers, the !Kung. And all things considered, they do not work less than we do.

. . . his original estimate of 12-19 hours worked per week did not include food processing, tool making, or general housework, and when such activities were included he estimated that the !Kung worked about 40-44 hours per week.

How many people do you know that spend 44 hours or less per week working, commuting, grocery shopping, cooking, doing housework, running errands, etc.?

[1] http://quillette.com/2017/12/16/romanticizing-hunter-gathere...

You have to consider the period of time over which those species became extinct. Per E.O. Wilson, we're losing species at a rate that is ~1,000 times faster than anything in the past. If it continues, the loss in biodiversity will lead to the breakdown of many ecosystems that we depend on for survival.

One thing that I find amusing is that a lot of people are never drug tested as part of the process. I spent ~5 years working for the DoD with a secret security clearance and never had to take one.

  The present study focused on changes in brain function before versus after psilocybin in 
  patients with treatment-resistant depression who received two doses of the drug 
  (10 mg followed by 25 mg, one-week apart) as part of an open-label clinical trial.

25mg of pure psilocybin, the equivalent of 3.3 - 5 grams of dried mushrooms (depending on strength), is certainly enough for a trip.

I recently tried to dispute something on my Equifax report and I could not get past the verification stage. The answers to all the questions were obvious, but after failing the verification several times, I started wondering, "Did I open an account with x, y, or z back in 2011?"

I had success with the Sarno method as well. My comment from a previous HN discussion [1]:

I started having back issues about five years ago. It got so bad that getting out of bed in the morning was a struggle. I was diagnosed with a herniated disc at L4/L5. I tried chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage therapy to no avail. Then I came across one of Sarno's books. I remembered Howard Stern singing his praises years ago on his show, so I decided to at least give it a shot. I was very skeptical, but within the first twenty pages Sarno had described my situation to a tee. I started following his advice and saw immediate results. I was back to running and doing yoga within a few days and a couple weeks later I was back in the gym doing dead lifts. Aside from an occasional flare up during stressful periods, I haven't had any issues since then.

However, I don't agree with Sarno's view that the mind uses pain as a diversion from psychological or emotional issues. I think it uses to pain as a way to get our attention, to let us know that we need to deal with those underlying issues.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12986759

You're not the first person who has told me that.

It's been ~5 years since I read it, so I can't remember too many specifics. I was ~6 months into starting to learn to program and I think I would have probably given up if I hadn't read Waitzkin's book. He talks about how certain people tend to give on something if they struggle in order to protect their intelligence, to keep from feeling stupid or like a failure. It may be common sense but it's something that really clicked with me as I realized that it was something that I had done my whole life up until that point.

I kept going and eventually made a career transition into engineering. But something else happened that was actually much more important, and that was that I developed a much deeper understanding of and appreciation for the whole learning process. I was so tuned in to the whole thing that I would have these insights where I would I could pinpoint almost all of the things he talks about in the book in my personal experience. Years later, I’m able to make parallels in my present experience to all the things I experienced then, which in many cases provides some encouragement because I know I’m on the right path.

One of the books that has had the biggest influence in my life is "The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin, the child chess prodigy of "Searching for Bobby Fischer" fame.

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Learning-Journey-Optimal-Performa...

Yes, you can find it in some probiotic supplements.

https://www.gardenoflife.com/content/product/dr-formulated-p...