I'm gonna speak purely anecdotally, and this is personal opinion.
I was born in 82 in France, was 19 on 9/11/2001.
It definitely shaped my psyche and world view. You just don't grow up as naively when you know 9/11 is an option (the end result, however we got there).
I realized last Sept (19) as I visited the Memorial in NYC for the first time that this had had a long, lasting effect on me. I sobbed in the room where you listen to a flight attendant's last call to her husband. Upon exit I saluted the security guard with deep gratitude. We exchanged a timid smile from the eyes. It felt right.
The shitshow that occurred in the US in the years following 9/11 (Patriot Act, Iraq conspiracy to bring in my country to war, Obama spying on Merkel and Hollande and condoning PRISM, etc) made me realize, with profound disappointment, how idealistic and naive I had been about the USA, as if their recent suffering made them somehow impervious to be becoming hostile. I now realize how ridiculous my optimism had been, and the truth is I have countless examples right here at home in history and reality.
The fact is we get over something like 9/11, we move on, but sometimes we're reminded that this shaped us deeply.
I believe COVID will have bigger and more lasting effects on youth, it's just so much bigger and longer. I hope it will help produce the bigger kind of changes that make history move forward.
> You probably couldn't design a situation in a lab that would screw over the poor more than COVID-19.
This is very true in the US and most countries around the world. If I were poor and I could choose where, I'd certainly prefer to be poor in Western Europe where at least it's not a death sentence thanks to free healthcare and a minimum socio-economic net (it's not perfect, far from it, but if I had to choose... better than the USA certainly under COVID, and that would probably remain true whoever the president is given the lasting social security structure).
I feel grateful, in a way, that we're taking care of poor people. I know many rich entrepreneurs today in Europe who, at some point in their life, were poor AF and may have died if it weren't for all the social nets, they might have never become who they are today. Some of them employ 100+ people, others have contributed massively to funding education (lifelong notably, for adults too).
This tangent to say: it's worse for the poor and probably always will be, but that's also how some eventually create value beyond mere wealth. The "trick" is to avoid death, whether social or clinical, when people are drowning. In that regard, most rich countries do worse today than 50 years ago (chances for children to do a better job than their parents), and that's deeply, deeply worrying because it's the very fuel of our current wealth and domination over existence (how modern civilizations are so much better at surviving, at thriving, thanks to science, tech, political stability, etc.)
Food for thought, and room for improvement, which I'm sure those most shocked by COVID will have no choice but to care about. They will have seen the fall, so they are uniquely qualified to build the next new rise.
Is there a way AMP could have an opt-out option? (maybe a permanent setting, maybe a per-search trigger) Ideally at user discretion, but I suppose it must be enabled by the first-party content provider (the website).
That would make everyone happier I think. I don't mind AMP some of the time, but sometimes it's undesirable for security concerns notably.
I concur. Dual Xeon E5-2687W here (2×8 pcores, Sandy Bridge). Turbo 3.8 GHz to 3.4 all cores. [Ebay: ~$300 each, mid 2016]
It's still more expensive to buy a brand new Threadripper or 16-core Intel (sic) than this bargain I made some 4 years ago.
I will probably get a Zen 3 platform, once each CCX contains 8 cores (4 is just too limited for my virtualization need, I kinda like that my Xeons are "monolithic").
Obviously this is for programming and shit learning, not gaming, but I can still manage my 60 fps stat with a beefy GPU.
That's a very good question. I used to be you. As I said above, my 'secret' was to dissociate 'me' (the body, with an inner child inside) from 'my thinking brain', the overarching parent/boss up there who makes decisions.
So parent takes care of the child and is able to say "nope, don't do that". Developing this approach is what made me an adult I think (I was in my 30s already, it didn't come naturally to me).
A great trick was audiobooks. You just listen and that wakes the brain up, but a book is really, really so much better than random posts. 30 minutes as you wake up, then get up, have breakfast etc. is sure mind opener.
It becomes a habit, maybe a need even, but it's a good need. Books and exercises is the winning combination for success and happiness (seriously, just these two things put you in the top 5%, or so I hear).
Places like librivox have tons of free content. A well thought-out podcast is good too I think (long-form content). It's the idea of a passive but mind-opening activity.
Then when I'm working during the day I put the phone away silent for ~30 minutes, then take a break and chill for 5-10 minutes, then back at it, rinse and repeat. That's what got me off the dopamine hook I think.
> even seeing the app icons for notifications on my lock screen can lead me down a nonstop work path
I totally know the feeling! I think it's really biological, low-level:
- dopamine! It's like a shot, the brain gets triggered.
- familiarity: "feels like home", habits take us to our comfort zone.
> you end up in you PJ's at 11h30 with zero caffeine in you and a feeling of a day already passed.
Haha, yeah... I've been there so often in my teens / twenties.
I think it was self-love + discipline that let me exit that loop. Treating myself like a (inner) child and their parent all-in-one person: forces one to think about well-being first, it gives a feeling it's the "right thing to do" to let yourself chill and avoid that kind of time vortex.
Who, in 2020, grabs their phone first thing before hitting a drink, or bathroom, or wash your face or whatever you do when you wake up?
I (37M) find it weird. In 2010, sure, it was all new and I was younger maybe. Nowadays I just don't even have to refrain myself, it could be 10, 20 minutes before I look at any screen. It would usually be my laptop actually.
Am I the exception? I'd think a technologically mature crowd to be much less... dependent, less hooked to their phone. I would think of this being an actual challenge for the mainstream Facebooking / Instagramming / Twittering, but not people like us...
[work notwithstanding, evidently, sometimes we need to grab the phone but that's irrelevant to my observations]
I didn't want to mix topics, but if you're gonna go there...
As a European, I wholeheartedly agree.
It's not a new sentiment either. The US has grown increasingly hostile towards the world since the turn of the century, Bush Jr.
Needless to say, 45 made things way, way worse, but the US made that choice and is poised to double down come November, despite the criticality of current events. The why and how does not matter to the outside. Dems/GOP blablabla, corruption blablabla, Biden blablabla, Hillary blablabla... who cares? Get your shit together!
It's worrying (at an all-time high as we speak) for foreign states and companies. For many around the world, being too tied to the US has become a liability indeed, adding too much uncertainty (risk) to their bottom line or stability. This is no more acceptable than China's lies and deceit. Humbling reminder that hostility is not without consequence, and pretty much always results in lose-lose outcomes.
Losing the US as a dependable, reliable world leader has been the most tragic loss of this century, in my opinion.
There's a growing sense that we ("the free world", western countries + usual friends like Japan, Oz, etc) are about to enter a cold war with China, though, following the COVID-19 debacle.[1] The CPC's ultimate responsibility will likely define the magnitude of that (which may range from mild such as tariffs, to hard e.g. Soviet era, passing by sanctions of various degrees, forbidding companies to even trade let alone joint-venture in China, etc).
Independently of diplomacy, the particular conditions of a pandemic seem to call for less dependence on foreign powers, at least on a continental basis (some capacity for autarky on a temporary basis).
Independently of the above, history shows that out of the 16 last times there was a shift in world's first GDP (here US → China), no less than 12 led to war.[2]
Again independently, the general sentiment towards China has deteriorated faster than ever in 2019 (before crisis), due to the White House posture notably (trade tensions, mutual racism/xenophobia).[3][4] This went even lower recently.[5]
A key factor notably, in my opinion, is that anti-China sentiment used to be correlated with age: people over 50 were more likely to have such a view, while younger categories held a more favorable view; but recent events are likely to sway the opinion across the board. Anyone old enough to have a political opinion isn't likely to "forget" COVID-19 or "forgive" wrongdoings in the matter if responsibility is proven in the public eye.
There is little substance to redeem any of these facts, I'm afraid.
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A personal take on this [Disclaimer: opinion still in flux as information comes in. Strong conviction, but loosely held.]
I don't see how China doesn't lose most of their international credibility in this affair. Once global production and logistics flows are restructured to take China out of the equation (it'll take years, a decade at least I think), it will take an even longer time to come back, if ever (other superpowers, more worthy of trust, may emerge in a generation's time). It will cost the world a lot, may prolong the depression much more than if we looked the other way, but deaths in the 6 figures (possibly an order of magnitude more by then, even two...) is simply unacceptable, reason enough to do it, to isolate them and take the collective hit. We can take it, the combined power of the world minus China is still overwhelmingly capable to drive growth. There are tons of candidates where investment will flock to fund factories, and some of these will come back 'home' for a number of strategic sectors.
I'm afraid China's economic appeal has all but collapsed for this generation (next 10-20 years). I don't think most people realize it yet, but the pile of arguments for a cold war is damning, historically aligned with most precedents, and actually a rare occurrence of too much at once.
(Let us pray there was no malign intent towards the world, for that would likely remove the "cold" adjective above.)
China may just have lost its shot at becoming the world's "leader", and it seems they only have themselves to blame, as their lack of transparency and their negligence for human life are cold hard choices they still keep making, some 30 years after Tiananmen. We hoped China was ready and could change, we thought it would evolve towards a more trustable partner, but instead it maintained its internal dystopia more strongly than ever, and actually engaged actively in trying to change us (remember how, very recently, they were trying to force the NBA and so many corporations to essentially bend to the CPC's propaganda... needless to say, that ship has most likely sailed for good). If we needed a reminder (apparently we did), authoritarianism kills.
So this:
> But good luck with that, since China is a massive trade partner and every country is turning a blind eye to them imprisoning people in concentration camps and harvesting organs. It’s unlikely The States are going to have a change of heart anytime soon.
Seems incredibly anachronic to me. It was true in 2019, but that world is now over, for good.
EDIT: please do read crazygringo's thread above, people in there have much more substance that I could in my short/quick write-up above. In particular, palimpsests' view is very close to what I've heard again and again from people with relevant experience.
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Did I make a fool of myself by failing to comprehend what I read and then arguing exactly the same?
Then, I will just shut up and read again.
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Somehow, a bit tangential to the topic:
About evidence or argument, appeal to authority, I do think it's a case of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof", and the author's claim is extraordinary. Mine is really just consensus from the field of historical psychology. I've never heard an expert arguing otherwise. I could probably google a few links, but randomly sticking "proof" on a non-problem seems... pointless. I shouldn't have to prove that flat geometry yields 180° triangle, it's whoever claims otherwise that bears the burden of substantiating it.
I just won't spend that particular time, since the author's claim is weird, not mine. Triangles add up to 180. Human biology and psychology did not change in recorded history. There's nothing 'new' in our heads besides what we intake from the context.
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But I hear you and will re-read that piece later, with a colder head. Maybe I was put off by some emotional bias and got 'triggered' by the claim (no PTSD in the past... huh?), which led me to interpret, thus fail to comprehend what I read. That much is 100% possible and I've no ego problem in admitting that.
Great food for thought. You do in effect widen the topic so much, the very axioms underlying my assumptions, and that's extremely valuable to me. I think I see your point, now. you took me off-guard, I wasn't expecting this direction and failed to see what you meant.
I will yield to your logic (in particular the last sentence). I may deplore that it makes the whole topic kind of moot, but that's my feelings, not an argument whatsoever (my bias shows I suppose).
Now, I will just reaffirm that I'm parroting much more expert views. Such topics are one of my pet peeves, been thinking about it quite deeply since I was 12-ish (37 now). Lots of reading over the years. Lots of discussions with 'experts'. I've no professional qualification in psychology however, that's true.
All these questions, "did we cognitively think differently?", "did we feel differently?", "were we in any way significantly different that a modern psychologist couldn't do their thing on a Classic Roman?", "have we changed so much that someone from the past would be lost in the modern world if they were raised in it?"... they all met a resounding "no".
That's what I was trying to express. Based on this unanimous, quite consensual view, how could something as "simple" and common as PTSD not exist back then? It's a really extraordinary claim, thus the burden of proof falls on the claimant, I reckon.
Whether or not we are zombies (I think we are, to a much larger extent than we'd be comfortable admitting for now), that zombie today is exactly the same as all zombies prior, and yet to come, for a long, long time (year 10,000 is too soon, 50,000 might be a low threshold unless we dramatically sped up genetic mutations and selection).
I don't have much more to say. I could probably write a short novel, but what's the point. I'm not even defending the point, just stating consensus. It is, as you correctly imply, not my place to put forward or argue such ideas with authority. But you'll have to go against the whole field of psychology to counter it (I will be eating popcorn as you drag them to reason ;-) )
Hopefully, this tempers a possibly exaggerated authority I may have suggested in my OP. I'll blame my writing style now and learn my lesson, I'll be more cautious and reasonable next time.
(I also stand corrected about the downvoting, so that's on me, my bad. Much respect for your approach, then.)
Now, I'm off reading all these nice links. Thanks again (upvoted both your posts, for a solid contribution to discussion, regardless of my opinion).
And I claim, or rather parrot, that it's wrong to think that because words were not spoken or did not exist, the thing they would eventually come to designate ("PTSD") did not exist.
Romantic love is another good example. It never was spoken in modern terms before the 16th century give or take. Which is far from being equivalent to say "nope, they didn't speak of it like that, so people never experienced romantic love before the 16th century!"
The author's view is just as flawed, afaik. PTSD and every other psychological trait known in modern times did exist for much longer than recorded history, that's what most historical psychologists have concluded (it's not open to debate...), just in different terms (words), perceptions, value (in a larger hierarchy).
Edit: think of it this way. Were feelings "important" in the past? Certainly nowhere near as much as they are today, in our perception. Most were not even spoken, there simply were no words most of the time (or unknown to layman people). Did feelings exist forever, however? Absolutely, yes.
There are many 'trolls' around here (comes with the popularity), who will downvote based on opinion to begin with, instead of writing a counter-argument (or their "problem" with the post is simplistic, first-degree, unsophisticated).
Ignore them. Those who come to read/learn usually do. We read arguments, rebuttals or agreements, and seldom consider scores at face value.
Also, engagement is probably the real salience of votes, whether up or down: it means someone got 'triggered' enough to click, and that usually means you touched something (assuming the comment isn't misleading, factually wrong, etc).
Typically, a post such as yours is interesting, and warrants no downvotes whatsoever.
Biology did not change. Perceptions and expression of it did change. It does not mean the inner biological processes are any different, just the way you consciously select what to say about them. Absence of words (context) means you cannot express certain things; does not mean you don't actually feel them. Romantic love for instance is a quite modern thing, the way we speak of it today. Does not mean people did not feel it before.
Please reconsider your take and vote, you misinterpreted my points I'm afraid. Or at least, make a worthy counter-argument, a click is simply too easy IMHO.
I'm sorry but this has to be the most un-scientific account I've read on the topic (granted, I read few), and it's incredibly misleading.
- Humans did not change biologically enough in 10,000 years, let alone 2,000, to produce a meaningfully different psychology. Take a a child born 2,000 years ago, raise them today, and you'll get just a regular human being. Same thing backwards.
- The entirety of the author's 'hypothesis' (sic) rests upon ignoring that nurture, context, is highly determinant in forming psychological references, relative perceptions, hence reactions, profiles. This is wrong, nature isn't 100%, you simply can't take two identical beings, put them in vastly different contexts and hope they present the same behaviors and perceptions. It makes no sense. Hello Darwin, wish you were here.
- “the absence of evidence”... Again, wrong. Historical psychology is a thing. Author may be well-meaning, but they should adopt a transdisciplinary approach if they are to talk about multiple disciplines at once. Find a good psychologist, work together as one on the topic long enough to form a legitimate hypotheses, then maybe make some conclusions.
- It seems the author also neglected to take into account philosophy, which used to be 99% practical back then. Recipes for good living. Guess why it was widely taught and shared, pretty much the basis of any education, throughout life. Guess why Seneca wrote his letters. What's the point of ignoring just about the closest thing to psychology sessions? Why is Stoicism not in that essay?
I feel like I've just read a mathematician trying, painfully, to speak of epidemiology. (forgive the "modern" reference, I think it's fitting as we speak)
Whatever your core expertise, armchair-other disciplines is a slippery slope. I guess the author somehow mistook his own intelligence for knowledge in psychology.
Say whatever you want about our past, you won't find a psychologist or biologist to tell you we've changed in any way, shape or form "inside". The context, however, ah, the context. Well for that, this thread on HN is much more eloquent, I must say. It's almost as if people collectively had insight! (because this is written: "/s", of course they do, and I wish the author didn't simply write solo or fail to question or quote others.
Here's food for thought: the very fact of "talking about your feelings" is very modern, that's a totally different context. We just didn't dwell on that topic as much in history (hence why, perhaps, some literature became so notorious, because it spoke of something that people weren't used to). It was "fluff". Hence why, when we made "emotions" a matter of science, it became a more acceptable topic, not just for a few who dared. It became "mainstream". (I'm NOT a specialist, so don't quote me on this but Freud, Jung, positivism, is probably where/when to look for a major shift; before that it was "magic", fluff, but it doesn't mean it wasn't "real", like belief in supernatural forces is "magic" but real to the psyche).
Imagine that, in the future, we turn some (currently) elusive aspect of our psyche (like belief indeed), into a form of science, of applied psycho-bio-model-mechanics (like we do cognitive sciences today, a scientific progress over prior centuries). Now imagine some author versed in history but oblivious to psychology and biology, centuries from now, claiming in some random short post that people in the 21st century did not experience any tension in that regard because they didn't have words for it. Well, we may not have the words indeed, not yet; but we certainly experience the tensions with beliefs (supernatural or otherwise), heck we made wars because of it. Just like kings of old have waged war because their feelings commanded them to.
That, my friend, is ethnocentricity of a temporal form (not strictly spatial as is usually the implication with that notion). At best, it's blinding Omphaloskepsis.
Edit: lovely downvotes! So, you think PTSD is a modern thing. You think human psychology has changed dramatically in a few centuries. Alright, point taken! FWIW, I've spoken with psychologists explicitly about this question, and my view is informed by their conclusions. You may wish to rethink your modern bias on biology.
As an investor, $35m to train just about the pinnacle of AI seems like a cheap, oh so cheap cost. I can't even buy 1 freaking continental jet for that ticket, and there are thousands of these babies flying (not as we speak, but generally).
I don't think you are fully cognizant yet with the formidable scale of AI in the grander scheme of things, as an industry, which is nowadays comparable to transistors circa 1972 in terms of maturity. Long, long ways to go before we sit on "reference" anything. Whether architectures, protocols, models, test standards, it's a Far West as we speak.
You make excellent points in principle, which are important to keep in mind in guiding us all along the way, but now is not the time to set things in stone. More like the opposite.
The matter of the fact is that someone will eventually grab the old and new benchmarks, prove superiority in both, and by that point the new is the one to beat since it would be presumably error-free this time.