Comment author: Clarity 09 November 2015 12:20:51PM *  0 points [-]

Prepare yourself.

This may shock some of you, even by my standards.

Suspend your judgement for a moment to objectively consider the prospect of chemical castration.

There are health benefits, and growing numbers of voluntary eunuchs who don't do it because of prostate cancer or coercion.

I, for one, have felt compelled to chemically castrate for many years. I do not know if the feeling that my sexual urges are more trouble than they are worth is idiosyncratic or more widely shared, but too taboo to act upon. So, I'm opening up the question to the thread!

I have some reservations based on implementation. So, even if I do decide it would be a desirable course of action, the execution may be delayed until the evidence of safety becomes clearer or new techniques emerge.

My concerns specifically are:

  • The ambiguous evidence on the reversibility of bone mineral density losses due to long term use of chemical castrates.
  • De-masculanisation resulting in lower attractiveness (physical or behaviour) and therefore less social, political and career clout, esteem.

I would appreciate any evidence anyone can dig up on bone mineral density loss and chemical castrates, relating to long term use and reversibility. I'm struggling to find what I need. And, in the spirit of improving my research skills - if you can give me suggestions for how to do it myself (keywords for google scholar, for instance) that would be good as an alternative! It seems to be a very long and specific question so it's hard to get clarity!

I'll probably trial depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (antiandrogen associated with bone mineral loss for long term use) and trial Benperidol (antipsychotic that reduces sexual urges) instead of Androcur, since the latter has well known depression and withdrawal side effects. There seems to be a huge vacuum on internet information and research on the antipsychotic. But, it may be easier for me to get access too since I have other, ambiguously psychotic symptoms. Any info on that antipsychotic truly appreciated. Given that it's the most potent neuroleptic (tranquiliser), and I've been on other antipsychotics which were overwhelmingly neuroleptic (and thus I discontinued them), I most likely won't give it a try, actually.

edit: I'm considering this now in light of reflection on other libido reducing substances (antidepressants) that didn't feel very good. Sexual desirelessness felt and probably will feel undesirable in light of this, contrary to my earlier thoughts

Comment author: CAE_Jones 09 November 2015 02:04:21PM 4 points [-]

Meta/style: I expect the first two sentences of your comment to attract more negative feedback than the rest of it. I might have upvoted if they hadn't primed me to be annoyed. (I read the comment before I read your name, and I'm glad to see the subject taken seriously; the frustration comes from those two sentences. I'm not sure how to explain why. I understand the cultural assumptions that led you to include them, assuming this was genuine and not shock-bait, which seems a safe assumption.)

Comment author: Clarity 09 November 2015 12:20:51PM *  0 points [-]

Prepare yourself.

This may shock some of you, even by my standards.

Suspend your judgement for a moment to objectively consider the prospect of chemical castration.

There are health benefits, and growing numbers of voluntary eunuchs who don't do it because of prostate cancer or coercion.

I, for one, have felt compelled to chemically castrate for many years. I do not know if the feeling that my sexual urges are more trouble than they are worth is idiosyncratic or more widely shared, but too taboo to act upon. So, I'm opening up the question to the thread!

I have some reservations based on implementation. So, even if I do decide it would be a desirable course of action, the execution may be delayed until the evidence of safety becomes clearer or new techniques emerge.

My concerns specifically are:

  • The ambiguous evidence on the reversibility of bone mineral density losses due to long term use of chemical castrates.
  • De-masculanisation resulting in lower attractiveness (physical or behaviour) and therefore less social, political and career clout, esteem.

I would appreciate any evidence anyone can dig up on bone mineral density loss and chemical castrates, relating to long term use and reversibility. I'm struggling to find what I need. And, in the spirit of improving my research skills - if you can give me suggestions for how to do it myself (keywords for google scholar, for instance) that would be good as an alternative! It seems to be a very long and specific question so it's hard to get clarity!

I'll probably trial depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (antiandrogen associated with bone mineral loss for long term use) and trial Benperidol (antipsychotic that reduces sexual urges) instead of Androcur, since the latter has well known depression and withdrawal side effects. There seems to be a huge vacuum on internet information and research on the antipsychotic. But, it may be easier for me to get access too since I have other, ambiguously psychotic symptoms. Any info on that antipsychotic truly appreciated. Given that it's the most potent neuroleptic (tranquiliser), and I've been on other antipsychotics which were overwhelmingly neuroleptic (and thus I discontinued them), I most likely won't give it a try, actually.

edit: I'm considering this now in light of reflection on other libido reducing substances (antidepressants) that didn't feel very good. Sexual desirelessness felt and probably will feel undesirable in light of this, contrary to my earlier thoughts

Comment author: CAE_Jones 09 November 2015 01:55:58PM 3 points [-]

It would be the most helpful if done prior to puberty.

I'd worry about cardiovascular side-effects, fat accumulation/redistribution, mental side-effects (something something spatial rotation)... basically, I've studied this on and off since puberty (and not before, because life would be boring if I could do anything right the first time), and concluded that, given my current state of health, castration would probably make more things worse than it improves. Actually, I concluded that circa 2008, and I'm pretty sure I was ever-so-slightly healthier then.

Comment author: gjm 24 October 2015 08:57:02AM 3 points [-]

More spam: someone called "lucy" is posting identical nonsense about vampires to multiple threads. Less obnoxious than denature123 yesterday, but still certainly spam.

(I've been assuming that, given that we have multiple moderators, it's better to post comments like this than to PM one or more individual moderators. I will be glad of correction from actual moderators if some other approach is better.)

Comment author: CAE_Jones 24 October 2015 06:21:53PM 0 points [-]

I must admit, had lucy managed to only post the vampire ads in threads about interventions to increase longevity / social skills / etc, I might have considered them worth keeping around for entertainment value. At least then we could use them as an excuse to discuss how blood transfusions from healthy donors affects various quality-of-life factors.

(I wonder how long before someone tries to start a business based around selling healthy blood / fecal transplants / etc, and how long before the FDA tells them to stop before they sell someone diseases.)

Comment author: polymathwannabe 19 October 2015 08:40:42PM 0 points [-]

Sorry, I forgot to reference. The quotes are from Wikipedia.

Also, qi = ki.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 19 October 2015 10:17:04PM 1 point [-]

Based on what I've encountered, I've interpreted the Japanese version as being more broad and metaphysical (the power of friendship, Killing intent), whereas the Chinese version is more like Alchemy: not quite science, but sorta-kinda tries to be (Fengshui and TCM, but also conservation of energy and such). There is considerable overlap, since ki is literally qi filtered through Japanese culture, but I generally expect people who talk about qi to be more interested in the Alternative Medicine route, whereas Ki indicates one or more of anime fan / Aikido practitioner / practitioner of Japanese spirituality. (These are more probabilities than hard categories; Reiki is a good counterexample.)

Comment author: ChristianKl 18 October 2015 12:49:30PM *  1 point [-]

Everybody who reads LW and integrates what they read into their lives is an interesting person provided they can tell stories about it.

If someone asks you what you do with your free time and you tell him that you read LW with is a community about getting rid of biases and fallacies that isn't interesting.

If you tell him you read LW and there you learned to fix your sleep that's interesting. If you tell him how you now take Melatonin and have now much more energy in your life that's a conversation they can remember a year later, provided you tell the story well.

Applied rationality provides for experiences that make good stories, provided you are good at story telling. On the other hand I don't think my Salsa dancing provides for experiences that make good stories that will likely to be remembered a year down the road.

I went to that extreme that my life was interesting enough to have two reporters with a camera man coming along to film a talk I was given at the Chaos Computer Congress for a Quantified Self documentary and at the same time seeing that I'm not socially interesting and feel like I can't tell interesting things at the end of 2011.

Having "interesting to journalists" but not "interesting for standard social interaction" covered might be a personal extreme that isn't true for everybody in LW, but I think most people here are basically interesting and there issues with other people not finding them as interesting as they would like lies in an inability to communicate interesting stories.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 18 October 2015 06:06:01PM 1 point [-]

Having "interesting to journalists" but not "interesting for standard social interaction" covered might be a personal extreme that isn't true for everybody in LW,

Second datapoint: I've been interviewed by journalists a few times, am terrible at people in general. (A whole half of these would have been dull and pointless interviews if not for my visual impairment. The others I could see happening regardless.)

Comment author: philh 13 October 2015 08:05:50PM 12 points [-]

I have an intuition that if we implemented universal basic income, the prices of necessities would rise to the point where people without other sources of income would still be in poverty. I assume there are UBI supporters who've spent more time thinking about that question than I have, and I'm interested in their responses.

(I have some thoughts myself on the general directions responses might take, but I haven't fleshed them out, and I might not care enough to do so.)

Comment author: CAE_Jones 13 October 2015 08:23:26PM *  -1 points [-]

My general expectation is that either you're right, people will complain loudly until food and water stay cheap, or prices will avoid inflating because the people who produce need the people living on UBI to buy their stuff.

I have no general idea on which is more probable. I like the last one because it is the most convenient, but I'm not convinced it has any more probability than the first two.

Comment author: itaibn0 07 October 2015 11:08:55PM -1 points [-]

Based on personal experience, if you're dreaming I don't recommend trying to wake yourself up. Instead, enjoy your dream until you're ready to wake up naturally. That way you'll have far better sleep.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 08 October 2015 01:10:18AM -1 points [-]

Based on personal experience, I would have agreed with you, right up until last year, when I found myself in the rather terrifying position of being mentally aroused by a huge crash in my house, but unable to wake up all the way for several seconds afterward, during which my sleeping mind refused to reject the "something just blew a hole in the building we're under attack!" hypothesis.

(It was an overfilled bag falling off the wall.)

But absent actual difficulty waking for potential emergencies, sure; hang out in Tel'aran'rhiod until you get bored.

Comment author: CellBioGuy 06 October 2015 02:54:16AM *  19 points [-]

Advancedatheist is flagrantly abusing the voting system. How can this be addressed/reported/stopped?

I literally saw a long post of his in this open thread, nearly-universally downvoted to -10, rise to 0 in 3 minutes just now.

EDIT: An additional 7 upwards in 5 minutes as I made this post, contemporaneous with a blast of +7 on another of his posts.

Seriously, how can his constant trolling be stopped? He is hurting discussion and he's been at this for quite some time, I've seen this happen over and over again for more than a year and I'm sick of it.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 06 October 2015 04:36:54AM 5 points [-]

More charitable hypothesis: The people most likely to notice an advancedatheist comment the quickest downvote. The next wave of people finds the downvoting excessive and upvote in response.

This doesn't really predict -10 to +3 swings, though.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 26 September 2015 08:12:44AM 0 points [-]

I found the example here fully sufficient.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 26 September 2015 09:07:12PM 0 points [-]

I tried entering the code in the examples there, with the labels replaced. It showed up as code. Then I noticed polls showing up in the Recent Comments list (where markdown is not rendered) as [poll id=\<numbers\>], and concluded there must be some middle step that was somehow obvious to everyone else that I couldn't find.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 25 September 2015 10:09:40PM 7 points [-]

Let's poll for backstory type:

One side-note: I notice that I seem to be almost the only one using polls. Why is that?

Submitting...

Comment author: CAE_Jones 25 September 2015 11:21:09PM 1 point [-]

One side-note: I notice that I seem to be almost the only one using polls. Why is that?

I tried a couple times, but couldn't figure out how to make them work. The wiki wasn't especially helpful.

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