I'm 25. I noticed the cycling at about 17, though it started at 14, I guess. The worst period was at 20-21.

From the info that I've seen on bipolar... it really "gets into the swing" when you get to your late 20s and early 30s. Earlier than this and it can easily be mistaken for normal moods affected by outside forces.

I had considered this. Further evidence: I have an atypical reaction to coffee. I get sleepy, then really calm. I react to very small doses and don't seem to build resistance (except to the anti-tiredness property). This is not unusual for manics and ADD folk. Both my parents drink coffee right before going to bed, to sleep better. (I don't, normally. Sleep quality goes way up, but caffeine also disrupts it, so memory suffers.)

But going with "alright, I'm bipolar" is just a label. I've gone through enough of those already.

As far as I know, there's no good bipolar treatment. Lithium might be useful for more major cases, but my general mood is fairly stable as is. Inspired by Seth Roberts, I experimented with morning faces, movement and sunlight. Light therapy seems to stabilize my depression (though it's too early to tell; winter is coming). The other two do nothing.

Besides the stuff I already listened, I'm not aware of any other promising treatment. I have a fairly low opinion of therapists, so I haven't made a great effort to check them out. I studied all plausible methods though, often with neat successes, but unfortunately only for different problems.

(Don't take this as negative dismissal. It's just that so far I haven't been successful down this road. Right now, I suspect that working on the level of thought or mood is useless as that's not were the issue is. I'm trying to escalate the problem now to get a better picture of what exactly isn't working, so I'm actively seeking out boredom, pain, guilt and so on. That's certainly an atypical approach. I don't know if it is successful or sane, but when you can't find a bug, it always helps to have more data about what input causes it break...)

I noticed that, while there used to be religious wars, for the most part these days, what gets people to die for no good reason is nationalism.

I'm not sure what the best attitude is-- I don't think we can dispense with government these days, but on the other hand, I don't think law-abidingness and patriotism should be put very high on the list of virtues.

I think that you raise a legitimate concern. I think that as opportunity for growth increases, it will be to people's advantage to rewire themselves to be more empathetic so that they can cooperate with one another more. So I think that people's enjoyment of torture will go down on average. But this doesn't entirely preclude the concern that you raise. I think that all that one can say is that while there's a good chance that there will be torture in the future if the human race survives, there will be a lot of counterbalancing ecstatic experiences. Whether the latter can balance out the former is in some measure a matter of perspective.

I believe that a lot of what's wrong with the world comes from taking governments too seriously. The historical argument for atheism-- the damage done by religion-- applies at least as strongly to governments.

This doesn't mean I think it necessarily makes sense for individuals to conspicuously ignore a government which is dangerous to them. To put it mildly, there are group effects.

I'm inclined to agree, though I suspect we've got different lists of what the real problems are.

Agree with Caplan. Various people recommend National Public Radio.

Relevant post here: Kaj Sotala's Applying utility functions to humans considered harmful.