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All of MaxCarpendale's Comments + Replies

[Expired] 20,000 Free $50 Charity Gift Cards
MaxCarpendale
10

I think you just need to use the search function and they should be available as long as they are US incorporated nonprofits. I donated to Animal Ethics Inc.

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March Coronavirus Open Thread
MaxCarpendale
50

Having all partners isolate together is maybe another option for small polecules who all get along well.

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March Coronavirus Open Thread
MaxCarpendale
70

We started an effective altruist coronavirus discussion group on Facebook and there are a lot of posts in it. The link is here if you're interested.

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A cognitive intervention for wrist pain
MaxCarpendale
70

Thanks for writing this! It's good to see more sceptical approach. Do you have any more recommendations for reading on the subject?

I've had RSI for five years now. I read Sarno, tried the Curable app, and tried on the hypothesis that my pain was psychosomatic. For my case, the benefit I've got from a more psychosomatic approach is to try to form fewer negative associations with the pain. I used to view the pain as an indication that my body was broken and that I was ruined. Now I still have the pain, but I have much less of that secondary ... (read more)

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1rmoehn
Not really, sorry. Wacky old Sarno did the job for me, so I didn't look further. Then I took what rational argument I could find and put it in the above article. However, for the people who think that the human body is easily broken, I'll repeat one recommendation from above: Through the Valley by Col. William Reeder. EDIT: Another recommendation: When I have sports-related issues, I treat them with recommendations from Becoming a Supple Leopard by Kelly Starrett. And when this doesn't fix it, I call one of the PTs at what used to be MobilityWOD. Apparently they've changed their branding to ‘The Ready State’. I've heard a similar story from a friend with chronic fatigue. Good for you! I'm not saying that all RSI is psychosomatic. Sorry for not being clear. I just know that my case was psychosomatic, so I assume that it's psychosomatic for a certain unknown percentage of wrist pain sufferers. My reasoning is this: I had severe wrist pain. And the physical remedies I tried didn't work. I read a book that gave me a few ideas and "thought remedies" and the pain went away. And it's been staying away for years, no matter how much I type. (As I mentioned in the article, I get occasional slight, which pains I attribute to stress and which go away quickly.) As the psychological change led to a physical change, I conclude that I've had psychosomatic pain. And since it's unlikely that only I had it this way, I conclude that there must be other sufferers of psychosomatic wrist pain. The pain being ‘weird’ is not required for my argument. There is one paragraph mentioning ‘strange’ pain, but that's just one of my handwavy diagnostic criteria, not an antecedent. I'm not aware of any satisfying explanation. I just know that changing my mind somehow cured my pain, so I call it ‘psychosomatic’. Actually I make another prediction in the comments: ‘If stress causes wrist pain and people stress out, because they think that typing is bad for them, wrist pain should be "contagious
My recommendations for gratitude exercises
MaxCarpendale
50

If anyone's interested, here are my sources for this post. The practice of using negative visualization and contrasting to feel more gratitude is based on the stoic practice of that name. You can find it described in many stoic works, including the A Guide to the Good Life by William Irvine. This post is also based on Sam Harris's thoughts on the subject, in this video for example. I also took some inspiration and ideas from this Econ talk episode discussing A.J. Jacobs' book on gratitude

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My recommendations for gratitude exercises
MaxCarpendale
10

Thanks for the feedback! I guess I thought it was short and cohesive enough for those not be necessary.

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Cephaloponderings
MaxCarpendale
20

You didn't even mention what might be the weirdest thing about octopuses, which is that despite their colour changing abilities, current evidence suggests they can't see in colour (Other Minds 2016).

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3Pattern
They can't see color, or their eyes can't see color?