A new study out of Temple University has shown that teenagers don't actually need peer pressure to do dumb shit. In fact, the mere presence of peers makes teens act in ways they otherwise would not. These peers were not saying anything, doing anything, truly, the peers in the experiment were not even visible to the experimental subject.
Anyone who actually remembers being a teenager will not find this study surprising. I did a number of very stupid things with friends with absolutely no goading on their parts. And what I hope this study helps people understand is that those god-awful, ridiculous, absolutely pointless Above the Influence PSA's that litter television and print DO NOTHING. They are addressing an imaginary problem!
I was asked if I wanted to smoke pot on precisely two occasions in my high school career. Both times, it was done in a friendly, social manner. This person was inviting me in as a show of friendship. There was no pressure. Never in the HISTORY OF TIME has the line "All the cool kids are doing it" been uttered by anyone but stand-up comics. Above the Influence fails for the same reason that Nancy Reagan and her retarded Just Say No campaign failed: it imagines an American child that doesn't exist.
P.S. The Just Say No campaign reached a point of hilarity by the mid 1990's. I have come across urinal cake holders with "Winners Don't Do Drugs" printed on them. I really don't know what demographic they were hoping to reach with that one.
Monday, February 07, 2011
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Bayer Beyaz Commercial is Shockingly Straightforward (UPDATED)
Bayer has released a new birth control pill called Beyaz, which isn't notable in and of itself; it's the commercial that's amazing.
This is the most frank and truthful ad I have seen in a long time, especially in the world of prescription drugs. Most of them seem to imply that the drugs allow you to do things that you were never stopped from doing anyhow. For example, ads for herpes drugs show people in hot tubs, horseback riding, swinging from trees, sailing, and other weird shit that herpes wouldn't actually stop you from doing. They could at least use euphemisms for sex. But no. It was like the first ad for Claritin, where they had to legally avoid mentioning what the drug did, instead showing some guy windsurfing through a field of wheat, which eventually spelled out the logo. WTF? How does that convey allergy relief?!
But back to Beyaz. I actually find this ad refreshing. It's saying what lots of people are already thinking. Take this pill to prevent pregnancy, because babies ruin your life. TRUTH! Obviously, that's not only true for women, but they have the most to risk. Indeed, it is true for anyone who wants to be a parent, man or woman alike. Having a kid ruins your life for at least ten years. You can't do shit. You can't go to movies, you can't go to nice restaurants, you can't go on two-week trips to exotic locales. You need a baby sitter for everything.
I've read some commentary online where people are taking offense to the ad, saying that the ad implies that women can't have a kid and do fun stuff. They can't! Nor should they! If you aren't ready to focus your life on that kid, you shouldn't be having it. It's that simple. Having a child is a massive obligation. Possibly the greatest obligation that a human can accept. And frankly, the fact that the commercial doesn't sugarcoat the idea that having a kid isn't nearly as fun as visiting other countries, owning things, and finding love isn't at all offensive.
In fact, it is my opinion that life offers so many great things, having a kid borders on insane. If you have a child, you should have one for a wide array of emotional and philosophical reasons. If you can't articulate those reasons, you're not ready to have a kid. So take this pill.
UPDATE:
A recent study has come out seemingly indicating that people who report how satisfying having kids is might be lying just a wee bit. Basically, people talk up the joys of parenting to gloss over the massive financial burden of children.
Me thinks they doth protest too much.
This is the most frank and truthful ad I have seen in a long time, especially in the world of prescription drugs. Most of them seem to imply that the drugs allow you to do things that you were never stopped from doing anyhow. For example, ads for herpes drugs show people in hot tubs, horseback riding, swinging from trees, sailing, and other weird shit that herpes wouldn't actually stop you from doing. They could at least use euphemisms for sex. But no. It was like the first ad for Claritin, where they had to legally avoid mentioning what the drug did, instead showing some guy windsurfing through a field of wheat, which eventually spelled out the logo. WTF? How does that convey allergy relief?!
But back to Beyaz. I actually find this ad refreshing. It's saying what lots of people are already thinking. Take this pill to prevent pregnancy, because babies ruin your life. TRUTH! Obviously, that's not only true for women, but they have the most to risk. Indeed, it is true for anyone who wants to be a parent, man or woman alike. Having a kid ruins your life for at least ten years. You can't do shit. You can't go to movies, you can't go to nice restaurants, you can't go on two-week trips to exotic locales. You need a baby sitter for everything.
I've read some commentary online where people are taking offense to the ad, saying that the ad implies that women can't have a kid and do fun stuff. They can't! Nor should they! If you aren't ready to focus your life on that kid, you shouldn't be having it. It's that simple. Having a child is a massive obligation. Possibly the greatest obligation that a human can accept. And frankly, the fact that the commercial doesn't sugarcoat the idea that having a kid isn't nearly as fun as visiting other countries, owning things, and finding love isn't at all offensive.
In fact, it is my opinion that life offers so many great things, having a kid borders on insane. If you have a child, you should have one for a wide array of emotional and philosophical reasons. If you can't articulate those reasons, you're not ready to have a kid. So take this pill.
UPDATE:
A recent study has come out seemingly indicating that people who report how satisfying having kids is might be lying just a wee bit. Basically, people talk up the joys of parenting to gloss over the massive financial burden of children.
Me thinks they doth protest too much.
Jurassic Park Sucks
I just finished watching Jurassic Park, and regardless of what you may think of its direction, sound, script, or what have you, the thesis of the movie is faulty! We have multiple speeches about how we're arrogant for trying to bring something ancient back to life. We have no idea what will happen! Life will find a way!
I would like to point out that none of those things happened. What did happen? ONE greedy guy screwed around with the park to try and steal some company secrets. That has nothing to do with chaos theory, or life, or ancient species, or anything at all! People built it and people fucked it up. End of story. Start again, and don't fuck it up this time. You don't just stop with one of the great technological achievements of all time!
I would like to point out that none of those things happened. What did happen? ONE greedy guy screwed around with the park to try and steal some company secrets. That has nothing to do with chaos theory, or life, or ancient species, or anything at all! People built it and people fucked it up. End of story. Start again, and don't fuck it up this time. You don't just stop with one of the great technological achievements of all time!
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Islam and the West
I'm watching Islam and the West on the Smithsonian Channel, and they have a number of Muslims trying to defend their faith.
One scholar tries to say that we need to give Islam time. It took the west a long time to achieve its goals, and Islam needs the same courtesy. Everything about this is wrong, at least from the perspective of a believer. First, this is the word of God. By accepting that the society needs time to grow is all but accepting that Allah is make believe. Because IT IS THE IMMUTABLE WORD OF GOD. The word of God now will be the same thing as the word of God in fifty years.
This makes perfect sense from a sociologist's or historian's perspective, but it still doesn't validate the beliefs, nor does it negate our attacks on Islam. Yes, it took the west quite a long while to stop with the whole empire building, mass slaughter, and monarchy nonsense, but WE HAVE. We did it! Hooray for us! It's the twenty-first fucking century and saying that Islam just needs time is no excuse to lampoon it as the culture of a slavering hoard of backward savages.
A Muslim cannot try to defend Islam, because their Islam and the Islam of the fanatics are on equal ground. They are both valid interpretations, and if the word Islam is to have ANY meaning, it must apply to something! Either Muslims are the psychos that crash into buildings with planes, or they aren't. Having millions of people calling themselves Muslims, while all having wildly divergent beliefs is nonsensical.
I want to stress that I'm not defending the west historically. Fair dinkum, the West has actually been much worse than the Islamic countries in regards to past atrocities. What I'm attacking is all that is happening now. Islam now is a tumor and a disappointment to the potential that was their culture 500 years ago.
One scholar tries to say that we need to give Islam time. It took the west a long time to achieve its goals, and Islam needs the same courtesy. Everything about this is wrong, at least from the perspective of a believer. First, this is the word of God. By accepting that the society needs time to grow is all but accepting that Allah is make believe. Because IT IS THE IMMUTABLE WORD OF GOD. The word of God now will be the same thing as the word of God in fifty years.
This makes perfect sense from a sociologist's or historian's perspective, but it still doesn't validate the beliefs, nor does it negate our attacks on Islam. Yes, it took the west quite a long while to stop with the whole empire building, mass slaughter, and monarchy nonsense, but WE HAVE. We did it! Hooray for us! It's the twenty-first fucking century and saying that Islam just needs time is no excuse to lampoon it as the culture of a slavering hoard of backward savages.
A Muslim cannot try to defend Islam, because their Islam and the Islam of the fanatics are on equal ground. They are both valid interpretations, and if the word Islam is to have ANY meaning, it must apply to something! Either Muslims are the psychos that crash into buildings with planes, or they aren't. Having millions of people calling themselves Muslims, while all having wildly divergent beliefs is nonsensical.
I want to stress that I'm not defending the west historically. Fair dinkum, the West has actually been much worse than the Islamic countries in regards to past atrocities. What I'm attacking is all that is happening now. Islam now is a tumor and a disappointment to the potential that was their culture 500 years ago.
Further Thoughts on Cults
I've seen a few documentaries on cults, and one scene, repeated in every production, that really sticks in my mind is the parents expressing their absolute disbelief that their kids could get sucked into a cult. They talk about how their child was popular, played sports, had parties, and all of the other trappings of everyday life in America.
But if statistics are correct, there is an incredibly high probability that these parents, and their little childers, are religious. Does this not make sense to you? Because it's certainly senseless to me. The core of your standard, every-day religions is identical to the core of cults. The only difference is the behaviors that develop around that core. What the parents are actually saying is that they can't believe that their child would abandon the behavior patterns that they inculcated into them.
Accepting religious belief as something valid opens the door to cults. It is a door that nearly 200,000 people walk through every year. No, the average American life is not specifically... cultogenic... is that a word? I just made it a word. American life is not specifically cultogenic, but it is also not specifically antagonistic to cults. The only way to be specifically antagonistic to cult thought is to engender critical thinking, and an absolute rejection of belief without evidence. Effectively, the only way to prevent your kids from falling into a cult is to eliminate religion. And don't eliminate it in an equally dogmatic way. Eliminate it by explaining all reasoning behind the decisions and beliefs. You must make the answers logically self-evident. Instilling this framework of logic and thinking is the way to save your kids, not by simply saying that these baseless behaviors are somehow correct in comparison to other baseless beliefs.
But if statistics are correct, there is an incredibly high probability that these parents, and their little childers, are religious. Does this not make sense to you? Because it's certainly senseless to me. The core of your standard, every-day religions is identical to the core of cults. The only difference is the behaviors that develop around that core. What the parents are actually saying is that they can't believe that their child would abandon the behavior patterns that they inculcated into them.
Accepting religious belief as something valid opens the door to cults. It is a door that nearly 200,000 people walk through every year. No, the average American life is not specifically... cultogenic... is that a word? I just made it a word. American life is not specifically cultogenic, but it is also not specifically antagonistic to cults. The only way to be specifically antagonistic to cult thought is to engender critical thinking, and an absolute rejection of belief without evidence. Effectively, the only way to prevent your kids from falling into a cult is to eliminate religion. And don't eliminate it in an equally dogmatic way. Eliminate it by explaining all reasoning behind the decisions and beliefs. You must make the answers logically self-evident. Instilling this framework of logic and thinking is the way to save your kids, not by simply saying that these baseless behaviors are somehow correct in comparison to other baseless beliefs.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Of Cults and Churches
I watched a documentary on NatGeo called Inside a Cult. It was about some small cult led by a guy who, of course, claimed to be the Earthly embodiment of God... or something like that. All of these cults sound the same. As per cult SOP, the leader, Michael Travesser, made a prediction that the world would end in 2007, which, according to Wikipedia, it didn't.
What I actually took away from the show wasn't anything specific to its content, but more in the eye of the director. There are multiple shots of followers gazing upon Travesser with these glassy looks of absolute devotion in their eyes. I'm working on a book about the existence of God that I hope will reach a wider and more general audience than most philosophical books, and maintained a sort of fantasy about convincing religious people of the validity of my arguments. I have since abandoned those fantasies.
This guy is wrong. I can best describe it as looking at an elephant, saying "There is an elephant," and having someone say "No. There is no elephant there." It is an immediate impasse. There is no logical path or argumentation that can be taken from that point in hopes of alleviating the disagreement. If I see an elephant, and you disagree that the elephant is there, all I can do is call you an idiot and leave.
Looking into the eyes of these cultists made me realize emotionally something that I had kinda'-sorta' realized cognitively. That there is nothing that can be said. There is nothing fundamentally different from a cultist of this ilk and your average churchgoer. The core of their belief systems are identical, the only difference is the behavior that arises from that core.
As is the problem with our inborn assumption of the existence of other minds; given imperfect information about other people we are prone to project our own internal world onto them. The vast majority of people with religious beliefs are grossly quite similar to myself. They go shopping, they eat dinner, they watch movies, they get erections at comically inconvenient times, etc. Their empirically observable behavior is so similar, I incorrectly assume a similar intellectual core. As such, my emotions tell me that arguing may be a fruitful endeavor.
This isn't the case, though. For the vast majority of believers, there is no logical argument that can be made. I know that full well with extremists of the violent ilk, like Muslims, but they're so out there that I stop seeing them as purely religious entities and instead see them as being plum crazy. These cultists were just passively religious. I could SEE it. I could see it in their eyes.
I'm still going to write my book. So what. I'll preach to the choir a bit. Now my fantasy is convincing fence sitters who, while never religious, had yet to form explicit opinions on the subject. They are the ones who kinda-sorta-maybe didn't really believe in God, and I can provide a strong logical underpinning to well-defined beliefs. That's pretty good, I think.
What I actually took away from the show wasn't anything specific to its content, but more in the eye of the director. There are multiple shots of followers gazing upon Travesser with these glassy looks of absolute devotion in their eyes. I'm working on a book about the existence of God that I hope will reach a wider and more general audience than most philosophical books, and maintained a sort of fantasy about convincing religious people of the validity of my arguments. I have since abandoned those fantasies.
This guy is wrong. I can best describe it as looking at an elephant, saying "There is an elephant," and having someone say "No. There is no elephant there." It is an immediate impasse. There is no logical path or argumentation that can be taken from that point in hopes of alleviating the disagreement. If I see an elephant, and you disagree that the elephant is there, all I can do is call you an idiot and leave.
Looking into the eyes of these cultists made me realize emotionally something that I had kinda'-sorta' realized cognitively. That there is nothing that can be said. There is nothing fundamentally different from a cultist of this ilk and your average churchgoer. The core of their belief systems are identical, the only difference is the behavior that arises from that core.
As is the problem with our inborn assumption of the existence of other minds; given imperfect information about other people we are prone to project our own internal world onto them. The vast majority of people with religious beliefs are grossly quite similar to myself. They go shopping, they eat dinner, they watch movies, they get erections at comically inconvenient times, etc. Their empirically observable behavior is so similar, I incorrectly assume a similar intellectual core. As such, my emotions tell me that arguing may be a fruitful endeavor.
This isn't the case, though. For the vast majority of believers, there is no logical argument that can be made. I know that full well with extremists of the violent ilk, like Muslims, but they're so out there that I stop seeing them as purely religious entities and instead see them as being plum crazy. These cultists were just passively religious. I could SEE it. I could see it in their eyes.
I'm still going to write my book. So what. I'll preach to the choir a bit. Now my fantasy is convincing fence sitters who, while never religious, had yet to form explicit opinions on the subject. They are the ones who kinda-sorta-maybe didn't really believe in God, and I can provide a strong logical underpinning to well-defined beliefs. That's pretty good, I think.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Legalize Prostitution, Already!
I've said it before, but we need to legalize prostitution. Not only do we need to legalize it, we need to have a large, social push to legitimize it. To make people stop seeing it as the exclusive domain of seedy people that we shouldn't give a rat's ass about. Only then, ONLY THEN, will we have any chance to stop sex trafficking. We have to draw the world out of the shadows. If we keep moralizing about it and charging around with our Bibles out, we only succeed in driving it underground, where it's going to happen anyhow!
Stop persecuting these women! If they choose to sell sex, it's their choice. We have no right to judge them or any other aspect of the situation. We can't assume that they'd rather be doing something else. We can't feel sorry for them. It's a job for which they get paid. That is the only thing that we can safely assume.
"I'm Not Buying It" Targets Super Bowl Sex Trafficking (Jezebel.com)
Stop persecuting these women! If they choose to sell sex, it's their choice. We have no right to judge them or any other aspect of the situation. We can't assume that they'd rather be doing something else. We can't feel sorry for them. It's a job for which they get paid. That is the only thing that we can safely assume.
"I'm Not Buying It" Targets Super Bowl Sex Trafficking (Jezebel.com)
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Living Forever
On that same episode of Nova Science Now that I mentioned in the previous post, Neil DeGrasse Tyson says that, if we ever develop an ability to live forever, our only option to deal with the population problem that would follow is interplanetary travel. I disagree. And I think it's patently obvious that that position is false.
Our only option, and I want to be perfectly clear in this, our ONLY option is social restrictions on breeding. I'm talking dystopian-level stuff. We either do what China did and make is so absurdly expensive to have children that the vast majority of people can't, or we make it illegal to have children and force abortions on people.
Population growth would be logarithmic. Even if we develop interplanetary travel, we would fill up those planets in very short time. With a population of 60 billion, we'd be generating a billion people every couple of years. There is no where that we could put that. We couldn't build space ships quickly enough.
Our only other option is stopping sex. If you want to live forever, you forfeit the right to want or have sex. Because if the desire is there, there is nothing we could do to stop it. Adultery is punishable by death in some areas of the world, and people still mess around.
This is undeniable. Immortality would force the greatest cultural upheaval in the history of our species. It would require a complete rewriting of our concept of human rights, because for the first time, doing something that is natural and, in itself, not harmful, would be incalculably destructive.
Our only option, and I want to be perfectly clear in this, our ONLY option is social restrictions on breeding. I'm talking dystopian-level stuff. We either do what China did and make is so absurdly expensive to have children that the vast majority of people can't, or we make it illegal to have children and force abortions on people.
Population growth would be logarithmic. Even if we develop interplanetary travel, we would fill up those planets in very short time. With a population of 60 billion, we'd be generating a billion people every couple of years. There is no where that we could put that. We couldn't build space ships quickly enough.
Our only other option is stopping sex. If you want to live forever, you forfeit the right to want or have sex. Because if the desire is there, there is nothing we could do to stop it. Adultery is punishable by death in some areas of the world, and people still mess around.
This is undeniable. Immortality would force the greatest cultural upheaval in the history of our species. It would require a complete rewriting of our concept of human rights, because for the first time, doing something that is natural and, in itself, not harmful, would be incalculably destructive.
Artificial Ridiculousness
I'm watching Nova Science Now on living forever, and there's a section on artificial intelligence. In one scene, a researcher talks about how the avatar isn't gesticulating, and they need to start thinking about making the avatar communicate with its hands.
To me, this illustrates the reason why the traditional approach to artificial intelligence will never work. We cannot build an intelligence from the top down. We can't copy the gross aspects of life, i.e. behaviors, we need to figure out the basic building blocks that generate that behavior.
This comes back to the computational theory of mind. We do have to program certain basic assumptions about the world, but the fewer, the better.
I think that the basic programming is going to be based on a binary-like yes/no language. Light is good, darkness is bad. Warmth good, cold bad, etc.
To me, this illustrates the reason why the traditional approach to artificial intelligence will never work. We cannot build an intelligence from the top down. We can't copy the gross aspects of life, i.e. behaviors, we need to figure out the basic building blocks that generate that behavior.
This comes back to the computational theory of mind. We do have to program certain basic assumptions about the world, but the fewer, the better.
I think that the basic programming is going to be based on a binary-like yes/no language. Light is good, darkness is bad. Warmth good, cold bad, etc.
Wouldja Like to Take a Surrrveeey?!
Do you like George Wendt? Five points to Gryffindor if you know where that's from.I just received a call with an automated survey from the National Organization for Marriage. If you can't tell just by the name, this is a right-wing, Christian organization that of course believes gay marriage is evil and, somehow, a threat. I'm getting the call because Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island's governor-elect, has made it clear that he supports gay marriage, so there's a lot of attention being paid by American religious groups to our tiny, little nugget of the union. It doesn't help that Rhode Island is so damned Catholic.
Regardless, there's a fantastic episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit called Numbers, you can watch it here. It's a Hong Kong site called Megavideo, which is a little scummy, but it's at least safe. The important part comes in at about 12:20, if you want to fast forward.
The survey that I answered, and I'll try to be as accurate as I can, opened the survey, opened the survey, with the statement "This survey involves one of the most important subjects of our time: the institution of marriage." Nice primer, there, assholes. Look at what they said. This is IMPORTANT. We're talking about an INSTITUTION.
Then, the money question "Do you believe that marriage should be legal only between a man and a woman?" It's worded juuuust funny enough to possibly elicit a particular answer. Why not just ask the most straightforward question? "Do you believe that gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry?"
Because asking that question emphasizes that we are not allowing a group of people to do something. We have a rather strong freedom streak running through us, and pollsters want to avoid asking questions that collide with it. They phrase the question not in a way that makes it sound like we're preventing people from doing something, but that we are protecting something. That we are, in that protecting, preventing people from doing something is glossed over.
If you've watched the episode of P&T, you'll understand that this is not a merely semantic issue. It is a fundamental issue in the posing of the question. By phrasing it as though we are defending something and not as though we are oppressing a group, and priming people with the concept of "the institution of marriage" beforehand, the pollsters can easily shift the results of the survey in the direction that they want.
They then asked whether I was male or female, and whether I was over the age of fifty. This is likely important because men are shifting towards a pro-GLBT position faster than women, and there is a startling opinion shift in the mid-40's. People younger than 45 are strongly pro-gay, and people older than 45 are strongly anti-gay. Damned old people. Just die.
This also makes me question the timing of the call. I work out of my home, so I'm here, but calling on a weekday, at 2pm, when most people are at work; the pollsters are likely to get a disproportionate number of women and old people answering. Miiiiighty suspicious. It reminds us that the sample quality is important for any survey. Is it actually random? Or is there some other variable that can be affecting the qualities of the sample? And, even more perniciously, are the pollsters well aware of this and using it to their advantage? Judging from the wording of the actual survey, I'm quite sure that they know what they're doing in calling at 2pm.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Science For... Whom?
Michio Kaku, that omnipresent, physics-spouting android of a television personality, has a show on The Science Channel called Sci-Fi Science. Each 30-minute episode discusses some sci-fi concept, like warp drives or something, and goes over the basic physics behind that concept and what we can do today.
(Really? You GUESS that carbon dioxide is denser and heavier than air? You aren't sure about that?)
My issue with the show is that I don't know who it's for. If you're catering to the uninformed-laymen market, why have it on a channel that's aimed squarely at the super-laymen demographic. It would be like Scientific American explaining chemistry with wacky comics and slapstick. There's nothing wrong with being an uninformed-laymen. You're still interested in this stuff, you might just not have enough time to read up on this and do all of the other things that you enjoy. But Discovery Networks already has a channel for this demographic, it's called the Discovery Channel! What? Are they too busy just blowing shit up in the name of "science" in an attempt to attract a demographic one step below what they should be doing? What the fuck!
Is that their strategy? Create a channel, aim it at a market, then, tailor all of the shows to entice a lower market? The Learning Channel used to be simple but educational, now it's aimed at assholes. Discovery is now the simple but educational, and Science Channel is now the somewhat dry and educational channel (with a few silly things thrown in). What the fuck is the new Science Channel, that actually covers science, going to be called?! The UNIFIED FIELD THEORY CHANNEL?!?!
It's also odd that they'd attach a luminary of advanced (and some would say fringe) concepts like string theory to a show that seems aimed at middle-schoolers.
(Really? You GUESS that carbon dioxide is denser and heavier than air? You aren't sure about that?)
My issue with the show is that I don't know who it's for. If you're catering to the uninformed-laymen market, why have it on a channel that's aimed squarely at the super-laymen demographic. It would be like Scientific American explaining chemistry with wacky comics and slapstick. There's nothing wrong with being an uninformed-laymen. You're still interested in this stuff, you might just not have enough time to read up on this and do all of the other things that you enjoy. But Discovery Networks already has a channel for this demographic, it's called the Discovery Channel! What? Are they too busy just blowing shit up in the name of "science" in an attempt to attract a demographic one step below what they should be doing? What the fuck!
Is that their strategy? Create a channel, aim it at a market, then, tailor all of the shows to entice a lower market? The Learning Channel used to be simple but educational, now it's aimed at assholes. Discovery is now the simple but educational, and Science Channel is now the somewhat dry and educational channel (with a few silly things thrown in). What the fuck is the new Science Channel, that actually covers science, going to be called?! The UNIFIED FIELD THEORY CHANNEL?!?!
It's also odd that they'd attach a luminary of advanced (and some would say fringe) concepts like string theory to a show that seems aimed at middle-schoolers.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
When Web Design Goes Wrong
I'm on the hunt for blogs and websites about art and design. I stumbled across one called WeHeart out of Britain. It's well-liked and has won a few awards but it fails one of the web's most important tests: the five-second test. Namely, can a user tell what your website IS in five seconds or less. If not, you have some work to do.
WeHearts website was obviously about something, but damned if I could tell at first. It took me well over a minute to determine what the navigation was, where it brought me, what I was looking at, truly, it took me over a minute to figure out what the fuck this website was telling me!
This is a website designed by an "artist." This is in comparison to Google, which is designed by engineers. I prefer the latter. If you are a website that is distributing content, like Google or a blog dedicated to content, you should be easy, readable, straight forward, and only have artistic flourishes on the edges of your design. If you're a website that is content, like sprite.com, or a band's website where the intent is to draw in listeners, feel free to have wacky-ass shit that makes no sense. But if you're trying to get words in front of people with the website as the avenue, ditch the artistic bullshit. It's annoying.
WeHearts website was obviously about something, but damned if I could tell at first. It took me well over a minute to determine what the navigation was, where it brought me, what I was looking at, truly, it took me over a minute to figure out what the fuck this website was telling me!
This is a website designed by an "artist." This is in comparison to Google, which is designed by engineers. I prefer the latter. If you are a website that is distributing content, like Google or a blog dedicated to content, you should be easy, readable, straight forward, and only have artistic flourishes on the edges of your design. If you're a website that is content, like sprite.com, or a band's website where the intent is to draw in listeners, feel free to have wacky-ass shit that makes no sense. But if you're trying to get words in front of people with the website as the avenue, ditch the artistic bullshit. It's annoying.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Is Moral Nihilism Correct?
Yes. Yes it is. While Wittgenstein never intended this to be the case, an investigation into language necessarily ends in nihilism. In fact, this direction seems so inexorable that it puzzles me why nihilism remains a dirty word.
I started thinking about this in regards to morals, and how a discussion of morals inevitably fails. It faces the same problem that David Hume tried to address when asking why metaphysical discussions always fail.
I always separate words into two classes: internal and external. All words are representative of something, but those somethings are sometimes non-empirical. They represent an internal state that is available to me only. For example, when I say "I'm angry" you don't know what that means. You only know what it means in relation to my empirically observable behavior.
You then associate that word with your own desire to act in a similar way. Thus, my world and your world acquire the same word to describe private internal states based on observation of the non-private external world.
In Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, he has a chapter on inborn moral drives. We seek out right and wrong and everyone, everywhere, seems to make similar determinations about the morality of situations. For example, I can save ten people on a trolley by diverting it to another track, but the trolley will hit a man who just happens to be on that track. That is not morally wrong. But if you present people with the situation where that same man is used to stop the trolley, like throwing him on the tracks, that is morally wrong. The end result is identical in both scenarios, but one garners a moral reaction.
But those questions relied on each person's interpretation of the word moral and how that meaning applied to the situation. I think the situation works better if we remove the word entirely and simply ask which scenario is repugnant? Which scenario gets under your skin and makes it crawl? Which scenario gives you the shivers. Morals have always had the concept of transcendence attached to them. That the determination that I am making somehow exceeds me and achieves some sort of universal rectitude.
But to describe something at all requires interaction with other people to allow a word to emerge based on shared empirical information. For example, if I suddenly start describing myself as Quizzilunked, you have no idea what that means. But if every time I used it, I shivered, smiled, farted, and then sneezed, you would only know what the word means if you also experience something that elicits the same behavior. So asking people to determine morality requires the use of internal sensations whose descriptors are determined by external data. The external data is a prerequisite to applying the word in similar ways.
This means that morals can only arise from a linguistic (social) environment, and insisting on continuing the use of the word introduces nebulousness into the discussion. The goal of any philosopher, regardless of their area of expertise, is to eliminate nebulousness and speak clearly. It is impossible to speak clearly in morals, thus turning ethics into an endeavor for fools and charlatans. The latter of which seem to all become politicians and religious leaders.
We CANNOT talk about morals. We have to talk about the other things that tie internal states with external information. If I say "I'm nauseous" and I puke every time I say that, you know that the next time you feel "off" just before barfing is likely the same feeling that I'm having. Thus, you can attach the word to your internal state while being somewhat confident that I'll attach that word to a similar internal state.
But when I say "That is morally wrong" what I'm actually describing are internal states but using an inaccurate word to do so. Most people would, today, say that burning a person at the stake, or beheading a child in public, are all morally wrong. But when we say that, we are just describing our feelings of discomfort and disgust with the image. That disgust and the corresponding word arose from our linguistic environment. There is NO TRANSCENDENT ASPECT TO THIS. If anything, pulling out the morality card has just been used as a manipulator. The word is so damned nebulous but held in such high regard that it can be used to actually cause a disgust response to something that hadn't originally caused it. For example, homosexual behavior. But remember what we're dealing with. Morality only represents an internal aversion to something (which I admit can also be internal). So when it's used in places where everyone isn't in agreement about the morality of an issue or event, it becomes a synonym for disgust.
For example, eating pie is not currently morally wrong. But let's say that a group of people move in who find pie to be a moral evil. I'm sitting with them and they begin to complain that a nearby person, who is eating pie, is morally bankrupt. Their usage of the word does not line up with my usage because our internal states when presented with this person do not match up. But if I really want these people to like me, I'll agree. Eventually, I'll fake the behavior that lines up with the statement of pie being morally wrong. Eventually, when surrounded by similarly behaving people, I will begin to feel the same internal state that triggers such behavior.
Now let's say that these people start describing really random things as morally wrong, like walking backwards, Corn-Pops, blinking both eyes at the same time, and whiskers on kittens. It is conceivable that all of this things could be habituated to trigger a disgust response ALL COMPLIMENTS OF MORALITY. There is no other word in the world that can be so flexible in manipulating people.
I frequently use the example of saying "I am horny." If someone says that to me, and always has sex afterwards, I associated "horny" with the drive for intercourse. But if they use the word wildly, saying that they're horny and eating a sandwich, sleeping, watching TV, the word association between the empirical data, the private internal state, and the word falls apart. The word becomes meaningless. But not so with morals. We can use that word to describe anything that strikes our fancy, fake it until we make it, and actually create a disgust response! The fact that a disgust response, something so primal, can be socialized I think reveals the incredible importance of society and especially language in the evolution of the human psyche.
There are no morals. None. They do. Not. Exist. All that exists are your private, internal states which you associate with words that represent the observed behavior of other people. Stop using the damned word. Stop studying ethics. If you want to do something useful, run some experiments studying the disgust response of humans to stimuli before and after reading certain phrases or hearing certain things. That is the root of morality. It's the only way to explain how, once, not all that long ago, it was entirely righteous to tie people to poles with their own intestines and watch them die.
I started thinking about this in regards to morals, and how a discussion of morals inevitably fails. It faces the same problem that David Hume tried to address when asking why metaphysical discussions always fail.
I always separate words into two classes: internal and external. All words are representative of something, but those somethings are sometimes non-empirical. They represent an internal state that is available to me only. For example, when I say "I'm angry" you don't know what that means. You only know what it means in relation to my empirically observable behavior.
You then associate that word with your own desire to act in a similar way. Thus, my world and your world acquire the same word to describe private internal states based on observation of the non-private external world.
In Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, he has a chapter on inborn moral drives. We seek out right and wrong and everyone, everywhere, seems to make similar determinations about the morality of situations. For example, I can save ten people on a trolley by diverting it to another track, but the trolley will hit a man who just happens to be on that track. That is not morally wrong. But if you present people with the situation where that same man is used to stop the trolley, like throwing him on the tracks, that is morally wrong. The end result is identical in both scenarios, but one garners a moral reaction.
But those questions relied on each person's interpretation of the word moral and how that meaning applied to the situation. I think the situation works better if we remove the word entirely and simply ask which scenario is repugnant? Which scenario gets under your skin and makes it crawl? Which scenario gives you the shivers. Morals have always had the concept of transcendence attached to them. That the determination that I am making somehow exceeds me and achieves some sort of universal rectitude.
But to describe something at all requires interaction with other people to allow a word to emerge based on shared empirical information. For example, if I suddenly start describing myself as Quizzilunked, you have no idea what that means. But if every time I used it, I shivered, smiled, farted, and then sneezed, you would only know what the word means if you also experience something that elicits the same behavior. So asking people to determine morality requires the use of internal sensations whose descriptors are determined by external data. The external data is a prerequisite to applying the word in similar ways.
This means that morals can only arise from a linguistic (social) environment, and insisting on continuing the use of the word introduces nebulousness into the discussion. The goal of any philosopher, regardless of their area of expertise, is to eliminate nebulousness and speak clearly. It is impossible to speak clearly in morals, thus turning ethics into an endeavor for fools and charlatans. The latter of which seem to all become politicians and religious leaders.
We CANNOT talk about morals. We have to talk about the other things that tie internal states with external information. If I say "I'm nauseous" and I puke every time I say that, you know that the next time you feel "off" just before barfing is likely the same feeling that I'm having. Thus, you can attach the word to your internal state while being somewhat confident that I'll attach that word to a similar internal state.
But when I say "That is morally wrong" what I'm actually describing are internal states but using an inaccurate word to do so. Most people would, today, say that burning a person at the stake, or beheading a child in public, are all morally wrong. But when we say that, we are just describing our feelings of discomfort and disgust with the image. That disgust and the corresponding word arose from our linguistic environment. There is NO TRANSCENDENT ASPECT TO THIS. If anything, pulling out the morality card has just been used as a manipulator. The word is so damned nebulous but held in such high regard that it can be used to actually cause a disgust response to something that hadn't originally caused it. For example, homosexual behavior. But remember what we're dealing with. Morality only represents an internal aversion to something (which I admit can also be internal). So when it's used in places where everyone isn't in agreement about the morality of an issue or event, it becomes a synonym for disgust.
For example, eating pie is not currently morally wrong. But let's say that a group of people move in who find pie to be a moral evil. I'm sitting with them and they begin to complain that a nearby person, who is eating pie, is morally bankrupt. Their usage of the word does not line up with my usage because our internal states when presented with this person do not match up. But if I really want these people to like me, I'll agree. Eventually, I'll fake the behavior that lines up with the statement of pie being morally wrong. Eventually, when surrounded by similarly behaving people, I will begin to feel the same internal state that triggers such behavior.
Now let's say that these people start describing really random things as morally wrong, like walking backwards, Corn-Pops, blinking both eyes at the same time, and whiskers on kittens. It is conceivable that all of this things could be habituated to trigger a disgust response ALL COMPLIMENTS OF MORALITY. There is no other word in the world that can be so flexible in manipulating people.
I frequently use the example of saying "I am horny." If someone says that to me, and always has sex afterwards, I associated "horny" with the drive for intercourse. But if they use the word wildly, saying that they're horny and eating a sandwich, sleeping, watching TV, the word association between the empirical data, the private internal state, and the word falls apart. The word becomes meaningless. But not so with morals. We can use that word to describe anything that strikes our fancy, fake it until we make it, and actually create a disgust response! The fact that a disgust response, something so primal, can be socialized I think reveals the incredible importance of society and especially language in the evolution of the human psyche.
There are no morals. None. They do. Not. Exist. All that exists are your private, internal states which you associate with words that represent the observed behavior of other people. Stop using the damned word. Stop studying ethics. If you want to do something useful, run some experiments studying the disgust response of humans to stimuli before and after reading certain phrases or hearing certain things. That is the root of morality. It's the only way to explain how, once, not all that long ago, it was entirely righteous to tie people to poles with their own intestines and watch them die.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Diary of a Cluster Headache Sufferer
I am, right now, suffering from a cluster headache. No need to explain, you can go the Wikipedia page and read up. Needless to say, it sucks. And unlike migraines, there is no behavior that seems to bring me relief.
I haven't had them in years. I got them in January/February-ish for three years in a row, then four years of nothing, and now they're back. I get them throughout the day, but they usually crop up when I'm sleeping. Pain levels are mild in comparison to others with cluster headaches. My worst pain registers only a 6-7 (if we assume that 10 is agonizing, I-want-to-die pain). It's always on my left temple, but I sometimes feel pressure on my right temple. I have no other symptoms other than stiffness in my neck. I think other symptoms like nausea are just associated with the stress response.
Symptoms:
I've never noticed this in the online literature, but my urine has been affected by whatever this is. It's strongly odoriferous. I've found studies showing that people in bouts of cluster headaches show abnormal levels of various chemicals in their blood, indicating some other underlying issue of which the headaches are merely a symptom.
I eat a complex breakfast every day, take a vitamin cocktail with multi-vitamin, Omega-3 complex, flax oil, vitamin C, and vitamin B. I take huge amounts of protein, fiber, and a small dose of creatine daily. I drink one V8-Fusion every two days. My blood chemistry should be magnificent, but the stinky pee indicates a broadly physiological problem.
Since I've started taking the magnesium supplements, I haven't had any nighttime headaches. If I stay late in bed, I will still definitely get a morning headache, but it will come late. For example, today, I slept till noon and was awoken by a headache, but even now, it is very, very mild. A slight annoyance more than anything.
This is unique, as far as my memory goes, so I'm leaning towards attributing it to the magnesium. When I last had headaches, it was an off/on sort of thing. I either had the headaches, or I didn't. There were no real degrees of suffering of which to speak.
A further update on the Magnesium supplements. I feel confident that the Magnesium is having an effect. I have had one more full-blown headache, and three strange pseudo-headaches. The pseudo-headaches are in the right spot, and feel very similar to a headache, but they're marked primarily by a sense of pressure and discomfort, moreso than any pain. I've gotten three of these in the middle of the night. I seem to skip a morning or night headache, and have skipped both of them once. I have upped my bedtime dosage of magnesium to 800mg. That's 800mg at breakfast, and another 800mg at bedtime.
A couple of 4am headaches have also semi-confirmed that alcohol is a trigger. If I take NyQuil, or any drug dissolved in alcohol, I'm much more likely to have both a night and morning headache.
Melatonin: 12mg daily around 11pm-12am, just before bed. I'm on my eighth day with no sign of significant help at night. During the day might be affected. I'm not sure, and I'm continuing to take the melatonin, but throbs of pressure or sensitivity seem to have been lessened, but only during the day when I'm standing and doing things. Night time headaches still come in full force. NOT EFFECTIVE.
Capsaicin: I am NOT paying $14 for a squeezy bottle of overpriced, holistic nasal spray that's little more than spicy salsa. So I went to the store, bought some habanero hot sauce, smeared some in my nose and drank a quarter of the bottle. No difference whatsoever. NOT EFFECTIVE.
Breathing exercises: I tried Yoga-like breathing exercises. No effect. NOT EFFECTIVE.
Changes: Be it changes in temperature, pressure, what have you. Changes seem to at least alleviate the immediate pain. I once spent 45 minutes just getting into and out of the shower. SEMI-EFFECTIVE.
Caffeine: Caffeine used to have a positive effect on my headaches, but no longer. This bout appears to be immune, but previous years were positively effected by a latte or two. POSSIBLY EFFECTIVE.
Dietary Changes: I lived primarily on instant breakfast for two days. No difference. NOT EFFECTIVE.
Pain killers: I haven't tried prescription level drugs, yet. I have tried all OTC drugs and the only one that seems to have any effect is straight up ibuprofen. I'm 6', 210 pounds, so I take a hefty dose: 800mg, and that's usually enough for me to feel alright for a day, but even if I take 800mg right before bed, I could be up with severe pain one hour later. Preemptive Advil just before bed seems useless. The best use for the Advil is the post-headache neck stiffness and general aches. NOT EFFECTIVE.
Sex/Masturbation: If ONLY it were that easy. No difference. NOT EFFECTIVE.
Magnesium supplement: Magnesium appears to have had an effect. I take a double dose (800mg) in the morning with my nutrient slurry (shake mix, protein, fiber, creatine, flax oil) and vitamin cocktail. I then take another single dose (400mg) at around 11:30pm, before bed. I still had my morning headache, which would hit between 9-10am, but the 3am headache was skipped. I don't know if my headache cycle is merely ending, though. It's difficult to say if this is directly attributable to the mag pills. (Update below)
YET-TO-BE-TRIED CURES:
Oxygen: Apparently pure O2 provides relief for people. I'm going to try this, but I have no clue where to buy oxygen. Dammit. I think I'll have to go to a doctor.
Verapamil: Apparently very successful as a long-term treatment. I might try this.
CONTINUING WORK:
I'm going to switch to magnesium gluconate because of higher bioavailability, but the oxide variate appears to be helping. Apparently, magnesium absorption requires vitamin B, which is gotten from animal products. My diet has been near vegetarian for a couple of months, just because, and I'm wondering if this happens every year. Perhaps my patterns just drop animal product ingestion without my really noticing, which causes B levels to drop, which causes a drop in magnesium absorption.
This makes we wonder if cluster headaches are more common among vegetarians and vegans. That would be an interesting study.
UPDATE: 2/28/2013
I am beginning to believe that my cluster headaches are caused by a much wider underlying physiological state than first believed.
Basically, sunlight, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin B, melatonin, and testosterone are all linked. A more common symptom of this time of year is known as S.A.D., or Seasonal Affective Disorder, which essentially means Winter Sadness Disorder. This disorder is similarly affected by the listed variables, and much like migraines and cluster headaches, depressive symptoms and bipolarism are frequently comorbid with S.A.D.
I am not depressed or bipolar, but I do feel a lack of vim and vigor, a lack of get up and go, if you will. My exercise level drops off, I have a harder time working, and on and on.
My nightly dose of Magnesium Gluconate seems to keep the headaches at bay, with the only symptom being an occasional sensation of pressure on one of my temples combined with minor neck stiffness. I have started also taking Vitamin D and taking every chance to expose my skin to sunlight in an attempt to boost testosterone levels.
I appear to have my cluster headaches under control, but for many who get them all year, my results may not be valid. I know as far beyond doubt as is possible -- with what amounts to a complex anecdote -- that magnesium helped alleviate my headaches. Unfortunately, because I have hit the point where something works, further experiments will provide no data without me actually doing blood tests.
If you also suffer from cluster headaches in the winter, try magnesium first, then the other listed ideas. If you suffer from cluster headaches all the time, I would recommend as your first step looking into your overall physiology, starting with testosterone levels. I do not think that there is a single "cause" of cluster headaches, and in all likelihood migraines as well, and they are instead a single symptom of broader problems.
UPDATE:
I was just made aware of a website called www.clusterheadaches.com. They have a forum that you should check out if you haven't already done so.
UPDATE: 11/14/2014
I can provide you all with some inside info about this post. Cluster headaches and the change of the seasons into shorter, colder days is undoubtedly linked with cluster headaches. During the summer, the traffic to this page drops off significantly and is rarely among my top pages. Around October, traffic begins to pick up, and by January, this is always my most popular page. Get outside. Wake up early. See the sun as much as you can. It's a depressing time of year. Make the best of it.
UPDATE: 5/31/2018
Quite some time has passed since my last update, and that is because I just had the first occurrence of my cluster headaches outside of my usual January-February window. They hit first about two weeks ago and quite severely. Again, I have not had bad ones for many years, so I have grown lax in my administering of magnesium. But as before, if I remember to take magnesium throughout the day (specifically the gluconate), I am not awoken by them. If I forget, I wake up at 3am with a roaring headache. Still, the important point is that magnesium works.
I haven't had them in years. I got them in January/February-ish for three years in a row, then four years of nothing, and now they're back. I get them throughout the day, but they usually crop up when I'm sleeping. Pain levels are mild in comparison to others with cluster headaches. My worst pain registers only a 6-7 (if we assume that 10 is agonizing, I-want-to-die pain). It's always on my left temple, but I sometimes feel pressure on my right temple. I have no other symptoms other than stiffness in my neck. I think other symptoms like nausea are just associated with the stress response.
Symptoms:
I've never noticed this in the online literature, but my urine has been affected by whatever this is. It's strongly odoriferous. I've found studies showing that people in bouts of cluster headaches show abnormal levels of various chemicals in their blood, indicating some other underlying issue of which the headaches are merely a symptom.
I eat a complex breakfast every day, take a vitamin cocktail with multi-vitamin, Omega-3 complex, flax oil, vitamin C, and vitamin B. I take huge amounts of protein, fiber, and a small dose of creatine daily. I drink one V8-Fusion every two days. My blood chemistry should be magnificent, but the stinky pee indicates a broadly physiological problem.
Since I've started taking the magnesium supplements, I haven't had any nighttime headaches. If I stay late in bed, I will still definitely get a morning headache, but it will come late. For example, today, I slept till noon and was awoken by a headache, but even now, it is very, very mild. A slight annoyance more than anything.
This is unique, as far as my memory goes, so I'm leaning towards attributing it to the magnesium. When I last had headaches, it was an off/on sort of thing. I either had the headaches, or I didn't. There were no real degrees of suffering of which to speak.
A further update on the Magnesium supplements. I feel confident that the Magnesium is having an effect. I have had one more full-blown headache, and three strange pseudo-headaches. The pseudo-headaches are in the right spot, and feel very similar to a headache, but they're marked primarily by a sense of pressure and discomfort, moreso than any pain. I've gotten three of these in the middle of the night. I seem to skip a morning or night headache, and have skipped both of them once. I have upped my bedtime dosage of magnesium to 800mg. That's 800mg at breakfast, and another 800mg at bedtime.
A couple of 4am headaches have also semi-confirmed that alcohol is a trigger. If I take NyQuil, or any drug dissolved in alcohol, I'm much more likely to have both a night and morning headache.
Melatonin: 12mg daily around 11pm-12am, just before bed. I'm on my eighth day with no sign of significant help at night. During the day might be affected. I'm not sure, and I'm continuing to take the melatonin, but throbs of pressure or sensitivity seem to have been lessened, but only during the day when I'm standing and doing things. Night time headaches still come in full force. NOT EFFECTIVE.
Capsaicin: I am NOT paying $14 for a squeezy bottle of overpriced, holistic nasal spray that's little more than spicy salsa. So I went to the store, bought some habanero hot sauce, smeared some in my nose and drank a quarter of the bottle. No difference whatsoever. NOT EFFECTIVE.
Breathing exercises: I tried Yoga-like breathing exercises. No effect. NOT EFFECTIVE.
Changes: Be it changes in temperature, pressure, what have you. Changes seem to at least alleviate the immediate pain. I once spent 45 minutes just getting into and out of the shower. SEMI-EFFECTIVE.
Caffeine: Caffeine used to have a positive effect on my headaches, but no longer. This bout appears to be immune, but previous years were positively effected by a latte or two. POSSIBLY EFFECTIVE.
Dietary Changes: I lived primarily on instant breakfast for two days. No difference. NOT EFFECTIVE.
Pain killers: I haven't tried prescription level drugs, yet. I have tried all OTC drugs and the only one that seems to have any effect is straight up ibuprofen. I'm 6', 210 pounds, so I take a hefty dose: 800mg, and that's usually enough for me to feel alright for a day, but even if I take 800mg right before bed, I could be up with severe pain one hour later. Preemptive Advil just before bed seems useless. The best use for the Advil is the post-headache neck stiffness and general aches. NOT EFFECTIVE.
Sex/Masturbation: If ONLY it were that easy. No difference. NOT EFFECTIVE.
Magnesium supplement: Magnesium appears to have had an effect. I take a double dose (800mg) in the morning with my nutrient slurry (shake mix, protein, fiber, creatine, flax oil) and vitamin cocktail. I then take another single dose (400mg) at around 11:30pm, before bed. I still had my morning headache, which would hit between 9-10am, but the 3am headache was skipped. I don't know if my headache cycle is merely ending, though. It's difficult to say if this is directly attributable to the mag pills. (Update below)
YET-TO-BE-TRIED CURES:
Oxygen: Apparently pure O2 provides relief for people. I'm going to try this, but I have no clue where to buy oxygen. Dammit. I think I'll have to go to a doctor.
Verapamil: Apparently very successful as a long-term treatment. I might try this.
CONTINUING WORK:
I'm going to switch to magnesium gluconate because of higher bioavailability, but the oxide variate appears to be helping. Apparently, magnesium absorption requires vitamin B, which is gotten from animal products. My diet has been near vegetarian for a couple of months, just because, and I'm wondering if this happens every year. Perhaps my patterns just drop animal product ingestion without my really noticing, which causes B levels to drop, which causes a drop in magnesium absorption.
This makes we wonder if cluster headaches are more common among vegetarians and vegans. That would be an interesting study.
UPDATE: 2/28/2013
I am beginning to believe that my cluster headaches are caused by a much wider underlying physiological state than first believed.
Basically, sunlight, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin B, melatonin, and testosterone are all linked. A more common symptom of this time of year is known as S.A.D., or Seasonal Affective Disorder, which essentially means Winter Sadness Disorder. This disorder is similarly affected by the listed variables, and much like migraines and cluster headaches, depressive symptoms and bipolarism are frequently comorbid with S.A.D.
I am not depressed or bipolar, but I do feel a lack of vim and vigor, a lack of get up and go, if you will. My exercise level drops off, I have a harder time working, and on and on.
My nightly dose of Magnesium Gluconate seems to keep the headaches at bay, with the only symptom being an occasional sensation of pressure on one of my temples combined with minor neck stiffness. I have started also taking Vitamin D and taking every chance to expose my skin to sunlight in an attempt to boost testosterone levels.
I appear to have my cluster headaches under control, but for many who get them all year, my results may not be valid. I know as far beyond doubt as is possible -- with what amounts to a complex anecdote -- that magnesium helped alleviate my headaches. Unfortunately, because I have hit the point where something works, further experiments will provide no data without me actually doing blood tests.
If you also suffer from cluster headaches in the winter, try magnesium first, then the other listed ideas. If you suffer from cluster headaches all the time, I would recommend as your first step looking into your overall physiology, starting with testosterone levels. I do not think that there is a single "cause" of cluster headaches, and in all likelihood migraines as well, and they are instead a single symptom of broader problems.
UPDATE:
I was just made aware of a website called www.clusterheadaches.com. They have a forum that you should check out if you haven't already done so.
UPDATE: 11/14/2014
I can provide you all with some inside info about this post. Cluster headaches and the change of the seasons into shorter, colder days is undoubtedly linked with cluster headaches. During the summer, the traffic to this page drops off significantly and is rarely among my top pages. Around October, traffic begins to pick up, and by January, this is always my most popular page. Get outside. Wake up early. See the sun as much as you can. It's a depressing time of year. Make the best of it.
UPDATE: 5/31/2018
Quite some time has passed since my last update, and that is because I just had the first occurrence of my cluster headaches outside of my usual January-February window. They hit first about two weeks ago and quite severely. Again, I have not had bad ones for many years, so I have grown lax in my administering of magnesium. But as before, if I remember to take magnesium throughout the day (specifically the gluconate), I am not awoken by them. If I forget, I wake up at 3am with a roaring headache. Still, the important point is that magnesium works.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)