Sweeping self-loathing statements like that are actually a defense mechanism. Fear of rejection is so great that one would rather believe that one is worthless than have another person think one is slightly annoying. Better to self-sooth with self-abnegation than face the uncertainty of other's judgment.
Well, if you’ve been excluded your entire life, like I have, if your invitations are rejected, if you’re never the one being invited, if you search for people who never search for you, and if every connection you manage to form is shortlived and ends in ghosting, it starts to make you doubt your own humanity a little. I think my experience, like the OP, allows me to entertain the idea that there’s something fundamentally wrong with me, as if I’m somehow not fully human.
I can understand being in the wrong contest once or twice in your life, but I’ve lived in five different cities. I’ve gone to college three times. I play multiple instruments and have played in bands and orchestras. And yet here I am: completely alone. I have no one to text for a little chat, no one to grab a beer with me on a Saturday night, no one to plan a coffee with, no one to reassure me when I’m struggling. I’m moving through life entirely on my own, rawdogging it, doing everything alone.
At this point, I’ve given up on relationships, on friendship, on love. The few people I’ve ever called friends eventually disappeared. It feels less painful to stop hoping altogether than to keep sinking my already low hope that it is actually all a misunderstanding and that someday I’ll finally find a circle of people who choose me back.
Unfortunately, you are under a curse. The only way to lift the curse is to build a physical space that attracts people. People cannot resist an interesting place.
Sometimes I feel the same, though I did get married, which just happened because I took desperate measures and started using Russian Brides style websites! I was lucky and can’t really recommend these days as it’s mostly scam, but it did work for me 15 years ago. I used to have one good friend, and he was the one that got called by everyone, and I just cruised along. But after he moved away I lost all contact with everyone, it’s like everyone forgot me and it was a one way street as I tried to keep in touch.
I wish I lived in a small town where you just meet people you know already by going out where everyone is or something. Having to take measures like organizing a club, or try to invite people you don’t really have a connection with and probably will not come, feels just too much to me and not sustainable.
>I wish I lived in a small town where you just meet people you know already by going out where everyone is or something
I actually grow up in a small town, like 4000 people in total, in Italy. It is even worse: if you're just a little bit strange and you don't form some kind of friendship while in grade school, the rest of your social life is basically determined to be over.
First of all, respect for using "sex without a condom" as a metaphor for solitude.
Second, it's weird that what you've written comes off as entirely insincere. It's like you've been assigned a high school essay to "write what a sad person sounds like."
You aren't even really talking to me at all. It's a story you're telling yourself that is actually deeply self-absorbed, maudlin, and also clearly false. I don't think you find your life pleasant, but I believe there is something you are not telling me, or yourself, about why that is. Good luck figuring that out. I don't know you at all, but I think you're capable of it.
Let's apply Occam's Razor. Which is more likely? Every person you've ever met and will meet thinks you are terrible, or, you think you are terrible?
I'm not erasing the existence of the many people you've encountered who don't like you. But what if negative experiences in your past have eroded your distress tolerance and you now cannot distinguish normal human conflict from an affront to you, personally? Or, what if you have given up on human contact because, subconsciously, you made a calculation that simulacra of human contact might be unsatisfying but, like methadone, they give you just enough to avoid the real stuff?
I don't think any of the psychological pictures I have painted are necessarily correct. But I do know that what you're telling me is BS.
For you, maybe. In my experience, the constant need for babysitting LLMs to avoid the generation of verbose, unmaintainable slop is exhausting and I'd rather do everything myself. Even with all the meticulously detailed instructions, it feels like a slot machine - sometimes you get lucky and the generated code is somewhat usable. Of course, it also depends of the complexity and scope of the project and/or the tasks that you are automating.
I never understood why people, especially americans, are so hyperfocused on "mental health" and wear their pseudoscientific bullshit diagnoses like medals. I agree that there is a small fraction of people that do have mental issues, but it is very likely that most of the people that encourage "therapy" and yap about "mental health" very likely don't have any meaningful issues worth diagnosing and are just unnecessary burden on the medical system. The term "autism" in itself is so overused nowadays that it doesn't mean absolutely anything anymore, the fact that it doesn't have precise, rigorous definition doesn't help either.
By downvoting we missed out a joke: Lets apply the article to the comment
>> I never understood why ... americans ... wear their pseudoscientific bullshit diagnoses like medals.
> Borderline Personality
Borderline personality disorder involves intense emotional instability, ... and devaluation of others.
>Social Communication Disorder
... knowing how much detail to give, adjusting their speaking style for different situations, understanding implied meanings or hints,
> B5: Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD): People diagnosed with ASPD show a lack of respect toward others. They generally don’t follow socially accepted rules.
> B5: Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD): People diagnosed with NPD have a sense of being better than others... They lack empathy for others
---
> I agree that there is a small fraction of people
What exactly makes you believe the fraction is small?
I'll ignore the baiting and just answer this:
>> What exactly makes you believe the fraction is small?
Because it's not as prevalent in other societies. The fixation of Americans, and especially younger Americans with mental health is not something I've (or clearly, GP) witnessed elsewhere.
I don't think the discussion here is due to a lack of empathy, rather it's curiosity of people looking into this society from the outside (which we're doing all the time because we live in an Americanized world, after all). It seems like the participants in this game of self diagnosis and mental health crusade are very self centered and not very fit to deal with life (which is a complicated matter, I admit to that).
This is not to dismiss the hardships of those people professionally diagnosed with mental conditions, obviously.
you completely nailed it, i just want to add more thoughts:
> Because it's not as prevalent in other societies.
Is it because (a) we have not looked close enough, (b) because it is a culture dependent thing, or (c) because there is no norm and therefore no deviation.
>People opting for unchallenging pseudo-relationships over messy human interaction is part of a larger trend, though.
I don't disagree that some people take AI way too far, but overall, I don't see this as a significant issue. Why must relationships and human interaction be shoved down everyone's throats? People tend to impose their views on what is "right" onto others, whether it concerns religion, politics, appearance, opinions, having children, etc. In the end, it just doesn't matter - choose AI, cats, dogs, family, solitude, life, death, fit in, isolate - it's just a temporary experience. Ultimately, you will die and turn to dust like around 100 billion nameless others.
I lean toward the opinion there are certain things people (especially young people) should be steered away from because they tend to snowball in ways people may not anticipate, like drug abuse and suicide; situations where they wind up much more miserable than they realize, not understanding the various crutches they've adopted to hide from pain/anxiety have kept them from happiness (this is simplistic, though; many introverts are happy and fine).
I don't think I have a clear-enough vision on how AI will evolve to say we should do something about it, though, and few jurisdictions do anything about minors on social media, which we do have a big pile of data on, so I'm not sure it's worth thinking/talking about AI too much yet, at least as it relates to regulating for minors. Unlike social media, too, the general trajectory for AI is hazy. In the meantime, I won't be swayed much by anecdotes in the news.
Regardless, if I were hosting an LLM, I would certainly be cutting off service to any edgy/sexy/philosophy/religious services to minimize risk and culpability. I was reading a few weeks ago on Axios of actual churches offering chatbots. Some were actually neat; I hit up an Episcopalian one to figure out what their deal was and now know just enough to think of them as different-Lutherans. Then there are some where the chatbot is prompted to be Jesus or even Satan. Which, again, could actually be fine and healthy, but if I'm OpenAI or whoever, you could not pay me enough.
Appreciate the writing and the author's fortitude in achieving their goals. While I never had friends, neither online nor in person, I cannot identify with this at all - it reads like a strange, obsessive seeking of external validation which I have never felt myself. Maybe I am just disinterested in people in general.
You could either ignore this advice, or take it from me
Be too nice and people take you for a dummy
So nowadays he ain't so friendly"
- Deep Friend Frenz DOOM
i can sort of relate. ive been told by my family that i dont like people much. im also confident in conversation and social situations. i think the latter is true because i feel no pressure to perform and naturally seek novelty to entertain myself
That's interesting. People are really different. I had my own stages to being still not socially normal person. I always wanted friends, sometimes had some, sometimes felt lonely. In case you happen to read this, did you not have friends in childhood but didn't feel bad about it?
>obsessive seeking of external validation which I have never felt myself
if you've never felt it, why are you mentioning it? why are you so focused on it?
A useful psychoanalytic rubric is "there is no negation in the unconscious mind". Negation is a conscious mind idea, the unconscious mind just thinks of things, it doesn't think of something and claim it's not thinking of it.
so, rephrasing what you wrote in the unconscious sense, "obsessive seeking of external validation which I have felt myself": yes, you have identified something, identified with something, interesting, about other people and about yourself. If you are aware that you are not seeking external validation, but also aware when other people do, you have to ask yourself...
if your complaint about this argument is along the line of "no fair, i can't escape from this!", you're getting the point.
You're probably right that him being in denial is more likely then him being super special. But I don't think this psychoanalytical reasoning is justified?
>if you've never felt it, why are you mentioning it? why are you so focused on it?
Because it's interesting / frustrating to find out that the common guidelines to living a normal life don't apply to you, and you pinpoint that fact as the reason?
I can come up with infinitely many negative statements in a discussion and it doesn't mean that opposites of them occupy my unconscious day to day.
You don't. You need to have a goal and clear understanding about why you are doing what you are doing. This is the same with pretty much all activities that require significant effort - motivation is a brief blip that eventually withers away once you start struggling. What you need is discipline, planning, and regular routine. Plan (allocate some time each day/week) and do this regularly. Can't take it anymore? Make a coffee, take a walk, rest for a little while, take a nap, whatever, and then try again. Motivation is not something that you should be constantly chasing in the first place.
Depression, lack of motivation, are functional. They kick in when you don't think your prospects are good, prompting you to step back and think. If you were sufficiently convinced grinding LeetCode was a good career move, you would be motivated. The fact that you're not suggests you should do some research rather than plowing ahead. What do employers really care about? What's the best way to convince them you've got it? Where do you fit in?
> If you were sufficiently convinced grinding LeetCode was a good career move, you would be motivated.
Motivation certainly doesn't work like that in my brain. Consistency in pursuing goals I know on paper are the right choice despite lack of motivation is the only way I've achieved anything.
If you can wed career goals with dopamine, that's wonderful! But I suspect you're extremely lucky.
It takes some competitiveness, and I'm not sure the level of neuroticism it brings (me) is worth it, but "Who are these assholes and what's so special about them" works for me most the time :D
Then there's "Oh jesus how terrifying and embarrassing would it be to not have a great answer" coupled with "The people I idolize the most work in theoretical CS".
It does if you're connected. I've seen many incompetent and under-skilled people given high-ranking positions in tech companies simply because they knew someone.
Yep. This is the way. Even if you don't want to/are not able to have a daily routine and such, detaching as many activities as possible from volatile things like motivation,mood,etc is extremely useful. That is the most important part. Early on in life it is easy, since you have a clear set of objectively great things to do - do great in school, do great in exams, do great in college, get a great first job, don't screw up health in growing years. So you can force yourself to do those no matter what. Later on in life (post college) it gets harder, since you have to ensure you're not forcing yourself to do something counterproductive, especially in new fields like SWE, where there's no clear industry standard career path yet, or an industry standard anything really. Academia in contrast you can apply this strategy until a lot later.
It obviously depends on intensity, and is sometimes described as reverse J-curve[1] relationship. Moderate exercise helps, while intense exercise diminishes these benefits and might also increase mortality risk.
I tried it for a while. It's okay, I guess. Typing latency is neither an issue nor a bottleneck for me, so personally, I don't see the appeal. Apart from that, it feels lacking and offers nothing else that I don't already get from VS Code. If I really cared about performance, I would use Neovim.
I find Neovim to be surprisingly sluggish. That's of course after installing extensions, but I don't find it particularly performant. Zed feels way snappier.
Similar situation, but I had (and still have) issues with the heart, and not sure whether they were from undiagnosed covid infection (never had typical Covid symptoms, and all tests for it came negative), or some rare complications from the vaccine.
I started having heart flutters a day or two after my shot and had severe fever (I was 25 at the time), but the former never went a way. I brushed it off as a temporary symptom and typical after shot reaction (well, fever was at least). Heart flutters never went away and I didn't go to the doctor for at least a few months, it became so frequent that I could not sleep, exercise or even climb the stairs anymore without heart feeling like it's about to explode out of my chest. Not the high heart rate, but abrupt, irregular vibrations/twitching and sometimes feeling like you get punched in the chest, just from the inside around the heart area. Anyway, it happens frequently and in any situation, even at rest.
Got diagnosed with third degree AV block. The flutters were due to the significant damage to the heart muscle, which caused the failure of the conduction system - signals from the upper chambers did not always reach the lower chambers.
I am not angry at anyone or anything, just disappointed. It would feel a lot easier if it was some obvious bad decision of mine, like drinking, doing drugs, smoking, or being overweight, but I did not nor were any of these things. I still keep categorizing life as "before" and "after".
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