Interesting Links for 14-06-2022

[andrewducker]

1. What things tend to lead to happiness?

(tags:happiness psychology )

2. 1 in 5 US adults have Long Covid

(tags:pandemic health usa )

3. Why can't we remember being born or our first words?

(tags:language memory babies children )

4. Majority Of Northern Ireland Politicians Reject UK's Protocol Plan "In Strongest Possible Terms"

(tags:UK NorthernIreland trade Europe politics )

5. Whole bunch of homophobia in the adoption system

(tags:LGBT adoption children UK OhForFucksSake gay )

6. Europe's Plan to Quit Russian Fuel Plunges Pakistan Into Darkness

(tags:Europe Russia fuel oil Doom Pakistan Ukraine war viaDanielDWilliam )

7. Healthy human brains are hotter than previously thought, exceeding 40C in the core

(tags:brain temperature )

8. Europe is prepping for a trade war with the UK that no-one wants

(tags:europe uk trade doom NorthernIreland )

9. Neil Patrick Harris Boards Doctor Who

(tags:drwho )

10. BA.4, BA.5 rise in Europe; officials sound alarm of COVID-19 surge to come

(tags:pandemic doom )

Comments

[channelpenguin]

1. Good luck on item #3 of that list given 2. and 10. Personally, I'm not wired to manage #8 at all.

[andrewducker]

Hopefully nobody will ask you to manage a trade war!

[channelpenguin]

#8 on the happiness list. Not 8. on the links list :-). Happily nobody will ever ask me to run a trade war.

[andrewducker]

I believe in a bunch of things bigger than myself. Not religious-type belief. But "I believe that the environment is a good thing" kind of thing.

[channelpenguin]

Hmm. The environment just IS. I'm not sure that's the kind of thing they meant. I'm sure they mean one of the popular delusions that things happen for a "greater" reason, or that there's nothing we can actually do to change our fate (so just chill) . But who knows.

I mean the Universe is there. It's the very definition of "bigger". Plus a precondition for my existence. But I'm not sure how that is actually happiness- generating.

[simont]

Surely the advice to "believe in something bigger than yourself" is using "believe" in the other sense – not "be convinced that it exists", but some combination of "trust it" and "be in favour of it". The way you might believe in a particular political party, for example, or in a way of life.

It's much easier to see why it would contribute to happiness if there was something large and powerful that you thought was actually going to solve some problems, and/or that you could derive a sense of purpose from treating as a source of goals to achieve.

[mountainkiss]

In AA, the invitation to atheists is "define a power greater than yourself in whatever way can work for you" - but you have to do it somehow. For some people this is the fellowship or their home meeting. For some people it's some sense of shared consciousness or connection to the rest of the human race. Others never define it at all, but manage to be in relationship with it whilst undefined. I've known a lot of people who've stayed sober in AA for a long time whilst remaining atheists, but never if they can't find some way to engage with this that works for them.

[channelpenguin]

There's plenty of "powers" stronger than me - all the physical laws, all the emergent systems... weather, time, age. But not one of them is, or could be, looking out for me or looking after me (or anyone or anything).

Since you mention AA... oddly, I gave up alcohol absolutely on my own, from a date I decided. No groups. No lapses. No more thought ever given to it. I lived in England and still kept going to all the same pubs and social occasions and still do. I just don't drink. Since 2004.

I personally find AA a very strange concept. It's like a bunch of folks getting together every month (is it?) to endlessly discuss the same abusive ex. It doesn't seem like a way to get over anything and get on with your life.

[mountainkiss]

I would guess that everyone is different and there is no right way. I think your achievement is impressive. But I would be dead without AA and I know many others of whom the same is true.

[channelpenguin]

Mountainkiss - yes indeed. So glad you aren't dead!

[mountainkiss]

Thank you. I am too 😉

[andrewducker]

This makes total sense to me. Most people need something bigger than them to feel part of. Whether it's through religion, or caring about the environment, or democracy, or social justice, or family - we mostly need more than just us if we're going to thrive.

[channelpenguin]

It's a total bugger sometimes but definitely true that feeling belonging makes us feel better. More of a bugger for me that I see / feel most of the popular options as delusions that my mind / being simply won't accept.

I do/feel "belonging" only on a project-by-project basis - guess I have a contractor's very soul! :-)

Or it's my "doing-ness". So belonging to me can't be a "being" it has to be a "doing" - which is utterly consistent with my psychology. We 'are' what we DO. Nothing else. (the one professional I ever had to do with noticed this right away). So, for example, I execute European-ness by living / working / owning land /earning /paying my taxes in Europe, and broadly following (selection of) typical European social norms. But in my mind I could not be European if I didn't do / stopped doing those things. YMMV.

I don't believe in groups / belonging that you're just born into or that you stay in no matter what. As a real thing, that is, sometimes it's a convenient label.

I'm probably because I also don't believe in unconditional love, and as a child, chased / got approval and respect instead (conditional on achievement / skills). Blood is NOT thicker than water for my family. Family are not held to looser standards or made exceptions for - judged on exactly the same merits as anyone else. Go too far and you're out.

[calimac]

1. Huh. I spent my early adulthood veering between states of extreme happiness and extreme unhappiness. I know exactly what was responsible for these changes, and it wasn't any of these things.

3. Am I an extreme outlier here in that I basically can't remember anything from before the age of 6?

[andrewducker]

I went looking for information on the study cited, and could find nothing.

What I did find was this Harvard study into happiness in old age:
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/

Which says, basically - "Don't be an alcoholic, and have strong ties to your family, friends, and community where possible."

I remember very little before 6. The birth of my youngest brother has a couple of images associated (I was 4). Cycling down a path in our back garden. That's about it.

[naath]

I think my earliest memory is probably age 8 or so. I don't have many entil 10. clearly I learned to read etc. but I lack autobiography

[lilysea]

Am I an extreme outlier here in that I basically can't remember anything from before the age of 6?

According to many psychologists, that can often be a sign of

- trauma in childhood

- abuse in childhood - physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, severe neglect

- serious physical illness in childhood

[mountainkiss]

No. I would not want to infer anything about your background but this is certainly extremely common - arguably the default state - in children who come from trauma households or experience trauma.

[danieldwilliam]

If Neil Patrick Harris is playing the greatest villan the Doctor has ever faced is he therefore playing a competent scriptwriter?

[andrewducker]

I'd have thought that the villaines were the incompetent ones...

[cmcmck]

5. The adoption system was certainly full of transphobia when I was younger even when I could show that I had a brother and SiL who were fostering (they still do) and that I worked with special needs kids-severely disabled and terminally ill children. I spent twenty years doing so and they tell me most people manage ten top whack.

It breaks my heart when people tell me: 'you'd have made an amazing mother'. :o(..

[andrewducker]

I am so very sorry

[mellowtigger]

#2. "What are the implications for public health practice? Implementation of COVID-19 prevention strategies... is critical..."

Oh, FFS. Then why aren't USA policies and recommendations explicitly saying so? (rhetorical, obviously)

[mellowtigger]

#7 Yeah, brains consume about 20% of the calories used by the body. Coincidentally, that's why my personal theory of autism is that the apparent rise in incidence of autism coincides not with industrial pollution but with the introduction of extensive office (as opposed to field or house) work and especially women into workplaces. That sudden increase of calories needed for intellectual office work (some men, but lots of women) epigenetically called for brain changes to meet this new fitness demand for a calorie-hungry survival organ.

That's the pattern I see anyway, but my pattern-recognition skills have been recently criticized, so... *throw in proverbial grain of salt*.

[hutchingsmusic]

Point 2 is wrong - 1 in 5 US adults *who have had Covid (and know they've had it)* have symptoms that may indicate long Covid. The CDC graphic at the top of the article is extremely misleading. "This finding translates to one in five COVID-19 survivors aged 18–64 years and one in four survivors aged ≥65 years experiencing an incident condition that might be attributable to previous COVID-19." Total cases in the US are estimated at 85M (there will presumably be a lot more who never knew they had it); that translates to about 17M people in the US having long Covid, which makes it about 1 in 20 people rather than 1 in 5.

[channelpenguin]

Awesome spot! Thank you.

[jducoeur]

Yeah, I noticed the same thing. Also, the study explicitly doesn't account for vaccination status at the time of infection, doesn't seem to differentiate based on severity of initial infection, and predates Omicron -- all of which seem likely to be relevant.

So while the study is definitely concerning, I would be careful about making any practical inferences from it. It's mainly one more stone on the giant mound of reasons to get your vaccinations, and try not to get COVID.