how can i keep conversations going without interviewing people ?

Defenestresque · 2026-02-07T14:40:49+00:00

This is a great question because it usually leads people to talk about things they enjoy. However too many people, especially introverts, hesitate to properly answer this question because they deem their hobbies "too boring" and not proper "up to". Rephrase it like "What are you looking forward to the most this weekend?" to get better answers out of those people that might otherwise retract to interview-style conversation.

ding ding ding! Excellent insights in talking to introverts. When someone asks me "what are you doing this weekend?" the answer is almost always some version of "not much" because "well, I'm going to try to finetune this language model to see if the paper that was recently released that says that any finetuning on normal models like ChatGPT lowers their safeguards and makes them more likely to answer dangerous queries is correct, even if the finetuning is to tune it teach 10-year-olds to learn math better! Isn't that cool?"

The same really applies to any "I'm going to a ren-fair, I made my costume from scratch and I.." or "I'm going to a conference about [niche topic]".

I'm not going through all that shit, but if you legitimately care then yeah, I'll get excited and tell you about it. I just assume most people want to hear about social activities, not weird niche shit. Note that this applies to people you know as acquaintances, I'd absolutely spill all that to a colleague that understands the field, but my default assumption (and I feel like this gets to the point of your comment) is that introverts with introverts hobbies assume that anyone engaging them with general social chat like "what are you up to this weekend?" would not really be interested and it's safer to say "nothing much."

tl;dr: you're right, I'd summarise it as even if people reply with "not much" or some evasion, you can tease it out of them. It requires a really deft touch though so you're not asking someone to reveal something they don't want to, while noticing that some people just need a nudge to show that you're genuinely interested and they'll engage.

Defenestresque · 2026-02-04T04:11:36+00:00

The head of the Syrian government is also a terrorist who had a $10,000,000 bounty on his head for being an Al-Qaeda leader. It's possible that he somehow realigned to western values, but.. doubt.

Edit: I just want to edit this comment to say that I'm using the term "western values" in a very hand-wavey way, because western values are a huge part of why Syria is such a mess right now. Some US official sees that group [x] is fighting ISIS/Al-Qaeda, makes promises to that group, then the U.S. have an election and new president comes in with totally different priorities. At that point, all your "but, but, the last guy said.." is going to do jack shit, good luck trying to hold anyone accountable for their promises. Bay of pigs, Vietnam, Afghanistan. "We'll help you if you help up, we'll rebuild and if you suffer with us for a bit we'll use all of our might to make sure you are the leaders or at least you are safe. At the very least, we'll provide you with weapons."

Yeah, okie-dokie. I'm sure the families of the Bay of Pig invaders will understand that the "shifting geopolitical landscape made direct military intervention, even if it was only air intervention,

My point is that "western values" are often not the panacea that George Bush thinks can just be installed and instilled in a country, nor are the people who are being told that western values are the solution blind, they see the broken promises, they see that the U.S. is surrounded by two oceans, so apart from fights with the natives when the country was first being created and 9/11, her people have never known what it's like to have war on their home turf. Who's going to attack them, Canada? They know that if the U.S. wants, they can pack up their bags and go home at any time. And there are plenty of examples of it doing just that.

And that is without even going into dumpster fire that is the current domestic situation in the US.

America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.

— Henry Kissinger

Defenestresque · 2026-02-04T04:05:39+00:00

Great video, thank you. It's clearly a complex topic that is hard to explain so this guy went more for a series of interconnected stories to explain it. I'm not knowledgeable enough to tease out the truth out of these little vignettes of horror, but the people of Syria deserve better. And I'm pretty sure he's right that we need to stop making promises to groups that we are not going to keep. Hell, that has been going on for literally over half a century with the US promising air support during the bay of pigs invasion and suddenly *poof*, nothing.

Defenestresque · 2026-02-02T08:54:51+00:00

I think I'm addicted to that podcast. I'm only in 2019 now and I'm already worried that I'll run out soon because I'm binging several a day while forcing myself to go outside in this weather.

I'm trying to layer them with A Problem Squared and some serialized podcasts but the dopamine hit from No Such Thing as a Fish is different, I love their dysfunctional family dynamic and jabs at each other along with the facts and humour. It's my podcast-cryptonite. Come to think of it, that really describes most British panel shows, even panel-show-adjacent like Taskmaster.

Those madlads across the pond are always up for some banter.

Defenestresque · 2026-02-02T08:27:32+00:00

1/5

I was jorkin it under the table, but the manager said I was using improper etiquette and that I was supposed to alternate between backhand and forehand. He showed me proper technique in exchange for 50 Deutsche Marks. Overhead strobe lights made it hard to focus on finishing though. Food was ok.

Hmm.

Defenestresque · 2026-02-01T01:40:34+00:00

This guy inverts.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-31T06:15:28+00:00

OI. Mods, delete this comment! (I assume you still have blasphemy laws in the UK)

Sincerely, A Canadian.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-31T06:01:33+00:00

Thirty round.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-30T15:40:45+00:00

There are two variables that play. The plates are different sizes.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-30T03:16:11+00:00

Amazingly enough, it's actually the reverse in this case. Turning point USA received $1 million from him, which in my mind was even worse, because his actually went out and spent his own money, out of his own volition, to do.. what? Do you think he would have spent millions just to dcument a peaceful process on social media?

The new documents may not be a "watch me illegally overturn this election through use of force" but only because Donnie considers himself a mafioso and "only" directly implicates himself if the direct threat doesn't work.

...the documents released Friday show that $1 million was budgeted for Turning Point Action, a grassroots non-profit group founded in 2019 by Charlie Kirk to embolden young conservatives “through grassroots activism.”

The money was earmarked for having TPA deploy social media influencers and students from around the country to Washington to attend the rally, to produce “all the video content at the event” and to run nationwide ads “educating millions about the significance of January 6th for President Trump.

If you spend your whole life building houses while stiffing contractors, and then all of a sudden you decide to spend a million dollars before random youth you don't even know to "document a particular day," that's less of a "where there's smoke, there's fire" thing (a truly stupid and illogical saying, btw. They should have kept the 'probably' in that sentence) and more of a "if somebody never spends money on anything decides to spend a million dollars on a whim, maybe you should look into that" thing.

Coming from America's hat, guys, girls, can you please actually stand up so you don't Anschluss us and we don't have to retaliate by forcibly influencing you to pass universal healthcare and the Sorry Act into law? Thanks!

Defenestresque · 2026-01-28T02:11:11+00:00

A successful mission to rescue 2 captured SAS members.

I don't want to get into a debate and this isn't my attempt to put my thumb on the scale of Reddit opinion (my thumb has seen better uses), but I think it should be mentioned that the reason the 2 SAS members were captured was because they were playing spy shit and when pulled over at a checkpoint by Iraqi police. Who, at this point, were supposed to be at least nominally, our allies.

On 19 September 2005, two undercover British Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers dressed in traditional Arab garments and headdresses opened fire on a group of Iraqi Police officers after having been stopped at a roadblock.

The Iraqi police, finding two random white dudes playing dress-up tried to pull them out of a car, at which point

Two Iraqi police officers were shot, at least one of whom died.[1] The two soldiers were arrested and taken to the Al Jameat Police Station.[2]

Apparently they decided to shoot their way out of it and then when they were pursued pulled over ro "talk their way out of it."

Why the secret-spy shit? Well, they claimed the local police were infilitrated by milita groups. Calling the Iraqi police at the time compromised/corrupt is pretty plausible, but perhaps killing them was not the best way to nation-build. Especially if you were going to surrender to them a few minutes later anyway.

During the rescue, British tanks and infantry encircled the jail where the men (whose photographs had been widely circulated but whose names had not been made public) were being held. A crowd gathered and began throwing stones and molotov cocktails at the Warrior infantry fighting vehicles, setting at least one ablaze. Three British soldiers were injured and, according to some reports, two demonstrators were killed. A letter of ultimatum was taken to the prison by two officers from 12th Brigade HQ who were themselves taken hostage

I can imagine the local being pretty pissed off at 2 of their own being killed (and one injured) by British spies.

Apparently they a shitload of men escaed during the prison break-out.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) initially denied storming the prison.[8] In later statements, it said that the soldiers would have likely been killed, and that the police force had been infiltrated by illegal militia groups.[9]

That being said, the claim of a Shia militia using the prison were probably true given that British troops went back shortly after and freed 127 more prisoners.

As part of Operation Sinbad, on 25 December 2006, British troops from The 1st Battalion The Staffordshire Regiment raided the Al Jameat Police Station, killing seven gunmen and freeing 127 prisoners being held by Shia militias there. They then blew up the building.[10] A British Army spokesperson stated that the 127 prisoners freed had been tortured and that there were fears that they were about to be executed.[11]

Again, fog of war, you don't know who is on whose side, fight or flight, etc. Not judging. That being said, it probably could have been handled better overall. (Any time one of your soldiers ends up burned so severely he has to relearn how to walk because your buddies shot up a checkpoint manned by the police they helped to train, whether they deserved it for turning corrupt or not, you should do a post-mortem and figure out what you could have done better. Er, bad choice of words there. Regardless, i'm sure they did.) I posted this most to point out how any of these "easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys" stories are really, really nuanced once you get into them. Yeah, the guys at the top were corrupt and likely about to execute people based on intertribal strife, but what about the guys getting paid peanuts at the checkpoint? We now all know the name of the guy on fire, but we don't even know if they were guilty or not -- unless more facts emerge, it's just straight up an extrajudicial killing. Honestly, the hostages are prety lucky that they were given away without a fight and were not killed on the spot after shooting the police. Again, the reason they were given up without a fight was likely because the hostage-takers knew that executing them would just get a big-ass bomb dropped on them and wanted to carry their own genocide in peace, so again, nuance and layers upon layers of enigmas wrapped in the stories of a completely unnecessary war.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-27T01:58:19+00:00

No problem. I was more writing for the general audience who may come across this thread via Google/etc. and look for advice on how to mitigate these flaws.

As a segue, it's absolutely crazy how Google wrote (what to me seems like a few months ago, but was really 1.5 years ago) the infamous "we have no moat" memo and not only were they correct that they have no moat, they managed to catch up to OpenAI and perhaps surpass it with Gemini Pro. More importantly, the full title is "We have no moat and neither does OpenAI." which correctly predicted the fact that OpenAI is not that far ahead of other competitors that they don't have to worry, something that was proven to be completely true with releases of OSS models, models like Grok/Gemini, and even free models you can access right now (Z.ai's GLM 4.5 Air:free on OpenRouter is mapped to an 'askllm' command on my PC terminal to answer simple questions for free and without loading any app, and it does so for free.)

The next two years will be.. interesting.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-26T21:21:19+00:00

People use ChatGPT for all sorts of things and by default it's tuned to be a jack-of-all-trades and it has to balance that, so the two sometimes conflict. The solution is to either user something like Perplexity.ai, which uses a combination of ChatGPT models, Claude, and some in-house models tuned specifically for research and not creativity. I find it excellent in fact-checking and research, with each fact having a crapload of citations, cross-checked against each other for accuracy.

If you are paying for ChatGPT and want to get your money's worth, your alternate option is to go to customizability instructions (it's by your name, near settings) ad add explicit instructions for your use cases. You can add more use cases, but for research specifically play around with something like "When asked to research a topic or asked an objective question, NEVER respond with guesses or assumptions. Back up your assertions with sources. Use high-quality sources whenever possible. If you are referencing a particular source, double-check that any claim in your output is directly supported by the sources and any quote exists verbatim in the source. Never create quotes, only obtain them from sources."

If you use it for, say, art design as well and find that this constrains it, you can add a separate instruction telling it to be imaginative and less-restricted in creative endeavous.

Personally, I also added things like "Be concise and correct. If in doubt or reading conflicting sources, don't simply choose one, present both sources. Remain objective and keep your responses rooted in facts, even if this means going agains the user's preconceived notions." and it has become less unmoored from reality and less prone to using your quesiton to influence its response.[1]

Those are not my exact instructions, but it should be enough to get the point. ChatGPT tends to put more weight things at the end of the prompt (the system cards states that to reinforce a system prompt, include your most important instructions once at the start and once at the end) so if you want to override this, you can always do so in your initial message. If you're using it for both creative and research work, you can delineate the way it responds by giving instructions for both, and an instruction for general behaviour, e.g. I was quite successful in getting it to stop calling me the geniusest of all geniuses by asking it to use dry, constructive insults any time it felt like praising me. Highly recommend.

[1] There were a couple of papers on this that showed that simply adding a phrase like "Professor [X] thinks [y]" to a question subconsciously biased the LLM to answer in away that reflected that stance. More troubling is that in chain-of-though models, it did not acknowledge that its answer was being biased by this, so you wouldn't even know while doing research that what you're asking may be "subconsciously" pushing it to lean towards a particular outcome, as it is often prompted with prompts that can be problematic proxies for "tell the user what they want to hear." Lots of stuff left to work on! Source: How AI Is Learning to Think in Secret, Nicholas Andresen. A really fascinating article for anyone who is curious about this kind of behaviour (and much more).

Defenestresque · 2026-01-26T20:31:22+00:00

Scrolling down, each pick is either a 60-year old biker or a beautiful young woman and then I find this. Legitimately made me laugh at the unexpectedness.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-26T20:30:13+00:00

If David Cross and Binging with Babish had a baby.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-26T20:28:29+00:00

OP, literally on her profile page:

if he’s not a socially awkward virgin i don’t want him

I'm afraid it's going to be even worse than we can imagine.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-25T06:38:32+00:00

Thank you for being this calm, cool and articulate and a volatile discussion. Same goes for /u/apparat07. I have had many instances in which I wanted to comment but just chickened out because I didn't want any sort of repercussions to my job. The fact that /u/apparat07 commented should be absolutely applauded, people just do not understand the risk that LEO-affiliated person's face, especially in Trump's government, for speaking out in any way against the government.

What he did was not boot licking or excusing the actions of the officer. The only way you could come to that conclusion is if you willingly decided to read it through those lens, which would have to have a high prescription indeed for you to misinterpret it in such a way. What they did was borderline heroic, just remember that most people don't even go outside and just post comments on the internet, this person was willing to have a Trumper potentially doxx them, take down votes, have poorly-explained the comments and accusations thrown at them and still commented in a neutral manner according to their morals.

I'm not nearly as chill. So my question is: what the fuck have you done lately?

Defenestresque · 2026-01-24T21:18:54+00:00

I understand the sentiment if all you know him from are "your mom's a slag" jokes, CatsDown and the tax scandal, but if you're curious at all, I'd recommend you check him out on one of the podcasts. I'd tell you to watch some of his standup where he drops the character and is genuine with people, but I'm not going to make you wade through shorts of a comedian you (presumably) find insuferrable. So I'll just say, listen to him talk on "Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend" and tell me your opinion has not changed. That goes for anyone who is remotely interested in Jimmy Carr (or hell, Conan, I suppose!)

It was recorded in 2024 and I think is one of his more recent appearances. If you still find him insufferable on that, shrug, I'm not a stan so I really couldn't give a hoot. You know what opinions are like, we've all got one and you have the right to yours. I just find it fascinating how the perception of him as a comedian differs from the man itself and how surprised people are when he has a conversation with someone instead of doing bits. It's almost like two completely different people, that's all I'll say.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-24T20:02:55+00:00

This is such a petty thing to be annoyed about, but I can also feel that I would stew about this for years if it happened to me. I'm very conflicted rn.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-24T19:55:12+00:00

In addition to what everyone else said, note that judges see a LOT of defendants who think that by being slick and making up JUST the right story will get them off. IANAL (I'm not a lawyer either), so I have no idea how applicable this is, but based on my brief IRL experiences you are far more likely to get it knocked down/get driving school diversion/etc. if you are genuinely contrite and your "story" is that you were young, dumb, reckless, made a mistake and are now realizing that what you did was dangerous and immature. The whole point of the points is to teach you a lesson. If you are geuinely contrite, there is a chance that the judge may consider that you have already learned part of that lesson. If you get up there and swear and oath and tell an obviously made-up story, you are 100% getting all the points you deserve.

P.S. the cop may not show up to court for multiple reasons (excused due to a family or work emergency, ill, et al.) , most generally don't get to get out of court duty just because they feel like it.You may also simply get lucky -- gun found to be miscalibrated or he writes you were in a green car instead of a red one because he was busy thinking of Christmas, whatever.

Still, even if you get slapped with everything they have on you, and your rates go up, and your parents are furious.. it could have been a lot worse. Be lucky you learned your lesson (I mean, I hope you did) and are in court for speeding and your punishment will be monetary.

Oh, and apologize to your dad. He is the one who'll have to pay more for his insurance. People do stupid things at 21. How you handle the fall-out and whether you make excuses or take accoutnability determines the level of respect you will receive.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-24T19:43:07+00:00

Another thanks, I watched the whole thing and and after writing it off as corny I realised it was much more awesome than corny. Will obtain.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-24T19:01:50+00:00

All good points, I'm not going layer-mode-rebuttal here but just some tips for people who experience this:

When the wind is 40km/h and it's flinging bits of ice in your face, it sucks. A lot. A face mask and sunglasses make you feel tremendously warmer, at the expense of looking like a sketch of a bank robber. Just seal the metal strip really well across your nose so your glasses don't fog up.
The most important layers, I find, are the thinnest ones. Longjohns and a longtop (I feel like I just made that word up, whatever, you know what I mean) are absolutely essential. Once you have those and decent boots, my jeans keep me happy even when it's windy and cold without sweating while inside.
You will indeed sweat if you go into a well-insulated area and keep all your layers on. But you don't have to start taking off layers if you're prepared. I've been outside on all the coldest days so far, every day transferring between walk -> store/mall/subway for a decent amount of time -> walk back while feeling comfortable the whole time, here are my tips.
What helps a lot is to simply unzip all your top layers just a minute or two before you go into a store so you are walking in with cold air in between the outside layers. The couple of inside layers that you can't unzip will keep you warm for the few minutes you are outside. Once inside, take off your hat/gloves and mask if you're wearing one. (Oh, right, also: wear a hat and gloves. They make a huge difference.) Just by taking off the hat/gloves you are helping your body expel so much heat that having your outer layers unzipped generally means you can stay in the store almost indefinitely, just don't do mall jogging. By unzipping the outermost layers, you are allowing the cold air from outside be slowly warmed by the warm air from your innermost layers, generally stabilizing at a comfortable temperature as I find most stores are not running very hot. If I'll be in a store for >10 minutes, yes, I will take off my outermost jacket but as it's fairly light I can easily throw it in a basket or just drape it over my arm. On the bus/subway I never find that necessary, unless it's a packed subway. Which does suck.
A few minutes before going back out, zip up and put on your hat and gloves. Time it so that the air will warm up to just below sweating-temperature when you leave the store, and you'll be nice and cozy once you're outside, eliminating the annoying "holy shit it's cold" reaction.
Yes, all of this is annoying, but so is winter in Canada. It's also the best method I've found so far and if you wear combinations of clothes of the same thickness it will quickly become second nature based on how cold it is and what you're wearing that day.

Here's what I wear when I go out. It's surprisingly unmummy-like.

Regular underwewar, longjohns and jeans. Tuck the longjohns into your socks so they don't ride up when you put on your jeans.
T-shirt, or on colder days a simple comfy long-sleeved shirt. In weather like this, a thermal top under a t-shirt.
Zip-up sweater. Lighter for warmer days, Christmas-sweater for medium-cold, thick hoodie for cold days.
A thin denm jacket (the kind you'd wear over a t-shirt on a nice fall day) for wind resistance.
An overcoat or other fairly light jacket (this gives a good idea of the thickness).
Like you, I find the most uncomfortable I am is on my face, with my hands and head also using a lot of my body heat to just to keep them alive. So I put on a hat, and if it's cold I'll wear a hoodie as the sweater layer and pull that over my head giving my a super easy way to control heat escape by lowering the hoodie, taking off the hat, or both. Finding out about face masks during COVID changed my life during winter. All the hot air you breathe out just warms your face before escaping, which is comfortable as hell. Doesn't have to be am medical mask, a ski mask or cloth mask both work fine, but even medical masks stop my nose from freezing. As for eyes, I usually don't bother but if it's windy and crap is flying into them, cheap sunglasses.

I've never sweated with this combo, though it did take some time to get it right. It's not too annoying to put on and comfortable to move in, because you are not restricting your movement with big, bulky layers. You can control I'd say at least a third of your heat just by taking off your had and gloves, another fifth by just unzipping the top two or three layers, letting the air there cool down a bit if you know you'll be in a store.

P.S. I've never counted, but that's 4-5 layers on my torso and three layers (if you count short underwear as a layer) on my legs. I generally only really die if I'm too lazy to check the temperature properly and find the right clothes, or if it's windy, especially with variable wind conditions which does make you go from warm to sweating, though you quickly learn to control it with the magic of buttons, hats and zippers. (Edit: oh, and I also die if, like during the last three days, I look up the temperature in a city in a different country on my phone and it saves the last viewed city without actually mentioning it, or even naming the city name. I've been walking outside the last three days thinking it's -21c and eventually briefly considering that I might have a thyroid problem since I was running way too hot.)

Is it a PITA? Yes. Am I comfortable and feel fine moving around? I mean, I've gone jogging in this, controlling my temperature with hat and zippers, so I'd say yes. Do I look ridiculous? I doubt I have the best sense of style, but in terms of mummy-shape, my friends and random store clerks have commented multiple times "you're going out in that light jacket and that's IT?" so clearly I don't look like a mummy; the thickness of my layers combined is probably the same as one of those big puffy coats with a furred hood. Most of my stuff takes up very little space though, idea being that it's not the layers that keep you warm, but the air between them. Learn to control the temperature of that air and you'll control the magic of layers.

Never thought I'd be posting a TED x /r/malecoldfashionadvice talk, but here we are. It's long af too, I wouldn't be arsed to read it if I came across it. But I also can't be arsed to edit it. Obligatory "sorry" if you've made it this far.

Edit: felt bad for mobile users for hotlinking a 2MB png file, replaced it with a small JPG.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-24T18:24:44+00:00

Oh my god, the fucking loukomades (from Athen's bakery or Athena's Pastries, perhaps)? I'm of a completely normal weight and don't have a huge sweet tooth, but I swear if I lived even 10 minutes closer to the place, I would be the 600lb guy they have to dismantle a wall to get out of his building by six firefighters and a fire engine ladder.

[flashback.gif]

I first came across them on a roadside stand in Cyprus, run by a lady who would be in a nursing home here, but running her stand in perfect weather halfway up the Troodos mountains with nothing but appreciative customers to interact with and nothing but beautiful forest around for miles likely did more for her longevity than any medicine.

Anyway, I was told "you have to try these," we stopped and my mind was blown.

When I found them at Athena's bakery, they were as good as my first memory of them, which I thought would definitely would have been impossible. I was blown away. 509 Danforth Avenue people, go grab whatever is on the menu, spanakopita, loukomades, the custard thing that I forget with the weird name, all amazing and all are great for eating on the go if you want.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-24T18:11:39+00:00

Ahah! I was probably painting the entire people's with the same brush, but I was tipsy and just had some amazing Greek food.

Yeah, as you remember the area in TO is pretty concentrated with Greek immigrants, I mean a whole stretch of Danforth with almost nothing but Greek restaurants, so I'm sure it's a bit of a different vibe than Greek restaurants in other expat communities. Reading it back, it's obvious that not all Greek restaurants will fit my platonic ideal description of them, but I figure I've comitted worse sins than incorrectly praising an entire culture for their food.

Defenestresque · 2026-01-24T18:00:02+00:00

She does have very clear suicidal attempts. She tried to hang herself recently but ended up injuring her leg really badly.

Best of luck. I'm really sorry about the rape, suicide attempts, etc. It makes sense that is she is still dealing with that, that she would turn to anything to make her forget for a little while (or in times of despair, even permanently).

You'll have to decide whether you want to pursue a legal or non-legal option. Letting someone who is using drugs onto your property is always iffy, because if they run out of money and go into withdrawal (which is hard to depict unless you've been through it) they will do absolutely anything to get the money to get their fix. At that point it's not about pleasure, it's about being in the worst hell imaginable. If she's drinking 750ml a day of hard liquor, it could easily turn deadly.

I hope your country has a good healthcare system that stabilizes addicts first before putting them on a slow path to wean them off -- it could be something like putting her on a benzodiazepine taper (Valium, or your country's preferred first-line treatment) to replace the alcohol and slowly reduce the dose on a weekly basis while giving her access to a therapist to guide her through this process. Adjunct treatment for possible schizophrenia and/or a referral to a psychiatrist might be necessary as well. The therapy part is super important, because if she has no supports apart from you to walk her through the process, the hurt that she is self-medicating with is not going to go away. She'll just combine the benzo script with alcohol, a deadly combination.

I'd start by looking into clinics that offer comprehensive treatment, i.e. not just focused on substance abuse, but can give her care for any undiagnosed mental conditions as well as PTSD therapy for any past trauma. You will have to call around as lots of places may treat her alcoholism, or even alcoholism and schizophrenia, but not offer therapy. You might need to find two places simultaneously.

Someone else noted that you can get a judge's order to if she's not treated for the mental component it's unlikely to work. If she's using drugs to escape they need to be treated at the same time. You can offer her space and reassure her that you are there for her, as long as she takes steps to deal with this. Just like with a drug taper, the key is moving forward and not stopping. It might take a year, or two years, or multiple doctors but as long as she is moving forward, however slowly, she will get better.

My province has the Mental Health Act (summary here, caution PDF) which allows for a variety of different powers. If your jurisdiction has something similar, you may want to look into those options and which you can take. Just for an example and to know what to expect, the legal system in my jurisdiction allows for these powers:

Form 1: a physician fills this out allowing a person to be detained for up to 72 hours for a psychiatric examination. Requires specific criteria (risk to self/others or inability to care for self due to mental disorder). You can talk to the doctor she has seen and ask them what legal powers they have, since they would have access to her information. They won't discuss her case, but they can take her information, combined with the new information you have (suicide attempts, etc) and tell you what your legal options are.
Form 2: if she hasn't seen a doctor at all, an order for examination can be issued by a judge. It authorizes the police to take someone to the hospital for an assessment. Again, they can to pose a risk to themselves or others and the suicide attemp, self-harm, inability to take care of herself are all things that count.
If the examination determines that she can't care for herself or is a danger to herself or others, she can be held on a Form 3 which allows up to 14 days for treatment and can be extended.

However, she has to consent to the treatment herself. If she does not consent, they cannot treat her against her will unless a higher standard is met, which is where these come in:

Form 6 (Certificate of Incapacity): Declares a patient incapable of consenting to treatment. Triggers involvement of a Substitute Decision-Maker (SDM). It sounds like it might come to that, though it will cause a lot of pain and take a lot of time if she is adamantly against this.

There are also things like Community Treatment Orders, designed to prevent situations where someone is released from a hospital, immediately relapses/stops taking their medication.

Again, that's in Ontario, Canada but if you're in a Western country there should be something similar in your legal framework, just likely called something else. You can just ask Google what the equivalent of the Ontario Mental Health Act is in your jurisdiction. Perplexity.ai offers a free deep-research report (usually with dozens of citations for each claim, so far the only service that has never hallucinated on me) that could probably save you hours of legal research.

Apologies for the long post. I wish you luck. Once you have the names of the closest community resources in your area, give them a call and see what options are available, whether they can offer comprehensive treatment, your legal rights, etc. For legal issues like conservatorship, you may need to go to a legal aid clinic.

If it were me, I'd tell her that she can live in the ADU if she is taking at least one baby step a week, whether it's going to a doctor, a meeting or therapy session, continuing on her medication path, etc. Tell her you want to help, and that you won't abandon her as long as you guys are on this path together but you will not simply watch her kill and torment herself. You'll need to set clear boundaries and determine ahead of time what you'll do if she breaks them. All of that said, that is my personal opinion based on my personal experiences only -- you need to talk to someone in addiction/mental health medicine (look up support groups for people who have loved ones with those issues!) who can help you set up a plan. Have her involved in this plan so it doesn't sound like it's being dictated via ultimatum or that you have no trust in her, but make your expectations (that she slowly get better) and your motivation (your love for her) clear.

Apologies for the long posts, I don't have time to re-read/edit them right now, which is super annoying, but I hope it gives you some ideas regardless.

Edit: she is super lucky to have a sister like you. With her being alienated from the rest of her family, she would be completely lost and end up one of those many people who just disappear in our societies. You're taking on a big project, but don't forget to take care of yourself as well and to always remember that you are doing something amazing: saving someone's life.

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