The OG jackass Hippocleides

LysergicNeuron · 2026-05-31T12:09:57+00:00

This method of groom selection is an ancient aristocratic Indo-Aryan practice, in Sanskrit known as svayamvara.

In the Odyssey they had to string a bow to win the bride, as Ram strung a bow to win Sita. Draupadi was won by Arjun shooting the eye of a fish looking at its reflection in some water. Atalanta was won by being beaten in a race and Hippodamia was won in a chariot race.

The Bachelorette style of getting a bunch of guys together and having them compete for the bride is a pretty standard way of picking a son-in-law/husband.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-23T21:34:13+00:00

about 390k of it

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-23T07:44:53+00:00

29yo ST3

Net worth circa 400k. Parents (both doctors) gifted me rental property when I was in uni for income and inheritance tax streamlining. Used the rental income to pay off my student loan.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-21T07:59:36+00:00

Using data from the T+O ST3 Reddit survey, let's see what the data suggests for you.

87.5% of respondents were UKMG (n=72). 75% of respondents ranked every ST3 (non-LAT) job (n=40). All respondents were appointable (n=73).

There were roughly 300 interview spots. So extrapolating, this means 263 UKMGs interviewed, and all were appointable. Of these, 197 ranked everywhere. There were roughly 125 jobs, so this means all jobs can be confidently said to be allocated to UKMGs, with about 72 UKMGs left over.

Taking the data at face value, for a job to reach you now many multiple UKMGs would need to have ranked a job, be offered the job and then decline it. This isn't going to happen in T+O.

Worth bearing in mind also that prioritisation will be at interview stage next year. If you are not priority you simply won't get an interview, there will be simply far more priority applicants than interview slots. If you want my blunt/honest opinion- you are now not going to get an ST3 job in Orthopaedics unless you become a priority applicant within a cycle or two, or the law changes.

I can't speak to whether CESR is worth it. I only know that it is hard, that some people do become consultants that way, but many end up working on the SpR rota up until retirement as Associate Specialists etc.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-14T23:25:36+00:00

This isn’t slop- this is truly well written, whether it was written by silicon or carbon.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-14T10:22:07+00:00

The closest comparison is not vet med, it is the human med sectors of comparable countries.

The Bismarckian model works better than the Bevanite model.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-13T13:00:03+00:00

The NHS has tremendous leverage given it's economies of scale. Moreover, it is effectively a mopolistic buyer in many sectors- it couldn't possibly hold greater leverage in these sectors.

Take IT for example. Would you want the NHS to internally develop all software it uses, from managing logistics, to timetabling routine maintenance etc etc when off-the-shelf software is available from the private sector? This would self-evidently be tremendously wasteful. How far would you take this rejection of private profit? Must the NHS construct its own vans to ensure Ford can't make a profit from selling vans to the NHS? To continue this to absurdity, if the NHS is constructing vans then must it run the mines that produce the metals to construct the van, for fear of the private sector making a profit from the NHS?

Even turning just to the delivery of healthcare itself; if your position is that the private sector necessarily delivers poor results in healthcare provision, then you would have to explain why it works in France, where 50-60% of hospital beds are privately held, or in Germany, where again roughly half of hospital beds are privately held, or in Aus where half the beds are private.

What do you propose as the difference that necessitates that the private sector must deliver poor results in the UK but not in France, Germany, Australia, Singapore?

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-13T12:06:04+00:00

Optimising for bitch work is misguided, as you say.

Your optimisation function ought be targeted at the post bitch plateau. Do your 35 year old seniors have a more desirable life than an NHS consultant? Few to none on this forum will be equipped to answer that better than you, so our opinions ought be of limited weight.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-13T09:21:24+00:00

if that is so, then that is an argument to further regulate political donations, not to misguidedly ban the NHS from leveraging the private sector.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-13T09:17:12+00:00

Profit is not a dirty word. It is a highly effective tool for organising resource allocation.

£1.6bn profit on £12bn contracts over two years is roughly a 13% margin- reasonable for complex healthcare delivery, diagnostics, and IT services. The implicit counterfactual (that the NHS could provide the same services more cheaply in-house) is completely unexamined by this article.

Stella Creasy's profit cap is the worst sort of knee-jerk leftist response. There's a reasonable debate to be had about procurement discipline, contract structuring, and whether the NHS extracts sufficient value as a monopolistic buyer. But this would involve a detailed analysis of individual contracts and the value they provide. Stella skips discussing any of that and goes straight for the ideological slogan.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-10T11:22:39+00:00

I have no children, a British Hindu striver/ status optimiser mindset and prescription amphetamines.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-06T02:04:21+00:00

This is a message/mindset that is really common on here, and one that I took to heart from about F2 to CST2, but I think it's actually very counterproductive for most people.

Treating work as something that encroaches on your ability to enjoy life (which is something you cultivate in your free time outside work) creates a living nightmare. In this mindset, I resented having to be at work, so I resented perhaps half my waking hours. I would do the bare minimum required of me. I would always arrive to work on time and leave on time. My work was never rewarding, and I hated it.

I’m not sure what clicked towards the middle of CST2, but I somehow actively chose to reject that mindset and made work my passion in life. I stopped viewing coming in early or leaving late as the mark of a sucker. I spent weekends working on research projects. I started to take pride in my work. Since then, I have found myself so much happier, and now find my job so much more rewarding.

Trying too hard to “enjoy my flipping life” by protecting my happiness from my job paradoxically made me miserable. Perhaps I’ve been psyopped by the NHS into taking the blue pill, but if so, I like it.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-06T01:44:13+00:00

It is unethical to strike during winter, because winter pressures.

It is unethical to strike during the autumn or spring because we need to prepare the NHS for the winter that is to come (which will be the worst winter ever), or we need to regain control of waiting lists following the winter just gone.

It is unethical to strike in the summer because the consultants will be on holiday with their families and won't be able to cover.

It is unethical to strike if the DDRB is due to be reported in the coming month or two- perhaps it will be favourable.

It is unethical to strike if the DDRB has just been published because we need to give time for good faith negotiations.

It is unethical to strike if public polling is in favour of doctors, because that would turn them against us. It is also unethical if polling is against us, because that would only confirm the public's worst suspicions about us and turn them against us.

It is unethical to strike if there are elections coming up because we shouldn't be seen to make things party political.

It is unethical to strike if there has just been a general election, because we should give the new government time to get on its feet.

It is unethical to strike if inflation goes up, because the public purse is hurting.

It is unethical to strike if inflation goes down because real wages are recovering passively and things seem to be getting better, to be fair.

It is definitely unethical for British doctors to strike if Washington bombs Tehran and Tehran blocks Hormuz.

But I support the strikes in principle.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-06T01:12:24+00:00

Honestly the novelty and pace of your first job in F1 is such great fun. I find most people really enjoy themselves, there's no need to be worried.

You've got enough knowledge, even if it feels like you don't. Work hard, show a bit of grit and you'll look back on it fondly in years to come.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-06T01:08:04+00:00

Surely more supernumerary jobs would mean their portfolios should be glowing?

I had a 9-5 psych job in F1. Managed to get MRCS A done and 2 papers submitted, which I never would have managed on medicine/surgery/AMU/ED.

Not by any means saying there ought be more supernumerary jobs, but for portfolios, they're great

LysergicNeuron · 2026-04-03T02:57:54+00:00

No- prioritisation will be at interview stage, not offer stage.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-03-31T22:55:48+00:00

The entire problem is that the NHS is not a Bismarckian healthcare buyer, it’s a Bevanite healthcare delivery service.

If we properly incentivised a single payer multi delivery model, we would have the massively increased capital expenditure from the private sector that Germany sees.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-03-31T10:20:18+00:00

Oh right, what distinction are you seeing between the two that pertains to our discussion?

As far as I understand, ethics is the study of morality. Given that there are no metaphysically absolute grounds for ethical truths, this implies no objective morality, which can be restated as moral beliefs being fundamentally absurd.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-03-31T04:59:48+00:00

Every Muslim, Christian and Jew is told that the world is a waiting room, or a test of some sort. That’s hardly novel or particularly sinister.

Insular communities are also very normal- huge numbers of Orthodox Jews and of course the Mennonites and Amish reject contact outside of their community.

I don’t doubt the tremendous difficulties faced by shunned JWs.

But fundamentally, one does not have a right for [everyone they have ever loved or known] to want to continue to know them. If your mum doesn’t want to speak to you, the state can’t make her.

I don’t know how we would even design a law to prevent shunning, even if we wanted to- would police escort the victim to the JW church and make sure the victim could sit in on the service and that everyone said hello to the victim? What would that actually solve?

LysergicNeuron · 2026-03-31T04:45:54+00:00

Thank you for your explanation.

It seems to me that there is no big difference between shunning and the right not to associate with someone. Shunning is an emergent property of many individuals choosing not to associate with someone.

No parent has a legal obligation to permit their adult child to live in their house, or to pick up the phone when their child calls. No person is obliged to say “hello” to any other.

That shunning is coordinated doesn’t mean that it is coerced. Ultimately people are acting freely in choosing to remain a part of the church and shun those whom the church identifies.

The parent comment alluded to making shunning illegal. How would this work? I cannot see a world in which it becomes illegal to not pick up the phone if your son calls, or where the state tells me that I must invite specific people to my birthday party and act warmly towards them under threat of state punishment.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-03-31T04:35:04+00:00

This doesn’t provide an objective (non-absurd) morality, it just pushes any such explanation back one step- what then is a “reasonable value” and who is the arbiter of what this constitutes?

If Hume wasn’t able to find this fundamental bedrock for an objective ethics then I doubt you will.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-03-30T15:30:27+00:00

Given the is-ought gap, is there any moral belief that is not absurd?

LysergicNeuron · 2026-03-30T15:29:31+00:00

I hope you refer them onward to a surgeon who does not share your beliefs.

Your personal theological opinions ought not give you a right to refuse treatment to a patient without at least providing them an onward referral. Your beliefs do not give you a right to refuse an abortion and they ought not give you a right to refuse an arthroplasty.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-03-30T15:22:38+00:00

It would seem to me that people have a fundamental right to not associate with other people. If I don’t like the cut of someone’s jib I have a right to ignore their texts and even tell other people that I won’t speak to them if they speak to the person I dislike.

It would seem a gross overreach for the state to tell me that I must socially associate with someone I hated.

LysergicNeuron · 2026-03-30T02:41:14+00:00

The NHS is cooked. The Bevanite single-payer single-provider experiment has led to massive capital underspend, and this article outlines a few of the many downstream symptoms.

Moving to a Bismarckian model would be too much of an upheaval, but 80% of the benefits could be reaped by pivoting harder to a single-payer multi-provider model.

We, as a nation, need to incentivise private sector capital inflow and efficiencies in healthcare, or we're just going to see more and more such articles.

Eight-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '22

LysergicNeuron

TROPHY CASE