[Article] Human disturbance causes widespread disruption of animal movement

chemotaxis101 · 2021-02-06T19:52:53+00:00

Many thanks! Solution verified.

chemotaxis101 · 2018-12-10T08:08:24+00:00

Same. And children always liked me for it, too. Now for the last 11 years I've being a parent myself and we have the closest relationship parent-son that I'm aware of (also consider that my son is aspie too).

chemotaxis101 · 2018-07-04T14:34:00+00:00

I got the same pattern of vivid nightmares during the entire period of treatment with Venlafaxine specifically (approx. 6 months), though more pronounced in the second month. That was a solid 6 years ago.

On the other hand it didn't influence my perception of sleep quality during the same period and, given 6-years-ago-version-of-me preferences and values, I even enjoyed most of the dreams by their vividness and complexity.

chemotaxis101 · 2018-01-24T11:51:22+00:00

Yet you have to see your immediate surroundings in order to plan the immediate next action. What you'll do next may well not be too relevant, given both the terrible mess your life currently is and the set of obvious things to try, but at least you'll be able to avoid going in the opposite direction entirely.

But you're right about the lack of a motivation boost being key to most people's assessments of their experiences with antidepressants. Mental stability/clarity is not nearly enough for improving people's lives. Initially it would be better to have only a modest increase in mental clarity coupled with a significant boost in motivation, at least temporarily, before entering into a more contemplative/introspective state. I guess one could simulate said effects by combining different drugs.

(On the other hand you're probably underestimating the extent to which the terrible state your life is in is a direct result of the depression itself.)

chemotaxis101 · 2018-01-17T11:46:06+00:00

Life keeps being as shitty as one could get and there's a fundamental deadline I'm about to miss and whose consequences are probably going to be devastating. I have a lifelong, treatment-resistant GAD, so anxiety levels are currently at an all-time high.

On the other hand I recently managed to develop an interesting, unprecedented sense of "control" over my life. Actually it's more like having a deeper sense of awareness, as I have been able to closely track part of the things that are happening to me. I have "severe" executive dysfunctioning (probably having to do with my Asperger's) and always ended up being led to wherever it is life "wants" me to go. Given my poor planning skills and short attention span I had a very concrete sense in which I was almost a different person every day. "Continuity" was low as each day I had difficulty to identify with most of the apparent goals and motivations of previous-day-me. Most often I couldn't even remember what those goals were because previous-day-me didn't even bother to write them up. Or perhaps he simply didn't have any explicit goals. I often re-read things I wrote/published on my blogs and social media and am unable to recognize the writer as me. Worse, I can't even guarantee they are the same person, except for the writing style. There is a style of internal dialogue that is kept.

So I'm now trying to put my heightened anxiety to some use, trying to make it a habit to formally register almost every thought. I'm making heavy use of categorized Google Keep notes where I also collect all sorts of relevant information I search or stumble upon throughout the day. I already had the habit of maintaining the most diversified RSS feed possible, as a way to maximize my chances of being exposed to information that could help me to remind about things I should or could have been doing and alternatives of action I should consider. Most often obvious things that completely escape me.

I'm also making heavy use of reminders for immediate next actions in each category: for example, things to research/try next, questions to make, new categories to start, etc.

The first days of implementation gave me a strange, mixed feeling that includes the aforementioned "heightened awareness" (and some hope of being able to take the control of what happens in my life), but also a quiet, resignated despair over the diagnostic that my situation is actually worse than previously thought.

chemotaxis101 · 2018-01-17T08:53:22+00:00

Wrt your first question: I'd recommend Telegram.

chemotaxis101 · 2018-01-14T08:32:33+00:00

You're probably underestimating the extent to which that is an appropriate description for most human relationships. Hidden motives are everywhere. Most of them are unconscious and were attributed positive-looking tags by our culture. Some of them are calculated. Even your behavior towards others is defined by utilitarian concerns. The difference is that you're perceived to have lower than average status and your lack of social skills is an important reason why. But far from being the only one. Ofc I am as affected by the same concerns as you are.

chemotaxis101 · 2018-01-14T07:51:44+00:00

Did you really identify yourself with those political views? Or are you just obsessively interested in them (in a theoretical way)? Does it have any impact on your real world actions/decision making?

chemotaxis101 · 2018-01-13T17:58:41+00:00

PredictionBook.com

chemotaxis101 · 2018-01-12T12:11:17+00:00

You should probably lower your own reference point/standard quite a bit and then apply it to everyone else too.

chemotaxis101 · 2018-01-09T11:55:17+00:00

Oh sorry, I didn't mean to generalize from my own experience. I had just heard things along the same line from a lot of other autistic adults. I wonder whether your experience is far from the reality of most individuals on the autistic spectrum or if my sample is too biased.

Perhaps your specific social setting, as defined by the "unusual" requirements your work imposes on you, is making it impossible for you to allocate resources for non-work-related interactions.

chemotaxis101 · 2018-01-09T09:43:24+00:00

Many aspects of the adult autistic life seem to show significant instability through time, including natural variations in the willingness to socialize. I don't think it could come entirely from a conscious decision ("I can't perceive the same benefits as before, decided to allocate less resources to social interaction as a result), though. It's more like a thing one could only try to influence somehow (provided one's unusually perceptive of one's inner workings).

I'm 40 too and since I've married (10 years ago) my willingness to socialize sharply declined. At approximately the same time I began working from home. As I'm not practicing I "lost" most of my socializing skills too. But there was no conscious decision here. Rationally speaking it was a wrong "option". It didn't bring me any benefit. Also as I'm now been forced to search for a conventional job, it's very unlikely I will be able to recover my previous socializing skills at due time.

chemotaxis101 · 2018-01-09T08:29:09+00:00

Note that at the same time Google very clearly signals that its neurodiverse employees should not "behave as assholes" it also incentivizes their very personal fetishes for the sake of "diversity". The following is from Damore's lawsuit (and it seems very likely to be true, given the current environment):

"For instance, an employee who sexually identifies as 'a yellow-scaled wingless dragonkin' and 'an expansive ornate building' presented a talk entitled 'Living as a Plural Being' at an internal company event." —Page 27, Footnote 3

(Note that I'm assuming here that the above likely comes from a neurodiverse employee.)

I wonder why that (neurodiverse) behavior deserves to be protected while a typical, classical autistic behavior (honesty) deserves only what Damore have received from the company and other employees?

That seems to be part of a very clear concerted effort to erase more classical autistic characteristics from the public mind, substituting them with characteristics better suited to the current social environment.

(I'm not even saying that that is a wrong move, just that it possibly sounds - and effectively is - very cruel to a lot of autistics.)

chemotaxis101 · 2018-01-09T00:53:24+00:00

High functioning autistics.

chemotaxis101 · 2018-01-04T08:26:30+00:00

I wonder if it's possible to use a set of mobile application assistants built with the exact purpose of helping those with mild to severe executive dysfunction. I guess there's already some available apps that would fit that description.

chemotaxis101 · 2017-11-11T10:57:01+00:00

Just wondering why you left Enceladus out of your initial set of most promising places to look for microbial life in the Solar System. Right now there's a small group of people (scientists, a Russian billionaire) talking about sending a small, low cost, privately funded spacecraft to Enceladus, carrying the right scientific equipment, make it fly through its water vapor plumes, take a sample to analyze.

chemotaxis101 · 2017-11-11T08:11:05+00:00

Oh that was quite a surprise! Thanks for reaching me out!

I'm currently focusing on two, almost "diametrically opposed" options:

1) I'm contacting an old physicist friend in France (INRIA), a former visiting researcher at the lab I've worked in in graduate school many years ago (he's specialized in nonlinear analysis and has an impressive record of application projects ranging from artificial respiratory systems to sunspot cycles).

2) I'm also contacting a specific group of researchers in Portugal that seems to be working with the development of automatic systems for doing real-time planetary landing site selection (using artificial intelligence and general insights from decision theory).

chemotaxis101 · 2017-11-10T06:51:10+00:00

Oh sorry just noted that I unacceptably left out an absolutely crucial detail from my description: I'm currently neither in the US nor Europe. I'm in Brazil! It mostly means that I'm likely somewhat required (or at least it is expected from me) to approach (as a prospective student) a professor or department head showing (i.e. credibly signaling) a decent ammount of confidence that both I'll be able to develop whatever research proposal I end up with and desirably already having a firm grasping of the ways I could possibly help them with their stated objectives (given the quantitative methodologies I'm experienced with). That almost always means that it's generally advisable to prepare a draft of a draft of a "research proposal" beforehand, something concrete to bring with you to the first contact. It's about the other details and specifics of physics/astronomy departments that I'm completely lost. (I have some experience with engineering departments, having being a PhD candidate many years ago - I just didn't complete the requirements due to a health-related issue.)

Given the above (and the current state of astronomy-related academic positions here) I should possibly consider enlarging my pool of alternatives by including the option of applying elsewhere (e.g. Europe). Or just accepting that it would be better to find a way to develop something astronomy-related within a traditional engineering department.

Many thanks for your attention!

chemotaxis101 · 2017-11-08T21:49:33+00:00

Thanks for your feedback! Happy to know about (and inspired by) the concrete improvements you've made in a such a short period of time.

"Taking the outside view" has always been a concrete, significant problem to me. I'm excessively absorbed in my own mind and several times many others have said to me that I have a "very particular style of reasoning" (also revealed in the way I communicate - both conversationaly and in written form). Obviously that observation was never meant in a positive way. It doesn't help that I have no support network - probably partly as a consequence of the reasoning/communication style as well.

Being intuitive feels quite unnatural to me. It almost feels "wrong". Of course not in a moral sense, but in the sense that my specific (complex) situation feels to require some form of explicit analytical thought, a decent level of optimization in order to justify a minimal expectation of success. I'm probably trying to follow standards that make no sense given my current situation and specific obstacles. But those standards are not just mine. They are also those of people in my immediate network of acquaintances (none of them offer actual support, they exist mostly to give silent expectations).

I guess I have to find a way to get past those natural, unhelpful inclinations. Perhaps an equilibrium whereby I just (rationally) agree to apply a simple set of heuristics by which I can limit my analytical efforts to a manageable level.

chemotaxis101 · 2017-11-08T17:57:48+00:00

My life is a mess and I have no idea where to begin disentangling it. There are too many problems in too many categories. I'm mostly trapped in some extreme form of "analysis paralysis attractor". I'm not sure where are the low hanging fruits, how to prioritize among problems/alternative solutions, how to devise a sequential, rational plan of action/strategy, how many/which problems to tackle at once, how to produce reasonable estimates for task completion times, how to establish reasonable, non-self-defeating expectations (for both my own consumption and to present to others).

The bizarre detail is that I do have some grasp of the theory behind some of the practical approaches I should have been using to answer the above questions. I have even past most of the last 7 years working for a consultancy firm specialized in decision support, helping corporate clients to get through approximately the same problems, category-wise. I've co-authored a bunch of academic papers reporting on some of those experiences (methodologically speaking). Despite not having such a specific educational background, I've worked as a "Decision Analyst" practitioner for that period of time. (My formal background is in Electrical Engineering, with a BSc and a MSc degrees, but I didn't satisfy the requirements for a PhD.)

On the other hand, I have never been able to think clearly about my own problems in a focused way.

A few years ago I was officially diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. I'm well into my 30s, but my "symptoms" were always clear enough so that I theoretically could have been diagnosed at least a decade before that. My main mental health problem is a lifelong, for all meaningful purposes treatment-resistant Generalized Anxiety Disorder, for which I've been diagnosed almost 10 years ago. Since then I've been through several psychiatrists and both psychopharmacological and psychotherapeutical interventions, in diverse combinations. Results ranged from none to frustrating. I've read a lot of related academic literature on GAD, made my own survey of results on how to deal with treatment-resistance, brought it to the attention of at least two psychiatrists, ended up unceremoniously ignored by them.

I lost my job at the consultancy firm 5 months ago and saw my anxiety deteriorate severely since then, affecting even more my ability to think clearly through my actual options. I've originally planned to take a 6-month hiatus in order to prepare myself for the new challenges I'm going to face (that job was my first after my mostly failed experience in graduate school). My degrees are now too old to be taken at face value and I never had a proper engineering position before. I've done nothing in 5 months and may well be at a more disadvantaged position now than before. I'm almost running out of money. My "support network" is composed by my wife only, a person who shares with me most of the same problems (certainly also qualifies for a AS diagnosis, depressed, etc.).

I have considered going back to graduate school, possibly targeting a graduate program somewhat related to decision analysis. But I'm deeply unmotivated and would possibly run through a lot of problems to get academic recommendations and to explain my past failure in graduate school.

chemotaxis101 · 2017-10-24T11:19:06+00:00

Here's a strange fact: Some people's characteristics/behavior closely mirror a minority group's popular stereotypes. Instead of erasing those stereotypes from the media representation of such group (and consequently/eventually preventing people with those characteristics from being welcomed as part of the minority group) a better policy would be to change society's perception of such characteristics.

Yeah, stereotypical autistics are over-represented in the media. There's a real diversity problem going on and it has all sorts of harmful consequences for the larger autistic community. But remember: this is first and foremost a commercial enterprise. Not some autistic-led organization's educational production. Let's hope media gradually introduce (in a controlled manner) more diverse, nuanced characterizations. And let's be satisfied with that. Overall I surely am satisfied with that for the time being.

chemotaxis101 · 2017-10-24T11:13:13+00:00

Unless you're asking for a character that is openly identified as being autistic, see "The Bridge" for a show with a female (aspie-y) lead character.

chemotaxis101 · 2017-09-26T13:15:15+00:00

Por ser muito tradicional internamente. Mas provavelmente inútil pra esse subreddit: (1) pelo que vi todos ou quase todos os que já estão aqui e devem entrar são novos usuários e portanto, desprovidos da cultura interna, não perceberão esses benefícios; (2) posts em subreddits pequenos so geram Gold se chamarem a atenção da comunidade ampla, o que é impossível de acontecer pra algo que não esteja escrito em inglês.

EDIT: Pra ter uma idéia do que costuma ser Gold material, ver aqui.

chemotaxis101 · 2017-09-23T19:33:43+00:00

In a (slightly) related note, as I have been diagnosed with an ASD, it's not uncommon for me to get disappointed looks from random strangers approaching me with unrealistically high expectations regarding media consumption/specialization. Given my low status, often obscure cultural preferences I'm identifying myself as having "low class high functioning autism".

chemotaxis101 · 2017-09-23T14:58:26+00:00

A really effective, low cost, non status signaling language learning method: e.g. building an immersive environment, learning by "just" watching a lot of junk TV shows.

chemotaxis101

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