Agent

dgaf ngaf cgaf
i'm putting together a mix cd for a hybrid cd/dvd rom - i like conceptual music or remixes as long as its original. send me a pm if you want to submit something. possible % of sales.

nomad- can you write something short about anesthesia from a medical/neurobiological perspective????
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
i'm putting together a mix cd for a hybrid cd/dvd rom - i like conceptual music or remixes as long as its original. send me a pm if you want to submit something. possible % of sales.

nomad- can you write something short about anesthesia from a medical/neurobiological perspective????

Sure no problem.

I already have stuff written from work but they'd fucking sue me if I used it. So I will cleverly re-arrange something.

Just let me know how long and anything specific you want it to focus on.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
i'm putting together a mix cd for a hybrid cd/dvd rom - i like conceptual music or remixes as long as its original. send me a pm if you want to submit something. possible % of sales.

as it happens i have many reversions of 4:33 lying around just collecting dust on me hard drive... the post-concrete spectral wonk-step digital anesthesia remix might work for your purposes i think :D
 

BareBones

wheezy
I disagree strongly with people who believe that mental illness is not real, and only a conspiracy that is perpetuated by big pharma to make money. There is plenty of evidence that mental illness is a) genetic, and b) probably at least in part exascerbated by the sorts of living conditions/lifestyles that have resulted from industrialization. Unforunately, many medications that are not optimal treatments get pushed on patients who do not need them, or who react badly to them, because of the pharmaceutical industry.

equally as bad/damaging is the viewpoint that mental health hospitals are full of people who are actually sane but have been, like, DRIVEN TOTALLY MAD BY ALL THE NASTY DRUGS THEY'RE FORCED TO TAKE! There was this ridiculous guardian feature a few weeks back which was meant to be a kind of expose on mental hospitals, in which the author, who (i think) suffered from depression, checked herself into a mental hospital and then reported some totally ill-informed, sensationalist, inflammatory shit about it - totally exacerbating the kind of stigma that gets attached to mental health institutions. And this was a major story in what's supposedly the most liberal broadsheet paper in the UK. I showed the article to my girlfriend, who's a mental health nurse, and it pissed her off so much she wrote a letter of complaint to the guardian. sad but true.

anyway

a few months back, this girl at my work (who i hate, and i really rarely hate anyone), said to me, as i was reading my book and having a fag after lunch, "i never read fiction, because i have such a crazy and over-active imagination, that whenever i do read fiction, i think to myself 'i can come up with better ideas than this myself'"... is that pretentious?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
equally as bad/damaging is the viewpoint that mental health hospitals are full of people who are actually sane but have been, like, DRIVEN TOTALLY MAD BY ALL THE NASTY DRUGS THEY'RE FORCED TO TAKE! There was this ridiculous guardian feature a few weeks back which was meant to be a kind of expose on mental hospitals, in which the author, who (i think) suffered from depression, checked herself into a mental hospital and then reported some totally ill-informed, sensationalist, inflammatory shit about it - totally exacerbating the kind of stigma that gets attached to mental health institutions. And this was a major story in what's supposedly the most liberal broadsheet paper in the UK. I showed the article to my girlfriend, who's a mental health nurse, and it pissed her off so much she wrote a letter of complaint to the guardian. sad but true.

I saw that article but didn't read much of it - should have shown it to a couple of my housemates who both work in mental health (one a case worker, the other a fundraiser/PR-type-person).

a few months back, this girl at my work (who i hate, and i really rarely hate anyone), said to me, as i was reading my book and having a fag after lunch, "i never read fiction, because i have such a crazy and over-active imagination, that whenever i do read fiction, i think to myself 'i can come up with better ideas than this myself'"... is that pretentious?

Not so much pretentious as just an utterly empty brag unless she actually has written anything (that's any good). Is she aware that it takes more than having an interesting (or even 'weird') idea for writing a successful novel? Actually it probably is pretentious, as in a way she's pretending that she could write a novel that's much better than (presumably) most commercial fiction but "can't be arsed" for some unspecified reason.
 
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hucks

Your Message Here
a few months back, this girl at my work (who i hate, and i really rarely hate anyone), said to me, as i was reading my book and having a fag after lunch, "i never read fiction, because i have such a crazy and over-active imagination, that whenever i do read fiction, i think to myself 'i can come up with better ideas than this myself'"... is that pretentious?

I quite like the idea here that all you need for a novel is just the weirdest ideas, and there's no need for plot, character, good prose, whatever.

Dunno if it's pretentious, but it's pretty hilarious
 
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BareBones

wheezy
I saw that article but didn't read much of it - should have shown it to a couple of my housemates who both work in mental health (one a case worker, the other a fundraiser/PR-type-person).

it was fucking bad. i can't remember much of it specifically now, but there was a bit where the author was complaining that some young bloke, who seemed sane to her, was being given his medication, and she (the author) was all disgusted because she didn't even know what the drugs were... now, i don't work in a mental hospital, but i'm pretty sure that patients aren't supposed to know what drugs other patients are being given. and maybe this guy seemed sane because the drugs were working?! even the fact that she was there writing all this bullshit in the place of someone who probably actually NEEDED to be in the hospital pissed me off.

Not so much pretentious as just an utterly empty brag unless she actually has written anything (that's any good).

well, she followed up her comment by telling me that she is "a poet", and that she won an international poetry competition when she was 13... i haven't read any of it but a friend of mine has and he said it was all 'dark' and about her feelings, and stuff. god, i hate her.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
equally as bad/damaging is the viewpoint that mental health hospitals are full of people who are actually sane but have been, like, DRIVEN TOTALLY MAD BY ALL THE NASTY DRUGS THEY'RE FORCED TO TAKE! There was this ridiculous guardian feature a few weeks back which was meant to be a kind of expose on mental hospitals, in which the author, who (i think) suffered from depression, checked herself into a mental hospital and then reported some totally ill-informed, sensationalist, inflammatory shit about it - totally exacerbating the kind of stigma that gets attached to mental health institutions. And this was a major story in what's supposedly the most liberal broadsheet paper in the UK. I showed the article to my girlfriend, who's a mental health nurse, and it pissed her off so much she wrote a letter of complaint to the guardian. sad but true.

anyway

a few months back, this girl at my work (who i hate, and i really rarely hate anyone), said to me, as i was reading my book and having a fag after lunch, "i never read fiction, because i have such a crazy and over-active imagination, that whenever i do read fiction, i think to myself 'i can come up with better ideas than this myself'"... is that pretentious?

Ok, people are probably going to have a seizure of self-righteous contempt when I bring this up (because I'm so full of myself), but I was in charge of fundraising for a new project for the guy who discovered the link between depression and the p11 protein, Dr. Paul Greengard. Mental illness, clinical depression, all of it, it's as real as lung cancer or HIV. I know this for a fact.

The problem is, normal people think of their normal ups and downs, they think of how they feel down after a fight with their girlfriend, or after they lose a contract at work, or get a demotion, experience personal disappoinments of some kind over time, and in time they get over it because their brain chemistry is all in order-- and they think that's what depression is. But clinical depression is a serious, debilitating illness that causes loss of function, aches, pains, lost wages, and all too often death. (And it's not related to experience alone--clinically depressed people are depressed for no reason at all.)

Dr. Greengard actually started an ad campaign, and his hook to try to raise awareness, knowing that the only thing Americans care about is money, was to calculate how much money businesses lose to sick days due to clinical depression in one year. Well, the amount was staggering. In the billions.

End rant.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
even the fact that she was there writing all this bullshit in the place of someone who probably actually NEEDED to be in the hospital pissed me off.

You know, that hadn't occurred to me - and aren't mental health services notoriously underfunded still, despite the billions Blair threw at the NHS?

well, she followed up her comment by telling me that she is "a poet", and that she won an international poetry competition when she was 13... i haven't read any of it but a friend of mine has and he said it was all 'dark' and about her feelings, and stuff. god, i hate her.

Ha, well, being pretentious and being emo go together like cheese and more cheese.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
BareBones, I seriously hope your girlfriend's letter ended up in the paper. That sort of shit is so completely irresponsible on such a grand scale that it literally blows my mind.
 

BareBones

wheezy
heh, well we didn't read it for a week or two afterwards, so it might've and we wouldn't've known about it... but yeah, totally irresponsible - there are probably tons of mentally ill people who need treatment but don't go and get it because they/their families think mental hospitals are these 'one flew over the cuckoo's nest'-style places where they just lobotomise you with tranquilizers and give you electro-shock therapy if you misbehave or whatever.

yeah, of course clinical depression is real - i wasn't disputing that for a moment and apologies if it seemed that way.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
it was fucking bad. i can't remember much of it specifically now, but there was a bit where the author was complaining that some young bloke, who seemed sane to her, was being given his medication, and she (the author) was all disgusted because she didn't even know what the drugs were... now, i don't work in a mental hospital, but i'm pretty sure that patients aren't supposed to know what drugs other patients are being given. and maybe this guy seemed sane because the drugs were working?! even the fact that she was there writing all this bullshit in the place of someone who probably actually NEEDED to be in the hospital pissed me off.

The fucking hubris involved in a non-medical professional trying to tell you that someone who is obviously diagnosed by a professional with a serious case of mental illness--one serious enough to require hospitalization--that "he seems sane enough to me", whose "opinion" or once-over has about as much validity as a five-year-old's would--well, that should be criminal, if only idiocy were a crime.

Uck I can't even think about the fact that someone PRINTED that in a PAPER that was mass distributed.

(Barebones, it definitely didn't seem like you were claiming depression wasn't real.)
 

zhao

there are no accidents
Look at any still existing tribe. There's a uniform or costume. They're all wearing it. No one is "different" no one is an "individual." It's brightly colored, ostentatious, usually psychedelic and cool, sometimes warrior-like. Face paint. Attention grabbing.

Rituals. Dancing. Loud yelping.

didn't take issue with this before but must now.

it is all too common for people like us to broadly generalize from a 1 dimensional and extremely limited perspective about the myriad of "pre-industrialized" societies which thrive to this day, and conflate them all according to a bullshit cardboard cut-out idea that we got from ignorant film directors.

band-level societies (gatherer-hunter nomadic less than 100 per unit) do not have anything like uniforms, and according to very many anthropological studies, enjoy total individual autonomy as well as intimate connection with the community --- both of which we "civilized" people lack.

there are hundreds maybe thousands of such micro societies functioning today, some of which approaching tribe-level (centralized power, a few hundred members), each with unique lifestyles -- it is all too easy for us smug westerners to lump them all together.

and as a side i'm entirely convinced that the 20 century construction of individuality, on the whole, makes us less happy.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
i read parts of Foucault's account of the history of the evolution of mental health treatment (the Clinic wasn't it?), but have forgotten most of it :confused: basically all i remember is that things have been always really bad since when ever his studies start, 11th century? and i guess today is not much better...
 

Chris

fractured oscillations
band-level societies (gatherer-hunter nomadic less than 100 per unit) do not have anything like uniforms, and according to very many anthropological studies, enjoy total individual autonomy as well as intimate connection with the community --- both of which we "civilized" people lack.

there are hundreds maybe thousands of such micro societies functioning today, some of which approaching tribe-level (centralized power, a few hundred members), each with unique lifestyles -- it is all too easy for us smug westerners to lump them all together.

hmm...

I'm not quite sure if she meant to suggest that people in those types of societies are walking around in masks and ritual fatigues all the time though; but aren't there usually significant costumes or dress used during meaningful cultural rituals, in all types of cultures?

the point maybe being not so much "look at the primitives' uniformity and silly rituals", but rather... "before we totally trash a subculture on their behavior and style, remember every culture exibits some level of collective definition and expression (while the same time there'll sometimes be debates, battles, and innovations for the nature of the culture's ethos and interpretation)... so maybe it's a thing we will never quite shake off?"
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
ah ok that makes sense. i wasn't quite sure what the purpose of her "loud yelping" comment was actually.

but i'm not sure if band-level societies have any "uniforms" or rituals... there is no "shamen" or leader of any kind...
 

Chris

fractured oscillations
ah ok that makes sense. i wasn't quite sure what the purpose of her "loud yelping" comment was actually.

but i'm not sure if band-level societies have any "uniforms" or rituals... there is no "shamen" or leader of any kind...

hmmm... maybe not, they might have had little freeform jams that developed into some kind of cohesive style, but who knows.
 
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Chris

fractured oscillations
unless you're talking about smaller (unmodern) tribes still in existence, to which I'd be interested in studying more on myself...
 
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