They make it to the market because the conditions they "treat" (using the word loosely), are in many cases even worse than this.

Ever seen a schizophrenic in the midst of a relapse? That's a level of fear beyond anything you'll ever witness in a Hollywood movie, and it doesn't come in nice, easy to bear waves...it's constant, unending terror. Nobody with the slightest compassion would wish that on their worst enemy.

A -chance- of severe side effects as a trade-off for a chance to ameliorate these conditions is a no-brainer. I just wish psychiatrists would stop pretending they are scientists in any way...treating people by trial and error just isn't science.

>> ^Throbbin:

I hear Krugman warning against a relapse into recession and maybe even depression, and that is the last thing America needs right now (imagine what the Republicans would do with that?)

I think the real problem with the austerity decision is that the EU really needs to either put up or shut up about its existence. Either it needs to let member nations ditch the euro, or it needs to have the low-debt nations bail out the high-debt nations.

Keeping people on the euro, tightening monetary policy on the euro, and demanding austerity everywhere is going to give them a Great Depression that will make our economic troubles look like a walk in the park.

As for us, we seem to be good (but not great) shape on monetary policy, and have the right idea on fiscal policy, but we're being stymied on fiscal policy by domestic extremists. <godwin>You know, the Nazis used the Great Depression to come to power, apparently the Republicans want to create one so they can come to power!</godwin>

I think the debt reduction is valid for some members. Canada didn't get hit nearly as hard as Americans or Icelanders did, so from our PM's perspective, debt reduction makes sense (I have political disagreements with the guy, but Canadians are generally proud of our Governments' fiscal responsibility - fake lake notwithstanding).

However, you guys could definitely use some more stimulus (and not to the banks). I hear Krugman warning against a relapse into recession and maybe even depression, and that is the last thing America needs right now (imagine what the Republicans would do with that?)

Environmental regulation would be nice - but Harper is a Calgary Tory, which means he eats crude oil for breakfast. Remember, he was the one who called Kyoto a Socialist Scheme to re-distribute wealth. I was frankly surprised Obama didn't go after him a little bit on that, but I have been hearing that the Americans are reluctant to criticize Canada too much on the oil sands fearing we may just say 'fuck it' and export to China instead. Even the European countries didn't really mention it too much - I figured Germany or France would at least bring it up.

Some would say that violent protest is the only way to make them notice - that they don't listen the other 900 days between G8/G20 meetings, and this is an opportunity to get their attention. After Montebello, I think it's safe to assume the cops wanted to bump some heads, and as agents of state authority who are funded by my tax dollars, it's our duty to oblige.

It does water down the message a bit - it is hard to discern their purpose or motivations sometimes. I think the purpose it does serve is reminding people that they are not alone in their disgust with 'The Man'. It's like what they say about France being the last place where Governments are still afraid of the people. >> ^NetRunner:

Apparently, the big theme for the meetings is Debt Reduction. Whaddya think?
What do you think the G8/G20 leaders should be focusing on? How would you go about solving the world's problems?
I think the Debt Reduction part of it is crazy stupid. I'm glad the US delegation is arguing for more fiscal stimulus, though I'm sad to say we seem to be the only ones.
What should they be focusing on? Fiscal stimulus, environmental regulation, and making the Chinese stop manipulating their currency.
Human rights would be nice too, but they're an economic group, they don't do the human rights thing. That's the UN's impotent jurisdiction.
How do you see the protests that have been taking place? Is violence ever justified? Pics.
Do the minority of the protesters who vandalize and attack security folks have just cause? Are they ruining it for the peaceful demonstrators? Do they only serve to tarnish the many causes of other protesters and groups?
I think the protests are totally ineffective. The G20 members don't give a shit, and regular joes don't ever hear what they have to say. Hell, even political junkies like me would be hard pressed to say who's doing the protesting, beyond the anarchists who seem to only exist to protest G8/G20 meetings.
There's no point in violence committed against security forces at the G20. People who do it tarnish the reputation of the protesters, and give any jackbooted statists (real or imagined) good propaganda to use to dismiss the protests.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'silent bob, clerks 2, boredom, relapse' to 'silent bob, clerks 2, boredom, relapse, silence of the lambs' - edited by rasch187

I'm guessing you didn't read my earlier rants on the subject then. -I- have huge gripes with the profession (I refuse to call it a science). But my objections are more to the fact that they don't, and CANNOT, do proper experiments necessary to be a science without transgressing all manner of ethical considerations. Thus, they don't know nearly what they claim to know.

I don't accuse them of conspiracies, or any malicious motives. The only thing worse than psychiatric treatment, is not getting treatment. My wife is schizophrenic, and I wouldn't wish her relapses on my worst enemy...her meds let her avoid a greater terror than you or I could imagine. What pisses me off is that every psych med is a sledgehammer...which is a damned inefficient tool for adjusting such a subtle mechanism as a brain. But again, the only way they'd ever be able to be completely effective would be to do human experiments, and the ethical guidelines (which I -do- agree with) prevent them from doing so effectively.

1. I'm an Atheist Jew, and that is not an oxymoron.

2. I lived in Corvallis, Oregon for about 2 years when I was 3 years old. I don't remember speaking English at the time, but the language came very naturally to me in school and I still have a somewhat American accent. I even catch myself thinking in English when speaking Hebrew.

3. In grade school I used to read ahead of the class and interrupt the teachers with questions so much that the school wanted to transfer me to a special (retarded) class. My mother insisted on a psychological evaluation that determined I was bored.

4. I'm addicted to an online game that takes almost all of my free time (guess which). I've quit and relapsed three times already. I'm also becoming addicted to an online video sharing community, but that's neither as time-consuming nor a problem IMO.

5. I lost touch with almost all of my high-school friends other than two. Other than family, those are the only people I talk to.

6. I have never finished anything that I wasn't forced to finish in my entire life. This includes university studies, projects at work and silly things like cleaning up my own apartment.

7. I am constantly tired. Have been since I can remember. After 3 cups of coffee I feel like a curtain that covers my eyes normally is gone.

8. I have no sense of self worth. That is to say, I believe that I am less than every other person, whether I know them or not. It makes me very persuadable and very vulnerable to criticism, which I usually take very personally, even if it's not meant that way.

9. I berate myself all the time. I'm doing it right now, telling myself to stop writing this pathetic post about what a pathetic person I am (considering how my imaginary problems are dwarfed by the post above mine).

10. I went to a therapy session once, but was very uncooperative.

11. I can't tell anybody else pretty much all of what I've written here already. The only reason I can do it here is because what's staring back at me is a LCD monitor.

12. I think about ending my life pretty much constantly. It's usually strongest before I go to sleep. It's been like this since I was 16 or so. I have never attempted suicide, I'm not suicidal as far as I know, and this isn't a cry for help.

13. I have never taken any kind of drug, aside for antibiotics and other common medicine. As far as I know, I've never been high.

14. I was in a scooter vs. scooter accident exactly three months ago. The other guy ran a red light and smashed into my vehicle at about 50 mph. I walked away with a slight pain in my right hand, he had several injuries as a result. In a related note, I also own a car now, and am attempting to sell my scooter.

15. I work as the sole IT guy for a tiny web hosting / site building company. It's barely enough work to keep me occupied during the day.

16. I have an American private pilot license from 2006 (single engine land). I haven't flown since, but that's because of the nature of recreational flight in Israel.

17. I am afraid of heights. Happens when I rappel or stand on high places without a safety rail. Doesn't affect me at all when flying.

18. I commonly engage in software/music/video piracy, but as a leecher, not a seeder.

19. I think about relocating to a different country a lot, but it's closer to my random thing #12 than it is an actual desire to move.

20. I am one of those people that ruin the movie-going experience for other people. I constantly find silly things wrong with movies or tv shows and point them out. I do this in a very hypocritical way, since I ignore such flaws in movies I like.

21. I suspect I have hypothyroidism, but my blood tests disagree.

22. I have no items that I would miss specifically if I had to part with them suddenly.

23. I wake up with two separate alarms, both on the other side of the room to force me to get out of bed to turn them off, but I still go back to sleep most of the time and end up being late for work. I sometimes even have no memory of turning off either alarm.

24. I have never been in a fight.

25. My favorite food is a pizza with green olives.

----------

I really don't want to click submit (#9) but I am going to anyway.

Yeah... tried this once when I was a Christian.

I've had fewer relapses with my depression since I stopped being ignorant and lying to myself.

here is the video. http://www.videosift.com/video/Eminem-We-Made-You-OFFICIAL-VIDEO-OFF-RELAPSE

What a cunt.

The problem with smoking cessation programs aren't the 66% that don't quit. Clearly it works very well for those who WANT to quit.

The problem with drug rehab isn't that most people has relapses, it is very successful for those who WANT to stop using drugs.

There is no such thing as alcoholism, it is just that people don't WANT to stop drinking.

It's not that dieting doesn't work, it's that people don't WANT to stop eating.

See, if we only look at those people who really want to abstain from sex, clearly abstinence only education works GREAT! Sure, forget about statistics and public health concerns, and the futility of meaningless good-intentioned bible thumpers. We just need to find a way to change teenagers so they fit into some abstinence only program.

It's not the drug trial, it's the patients that were selected for the trial!

Bravo, douchebag!

I have been around ECT, as it's called, for many years. It can be a life-saving intervention in severe depression. It's especially effective in major unipolar depression with pyschomotor slowing. You must realize that these patients can develop such pyschomotor slowing that they become catatonic, unable to eat, or get out of bed. Lay people tend to think of this as voluntary on the part of the patient. It's not.

Modern ECT is very safe. It probably has its effect by increasing brain levels of norepinephrine and dopamine. Many anti-depressants, such as Effexor, mainly target norepinephrine pharmacologically.

The main side-effect of ECT therapy is short-term memory loss. This brings up a whole new interesting subject, the physiology of short-term versus long-term memory. They are processed differently by the brain. ECT affects one, but typically not the other.

There is a high relapse rate after ECT and that is something people need to know. I think it approaches 50%.

Denial? We're all very aware of our rich history. At least my arguments aren't boring and cliched. You can surely do better. I mean as soon as the Simpsons pull an example (the Crusades) to support an argument, you've got to reconsider the ammunition you're using.

Geez, the Crusades. If your holiest places were taken over by others, wouldn't you want to liberate them too? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

The Catholic Church is guided by the Holy Spirit but it's composed of humans - and humans make mistakes - we're not perfect. This paragraph epitomizes the effect of this:
"Another factor that contributed to the change in Western attitudes towards the East came in the year 1009, when the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre destroyed. In 1039 his successor permitted the Byzantine Empire to rebuild it.[6] Pilgrimages were allowed to the Holy Lands before and after the Sepulchre was rebuilt, but for a time pilgrims were captured and some of the clergy were killed. The Muslim conquerors eventually realized that the wealth of Jerusalem came from the pilgrims; with this realization the persecution of pilgrims stopped.[7] However, the damage was already done, and the violence of the Seljuk Turks became part of the concern that spread the passion for the Crusades.[8]"

Salem witch trials - example of what happens when a bunch of religious wackies get out of control - they were rather opposed to the Pope - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials

Or witch hunts in general - yes, again, people made horrible evil mistakes, but attributing it all to the Church is again another outlandish and ignorant statement. Here's some light reading:
http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/witch/werror.html

Okay, and the Inquisition - closely linked to the witch hunts/trials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition
"Although many states allowed the Church to use the death penalty, initially it was not frequently imposed, as this form of punishment had many ecclesiastical opponents.[2][3]"

From a pro-life perspective, if you have the capability to imprison criminals you shouldn't kill them either. And of course have differing opinions isn't a reason to criminalize people, but it should give you pause when people make it sound like the fear of 'thought police' is a new development.

As usual, something which may have had some higher purpose was corrupted by people with a baser intention - "studies showed there was an initial burst of activity against conversos suspected of relapsing into Judaism, and a mid-16th-century pursuit of Protestants - but the Inquisition served principally as a forum Spaniards occasionally used to humiliate and punish people they did not like: blasphemers, bigamists, foreigners and, in Aragon, homosexuals and horse smugglers"

You know what we hate worse than hateful comedians, eh? Those damn horse smugglers.

Two other fun thoughts before getting some rest
- remember that Pope Benedict was, in his previous post, the head of the Inquisition? It's still around, only it's called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Lovely group. It's so good to have a Panzer Pope.
- nutty things were of course done through the ages - the "Index of Forbidden Books" is one of my favourites. Even in the late 19th century you'd hear Popes speaking of the dangers of "liberalism", whatever that means.

Yeah, people make mistakes, but Maher's blowing things out of proportion and being nutty about it himself. It's like he's creating his own "Index of Forbidden Groups" or something.

This kind of myopic thinking is fundamental to human nature which might take some genetic engineering to change. Think about all the people that go on diet, then break it. Or people who relapse into drugs. They know their long-term goals are in conflict with their short-term goals, and their nature pulls them away from the long-term goals. It made sense for people who evolved in hunter-gatherer societies and had 60% chance of being murderered. People are hard-wired to discount future rewards because, well, they may not be alive to reap them.

You can see this on Wall Street, where a company promising great returns in 5 years would always outraise one promising one in 50. And you can see it in government -- who would vote for a politician who promises to make things miserable now so that everyone is better off in 50 years?

Green's did win almost 10% of the seats in Germany's Bundestag, but that is a victory in a country where harms of pollution were felt already, through acid rain and Chernobyl fallout.

The bottom line is that it's not realistic to expect wide adoption of any technology that requires sacrifices made now for the future. The best we can hope for is a technology that benefits us now, and doesn't hurt future generations too badly

"I didn't want to bring this up, but..."

... but getting negative votes for your stupid comment was just too much for your precious, self-righteous psyche to bear?

Maybe people downvoted your comment because they thought it was "inappropriate". Or just maybe they thought it was in fucking "bad taste". Maybe other people on the Sift have their own goddamned opinions on things, aren't taken by your incessant toadying and horn-tooting, and found your comment offensive. Hell, maybe they just wanted to see your fragile, whiny ass run to ST and cry like a bitch. I know I'm laughing.

Don't take comment downvotes the wrong way. Think of it as an intervention; fellow Sifters helping you by trying to reverse the damage that the total Marine Corp mind fuck does to a human being. It won't be easy. I have former marine friends in their forties who still suffer from the occasional relapse into insane, out-of-the-blue, glassy-eyed "love it it or leave it" rants, but, twenty years removed from their programming... they are making good progress. Yagottawanna. HAND.

Hi LB, Just curious...Did you forget that I asked you a question, ohhhhh, about why choggie is banned from using periods? I understand your retreat from response in the form of an excuse (married with hubby??!! Get real!) - however; I am simply trying to obtain information. If it was a unilateral knee-jerk reaction, understood. We all have relapses of reason from time to time. If it was consensus, arrived at through discussion with other members, cool. Simply wanted an answer, and not a reaction.... reading things into other words is mind-numbbing, and counter-evolutionary.

Oh, by the...Merry Xmas, Mom! (even though the ones i already have, are sufficient, always appreciate sentiments!)

What a beautiful song-- I play that just about every time I pick up the guitar.

Here's the story as I understand it: James Taylor checked into a mental institution with his heroin troubles. While there he met a girl with the same problem. She was released at the end of her treatment, whereupon she relapsed and died. The reference to Flying Machines in pieces on the ground is his band, The Original Flying Machine, that went under when James checked into the institute.

Is that accurate? Does anyone know anything different/more complete? Thanks.