depression

i stumbled upon this in quora and i simply must document this in my blog. here goes... ad verbatim

Put a rat in a cage and give it 2 water bottles.

One is just water and one is water laced with heroin or cocaine. The rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself in a couple of weeks. That is our theory of addiction.

Bruce comes along in the ’70s and said, “Well, hang on. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It has nothing to do. Let’s try this a bit differently.” So he built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything a rat could want is in Rat Park. Lovely food. Lots of sex. Other rats to befriend. Colored balls. Plus both water bottles, one with water and one with drugged water. But here’s what's fascinating: In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use it. None of them overdose. None of them use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction. What Bruce did shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. The right-wing theory is that it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is that it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment.

Now, we created a society where significant numbers of us can't bear to be present in our lives without being on something, drink, drugs, sex, shopping... We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for many of us, more like the first cage than the bonded, connected cages we need.

The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of it, is geared toward making us connect with things not people. You are not a good consumer citizen if you spend your time bonding with the people around you and not stuff. In fact, we are trained from a young age to focus our hopes, dreams, and ambitions on things to buy and consume. Drug addiction is a subset of that.

Credit: Johann Hari (mentioned in quora by Silvia S)

i found this so fascinating, i googled johann hari and found this amazing ted talk. everybody need to listen to this! 

 

monkeypox

i am so glad to read that the director-general of World Health Organization (WHO) is somebody with enough balls to say this is a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) when the committee of advisors were not able to reach a consensus. 

been seeing the word "monkeypox" in the medical journal articles that comes to my email, but didn't really think much of it. because it came across as unusual, but nothing to be alarmed about. which is not true. just because it is more likely to affect a subset of the population, does not make it any less critical. 

what have i read on medscape? 

• cases reported globally is rising and likely to be underestimated
• being reported in children and pregnant women - which was what happened in the initial phases of the HIV pandemic
• greatest burden is currently reported in 12 countries in Europe and in USA
• (removing this point as its emphasis is not helping to alleviate the problem)
• disease severity is perceived to be low
• modes of transmission not fully understood but it includes sex, animal-to-human (zoonotic), human-to-human from respiratory secretions, close contact with skin lesions, and contaminated fomites (objects or materials likely to carry infection such as clothes, utensils and furniture)
• reported to WHO as of last friday, 15,328 laboratory confirmed cases, 72 probable cases, 5 deaths, 72 cases in children, 23 cases in children 0-4 years old 

symptoms as per google: single genital lesions and sores on the mouth or anus/ rash after fever/ lethargy/ muscle aches & pains/ headache/ swelling of lymph nodes

we might be seeing a pandemic in the middle of another pandemic, or we might not. we see the cases. we know it exists. we can prevent a pandemic. so why not? 

Picture from MedPage Today - 23 Aug 2022

Inflation

For this article, I should really start with a disclaimer. This post is only my opinion or my understanding. An opinion/ understanding that I form as I read stuff and watch youtubes and try to understand economics and money. As time goes by and i learn more, this post might be edited. Here goes part 1.

so why this sudden desire to understand economics? perhaps it is because prices are rising like crazy. and the money that i have been trading my time for, has suddenly lost alot of its "value". it feels like i have been robbed. and i needed to understand what happened. 

so long long time ago, Uncle Jimmy who founded equities tracker (https://equitiestracker.com/) tried to explain to me, how the dollar is no longer backed by gold and is essentially worthless, but is too big to fail. or perhaps for the lack of a better option. so here, i am going to try to explain what i understand. 

once upon a time, we used to barter. i give you a chicken, you give me some cabbage, tomatoes and spinach. so the whole world is happy and balanced (to a certain extent). I work hard and I will get my hard work's worth of goods. then i decided i cannot be giving a chicken every week... and i am not able to finish the chicken's worth of vegetables in a week. so, we started to use "money" - like pieces of gold/ silver/ rare precious metal to trade. and the whole world is still balance. the precious metal/ gold/ silver is rare and limited and the people who had it spent time mining it or traded for it. So, it is still fair and balanced. 

then one dude says, these precious metal/ gold/ silver is heavy, why don't we use paper? For every piece of paper, the value stated would be backed by gold ie. the gold standard. And so these paper "money" represents gold and can be use to trade. 

sounds ok right? until 1971 when president nixon decided to scam the whole world. he realized that everybody holding the US dollar will not come and redeem the gold all at the same time. so, he decided it would be ok to announce that the dollar is "money" because i say so. so, all of a sudden, the "money" used in trade and is now being held around the world is no longer worth anything real. at that point, the US dollar became pieces of paper saying "I O U" with no real ability to make payment - and i suppose since internet does not really exist as yet, not everybody would be aware of the change. and even if those who were aware took advantage of the situation. how? what would you do if you know of this change before everybody else? 

well, let's just print more money! bring it to other countries and buy goods and services. as long as the money... oh.... excuse me, i cannot say money anymore at this point!.... as long as the US dollar does not simultaneously go back to US, it would be ok. The inflation (where there is more money chasing less goods and services - the money has to lose enough value to equal the actual amount of produce available) would be "exported". The dollar that is being held by the merchants who sold their hard earned produce to the US would be worthless dollars - poor merchants not yet knowing that it is worthless, holding to the dollar and so preventing the inflation from hitting the US.  

and in the US, they start to print more dollars (and yes, apparently it is really easy to do so and this shall be my next research) and bringing goods and services into US.... so, to my colleague who asked why is US so "rich" compared to the whole world, it is because the country stole from the whole world. The other countries caught on. But as they started late, the could not export as much of their inflation. Their currency is not the "standard" for anything or anyone else. so in countries like malaysia, when the politicians decide they needed more currency to purchase votes to stay in power, when they print the currency, the inflation cannot be "exported". there is not such demand for the currency. so inflation hits the nation. 

and such situation has hit some other corrupted countries at a greater degree - look at venezuela. and because too much of their currency has been printed, the paper is totally worthless. and they have to trade in US dollars (for now). and that is why, the market exist for gold and that is why crypto currency exist today. it is because people are looking for the one thing that cannot be produced by any nut job in need of money - hell to the world. it is because people are looking for something that can hold value.... hold it. did you say hold value? did the cryptos not lose a bunch of value recently? well, it is still being established. i suppose it is finding it's value. currently, it is very much based on sentiments of the buyers and seller - so essentially dependent on fear and greed. but over time, it should find its value.... provided it is true that it cannot be simply produced by a nut job without any basis what so ever other than the fact that my wife would like a hermes handbag. ok... need to learn more as i have not totally understood crypto. 

i welcome constructive comments - please explain in super layman terms. if you are not able to do so, then it would mean you do not understand it well enough. in such situations, please do more research before commenting. teng kiu. 

Syabas to SYABAS!

for the uninitiated... my fellow countrymen are very tolerant of poor civil service. it has been known for long queues, poor response to complaints (if there is any response at all!), slow service, apathetic staff, poor but expensive "improvements" in terms of infrastructure - digital or otherwise. Typically, the only enthusiasm we would witness from the staff would be for the famed tea breaks occurring between breakfast and lunch; and between lunch and end of day. hence the high rate of obesity in the country. 

so i was pleasantly surprised of how our state's water management has progressed. yes, it has been incorporated. then again, it has been so for a number of years with not much progress. apparently it has been restructured in 2019. and today Air Selangor is a far cry from yesteryears. i had a leaky meter. went online. found the website. found "Help Centre" and made a complaint online. an hour later, i received a call clarifying the complaint and asking if my meter was blue in colour. i went outside, took a video of the leaky meter and whatsapp it to the person who called. and the next day, about 24 hours after the call, somebody was outside my house fixing the leaky meter! a big congratulations to SYABAS for the quick response!!

#malaysiaboleh (not in the sarcastic way)

pivoting

pivoting is not as easy as i think. partly because a routine is easier than change. partly because it makes sense to leverage on one's experience vs embarking on something new. partly because of what i think others would think. 

the first is a matter of getting use to not having a routine (!). the second is a matter of exploring other strengths that may not have been as apparent. and the third, is a matter of knowing it does not matter.

perhaps it is not as difficult. it is all in the mind. as with most other stuff...