• 0 Posts
  • 20 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 16th, 2023

help-circle




  • One of my first mentors as a nurse was this old battle axe who had been around in the ER for decades. Tough as nails, hard as a rock. She was pushing morphine in some young girl’s IV. This girl was maybe 18 years old and having a good amount of pain, nothing crazy but needing medication. She was really anxious about it. She foolishly asked the question, “What’s the worst that could happen?” The nurse answered, “You could die.” No expression or sympathy or care. And she just kept on slowly pushing the morphine without another word as the patient visibly tried to suppress her terror.





  • I really feel like this makes the most sense. It beats out all the other arguments.

    Middle managers need more control? Big bosses never care that much about what middle managers say, why now? And across tons of companies? Seems silly. Middle managers are notoriously ineffective.

    They want to retain control/keep you tired? Maybe, but it would take a large conspiracy coordinated between the execs, which seems like a stretch. There would need to be a massive Illuminati-esque organization like that Stonecutters episode from The Simpsons.

    But as always, it comes back to “follow the money.” The people making the decision will lose money somehow, so they are trying not to lose, or to minimize losses. All board of directors people have multiple investments and interests, so of course they are trying to make the best of their situation. They own part of the IT company renting the space, but also have investment in office retail space and some local businesses. If the office life drives an area to stay alive, its dying will shift the money away from all their investments. As usual, they are making those decisions without giving a shit about anything but money and their own interests.


  • I think it’s worth noting that many of the “incomplete” proteins actually have all the amino acids, just one of them is relatively low. If you are varying your protein sources at all and eating more than the recommended quantity of protein from WHO studies, it would actually be hard to be protein deficient. Take pea protein for example. It’s slightly short on methionine/cysteine, but not by much. If you just get some extra pea protein, you’re good. You wouldn’t need any other protein sources, but you’ll pick those up with other foods incidentally anyway.

    In the medical sense, the only time people are diagnosed with protein calorie deficiency is in the setting of starvation or chronic disease. If you are eating enough, you exercise, and you are under 60 years old, completeness of proteins isn’t important in my opinion.

    Does more protein help exercise recovery? Yeah maybe, but you won’t be sick or feel bad without it.



  • I take the Buddhist view that what we call the self is a misconception or misunderstanding. While you do exist, there isn’t a soul or some permanent entity that takes residence and jumps around before or after death.

    Thus, you can ask questions like these and get a million different answers because the question is not valid. It’s what the Buddha would call proliferation, or basically hot air. There isn’t an answer, why ask the question?

    Don’t mistake this for a cynical view, though. A good Buddhist is very happy because even though the idea of a self is false, freeing yourself from all of these self-based concepts and desires leads to great peace. The obsession with self and self-based craving is what leads to any kind of unhappiness.




  • Recent WHO recommendations say that artificial sweeteners are not useful for weight loss, but used in moderation they are not terribly unsafe as far as current studies indicate. All the stuff saying artificial sweeteners are super scary and bad is just that, scare tactics. Or it takes a gigantic amount to be bad for you, but if you replace that amount of artificial sweetener with sugar then the sugar is just as bad or worse. Better just to avoid both.

    I try to avoid single studies or articles about anything, but rather look to larger recommendations from WHO or other agencies that are less likely to be influenced by $$$. Looking at a single article or study is basically meaningless. Unless you’re Joe Rogan and you’re paid to sell everyone a meat eater diet or Dr. Oz with whatever his garbage of the month is.






  • I would try to alternate the direction if I find myself developing a preference for either one. I guess it’s kind of an introspective approach, but if I start to get too comfortable I always switch it up to avoid stagnation. Forcing myself to run something I don’t prefer AND forcing myself to appreciate it challenges me. I like that. I’m Buddhist though, and part of that is the journey of self-challenge and analysis that we undertake.