RoyalHenOil's recent activity
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Comment on I am a witch. Well, a well witcher... in ~talk
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Comment on ‘Mitzvah night is cancelled’ Inside the sex strike that has infuriated husbands and shaken the ultra-Orthodox world in ~life.women
RoyalHenOil LinkEverything about this article is so hard for me to relate to. It really is a completely different world from mine — all the way down to wives refraining from sex with their husbands to put...Everything about this article is so hard for me to relate to. It really is a completely different world from mine — all the way down to wives refraining from sex with their husbands to put political pressure on them. It makes their lives seem so ineffectual and loveless.
I can't imagine anything like that. There are plenty of issues I care very deeply about but I don't need to go through my partner to do something about them. And even I did for some reason, it wouldn't occur to me to put pressure on him by treating him differently in any way. All I would need to do is explain my concern and ask for his help, and he would empathize and fight for change on my behalf. I would, of course, do the same for him. I would feel so isolated and unloved if it were any other way.
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Comment on France declares state of emergency in New Caledonia after deadly riots in ~news
RoyalHenOil Link ParentYes, I agree, and this is why I'm torn. My intention here was not to argue for one side or another, but to explain why emotions are so heightened around this issue that France has had to declare a...Yes, I agree, and this is why I'm torn.
My intention here was not to argue for one side or another, but to explain why emotions are so heightened around this issue that France has had to declare a state of emergency. Both sides have very real and important grievances, which are unfortunately at odds.
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Comment on France declares state of emergency in New Caledonia after deadly riots in ~news
RoyalHenOil Link ParentI believe their intention is to keep trying. They may be hoping that the political views will shift in their favor in the future, since it looks like that is the way the wind has been blowing...I believe their intention is to keep trying. They may be hoping that the political views will shift in their favor in the future, since it looks like that is the way the wind has been blowing (e.g., New Caledonia made the Kanak flag one of its official flags, and it changed its anthem and banknotes to be different from mainland France's). The referendum in 2021 was boycotted, but the other two referendums were close (56.9% in 2018 and 53.26% in 2020), and I imagine they are hoping they can win within the next few years. With this law change, it probably won't ever happen.
I am of two minds. I lean pretty hard toward universal suffrage as a matter of principle (I'm actually an extremist on this matter — I think even children should vote, for reasons that I won't get into here because it would take too long to explain), but I do sympathize with the Kanak and I hate to see colonization incentivized and rewarded.
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Comment on People without an inner voice have poorer verbal memory in ~humanities.languages
RoyalHenOil Link ParentYes, that is what I am saying. However, it is worth noting that imagining an experience is very different from actually having that experience. I do not have photographic memory. Outside of...Yes, that is what I am saying.
However, it is worth noting that imagining an experience is very different from actually having that experience. I do not have photographic memory. Outside of dreaming, I never imagine some scene in my head and then get confused about whether it is real or not; I can always tell when an image is coming from my eyes or when I'm just making it up. I don't find it any easier to imagine something with my eyes closed than with my eyes open because it is not entirely a visual experience for me — it's more conceptual and feeling-based than that.
Note, I can also imagine something you might describe as kind of like a square circle. Specifically, I am imagining a hemispherical square, a little like what you would get if you stretched a square over a globe, such that the edges formed both a square and a circle (I can't imagine the square-circle edges with the bowl shape in the middle, however; my brain is very stuck on the idea that that's the only way to achieve both a square and a circle).
That being said, there are geometrical concepts I can't even begin to imagine, such as a fourth spatial dimension; it's just way too far outside of my experience. However, I have experienced both circles and squares, and I have experienced objects that are reminiscent of both, and so I think my brain is just triggering these experiences simultaneously — not too dissimilar to what happens when I'm dreaming and I imagine impossible connections between things.
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Comment on France declares state of emergency in New Caledonia after deadly riots in ~news
RoyalHenOil Link ParentI am extremely not an expert on the subject, but from what I have gathered, New Caledonia is a Melanesian island in the South Pacific (very far away from France) that belonged to the Kanak people...I am extremely not an expert on the subject, but from what I have gathered, New Caledonia is a Melanesian island in the South Pacific (very far away from France) that belonged to the Kanak people until it was colonized by France in the 1800s. In mid 1900s, when most other colonized lands were regaining independence, France Declared New Caledonia a territory instead. (It is worth noting that France, in general, has been much less willing to part its colonies than other European nations have been — and even when it has released its colonies, it has done much more illegal interference in their democracies after their so-called independence.)
Since the 1970s, there has been a strong Kanak independence movement wishing to break away from France, which has led to violent conflicts at times. More lately, there has some effort and headway in establishing independence through referendum, but the referendum will definitely fail if France makes this change to the voting laws in New Caledonia.
I am personally torn on this subject. Philosophically, I believe that residents should have the right to influence policy in the location where they live.
On the other hand, I can completely understand that, to the Kanak people, this feels like a deliberate effort to erase their voices at the crucial moment that will determine the Kanak can ever be independent again or if they will always be subjects of France.
Although I don't know if this is exactly what has been happening in New Caledonia, there are many examples in history of nations deliberately encouraging citizens to settle in a foreign territory to make that territory easier to seize (e.g., how the US seized territory from Mexico and seized all of Hawaii, how Russia is has been seizing territory from Ukraine, and how Israel has been seizing territory from Palestine).
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Comment on People without an inner voice have poorer verbal memory in ~humanities.languages
RoyalHenOil Link ParentThe way my mind works, I can compartmentalize memories and only retrieve details as needed. For example, I can imagine the concept of redness, including aspects of its qualia, without generating...The way my mind works, I can compartmentalize memories and only retrieve details as needed. For example, I can imagine the concept of redness, including aspects of its qualia, without generating the full array of experiences of red that I have ever had. I can choose which experiences to black box and which to delve into, as well as how deeply to delve.
I'm not actually sure how thought could work any other way. Let's say you want to taste test a soup to see if it needs more salt. If imagining what the soup is supposed to taste is a full qualia experience, wouldn't that displace the actual experience of your under-salted soup? For me, I can keep both experiences in my head simultaneously by dampening the imaginary experience and focusing only on the specific aspects of it that I need (such as its saltiness specifically).
Or let's say you want to retrieve a happy childhood memory to reminisce on. How do you sort through your memories to pick out the one you want if you cannot think about your experiences in the abstract?
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Comment on People without an inner voice have poorer verbal memory in ~humanities.languages
RoyalHenOil Link ParentI actually can do this by some definition, so long as there is a visual description of flazzle that has something in common with colors I have experienced before. To give you the idea, I can...Can you imagine a house who's color you've never seen before? No, one cannot imagine a flazzle-colored house the same way one can imagine a house that is white with orange trim.
I actually can do this by some definition, so long as there is a visual description of flazzle that has something in common with colors I have experienced before.
To give you the idea, I can imagine impossible colors (such as teal-yellow, red-green, or glowing black). These are colors I have never seen, and can never see, and yet I can conjure what my experience of these colors would be. I am not entirely sure how this is possible, but I suspect that I am willfully triggering multiple color-related neurons that don't normally have the opportunity to fire together when I look at colors in real life. Imagining impossible colors is about as easy for me as imagining anything else I have never seen, such as a blue apple or a six-legged bird.
What I can't do is imagine colors that are radically unlike my previous experiences. For example, I couldn't begin to imagine what a fourth primary color (besides red, green, and blue) would look like, assuming that it would be a unique color that would synergize in completely new ways with the other colors (e.g., the way that red light and green light produce the experience of yellow, which to me looks wholly unlike its parent colors).
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Comment on I gave up meat and gained so much more | A tale of one person's life, culture, and growing up in ~life
RoyalHenOil Link ParentI just want to add something about stress and humans: Stress is not inevitably bad. I think there is a level of stress that we enjoy and that is healthy for us. This is probably stress that mimics...I just want to add something about stress and humans: Stress is not inevitably bad. I think there is a level of stress that we enjoy and that is healthy for us. This is probably stress that mimics common experiences that humans evolved with.
As an anecdote, I enjoy playing video games. I particularly like video games that have periods of low stress (like base building) interspersed with periods of high stress (like leaving my base to explore dangerous territory). I find games with constant levels of stress, whether that stress is low or high, to fall somewhere on the spectrum between boring and fatiguing, and I lose interest in them.
From an outside perspective, these moments of stress probably look like they cause suffering. Notably, whenever my partner or I play video games with boss fights, we have to put our dogs in a different room, because otherwise they come bother during boss fights: they lay their heads in our laps, paw at us, lick us, and whimper at us. It seems that they identify our stress and are trying to comfort us. They can't understand that the stress is desired and that we have actively sought it out, for no purpose at all except to have fun (even though it doesn't look like we're having fun).
We see this in other aspects of life as well: People like stories about conflict, not stories without tension. People like roller coasters, horror movies, competitions, fast driving, spicy food, challenging art projects, internet arguments, and hundreds of other stress-inducing activities. And it's not just our brains that need stress: We are healthier when we induce micro tears in our muscles and micro fractures in our bones (aka exercise), and we develop allergies and auto-immune disorders when our immune systems don't get enough legitimate pathogens to fight.
It seems clear to me that our brains and bodies are calibrated for a certain degree of certain kinds of stress. We suffer when our stress levels are abnormally high and when they are abnormally low, as well as when they are abnormally constant.
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Comment on People without an inner voice have poorer verbal memory in ~humanities.languages
RoyalHenOil (edited )LinkI do not have an inner monologue (at least not without deliberate effort on my part, and it comes at the cost of slower thinking and drastically reduced thought complexity), and I am entirely not...I do not have an inner monologue (at least not without deliberate effort on my part, and it comes at the cost of slower thinking and drastically reduced thought complexity), and I am entirely not surprised by this finding. I very commonly forget words, even words I use pretty often, and I in general seem to misspeak and blank out frequently while trying to verbalize my thoughts.
I am also fairly slow to understand people when they are talking to me. I need extra time to translate speech into conceptual thought. The translation is also often incorrect because verbal language is so much less expressive than direct concepts, and so it leaves a lot of ambiguity that I have to take educated guesses at (although this, I suspect, actually affects everyone — seeing as how common miscommunication is — but I think I am more aware of it because I am directly confronted with it every time I have a conversation with someone).
However, I have no trouble recalling words I have memorized by rote, such as song lyrics, which makes me think that this is a very different mechanism from the kind of word recall that is used in dynamic speech. I will regularly forget the names of my coworkers I've worked with for years, but I never forget any of the 50 US states in alphabetical order.
Also, I have a strong grasp of grammar, and I can become fluent in new languages' grammatical structures very quickly. It's only vocabulary where I get bogged down.
...investigate whether the lack of an inner voice, or anendophasia as they have coined the condition, has any consequences for how these people solve problems...
Based on my experiences, I think this article has the direction of causality wrong. At least in my case, I am quite sure that my poor word recall causes me to avoid verbal thinking, whereas this article seems to imply that the lack of verbal thinking causes the poor word recall.
“The short answer is that we just don't know because we have only just begun to study it. But there is one field where we suspect that having an inner voice plays a role, and that is therapy; in the widely used cognitive behavioural therapy, for example, you need to identify and change adverse thought patterns, and having an inner voice may be very important in such a process. However, it is still uncertain whether differences in the experience of an inner voice are related to how people respond to different types of therapy”...
I strongly suspect that one-on-one therapy would work as well for me as it would for someone with an inner monologue who is otherwise my equivalent. Where I would get lost and fall behind is group therapy.
I am perfectly capable of deep self-reflection (in fact, I think I am unusually good at it), I am reasonably OK at converting my thought into words (I just tend to be overly wordy because my thoughts are so much richer than verbal language can elegantly convey), and I can generally keep up in one-on-one conversations where the other speaker allows for pauses while I gather my thoughts. What I can't do is follow along with conversations between multiple people because they almost inevitably fill in the silences and don't leave me enough time to process their words, so I quickly lose the thread and zone out.
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Comment on People without an inner voice have poorer verbal memory in ~humanities.languages
RoyalHenOil Link ParentI do not have an inner voice or an inner monologue. However, I don't think it's quite like aphantasia because that seems to refer to an inability to imagine visual thoughts at all. I can verbalize...I do not have an inner voice or an inner monologue. However, I don't think it's quite like aphantasia because that seems to refer to an inability to imagine visual thoughts at all.
I can verbalize my thoughts. I just don't do it natively. I can do it voluntarily with some effort, but it interferes with my ability to think quickly or clearly because it requires mental multitasking.
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Comment on For proponents of "vote for the lesser of two evils", what is your endgame? in ~talk
RoyalHenOil LinkThe Republican Party is on a rapid path of self-destruction. It is not sustainable in its current form. My guess is that within the next 10 years or so, the Republican Party will either remake...The Republican Party is on a rapid path of self-destruction. It is not sustainable in its current form. My guess is that within the next 10 years or so, the Republican Party will either remake itself into something more stable or it will disintegrate. If it disintegrates, we will see another party (maybe the Libertarian Party?) rise up to become the Democrats' main rival or we will see the Democrat Party split apart into two parties.
None of this in unprecedented. Parties are born, parties change, and parties die. It happens in other countries all the time, and it has happened several times in US history; we are honestly long overdue.
My hope is to see the US make it through this rocky transition period with as little collateral damage as possible. That means containing the Republican implosion as best we can until the party either finishes dying or transforming.
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Comment on I gave up meat and gained so much more | A tale of one person's life, culture, and growing up in ~life
RoyalHenOil (edited )Link ParentHow far do you take this opinion? A parking lot contains less suffering than a pig farm, so bulldozing wilderness to build parking lots results in a net drop in suffering. Are you generally in...- Exemplary
Therefore, if some land is used for human, small scale meat farming instead of being allowed to support more wild animals, we're not actually increasing any sort of suffering present in the animal world.
How far do you take this opinion? A parking lot contains less suffering than a pig farm, so bulldozing wilderness to build parking lots results in a net drop in suffering. Are you generally in favor of destroying as much nature as we can in order to eliminate suffering in wild animals?
I think it is short-sighted to look at suffering alone. The life of a wild animal is brutal and short, and yet it appears that they enjoy living and make choices to prolong their lives. Captive wild animals try to escape, despite the certainty of food and shelter, and when they are kept in conditions that least resemble wild living, they tend to become listless or even commit self-harm (like birds plucking out their feathers). The zoos with the happiest, healthiest animals tend to be those that add wild-like stress (e.g., hiding food for the animals to forage rather than just giving it to them, challenging and potentially dangerous equipment for the animals to climb, etc.). On the whole, it seems that wild animals prefer the wild lifestyle, even though it comes at high cost; perhaps they even enjoy the high cost to a certain extent — the thrill of overcoming adversity.
This makes a lot of sense to me. They evolved for the niches they live in, and evolution selects strongly for individuals who find pleasure and satisfaction in activities that promote health, survival, and reproduction.
Imagine if some asexual alien species came to Earth, observed human reproductive behavior, and decided that it promotes too much suffering (all that vaginal tearing, penile bruising, side effects of pregnancy, STDs, yeast infections, jealousy, sexual incompatibility, etc., etc., etc.) and therefore prevented all humans from ever having sex again. I think most people would say that this is taking away a meaningful part of our humanity. Yes, sex is messy and dangerous, but it's also enjoyable and deeply important to us — so much so that most humans strongly prefer to have a rich sex life, with all the mess and danger, over clean, safe, lifelong celibacy. The aliens can see all the things that are bad about sex, but how can they understand what is good about it when they themselves did not evolve to desire it?
I think we should be very wary of doing this to animals. We see a rabbit's life and think that looks awful — but we are not rabbits. We did not evolve for either the dangers or the pleasures that rabbits did. A human is ill-suited to rabbit life and would find it miserable, but that does not make it so for the rabbit.
I think we tend to over-predict trauma and suffering in wild animals in part because humans experience so much of it ourselves. But, to be honest, I think that is because humans are not living in the conditions that we evolved for, and we have become so accustomed to human misery that we think it's normal. But trauma, depression, anxiety, existential crises, isolation, etc., do not confer evolutionary fitness. That they are so common strongly suggests to me that we are not well adapted to the mental stressors of our environment.
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Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative
RoyalHenOil (edited )Link ParentIt sounds like this music is hitting close to your skull's unique resonant frequency. I have found that there is a specific low tone (present in some music with heavy bass, but most noticeable to...It sounds like this music is hitting close to your skull's unique resonant frequency.
I have found that there is a specific low tone (present in some music with heavy bass, but most noticeable to me when certain big trucks climb up the steep hill near my house in low gear) that causes my skull to vibrate at a particularly intense and slow wavelength, which in turns causes my ears to pick up a kind of beating sound or sensation. It can be quite painful and overwhelms all other sounds.
This is related to the concept of wolf tones in musical instruments and to glass shattering at specific vibrations. In some cases, hitting an object's resonant frequency can lead to major disasters. No wonder we don't enjoy it!
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Comment on What was it like choosing your own name? in ~lgbt
RoyalHenOil LinkI am not trans and have not changed my name (nor do I have any intention to), but I just wanted to share something nice my parents did: They opted against determining my sex before I was born and...I am not trans and have not changed my name (nor do I have any intention to), but I just wanted to share something nice my parents did:
They opted against determining my sex before I was born and left it as a surprise. When they were thinking about names, they chose a feminine name and a masculine name that pair nicely together and that have a lot of meaning to my parents and the circumstances of my birth. I was born AFAB, and so I got the feminine name as my first name and the masculine name as my middle name. If I were to change my name, I would just swap them (and that would be very easily to do socially because I already like to use my middle name as a nickname).
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Comment on The FAA investigates after Boeing says workers in South Carolina falsified 787 inspection records in ~transport
RoyalHenOil Link ParentI can believe this. My personal observation (not in engineering, but I imagine it still applies) is that companies can get themselves caught in an incompetence trap that is extremely difficult to...The problem with Boeing is, if I'm right, it's a systemic problem within the company, from top to bottom. Firing a handful of execs and fining the shit out of them won't fix a damn thing.
I can believe this. My personal observation (not in engineering, but I imagine it still applies) is that companies can get themselves caught in an incompetence trap that is extremely difficult to escape. You can't identify who is competent enough to hire and promote if you, yourself, lack competence in the area that you are hiring or promoting for. Meanwhile, competent people can easily identify that a company has a fundamental competence issue, and they take their institutional knowledge and go. After that, it becomes almost impossible to hire competent employees even by accident (they quit quickly).
Every beloved, well-run company is potentially just one bad hire away from an incompetence death spiral. I saw it happen in a company I worked for—and loved working for—when the old (very beloved) director retired and was replaced by a new (let's just say not beloved) director. When the workforce is unhappy, a few key employees are usually leave first because their skillsets are in demand, and then it's all downhill from there.
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Comment on Spring gardening thread in ~hobbies
RoyalHenOil Link ParentIs it possible they weren't hardened off? I have found that young tomatoes are particularly prone to shock if they are hit with weather they are not acclimated to. Another possibility is that they...A lot of the tomato seedlings didn't make it after transplanting. I don't know why.
Is it possible they weren't hardened off? I have found that young tomatoes are particularly prone to shock if they are hit with weather they are not acclimated to.
Another possibility is that they were killed by pests, such as cutworms. (If this is the case, it should be pretty obvious: it will look kind of like someone came along and snipped them with scissors.)
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Comment on Spring gardening thread in ~hobbies
RoyalHenOil (edited )LinkI'm in the southern hemisphere, but I'm going to butt in anyway. Try and stop me. Vegetable garden: I just planted my garlic bulbs for this year. I have traditionally grown a few different...I'm in the southern hemisphere, but I'm going to butt in anyway. Try and stop me.
Vegetable garden: I just planted my garlic bulbs for this year. I have traditionally grown a few different varieties, but this years I decided to go all in with Spanish Roja. It has a strong delicious flavor that holds up well to cooking, it has a 12+ month shelf life after harvest, it produces garlic scapes (my favorite!), and it has been through the ringer the last few years (from floods to droughts) and has stood up better against the elements than the others I've grown. Growing just one variety will make harvest and storage easier as well.
I am gearing up to move my vegetable garden to a different location. At its present location, there is an English oak growing to the east. It was very small when I started the vegetable garden, but it has grown by leaps and bounds (it's going to be majestic) and now it's casting too much shade. However, I think I have too much on my plate to do it before the next growing season begins. It will probably have to be the year after.
Ornamental garden: I have been gradually expanding these beds over the last couple years, and I just recently put in a bunch of spring bulbs, perennials, and shrubs. In this climate, I like to plant primarily in the autumn rather than the spring because we have mild winters here (equivalent to USDA hardiness zone 9a) and a Mediterranean climate (heavy rain in the winter and very little rain in the summer), so it gives them the maximum amount of time to settle in before the parching season begins. When I plant in the spring, they struggle a lot more.
Over the last few years, my primary incentive has been to attract native pollinators year-round by finding plants they like that have different bloom periods (such that there is always something they like in bloom). I have more or less achieved that goal, so now I'm moving on to birds.
I have a couple of low-but-steep slopes where I'd like to build terraced retaining walls. I think I might do that soon. It wouldn't be too much work because I don't plan to do it "correctly"; I am constantly changing my garden around (yes, I am one of those awful people who are always digging up plants, pathways, etc., to rearrange them), so a less permanent installation will suit me fine.
Orchard: It is about time to prune the apricot tree (it's susceptible to fungal infection, and our winters are very wet; otherwise, I would prune it in late winter when I prune the other fruit trees). Fruit tree pruning is turning into one of my passions, and I've been thinking about developing a visual guide that compares how to prune different types of fruit trees. The way to a Japanese plum for production is different from how you prune a European plum for production in a few specific ways, for example, but it's difficult to find that information in a single, consistently-presented source.
I think I will try to get my hands on a pomegranate tree this winter (for bare root planting). I have heard really good thinks about a variety called 'Parfianka'.
I would also like to try growing pecans, although I'm not sure if they will produce well here; even though our winter is mild, we have a preponderance of late frosts and a short summer. But at least they would make for pretty trees even if they don't produce consistently.
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Comment on In a first, Belgium approves labour law for sex workers in ~life
RoyalHenOil Link ParentOne of the interesting things I have read is that it does not seem to make a difference what form the legalized prostitution takes. For example, legalizing prostitution only in the form of...One of the interesting things I have read is that it does not seem to make a difference what form the legalized prostitution takes. For example, legalizing prostitution only in the form of registered, well-marked brothels makes it much harder for illegal prostitution to fly under the radar than does legalizing street walking (which is highly susceptible to prostitute-pimp dynamics). Yet the studies I've seen suggest that this has no effect on trafficking rates; only legalization itself does. This makes me suspect that the increase in trafficking is not due to increased demand.
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Comment on Does anyone else have succulents? in ~hobbies
RoyalHenOil Link ParentFrom what I have read, researchers the 70s found that a large number of plants could improve air quality in offices. Modern researchers were not able to replicate the same effect in modern offices...From what I have read, researchers the 70s found that a large number of plants could improve air quality in offices. Modern researchers were not able to replicate the same effect in modern offices due to HVAC improvements over the proceeding decades.
Basically, it sounds like plants can help if the air quality is very poor to start with, but it is dwarfed by the effects of just letting some fresh air in.
My suspicion is that, if dowsing works in some cases (I've heard a lot of people insist it can be used for finding cables, pipes, and even non-conductive buried objects), double-blinding will ruin the effect because it's not actually the dowsing rods that do it. I think it's something way more interesting and impressive: I think people are subconsciously reading the landscape.
Anecdotally, I have found it surprisingly easy to find buried objects. I found a septic tank by observing a patch of ground with a slightly higher ratio of weeds to grass (indicating ground that was a tad drier than the surroundings). I found a pipe by noticing that the grass above it looked slightly thicker and healthier (the soil was less compacted where the ditch had been dug out, making it easier for the grass to grow and spread its roots). I found a cable by observing the very faintest linear depression over top them (so shallow that I could only see it from certain angles). I have used similar techniques many times to trace deep tree roots and to locate large rocks I want to dig out of my garden.
These are cases where I was deliberately searching for clues but, even so, I startled myself at my accuracy. I expected that I would have a few false starts before I found what I was looking for, but the truth is that I have never dug in the wrong spot. Every time I have tried to find a buried object, my first guess has been right.
Since then, I have watched videos of archaeologists deciding where to situate their digs, and they do a lot of the same things. They walk around a landscape, take note of very subtle patterns, and start mapping out roads and buildings before spade touches soil.
I can imagine that some people learn to pick up on signs like these without being fully conscious of it, and the dowsing rods just serve to reveal their subconscious hunch (e.g., because they slightly change their grip when they expect dowsing rods to find something).