Eshe Smites

The framing isnt " I did something good so I get a treat well I can just have the treat anyway". The treat isnt the goal. Its not about the treat.

The way executive dysfunction works, at least to my understanding, is that the brain doesnt make enough dopamine. Reward/motivation chemical. So doing stuff is hard bc the brain chemical that does stuff is lacking. Like if you dont have strong enough muscle you cant lift heavy weights. Dont have enough dopamine, cant work or shower etc.

So what you do, when you dont have enough dopamine naturally, is buy it from the store.

Meaning, other things are sources of dopamine. Treats. Praise. Listening to music. Affection.

Its not about the treat itself. The treat is a vehicle for making your brain cough up the dopamine. And to begin associating Doing Things with dopamine which helps you want to do things bc you kmow it will feel good. You just to have to remember your body isnt gonna produce enough feel good on its own so you have to keep helping it. Good brain you did the task have some dopamine heres a treat. Its the feedback loop. Its fixing the ?broken feedback loop.

It doesnt have to be a treat. My partner and I make a point of praising each other for normal difficult tasks. "Woohoo you took out the garbage, and *before* it became a pile of doom on the kitchen floor? Fantastic! Youre brilliant!" No money needed to create a bit of dopamine!

I reblogged a post yesterday where OPs family calls it "bragging on". "Come brag on me about the kitchen, its sparkly clean", and everyone comes and says wow great job you really worked so hard and it shows!!

Youre not withholding treats until the thing is done. Youre adding extra treats to simulate reward chemical. Doesnt matter if youve had a billion treats today, or you start a task with treats, whatever you gotta do. When you finish the task add a treat because your brain is supposed to be doing that anyway its just struggling, so youre helping it out.

It might also be that we're experiencing slightly differrent executive dysfunctions. Im thinking, I have a little bit of experience with demand avoidance, and thats a differrent beast to lacking dopamine. And sometimes there just not knowing what the steps are or where to start, a dopamine boosts helps that feel like less of an impossibility but doesnt necessarily create the solution. And probably other stuff I dont know about.

"So, it’s unlikely that there is simply “not enough dopamine,” and getting a treat or eating a special food is not going to magically fix that by just “adding dopamine.” Treats can trigger dopamine release, but the key issue isn’t the absolute amount—it’s how and where dopamine is signalling in the brain. What matters is the timing, location, and whether that signal is effectively received. What dopamine does can also vary depending on where in the brain it is acting.

It’s also important to note that dopamine is not a pleasure molecule. Other naturally occurring molecules in the brain (e.g., opioids—which share structure with drugs like morphine or heroin) are more directly related to pleasure. In terms of reward, dopamine levels very quickly increase (especially in an area known as the nucleus accumbens) when a reward is unexpected or surprising. However, we eventually learn that certain things predict reward (we call these Pavlovian conditioned stimuli, or cues). Once these are learned, it is the cues that trigger dopamine release, and the reward itself no longer produces much dopamine. Therefore, dopamine is a reward-learning signal, at least in the nucleus accumbens.

Now, some cues are especially attention-grabbing or meaningful. These cues can increase dopamine even more. This can happen to an excessive degree, to the point where it becomes problematic, causing us to act in certain ways even when it is not beneficial. This happens in addiction, where cues can excessively increase dopamine and motivate someone to consume drugs. It can also happen in other disorders, where cues can become overly meaningful and even evoke fear (this sometimes happens in schizophrenia). We refer to how much the brain tags something as important or attention-grabbing as its level of salience.

Importantly, just because dopamine levels increase doesn’t mean that it has any consequence. For dopamine to communicate something, the signal needs to be received. There are different types of dopamine receptors, and some of these can have opposing actions (some can be excitatory and others inhibitory). In some mental health conditions, people may not have enough of certain receptors, or the balance between these receptor types might be altered; this affects how well the dopamine message can be communicated.

In addition, the brain can be very effective at clearing away dopamine after it is released. In many mental health conditions, including ADHD, this clearance process may be altered. This doesn’t necessarily mean it is always faster or slower, but it can affect how long and how strongly dopamine signals persist. If the signal is too brief or poorly timed, it may not have much impact. So even if dopamine is released, the message might not effectively get through. Medications for ADHD can help, in part, by strengthening or prolonging dopamine signalling, making it more likely that these signals are successfully communicated.

So what is this message? I previously mentioned reward learning, but dopamine is important for other behaviours and psychological states as well. For example, in an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, dopamine (alongside other messengers) helps us to be flexible, switch tasks, plan ahead, and inhibit unhelpful actions. In other brain regions, dopamine helps us develop habits, where behaviour can become more automated.

Bringing this back to the original point, the issue with executive dysfunction is unlikely to be simply “not enough dopamine,” but rather that dopamine signalling isn’t effectively tagging certain tasks as important, rewarding, or worth doing. This can feel like a lack of motivation, but it reflects how the system is functioning, not just the total amount of dopamine available.

1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.

2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.

3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."

4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.

and grace who is so alien, but reflects eridian mannerisms that they've never considered strange before but coming from a creature so soft and strange, it just doesn't feel right. grace who stomps his foot twice when he asks a question, and it rings out flat and dull instead of the strong, sharp sound of an eridian hand on the ground. grace whose voice is so alien, so one-note, so full of articulations that are sharp and round and everywhere in between, but who echoes the melodies of eridian poetry and music, sometimes on accident but sometimes perfectly in time with what rocky translates him as saying, and later, perfectly in time with his keyboard.

it starts with them watching a movie, maybe the devil wears prada, and a little way through the movie rocky asks why miranda has two names. is it because she's more important?

grace, already anticipating a long conversation, says no, all humans have two names. everyone's just scared of miranda because her two names are really well known.

"grace have another name and not tell rocky?!" rocky asks, incensed. "what names mean, question? why two?"

"well," grace explains, "your first name is the name your parents give you at birth. usually people call you by your first name, especially if you're close. except in... some situations, i guess," he says, remembering stratt's vat. nobody had called him ryland there, but he still felt pretty close to all of them.

"and second name?" rocky prompts.

"right - last names correlate to your family. when you're born, you take your family name so that people know who you're related to. it also helps differentiate between two people with the same first name."

"so what grace last name, question?" rocky asks. grace blanches a little.

"uhh... grace is my last name, rock," he says, sheepishly.

"what?!" rocky yells. grace winces. "grace not tell rocky grace first name? grace not close with rocky? grace hate rocky?"

"no!" grace protests. "of course i don't hate you! don't say that!" maybe it's stupid, but grace does actually feel a little hurt by the insinuation.

"then why not tell rocky?!"

grace sighs. "i don't know, rock. i mean - when i met you i barely knew up from down, much less what my name meant to me. and i kept getting these memories and everyone kept calling me grace, and i just, i haven't been called ryland in so long it doesn't really feel like my name anymore."

rocky ruminates on this for a moment. then: "...ryland is grace first name, question?"

"yeah."

"rocky like grace better." grace deflates with relief. "yeah, me too, buddy."

"but," rocky says, "rocky want last name too now."

huh. okay, then.

"i guess i could figure that out," grace agrees. "we could give you movie rocky's last name? you wanna be rocky balboa?"

"mm, no," rocky says.

"okay, well we could go region based, i guess. where'd you grow up? i can make up something fitting, or i can look something up on my computer, i'm sure there's places on earth that are similar to places on erid -"

"no," rocky interrupts. "want grace."

"...huh?"

"rocky want grace last name."

grace is suddenly feeling very, very flushed. "you what??"

"last name is family name, question?"

"well, yeah, but -"

"and rocky grace family now. so rocky want grace family name!"

...well, when he says it like THAT, it's so much more innocent. grace... well, he agrees, because what else is he gonna say? that rocky should know that that that's as good as a marriage proposal?

no, that takes too much cultural context, and a longer conversation than he wants to have right now. easier to just let rocky have it. it's not like there'll be any consequences to bite him in the ass, right?

If the above stretch ain’t compatible with you for reasons like having bitch ass knees, here are some alternative and amazing stretches for the muscle in order of easiest to hardest (but imo least to most helpful) to perform:

However, just keep in mind that none of these stretches will help you if you have a herniated disc, which compresses the nerve roots that protrude from the spine itself! For that you’ll for sure need some different medical intervention.