Big Moose in the Little City

Okay. There’s a social interaction concept that I’ve tried to convey multiple times in multiple conversations, so I’m going to just go ahead and make a graph.

I’m calling this concept “Affordance Widths”.

Let’s say there’s some behavior {B} that people can do more of, or less of. And everyone agrees that if you don’t do enough of the behavior, bad thing {X} happens; but if you do too much of the behavior, bad thing {Y} happens.

Now, let’s say we have five different people: Adam, Bob, Charles, David, and Edgar. Each of them can do more or less {B}. And once they do too little, {X} happens. But once they do too much, {Y} happens. But where {X} and {Y} starts happening is a little fuzzy, and is different for each of them. Let’s say we can magically graph it, and we get something like this:

Now, let’s look at these five men’s experiences.

Adam doesn’t understand what the big deal about {B} is. He feels like this is a behavior that people can generally choose how much they do, and yeah if they don’t do the *bare minimum* shit goes all dumb, and if they do a *ridiculous* amount then shit goes dumb a different way, but otherwise do what you want, you know?

Bob understands that {B} can be an important behavior, and that there’s a minimum acceptable level of {B} that you need to do to not suffer {X}, and a maximum amount you can get away with before you suffer {Y}. And Bob feels like {X} is probably more important a deal than {Y} is. But generally, he and Adam are going to agree quite a bit about what’s an appropriate amount of {B}ing for people to do. (Bob’s heuristic about how much {B} to do is the thin cyan line.)

Charles isn’t so lucky, by comparison. He’s got a *very* narrow band between {X} and {Y}, and he has to constantly monitor his behavior to not fall into either of them. He probably has to deal with {X} and {Y} happening a lot. If he’s lucky, he does less {B} than average; if he’s not so lucky, then he tries to copy Bob’s strategy and winds up getting smacked with {Y} way more often than Bob does.

Poor David’s in a situation called a “double bind”. There is NO POSSIBLE AMOUNT of {B} he can do to prevent both {X} and {Y} from happening; he simply has to choose his poison. If he tries Bob’s strategy, he’ll get hit hard with {X} *AND* {Y}, simultaneously, and probably be pretty pissed about it. On the other hand, if he runs into Charles, and Charles has his shit figured out, then Charles might tell him to tack into a spot where David only has to deal with {X}. Bob and Adam are going to be utterly useless to David, and are going to give advice that keeps him right in the ugly overlap zone.

Then there’s Edgar. Edgar’s fucked. There is *NO AMOUNT* of behavior that Edgar can dial into, where he isn’t getting hit HARD by {X} *and* {Y}. There’s places way out on the extreme - places where most people are getting slammed hard by {X} or slammed hard by {Y} - where Edgar notices a slight decrease in the contra failure mode. So Edgar probably spends most of his time on the edges, either doing all-B or no-B, and people probably tell him to stop being so black-and-white about B and find a good middle spot like everyone else. Edgar probably wants to punch those people, starting with Adam.

In any real situation, the affordance width is probably determined by things independent of X, Y, and B. Telling Bob to do a little more {B} than Adam, and Charles to do a little less {B} than Adam or Bob, is great advice. But David and Edgar need different advice - they need advice one meta-level up, about how to widen their affordance width between {X} and {Y} so that *some* amount of {B} will be allowed at all.

In most of the situations where this is most salient to me, {B} is a social behavior, and {X} and {Y} are punishments that people mete out to people who do not conform to correct {B}-ness. A lot of the affordance width that Adam and Bob have would probably be identified as ‘halo effects’.

For example, let’s say {B} is assertiveness in a job interview. Let’s say {X} represents coming across as socially weak, while {Y} represents coming across as arrogant. Adam probably has a lot going for him - height, age, socioeconomic background, etc. - that make him just plain *likeable*, so he can be way more assertive than Charles and seem like a go-getter, *or* seem way less assertive than Charles and seem like a good team player. Whereas David was probably born the wrong skin color and god-knows-what-else, and Edgar probably has some kind of Autism-spectrum disorder that makes *any* amount of assertiveness seem dangerous, and *any* amount of non-assertiveness seem pathetic.

There’s plenty of other values for {B}, {X} and {Y} that I could have picked; filling them in is left as an exercise for the reader.

"Fuck around and find out!"

What started this all was really  OxyContin’s 12-hour dosing problem: Purdue lied about how long it’s effective for. The drug only lasts 8 hours for most people. If someone gets a month of Oxy, and takes a pill every time the last one wore off, they run out of pills on Day 21. And Purdue sued doctors for saying, “Okay, if you need three a day instead of two, I’ll just give you 90 for the month instead of 60.”

Also, the instant a doctor suspects their patient has become addicted to the drugs, they have to cut them off cold turkey. If someone just wants the drugs too much–say, they come in and say, “I’ve run out of those painkillers you gave me, they worked great but I went through them too fast”–a doctor can be legally prosecuted for writing them a scrip, because Drug Addicts Don’t Deserve Health Care.

Opiate withdrawal is quite literally hell. It is UNBELIEVABLY painful. When people are ALREADY in pain, and then go through the ACTUAL HELL of withdrawal, they get two choices:

1. Suffer

2. Buy black-market opiates, which are probably unevenly-diluted fentanyl or carfentanil, and risk dying of an overdose.

Option 3, which is missing: THE DOCTOR JUST GIVES THEM AN EXTRA PILL A FUCKING DAY.

Option 4: The doctor gives them a different, lesser opioid, and helps slowly wean them off opioids. (That whole “pharma companies that caused this problem are now selling drugs to solve it”? Literally the least part of my worries. Buprenorphine saves lives and should have been routinely available to begin with.)

Now, there are different KINDS of drugs that are better or worse for helping them live happy lives—opioids have some massive drawbacks so it might be better for their longterm health to find something different—but it’s not as though addicts without Chronic Pain™️ aren’t actually in chronic pain or don’t have conditions that non-negotiably need treatment.

How to Make a Face Mask for Hospitals and Medical Centers

Hospitals and medical centers across the country are asking sewers to make face masks to protect out health workers. You can google “how to sew face masks for hospitals” to find out where fabric masks are being requested.

Stillwater Medical Center is asking sewers to follow the face mask pattern from buttoncounter.com here.

From Deaconess Health System:

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Citing shortages, Deaconess Health System, including Henderson’s Methodist Health, has asked the public to sew face masks for staff fighting coronavirus.

“This does follow CDC protocols that you can find on their website that if all other supplies are not available, that handmade masks that meet certain criteria are acceptable,” Deaconess spokeswoman Becca Scott said.

The release with the video, pattern and instructions was posted to the Deaconess Facebook page Thursday morning and is available at www.deaconess.com/masks. A PDF of the pattern is available here and embedded at the bottom of this article.  

Deaconess has “a sample video” about how to make the masks, which Scott said will be sterilized when they come in.

From Forbes here:

Additional Resources for Open Source or Volunteer COVID-19 Projects:

One of my favorite how-to sites is Instructables. The DIY Cloth Face Mask has almost 100,000 views. It is a step-by-step instruction for those who need it. Kudos to ashevillejm.

In 2006, CDC released a Simple Respiratory Mask design using heavyweight t-shirts in its Emerging Infectious Diseases journal. More of an academic post, but some ideas in it.

A Facebook group was formed last week: Open Source COVID19 Medical Supplies. It is worth a visit — in just a few short days there are 20,000-plus members and volunteers.

-His wife ditched him and asked for 900k a year,

-He was sexually assaulted which he said kicked him into a deep depression

-He stated that the stunts from the 3rd Mummy movie completely destroyed his body and he was in and out of the hospital for 7 years even having to get surgery to repair his vocal cords.

-He apparently blamed himself for all this which only worsened his depression.

Compare with this image from the GQ article last February:

Proper lighting, professional setting, good angles etc.

Plus

2019 Brendan is still slaying, so btfu

http://thinkbeforeyoupink.org/

http://www.somethingawful.com/feature-articles/for-the-cure/

http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/132728/susan_g_komen_foundation_has

that’s right fracking you know, a process using chemicals known to cause cancer that leech into the water supply

http://www.triplepundit.com/2014/10/baker-hughes-fights-breast-cancer-pink-fracking-drill-bits/

Breast Cancer Research Foundation

Cancer Research Institute

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute