fracture [he/him]

oh okay, sorry, i took away a different impression from your OP talking about how the FDA process is flawed due to appeals being the starting point (which very well may be true) - but including that with this article made it seem like you felt that way about this particular incident (e.g. the link was supporting evidence), not that the commentary on the FDA process was it’s own, unrelated thing

glad to hear that we’re in agreement about the denial, though

i can’t really comment on the process, i’ve never taken mdma myself. that said, you say there’s no way you wouldn’t know you’re on it, but there’s a number of substances out there where you’d think that would be the case, but it isn’t (think like, the stereotype of people acting drunk with little / no alcohol, just thinking they had it). also, the dosages may be lower / less obvious, although i have no idea what the dosages used for recreational use vs for therapeutic use are here

idk dawg this seems pretty sound according to the article

The FDA and its advisors identified flaws in the design of the clinical trials, missing data, and a variety of biases in people involved with the trials, including an alleged cult-like support of psychedelics. Lykos is a commercial spinoff of the psychedelic advocacy nonprofit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

FDA advisors also noted the public allegations of a sexual assault of a trial participant during a Phase II trial by an unlicensed therapist providing the MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

…

On Saturday, using the existing data and scientific literature to support MDMA therapy got a little more difficult for Lykos. The journal Psychopharmacology posted retraction notices for three studies that involved Phase II clinical data of the therapy. The studies included a 2019 rationale for a Phase III trial design, a 2020 pooled analysis, and a 2020 study on how antidepressant use may affect the response to MDMA therapy.

The retraction notice cited two reasons for the retractions, including “protocol violations amounting to unethical conduct” at one of the clinical trial sites—a reference to the sexual assault allegations—and undisclosed conflicts of interest by the authors.

like. these are pretty good reasons for not going ahead. it’s on lykos and the scientists running the trials for not keeping their paperwork straight and, you know, not warning people about the risks of the study

from an article cited within (https://qz.com/1809184/psychedelic-therapy-has-a-sexual-abuse-problem-3):

A few years ago, a therapist working in a MAPS MDMA study publicly spoke about his challenges dealing with a patient’s sexuality. Early in his career, Richard Yensen was working with a “lovely young lady who became very sexualized in her relationship around the [MDMA] sessions,” he told an audience at California Institute of Integral Studies in 2016. “It got so intense,” said Yensen, that the chair of his department saw him mid-therapy session and told him to leave the room, warning him to always have another therapist alongside him during sessions. “And thank god, because she became more and more and more activated sexually,” said Yensen. “I don’t think I could have handled it.”

Not long after, Yensen was accused of sexually assaulting a PTSD patient, Meaghan Buisson, during a MAPS clinical trial on MDMA

like. even GENEROUSLY assuming that nothing truly unethical happened. this is a huge issue that will only get worse if it’s made publicly available

i’m not taking a position on whether or not it should be made available as a treatment. i don’t know and i’m not qualified to determine that. but given what’s been said, it feels reasonable to want more data and perhaps go “hey think you could run a trial without getting accused of assaulting people?”

god bless the people giving stool samples so often for the studies. FOUR TIMES A YEAR FOR SIX YEARS?? i did it once and it was awful. and more frequently if they got vaxxed or sick? i would cry

i, uh, hm. well, in a marriage, you don’t know if someone is exploiting your goodwill, but ideally you marry someone who you don’t have to actively worry about it e.g. someone you can trust

relationships aren’t a hard science, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t science about them. for example, you could check out the book, “a general theory of love”. or you could check out the work of john gottman on relationships and love, he’s done a ton of work on them

for more general information on like, how humans work, you can check out paul ekman’s work on facial expressions and the facial action coding system (FACS). i’d also recommend marshall rosenberg’s non-violent communication - i don’t recall how strictly research-based the work is, but he (until he died, anyways) and his org do trainings across the world in this stuff, and he has a phd in clinical psychology, so i… think… it has a reasonable foundation? (it’s been a while since i read it)

and of course, because trauma invariably deeply affects relationships, you can read “the body keeps the score”, which is maybe the foremost research based text for the layperson about it

sorry, i’m not sure how open you are to actually receiving this kind of information… it’s totally understandable if you’re not. i used to feel a lot like you, i think, kind of unsure and untrusting of others. and all of these things are things i’ve read and learned from that have given me a lot more confidence about interacting with other people in general

obviously, the knowledge itself isn’t enough, but maybe you’ll find it helpful nonetheless

yeah no, my post is closer to “there’s more than 0% free will” than “there’s 100% free will”. i definitely know too much about trauma to think it’s 100%. but trauma get so deeply ingrained, and it’s so cyclical; that anyone can break free, seems nothing short of miraculous to me. to me, if we had no free will, that would never happen

it’s insane to me that someone could understand the ramifications of trauma on neurobiology and conclude that free will doesn’t exist

i feel like, without free will, no one would ever escape their trauma. without saying something shitty and uncompassionate like “you’re only held back by your trauma because you’re not strong willed enough”; that’s not true at all

but i think, at it’s core, healing from trauma requires two things: a person who you feel safe enough to trust, and the willingness to take the leap and trust again

if you don’t have one or the other, you’re going to really struggle

and that moment where you choose to trust, how can you see that as anything but free will? when everything about your past, your nerves, your biology is screaming at you to do otherwise?

i dunno. i don’t think any of us would have grown past our trauma at all without free will

that said, i think there’s also just too much going on in the brain to conclude there’s no free will for sure. i guess that’s not the same as saying it’s deterministic, which you can’t really say, because physics gets too fucking weird at low levels, right?

anyways, i guess we can never really definitively say whether free will exists or not. but i think you can still make very strong arguments for being compassionate to poor people / traumatized people / people with mental illness / etc without saying we all don’t have free will. it feels a lot like saying we’re all doomed to be what we were made to be and we can’t make a better life for ourselves

it just starts with convincing people, and believing, that we all deserve that

what a great article, i went in to learn about plastics, and learned about myself instead

so, my opinion on your game idea is essentially: it sounds like a decent idea. but ideas are only as good as their implementation. so a lot depends on how well you execute it. but the idea itself, sure. it’s fine. the world building twist is neat

i mostly wanted to let you know that games to learn programming are actually a small market in games. it already exists and people are already making games like that. there’s even games for teaching things like assembly, which is more esoteric than C/C++ (among others, you can check out Human Resource Machine)

so i think it would do you some good to research what’s out there, see how they do things, see if you find them lacking in some way, etc. then you can bring what you learned back to your game

this is an interesting study to see. it’s a survey of mortality among japanese men and women and how their diets correlate with causes of death

personally, i’m not sure i find this a compelling argument against keto for men. their finding is increased mortality if their carbohydrate intake is <40% of their total energy expenditure. 40% is a pretty high bar for keto, where you’re looking to be at 5% at most (at most, 20g of carbs a day = 80 calories; 2000/80 comes out to be about 4%)

so probably, a lot of these people aren’t in keto, which i would consider a clinically relevant distinction (we don’t know for sure, since the nuances of the population’s eating habits weren’t published)

second, i don’t know that i would want to try keto in japan? like, i don’t know what their fat sources are, but… if i ate enough fish to sustain myself on keto, i’d get fucked up by mercury. and like… idk how much better it is? but a lot of my food comes from beef and dairy, which i don’t think are as commonplace there (i know it’s bad for the environment. i know. i know. i don’t want to starve though. i’m sorry)

i’m not that educated on how food looks in japan. but it strikes me as very keto unfriendly. depending, this might be a huge factor, or a minor one, but it’s hard to say without clarification

anyways, it’s an interesting post from a transmasc point of view. i originally fled carbs while running on estrogen. i feel like i tolerate them better (not well, per se) on testosterone. there’s a definite challenge on keto to eat enough calories on testosterone, especially now that i work out and i’m trying to build a considerable amount of muscle

but at the end of the day, i still feel better on keto, and now that i’ve figured out how to reliably provide like 3k calories in fat, i’m doing pretty well

nice, i’ll give seitan a try sometime

It’s sad to have issues with soy :-/ I really love tofu.

thank you, i appreciate this. i’m a quarter japanese ffs, and for what?? >_<

not really qualified to comment on protein needs; although, as a growing boy putting on muscle, needing more wouldn’t really surprise me

but, from what i do know about nutrition, i’m bothered that no one seemed to consider the ratio of protein to carbs/fats. i think you’ll need more protein if your energy needs aren’t being met by carbs or fats. protein isn’t really a preferential energy source for us, and i could easily imagine people having issues with protein absorption if they’re not receiving adequate energy from the other macros

also, on a personal note, it sucks how difficult it is to get clean, environmentally friendly protein and fat that doesn’t have milk or soy in it. as someone who does keto, there’s basically no brand out there who does meat substitutes right except for Beyond, which is free of allergens (although i’m sure there are a few people who are allergic to pea protein out there) and doesn’t add a bunch of carbs

i need to put more research into substituting whey protein, since it seems like no amount of ingested lactase entirely prevents digestive issues with it. but i’m confident it can be done, with the bonus of being more environmentally friendly. i’ve gotten a recommendation to use rice and pea protein, so it’s just a matter of going out of my way to get some

also, don’t forget that CORPORATIONS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR 70% OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS. not to say individual choices don’t help, but they’re a minority contribution

this is cool as fuck, science rules