Humanitarian technologist & big data wrangler, on a quest for evidence-based policy. Rational optimist, post-statist, contemplative humanist, mystery enthusiast, bardo tourist.

  • 0 Posts
  • 19 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: August 2nd, 2023

help-circle
  • OP dweller here!

    I will add that indeed these suburbs are designed for driving, even if there are good sidewalks and parks everywhere. Where I am at, everything feels like a 5 to 15 minute drive away. Banks, pharmacies and lots of restaurants have drive-thrus. Major intersections are typically one mile apart on a squared grid. The major stroads are often lined with big stores and restaurants with giant parking lots, while the interior parts of those grid blocks are housing colonies, schools and parks. Different suburbs are connected to each other and the city with arterial highways. And compared to Europe, fuel is very cheap. Cartopia.


  • Make a small spray paint stencil or vinyl sticker that represents your crew, or inspires people to think differently, and put them around your town or natural areas in subtle, cleverly inconspicuous locations.

    Explore your area with Alltrails, or a similar app, finding new hiking or biking trails.

    Urban exploration: creep through abandoned buildings, climb fire escapes to reach the rooftops, use catwalks under bridges to cross roads and rivers, scurry through large water drain pipes and abandoned steam tunnels.

    Start a lucid dreaming competition with your friends, and share your experiences every morning. As you all develop more dreaming skills, you can share them with each other, and slowly become the masters of your dreams.

    Come up with scavenger hunts that guide people into the coolest, hidden areas of your town, using clever clues, and share them online, similar to geocaching.

    Pick up rubbish off the ground, one area at a time.

    If it doesn’t exist publically in your country, get equipment to either test air or water quality at several spots around your community, and then share them online through posts, or by hosting an Ushahidi map. Encourage others to chip in.

    Get your gang to volunteer together to help homeless, elderly or disabled people once or twice a month. You will both bond with your buds and gain new perspectives from the people you work with.

    Arrange spontaneous dance parties in public with little flash mobs made up of your mates. Try to get strangers to join in on the fun. Disperse after one song, so you don’t get in trouble.

    Learn to identify the 10 most common trees in your area, then the 10 most common flowers, the 10 most common weeds, the 10 most common birds and the 10 most common insects.

    Explore local theater, try to find weird niche performances at churches, swingers clubs, primary schools, corporate retreats, futurist festivals, government events, and street corners. Make sure to cheer loudly and throw flowers.






  • Short answer: Yes! Partially!

    Long answer: Belief is a feature that humans have that can give you confidence both in proven outcomes and in the unknown. It stems from our prefrontal cortex survival capabilities to remember past experiences and simulate future experiences. Aka imagination. We can believe in anything we choose to.

    Yes belief is psychologically comforting. Certainly a lot more than worrying about the unknown. It’s even more comforting if the belief is shared by a social group, reinforcing it to each other.

    Other aspects of religion make life easier too. Rituals, traditions, stories and social ties.

    Those things can help with depression! Depression is a cognitive-affective response to a body that isn’t living the way our bodies were evolved to live. Key factors of that include: Daily socialization, getting the right nutrients, sleeping well, getting enough exercise, getting enough sunlight and having strategies to keep our minds from worrying. Belief can do the last one, as can meditation, or triggering flow states by engaging in activities. Religion can also help with the socializing one.

    Hope this helps!







  • I’m thinking an RPG Maker style game. You play as Morpheus, the god of dreams. Each level is a different person’s dream. When you arrive the dream is a nightmare fueled by past experiences and internal feelings. You have to journey through the dreamscape and find these factors and resolve them to heal the psyche of the dreamer and turn the nightmare into a good dream.

    An example would be a dream where the dreamer is delivering a presentation in front of a classroom naked while the other kids and teacher make fun of them. As that scene plays out, you walk around the school and discover little tidbits about the dreamer. Some of these tidbits are external factors that led to the dream, like memories of people making the dreamer embarrassed for being themselves. You could resolve these by fighting and defeating them in the form of nightmare creatures. And some of the tidbits will be internal factors, like feelings of insecurity and defense mechanisms like reinforcing ideas, that give power to the twisted logic of the dream. These, you have to heal by pointing out the flawed logic and encouraging the dreamer to accept themselves. Once you do everything, you go back to the classroom and find the dreamer giving a TED talk to an enraptured and admiring crowd.



  • Two male apes park next to each other:

    “You don’t fit into the sociocultural group I’m a part of, AKA THE BEST GROUP, because you are not sending the right social signals! Therefore YOU ARE NOT A VERILE MATE FOR THE HOMINID FEMALES!”

    “NO! CLEARLY IT IS YOU WHO WILL NOT SEED THE NEXT GENERATION OF OFFSPRING! Based on all the information I’ve gotten about appropriate social signals for my gender, age, ethnicity, cult, location and socioeconomic status, I am displaying the appropriate signals! So I shall point at you and say WEIRD!”



  • DrQuickbeam@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.ml30's wheel of pain
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    This happened to me too, except my L5/S1 disc is permanently bulged now. If I don’t keep my core strong, and my hips and thighs flexible, I get debilitating sciatic pain down my right leg.

    Stay in shape lads! Stay strong, but don’t lift hard. Stay flexible, but don’t stretch too far. Get some cardio, but low impact.

    If only they taught us in school how to take care of our bodies, our feelings, our minds, our relationships, our communities and our environment… sadlolz