/sci/ - Science & Math

>>8394597

>That’s really the unavoidable end, by the way. False pride can never be sustained. The bubble of narcissism is always at risk of bursting. That’s why young people are higher on drugs than ever, drunker than ever, smoking more, tattooed more, pierced more and having more and more and more sex, earlier and earlier and earlier, raising babies before they can do it well, because it makes them feel special, for a while. They’re doing anything to distract themselves from the fact that they feel empty inside and unworthy.

>Distractions, however, are temporary, and the truth is eternal. Watch for an epidemic of depression and suicidality, not to mention homicidality, as the real self-loathing and hatred of others that lies beneath all this narcissism rises to the surface. I see it happening and, no doubt, many of you do, too.

>We had better get a plan together to combat this greatest epidemic as it takes shape. Because it will dwarf the toll of any epidemic we have ever known. And it will be the hardest to defeat. Because, by the time we see the scope and destructiveness of this enemy clearly, we will also realize, as the saying goes, that it is us.

>>8393590

>Using computer games, our sons and daughters can pretend they are Olympians, Formula 1 drivers, rock stars or sharpshooters. And while they can turn off their Wii and Xbox machines and remember they are really in dens and playrooms on side streets and in triple deckers around America, that is after their hearts have raced and heads have swelled with false pride for “being” something they are not.

>On MTV and other networks, young people can see lives just like theirs portrayed on reality TV shows fueled by such incredible self-involvement and self-love that any of the “real-life” characters should really be in psychotherapy to have any chance at anything like a normal life.

>These are the psychological drugs of the 21st Century and they are getting our sons and daughters very sick, indeed.

>As if to keep up with the unreality of media and technology, in a dizzying paroxysm of self-aggrandizing hype, town sports leagues across the country hand out ribbons and trophies to losing teams, schools inflate grades, energy drinks in giant, colorful cans take over the soft drink market, and psychiatrists hand out Adderall like candy.

>All the while, these adolescents, teens and young adults are watching a Congress that can’t control its manic, euphoric, narcissistic spending, a president that can’t see his way through to applauding genuine and extraordinary achievements in business, a society that blames mass killings on guns, not the psychotic people who wield them, and—here no surprise—a stock market that keeps rising and falling like a roller coaster as bubbles inflate and then, inevitably, burst.

>>8388773

It's like what the psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow wrote on this article here:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/08/are-raising-generation-deluded-narcissists.html

>A new analysis of the American Freshman Survey, which has accumulated data for the past 47 years from 9 million young adults, reveals that college students are more likely than ever to call themselves gifted and driven to succeed, even though their test scores and time spent studying are decreasing.

>Psychologist Jean Twenge, the lead author of the analysis, is also the author of a study showing that the tendency toward narcissism in students is up 30 percent in the last thirty-odd years.
These data are not unexpected. I have been writing a great deal over the past few years about the toxic psychological impact of media and technology on children, adolescents and young adults, particularly as it regards turning them into faux celebrities—the equivalent of lead actors in their own fictionalized life stories.

>On Facebook, young people can fool themselves into thinking they have hundreds or thousands of “friends.” They can delete unflattering comments. They can block anyone who disagrees with them or pokes holes in their inflated self-esteem. They can choose to show the world only flattering, sexy or funny photographs of themselves (dozens of albums full, by the way), “speak” in pithy short posts and publicly connect to movie stars and professional athletes and musicians they “like.”

>Using Twitter, young people can pretend they are worth “following,” as though they have real-life fans, when all that is really happening is the mutual fanning of false love and false fame...

>>8389493

Now, I know most (if not all) of you here consider psychoanalysis to be a "pseudoscience" and that Sigmund Freud isn't really taken seriously anymore... but I find that some of his ideas are still kind of interesting.

I'm not sure if I am capable of truly understanding his ideas, but this is what I've understood so far:

So the "id" is the part of a human's "subconscious" that is interested only in satisfying its own most basic, primal, selfish needs (such as: hunger, sex, etc.)

While the "superego" is the part of a human's subconscious that is concerned with satisfying the needs not of the individual, but of the "collective", right? The "collective" being either the individual human's: "immediate family" (parents, siblings, and/or offspring) and/or "extended family" (cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.), or "clan", or "tribe", or "community", or maybe its entire species. Since, after all, the individual organisms within the population of a species should be able to cooperate on some level, or else the whole system collapses and the species goes extinct.

The "ego", in a way, is kind of like a mediator. The ego must be the part that the human individual is "consciously" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean, if "consciousness" even exists) aware of. The ego is the part of a human that must learn how to mediate between the instinctual needs of the individual and the needs of the collective, right? A human individual must learn to equally divide both its selfish and selfless needs. If it fails to satisfy its selfish needs, it could die. If it fails to satisfy the needs of the collective, this individual could potentially be "exiled" by its tribe, essentially ostracized by its entire species. And so this individual is left to fend for itself, most likely dying as a result and therefore failing to make any significant impact on its species' genepool.

>>8389493

>Well you're wrong. Humans are purely self-interested creatures like every other animal, who only care (or pretend to care) about others when it's expedient to do so.

And that's another thing that I've been researching:

Altruism.

Its source.

Since we humans, are, after all, animals... and some of us humans seem to display compassion even for non-human creatures (especially dogs, probably because they seem to be the first non-human creatures to be domesticated by humans and have lived side-by-side humans since before the agricultural revolution)... it has made me wonder where altruism originally came from, how long it has been with us, and why does it exist?

For example: many years ago I remember seeing this video of a hippopotamus trying to save the life of the member of a completely different species:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoP0xSMYcY0

So I see stuff like that, and I wonder how far back altruism goes in the animal kingdom.

I remember back in third grade (over twenty years ago), learning that mammals and birds are the only classes of animals capable of feeling "compassion". And I wondered if this had something to do with viviparity, since mammals take quite awhile after birth to be able to fully take care of themselves compared to other classes of animals. But then again, birds don't have viviparity, right? Or maybe it has to do with birds and mammals being endothermic? Like how birds during infancy need to be embraced by their parents for warmth?

There's also videos like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoP0xSMYcY0

In which a chimpanzee mother seems to be mourning her dead offspring.

And some people seem to be saying that we humans are simply showing "anthropomorphism" by attributing human traits, emotions, and intentions to non-human creatures (such as this chimpanzee mother.) But since humans and chimpanzees are so closely-related, surely chimpanzees must be capable of "mourning" on some level, the way that we humans do?

>>8390408
>>8390457

So according to my AncestryDNA test results, I am 16% "African". Out of that 16%, I supposed I would be 13% "Sub-Saharan African".

Now according to this article:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886912004047

>Abstract

A line of research has revealed that a polymorphism in the promoter region of the MAOA gene is related to antisocial phenotypes. Most of these studies examine the effects of low MAOA activity alleles (2-repeat and 3-repeat alleles) against the effects of high MAOA activity alleles (3.5-repeat, 4-repeat, and sometimes 5-repeat alleles), with research indicating that the low MAOA activity alleles confer an increased risk to antisocial phenotypes. The current study examined whether the 2-repeat allele, which has been shown to be functionally different from the 3-repeat allele, was associated with a range of antisocial phenotypes in a sample of males drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Analyses revealed that African-American males who carried the 2-repeat allele were, in comparison with other African-American male genotypes, significantly more likely to be arrested and incarcerated. Additional analyses revealed that African-American male carriers of the 2-repeat allele scored significantly higher on an antisocial phenotype index and on measures assessing involvement in violent behaviors over the life course. There was not any association between the 2-repeat allele and a continuously measured psychopathic personality traits scale. The effects of the 2-repeat allele could not be examined in Caucasian males because only 0.1% carried it.

>Highlights

>► We examine the effect of the 2R allele of MAOA on a range of antisocial outcomes. ► The 2R was related to arrest, incarceration, and lifetime antisocial behavior. ► These associations were only observable for African-American males. ► Only 0.1% of Caucasian males carried the 2-repeat allele.

I'm currently reviewing through my data.

>>8390479

>I didn't tell u that u little degenerate. I told u to move away from ur family.

Are you the same person as this guy here >>8354964 ?

I honestly can't tell.

Apparently, there's 93 unique posters in this thread. I can't tell which posts are yours.

Regardless, I'm getting contradicting advice from various different people in this thread. I'm not sure how anybody's advice is superior to anybody else's.

And I didn't really come here for life advice, I came here for anyone who might be even remotely interested in this to help me out where they can with stuff like this:

>>8384664

>Over these past several weeks, I've been carefully analyzing these images looking for any gray matter abnormalities in the left anterior insula.

And:

>>8384723
>>8386589
>>8386637
>>8386642

>>8391040

Oh, come on. I didn't really start this thread for advice regarding my life. I only posted those boring anecdotes about my life as responses to people's questions regarding my life, and to provide examples about how my thought processes work. And also to bump this thread. I never really expected any pity from you guys, knowing full well how 4chan works.

I don't know how many of you are still reading this thread, how many of you only bothered reading any of this out of morbid curiosity, out of boredom, or how many of you are students who are genuinely curious in figuring out what makes me "tick".

Anyway. I started this thread to see if I could get some answers regarding my questions about neurology and genetics, since I'm seeing now that neither psychiatry nor psychology can be considered as being truly "scientific" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) and that I won't be getting much help from the latter two fields.

Also not sure what you mean about this thread being at the "bump limit". I'm still getting it bumped up to this board's front page.

Oh come on, you guys. None of you find this stuff interesting?:

>>8390408
>>8390457
>>8386589
>>8384723
>>8384611
>>8384619
>>8384626
>>8384629
>>8386637
>>8386642
>>8386669
>>8386690
>>8386714
>>8386717

No neurology students in here with a morbid curiosity in this thread willing to help me out a bit out of boredom?

Or anybody studying genetics?

Yes? No? Maybe so?

>>8390461

See this post to see what I believe will happen after I move away:

>>8390303

And this:

>>8390309

>>8390469
>>8390457

Fucking Firefox cleared my history again goddamn.

>>8387243

>Kill himself.

>I mean, if you have all this time to craft rhetoric on this thread, then you should actually do something meaningfull and pull the trigger.

>Everyone has their own problems, everyone is on a roadtrip to death, you are not different than them, off yourself if you are so eager.

I've been looking at the raw data of my DNA provided by AncestryDNA.

If a geneticist isn't willing to help me out, I figured that maybe I could find what I'm looking for. Maybe, once and for all, I could find that "empirical evidence" for the disorders that I've been diagnosed with. Maybe I could find "empirical evidence" for disorders and diseases that I have yet to be diagnosed with. Maybe I could find out whether or not I really am genetically predisposed to developing Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder, etc.

Maybe if I find out that I don't have that variant of the Monoamine oxidase A gene associated with antisocial personality disorder, I could prove to people that I'm not a sociopath. I could prove to people that I'm not a completely awful person. But I don't think that anybody would actually care either way.

Maybe if I did actually have that variant of the MAO-A gene and I got in trouble with the law, I could get a somewhat less harsh sentence like this guy did:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/201007/pity-the-poor-murderer-his-genes-made-him-do-it

I'm looking at my data right now. I tried to print it out. 16,000 pages. 16,000 pages of raw data. I don't think that any of this stuff is going to help me find what I'm looking for.

>>8390348

God damn it. This is all so fucked up. I don't even know where to begin.

Ever since I had that phone conversation with my psychiatrist a few months back, I could feel my entire world falling apart. Everything that he told me completely contradicted my experiences.

I tried telling my psychologist about all of this, about what I'm feeling... I wanted to explain the reasoning behind my argument, and he refused to hear any of it.

He actually told me on one of his e-mails, "I refuse to accept an invitation into a philosophical argument with you. Your constant disbelief in everything that you are told will make you completely ignore everything that I tell you (I do not blame you for being this way.)"

He stopped responding to my e-mails several weeks ago.

How fucked up is that?

>>8389493

>Well you couldn't, but crazy people tend not to be capable of that line of reasoning, or even of constructing coherent sentences generally. I mean a cousin of mine thinks he can make it rain by praying to god, among other things. He's actually crazy. You're perhaps a weird unit, but seemingly not bonkers.

And that's the trippy thing. I can't even tell if any of this is real or not anymore. I can't tell if your post is real. I can't tell if this thread is real. I can't tell if I'm even really here, typing this right now, in front of my computer. How the hell do I know for sure? How do I know that I'm not just in some mental institution right now, imagining all of his?

These last few weeks, I've felt my whole world dismantling itself all around me. The world feels so surreal now. I feel like I'm the last human being on the world left. I have never felt so alone. Or maybe I'm not even human. Maybe I'm the alien, and everybody else is human. Maybe I'm unreal. Maybe I'm not even really here.

What is this that I'm feeling? Is this what schizophrenia is like? Am I at the onset of schizophrenia? Is this what they call "psychotic depression"? Is this what they call "amphetamine psychosis"?

Is this psychosis, is that what this is? How the hell can I tell?

If this were a dream right now, I'd try those "reality tests" (I think they're called?)... right? How do they go again? Count my fingers to see how many I have? Alright. Ten. I have ten fingers. Or eight fingers and two thumbs. Whatever. OK. Count them again. Same thing. It hasn't changed. Count them again. Same thing. Alright. Look at the clock. I'm looking at the clock. 9:49 PM, Pacific Standard Time. Check again. Same thing. 9:49 PM. Check again. 9:49 PM. If this were a dream, I'd see a different time, each and every time right?

God damn it. It shouldn't be that easy, should it? I could easily be deluding myself right now into thinking that this isn't a dream, when it actually is a dream.

>>8389626

Who am I going to listen to?

What I'm getting in this thread is a bunch of people with contradicting opinions.

I'm getting people like this guy telling me that my disorders aren't real and to stop taking any and all psychiatric medication because it's all bad for me:

>>8354964

I get people like this guy telling me that if psychiatric conditions were real, they'd be treated by neurologists:

>>8359043

Then there's this guy telling me to stop taking the psychostimulant Adderall and that I should take the antipsychotic Abilify instead:

>>8359341

And this guy is telling me that my disorders are real but they usually shouldn't be treated with medicine:

>>8360003

This guy is telling me that coming to 4chan for advice is a bad decision:

>>8362190

So on and so forth.

>>8389990

And I just know that sooner or later, the IRS and/or FBI will find me, no matter where I am.

And they're going to arrest me.

And I'm going to prison.

And nobody is going to feel sorry for me.

I remember telling my psychologist about all of this, and he told me, "if that happens, just tell them that you were forced into it!"

Yeah, right.

That's not going to work.

Nobody is going to feel sorry for me.

Nobody is going to care.

My brother will be gone, and I will be left alone to take the blame.

>>8389990

>Move away from your family.

And what good would that do? Where would I go? To a homeless shelter? And then what? I can already imagine what would happen next.

I remember the things that my brother said last year. I remember this conversation that I wrote about in this post:

>>8362351

>I remember once asking my brother if he knew what depression was, why it is that I was taking antidepressants, what they were supposed to be doing for me, what they were really doing to me, and why I had depression in the first place. He said, "hahaha. I don't care. Why should I care? Stop whining. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Who cares? Nobody cares. Suck it up. Tough it out. There are people a lot worse off than you. Be a man."

I remember how that conversation went.

When he asked me, "why should I care?"

I responded, "you should care."

He asked again, "why?"

"Because you're family. You're my brother," I said.

He laughed and said, "hahaha! Not for much longer!"

I can remember a conversation that he was once having with a cousin of ours. A cousin feeding into my brother's narcissistic supply. I remember my brother saying, "if somebody offered me a job outside of the country, I'd take it. I'd just leave without telling my family. I don't care what happens to my family." Our cousin didn't discourage this line of thinking.

It's like this guy said in this post here:

>>8387430

>That's part of it- he's obviously the scapegoat of a narcissistic family.

That's essentially what I've become. I've become the scapegoat. That is my purpose in life.

And one day, I know, this will happen again...

>>8386889

>I remember a few years back, a couple of FBI agents stopped by our apartment.

Back then the FBI agents were looking for an old business acquaintance of my brother's. They were neither looking for me nor for my brother.

But the FBI has been going after my brother's other business acquaintances, little by little, raiding their homes, taking them down one by one.

>>8389626

Maybe all of this really is a desperate attempt at gaining pity.

Or maybe a part of me is desperately hoping that you guys can talk me out of doing what I'm about to do... which is something seriously fucked up.

>>8389407

>As to you being told to seek help by people close to you, what did you do immediately preceding these events? Was it on par with writing a class essay about how you think you have narcissistic personality disorder?

I remember I once tried explaining to one of my cousins why it is that I have no friends. Why is that I've never had a girlfriend. Why it is why I'm still a virgin. I tried to explain to him things like: the "nature vs. nurture" argument. I tried to explain to him things about how the environment effects the way that a person turns out as an adult. A person's childhood and adolescent experiences largely influence how a person turns out. I tried to explain to him that I am the way that I am, because I've been largely influenced by the things that I've been taught by my family. He refused to accept this. He became very angry. He told me that I was "crazy", that there was "something seriously wrong with me", that I "need to seek professional help", that I was even crazier than another cousin of ours who has apparently been institutionalized, restrained, jailed, imprisoned, etc. at various points of his life. I'm even crazier than that guy, apparently!

>Further, why are you here, on 4chan, asking people about this shit? Do you not trust your own ability to make determinations about things?

Hey now, if I really am crazy... how could I possibly trust in my own intuition, my own logic, my own judgment?

You guys love discussing about what is or isn't "pseudoscience". You guys love discussing which fields are worth going into, which fields are "pseudoscience", which fields are superior to which others, etc.

I'm curious to see what you guys can tell me about all of this. About psychiatry. About psychology. About everything discussed in this thread.

>>8389407

>Even so, it just doesn't seem like appropriate content for classwork. Surely you could see that it would be wiser to choose a different topic for reflection? H-how little awareness of social custom do you have anon?

I guess that's just the sort of person I am. I try to give people the benefit of doubt. I try to believe that, ultimately, all human beings mean well.

People (especially people within my family) have often told me that I should try being more sociable. That I'm "too quiet". That I should "talk more". That I should learn to be more "comfortable" with people. That I'm too "paranoid". That I should learn to "trust" in people more.

So that's what I try doing.

However, as soon as I open my mouth... people will immediately tell me to "shut up" or to "be quiet" or "go way" or "fuck off" or "you talk too much". Or, as my brother likes to do, make that "shhhh" sound when I'm talking. Or like his wife likes to do, just interrupt me with her "yeah, yeah, yeah".

I keep doing this. I keep getting told to talk more. So I talk more. Then get told to shut up.

As my father once told me: "you're too trusting". Maybe I really am too trusting. Maybe I really am an imbecile.

>Further, why are you here, on 4chan, asking people about this shit? Do you not trust your own ability to make determinations about things?

I'm on /sci/ right now. The "science & math" board of 4chan. There are many places like this on the internet. I mean, here, I have anonymity. The discussion here is fast-paced. This is the "body politic". I realize that nobody will believe me or even care when I say this, but I've been coming to 4chan since May of 2005. I've been coming to /sci/ since... maybe around... I think it was sometime in early 2010? I've had an interest in science since I was maybe 7 years old. This board interested me.

>>8389304

>Anon why did you think that would be appropriate topic for a class essay?

Why? Because I had assumed that the essay would only be read by the teacher. I had assumed that my thoughts were private, personal. I had assumed that my teacher would be a mature, professional, adult teacher. I had assumed that the classroom would be full of mature adult students (or at the very least make up the majority of the class.)

It was a reflective essay.

Isn't that what a English Composition/Expository class is for? To improve one's writing skills?

Isn't that the sort of thing that adults take adult school classes for?

That's part of the reason that I decided to return to school, anyway. To improve my writing skills. To improve myself in general.

I wrote that essay as an attempt to organize my thoughts into a legible manner, in a manner that is coherent for other people to read. For other people to understand how I think and feel, and why I do the things that I do.

I wrote that essay as an attempt to better understand myself.

>Also you sound like a hypochondriac regarding your mental health.

Fine. I'm a hypochondriac.

One of the reasons that I decided to start seeing mental health care professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, etc.) was because for years my family (among other people in my life, such as in school) have been telling me that I'm "crazy" and that "there's something seriously wrong" with me, and that I "need to seek professional help".

I had a job once. A "real" job. As a mall cop. See this post here for my experience as a mall cop:

>>8377797

That was only one month of work. Nearly five years ago.

And then I get people like my brother who I described in this post here:

>>8362351

So, then, what am I to think? When I'm 27 years old and I can't even do a simple mall cop job, when I can't even get my high school diploma, when I don't even have any friends... what am I supposed to think about my mental health?

>>8386945

I was wrong. It's been over a year since I started these classes and I've only finished 1 class so far. With each passing month, it was becoming increasingly obvious to me that my teacher, his teacher's assistant, and the students strongly disliked me. This became painfully obvious in April 2016 when I ended up writing an essay in which I believed that I may have Narcissistic Personality Disorder (or some other personality disorder) and that it was what may have caused my depression and anxiety. I had originally written on the essay: “if it turns out that I do have Narcissistic Personality Disorder or some other personality disorder”, but my teacher told me to remove that second “personality disorder” out of the sentence as it was redundant. The essay was typed up and saved on one of the school computers in the classroom. I had assumed that the essay would only be read by the teacher, but I was wrong. The essay could have easily been read by anyone in the classroom, including the students.

As it turns out, the essay actually was read by some of the students. And it seems as if: my teacher, his assistant, and his students have read the Wikipedia article on Narcissistic Personality Disorder. So now it would seem that everyone in the classroom have jumped to the conclusion that I have indeed been officially diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And so now it would appear to be that they are going out of their way to humiliate and/or criticize me to drive me out of school. My teacher seems to think that I have ulterior (and malicious) motives for returning to my old high school.

I remember walking to my classroom one day and seeing a group of about 10—15 students outside of the classroom whispering to each other, and when they saw me, they stopped talking, turned to look at me, and one of them said “shit”. One student said, “why do you guys talk about him?” Another replied, “because he's a narcissist.”

>>8386945

On my first day I began to suspect that my teacher did not like me, but I brushed it off as it being due to my imagination. The adult school classes started at 1:30 PM, which was right in the middle of the regular high school classes when there's high school students (the students' ages: 14 – 18, my age: 27) walking around campus. I had initially assumed that the adult school classes would be filled with people 18+ years old (hence why the classes are called "adult" school), but it turned out that the majority of the students in adult school classes are actually minors, some of them are as young as 15 or even younger. I only needed to take three classes to obtain the high school diploma (English Composition/Expository, United States History 2, and United States Government), each class could be completed within ~100 hours, ~6 hours could be completed in 1 day (adult school classes ran from 1:30 PM to 9:00 PM, with a break from 5:30 PM to 6:00 PM), ~24 hours could be completed in 1 week (adult school classes were only on: Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays), and so I figured I could finish these classes within ~3 months.
.

>>8386945

And so therein lies the problem. I seem to have reached this point in my life where everybody around me has already assumed that I have, in fact, been officially diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. That I am, in fact, a narcissist. Why do I say this? Well...

In August of 2015, I decided to try getting the "adult high school diploma". Went to a place called "Job Corps" first, but I was told that I was too old to go there since they only accepted people between the ages of 16 – 24. Since I was 26 at the time, I was already too old to go to Job Corps. I then went to some place called an "occupational center", but it seemed that they were charging a bit too much for their classes.

So after nearly 10 years of dropping out, I decided to return to my old high school. I had already taken and passed the GED exam back in February 2010, and earned the "high school equivalency certificate", however; a cousin of mine told me that it looks better in resumes to have both the adult high school diploma and high school equivalency certificate when applying for jobs. The adult school classes are also free, so I figured, hey, this might be interesting. Being back in my old high school could make me feel nostalgic and might even help with my depression, and may even improve both my memory and attention spans through "neuroplasticity". Maybe now with Adderall, I could do much better in school.

It turned out to not be so easy.