3 ms·

I just feel like this reply amounts to "there can't be a non-moralistic explanation for this, the moralistic explanation has to be the correct one". I know tha

I just feel like this reply amounts to "there can't be a non-moralistic explanation for this, the moralistic explanation has to be the correct one". I know that's an uncharitable oversimplification, but is there a way you can present your case without moralistic barbs like "the inner food-addict concocting excuses for an XXL pizza"? And perhaps also include evidence rather than conjecture. My comment is consistent with the notion from evolutionary theory that our mind and body acts in accordance with what it determines is optimal for its survival, with the caveat that this can be complicated by factors like illness.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Fluorescence 3y ago
I guess you are not very familiar with addiction? > the moralistic explanation It is not a moralistic claim at all. Quite the opposite. It's a very common human struggle and to realise you are trapped in an addiction is the way to break free. Understanding that there it's something in the addictive substance that hooks humans, means it's not your fault. It lets you escape the crushing feelings of shame, blame and weakness. Better still, there are a lot of resources about recovering from addiction. > "the inner food-addict concocting excuses for an XXL pizza"? Ok so this is not a barb but jargon. Your inner-addict is a personification of the self-talk that tries to pull you back into an addiction. Your inner-addict is like the cartoon devil on your shoulder. You are not an addict anymore, but you still carry this annoying little inner-addict that you sometimes just have tell to shut the hell up. For example, this little devil might be pestering you non-stop (what might be called 'food noise' these days) but the funnier aspect I wanted to reference is how your inner-addict comes up with the dumbest reasons to break your sobriety. These absurd reasons just pop in your head and if you are not paying enough attention, you might believe them. However if you manage to take a beat, you can realise it's the most laughably absurd nonsense but you were nearly tricked e.g. "I will never be a great writer if I don't smoke", "it's amazing how little I crave a donut, I should eat one just to prove how much I am not interested in them", "I should celebrate my 100 days sober with a cocktail!". You can see how "I should get fat again to not be seen" has the suggestion of one these absurd justifications. If someone has lost a lot of weight they will have been through absolute hell with months of deprivation and struggle. It's a massive achievement. A rationalisation to excuse throwing away all that effort is insane but that is how addictions work. > consistent with the notion from evolutionary theory Ok, kind of funny. Evolutionary psychology suffers from "just-so-stories". It is possible to tell a nice story, but they have no epistemic value because there is no limit to the number of nice sounding stories and they are untestable. "Consistent with evolution" should only be said as a punchline. To be blunt, the story itself is speculative Freudian subconscious schlock which is why I believe I hear something similar from those fresh from therapy.
- tomhoward 3y ago
  I'll start by noting just how much of this argument relies on ridicule and ad hom attack: - I guess you are not very familiar with addiction? - Ok, kind of funny - should only be said as a punchline - To be blunt, the story itself is speculative Freudian subconscious schlock which is why I believe I hear something similar from those fresh from therapy. Once that's distilled away, the substance of the argument turns out to be a false dichotomy: I.e. it's not the subconscious mind trying to achieve the outcome it perceives is best for survival, it's just addiction. There's no examination or even apparently much contemplation of what an addition actually is, from a physiological and psychological perspective. Addiction is asserted as the final answer, rather than the deeper question it really is. Why is it that some people are addicted to eating "too much" food, whereas others are "addicted" to eating "too little"? Why do some people get addicted to drugs and not others in the same social group/class who experiment with the same drugs? I've seen that up close, in social groups where there has been recreational use of stimulant drugs, with most people managing to keep it a recreational thing and grow out of it, but a minority, sadly, ending up in a downward spiral of addiction and dysfunction. I saw two of my closest friends from the mid 00s end up in prison that way. Another died in his 30s from alcohol-related illness, the only one of his social group who had a drinking problem even though all were routine social drinkers. Those guys were every bit as capable and privileged as everyone else in their social circles, but were carrying a lot of trauma and showing patterns of self-sabotaging behaviour, observable for the whole decade-or-so I knew them. I know there's a lot of pop-sci claptrap around on the internet. I totally get that and understand the impulse to push back on that. But I've been exploring this topic for almost 20 years in some ways, and I'm not beholden to the theories of any particular authority figures from the past or present; everything I understand is based on my own experience and experimentation and in what I observe in others close to me. I've been going deep on subconscious work for over 12 years, and have demonstrable evidence of significant changes in behavioural patterns and impulses over that time. I've seen others achieve far better life outcomes from subconscious healing work than I've seen anyone achieve from conventional therapies and health treatments, including with fertility issues. And yes I know this is all self-reported anecdata, without the backing of any large clinical trials - but who is even trying to research this stuff? This 2018 paper [1], and other works by its authors [2,3,4] seem to be orbiting the topic. But most of the health industry and broader society continues to handwave away the topic with dismissals like "it's just addiction", thereby avoiding the work of exploring more deeply what addiction really is and what opportunities there may be to discover and popularise more effective approaches for recovery. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352154618300226?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23521... [2] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XrBcghcAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XrBcghcAAAAJ&hl=en [3] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9bqE-hsAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9bqE-hsAAAAJ&hl=en [4] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RGBSG7EAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RGBSG7EAAAAJ&hl=en

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Fluorescence 3y ago

I guess you are not very familiar with addiction? > the moralistic explanation It is not a moralistic claim at all. Quite the opposite. It's a very common human struggle and to realise you are trapped in an addiction is the way to break free. Understanding that there it's something in the addictive substance that hooks humans, means it's not your fault. It lets you escape the crushing feelings of shame, blame and weakness. Better still, there are a lot of resources about recovering from addiction. > "the inner food-addict concocting excuses for an XXL pizza"? Ok so this is not a barb but jargon. Your inner-addict is a personification of the self-talk that tries to pull you back into an addiction. Your inner-addict is like the cartoon devil on your shoulder. You are not an addict anymore, but you still carry this annoying little inner-addict that you sometimes just have tell to shut the hell up. For example, this little devil might be pestering you non-stop (what might be called 'food noise' these days) but the funnier aspect I wanted to reference is how your inner-addict comes up with the dumbest reasons to break your sobriety. These absurd reasons just pop in your head and if you are not paying enough attention, you might believe them. However if you manage to take a beat, you can realise it's the most laughably absurd nonsense but you were nearly tricked e.g. "I will never be a great writer if I don't smoke", "it's amazing how little I crave a donut, I should eat one just to prove how much I am not interested in them", "I should celebrate my 100 days sober with a cocktail!". You can see how "I should get fat again to not be seen" has the suggestion of one these absurd justifications. If someone has lost a lot of weight they will have been through absolute hell with months of deprivation and struggle. It's a massive achievement. A rationalisation to excuse throwing away all that effort is insane but that is how addictions work. > consistent with the notion from evolutionary theory Ok, kind of funny. Evolutionary psychology suffers from "just-so-stories". It is possible to tell a nice story, but they have no epistemic value because there is no limit to the number of nice sounding stories and they are untestable. "Consistent with evolution" should only be said as a punchline. To be blunt, the story itself is speculative Freudian subconscious schlock which is why I believe I hear something similar from those fresh from therapy.

tomhoward 3y ago
I'll start by noting just how much of this argument relies on ridicule and ad hom attack: - I guess you are not very familiar with addiction? - Ok, kind of funny - should only be said as a punchline - To be blunt, the story itself is speculative Freudian subconscious schlock which is why I believe I hear something similar from those fresh from therapy. Once that's distilled away, the substance of the argument turns out to be a false dichotomy: I.e. it's not the subconscious mind trying to achieve the outcome it perceives is best for survival, it's just addiction. There's no examination or even apparently much contemplation of what an addition actually is, from a physiological and psychological perspective. Addiction is asserted as the final answer, rather than the deeper question it really is. Why is it that some people are addicted to eating "too much" food, whereas others are "addicted" to eating "too little"? Why do some people get addicted to drugs and not others in the same social group/class who experiment with the same drugs? I've seen that up close, in social groups where there has been recreational use of stimulant drugs, with most people managing to keep it a recreational thing and grow out of it, but a minority, sadly, ending up in a downward spiral of addiction and dysfunction. I saw two of my closest friends from the mid 00s end up in prison that way. Another died in his 30s from alcohol-related illness, the only one of his social group who had a drinking problem even though all were routine social drinkers. Those guys were every bit as capable and privileged as everyone else in their social circles, but were carrying a lot of trauma and showing patterns of self-sabotaging behaviour, observable for the whole decade-or-so I knew them. I know there's a lot of pop-sci claptrap around on the internet. I totally get that and understand the impulse to push back on that. But I've been exploring this topic for almost 20 years in some ways, and I'm not beholden to the theories of any particular authority figures from the past or present; everything I understand is based on my own experience and experimentation and in what I observe in others close to me. I've been going deep on subconscious work for over 12 years, and have demonstrable evidence of significant changes in behavioural patterns and impulses over that time. I've seen others achieve far better life outcomes from subconscious healing work than I've seen anyone achieve from conventional therapies and health treatments, including with fertility issues. And yes I know this is all self-reported anecdata, without the backing of any large clinical trials - but who is even trying to research this stuff? This 2018 paper [1], and other works by its authors [2,3,4] seem to be orbiting the topic. But most of the health industry and broader society continues to handwave away the topic with dismissals like "it's just addiction", thereby avoiding the work of exploring more deeply what addiction really is and what opportunities there may be to discover and popularise more effective approaches for recovery. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352154618300226?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23521... [2] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XrBcghcAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XrBcghcAAAAJ&hl=en [3] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9bqE-hsAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9bqE-hsAAAAJ&hl=en [4] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RGBSG7EAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RGBSG7EAAAAJ&hl=en