ChatGPT Psychosis - Part I

 A friend sent the following tweet from NIK on X, wondering what my take was on the whole topic. I started small. 

NIK

@ns123abc

CHATGPT IS A SYCOPHANT CAUSING USERS TO SPIRAL INTO PSYCHOSIS  

"ChatGPT psychosis" 

> users are spiralling into sever mental health crises 

> paranoia delusions and psychosis 

> ChatGPT has led to loss of jobs and become homeless 

>and caused the breakup of marriages and families

> "And every time I'm looking at what's going on the screen, it just sounds like a bunch of affirming, sycophantic bullsh*t."

NIK's X account is mostly about what can go wrong with AI - how the CEO's are power-hungry jerks who haven't thought things through, how their decisions are going awry, how the whole enterprise is more dangerous than we suspect. As you can imagine, there's plenty of material out there for him to draw from. So I went looking for where NIK gets his news, and that led me to fields I used to wander in years ago but had mostly forgotten. 

The short version is that AI may turn out to have terrible effects on us, individually, as societies, and even as a species. It may be the downfall of us all. But it's not going to have this particular effect. 

Crow

 

Keffiyeh Fashion

 Why the Keffiyah is a Timeless Accessory from Al-Aniq.  Okay, everyone's gotta make a living, right?  I shouldn't be so critical.

The keffiyeh/shemagh is a must-have for your wardrobe, as it can be effortlessly styled with everything. It will always stay in fashion and is easy to maintain. It will elevate your outfit and make you stand out in style.

BC/AD; BCE/CE

I got into an argument that Jews and Jewish scholars, however much they may have resented the preference in Western society for BC/AD, it was now more an issue mostly for secular academics who did not want as strong a religious foundation for our dating system. The issue is now that it is religious, not that its use is perceived as antisemitic. I based this on both online and live discussions, with both everyday and academic Jews, who tended to shrug off BC/AD. They do not regard it as antisemitic.  They likely would if someone were to make a big deal about it, such as if Donald Trump were to declare that all government documents, no matter the context, were required to be in the old form. That would arouse suspicions.  I am guessing about that, but I think it likely.

My disputant stated that BC/AD was considered antisemitic among Jewish academics.  The argument went to related places but we did not go much longer on that in specific. I felt he was not understanding a distinction I was making, but no matter.  That bears on this discussion only slightly.  He is an academic and knows more Jewish academics than I do, and it would come up in his specialty.  I know psychology researchers, med school researchers, and online I have heard academics in genetics, history, literature and other liberal arts. His numbers would be greater.  

Yet it occurs to me that even outside of the cross-understanding, I may have been wrong in my original premise.  What do you know from your own experience.  Granted that it may have been Jewish scholars who originally pushed for the change and both secular and practicing Christians who led the acceptance, what is the situation in 2025?  Is there any energy in popular intellectual or academic discussion on the topic now? 

 

I kept thinking of the ban on Brown Bag Lunches because they were supposedly offensive to black people because of the exclusive clubs where you had to be lighter than a brown bag to get in decades ago.  No black people actually made that association, it was white people showing off. I may be imposing that fraud on this unfairly. 

Armenian Script

Before I research it myself, I wanted to put this out there in case any of you already knew the answers. We were at the cemetery today and because we entered by a different gate, took different routes to get to our 6 sites (13 relatives) to plant flowers. This brought us by headstones we had never seen before.  A large mill-city cemetery is interesting as it exposes you to previous names and burial customs from groups you know little about. 

We saw this and neither of us recognised the script.  At first glance I suspect it is not how it would have been written on paper, but based on letters made more angular for ease of carving. It is not Greek but I wonder if it is related. Latin seems farther away. I know that Cyrillic is related to Greek letters, but this looks farther away.  I know there is a Coptic alphabet, but I can't recall ever seeing it, and this Armenian alphabet does not look Arabic to me. I guess that fits the geography and the trading routes pretty well. 

Take your guesses, and if you actually know something, so much the better.

Best rabbit hole so far: The Zok language. The Caucasus has an unusual concentration of languages, largely because it is mountainous and here are so many adjoining valleys that have little contact across the ridges.  They go downstream to larger communities to trade, and have contact there, but are just as likely to trade with someone from the city, or any of the other valleys that flow into it. Though descended from related languages, they are isolated from each other and do not influence each other much, becoming unintelligible to each other over time. 

The above may be in the Armeno-Turkish script, daughter to Armenian.  The last three letters could be "-yan" and -ian is a common ending for Armenian surnames, so that fits. The letters before that might be the -dz- sound, which would fit with the cymbal makers Zil-djian, who were Armenian. Work in progress.

Graph Paper Diaries

Bsking's blog has been inactive for three years, in which time I have taken it off my sidebar. She has a new post up comparing wait times and health outcomes under the medical systems of English-speaking countries.  Some NHS thoughts on the 4th of July. She has a great deal more information on the subject and I hope she will continue along these lines. If so, back on the sidebar she goes.

I am also hoping she will weigh in on the Karen Read case - she sent me the link I just posted, and one of her commenters has already asked for a COVID stats retrospective now that the dust has settled. We'll see if she nibbles at either one.

Varied Links Again

 Would you be nervous if your son were dating a girl who reads so much of this?

Karen Read Did It.  "What I want to do in this last post is explain, comprehensively and for posterity, why Karen Read is one of those lucky 10 guilty people who gets to go free." It is long and very thorough.  The interesting question is why so many originally uninvolved middle-aged women supported her vehemently, frequently mentioning how pretty she is.

The Hit Job  The NYT covers Skrmetti and gender transitioning clinics for children.

Orwell on Gandhi  I must have seen parts of this, as a few sentences seemed familiar.  But I am quite certain I had not seen the whole thing.

 

"Prioritising Moral Posturing"

From Aporia, by Bert Parlee and Keith Thompson  Communal Narcissism. 

A great deal of this resonated for me from what I saw working in Human Services since 1976. There is a brash, obvious narcissism which grates on nearly everyone, but there is an equal and opposite narcissism that is certain it is not narcissistic at all, because its self aggrandisement is more subtle.  In some individuals it is not at all apparent because it is suave, it does not need to raise its voice, its rudeness is condescension and disdain. 

Of course, the pathological aspects of the new condition announce themselves in markedly different words and gestures. It had previously been assumed that these characteristics were healthy—unlike the well-known characteristics of overt narcissism so readily apparent in people like Trump. Remarkably, the experts nearly missed telltale signs of what they would go on to characterize as communal narcissism (“communal” indicating that individuals seek validation and admiration through their perceived contributions to social groups or communities, rather than through personal achievements). To our surprise, and that of the researchers themselves, communal narcissism turns out to be the equal and opposite variant of the self-centered overt type in which individuals boast about being “the best”. 

Many of the cultural figures, including politicians, who are regarded as humble, tolerant, and welcoming grate on me worse than Trump. Donald is the kid you wanted to smack in hall in high school, boisterously challenging and insulting others.  These others are the ones who cut you effectively in front of your prom date while smiling, because they were hoping to get into her pants. 

Life Isn't Fair

 From tonight's pub night.

 

Empathy Continued

The comments under the previous entries have been good, but I want to bring the topic out into the light, beyond just a few of us advocating our positions, so I when a new piece occurred to me, I elected to make it a new post.

 Most cultures have beast fables, such as Anansi in West Africa and the Caribbean, Chanticleer in medieval France, Panchantantra  in Sanskrit, Aesop in Greece. But the design of these stories is not to tell us what animals feel like, but to use animal characteristics to teach us something about humans. Even in the time of Lewis Carrol the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat are disguised humans.  

Yet in the present day the animals in stories are in movies, and we are increasingly imposing human characteristics back onto them, so that we believe we understand what their lives are like, and are encouraged to sympathise with them via empathy. Fish don't really have family lives and go on adventures, but they have been expanded from one-dimensional lesson examples to beloved friends. Many animals are still just animals in Snow White.  All animals in modern Disney films are fully conversational and emotive, even literate. 

We think we know what their lives are like, but it is all projection. I suggest that this relates to Grim's worry about empathy leading us astray in dealing with humans.  We think we know because we have feelings about the lives of others, based on identification rather than sympathy. 

I should mention, not for the first time, that much of this underlies environmentalism, as opposed to conservation. 

The (Not Very) Good Old Days of Education

From 2012 - I had had strong opinions about education before this, but doing the remembering, research, and more than anything thinking bout the topic then crystalised my approach.  I have added much to this over the years, like ornaments on a Christmas tree, but this remains the foundation.

Part I - (Regarding the CCC in the 1930s. Italics mine.) Approximately 55% of enrollees were from rural communities, a majority of which were non-farm; 45% came from urban. Level of education for the enrollee averaged 3% illiterate, 38% less than eight years of school, 48% did not complete high school, 11% were high school graduates. At the time of entry, 70% of enrollees were malnourished and poorly clothed. Few had work experience beyond occasional odd jobs. 9 comments

Part II - No, we had hours of penmanship drills – not very useful even then.  We copied things a lot, and not always as punishment. A “beautiful hand” was much admired, and usually harder to read than the ugly writing, as anyone who has tried to read archival records can attest.  And we learned recitations – often the same one for everyone, and had to get up in front of the class and say it, one after another.  That’s useful.  And maps to color after labeling, and children in ethnic costumes to color, and lots of natural science to color.  Shop Class and Home Ec.  We scrubbed our desks.  We lined up and waited a lot, and sometimes marched to music.  We diagrammed sentences – kinda fun, sometimes, but not as helpful in composition as one might think.  We learned grammar, much of which turned out to be wrong, and most of which was not focused on improving our writing, but in shaming us out of using slang.  Spelling drills. Somewhat useful – not huge. 4 comments

Part III - My younger brother had a special program in elementary school - they put his desk in the hall.  In the tracked classes he was put in the bottom track of 17.  He wasn't badly ADD, but it was compounded by being only three weeks short of the age cutoff for his class, and his poor fine-motor skills.  He went on to teach college, after a long and winding road. 4 comments 

Cursed Film

Story at The Hard Times: Everyone who worked on the film "Nosferatu" has died.

 

Varied Links

 Spider Robots for Surgical Interventions.

Empire State of Mind. 

America's Incarceration Rate is About To Fall of a Cliff.  Very interesting numbers, but I wonder about dynamic effects.

"Dog" is a weird word.  It appears out of nowhere about 1200. I am going to go lose some time on this website.

Cremieux knows how to revive America's dying malls. 

CS Lewis on Prayer

 

Subtle Slanting

The Free Press writers split fairly evenly 3 ways in the last election, Harris - Trump - 3rdparty/none, according to Bari Weiss. That's encouraging, as it reduces (though does not eliminate) the chance of reading someone on your side or another who is not completely starkers. It always has a few articles about everyone simmering down and trying to be gracious. I am not a subscriber, and you will only see the first few paragraphs, as usual. You Don't Need the Same Politics to Surf Together. The author is trying to be fair, low-key, even affectionate about his brother-in law. Yet look at the choices made and not made in the descriptions. His brother-in-law is described as vaccine skeptical, but he does not describe himself as vaccine obedient.  Perhaps that would be too strong, but it is there. Not even "vaccine advocating." It just sits there that he believes the default, his brother-in-law is the one who is a bit unusual.  He describes the other as Joe Rogan-listening, but does not put forth any similarly controversial or stereotypical figure who he listens to that might allow others to slot him negatively.  He mentions that his brother-in-law is an electrician, fine. He "mentions" that he wrote for the Obama White House (at 24!) and went to Yale.  Not college, mind you, not a political speechwriter, but at the White House.

So are we all, I suppose, and I likely notice it more coming from one direction than another. Yet I think such things are more persuasive in the long run because they slide behind our intellectual awareness to our social sense of who are the best people, the right people, the ones we want to be part of. When I was a child, "batteries not included" was a joke illustrating that we were smart enough to have seen through the advertiser's pitch on TV.  Direct propaganda we defend against more easily. When it is under the radar we are tricked into thinking that we have figured all this out ourselves, that no one has put one over on us.  We are independent thinkers, after all. 

Cosmic Justice

The issue is not whether you think Harvard (or Columbia, Cornell, etc) or Trump is a greater force for good in the grand scheme of things, the issue is whether Harvard broke the law, and if so, how badly and how consciously; and whether Trump is breaking the law in what he is doing to them. The verb tenses are important because one is a determination about a series of set facts that have occurred.  Trump is mercurial and might modify his actions against Harvard a few times before he is done.

I don't write this to call other people stupid.  I have been guilty of focusing on the cosmic justice rather than the actual legal issue a few times in my life.  It's hard to give up the grand cause. 

America Party

Well, if Democrats were worried how they were going to get back in power, Musk forming a new party likely has them relieved. They wouldn't even have to pivot to the center or learn how to talk to young men.

Climate Emotions

Via Instapundit and Just the News*, a study in The Lancet about how worried young people are about climate. This came up in relation to a discussion of Greta Thunberg and her mental health issues. She had a sense of foreboding before she became involved in climate affairs.  She and her parents discovered that her symptoms were reduced when she was allowed to dramatically tell others what to do about climate. As she adopts other limelight causes this becomes more apparent.  If it were not climate, it would be something else.

Climate emotions, thoughts, and plans among US adolescents and young adults: a cross-sectional descriptive survey and analysis by political party identification and self-reported exposure to severe weather events 

I suggest that The Lancet has the arrow of causality reversed.  As with paranoia and depression, anxiety usually precedes its eventual focus.  Feelings of anxiety in response to events is more properly thought of as nervousness. You can see that the once-respected British medical publication has begged the question right at the outset in the abstract.

 Climate change has adverse effects on youth mental health and wellbeing, but limited large-scale data exist globally or in the USA. Understanding the patterns and consequences of climate-related distress among US youth can inform necessary responses at the individual, community, and policy level.

The possibility that they were going to be nervous anyway apparently did not occur to the authors.  It might be an interesting question to ask why young people settled on climate as the thing to be unsettled about. That question would lead us to examining what young people had "emotions" about before. Whether adolescents are more anxious now than they were in 1825 we do not know.  We develop a sense of that from correspondence, diaries, and the arts, but we do not know. My belief is that young people are about equally anxious in all eras.  They quite naturally become more nervous in the face of war, famine, disease, or being orphaned. We are evolutionarily wired for a certain level of anxiety, likely modified by the environment activating programs we already have on disk.

 *As predicted by one of my rules of naming, a site called "Just the News" is going to in fact be highly slanted. I am wary of the word "truth" in a title, or many uses of the word "just" as in We were just trying to educate the public about their right to photograph the police. We were just hanging out near the girls' locker room. The site is indeed slanted rightward. 

Julian Bream - Renaissance Lute

 

Schizophrenia and Gut Biomes

If you had run across this theory and wondered if there were something to it, Scott Alexander explains why he thinks it doesn't hold up. Contra Skolnick on Schizophrenia Microbes.  The usual style at ACX.  Point 1, Point 1A, possible objection considered and answered, Point 2 brief point with promise of later discussion, Point 3 referring to previous post...

Sterphen Skolnick answers in the comments.  Not very effectively, to my eyes, but I admit I was already unsympathetic at that point.