Re: Secret 1,062

I read an interesting post on RU Secrets about somebody struggling with their gender identity.  This was my response, before I realized it was too long to put on facebook:

Talking makes me sad, and this might be why

Today it hit me like a brick, what might possibly be why I'm always so depressed by online discussions (whether they're actually charged or not).

I come from a youth of arguing online about topics that were really emotional for me.  In those arguments, I was often indignant and aggressive.  (It was justified, but that's not really important right now)

Now, my instinct in online ideological debates, my instinct is to be indignant and aggressive.  I temper that aggressive energy to come up with, uh, somewhat coherent sentences.

I had awful depression last year that SSRIs straight up cured.  So I know that I had a shortage of serotonin.  Higher levels of serotonin means you're happier, and it independently means you're less aggressive.  Less serotonin = more aggressive + less happy.

So serotonin limits aggression and causes happiness.  Happiness, like other emotions, is the feeling that you get as a consequence of having a certain chemical state - in this case, high levels of serotonin.  I had always assumed that aggressive behavior, then, would be the consequence of low levels of serotonin.

Well, today I had a depressive vibe wash over me, and I thought about what I was doing directly before I felt that way.

Animal Testing Might Do Something!

Since I've decided to stop advocating animal rights, I felt that I should learn about the benefits of current uses of animals in our economy.

First mission:  research whether animal testing is effective.  It was hard to find objective information, because most of it comes from PETA-like bands of simpletons who couldn't tell you the difference between ethanol and petroleum.  I kept seeing the statistic that 92% of drugs that pass animal testing fail human trials, but that seemed like it was impossible.  And I'm always wary of numbers that don't come from a reputable agency, like our government. (Yes, I'm going to assume that the government is reputable.)

After scouring various webpages about animal liberation and hippie conspiracies, I finally found a solid article, written by a highly esteemed professor at London's National Institute for Medical Research, that purported to debunk the importance of this statistic.  Thankfully, it referenced the original FDA Report on the "Critical Path" towards Medical Products, which had the number I was looking for:

"...a new medicinal compound entering Phase 1 testing, often representing the culmination of upwards of a decade of preclinical screening and evaluation, is estimated to have only an 8 percent chance of reaching the market."

Hope, Despair, and Something Far Stronger

As silly as it sounds, I've been viewing a lot of my life through the lens of an anime about magical girls.

Really, I know, it sounds silly, but hear me out.

Gen Urobuchi is a writer who likes to use the medium of anime to express his stories.  He has worked with a few different animation studios on a very diverse set of topics.  Because he uses anime, he's expected to follow certain really stupid conventions.  One of the popular genres of the medium is the magical girl show.  They're usually unrealistically bubbly, and downplay the immense amount of danger these girls would be in if they were literally fighting destructive, immaterial monsters that defy the laws of our dimension.  For whatever reason, Gen thought that this particular genre needed a deconstruction, and so he made a show about magical girls that explores a lot of very interesting themes, trapping a viewer expecting something carefree in an intensely beautiful narrative of raw character development:  Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

As it stands in production, Madoka went through a 12-episode television series and a movie sequel, titled "The Rebellion Story".  I highly recommend the series to anybody who's intelligent, likes hefty literature, or appreciates fine art.  Since most people in those categories won't have already seen it, I'll avoid spoiling the plot.  What I want to do is simply to frame my own introspection in a way that those who've watched Madoka up to "The Rebellion Story" will recognize as familiar.  To those unfamiliar with the narrative, it should make enough sense on its own.

Origins

I recently watched Kara no Kyoukai, and I took a few things away from it.  I'd like to discuss one of them in-depth here.  It's the one thing that my friend also found an interesting part of the fiction's metaphysics.  That fact is probably the reason I myself thought about it, especially in conjunction with other trains of thought that I've been exploring recently.

Origin.

Pronunciation of Doge

I will always pronounce doge "doggy".  Forever.

The only alternative pronunciation that I will ever use is an occasional "doggeh"

A "do͡uʒ" is an elected chief of state lordship.

A "dɔgi" or "dɔgɛ" is a silly little shibe.

Huge difference.

CNN thinks they know it all...

But in all honesty, it's really silly to see anybody proclaiming that there's one true pronunciation that everybody should use.  The word started orthographically, and it was supposed to be a misspelling of the word dog.  Nobody in existence on the planet (a qualifier I'm obviously qualified to use) has ever referred to a canine with a word that contains a voiced alveopalatal fricative.  That would just be silly.  Why are people using that phoneme now?

CUZ THEI NO KNOW WAY OF SHIBE

A Little Silence

I realized recently that I'm going about this whole social thing all wrong.  I'm going to spend some time off of facebook to think about how I portray myself and what I say to people in social situations.  I have a feeling that my feelings are not necessarily the best thing to talk about.  The things that are most important to me are irritating and trivial to most other people, so my indignant protests and pleas for justice will only rub people the wrong way.