growingkittens

I monitor kitten health while fostering. Continuous monitoring can be done to establish a baseline. It requires the right mindset, though. I look at the overall picture of a kitten's health while considering changes in status. The "overall health" is the part doctors are missing, because science is systematic (step-by-step) and not systemic (whole system), therefore medicine is systematic too.

(100% of my foster kittens have survived (out of 25) and I specialize in fostering the worst cases.)

Organizing all knowledge requires a flexible system of organization (starting with how the categories are organized and accessed, not the data).

Random thoughts about organizing knowledge:

- Categories need fractal structures.

- Categories need to be available as subcategories to other categories as a pattern.

- Words need to be broken down into base concepts and used as patterns.

- Social information and context alter the meaning of words in many cases, so any semantic web without a control system has limited use as an organization tool.

I would say that the original poster is intimately familiar with procrastination, because they recognize that the underlying cause of most procrastination is a barrier of some sort. Different people have different combinations barriers, so it can be difficult to recognize someone else's experience.

I have always found that when a task becomes difficult to the point of procrastination, that is a sign that the approach to the task needs to be reworked.

The phrase "do something instead of nothing" might be more useful than "action leads to motivation." I have plenty of motivation - but my brain does not always comply when I try to focus on purpose. In such a case, I work on an unrelated task that is easy to engage with. This gives my brain a chance to focus, which begets more focus, until there is enough focus to do so on purpose.

I recently wrote this to someone who tends to give commands instead of advice, which is along the same lines:

"You can lead a horse to water, and it may not drink. If you drag a horse to water, it will refuse to drink, then kick you, and run away."

Body doubles work especially well for tasks that involve changing visual context and sequencing.

As a child, I noticed that my brain worked differently when someone was in my room. I begged my mom to stay in my room so I could clean my room, but she didn't understand what the point was.

> People tend to hoard information. They are scared sharing it will make them look silly, or lose the power they think it provides.

People tend to hoard information because they are incentivized to hoard information: it has a real benefit for individuals in many companies, particularly in terms of job security.

> The solution is to make communication legible: write it down and work in public.

This is not the solution. Removing the influencing forces that incentivize knowledge hoarding is the solution.

This is all because science is systematic (step by step), not systemic (considering the whole system).

Both perspectives are required to understand reality. [1]

It's time to update science.

[1] "Systems Engineering: A systemic and systematic methodology for solving complex problems." Joseph Kasser, 2019. p. 17

"The attack appeared to impact business operations at the company's north Houston campus, as well as some global connectivity networks"

Understatement. I think this affects their core systems (heard through the grapevine, of course).

I actively collect methods of information organization, so "which have I studied" is too broad to list in a comment.

Learning resources - the greatest learning resource is teaching yourself how to learn, and understanding how your personal learning system works.

When I go to learn something:

- I don't use just one source. I look at multiple sources, comparing different perspectives as part of the learning process. No one author will explain things in "just the right way" to make things click.

- I build a dynamic MECE (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) "framework" as I learn a subject, which can organize every piece of information I might need to save. If a piece of information does not fit the framework, the framework is changed.

- I use image search to quickly find different perspectives of a particular concept.

Information organization recommendations: In general, I would start with "the basics" - a process - even if you're sure you understand it well. See if you can organize what you know into a MECE framework, and find out if your understanding of the information is "siloed" (based on a condition, such as context). Ask yourself how broadly you are able to apply your understanding, or pick an "unrelated" subject and organize it from a process view as an exercise. Look at different models of a process and which components are always included, and which are not.

I have noticed the same effect from studying different methods of information organization (such as ontologies or mind maps).

Experience with a structured mental path is a fundamental part of learning. I've seen many educational games that explicitly teach skills, but don't necessarily offer an experience path for the application of those skills. Factorio is more along the lines of what an educational game should be.

I am generally considered to be a kind and helpful person.

There are many situations where a kindness turns to an expectation, which leads to entitlement: suddenly you are the bad guy if you don't go above and beyond.

Being helpful around people who view work as a zero sum game is a recipe for disaster.

This article also reframes "things you should do because it's an advantage to you" as kindness.

My mother started teaching me to read as a baby by pointing to the words as she read them. I wonder how that compares?

Doctors are not able to conceive of patients as a system, because they lack the training and tools to do so.

This problem originates from science being systematic (step by step), not systemic (whole system). Both systemic and systematic approaches are required to understand reality [1].

So in an ideal world, we would have a science which looks from both the inside out perspective and the outside in. Right now - if a test doesn't measure it - it may as well not exist. That's an "inside-out" perspective.

Once the science is fixed, the medical establishment is next: medicine has become too complex for any one doctor to understand. Doctors need to work as a team, each performing a different role.

[1] "Systems Engineering: A systemic and systematic methodology for solving complex problems." Joseph Kasser, 2019. p. 17

> I can only imagine how frustrating it is for someone whose career is based on a single treatment to be faced with cases in which that treatment does not work. I could tell from the language she used, however, that in her mind, CBT does not fail her patients, but rather, some of her patients fail CBT.

This echoes my experience with CBT. [1] It turns out you can't treat autism or a brain injury with CBT as-is - but they don't screen for that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36835266

Absolutely. I use my grandmother as an example of what happens when you take family away from someone.

My grandmother lived between orphanages and an abusive mother who literally beat one of her children retarded with a frying pan.

She was determined to give her children a better life. And she did! She turned to her friends to figure out basic life skills. My mother had an idyllic childhood.

However, my grandma only knew how to survive an abusive childhood. She taught my mother to 'pretend everything is okay' when things were bad, because that's how she survived.

My mother married an angry and cruel man and had children with him - my sister and me. She pretended everything was okay as our father told us we were stupid and worthless, backing up his opinion with violence. Years later, she still doesn't understand why we are distant with her because she still lives in her fantasy world.

Now, imagine taking family away from an entire group of people. All traditions wiped out.

Thank you very much for this guide.

I don't know if this falls under your project scope, but I have a suggestion.

By default, Obsidian saves links in notes using the "shortest path" , which reduces compatibility: the links don't work in anything but Obsidian.

I found two plugins that manage relative links:

https://github.com/val3344/obsidian-update-relative-links

https://github.com/dy-sh/obsidian-consistent-attachments-and...

It's not Spotify's fault that bots exist, but is their fault that they don't care.

DeviantArt built a system that pretends bots are not a problem on the Internet...and gave them a profit motive.

> Most students are not motivated to learn the subject material.

Many students are demoralized by school because schooling doesn't bother telling kids why they are learning something.

In elementary school, when the teacher stepped into the hallway, a common complaint to hear was "what's the point of this?"

By middle and high school, the question became a mindset - "this is pointless."

I like your interpretation, and GP could be rewritten to mean that.

As it stands now:

GP responded to someone with presumably bad parents by reminding them that their parents contributed to their existence. This sets the stage for their followup advice.

Their followup statement about unconditional gratitude is either directed at this person or uses a universal 'you'. This advice cannot be applied universally, especially in cases of abuse.

The final sentence also implies that GP has found something universal: "It also takes some people way too long to realize this".

---

A lot of people say to themselves - "Of course there are exceptions!" A person's understanding of what counts as an exception is based entirely on their personal experience. Humans also tend to presume that other humans are "normal" unless given evidence otherwise: evidence also based on their personal experience.

We don't know the history of the majority of the people we meet, nor are we entitled to it. How do you determine who is an exception and who is not? It isn't feasible. GP's final sentence implies that it is.

All of these things underpin GP's comment - it's a common pattern of thinking.

I am a good person in spite of my parents.

My existence is difficult because my parents were abusive and negligent to a disabled child. My right to exist was questioned by the very people who created me.

Is there a viable path toward realizing that I am 'allowed' to feel unconditional gratitude towards my parents for existing?

I also like to have a revolving set of tasks to work on. The tasks can be related or not, but the important part is switching to a task that engages a different part of the brain - allowing the previously engaged part of the brain to rest.

One example is a physical task such as cleaning vs. a mental task such as studying. Or, taking notes (operational task) vs. organizing notes (management task).

The study looked at keeping a paper around (underlying situation: a reminder active in a workspace) vs. throwing it away (underlying situation: removing a constant reminder).

They didn't study anything in-between, such as removing the reminder without throwing it away.

I have always found analog writing to be a powerful cognitive tool.

Writing changes your thoughts from abstract to concrete - and once a thought is "out of your head" on paper, it becomes an entity that you can perform additional thought operations on (which you can then write down...etc.).

Analog writing also leaves visual evidence of your thought process across a page. Most digital writing tools allow you to make the thought process disappear completely as you work. Having evidence of your thought process allows you to evaluate your thought process. Very important in any kind of problem solving exercise.

As a child, I found that writing down a thought that bothered me made it go away and freed my brain up to do kid stuff.

Jackie Coogan suffered due to a lack of child protection laws - which still don't exist due to the strength of parent's rights in the US.

*And a working executive function system in your brain. No amount of genuine desire and motivation can fix that issue.

I live in the American South, where it is absolutely accepted by society and the law.

There is no correct meaning of the word spanking, just a spectrum of meanings.

Each instance has to be evaluated individually, because the spectrum of possible meanings is so wide.

Barcode scanners are cool. I'm working on setting up a barcode system for my personal library and then probably home inventory. Do you have any recommendations?

I found 4 used scanners for cheap (Datalogic Gryphon GD4400).

You also mention a good strategy for tackling ambiguous problems in any part of life.

10 Identify the problem factors as you currently understand them.

20 Solve simple patterns in the problem to expand your understanding.

30 GOTO 10 until complete.