Why write about my mental illness 🤪

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Why write about my mental illness 🤪

Mental illness is not shameful they want you know. It’s not wrong to ask for help. Then why are people so secretive and embarrassed about it? If it’s so darn common, and doesn’t make you a bad person, then why be afraid to talk about? Isn’t it better to blow off the stigma by admitting that you have problems in your own life, but you are trying to learn and become a better person?

None of us are perfect. All of us struggle a bit on our lives, and it’s good to be honest about who you are and what you believe. I don’t think there is anything wrong with documenting where I am now and how I’m trying to improve myself and my life as I work towards a better tomorrow, through a combination of reading, watching and listening to Youtube videos, and in-person mental health counseling.

Self-introspection is a good thing. Why do I believe the things I do? Why am I so set in doing this certain ways, what are my cognitive biases? How can I overcome my biases to have a better perspective on the world? How I can become better at my presenting myself in the room, be better at taking appropriate risks? After all, there is no gain if there is no risk. Life is like markets, there is a lot of reward to taking more calculated risks and not fearing everything. A calculated risk not taken is an opportunity missed.

Most mental illness is kind of silly, as my therapist likes to point out. Whether it’s needless worry, obsessive thoughts, or risk aversion it’s mostly is non-harmful and you could probably live with it forever as you have from years past. Especially if it involves mostly low risk activities. But like an engine out of tune, you can run, but you won’t run smoothly or at peak efficiency. After all, the flywheel will keep an engine running even if it’s misfiring. That’s why it’s important to learn about my cognitive biases, and seek advice from a wide variety of trustworthy sources that can have keys to unlocking a better future.

This year seems like the time was right to finally fully address my long-term problems I’ve had with mental well-being. I have the nice corner office downtown and good salary at work. I am saving and investing, and that off-grid homestead I want is not that far in the future if I can stay the course. But I want to do better, and I can do better if I try.

Hacker ethic – Wikipedia

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Hacker ethic – Wikipedia

In addition to those principles, Levy also described more specific hacker ethics and beliefs in chapter 2, The Hacker Ethic:[11] The ethics he described in chapter 2 are:

1. "Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!"

Levy is recounting hackers' abilities to learn and build upon pre-existing ideas and systems. He believes that access gives hackers the opportunity to take things apart, fix, or improve upon them and to learn and understand how they work. This gives them the knowledge to create new and even more interesting things.[12][13] Access aids the expansion of technology.

2. "All information should be free"

Linking directly with the principle of access, information needs to be free for hackers to fix, improve, and reinvent systems. A free exchange of information allows for greater overall creativity.[14] In the hacker viewpoint, any system could benefit from an easy flow of information,[15] a concept known as transparency in the social sciences. As Stallman notes, "free" refers to unrestricted access; it does not refer to price.[16]

3. "Mistrust authority—promote decentralization"

The best way to promote the free exchange of information is to have an open system that presents no boundaries between a hacker and a piece of information or an item of equipment that they need in their quest for knowledge, improvement, and time on-line.[15] Hackers believe that bureaucracies, whether corporate, government, or university, are flawed systems.

4. "Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, sex, or position"

Inherent in the hacker ethic is a meritocratic system where superficiality is disregarded in esteem of skill. Levy articulates that criteria such as age, sex, race, position, and qualification are deemed irrelevant within the hacker community.[13] Hacker skill is the ultimate determinant of acceptance. Such a code within the hacker community fosters the advance of hacking and software development. In an example of the hacker ethic of equal opportunity,[17] L Peter Deutsch, a twelve-year-old hacker, was accepted in the TX-0 community, though he was not recognized by non-hacker graduate students.

5. "You can create art and beauty on a computer"

Hackers deeply appreciate innovative techniques which allow programs to perform complicated tasks with few instructions.[18] A program's code was considered to hold a beauty of its own, having been carefully composed and artfully arranged.[19] Learning to create programs which used the least amount of space almost became a game between the early hackers.[13]

6. "Computers can change your life for the better"

Hackers felt that computers had enriched their lives, given their lives focus, and made their lives adventurous. Hackers regarded computers as Aladdin's lamps that they could control.[20] They believed that everyone in society could benefit from experiencing such power and that if everyone could interact with computers in the way that hackers did, then the hacker ethic might spread through society and computers would improve the world.[21] The hackers succeeded in turning dreams of endless possibilities into realities. The hacker's primary object was to teach society that "the world opened up by the computer was a limitless one" (Levy 230:1984)[13]

NPR

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An Israel-Based Firm’s Spyware Was Found On Activists’ Phones : NPR

They include 189 journalists, more than 600 politicians and government officials, at least 65 business executives, 85 human rights activists and several heads of state, according to The Washington Post, a consortium member. The journalists work for organizations including The Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde and The Financial Times.

Amnesty also reported that its forensic researchers had determined that NSO Group's flagship Pegasus spyware was successfully installed on the phone of Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, just four days after he was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The company had previously been implicated in other spying on Khashoggi.

NPR

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Biden Revives An Effort To Change How The U.S. Census Asks About Race : NPR

President Biden's White House is reviving a previously stalled review of proposed policy changes that could allow the Census Bureau to ask about people's race and ethnicity in a radical new way in time for the 2030 head count, NPR has learned.

First proposed in 2016, the recommendations lost steam during former President Donald Trump's administration despite years of research by the bureau that suggested a new question format would improve the accuracy of 2020 census data about Latinos and people with roots in the Middle East or North Africa.

The proposals also appear to have received the backing of other federal government experts on data about race and ethnicity, based on a redacted document that NPR obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The document lists headings for redacted descriptions of the group's "recommended improvements," including "Improve data quality: Allow flexibility in question format for self-reported race and ethnicity."