> Stay up late because I’m wired on caffeine and dopamine from scrolling.
I wish people didn't overuse certain terms. Dopamine has a half life of 2 minutes in the body. It can't possibly keep you up at night.
It's just the caffeine, which in turn has a half-life of several hours. Also below a certain level it's eliminated approximately exponentially, so there's a long tail of residual caffeine.
> Dopamine has a half life of 2 minutes in the body.
May be true.
But doing "rewarding" work encourages your body to emit more dopamine. Some people call it "the flow", others "hyperfocus", but it is a constant stream of dopamine that keeps you doing what you currently do. And you can interfere with the emittance and absorbtion by using caffeine.
Dopamine is more like a particular type of a transistor in a large semiconductor. What this type of a transistor does heavily depends on the area of the circuit. And it's never the only thing that's responsible for an entire high level feature, not by a mile. There are some common correlations, but that's about it.
I have never understood why people feel the need to use terms like "dopamine" in very pop culture and highly unscientific way, instead of just describing the state that they are talking about.
The other day someone told me that they "sense a high concentration of acetylcholine" in me. Thank you, I guess?
Personally, I blame Jordan Peterson. it's not that he used those terms incorrectly (he didn't). It's that the general public interpreted them in a way that went on to live a life of its own.
Fair enough if the use of “dopamine” is imprecise, but excessive screen time / doomscrolling / shitposting is definitely enough to wire you awake on its own, without caffeine.
> There’s no question that the security that you feel from not being afraid of a health issue or housing is a great comfort and helps you to be more at peace with life. It’s just not as much help as you think it should be.
At a glance the part of it that goes along the Polish coastline is largely forests growing on the sand dunes at the coast.
The experience is mixed, as while you can find amazing places like Słowiński Park Narodowy, where due to proximity to the lake and sea light pollution is low enough to behold the Milky Way, most of that section is interrupted by footpaths for beachgoers and really busy in season.
> Fading connections. If two friends go a full year without tapping phones, the link between them softens. Not a punishment — a gentle nudge that real friendships are kept alive in person, not online.
I have this guy whom I used to be in touch with but now we meet every seven years randomly - happened two times already in completely different places and we're due for a meeting this year.
I would rather maintain this connection, because it's always fascinating to catch up after years.
Not sure why that was ever the plan, as there are clearly not enough people.
Also over here, east of 15°E we were fired all the same.
I believe the plan is to quite simply "do less overall unless it's about AI", but everyone was waiting for others to start layoffs first.
I spent six months working part time and the decision makers made it clear that this is preferable for them long term. Beats getting fired, but I couldn't sustain this lifestyle - I'm frugal but not that frugal.
100 mode saved me once when I really really really needed to have a connection in that moment, but the ethernet cable glued to the wall that I was using had only three out of eight wires even functioning.
According to the technician I spoke with, he could only detect three on their end.
The cable was chewed through by cats, so perhaps it was three just in that moment.
yeah, a lot of people pinpoint the moment when it started going downhill at around 2010. re: explosion of mobile devices, i'd say the release of apple's iPhone was a key event
I wish people didn't overuse certain terms. Dopamine has a half life of 2 minutes in the body. It can't possibly keep you up at night.
It's just the caffeine, which in turn has a half-life of several hours. Also below a certain level it's eliminated approximately exponentially, so there's a long tail of residual caffeine.
reply