I find the level hard work too, so I practice in Facebook groups :-)
(I’m older than average EAs: EA wasn’t formally an available option when I was at college.)
RayTaylor
Karma: 34
Yes that would be better.
(But be careful of sunburn, especially in the tropics and at altitude!)
The decision may be between IR melatonin and ER 5-HTP which is a precursor:
www.foodstuffs.ca/scrapbookmain/2017/5/14/5-htp-vs-melatonin
”For some people, taking melatonin will help induce and maintain sleep. However, melatonin supplements usually only work if a person has low levels of melatonin in their system (this situation is commonly found in elderly persons). In other words, if you have normal levels of melatonin, taking melatonin supplements won’t be as effective in helping you sleep.That’s where 5-HTP comes in. Since it works on serotonin as well (and indirectly on melatonin), it may be a better supplement to take for individuals with normal levels of melatonin that are suffering from insomnia. Because it interacts with serotonin, people who are already on anti-depressants or MAOIs should talk to their doctor before trying 5-HTP (melatonin, on the other hand, is generally safe to use with these other drugs when taken as directed).”
www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-taking-melatonin-and-5HTPGeneral intro to 5-HTP and uses:
www.mountsinai.org/health-library/supplement/5-hydroxytryptophan-5-htp
More than you would think—a lot from kitchen, some from (newer) furniture, some faecal matter from mites, house dust which is largely human skin, cleaning chemicals, ozone, positive ions (the bad ones) from laptops especially Macbooks, mould spores, etc.
www.blf.org.uk/support-for-you/indoor-air-pollution/causes-and-effects
www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/introduction-indoor-air-quality
but in may countries the original source of ‘household’ (indoor) air pollution is actually from outside the home:
www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-and-effects-of-indoor-air-pollution.php
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5089137
I bought two HEPA filters to help protect others during a home isolation, but I also had in mind that it would be useful afterwards!
The main effect is on training the subconscious to associate certain times of day and places with sleep, and other times/places with activity.
Being outside daytime and keeping the bedroom area for nighttime use are both known to be helpful which is why they are part of CBT sleep hygiene.
You’re right that it’s not linked to vitamin D, which is via the skin not the eye/pineal/melatonin circuit.
I find the ReTimer glasses much easier to use, £120 and portable for travelling.
Thanks for opening this topic. It’s important to realise there are different kinds of sleep problem, so different people will need different solutions:
sleep onset
(which tends to be due to stimulation too late at night; CBT sleep hygiene works well for this, if done diligently, and limiting coffee etc)early morning waking
(which tends to be due to stress-anxiety-depression or large amounts of alcohol)low sleep quality
(which can be due to a range of things but alcohol and the wrong medication is a classic cause; Mirtazapine is popular, but has long term dangers like weight gain)
In the UK, melatonin* is no longer available without prescription, only 5-HTP, which is a precursor. Is this because people tended to take dangerously large doses of melatonin? (Precursors tend to be safer, because the body can convert the amount it needs, at the right time.)
Generally fresh air is a good thing but there are caveats especially during a pandemic winter. If you pull in too much very cold air (with low absolute humidity) you can quickly go below 40% RH which is bad for the protective mucus layer of the lung & airways, and the glycans+non-IgG antibodies which are important for innate immunity.
What makes you think slightly lower CO2 or higher O2 levels are good for sleep? Isn’t the converse equally or more likely? (If not, people who live in mountain areas are in trouble! And I sleep really well in the mountains.) I have noticed that people in higher CO2 environments seem drowsy. Of course, this too may not correlate with good quality sleep!Are you defining good sleep just by duration? For more on this, search < sleep architecture CBT >
On the SAD lighting, many people find the room lighting or boxes impractical. Much easierfor some is a visor or glasses which can be worn while preparing breakfast etc. I’ve been happy with an Australian brand (www.re-timer.com/the-science/research) but there are others that may look cooler!
* https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/news/20181112/as-melatonin-use-rises-so-do-safety-concerns
https://alaskaregional.com/blog/entry/4-reasons-to-be-cautious-about-melatonin
Yes interested, have messaged.
Another good model is EIA (Environmental Investigations Agency) and their very targeted policy and action work on HCFCs, which led to the ozone-depleting gas emissions being discovered in China recently.
I think World Bank, UNDP, UNICEF, WFP and IMF have a strong incentive to help prevent future pandemics, and they have much more money to deploy than WHO.
CMU Prof Loh is working on this and has a project: novid.org
Thanks for raising this Tom.
“Dignity” is among 9-80 considerations, all of which are highly solvable.
That’s 7-80 depending how you list/categorise/boundary them …
… and Tom I’m sorry if this response appears to complicate what would otherwise be a simple pleasure-dignity duo!
Economist Manfred Max-Neef has 9 which don’t translate too well from Spanish but here they are: subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, recreation, creation, identity and freedom. In this scheme/categorisation, dignity could be part of identity, protection and freedom.
Psychologist Marshall Rosenberg has useful categories described well here, and dignity would probably be a part of autonomy, and also respect/self-respect in his “connection” category.A key distinction is between these values/needs/qualities and the strategies used to satisfy them, with travelling and money being obvious examples of a strategies that can be used to meet some (but not all) needs/values. Money is not essential to meeting any of them i.e. the needs/values/qualities and are universal, the strategies can vary according to circumstance and resources.
In the health care and therapy world, the same broad understanding of needs/values is held by Human Givens therapy.
This broader understanding of needs/values also helps explain why everyone doesn’t want to live in Denmark, or be rich, and why people do low paid and “difficult” jobs like California Conservation Corps or being a marine or a circus performer. It also helps explain why the same behaviour or item or circumstance can be very pleasing to one person and anathema to others, and also how the same thing can provoke different responses in the same person at different times.Someone asked about measurement. Fortunately Rosenberg’s needs in practice and communication produce, when met/satisfied, observable reactions, and self rating is often viable. Work has also been done measuring needs satisfaction in the categories used by Maslow in the hierarchy of needs.
Excellent post, and the timing is great!
It may be possible to support good work by WHO and others with PR as well as cash, highlighting work they do in smaller countries where pandemics could start (Laos, Liberia, LA!)
There must be specific aspects of pandemic prevention which are neglected in some places, and a nonprofit or campaigning group could make the difference?
I can imagine donations/legacies from many who died or were affected by COVID-19, so there’s no time to lose!
The growth of ALLFED.info could be a model? My first step was to find an author who wrote a book, and ALSO wanted things to happen, but you could equally pick a report from WHO or Gates or Michael Minha?
This journal could be useful:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/disaster-medicine-and-public-health-preparedness
Yes lobbying prevents charity / nonprofit registration in the USA, but advocacy doesn’t.
Does this have implications for preference utilitarianism?
I’m fine with external measures of health, income etc. My concern about most wellbeing and life satisfaction theories would be a failure to distinguish between specific desires/wants and universal needs/values. Work in psychology by Abraham Maslow and Marshall Rosenberg points to positive wellbeing coming from satisfying a rather limited but universal list of needs or values. Economist Manfred-Max Neef has assembled these into a list of just 9 needs.
This seems to me much better than a single hedonic scale or global desire rating, and it also avoids the problem of how to deal with long term issues like climate change.
Hi Alexei—I love it!
I notice I felt happier just seeing the title, so on hedonic grounds you’ve succeeded already :-)
I’m scared to mention these two additional options, but perhaps they should be there for overall completeness in a brainstorm which isn’t immediately requiring proofs on any of the options, and in a post where “Happy minds” is mentioned as an objective:
1. None of these solutions seem highly plausible, so that means we are not too far away from philosophies and concepts about immortality that are historically (but not exclusively) linked to major religions. Cultivating an “immortal soul” and going on to an “afterlife” may be high risk, and thought ridiculous by many, but on the plus side it is at least attemptable, within a single lifetime. The buddhist concept of “clear light” and “rebirth” (rather than reincarnation as in Hinduism) might also be interesting, as it doesn’t rely on the concept of a soul. See also Shankara’s “nonduality”.
NB I’m not asking or recommending anyone to “get religion” or saying religion is “true” but that their concepts sometimes find analogues in science and reality, so can be useful for brainstorming completeness, that’s all.
2. If we take a more reductionist / psychological approach and reduce the problem to …
(a) despair in the futility of doing anything in an impermanent universe or
(b) fear of death and so a desire for immortality …
… it might be worth considering despair work, distraction strategies, fear work, anti-depressants and other mind-altering strategies, so that these emotions become less problematic.
If someone suggested that these two strategies could also be psychological evasions, I’d have to agree, but maybe that applies to all of them?
The ultimate truth may turn out to be, “nothing works, and all life is doomed!” So perhaps we need ….
3. Acceptance therapy?
This has come up a lot, for example I was involved in discussions with Delhi and Seoul airport about installing a UV disinfector for baggage handling. We couldn’t get good evidence in favour, whereas the evidence for ventilation was strong. It might be useful in very clean contexts, or changing rooms, or where ventilation/hand washing is not possible. A prime concern is that UV depends on line-of-sight, and sufficient time and proximity to the UV source.
I think there is evidence that wind or ventilation is highly effective both in hospital and domestic/public settings ( see findings tab of covidinfo.info, staff safety section ) as long as not with air lower than 40% relative humidity.
Are you sure hand washing, bleach/cleaning, humidity control and maybe room ionisers wouldn’t be more reliable, effective and cheaper, perhaps in combination with ventilation?
Also, for those with high prevalence deficiencies, secondary prophylaxis with Zn, Se, D3 etc and co-factors for absorption from gut (Mg) or into cells (quercetin) could be very cost-effective, as it’s already recommended for other health reasons, especially daily vitamin D.
Considering just one of those, humidity, here are two papers and a podcast on the role of humidity in preventing infection and (surprisingly) reducing severity:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7142681/
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.11.20147157v2
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mk37
Generally, with COVID19 and its virus, whenever an article is confident about a single technical or medical fix, I have found it worth being skeptical, and interrogating the data, and comparing to other options, especially if they seem boring, unglamorous, hard work or expensive by comparison.
Hello Evelyn
At ALLFED we are wanting to use available data sources from UN, risk agencies and others to highlight vulnerability, exposure, risk and missing recovery capacity in food systems 18-24 months ahead, which gives time to build some capacity on a preparedness basis.
There is other data work to do which Prof David Denkenberger could tell you about.
Would you be interested to have a call about this?
>I like the idea of building “resilience” instead of going after specific causes.
That’s almost exactly the approach we took in ALLFED, treating the more likely GCR and Xrisk scenarios as a “basket of risks”...
… and then looking at how to build resilience and recovery capacity for all of them, with an initial focus on recovering food supply.
We now have more than 20 EA volunteers at ALLFED, in a range of disciplines from engineering to history, so clearly this makes sense to people.
>For instance, if we spend all of our attention on bio risks, AI risks, and nuclear risks, it’s possible that something else weird will cause catastrophe in 15 years.
Indeed!
Most likely a “cascading risk scenario” … (as covid is, without yet being a GCR) …
.… or what EA Matthijs Maas calls a “boring apocalypse”.
>So experimenting with broad interventions that seem “good no matter what” seems interesting. For example, if we could have effective government infrastructure, or general disaster response, or a more powerful EA movement, those would all be generally useful things.
yes the DRR (disaster risk reduction) discipline gave us structures and processes, and enabled us to bridge across to UNDRR, a profession of disaster people, insights into preparedness-response-recovery which we are scaling up to whole-continent and whole-planet scale, etc
Brilliant to raise this topic, and I like what you wrote but both diagrams are weak. For me a good diagram shows very specifically how a single change will be achieved, and shows if there is too long a chain for success to be likely.
Regardless of diagrams, we all have conscious or unconscious theories of change, and many (especially in climate change) have been useless.
The classic unconscious theory of change is:
brainy guy does research > publishes > civil servants write a policy > wise politicians decide > funds are allocated > policy is implemented well
The main weakness here is that it’s a very long chain, with many obstacles in each link.
Compare to coal industry’s ToC, which they learned from Big Tobacco:
“create confusion about climate science” + “capture Congress” > block all carbon tax proposals nationally and internationally
Good ToC for EAs involves:
selecting good and astute targets of change (whether in real world, movement or metta)
smart routes to achieving the change
updating appropriately (at a Goldilocks frequently, not too rarely to stay current, not too often to frustrate the teams doing the work)
For “natural conservatives”, this may sometimes involve finding ways of opposing harmful change, and proving that some policies are a bad idea, or need fine tuning.
Just a note that under the Sendai Process, UNDRR is now considering Xrisks, largely thanks to input from James Throup of ALLFED and Prof Virginia Murray, and will go on to consider cascading risks, sometimes called the “Boring Apocalypse” (ref EA Matthjis Maas).
I appreciate your post Brandon. I think there’s a clear case that education and being able to exit survival level of poverty and knowing that your health and your children’s education are secure enables people to focus on other things (demonstrated again in recent Basic Income research).
Development and poverty reduction is very helpful but perhaps not sufficient: response capacity and good leadership is also needed, as we have seen in the pandemic?
maybe Reddit can work in a similar way?