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I think it's also for interpersonal synchronization of the meaning of concepts, to avoid misunderstandings or conflicts. A social, instead of a personal purpose.
I believe it was due to reaching critical "mass" in communication bandwidth. More globally practical, "bettable" information being accrued than lost.
Mind, the rate of that is increasing ever since.
Not my idea, but cannot recall where I read it.
Isn't this simply because litigations happened and they just have to?
It's a bit dark, but I believe most warning labels aren't for our safety per se, but for the companies'.
Indeed, deadly extreme sports are not irrational. They are an uncheatable filter of fitness. Most modern costly signals are often skirted through luck, background or socially toxic behaviour.
Having hard evidence of one's superiority can be just the thing necessary to live a fulfilling life, instead of being locked in a stagnant cycle of constant doubt. For some, the latter is even worse than death.I'd wager people suffering from impostor syndrome rarely have anything else under their belt than safe skills.
Looks like I was wrong, impostor syndrome will still happily present itself in climbers, see gbear's counter. It even looks like it's the other way around: unfulfilled lack of self-worth fueling never-ending pursuit for achievement.
Oh no.
Now I'm reminded of all the seven grand unsolved problems in my life, and the myriad shameful issues that move nowhere. It all morphed into the greatest horror of all, total petrification through absolute hopelessness.
Now I have to slog through all the work of forgetting all but one of them to work on, ignoring how the other six progresses further than any advance I make on the one.
And I don't even have alcohol to help me because my sorry ass values learning above all.
Thanks dude!
(just kidding, I was already stuck way before I encountered this, time to go to sleep I guess. Just remember the law of equal but opposite advice :P)
I feel this falls in the error that most official medical information also falls in: Takes account of all the statistical risks and damage, but none of the benefits.
Sadly I'm just an n=1 sample, but psychedelic "over"use inoculated me to delusions to the point my beliefs (though not my emotions) are surreally stable. I don't believe I know all, but I developed a framework (much thanks to lesswrong and rationality) that is persistent even through most altered states of consciousness. No more great relevations. No feelings of going permanently and irreparably crazy. I actually miss both of them, they were very cathartic.
I did distill the lesson that LSD basically short-circuits the "true" lights very early, and compensate accordingly.
Many of these pathological patterns are actually because one glances very true things about the world, but then takes, and runs off with.
Everything IS connected to everything through causality. We do seem to live in an ever splitting multiverse. This doesn't mean we can jump around the instances, or bend spoons with out minds, no matter how much we hope we could.
Human behaviour and the world, too IS much more harsh and cruel than our normal naive notions tell us. it doesn't mean it pays out to treat every situation and every person as hostile.
Also people should realize that when they run themselves down in a stimulant binge, maybe they feel so threatened because they are in a very pitiful and vulnerable state.
I don't want to fall over the proverbial horse. Some people are just susceptible to these things in a very inherent manner and will run into them repeatedly and inescapably. The responsibility falls to others to manage these cases, as the subject will not able to.
Sorry if this feels like bashing your essay, it's my style of communication to a fault. I hope my criticism can actually used to refine your argument.
I'd like to present myself as a plus-plus result to this same phenomenon. I've became sensitized to coffee and had to drop it completely, because the results started becoming calamitous.
I have celiac disease, have some sort of intolerance to milk, even lactose free, and have strong hay fever in the late summer. An overreactive immune system, in short.
By sensitization I do not mean an exceptionally strong stimulant effect, but the sort of sensitization that develops upon repeated chronic exposure to a specific pollutant, often familiar to industrial workers. Some examples are the dust of many exotic woods, many harsh chemicals and other stuff.
When I consume coffee, I get the normal stimulating effects in about 20 minutes. Roughly an hour after imbibing the negatives start developing:
- My energy levels crash, my joints, especially my in shoulders, knees and elbows start aching and lose flexibility. I get pulled into a hunched, tense posture. My feet sometimes get painful cramps
- I become distressed, panicky and lose the ability to lead effective trains of thought.
- Work and other accidents happen at an alarming rate.
- Often I crash so hard I have to lie down to sleep, which usually lasts from the afternoon to the next morning, when I absolutely have to wake up for work.
Any kind of coffee causes these symptoms, from cheap instant nescafés through quality capsules to freshly ground roasted beans. I once got violent diarrhea and got knocked out for about 20 hours from an especially strong little cup of artisan coffee from a hipster coffee shop. My friends who drank the same had no ill effects.
I'm definitely not sensitized to caffeine. I can consume tea, chocolate, caffeine pills, even the "big bad" monster energy drinks without getting any symptoms. Too much caffeine definitely has it's negatives, but so does sugar, ever more so. For this reason I found sugar free energy drinks better instead of tea, which I drink only with sugar.
It took a noticeably long time to convince myself to drop coffee completely, even once symptoms were obvious. I acquired a good taste for it, consumed it by the mugful for many years without problems and the symptoms developed very slowly over the years.
When I'm tired and my willpower is weak, I still rarely find myself acractically accepting a cup if offered and there are no alternatives. I have an addiction to stimulants, clearly.
Other people's disbelief of this reaction also made it much more difficult than it had to be. They act very sure of themselves, as if their beliefs are more applicable than my own direct somatic and mental experience. Having in mind the Typical Mind Fallacy and the Dunning-Kruger effect helps protect against this, but I found a simple "No thanks", strictly without explanation, the wisest answer.
This report ballooned out quite much, but I hope it will be beneficial to others who find themselves in the same boat.
TL;DR: It's rare, but one can insidiously slowly develop an inflammatory reaction to some other component in coffee other than caffeine.