Vouched, because this was going to be my counterpoint as someone who had the same circumstances as the grandparent.
Despite the enormously heinous stuff I've seen on that site, it has made me a better writer, developed my critical thinking skills, and given me a perspective on the world and its people that wouldn't have existed without.
It also introduced me to many different things and developed my taste beyond measure.
The massive downside, that I suspect the grandparent still wrestles with, is integrating all of depravity of humankind into a coherent world view without falling into cognitive dissonance between the idealized and constructed world with an onslaught of information on the actual reality of it.
It's sort of like looking into the Epstein files and having to decide one's reaction to them:
- crushed by despair at the state of things leading to nihilism and depression
- deciding to ignore it all, and continuing to go on about one's life without integrating it
- acceptance, normalization, and corruption
- a secret fourth option that reaffirms you, using that news as fuel for whatever ends in the hope you can improve the world even if just a little bit, despite how ugly it is
Should 4chan or something similarly extreme be recommended reading for children/adolescents to understand the horrors of the world then?
I would bet that some young people will be as reflective and independently minded as you were to integrate the material into their experience and be better off for it. Some (like me, because I was thin-skinned) won't and it will stress them out or traumatize them instead. Does that make them lesser human beings for not being capable of bettering themselves from seeing the unfiltered truth on their own?
For all the benefit of 4chan, and I do say there is some benefit only after having grown into an adult with better critical thinking skills and years of therapy, it self-selects for a certain type of poster capable of lurking enough, following the norms and having a thick skin. Not everyone will clear that bar and it's unreasonable to think that all young people will turn out like yourself having immersed themselves in it. Some could end up wasting a lot of time baited into petty arguments, or worse.
Background: I work for a PE-owned company and I have friends in PE (associates up to MDs).
On your second point: LBOs aren't the only tool in the toolkit, and it's not as popular as it was decades ago, so I would lean towards the parent simply conflating "buying an ownership stake in a business in some capacity using other people's money" with the strict definition. Regardless, yes PE firms need to figure out how to get 20%+ IRR throughout a short timeframe (usually a 5 year holding/funding cycle) -- however this is through any means necessary. Philosophically, it's about increasing efficiency of operations and growing the business. In practice, it's financial engineering because PE firms do not have the operational skills to make any value-added changes to firms besides driving costs down.
Saddling a business with debt is reductionist. I've seen absolutely nonsensical financial structures that make no sense for a layman, but in practice end up "using the business' finances to 'own' (beneficially) the business" (see: at the most vanilla, the strategy of seller financing in SMBs). No this is not technically "putting debt on the books" but it is in all practical respects a novation/loan transfer that can leave the purchased co financially responsible for servicing any debt that was used in its purchase.
On your third point: what I wrote above can be used as context. It's not risk free revenue, frankly it's very risky unless you're in an inflationary environment where your assets will grow regardless of your business operations solely because the overarching economy is growing and you're riding a tailwind. However, it again boils down to financial engineering. It's not as simple as assets - liabilities = equity. The calculations used to determine valuations are so ridiculously convoluted. The amount of work that goes into financially analyzing businesses and finding "loop holes" that can justify higher prices is the core business model. The debt factors into it, but there's ways to maneuver around it through various avenues.
For example:
* debt-to-equity conversions (reclassification of debt as equity)
* refinancing
* sale-leaseback (selling company's assets to a 3rd party and using that money to pay down the debt, then leasing the equipment back)
* creative interpretations of what is actually debt (e.g. reclassifying real debt as a working capital adjustment or a "debt-like")
* dividend recapitalization (a nasty trick of loading the company with debt, paying that out as a dividend to the holdco, then selling the company at lower enterprise value. They still extracted value for their LPs/investors, despite the exit being lower)
* separating the debt from the operating company into a different holding company that services the debt
Terms of art exist, and none of these are unknown terms to people in the field. Jargon is specifically used to communicate certain ideas without defining each and every single term. If you were in an aerospace field and people started talking about various types of engines and propellers, you'd be expected to know what it means, but for some reason people think computing and UX is somehow different, as if a lay person should perfectly understand it without learning any new terms.
Sign-up friction: how much effort it takes to sign up; many times because it's hard to find the sign up page or the page itself has too many steps
Bounce rate: a bounce is someone visiting your site and not signing up. A bounce rate is the amount of people that do this compared to sign ups
Touchpoints: things a user interacts with, like a landing page, a nav bar with a sign up button, the sign up page itself, forms on that page, etc.
Bloat: too much "stuff" that is unnecessary towards some end goal like too much copywriting on the landing page, or too complex of a sign up flow, etc.
This isn't snark, but this is all industry standard terminology.
One of my best friends is a philosophy grad, and another is a very intelligent financier. What we've come to realize is that speaking and writing and making arguments is fruitless. You either have had the embodied experiences to recognize a statement is directionally correct -- to various magnitudes -- or you don't.
No amount of words will change that.
It is my experience -- after seeing the quality of thinking from those philosophically trained (I am not) -- that learning philosophy is learning how to think, and by extension figuring out for oneself what is capital g Good.
Morals and ethics are different and you conflate them. That is the crux of your confusion. Someone can understand morality inherently without ever thinking about it; but ethics requires actual intentional thought over years and years of reflecting on lived experience. What is good for you and your small circle can be grasped intuitively, but to grasp what is good "at scale" must be reasoned about. Without having seriously grappled with this, one is liable to have simplistic views, and in many cases hold views that have already been trodden through and whose "holes" have been exposed and new routes taken in unveiling ethics.
Without seriously having interfaced with it, it's like talking to someone about the exercise science when all they know is do steroids, lift weight, and eat. Sure, that works, but it lacks nuance and almost no thought has gone into it.
Anyway, this is tiring. Philosophical discussions are not something to do with strangers. It requires intimacy and is a deeply personal conversation one should have with those close to them and explore together.
> Someone can understand morality inherently without ever thinking about it;
How so? This would infer some universal set of morality, which doesn't exist.
> Anyway, this is tiring. Philosophical discussions are not something to do with strangers.
I think it's tiring because you view ethics and morality as a box that thinking has to happen in. But it's not. Ethics and morality can be anything (as we've seen through human history).
Can you share your longitudinal anecdata? I am considering going back on AAS for the QoL benefits, but would like to create a better mental model of long-term ramifications for testicular health.
It's my understanding that 40, it simply is expected that your hormones levels will be much lower (and that is not necessarily a bad thing). However my mind is failing to grasp what long-term damage TRT can do to the HPTA when not using an obscene amount of gear and on HCG.
Trying to figure out the mechanism. Perhaps receptor desensitization and epigenetic compensatory changes?
As an experienced polysubstance researcher, that's not exactly accurate.
TRT cessation does not inherently cause men to have suppressed hormone levels after. With precautions and extra steps like HCG to maintain leydig cell/testicular function, preventing atrophy, one may safeguard against that risk.
Coming off TRT, yes you will have lower levels as your HPTA has been suppressed by exogenous hormones. One may speed up this recovery using "PCT" (post cycle therapy), which involves taking a SERM (selective estrogen receptor modulator, e.g. enclomiphene) to resensitize and restart your HPTA. However this is not always necessary, and if one takes a look at the HARLEM study, most users return to their baseline levels within a year of going cold turkey.
In the cases of true permanently lowered levels of hormones, I believe the two most common reasons are: using other AAS besides testosterone (1) and lifestyle or health factors that correlate with the need to be on TRT (2).
With 1, this can be seen in users of decadurabolin (deca), which notoriously has hormone receptor active metabolites that last around for atleast a year, continuously suppressing the system. Or trenbolone (tren/cattle bulking hormone) which is inherently neurally and endocrinically otherwise toxic.
With 2, you hop on TRT because there is some reason your hormones are not at healthy levels. Whatever the reason is, it is still there, and once you've stopped bandaiding the issue its effects resurface.
---
I have also used many GLP-1s (semaglutide, tirzepatide, and retatrutide). No there is no off-ramp, but the only effects I've noticed are a return to my baseline of appetite, and neurological state.
N.B. GLP-1s are good for impulse and behavioral disorders like ADHD, which it did help. However, I have decided to not take it due to the negative effects on personality and reward seeking behavior.
They are neuro-active in the brain, and their effects I've decided are not worth it.
Thank you for the info on the TRT, I was getting a little worried reading some of the other comments. I'm getting on it due to years of low testosterone. I'm also getting on Zepbound due to years of obesity. The two may be linked, but I need help controlling my appetite and reducing my fatigue.
They're good kickstarts/spark plugs for your use-case.
The obesity likely is the main culprit-- if I had to guess. Fat stores act as sites for testosterone to be aromatized to estrogen -- so if your E2 is elevated that would be a marker.
This reasoning is not flowing through for me. It feels like you are saying:
1. There is an off ramp for TRTs but some people have, “true permanently lowered levels of hormones.”
2. For GLP-1s, “there is no off-ramp, but the only effects I’ve noticed are a return to my baseline.”
To clarify my original post, I consider the ability to return to baseline to mean there is an off-ramp and permanently impacted to mean there is no off-ramp.
1. Yes, but that is not -- to the best of my understanding-- because of TRT itself
2. Yes
There is no "off ramp" for GLP-1s in my experience, because the off ramp is so insignificant to not worth a mention. You just don't take another dose after a week has passed from the previous one, and you're back to baseline. Same way there is no off ramp on taking aspirin -- just don't take it.
> GLP-1s are good for impulse and behavioral disorders like ADHD
As someone diagnosed with ADHD, I wasn't aware of this (although I haven't had reason to research GLP-1's). Is this just your N=1 or an effect proven in studies?
Having done the research myself, it seems to be biofilms that the bacteria create leading to a "dormant" yet still metabolically active state that releases inflammatory byproducts throughout the body.
The recommended course of action seems to be disulfiram to bust those biofilms + antibiotics to finally kill it all off.
In my understanding (from some years back when I was researching this myself), Lyme takes multiple forms, and in some phase in their life cycle are able to hide inside red blood cells. Antibiotics work only for some of the forms.
Agree. There are probably more than a million tiny contextual data points that make a person look at something (whether it’s a tech product or a musician) and go: “cool, man.”
But those millions of data points can (rarely, briefly,) coalesce around a product or company, even though that’s mostly out of the control of those building the product or company.
EG if you asked someone in 1965 if a Jaguar E-Type was cool, or someone in 2000s London whether the Fruityloops DAW was cool, they’d say “yeah”.
I’m mostly agreeing, and it’s a super minor point, but tech specs are part of the unknowable, constantly-shifting constellation of symbols that produce “cool”, and there isn’t a reason an Apple product couldn’t, in the future, align the stars. They did before! The white iPod earbud wire did, briefly, signify cool.
Despite the enormously heinous stuff I've seen on that site, it has made me a better writer, developed my critical thinking skills, and given me a perspective on the world and its people that wouldn't have existed without.
It also introduced me to many different things and developed my taste beyond measure.
The massive downside, that I suspect the grandparent still wrestles with, is integrating all of depravity of humankind into a coherent world view without falling into cognitive dissonance between the idealized and constructed world with an onslaught of information on the actual reality of it.
It's sort of like looking into the Epstein files and having to decide one's reaction to them:
- crushed by despair at the state of things leading to nihilism and depression
- deciding to ignore it all, and continuing to go on about one's life without integrating it
- acceptance, normalization, and corruption
- a secret fourth option that reaffirms you, using that news as fuel for whatever ends in the hope you can improve the world even if just a little bit, despite how ugly it is
And so on.
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