I’ve cut off all family and friends for a long period of time now, and discontinued my career/work after finally reaching a cynical point of no return a few years ago. My only interactions at this point are with food service workers at the store or coffee shop, or other shopping/errands. Perhaps this is a variant of Hikikomori. In fact, the characteristics of one for me are essentially spot on, except that I’m more of a shut-out (in public alone often).
I’ve given away my retirement and am preparing for suicide. I’m not in search of advice nor assistance regarding my situation. I smile in public, but inside I’m meditating in preparation for the unknown void of the afterlife. There are almost certainly many others like me.
For a long time, I wondered if it were possible for people to treat each other better and whether that would have changed anything for me. The reality is that I was unequipped to build a healthy place in society because I decided a long time ago that I hated being alive and hated people. It’s my own shortcoming, and suicide is a valid way to remove a weak seed from the gene pool, if not controversial or taboo in Western society. My understanding is that it’s not as frowned upon in Japan but not sure if that is still the case.
Reading this with my morning coffee, it sure hits hard. I feel for your situation, comrade! I don't have any advice, just wanted to share my experience if you happen to read this.
I've been a Hikikomori, more or less all my life, maybe with autistic tendencies. The thing is, I'm one of the happy ones - like a stray cat who's been taken in by a kind home. It's been fortunate that the condition evolved into a socially acceptable form, with a healthier balance of inside/outside, self/world. But I was very lucky in terms of family, work, relationships, and life could have dealt me with a tougher hand - so much of it was due to "chance".
The word Hikikomori breaks down into 引く (hiku: to pull) and 篭る (komoru: to be confined, to shut oneself up, to hide). This latter word contains some psychological insight, and there's even some positive aspects to "komoru".
One of the meanings is, during war, to go inside one's castle and fight from a protected space. So it's a strategy in a hostile situation.
Another meaning is, to voluntarily withdraw from the world and retreat into a temple, for spiritual search and contemplation.
There's no blame or judgement, it's a personal decision and stance, and there are many ways to go forward. There are people who care about you (or would, if you reach out).
Despite our imperfections, societal/civilizational immaturity - I hope you find healing somehow, to rediscover that it's possible to love being alive, to love people, to love the world. If all that fails, at least I wish that you find peace in your heart.
I know you're not looking for advice, so I'm not going to preach too hard at you, except to say that I recognize the somber lucidity of your tone, and I've been there. Depression's heaviest weapon is that it feels like the heaviest truth. It's a bit like being in a room within a room. If nothing outside can be perceived from within the walls, does it matter that it exists?
I was surprised when I got out – I was sure it couldn't happen to me either. I didn't even realize it was happening to me until months in. Lots of things that I thought were concrete facts about myself and the world turned out to be configurable in ways I was ill equipped to predict until they happened.
There was no secret or epiphany or "one weird trick". I mostly did this by pretending as if being were worthwhile. I wasn't interested in anything that happy, normal people were interested in, like meeting new people or wearing clean clothes. But my crude mental model of those people had enough fidelity to imitate them, at least somewhat. So I did, in earnest. Eventually the mask became the face. We are what we repeatedly do. I lost about 6 years before I started doing that, and it took about another 6 to 9 months before I noticed that anything had changed.
Take LSD or mushrooms before you go. Not because it will make you no longer be suicidal, but because it is one of the most powerful experiences that you can achieve in this universe. To die without such experience, is incredible tragedy, especially for someone with your perspective. It also may inform you of ways you can optimize your impact on departure, given your reasoning about being a 'weak seed'.
Telling someone with mental issues to take strong psychotropic drugs for the first time, without anyone to keep an eye of them is one of the most retarded things I've heard in a long time.
Sorry, I'm not trying to be argumentative or anything, I'm just trying to understand your point of view.
The way I see it is if he's made up his mind, then there are really three possible outcomes by suggesting drugs: 1. best case, he feels better, yay! 2. worst case, it makes him worse, he kills himself, but was going to do so anyway. :( 3. he has an interesting experience before the end.
I don't see any ethical issues with suggesting something that if it goes wrong, leads to the same outcome as not doing anything. To me, it seems like he has everything to gain and nothing to lose. I'd like to hear your opposing view, though, so I can understand where the flaw in my reasoning is, if there is one.
Because you do not know how the trip will impact him. It could be that he self-harms in a way which only makes things permanently worse. It could be that he hurts others during the trip.
There are so many factors which could go badly wrong that it is (in my opinion) unethical to suggest this is a good approach.
What if they took some precautions, eg someone was with them to make sure that they don't do any harm (to themselves or others)? People generally recommend that one take psychedelics with a sitter, after all. Or is the concern also about their mental state in the coming days/weeks/however long after the trip?
Don't backtrack yourself. The day I took shrooms was the day I understood my place in the grand organism and the true power unto a god that each person has in their potential and the only inhibitor is how willing they are to confront that level of their own power. I only continue to understand myself and those around me, and how to forge my life to its fullest with every instance I take entheogens.
I have very little respect for hand-wringing types like those above. All it does is plant undue anxiety in a mind that could easily be calm waters. I could go so far as to say I loathe them. But I'm trying hard to see this person's point.
Also, I can't believe I'm becoming active after years again to infodump this. But I can only hope the original parent sees it and knows they're not alone.
Edit to be abundantly clear: Entheogens did nothing short of saving my life. And it has since only been an upward trend. To the extent that I hilariously enough stopped coffee after a powerful experience forced me to observe just what such things can do to anxiety and blood pressure and the like. On an intimate level akin to detached observation from outside a lab. Except one's own mind.
Oh spare me. Not only do I not care to debate pseudo-intellectually in this fashion but my sample size is far beyond myself. Once again, cold cynicism doesn't make you cool. No more than unsubstantiated idealism.
Oh, I’m not backtracking. I personally don’t have any issues with it, I was just trying to understand where AlegedAlec draws the line.
I’ve personally been what some people might call “careless” with drugs in the past, in that I maybe wasn’t the most mentally stable and I’ve taken drugs when others would have warned me not to (eg while depressed) and I personally feel like they helped me through it. Ketamine especially has made a huge difference, even in very small doses, although in large doses it gave me this overwhelming and lasting sense of connectedness with the world. Since I spent a lot of my life struggling with loneliness (and not for lack of friends or people around me), that really really helped me.
I feel you re. integration and connectiveness. I do not envy you for having issues. But I can say that if I waited until I wasn't "depressed" (what does this mean in the wider scope of our stories we tell each other? When you can't know good without the bad? I think we're all depressed else we wouldn't know happiness) I likely would have dropped off a chair instead of dropping some caps and stems.
You have to understand where these mental hangups are coming from sometimes. And it is my most sincere hope the OP can see what all of us are trying to say before letting the abyss take them. I so hope they know we've felt it pulling. Even if they aren't interested in drugs in the least I hope they know they're not alone in any of this.
I'm not a bad enough dood to explore much of these new drugs. Mostly experienced in the classic 3 and once DMT (hope to again someday when I figure out how to make the rig work). But from what I've seen in this thread and vague posts in the past it seems like ketamine offers a very empathic experience.
I'll never forget the day I figured out how to cry again, cry healthily, thanks to these things. Like a ghost of all my missing emotions I sloughed off in the distant past came back to me. It is wonderful.
And can people please, please stop the senseless cynicism in this subthread. I'm being reminded why I stopped posting on HN. No matter what your personal position is. It is ultimately irrelevant to this OP and the energy you're putting into handwringing can easily be put into reminding them of the fact that they are not alone. There's someone right there with them and sharing in it for one reason or another. And we all have a responsibility to take care of them in the same way we do our better selves.
If only mentally healthy people took psychedelic drugs, almost nobody would take psychedelic drugs. There is no true answer to who should take them. Even those who seem healthiest among us now could break under the mental strain of these drugs. And those who seem most mentally unhealthy could stand to benefit the most. And to assume that suicidal thoughts equates to someone being dangerous is just as “retarded” as calling the idea of this person taking psychedelic drugs “retarded”.
Thank you, I was going to upvote you and leave it at that. But I can't help but say that listening to hand-wringing busy bodies like the individual above was why I was in a prescription, broken minded hell for 7 years straight before the moment of pure eureka that the entheogenic experience can bring.
They certainly do not help folks like the original poster already prone to anxiety and in need of warm comfort rather than cold cynicism.
I will never understand why people fear that which they do not understand. The more I learn the nature of fear - lies that we tell ourselves and each other - the more I have a distaste for them.
I normally wouldn't recommend it, because, while the good trips are profoundly amazing, I've also heard of some pretty bad ones and unless you have some experience with psychedelics and have good mental health, it can be a traumatic experience, but since the guy has already decided he wishes to die, maybe it doesn't matter.
I personally find Ketamine quite therapeutic, at any dose. The recent research suggests it may be effective as an antidepressant, although I guess its still too early to say for sure that its a good long term medication (and of course, self-medicating is never a great idea).
(Of course, for anyone reading this, please do your own research before doing any drug and be safe!)
I appreciate your honesty. I can also sometimes hate people, I think that like any other resource, once you have too much of “people” it loses its value.
I don’t believe we are some sacred animal. It feels like many of us, myself included, will just be a net negative to the planet. We are born, we pollute and destroy then we multiply.
Not everyone is meant for living in a society. I don’t believe this makes you a “weak seed” at all.
Not giving advice, just stating a fact, but it was in nature that I found a spiritual connection and a slight purpose. Sure if I was a genius and could contribute major scientific discoveries, purpose would be forthcoming.
Alas I’m not. However leaving nature in a better state when I’m gone, in quiet solitude, doesn’t take a genius or much money or even time.
I have a very selfish, impolite, and presumptuous request: Your perspective on life in general is very different than mine, and it is clear from this post you are a capable communicator. I would love to listen/read as much more as you're willing to share, written or recorded. I respect if that amount is zero, and realize this is a very selfish request to ask that a piece of you stick around.
A few weeks ago, I was really depressed. I had exactly the same thoughts. I didn’t want to leave my place or meet with friends. After taking magic mushrooms, I feel FAR better. It’s a bit strange to explain but even if I still have these negative thoughts, it’s harder to obsess about them like before. You should also check ketamine treatments if you’re in the US.
Ok fine. Just google Ketamine + depression out of curiosity.
I think I’m the one that understands you the most here. I still think I have terrible genes, that I shouldn’t procreate and that I’m a failure.
But, a few weeks ago, I couldn’t leave my place for 6 months. After a big mushroom trip, I feel far better. When you are depressed, sometimes you need chemicals to stop the negative loop.
Some guys, after going to war, have terrible PTSD. Ketamine was the only way.
If I wanted to die, I would at least try to have some fun with drugs before ;).
If you weren't seeking help why are you here telling us? Perhaps you would like help but don't know how to ask for it, or are ashamed, or have another dumb reason.
Talk to someone, you obviously have something to say. Even if it does nothing at least someone will hear your story.
>If you weren't seeking help why are you here telling us?
I feel that's a very presumptuous and patronising thing to say. People leave suicide notes not because they want help, but because they want people to understand what they're going through. We yearn for this sort of intellectual connection even after the wish to stay alive has disappeared.
Just leaving a point of view and something for the digital archaeologists to dig up down the road. Truly I hate being alive and I hate this species. I suspect many hikikomori feel the same way
I agree that "hell is other people" as Satire put it, and have often felt as you do. I often still feel as you do. I decided to not let the bastards win some time ago.
I won't tell you what to do but I do know that victory is much sweeter than the endless black, and it is within your grasp should you choose it.
Farewell fellow traveler, it would please me to encounter you again someday.
Edit: I also have enjoyed the work of Dr. Peterson as the other commenter stated. I second the recommendation. He is why I continue to fight.
* Referring to someone in the third person while in their (virtual) presence comes across as rude.
* It is incredibly irresponsible to bring up illegal drug use at all.
* Saying someone has “mental issues” who is describing their choice to withdraw and plan suicide long term is always a poor choice of words. It’s counterproductive at best, and destructive at worst. If you’re going to summarize someone’s problems in this case, perhaps “consciously chosen socially maladaptive behavior” is a better euphemism.
To these opinions, did you think maybe I (or someone in this case like me) just decided long ago that I don’t like getting picked on? Ever think an algorithm can be a far worse bully than a scumbag teenager telling a classmate explicitly to kill themselves? Ever think that people try to hurt others and drive them to suicide intentionally with the intent on getting away with it? Ever see what scumbags on reddit or dark parts of the internet can do to a person behind their back? Ever think that you don’t know shit, and that you’re assuming I haven’t touched the universe long ago with your precious lysergic spiritual dimethyl horse tranquilizer bullshit?
You want to summarize “him” as having “mental issues”, fine. But you have a long way to go towards understanding the truth about the extent to which it’s possible to pick on a person to the point where they are worn down to a little nub, and simply give up.
The only reason I’m disclosing this is to help the species deal with people like me. I’m not seeking your advice or help, as stated. Some people have thick skins or learn to grow one. I never wanted to grow a thick skin. I wanted to die from before age 10 and I gave up then after considering the mechanisms of humanity. Hopefully the decades of data that I’ve generated since then will be a useful towards improving how people treat each other — via responsible use of technology.
Again, I don’t like this species and I don’t like being alive. Take that as you will. All will be revealed to a grand AI sooner or later, largely affected by the extent of non post quantum pcaps being quietly stashed away at an exponentially growing rate.
You're clearly a good writer, able to express your thoughts eloquently.
But I am not comfortable with letting someone plan to kill themselves without being sure that person is making a reasonable decision. And when it comes to ending your life, you need to be more than sure, so it's worth checking with someone experienced with this.
I hope the HN moderators can do something. I don't think this is like any other comment on HN that everyone can just send out a witty or bold remark in response to.
> suicide is a valid way to remove a weak seed from the gene pool
The smartest people are always full of doubt. The fact that you can express yourself in coherent sentences without any grammar mistakes makes you already part of the better half of humanity. Besides if you don't procreate you are already removed from the gene pool. No suicide required.
> I’m meditating in preparation for the unknown void of the afterlife.
Be aware that being alive is the only way to experience anything in the universe. When you are dead there will be nothing. There will be no afterlife. Even being a passive observer is preferable to not existing at all. Believing in an afterlife makes it all so easy.
> I’m not in search of advice nor assistance regarding my situation.
Thoughts like the ones you are expressing are very common among people with severe depression. All caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. You have to get your shit together. You owe it to your family and friends. What you are doing and planing to do is in fact incredibly selfish. There are many ways to successful get out of this.
If you hate people, why do you care to remove a weak seed from the gene pool? In any case, that would also be accomplished by simply not procreating.
My own recipe against suicidal thoughts is that life is very short anyway. There is little point in shortening it artificially (unless you are in significant pain because of health problems, perhaps).
In stark difference to pretty much almost everyone who replied to you, I'll say: Kudos.
It takes courage and a strong will to see through this world for what it is and go against social and biological conditioning. It is amusing to me that the peddlers of psychedelics haven't really grasped what awaits them. Maybe they haven't taken enough psychedelics themselves. It is also amusing to see people cling to Jordan Peterson and proclaim:
"Brainwash yourself into conformance! I did it! You can do it too!"
> The reality is that I was unequipped to build a healthy place in society because I decided a long time ago that I hated being alive and hated people. It's my own shortcoming,
Why is it your shortcoming? Presumably if you decided you hated people and being alive, it's because people treated you bad.
> For a long time, I wondered if it were possible for people to treat each other better and whether that would have changed anything for me.
Physiologically, there's comfort in knowing that your community and government has your back. Increased depression rates, mental health issues rising, and social isolation is a result of living in a Neo-liberal multicultural society. Living in this society where your personal value is based from how much you earn gives arise to a vapid nihilistic existence. When your government doesn't back its residents and its culture, and is forced to belong to everyone to appease international corporations. You can't even feel loyal to organizations that once paid you, or your country you grew up in.
This might sound like a hard left wing or right wing rant. But a feeling of belonging (either to companies, nations, or relgion) is important for many people. This is disappearing from western society.
I'm guessing most of it. Was giving them $5k / month, turned it off... zero effect. Other than no more traffic from Romanian blogs that were always 404.
Out of our top 10 traffic sources, at least half were fraud from our Google spend. The other half was legit Google searches.
I disagree. I manage a few small (<$10k/month campaigns) and Google is constantly advising bad moves. They recommend networks I’ve repeatedly turned off. They recommend geographic regions where I don’t operate. They recommend keyword combinations that have nothing to do with my site.
The default recommendations from AdWords are always bad for me and always very much more expensive. If I just accepted their recommendations and then their recommendations to up ad spend, I would easily pay 10x.
Maybe google is good for everyone but me. But maybe google just makes recommendations in their interest instead of mine.
Even with close attention, I find that I have to walk the line to not screw up because Google is trying to trick me. I feel similarly about Facebook’s changing privacy stuff. Like it’s me against the firm.
I've never had a consultation with one of Google's reps where the suggestion didn't increase my spend, while giving a worse ROI. At this point, I don't believe it's incompetence, it's systematic malice.
But I wasn't talking about using any of Google's suggestions, by phone or their automated recommendations. I was just referring to simple a/b testing and systematic use of negative keywords and fine-tuning settings.
11pm-5am is universally disabled for all my campaigns for example. My customer base simply isn't awake and buying at these times, because they have jobs. This alone dropped ad spend by 25% while only reducing conversions by 5%.
Not to mention that they repeatingly shows ads that I have taken the time to click "Not interested" on, to which they have answered "We'll try not to show you this ad again."
They either lie or they have just failed badly so far.
So some poor smuck - or rather a wealthy owner of a number of scammy sites - is getting fleeced, month by month, as AdWords keeps insisting on insulting me by suggesting my current family isn't good enough.
Hah! I get way more traffic and conversions by advertising about $150/month through Craigslist. I tried spending that much a day with AdWords, with all the targeting and settings fine tuned to my market, but never reached the quality traffic I get through the classified advertising.
There’s a difference between a campaign with bad quality scores or bad conversion rates with a campaign that basically fails to attract any humans at all while still spending a great deal of money.
The former requires a huge amount of knowledge and talent which is highly valuable. The latter should be able to be taken for granted, but in actuality is the most important thing to guard against.
And our competitors imitated us, and poured even more into it because they didn't have our Google rank and likely didn't understand how to look for bad "traffic". So in a tiny niche of e-commerce Google was taking in at least $30/k a month, probably much more.
Spy vs recruited asset/“public interest” spokesperson/super bowl ring in human form. Not equivalent. Recruit could believe he’s helping global public.
Arrogant enough to leave breadcrumbs about how he didn’t take the “really damaging stuff” which would have increased the chance of a kinetic reaction. What can you get away with? Seem like you’re the good guy exposing weaknesses while attempting to claim no damage
Snowden handed over blueprints to global spying operations. It’s not an exaggeration to say that shtf since then. He’s a Russian operative at this point, if not premeditated
Honestly he could have just flown to “His” destination instead of HK she’ll game. He’s so careful yet he just goes public while still in HK? Haphazard disclosure like that doesn’t match his careful nature
Snowden committed treason. Act of war, full stop
You don’t credit the person who torched your imperfect building to the ground with forcing you to build a better building, placing you in some ways at a long term strategic disadvantage relative to your adversaries who are running with those blueprints
Despite the unnecessary tone, nothing stated seems likely to be false. It seems likely that adversaries would have adjusted their methods based on Snowden’s disclosures. Which parts seem unlikely?
It would be incredibly surprising for such a device to be created in secret. Moreover, there are versions of public key encryption that can not be broken by a quantum computer.
Makes sense. There would probably need to be a kind of intellectual hoarding and misdirection amongst leading academics in quantum computing research. Yet one would have to assume such research does take place in private by governments.
Does signal use the quantum-proof variety of encryption?
The problem is that the largest QCs that we know of in the public are so ridiculously weak that I find it incredibly improbable that any government is anywhere close to having large enough QCs to break anything.
The largest QCs are on the order of tens of qubits, but in order to run Shor's algorithm (to break RSA, or the discrete-log equivalent to break Diffie-Hellman) you need hundreds or thousands of stable qubits -- and the current generation of qubits are unstable. You can make stable qubits out of unstable ones by using error correction, but that requires you to have ~1000 unstable qubits to make one stable qubit. So there's at least 5-6 orders of magnitude separating the current state-of-the-art and when classic public-key crypto will be broken.
> Does signal use the quantum-proof variety of encryption?
No, there is currently no trusted post-quantum encryption (though the real issue is finding a replacement for public-key crypto because that seems to be the weakest link where quantum computers appear to have the most power). It's being worked on but is a very new field. In addition most post-quantum systems require keys that are kilobytes or even gigabytes in size (elliptic curve keys are tens of bytes). djb (a very well-known cryptographer) and his colleagues give quite a few talks about this[1].
Funnily enough it appears that elliptic curves (which are harder for classic computers to break, and can be easier for classic computers to compute safely) are actually easier for QCs to break because the key sizes are so much smaller (meaning that fewer qubits are required).
No, nobody uses quantum-proof encryption yet (usually called post-quantum encryption). Google and others have experimented with it for https and it worked fine, but nothing is deployed yet and standardization has barely began. So if someone records your traffic today, they will be able to decrypt it in a couple of decades.
> Google and others have experimented with it for https and it worked fine
To be clear, Google didn't experiment with actually using post-quantum crypto. Their experiment was to figure out what was the largest key sizes that browsers and networks would accept before you start degrading connections. Their "post-quantum keys" were just padding bytes. This was gone through in the Bernstein and Lange talk this year at 35C3[1]. This is a good thing, given the history of the security of post-quantum candidates[2].
Sorry, I must have left out private entities, which led to downvotes. Snowden is likely to have caused an exodus of hoarded intent of knowledge towards private global interests, away from governments. So the quantum race, then, would be going on behind the scenes with both private and public interests.
How hard will it be to switch to post quantum encryption globally once it’s clear publicly that there’s at least a proof of concept for a quantum decryption supercomputer? How do you differentiate between cloned 210 iq babies in massive underground communities (as an example) working on decades in the future tech, and safeguards amongst the destructive forces of the powerful hegemonic incumbency. There’s an applicable abstraction here, generally, about containing superior intelligence, whether artificial or biological. I do believe recent Star Trek movie touched upon this
> How hard will it be to switch to post quantum encryption globally once it’s clear publicly that there’s at least a proof of concept for a quantum decryption supercomputer?
In theory switching could be "simple" but depends very strongly on what post-quantum algorithms we end up with. If we have a good replacement for Diffie-Hellman (the current candidate appears to CSIDH[1]) then you could replace effectively everything with it because the protocols could be left unchanged. The keys might be a bit larger but who cares.
However, if there is no safe Diffie-Hellman replacement then we'll need to change our protocols to accommodate the new crypto. Symmetric-key crypto appears to be mostly safe (Grover's Algorithm can only provide a square-root improvement and so we can just double our key sizes to 256 or 512 bit) so we only need to fix the public-key part, and can work on replacing the rest later.
Anything that forces adversaries to have novel (let alone sci-fi) technology instead of a warrant is a huge win. Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I’ve often wondered if it’s possible to induce psychosis and symptoms of schizophrenia in a subject via environmental conditioning. This seems practical to test these days, given the expanse of information possessed by large tech companies, and their lack of regulation. Perhaps this would be related research for a larger automated behavior control initiative. Does anyone have any pertinent references or info?
Restated, is it possible to develop (eventually automated) ways to “drive people crazy”. Is it possible to use data and algorithms to manipulate someone into losing contact with reality, for instance, or trick them into manifesting schizophrenic symptoms
I don't think so. One of the primary theories of schizophrenia is that the glial cells in the brain are doing too much synaptic pruning. It's more of an organic disorder than say depression or anxiety which is heavily affected by environment.
I’ve given away my retirement and am preparing for suicide. I’m not in search of advice nor assistance regarding my situation. I smile in public, but inside I’m meditating in preparation for the unknown void of the afterlife. There are almost certainly many others like me.
For a long time, I wondered if it were possible for people to treat each other better and whether that would have changed anything for me. The reality is that I was unequipped to build a healthy place in society because I decided a long time ago that I hated being alive and hated people. It’s my own shortcoming, and suicide is a valid way to remove a weak seed from the gene pool, if not controversial or taboo in Western society. My understanding is that it’s not as frowned upon in Japan but not sure if that is still the case.