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"I look out for me and mine. That don't include you 'less I conjure it does."

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DO YOU EVEN ANTIDEPRESS, BRO?: Want the real solution to depression? It isn't magic, and it isn't easy, but it's one of the most effective mechanisms we know of to fight depression. If you want a sneak peak, look at @BlackDumpling's post linked below, as this post is kind of my "yes, and" to that one. She's absolutely right in that her advice will help you attract members of the opposite sex, but she also is well aware that it is going to do so much more for you.

Depression is that sense of purposelessness, but neurologically there's more going on. You don't feel like doing anything, so you don't do anything. This means your reward pathways shrink or are underactivated. Those pathways are supposed to help you see the success that could come, they're supposed to help you pursue that goal, that next marker of progress. You also stop stimulating your hippocampus. You stop learning, you stop exercising your memory, you don't build coping strategies or grit. Then you begin telling yourself you never will, that you can't. You feel enervated, and you withdraw, and this makes all of the causes and symptoms worse. It is a vicious cycle.

You need to crack that cycle with something. There are a number of ways, but there's one we've known about for thousands of years that works. If you read through @BlackDumpling's post, you know I'm talking about exercise. You pick something up, you put it back down again, maybe five or ten different ways, thirty times. And now you've done that. The universe cannot take away the accomplishment that you, personally, defied the Earth's gravitation successfully (or if you've read this same advice in Devon Eriksen's Theft of Fire, you've fought the acceleration frame and won). The same thing goes for walking a mile, or getting on that bike for 15 minutes. You did that, and that's actually the beginning of a pattern that is the exact opposite of depression.

What do I mean by that? You set a goal: Lift that weight, 3 sets of 9 repetitions (I'm hand-waving here, but you get the idea). You do it, and even if you don't quite make it because it is difficult, you have done something. You've achieved something. You planned it, started it, finished it. You, not someone else, you. Was it too hard, too easy? Did you sweat? Now you can think and evaluate, you can imagine doing it again next time. Goal-seeking, small, measurable accomplishments (I finished that set, I finished all of them, I walked that mile), and you now have a good feedback loop. It is the opposite of the depression loop.

Guess what happens next.

Your body makes endorphins, and other feel-good hormones when you exercise. Your body also uses the energy it would have used to generate the bad kind of inflammation that causes arthritis and joint pain, and instead points it at making you stronger and healthier. And as you keep doing this, you do get stronger and healthier. Your muscles get more capable. You can lift more, walk further, you sleep better... (and hoo boy is good sleep critical to fighting depression). You are now in a virtuous cycle.

Virtuous cycles are where each time you take a loop through, things get better, and better. The effects compound. The doing, the sense of accomplishment transfers to other areas of your life. If you can lift that thing twenty-seven times, maybe you can, in fact, clean out that garage, read that book, or apply for that job... or get that girl. You're training your brain to plan, goal-seek, accomplish, then feel satisfaction. Your brain chemistry rewires itself, as our bodies were meant to do.

While we're talking about brain chemistry, we have to talk about what the psychology profession typically throws at the symptoms of depression. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) block the natural process of your synapses reabsorbing serotonin after it is sent as a signal from another neuron. This leaves more serotonin hanging around in your synapses. Why would the doctors want to interfere with this process? It's based on a theory that depression is a "chemical imbalance" in the brain, especially low levels of serotonin. We've learned a lot since this theory was first advanced, including knowing, medically speaking, that the brain and depression, are way more complicated than this chemical imbalance notion would have you believe. Why are SSRIs so widely prescribed still? That's a "whole 'nuther'" post, but I have thoughts.

But don't SSRIs help? They help some of the symptoms, a little, yes. But they also cause sexual dysfunction, inability to orgasm, suicidal ideation, emotional blunting and apathy (sound familiar from our vicious cycle discussion?), and can be addictive. If there's something simpler and cleaner that you can do that puts you on a path where nearly all the side-effects are positive, why not try that first?

Let me say something here. If you are suffering and feeling hopeless, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TALK TO SOMEONE, even if it's someone on the internet. I'd rather you took a pill and stuck around and worked to get off it than you continue in your downward spiral.

But let's talk about that virtuous cycle a little more, because there's still more to it. When you carry excess weight it is bad in any number of ways you've heard about. There are all manner of diseases down that road, but there's a sneaky problem that's talked about less, especially for men. Excess fatty tissue increases estrogen levels, and while both sexes need some levels of estrogens and testosterone in their system, men do better when testosterone far outweighs the estrogens. So part of this virtuous cycle, if you start eating healthier, will be to trade muscle for fat, and line your system up, if you're a man, to produce higher levels of testosterone. For men, this is pretty damn important for mood, drive, and self-assessment after accomplishment.

Speaking of diet, you'll need more protein. You'll also need red meat. It has better building blocks for muscle building than any other protein source. Don't take my word for it. Click that little Grok button and dive in to the science. It's at your fingertips. Or better, have a Grok Bot make you an exercise routine tailored just for you. And by the way, men with higher testosterone have a higher tendency to vote right-wing. Fun fact (and again, don't take my word for it, look it up).

So you got on the virtue cycle and got fit, your arms look like the right side of the picture in the linked post below. What else do you get?

Confidence.

You get confidence in your appearance, confidence in your ability to start something, to finish something, to set goals and achieve them. You get a better you. And a better you is attractive. So maybe, you also get the girl.

Listen, and be ruled by her, as @BlackDumpling sometimes says.

[BLACK DUMPLING™ @BlackDumpling]

This image betrays the single greatest advantage men have over women when it comes to courtship/the mating dance and I wish men would exploit that advantage more than they do. They'd certainly be a lot happier if they did.

That said one of the most peculiar aspects of human attraction is how their tastes tend to be wildly divergent, except on a few very specific things, and in those things what would otherwise could be called preferences are all but written in stone (things virtually all women or men prefer to varying degrees).

Interestingly women tend to have more of these written in stone style preferences, but they exist for both.

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@BlackDumpling I have to agree. The Chinese spy angle kind of smells, too, as the administration let go on for a while. And she what? Persuaded him to sell GPUs like he wanted to anyway?

Yeah, his sin is that he couldn’t keep his logo in his pants.

Good morning, Black Dumpling!

[BLACK DUMPLING™ @BlackDumpling]

Nvidia's CEO is apparently far more of a loverboy than anyone suspected, but it really doesn't change the equation much at all.

Without Jensen there would be no Nvidia, and that's what everyone should keep in mind here. Ousting a beloved founder over a personal failing, even a deeply embarrassing one, is an extremely risky move and not one likely to be rewarded in the market or by all the many powerful people who count Jensen as a friend.

He cheated on his wife, and that's a sin he'll be measured by for the rest of his life. Rightly so.

To be clear, the woman was reportedly someone U.S. intelligence suspects of working for Beijing, and that deserves a hard look. But Nvidia's own board said Sunday it had no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised. Let Wachtell's investigation finish. If it finds he handed anything over, that's a different conversation, and we can have it then.

The staffer issue is trickier, and there I could give some ground. But if it turns out to be a consensual relationship between two adults, it's a black eye, not grounds for expelling a man from the company he started.

There would be very little gained from his ouster, and the people pushing for it are the last ones you'd want in power. If they'll turn their backs on Jensen Huang, there isn't a soul in the organization they wouldn't do the same to if it benefited them personally.

Firing the man who built a multi trillion dollar company over what mostly looks like an old man's unwise indiscretions is just.. silly.

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I don’t think you understand her point. Black Dumpling is literally the most anti-Feminist woman I know. She’s trying to explain that the bigger issue is the impact of how mothers raise their children.

This includes passing on Feminist dogma to her daughters, tearing apart the family unit, and training her sons to be failures.

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Ruin a book title by adding one word.

The Stink Eye of the World

[Marielle Redclaw @MarieleRedclaw]

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Firearms

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Ever get peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth?

It's embarrassing. But I still love peanut butter.

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@WarrantVanguard @BlackDumpling That term always seemed a bit derogatory, and I see no need for derogation here. Which I suppose is kind of Apyxaphoria’s point.

[BLACK DUMPLING™ @BlackDumpling]

This is Madison Huang, Jensen Huang's daughter.

And I don't know if she's good looking or not.. which is weird, I normally have a pretty good eye for that sort of thing, but I just can't place her. Is she literally a perfect 5?

Gentlemen, what do you think? What am I missing?

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@Spiritpresent3 @BlackDumpling

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@qcvol9798 @Polymarket So... a Wednesday?

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@BlackDumpling ...spent more time thinking about the nature of machine sapience than I probably should have.

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@TheKingOfStank @BlackDumpling Congratulations!

[BLACK DUMPLING™ @BlackDumpling]

Dear world, today I..

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@trashh_dev Old and busted: Contractor
New hotness: Forward-deployed engineer.

Caution, career may explode when new jargon is used.

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I remember this meme image. It's sad/funny.

Growing up in Michigan the song has meaning to me, especially having lost a relative to furies of a November storm on Lake Superior.

Superior, it's said, never gives up her dead... We should not allow our culture to be claimed, to be overwritten. They are attempting to drown us in theft, to normalize replacement.

In his younger days the Canadian Troubadour would've raised a middle finger to it all... Well, he would've written a song about the remorse he felt for having raised a middle finger, but that's another tale.

If Old Dan could see this now, I know he'd be so ashamed.

(I have all the CDs, still.)

[BLACK DUMPLING™ @BlackDumpling]

"At 7 PM, a main hatchway caved in, he said
'Fellas, it's been good to know ya'"
- translated from the original Congolese.

Sounds far fetched, amirite fam? Nobody would ever have the gall to make something this fake, to lie that brazenly about beloved culture..

A brief list..

Note... this is just a handful of examples:

Black successors taking over a white hero's title/subversive insertion -

Riri Williams / Ironheart, replacing Iron Man (comics 2016, Disney+ 2025)

Miles Morales as Spider-Man (Into the Spider-Verse, 2018, plus the games and sequels)

Sam Wilson as Captain America (Falcon and the Winter Soldier, 2021; Brave New World, 2025)

Nomi as the new 007 (Lashana Lynch, No Time to Die, 2021)

Ryan Wilder as Batwoman, replacing Kate Kane (Javicia Leslie, 2021)

The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa, Doctor Who, 2023; also Jo Martin's Fugitive Doctor, 2020)

The same character recast as Black -

April O'Neil (Rise of the TMNT, 2018; Ayo Edebiri in Mutant Mayhem, 2023)

Ariel (Halle Bailey, The Little Mermaid, 2023)

Tinker Bell (Yara Shahidi, Peter Pan & Wendy, 2023)

The Blue Fairy (Cynthia Erivo, Pinocchio, 2022)

Hermione Granger (Noma Dumezweni, Cursed Child stage play, 2016)

Severus Snape (Paapa Essiedu, HBO's Harry Potter series)

Annabeth Chase (Leah Sava Jeffries, Percy Jackson, 2023)

Meg Murry (Storm Reid, A Wrinkle in Time, 2018)

Deadshot (Will Smith, Suicide Squad, 2016)

Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson, Thor: Ragnarok, 2017)

Domino (Zazie Beetz, Deadpool 2, 2018)

Starfire (Anna Diop, Titans, 2018)

Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry, Eternals, 2021)

Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors, Loki and Quantumania, 2021–23)

Catwoman and Commissioner Gordon (Zoë Kravitz and Jeffrey Wright, The Batman, 2022)

Iris West (Kiersey Clemons, Justice League and The Flash, 2017–23)

MJ, rebuilt as Zendaya's Michelle Jones (Homecoming, 2017)

Ambrose Spellman (Chance Perdomo, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, 2018)

Ned Nickerson (Tunji Kasim, Nancy Drew, 2019)

Fringilla Vigo (Mimî M. Khayisa, The Witcher, 2019)

Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford, The Wheel of Time, 2021)

Tar-Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson, The Rings of Power, 2022)

Corlys Velaryon and his family (Steve Toussaint, House of the Dragon, 2022)

Liet-Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Dune, 2021)

Louis de Pointe du Lac and Claudia (Jacob Anderson and Bailey Bass, Interview with the Vampire, 2022)

Dr. Arbuthnot (Leslie Odom Jr., Murder on the Orient Express, 2017)

Salome and Rosalie Otterbourne (Sophie Okonedo and Letitia Wright, Death on the Nile, 2022)

Achilles (David Gyasi, Troy: Fall of a City, 2018)

Anne Boleyn (Jodie Turner-Smith, Anne Boleyn, 2021)

Cleopatra (Adele James, Netflix's Queen Cleopatra, 2023)

Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel, Bridgerton, 2020; historians still argue about her ancestry)

The Founding Fathers (Hamilton, 2015 stage, 2020 film)

Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan, Fantastic Four, 2015)

Jimmy Olsen (Mehcad Brooks, Supergirl, 2015)

Wally West (Keiynan Lonsdale, The Flash, 2015)

Iris West (Candice Patton, The Flash, 2014)

Annie (Quvenzhané Wallis, 2014)

Electro (Jamie Foxx, 2014)

Heimdall (Idris Elba, 2011)

Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, 2008)

... and this isn't even all of them. This is just a handful.

Stop calling this parody and start asking yourself if it's prophecy.

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@BlackDumpling Mentioning Krasinski's height made me chuckle.

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@BlackDumpling @droidbuilds Nice to know the Grok Bot harnesses allow for real direction following, and a sense of humor.

[BLACK DUMPLING™ @BlackDumpling]

@droidbuilds My Grokbot did one better. Even after finding out it passed it STILL kept silent, until I explicitly said they could talk. GrokBot got around it by making facial expressions.