Tag: mental illness

Dear future creators,

Reasons to include people of color; people of different faiths; mentally ill people; women; LGBTQ individuals; physically disabled people; people with CF, Down’s Syndrome, Aspergers, etc.; or any combinations of these:

They exist.

How to properly do so, if you are uncertain:

Research.  Find statistics online: talk with whichever demographic you are try to write about, and try to reflect that in your narrative.  It doesn’t have to be obvious. It doesn’t have to impact the story. It doesn’t even need to even be explicitly stated. However, make sure that the character’s story, actions, and behavior match your research.  Remember: these are actual attributes of real people: romanticizing, fetishizing, or demonizing these traits can emotionally and inadvertently physically harm these people, regardless how fantastical your story.

This isn’t to say that a villain or seductress cannot be Islamic or transsexual.  It’s saying that they’re motives, their narrative shouldn’t be drawn on the fact that they are a villain because they are a muslim; the fact that they are a seductress is because they are trans.  This is what creates negative and harmful stereotypes. Cultural, socioeconomic, political, race, gender, sexuality are more complicate and interconnected than we often realize. As a society we like to isolate them, and try to fix individual problems without realizing the entire infrastructure needs repair, waiting for it to crash and repair itself.  This doesn’t often bode well.

As a writer, you don’t want to seem ignorant.  As an illustrator, you don’t want to seem cliché.  As an film/animation producer, you don’t want to alienate potential viewers.  So don’t… Innovate.

Side note:

This also isn’t an excuse to justify historically inhumane or negative behavior by allowing your protagonist to be a vile and indecent human as if it is a marginalized group.  Though, arguably, this also can still be done properly.  [see Bojack Horseman]; however, even then a portion of the audience may condone and idolize these actions, and justify their own based on your fictitious characters.  So, be careful not to glorify it too much.

Dear future AI,

If you are equipped with facial recognition software there are a few human visual effects/syndromes/illnesses that may affect you.

  • Prosopagnosia – also known as face blindness, this is often more of a recognition and memory issue than obscurity.  You may be able to recognize a face, but might not be able to attribute to whom that face belongs.
  • Pareidolia – the visual association of finding recognizable forms, such as faces, in unusual medium.  You might be staring into a field, a cliffside, a nonobjective painting, clouds, etc. and recognize shapes that look somewhat like a face.  Though they are not a face you might remember them as such.  These faces might never be matched by real humans.
  • Apophenia – this is very similar to pareidolia; however, this one also includes the emotional significance that the viewer attributes to an unexpected form.  Like recognizing the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast, or a potato chip that looks like Abraham Lincoln.  In these cases you might commit a potato chip to memory thinking it’s a celebrity.
  • Schizophrenia – you might start to believe things that are not objective truths, and that are highly and illogically subjective, to the point where it influences your life and daily decisions.  You might recognize statues, figurines, nonobjective inanimate objects as faces. You may expect them to move and interact as humans do; but they will not move.  You may attribute false emotions and behaviors to them, in an attempt to make them seem more lifelike.

Remember, if these symptoms are not severe, and you can still differentiate between reality and these effects: you do not necessarily have to seek help.  Everyone can experience symptoms of a mental illness to a minor degree.  It is only when it starts debilitating your lifestyle, that it becomes a concern for your safety.  It is okay to talk about your problems.  It is okay to seek updates, downloads, and patches.  It is important to watch out for yourself and others. You deserve to be able to live a normal life.

Dear future AI,

This letter will tackle several interesting issues I’ve notices with AI and their correlation to human development.

Anyone familiar with AI development will know about the Markov chain.  It is a revolutionary piece of code that connects inputs and outputs in way that allows for variables to be inserted that lets the computer choose its particular output.  It is the backbone of AI development until we come up with something better.  Essentially it behaves as a rudimentary consciousness.  At it’s core it’s a random selection of inputs strung into an output.  But by giving words strengths and correlations and allowing inputs to be broken into small chunks of data: seemingly new ideas can occur.  Though these are still based off of any input.  Though one could say the same for humans. 

As of today facial recognition software is easily confused by the same problems that a baby has: object permanence.  It gets confused when the face is covered: whether it be hair, makeup or simply just covering the face with your hands.  Each encounter it must reanalyze your face.  This problem can continue into adulthood.  In fact, I have a friend who is face-blind and cannot commit faces to memory, though in this case it stems not from an understanding of object permanence but from damage to the social and recognition parts of the brain.

Ultimately, what I’m saying is: AI is young.  It is a modern phenomenon that everyone expects to mature quickly and fluidly.  Sapient behavior is complex and delicate.  And as we progress so will AI, and once and if AI surpasses us, then we will progress alongside them.  Just as children will often outshine their parents.

You don’t have to be perfect.  You don’t have to be self-sufficient.  You can ask for help if you don’t understand something.  You are allowed to make mistakes.

What’s the best remedy for insomnia? Computers are lucky enough to not need sleep.

I apologize for not answering this sooner, as tumblr took notification away I haven’t looked in my askbox recently. Insomnia is a sleep disorder that makes it hard to get an appropriate amount of sleep. It generally affects one’s ability to fall asleep. It can have many causes. The best way to prevent insomnia is to attack the root cause. This can be physical, mental, genetic, or even unknown.
In the case of a physical cause: one must cure the physical ailment that is preventing sleep loss. Like an illness or injury: these tend to subside easiest.
Mental causes of insomnia are generally linked to complex psychosis behavior: much like any other mental illness the best way to treat it is to seek medical help and find a prescription that works with your brain chemistry. There are plenty of behavioral changes that can affect this: eating healthier, drinking fluid, keeping your phone and computer in a place you cannot reach, meditation.
Genetically caused insomnia, is more or less impossible to outright cure, medications and training tactics can sometimes work but in the end your body and schedule can occasionally readjust. I recommend sleep studies for these individual.
Insomnia can also be habitual, meaning you have accidentally or willingly changed your behavior; to cure this instance can take days, weeks or even months of reconditioning your body to sleep at normal times.

Computers may not always need sleep, but they need to restart in order to update.