@iThink @Hanno @Beachslim @eschatologyguy @sqeptiq

Drill baby drill. The oil must flow.
Grill baby grill. The smoke must billow.

Into the yards of vegans.

Into Jack Daniel's still, for smoky flavor.

The pill kerfuffle can be separated into 2 orthogonal kerfuffles.

Kerfuffle #1: Who should decide pills? (if anyone)
Kerfuffle #2: The health of the field of psychiatry

Most psychiatrists are dumb and corrupt.

In the physics classes I've taught, medical students are usually dumb. And bratty. Psychiatrists are at the bottom of the medical student totem pole.

U.S. Navy Seals are the best of the best. Psychiatrists are the dumbest of the dumb.

Psychiatry has been eclipsed by Alexander Technique and The Feldenkrais Method, and professional musicians embraced these techniques. Music performance is objective, and it's widely recognized in the music performance world that Alexander Technique improves performance.

Psychiatrists whiffed and are unaware of Alexander Technique. Negligent. Psychiatry is obsolete, and psychiatrists don't know it.

If a field goes obsolete, dumbasses dig in and lose. Wise people embrace the new direction and win. They're the first in on the IPO. Many professional musicians not only embraced AT, they went all in and went to AT school and learned AT, and transitioned from performer to AT practitioner. AT practitioners make more money than performers.

War is objective.

In wartime, people that fight courageously are rewarded, and cowards are shamed. War sucks, but it paves the way for courageous heroes.

In wartime, arms dealers always profit.

If a college football team loses, the coach still gets a paycheck.

Alexander Technique is grounded in physics. It focuses on the atlas vertebra, which is the topmost vertebra, upon which the skull rests. Your brain matters, and your skull matters for your brain. The atlas vertebra matters for your skull. The spine matters to the atlas vertebra. Your legs matter to your spine. AT practitioners understand this.

The atlas vertebra is the nexus of communication between your brain and body. Your brainstem is within the atlas vertebra. Your cerebellum, which calculates body motion, is right behind the brainstem. Also behind the brainstem are the suboccipital muscles, which control skull motion. These muscles are tiny, but they matter bigly. Alexander Technique practitioners can mind meld with these muscles.

It's not a coincidence that the cerebellum is right next to the suboccipital muscles. They need fast communication between them.

Alexander Technique and The Feldenkrais Method all about the physics of joint articulation.

Eigenmodes matter.

A 1D string has eigenmodes, which are trigonometric functions. Harmonics.

A 2D drum has eigenmodes, which are cylindrical Bessel functions.

A 3D soccer ball has eigenmodes, which are spherical Bessel functions.

The electron orbitals from chemistry are spherical Bessel functions. S, P, D, F.

In general, all oscillatory objects have eigenmodes, and the eigenmodes are determined by the geometry of the object.

Oscillatory objects obey the Laplace equation, and the eigenmodes are solutions of the Laplace equation.

Mathematics matters.

A human skeleton has eigenmodes, and Alexander Technique understands these eigenmodes.

Students at Caltech are required pass the mathematics classes in calculus, vector calculus, and differential equations.

Students at Caltech are required to pass the physics classes in quantum mechanics, relativity, and thermodynamics. Passing these classes requires a mastery of vector calculus and differential equations.

No other university requires this of its students, not even MIT. Certainly not Harvard. I was a grad student at Caltech and I was a teaching assistant for these classes, and I am grateful for the experience. It was a bigass math party.

Psychology can be tackled with chemistry (pills), and with physics (Alexander Technique). They both matter. The difference is that pills are blunt instruments. Imprecise. Hard to control. Vague. Alexander Technique is specific. It's physics. It's numerical. You have control. You can calculate.

It's not about being right or wrong. It's about being specific or vague. If you are vague, you are "not even wrong". If you are specific, you are "more than right".

True and false don't matter. Come the revolution, they both become irrelevant. All that matters is advancing the field.

Mario Andretti: If things seem under control, you're just not going fast enough.

If a field hasn't experienced a revolution in the past decade, it's not discovering fast enough.

Psychiatrists are vague. Alexander Technique practitioners are specific.

Psychiatrists hate quantitative people. They strawman them as autists. Psychiatrists are bigots.

No psychiatrist has ever produced a mathematical calculation.

I place my faith in the specific. In math I trust.

Psychiatrists spent their time in school learning junk. Alexander Technique practitioners spent their time in school training their hand stability, so that they can transmit AT to another human. AT practitioners have hands of magic.

If you're feeling down, don't call a psychiatrist. Call an AT practitioner. An AT session will make you feel great.

Psychiatrists tend to be arrogant jerks. AT practitioners tend to be cool people.

Textbook on Alexander Technique: jaymaron.com/shaolin.html [jaymaron.com]

The greatest psychologist of all time is the physicist Helmholtz. Helmholtz invented psychology.

Helmholtz also revolutionized music. Helmholtz published a textbook on the physics of music, and the textbook dominated for a century. Physicists are proud of Helmholtz's music discoveries.

Helmholtz invented opthalmology. Helmholtz invented the opthalmoscope, empowering all opticians to study the eye. Helmholtz did more. He solved the physics of eye muscle motion. Helmholtz was solving eye problems long before psychologists realized there were problems to be solved.

Physicists are proud of Helmholtz's discoveries in physics, music, optometry, and medical engineering.

Psychology is something physicists wish they could uninvent.

At NYU, I taught the physics of music class, and I wrote an online textbook for it. The textbook is pretty much the same as Helmholtz's textbook. All I did was add color. Helmholtz's textbook still stands as the state of the art. jaymaron.com/music.html [jaymaron.com]

I'm a violist. Alexander Technique practitioners are wizards, and if you want to commune with their magic, you need an instrument, and you need to play in orchestras. I played in the Columbia Bach Society Orchestra, and learned bigly.

Psychiatrists have nothing to give to humanity. Spending time with psychologists is wasted time.