Naming conventions in psychiatric and neuropsychiatric conditions.

A thread 🧵

There’s lots of ways of naming all the ways our brains and emotions can go wrong or cause us to suffer. One convention is to name them after Dudes.

Know who this dude is?

That’s Alzheimer

/1 There’s a whole bunch of conditions that are named after dudes (and occasionally dudettes) of medicine.

For example, there’s Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Asperger’s, and my personal favorite Munchausen’s Syndrome (see below)

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In the depths of World War 2, the Russians were running seriously low on manpower.

Faced with the possibility of losing the War, the Russians decided to start recruiting Muppets to fight for them

a short historical thread 🧵

/1 The Muppet people once had their own country, but were absorbed by the Russian empire in the late 1700s like so many other ethnic groups.

Though not ideologically Communist, Muppet divisions became particularly feared by the Nazis due to their total inability to blink

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Once upon a time, in a world not unlike our own, a little parrot lived in a vast jungle. The parrot was happy and was friends with all the other animals who lived there, many of whom he knew by name.

Then one day, a fire started to rage through his home…

/1 The parrot saw the flames coming and quickly flew away. He realised that he could escape the fire, and felt relieved, but then he realised that his animal friends who couldn’t fly were not so lucky, and he worried that many of them might die

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Muppets that never actually existed… Dark Crystal muppets that never actually existed…

See this photograph of a Ukrainian Azovstal soldier? Well it’s not a photograph, it’s an AI generated image from @midjourney version 5.1

A short thread 🧵 on AI art and propaganda

(I checked with some Ukrainians and former soldiers if they thought this was ok)

/1 Firstly, to my eye, this picture isn’t distinguishable from a real photograph. I’m sure a professional could tell the difference but I can’t.

Secondly, this took less than 60 seconds to make an cost me 6 US cents (I get 200 images a month for $12).

We are in a new age

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I wanted to write something about what happens when fallible human beings get involved in war and social media at the same time. Although I’m thinking carefully, this is from the heart

🧵/1 Start from this basic premise. We all want to be happy, and to avoid suffering.

Then a war happens. The illegal invasion and genocide in Ukraine. What do you do?

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A thread in which a Neuropsychologist talks to an Open AI Chat GPT instance, asks it questions about itself and it’s abilities, and conducts some basic memory assessments, with interesting results /1 Interesting because despite having good language ability and semantic memory capabilities that vastly exceeds that of human beings, it demonstrates retrograde amnesia & confabulation (false memories) and lacks awareness that it does. We see this in people with brain injuries /2

Today, the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) has announced new weapons are being sent to Ukraine.

First up is the Kompromat (компромат) missile system. It homes in on the mobile phone signal of Russian generals who have followed a specific link to a Donkey Porn website

#NAFO Next is the German SitzPinkler ground attack missile. It specifically targets Russian army toilets, literally catching them with their pants down

So, there’s this live space right now entitled #Twitterfiles and it’s got 5800 or so listeners. It’s generally insane wingnut conspiracy theory bullshit. Here’s who’s on the panel: As an avid listener of #MriyaReport, I’m often dismayed to think “are there really 10x more wingnut conspiracy theorists than there are who listen to our space?” Because that’s what it looks like. So I decided to investigate

Book Review: I’ve recently finished listening to Connected Soldiers by Col. John Spencer @SpencerGuard

A thread 🧵 on why I think it’s a useful reflection on modern warfare

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amazon.co.uk/Connected-Sold… Connected Soldiers is really two books in one.

The first is a memoir of two tours of duty in Iraq; in 2003-4 and again in 2008-9, as well as the story of his early military life, and his life as a stay at home dad of 3 young kids when his military wife was deployed.

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A thread of threads on the illegal war and invasion of #Ukraine 🇺🇦 by #Russia 🇷🇺

Mostly about the psychology of the conflict:

1) How Psychopathic is Vladimir Putin?

https://twitter.com/TomMostlyZen/status/1561359225678446592

2) Why I and some nuclear physics experts think most people are worrying too much about Zaporizhzia Nuclear Power Plant #ZNPP

https://twitter.com/TomMostlyZen/status/1558450535551967233

Why do Russians Lie So Often?

A thread 🧵 on Russian Lying, Denial and Accusing others of the own crimes.

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stopfake.org/en/russia-s-to… Everyone knows that Russia lies. Putin lies, Lavrov lies, their media lies, their soldiers lie, and their citizen lie.

But why do they lie so often?

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What is #Psychopathy? And is Vladimir Putin a #Psychopath?

A thread 🧵 based on what we know about his personality and history, and the Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience of the condition

/1 People describe #Putin as a bully, a mafia boss, a barbaric war criminal, or simply as evil.

All of these views are correct, but Psychopathy is in many ways an attempt at a scientific understanding of evil

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopat…

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There is clearly a lot of fear about the #Zaporizhzya Nuclear Power Plant at present. The Russians are making threats, but how seriously should we take them?

What are the real likelihood AND severity of of these threats?

A thread 🧵/1
#ZaporozhyeNuclearPowerPlant

https://twitter.com/JayinKyiv/status/1558422970900660224

I work as a Clinical Psychologist and have a background in Physics. Last night, I discussed the possible Russian threats to the ZPP with nuclear experts Mark Nelson @energybants and Eugene Shwageraus @shwageraus on the #MriyaReport Twitter Space @MriyaReport /2

In this video, watch Putin from 21m40 to 21m49s. At 21m49 he appears to notice an involuntary pill-rolling movement in his left hand, looks distinctly annoyed about it, and moves his left hand down to his side. The sudden noticing and annoyed expression, combined with removing his hand to conceal it suggest an uncontrolled movement. Pill rolling movements are generally considered a Parkinsonian symptom. Of course, we shouldn’t diagnose people via the internet.