20231113 New anti-aging molecule found. New weight loss drug Zepbound. New AI tool I am going to use to try to find artists. Tiktok vs. Instagram
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Gay artist Quirk is getting discourage by A.I. Art.
Feels people can’t discover him, since social media is flooded with A.I. art. If you are on X (formerly Twitter), follow him and like is creations. He could use the moral support.
https://twitter.com/quirkworld
Gay book, going to get the project going again.
I think that there needs to be a theory or idea about being Gay. It would help the Gay community unify around goals and achieve them. It would also help have a movement that extends across political divisions working for a common purpose.
I was very much struggling with how the chapters should be ordered. I think the single major problem affecting the Gay community is that most Gays are just acquiescing to being Gay since it seems to be fixed.
Most Gays, regardless of what they may say, really don’t value themselves and so don’t assert themselves or have expectations.
This would be a fairly depressing chapter to start out a book, and I don’t see why people who are basically acquiescing of being Gay would want to read this chapter.
Plus, Gays are always facing moralists lecturing them on something.
So, what I am going to do is start out with what Gays could do with realization that we have opportunities as Gays in life as Gays, and what we might do, and then discuss how we might achieve these goals. Ony toward the end, discuss unrecognized low-self worth as an obstacle to getting what we want towards the end.
Still getting over jet lag, processing things from my field trip to Taiwan and getting back on track, but I hope to start writing soon.
When some groups tries to push their ideology on you on the basis of some so-called study.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03486-5
A current crisis in psychology is that their studies are not reproducible. If a study isn’t reproducible, then it isn’t science.
This paper feels 86% reproducibility is really good. That should tell you how bad psychology as a real science is. With 86%, roughly one out of seven studies are bogus, but presented as fact.
The method reported on in Nature magazine would be good for those who want to have a good study, however, a lot of groups aren’t interested in reproducible research, but instead want to push some ideology.
Further a lot of these so-called studies are published in journals where you pay to get published, some are in what are called Predatory Journals.
So, when they try to push something on you on the basis of a “study,” don’t take it as irrefutable.
Remember fun Tumblr wasn’t brought down by conservatives, but by the neoliberal establishment.
A Verizon corporate department shut down the sex on Tumblr.
New weight loss drug on the market. Zepbound.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/08/health/zepbound-mounjaro-fda-approval-obesity/index.html
It is another diabetes drug that is going to be used as a weight loss drug. It is made by Eli Lilly, whereas Wescovy and Ozempic were made by Novo Nordisk. They are talking about a $100 billion market. So, we are likely to see competition drive the development of a 2nd generation of weight loss drugs.
Having two companies in the field should help drive price reduction long term, however there is currently a supply shortage of all three of these drugs.
Oral drugs are in development.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/25/health/experimental-weight-loss-drugs/index.html
Even with this new drug being available there are issues of both supplies and who can afford it. However, as production is ramped up, as the 2nd generation of drugs come on the market and more drugs come on the market, I think we will find that the restraint of supply and price will be less.
As more people get access to these weight loss drugs, as they are more effective, and easier to take, I think we will find the Fat Liberation movement collapse.
Anti-Aging molecule found in a wide variety of foods, so you don’t have to swallow.
It is now behind a paywall. I want to show the links to either Nature.com or sciencemag.org to show that these are some findings by crackpots, but serious legitimate authoritative scientists.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03224-x
The molecule is called spermidine, because it was first isolated from sperm, but it is found in a lot of foods.
“Spermidine delays aging in humans” The important thing about this article is that eating it seems to help
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6128428/
National Library of Medicine. A U.S. govt. website
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8612618/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-022-00322-9
What foods you might find it in, is in this article.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3022763/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermidine
https://edwardhsebesta.substack.com/p/scientific-reporting-on-treatments
Quality of Gay art and how I judge.
For this newsletter I am going to support all the Gay artists. Regardless whether I find the art uninteresting or not, or not of my interest, I am going to support them.
Just because it isn’t interesting to me, doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting to someone else.
Further artists develop, and they need encouragement to keep at it.
The art establishment is subtly hostile to them, mostly being dismissive.
I do think that too much of the art is that of a life drawing class, but that is just me. It might be what someone else wants, or is willing to put on a wall.
For some artists, it might not be about us or the consumption (purchase) of their art, but their own personal way of self-realization or affirmation of their Gay identity and desires.
Also, artists creating for the Gay community get a dismissive attitude from the art establishment and they don’t need additional criticism from us.
So I do judge sometimes, but I keep it to myself and give the person a like on Facebook or Instagram or wherever.
Going to try Elon Musk’s AI Program to find Gay artists.
I don’t want to create art with A.I. What I want is some help tracking down Gay artists which I don’t know about.
Whatever you might think of Musk’s politics, X (formerly Twitter) is much less censorious of Gays and Gay art, than that repressive Facebook. He is releasing a new AI model that isn’t repressive.
Earlier I had tried using AI programs to find Gay artists. Doesn’t work well.
https://edwardhsebesta.substack.com/p/chatgpt-isnt-made-for-gays-to-find
https://edwardhsebesta.substack.com/p/chatgpt-scolds-me-for-wanting-to
I found Googles BARD AI software worthless also.
I spend a lot of time trying to track down Gay artists to support and share information about them for this newsletter. I think I am getting somewhat good coverage in the English language venues and perhaps Spanish language venues, but I don’t know. I don’t see what I am missing.
Also, easily there could be some amazing artists in India, China, Southeast Asia and elsewhere that I don’t know about. I primarily find them by accident and when they are marketing themselves to an English language audience.
So having some tools to do some searching and investigation for me, might be helpful in finding Gay artists in the Anglophone world, and elsewhere.
I signed up to get on the waitlist. You have to be a verified X user and I am.
I will report back on how useful it is.
Tiktok vs. Facebook
I get a lot of interesting content relevant to being Gay on Tiktok, but the best Facebook can do is send me reels of body builders. Instagram is okay, but for Gay content, I have to rely on who I have discovered on TikTok.
I think there is something in the Facebook algorithm which prevents you from getting specifically Gay content.
I am going to post some links to TikTok to show its Gay oriented content.
Facebook Censorship of Gay artists
There continue to be complaints about this. I think that the solution is that Gays need to have their own social media/hookup app combination service. We are what gives these social media platforms and hookup apps value, yet they aren’t supporting us and the value isn’t directed back into services to the community.
Ronald Koster - ART I LIKE
Does a whole series of these. These are the covers of pulp fictions from the 1960s.
Thai Rivera takes on another person self-glorifying themselves at the expense of working people.
I am going to include these to show what craziness is out there. However, I think the real issue is how they were able to take over the movement. But I will be sharing some these.
Dengue vaccine
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03453-0
So far transmission has only happened by mosquitos. So, I don’t think it will become an STD. There is no reporting that it is changing in that way, unlike mpox.
Largely this will be just a matter of it reaching the warmer parts of Europe and the United States, and homophobic Christians rejecting getting vaccinated. We will want to get vaccinated, because: 1) It is called breakbone fever; 2) Homophobic Christians won’t get it, so we have a strategic advantage over them in getting it.
Weight
Personal results and goals and my appetite has changed.
After I started eating and sleeping normally with the jet lag over from my recent trip to Taiwan, and eating my regular diet, I was down to 196.4 on 11/8/2023. I left on vacation with my last weigh in on 10/9/2023 at 194.8 pounds. My gain from 3-weeks-vacation was 1.6 pounds.
I ate what I felt like eating, and Taipei has really good bakeries. I was walking a lot. Sometimes at the end of the day I had to pace the hotel room to prevent my legs seizing up in cramps.
One thing I noticed is that my appetite had changed. I was not wanting portions so big.
My new goal is to be 170 pounds when I go to Thailand. It is a hot climate and I will be doing a lot of walking and being thinner will help with both the heat and walking.
I started this at 225 to 230 pounds.
I am finding my appetite is changing. The attraction of some foods has diminished and some foods are now not appetizing. It doesn’t happen right away. I am not starving. I might be hungry a little before meals, but if it is between meals I slice up an apple or pear or grapefruit and I make it to the next meal.
Having a reason for weight loss and why I am losing weight.
My old man is 96 and still lucid. (As lucid as he ever was anyways.) I am 71 years old.
I want to live as long as he does, and I think he is going to be reaching 100 or more years.
The reason I want to live to be 100 is that I feel I have 30 years of writing to left to do. My current historical research is getting serious interest. I am digging up a lot of suppressed things also. I am realizing I have a backlog that is likely to last 30 years or more. I need the additional years to write.
What will do the most to extend my lifespan? Weight loss will do the most. Vaccination is good also, and exercise will be good, but losing extra pounds will help the most.
Are their heavy people who reach 100, I don’t know and I don’t care. It is about playing the odds.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/825926#
The research did find, however, that overweight centenarians tended to have lower rates of obesity than the control group. Although male and female centenarians were just as likely to be overweight as their counterparts in the general population, the centenarians were significantly less likely to become obese: only 4.5 percent of male centenarians were obese vs. 12.1 percent of controls; and for women, 9.6 percent of centenarians were obese versus 16.2 percent of controls. Both of these differences are statistically significant.
One reason being overweight for centenarians doesn’t seem to be a thing is that scientists are discovering that centenarians are genetically granite. If you make it to 100, likely nothing is going to do you in. If cancer or heart problems could kill you, they would have done so.
People sometimes notice that centenarians smoke and thing they can smoke. You probably don’t have a granite set of genes. You might make it to 100 smoking, but your odds are poor.
Losing Weight and longevity.
Let’s say in the year 2041 they come up with a real solution to slowing down, stopping, or reversing aging.
There might be a lot of people who died in 2040 for whom this new medical solution would have worked, and they would have lived to 2050 with this new medical development, but they died before it was available.
Or they had a fix for your lungs or heart in 2041 that would have saved you life in 2040, but you died in 2040, and didn’t live for the new treatment.
The few extra years you get with a healthy life style might be the difference in having access to new medicines or vaccines or technology that will keep you alive. Six months might be the difference in living and being dead.
The speed of development in molecular biology, medicine, and biotechnology now days is phenomenal. It very well might provide solutions to your medical problems faster than you can develop them. However, how healthy you live, will affect how fast you develop problems and whether medicine can develop faster or is slower than that.
I like the idea of healthy weight loss. Thanks for sharing.