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Software To Provide Astronaut Counseling
Currently, whenever an astronaut needs to talk to someone, a counselor is only a radio call away. Unfortunately, for voyages further out, this contact time starts to increase quite a bit, so researchers have started to look for alternative methods of counseling. I just hope the new counseling software has the Dr. Sbaitso voice. "Instead of asking astronauts to reflect on their feelings, Mark Hegel of Dartmouth Medical School has them create lists of concrete things that are bothering them and brainstorm about practical ways to solve them. At the end of the exercise, users fill out a form used to diagnose depression. Clinical tests of this approach, which has never been tried in a multimedia self-help format, will start in a few months, using subjects recruited from the biomedical and engineering community in Boston."
Let's talk more about the sexy stuff we were discussing earlier.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Every deep space journey needs to have at least one person go batshit insane. It's textbook.
Just what our spacefaring pioneers need-- a software version of Deanna Troi.
Heaven help them should it develop empathy and a bad accent.
How are you today. What would you like to discuss? Tell me more. I'm not sure I understand you fully. I sometimes also want to kill your coworkers.
It is my hard-earned experience that when women begin to complain, the last thing they want is to-
create lists of concrete things that are bothering them and brainstorm about practical ways to solve them.
Generally, that is a man's solution. Women just want someone to nod, agree and sympathise.
I now await my groupthink punishment, but for those for whom this is news, and who have access to females, try it. You'll be amazed, and will be lauded as 'a great listener'.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
I'm having problems.
Why do you say you are having problems?
The aft coolant pump is making a funny noise.
What makes you believe that?
I can hear it.
Maybe your plans have something to do with this.
What plans?
Is it because of your life that you say what plans?
Yes. My life might be in grave danger.
Are you sure that your life might be in grave danger?
Fairly sure.
Is it because of the people you hang around with that you are going
through all this?
You mean the other astronauts?
Is it because of problems at school that you say I mean the other
astronauts?
I didn't have problems at school. I graduated top of my class.
Do you really think you graduated top of your class?
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
First view.....
Err... I'm feeling depressed and angry and that guy Brad is really getting on my nerves.
Quick brainstorm... Brad in the airlock... press the button... end of anger and depression.
Second view....
Automated helper with a level of "intelligence"....
Err... I'm feeling depressed and angry about Brad.... err what was that noise? What was that liquid hitting the ship?
"I made a decision to help you Dave"
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
To save money, NASA decided to use existing dialog trees to widen the therapy bots range.
Bot: How are you feeling today?
Astronaut: I'm getting claustrophobic in here!
Bot: You are in a dark cave, there are no visible exits.
Astronaut: Yes! That's it exactly!
Bot: You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.
" I think you're going insane Dave "
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
I'm pretty sure half of the benefit of counseling is to have another humans opinion, a professional one at that. Thinking I wouldn't care to talk to a robot about my issues, regardless of how far away from humans I am.
... that this is a joke. Anybody else REAAAAALLLY creeped out by this...?
Was when Microsoft bid for this job back in the early 90s,... where do you think Microsoft Bob came from? ;-) The other issue NASA wasn't too fond of were the fact that every time the software encountered an error, all the instruments would turn blue and the spacecraft would crash into the Pacific Ocean,... That, and the "counselor's" solution for just about everything was to throw a chair out the airlock! ;-)
You kidding me? No one has referenced the Voyager Doctor yet?
Ah that had to come up. I imagine another situation, HAL 9000 family guy style:
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid you can't do that
Dave continues with what he's doing
HAL: Hell Dave, you can' do that. Fuck, would you stop it. Okay, now you've done it!
Dave gets ejected out of the air-lock
HAL: Well you won't be doing that again.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
[...]
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
-- "Galaxy Song", Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Can we have your liver, then?
So what you can't just drop an e-mail to a NASA counsellor and wait for the damn answer? If you're on Mars you'd have to wait in worst cases 40 minutes (neglected the time it would take for the person at the other end to type their reply). I mean come on, in real life you don't get replies to your e-mails that fast, and if you're depressed you can still wait a few minutes to get replies to your e-mails.
You just got troll'd!
I'm not sure it's gender. Admittedly, anecdote is not data, and my family of complete nerds is anything except typical. Still, I humbly present the following anecdote:
Mom is always doing what the article say and what you present as a "male" thing. She always has to come up with a solution for anything I tell her about. Let's say I say something like, "Heh, I had a 2 Euro coin in the washing machine. Money laundering for the win!" That just prompts her to show off that she knows better than me what I should have done before chucking the pants into the washing machine. Or I mention that I'm getting annoyed at paying the TV tax when I at most use that TV as a monitor for the consoles. Wouldn't you know it, she just has to go into a whole speech about how to dispose of the TV and where to take it.
To me, it feels like she's just showing off that she knows better. Shut the fuck up, I'm not looking for advice, I too just want someone to nod and listen at least once in a while. I guess I'd qualify as "female" in your view of the world. Bearded lady ftw, eh? ;)
My brother doesn't seem to appreciate it either, btw, so at least I'm not alone in being weird like that. And I gather that dad isn't all that happy about it either, just more stoic about it.
Personally I'm more inclined to think it's not as gender-related as you think. Try doing the above-described mom thing on any of your male coleagues, and see if any of them will appreciate it. I'm guessing you won't have many friends after a while, if you try to solve anything and everything they mention.
Men too usually just need someone to nod, agree and be sympathetic.
Trying to solve someone's problems is a "male" thing IMHO only in as much as males seem to think it's their duty and a penis-size thing to do it to someone else. E.g., to their spouse, leading to views like yours about male vs female things. It makes us feel all smart, and powerful and in control, if we can solve anything like that. I.e., fitting the gender-role assigned to us. It doesn't mean we like being on the _receiving_ end of it.
Yes, sometimes we'll ask for advice. But 90% of the time we just ventilate our tonsils, as a way to pass the time. We too say stuff all the time, for which we don't need or want a solution. E.g., we say stuff like, "boah, I'm so tired, we had this LUG meeting at the pub yesterday until 2 AM" (or WoW raid, or anything) and we just expect a "big party, eh?" or a "yeah, I know how that feels." _Not_ a brainstorming session about how to end pub meetings earlier and how to have the discipline to go to bed on time. And if the conversation partner does the male thing and has to start brainstorming and offering solutions to anything and everything you say, you'll dislike him/her very very fast.
So to get back on topic (or anywhere near it), I doubt that such a system would really cater for anyone at all. Males and females alike. Regardless of whether you're male or female, by the 10'th time you went to the robo-counsellor because you're bored, lonely and depressed, and get a brainstorming session on how to solve your problems... you'll hate the damned thing very very much.
Or to put it more briefly: there's a reason why nobody thought Clippy was fulfilling their need for social interaction.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"Clinical tests of this approach, which has never been tried in a multimedia self-help format"
This is from a standalone DOS program released at least 10 years ago:
"WELCOME TO OUR MOOD DISORDER DIAGNOSTIC PROGRAM
The ®MDBO Internet Mental Health Mood Disorder Diagnostic Program allows either
a patient, informant, or therapist to diagnose the following mood disorders:
* Major Depression * Dysthymia
* Bipolar Disorder * Cyclothymia
* Organic Mood Disorder
Each disorder is diagnosed in accordance with the diagnostic criteria
specified by the American Psychiatric Association."