(Edit: This was an exceptionally badly written comment, and it basically guarantees a misunderstanding. Sorry about wasting everyone’s time. It was meant to be supportive, but it was not. Small explanation here.)
There’ll always be some outrageous wretch who can outdo you in depression-or-what-have-you. You have the right to complain without needing to emphasise your “luck” so much (lucky you, at least you have tissue to wipe your tears with when your brain tries to eat itself). I can outdo most people in depression without breaking a sweat, but I know I’m not the worst, and that knowledge can make it hard to summon up the gumption to say “damn, something really needs to change”. At some point you have to realise that if people at the bottom percentile also feel uncomfortable taking their problems seriously for the same relative reasons, it’s ridiculous all the way up the chain.
While I’m sympathetic to some ideas that this comment alludes to, I’ve downvoted this comment (and your comment below).
I think the tone of this message comes across to me as unnecessarily snarky/antagonistic. I interpreted the comments about luck as the author’s acknowledgement that this kind of experimentation is not feasible for everyone, and of protective factors that the author found helpful for managing difficult parts of this experimentation. I didn’t get a sense that the author was minimising her mental health by comparing herself with people who are less well-off, which is one uncharitable interpretation of your comment.
I think I might be biased here because I would find it difficult to share a personal post like this publicly, and so perhaps have a higher standard for pushbacks that don’t address the main points of the post, but feel more like nitpicks on how these kinds of personal journeys are communicated/what the author should and shouldn’t acknowledge as helpful for them. I worry that comments like this can be (mis)interpreted as potential barriers to other people sharing posts I’d be happy to see on the forum.
RE: your medical advice comment below—I viewed the disclaimer as helpful reasoning transparency to know what her background knowledge is and how she went about investigating this. I think there are also legal reasons that including a disclaimer is useful, even if the author was confident this post was as helpful as the average mental health professional’s advice.
I also think statements like “the illusion that mental health professionals usually know what they’re doing” and “most people here can do better by trusting their own cursory research” seem too strong as standalone claims. While I agree there are doctors who are bad, and doctors who are not clearly good, it’s a few steps further to suggest that mental health professionals usually don’t know what they are doing, and that most people should do their own cursory research instead of seeking input from mental health professionals. I would have found it helpful to see justification that matched the strength of those claims, or more epistemic legibility.
For example, if it is the case that people here can benefit (on net) from input from mental health professionals, then your comment may be harmful in a similar way, by perpetuating the illusion that mental health professionals usually don’t know what they’re doing, and by nudging people towards trusting their own research instead of seeking professional help. It’s unclear from the outside that it’d be valuable to update based on what you’ve said.
tl;dr: I intended to be supportive. I knew my comment could be misinterpreted, but I didn’t think the misinterpretations would do anyone harm. Although I did not expect it to be misinterpreted by Luisa. And Charles He said he read it closely and didn’t decipher my intention, so I’m kinda irrational and will try to update. On rereading it myself, I agree it was very opaque.
My comment was entirely not intended as pushback on anything. I find Luisa’s ability to put in so much conscious effort into this admirable and I appreciate it as inspiration to do the same. She did not seem like she had above-average guilt-feelings for prioritising dealing with her problems when there are always others who suffer more. But because she mentioned luck, and I’m aware that this is something many people struggle with including me, it seemed plausible just on priors that she had an inkling of it. If that’s true, then there’s an off-chance that my encouragement could help, and if it’s not, then my encouragement would fall flat and do no harm.
My tone tried to be supportive by pointing out the laughable absurdity of not feeling ok taking one’s problems seriously unless they were worse than they are. I think pointing this out is high priority, because the dynamic makes for incredibly unfortunate incentives. When people speak to me about my own problems, I often find a humoristic tone to be easier to deal with (and less painfwl) compared to when people conform to an expectation that we all need to be Awfwly Severe and tiptoe around what’s being said. Although I’m aware that my intended tone would only come across if you interpreted with a lot of charity and a justifiably high prior on “Emrik will not try to be rude to someone vulnerably talking about their own depression”.[1]
Why would I keep making comments that can’t be understood without charity? Because I believe the community and the world would be better if collectively learned to interpret with more charity. And I go by the rule “act as if we are already closer to optimal social norms than we in fact are,” because when norms are stuck in inadequate equilibria, we can’t make progress on them unless we are more people acting by this rule.
I think there should be a lot more writing in EA forum that:
direct, brief, and not trying to win the game of politeness/EA rhetoric.
Also, assuming it’s drawing and directly communicating critical skills/experience that EAs don’t have, more writing should be lower effort and not cover every base.
This will get a lot more knowledge and people with time costs/expertise, instead of the lousy situation it is in now.
But your comment is really bad, I can’t even work out what your point is, even after close reading.
Besides the second sentence which is only half about this, every sentence is about how comparing one’s level of depression to someone who has it even worse isn’t helpful or justified. Emrik also talks about their struggles with this.
Perhaps they projected onto the post author about luck, but I’d hope people with depression feel like they can say imperfect and real things about depression without getting pilloried for getting something wrong.
I’d hope people with depression feel like they can say imperfect and real things about depression without getting pilloried for getting something wrong.
Agree! The combined aggregate response to the original comment is probably the least sensitive/kind conduct I have ever seen in the EA sphere
every sentence is about how comparing one’s level of depression to someone who has it even worse isn’t helpful or justified
i can see how you can intrepret this comment as “the OP is putting up norms by measuring their depression and I discourage this”, in an intellectual sense, but reading the ocmment, this read is still marginal, the comment doesn’t really make the case clear.
whatever their experiences are, the writer of the comment isn’t likely writing while currently in a state of depression, and are responsible for communicating. their comment is disorganized and reads like a string of consciousness (because it probably is) and it’s self involved.
note that actually i didn’t downvote the comment by the way.
Thanks for pointing out how dense the comment was. I agree, and I should probably up my bar for how clear my comments need to be so I don’t waste people’s time like this. But two pushbacks:
It’s ok if people make comments they know most people will misinterpret, as long as the misinterpretations are harmless.
And in response to your second point above, what’s wrong with being self-involved?
I think people downvoted it because it comes across more as criticism of other people, rather than the purpose being to talk about the commenter’s own mental health
And fwiw, I disagree with saying “This isn’t professional medical advice, it’s just my experience and amateur knowledge.” Perpetuating the illusion that mental health professionals usually know what they’re doing can be harmfwl, especially in this crowd, because most people here can do better by trusting their own cursory research.
I think people thought it was bad faith or deliberately provocative or something. Or people aren’t used to separating between “disagreement” and “I want to discourage this behaviour”. Or maybe they downvoted it because I stated something potentially harmfwl without justifying it, and they were worried that people would defer to me. I think I shouldn’t have posted the comment without more explanation, because it predictably would be misunderstood, wouldn’t help push communication norms further towards what I want, and made the forum feel less nice for people.
Something like, they misinterpret my comment as if written from a culture full of narcissistic/misanthropic/bitter people, and it makes them feel marginally more like the forum is partially a home for those kinds of people. I did use very strong/rude language, which I now regret. Mental health professionals are good folk, and I should’ve been kinder in my critique.
(Edit: This was an exceptionally badly written comment, and it basically guarantees a misunderstanding. Sorry about wasting everyone’s time. It was meant to be supportive, but it was not. Small explanation here.)
There’ll always be some outrageous wretch who can outdo you in depression-or-what-have-you. You have the right to complain without needing to emphasise your “luck” so much (lucky you, at least you have tissue to wipe your tears with when your brain tries to eat itself). I can outdo most people in depression without breaking a sweat, but I know I’m not the worst, and that knowledge can make it hard to summon up the gumption to say “damn, something really needs to change”. At some point you have to realise that if people at the bottom percentile also feel uncomfortable taking their problems seriously for the same relative reasons, it’s ridiculous all the way up the chain.
While I’m sympathetic to some ideas that this comment alludes to, I’ve downvoted this comment (and your comment below).
I think the tone of this message comes across to me as unnecessarily snarky/antagonistic. I interpreted the comments about luck as the author’s acknowledgement that this kind of experimentation is not feasible for everyone, and of protective factors that the author found helpful for managing difficult parts of this experimentation. I didn’t get a sense that the author was minimising her mental health by comparing herself with people who are less well-off, which is one uncharitable interpretation of your comment.
I think I might be biased here because I would find it difficult to share a personal post like this publicly, and so perhaps have a higher standard for pushbacks that don’t address the main points of the post, but feel more like nitpicks on how these kinds of personal journeys are communicated/what the author should and shouldn’t acknowledge as helpful for them. I worry that comments like this can be (mis)interpreted as potential barriers to other people sharing posts I’d be happy to see on the forum.
RE: your medical advice comment below—I viewed the disclaimer as helpful reasoning transparency to know what her background knowledge is and how she went about investigating this. I think there are also legal reasons that including a disclaimer is useful, even if the author was confident this post was as helpful as the average mental health professional’s advice.
I also think statements like “the illusion that mental health professionals usually know what they’re doing” and “most people here can do better by trusting their own cursory research” seem too strong as standalone claims. While I agree there are doctors who are bad, and doctors who are not clearly good, it’s a few steps further to suggest that mental health professionals usually don’t know what they are doing, and that most people should do their own cursory research instead of seeking input from mental health professionals. I would have found it helpful to see justification that matched the strength of those claims, or more epistemic legibility.
For example, if it is the case that people here can benefit (on net) from input from mental health professionals, then your comment may be harmful in a similar way, by perpetuating the illusion that mental health professionals usually don’t know what they’re doing, and by nudging people towards trusting their own research instead of seeking professional help. It’s unclear from the outside that it’d be valuable to update based on what you’ve said.
(Speaking in personal capacity etc)
tl;dr: I intended to be supportive. I knew my comment could be misinterpreted, but I didn’t think the misinterpretations would do anyone harm. Although I did not expect it to be misinterpreted by Luisa. And Charles He said he read it closely and didn’t decipher my intention, so I’m kinda irrational and will try to update. On rereading it myself, I agree it was very opaque.
My comment was entirely not intended as pushback on anything. I find Luisa’s ability to put in so much conscious effort into this admirable and I appreciate it as inspiration to do the same. She did not seem like she had above-average guilt-feelings for prioritising dealing with her problems when there are always others who suffer more. But because she mentioned luck, and I’m aware that this is something many people struggle with including me, it seemed plausible just on priors that she had an inkling of it. If that’s true, then there’s an off-chance that my encouragement could help, and if it’s not, then my encouragement would fall flat and do no harm.
My tone tried to be supportive by pointing out the laughable absurdity of not feeling ok taking one’s problems seriously unless they were worse than they are. I think pointing this out is high priority, because the dynamic makes for incredibly unfortunate incentives. When people speak to me about my own problems, I often find a humoristic tone to be easier to deal with (and less painfwl) compared to when people conform to an expectation that we all need to be Awfwly Severe and tiptoe around what’s being said. Although I’m aware that my intended tone would only come across if you interpreted with a lot of charity and a justifiably high prior on “Emrik will not try to be rude to someone vulnerably talking about their own depression”.[1]
Why would I keep making comments that can’t be understood without charity? Because I believe the community and the world would be better if collectively learned to interpret with more charity. And I go by the rule “act as if we are already closer to optimal social norms than we in fact are,” because when norms are stuck in inadequate equilibria, we can’t make progress on them unless we are more people acting by this rule.
I understand what you meant hear Emrik, sorry you got down vote buried
It’s no bother, dw dw. I honestly agree it was a bad comment that invited misunderstanding.
I think there should be a lot more writing in EA forum that:
direct, brief, and not trying to win the game of politeness/EA rhetoric.
Also, assuming it’s drawing and directly communicating critical skills/experience that EAs don’t have, more writing should be lower effort and not cover every base.
This will get a lot more knowledge and people with time costs/expertise, instead of the lousy situation it is in now.
But your comment is really bad, I can’t even work out what your point is, even after close reading.
Besides the second sentence which is only half about this, every sentence is about how comparing one’s level of depression to someone who has it even worse isn’t helpful or justified. Emrik also talks about their struggles with this.
Perhaps they projected onto the post author about luck, but I’d hope people with depression feel like they can say imperfect and real things about depression without getting pilloried for getting something wrong.
Agree! The combined aggregate response to the original comment is probably the least sensitive/kind conduct I have ever seen in the EA sphere
Edit: added “combined aggregate ” for clarity
i can see how you can intrepret this comment as “the OP is putting up norms by measuring their depression and I discourage this”, in an intellectual sense, but reading the ocmment, this read is still marginal, the comment doesn’t really make the case clear.
whatever their experiences are, the writer of the comment isn’t likely writing while currently in a state of depression, and are responsible for communicating. their comment is disorganized and reads like a string of consciousness (because it probably is) and it’s self involved.
note that actually i didn’t downvote the comment by the way.
Thanks for pointing out how dense the comment was. I agree, and I should probably up my bar for how clear my comments need to be so I don’t waste people’s time like this. But two pushbacks:
It’s ok if people make comments they know most people will misinterpret, as long as the misinterpretations are harmless.
And in response to your second point above, what’s wrong with being self-involved?
Where’s the part of the post you are responding to?
I made a bad comment, but I tried to explain it in response to Bruce’s comment above. Just letting you know, not requesting that you to read it.
Wow people really downvoted it. I just ignored it, in general I don’t like to downvote people who are talking about their poor mental health 🤷♂️
I think people downvoted it because it comes across more as criticism of other people, rather than the purpose being to talk about the commenter’s own mental health
And fwiw, I disagree with saying “This isn’t professional medical advice, it’s just my experience and amateur knowledge.” Perpetuating the illusion that mental health professionals usually know what they’re doing can be harmfwl, especially in this crowd, because most people here can do better by trusting their own cursory research.
Not sure why people were using the main downvote button on this one, and not just the disagree downvote.
I think people thought it was bad faith or deliberately provocative or something. Or people aren’t used to separating between “disagreement” and “I want to discourage this behaviour”. Or maybe they downvoted it because I stated something potentially harmfwl without justifying it, and they were worried that people would defer to me. I think I shouldn’t have posted the comment without more explanation, because it predictably would be misunderstood, wouldn’t help push communication norms further towards what I want, and made the forum feel less nice for people.
No I mean the one I replied to, your sub-comment
Why would your comment have made the forum feel less nice for people? Sincerely curious.
Something like, they misinterpret my comment as if written from a culture full of narcissistic/misanthropic/bitter people, and it makes them feel marginally more like the forum is partially a home for those kinds of people. I did use very strong/rude language, which I now regret. Mental health professionals are good folk, and I should’ve been kinder in my critique.