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.
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.