What I’d like to see is an organization like CFAR, aimed at helping promising EAs with mental health problems and disabilities—doing actual research on what works, and then helping people in the community who are struggling to find their feet and could be doing a lot in cause areas like AI research with a few months’ investment. As it stands, the people who seem likely to work on things relevant to the far future are either working at MIRI already, or are too depressed and outcast to be able to contribute, with a few exceptions.
I’d be interested in contributing to something like this (conditional on me having enough mental energy myself to do so!). I tend to hang out mostly with EA and EA-adjacent people who fit this description, so I’ve thought a lot about how we can support each other. I’m not aware of any quick fixes, but things can get better with time. We do seem to have a lot of depressed people, though.
Speculation ahoy:
1) I wonder if, say, Bay area EAs cluster together strongly enough that some of the mental health techniques/habits/one-off-things that typically work best for us are different from the things that work for most people in important ways.
2) Also, something about the way in which status works in the social climate of the EA/LW Bay Area community is both unusual and more toxic than the way in which status works in more average social circles. I think this contributes appreciably to the number and severity of depressed people in our vicinity. (This would take an entire sequence to describe; I can elaborate if asked).
3) I wonder how much good work could be done on anyone’s mental health by sitting down with a friend who wants to focus on you and your health for, say, 30 hours over the course of a few days and just talking about yourself, being reassured and given validation and breaks, consensually trying things on each other, and, only when it feels right, trying to address mental habits you find problematic directly. I’ve never tried something like this before, but I’d eventually like to.
Well, writing that comment was a journey. I doubt I’ll stand by all of what I’ve written here tomorrow morning, but I do think that I’m correct on some points, and that I’m pointing in a few valuable directions.
I’m so intrigued by proposal 3)!
I think when a friend is struggling like that I often have a vague feeling of wanting to engage/help in a bigger way than having a few chats about it, and I’m intrigued by this idea of how to do that.
And also thinking about myself I think I’d love it if someone did that for me.
I’m gonna keep that in mind and maybe try it one day!
I’d be interested in contributing to something like this (conditional on me having enough mental energy myself to do so!). I tend to hang out mostly with EA and EA-adjacent people who fit this description, so I’ve thought a lot about how we can support each other. I’m not aware of any quick fixes, but things can get better with time. We do seem to have a lot of depressed people, though.
Speculation ahoy:
1) I wonder if, say, Bay area EAs cluster together strongly enough that some of the mental health techniques/habits/one-off-things that typically work best for us are different from the things that work for most people in important ways.
2) Also, something about the way in which status works in the social climate of the EA/LW Bay Area community is both unusual and more toxic than the way in which status works in more average social circles. I think this contributes appreciably to the number and severity of depressed people in our vicinity. (This would take an entire sequence to describe; I can elaborate if asked).
3) I wonder how much good work could be done on anyone’s mental health by sitting down with a friend who wants to focus on you and your health for, say, 30 hours over the course of a few days and just talking about yourself, being reassured and given validation and breaks, consensually trying things on each other, and, only when it feels right, trying to address mental habits you find problematic directly. I’ve never tried something like this before, but I’d eventually like to.
Well, writing that comment was a journey. I doubt I’ll stand by all of what I’ve written here tomorrow morning, but I do think that I’m correct on some points, and that I’m pointing in a few valuable directions.
I’m so intrigued by proposal 3)! I think when a friend is struggling like that I often have a vague feeling of wanting to engage/help in a bigger way than having a few chats about it, and I’m intrigued by this idea of how to do that. And also thinking about myself I think I’d love it if someone did that for me. I’m gonna keep that in mind and maybe try it one day!