For example, I’ve been able to work for more than 13 hours a day, with only occasional days off, for more than two years. I attribute this to CT and I expect we’ll be able to replicate this. If we end up not being able to, that’ll be obvious to us and everyone else.
It’s not an infrequent occurrence that someone comes up with a self-help technique that works for himself, but then doesn’t work nearly as well for others—but then if he’s say selling a book he may still be able to find 5 people out of 500 on which it works to add their testimony on the back cover!
So far, I see no reason to think that CT would be any better (either for prediction or self-improvement) than say Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which is also an alternative theory that claims impressive results and has a pretty big following.
I think it is possible some alternative psychology model will help people improve themselves and make humanity better etc. - but there are many candidates (including tings like Scientology), and much potential for self-delusion or misunderstanding or death spirals …
What I’ve heard is that, when they try to do studies, all types of therapy seem to be about as good as every other type; one study found that talking to a teenage girl with no training in particular was about as effective as talking with a professional therapist. (On the other hand, they also all tend to be better than nothing.)
(Note that this is all vague “what I remember hearing” stuff, so there’s probably something more definitive to be found if you Google it.)
It’s not an infrequent occurrence that someone comes up with a self-help technique that works for himself, but then doesn’t work nearly as well for others—but then if he’s say selling a book he may still be able to find 5 people out of 500 on which it works to add their testimony on the back cover!
So far, I see no reason to think that CT would be any better (either for prediction or self-improvement) than say Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which is also an alternative theory that claims impressive results and has a pretty big following.
I think it is possible some alternative psychology model will help people improve themselves and make humanity better etc. - but there are many candidates (including tings like Scientology), and much potential for self-delusion or misunderstanding or death spirals …
What I’ve heard is that, when they try to do studies, all types of therapy seem to be about as good as every other type; one study found that talking to a teenage girl with no training in particular was about as effective as talking with a professional therapist. (On the other hand, they also all tend to be better than nothing.)
(Note that this is all vague “what I remember hearing” stuff, so there’s probably something more definitive to be found if you Google it.)
You’re likely thinking of Dawes, at least in part. Obligatory Less Wrong link.
Thanks.