Agreed. On priors I would expect above-baseline rates of mental health issues in the community even in the total absence of any causal arrow from the community to mental health issues (and in fact even in the presence of fairly strong mental health benefits from participation in the community), simply through selection effects. Which people are going to get super interested in how minds work and how to get theirs to work better? Who’s going to want to spend large amounts of time interacting with internet strangers instead of the people around them? Who’s going to be strongly interested in new or obscure ideas even if it makes the people around them think they’re kind of weird? I think people in this community are both more likely to have some pre-existing mental health issues, and more likely to recognise and acknowledge the issues they have.
Agreed. On priors I would expect above-baseline rates of mental health issues in the community even in the total absence of any causal arrow from the community to mental health issues (and in fact even in the presence of fairly strong mental health benefits from participation in the community), simply through selection effects. Which people are going to get super interested in how minds work and how to get theirs to work better? Who’s going to want to spend large amounts of time interacting with internet strangers instead of the people around them? Who’s going to be strongly interested in new or obscure ideas even if it makes the people around them think they’re kind of weird? I think people in this community are both more likely to have some pre-existing mental health issues, and more likely to recognise and acknowledge the issues they have.