I did not recommend any particular intervention in my post. I just tried to explain some part of my understanding of how new psycho- and social technologies are generated, and what conclusions I draw from that.
First of all, even calling these things “[new] psycho- and social technologies” is already prejudicial. Please note: I do not mean that it’s merely prejudicial communicatively—a tendentious or misleading implication (though it is that)—I mean also, and perhaps more importantly, that it’s prejudicial to one’s own thinking.
The right way to think of such things is “a weird thing someone decided to try doing”. And viewed this way, of course, there’s no particular reason to think that anything substantial (much less anything good) should come out of any given such thing. People decide to do weird things all the time, for all sorts of reasons! “This one weird thing that some dude decided to try doing turns out to solve a host of psychological problems” is, stated that way, very obviously a claim that requires a very large amount of evidence to update us to believing it to likely be true.
That said, the question of “where do weird things that people decide to try doing come from” is not a particularly interesting question. The answer is “all sorts of places/causes, but ultimately who cares?”.
Now, if you instead ask “consider weird things that people decide to try doing, that turn out to work—to be successful/effective—where do those things come from?”… well, that is an interesting question! Here we are, basically, asking “what is the process or processes that generate successful inventions or discovers?”. Of course, this is a question that’s been asked many times, and many words have been written in attempts to answer it.
But, importantly, that latter question is hardly applicable to the sorts of things you describe in the OP—because those things don’t work.
If you expect most if not all established therapeutic interventions to not survive the replication crisis—what would you consider sufficient evidence for using or suggesting a certain intervention?
It’s a good question! But one too broad to answer in a comment thread. One relevant sort of consideration, however, would be ruling out alternative explanations for evidence, as described by E. T. Jaynes in his famous commentary on the “resurrection of dead hypotheses”. Many of the so-called therapies turn out to be, variously, frauds, scams, grifts, the placebo effect, desirability bias, poor methodology, or any of an assortment of other things. Convince me that whatever you’re advocating isn’t any of those things, and then we can talk about whether it’s really an intervention that produces some desired result…
For example, a friend of mine felt blue today and I sent them a video of an animated dancing seal without extensively googling for meta-analyses on the effect of cute seal videos on peoples’ moods beforehand. Would you say I had sufficient evidence to assume that doing so is better than not doing so?
In the general case? Or in that specific situation?
Presumably, you know your friend, and what he/she likes and dislikes, etc. And, too, there is the fact that being on the receiving end of an expression of concern and affection usually makes people feel good (though not always! but this, too, is something which you presumably know about your friend).
However, note that “cheer up a friend by engaging them in some amusing diversion” is a perfectly ordinary sort of action, which humans have been doing quite naturally for as long as there have been humans. There’s nothing new about it. You certainly didn’t discover it! And, because it’s not new, not surprising, and not in any way difficult to do, there’s no incentive (monetary, status, or otherwise) for you or anyone else to convince people that this sort of “intervention” works when in fact it doesn’t.
(Note: further comments will be delayed by the rate limit. If you would like to see responses from me more quickly, I believe there is some sort of setting which you can use to enable this.)
First of all, even calling these things “[new] psycho- and social technologies” is already prejudicial. Please note: I do not mean that it’s merely prejudicial communicatively—a tendentious or misleading implication (though it is that)—I mean also, and perhaps more importantly, that it’s prejudicial to one’s own thinking.
The right way to think of such things is “a weird thing someone decided to try doing”. And viewed this way, of course, there’s no particular reason to think that anything substantial (much less anything good) should come out of any given such thing. People decide to do weird things all the time, for all sorts of reasons! “This one weird thing that some dude decided to try doing turns out to solve a host of psychological problems” is, stated that way, very obviously a claim that requires a very large amount of evidence to update us to believing it to likely be true.
That said, the question of “where do weird things that people decide to try doing come from” is not a particularly interesting question. The answer is “all sorts of places/causes, but ultimately who cares?”.
Now, if you instead ask “consider weird things that people decide to try doing, that turn out to work—to be successful/effective—where do those things come from?”… well, that is an interesting question! Here we are, basically, asking “what is the process or processes that generate successful inventions or discovers?”. Of course, this is a question that’s been asked many times, and many words have been written in attempts to answer it.
But, importantly, that latter question is hardly applicable to the sorts of things you describe in the OP—because those things don’t work.
It’s a good question! But one too broad to answer in a comment thread. One relevant sort of consideration, however, would be ruling out alternative explanations for evidence, as described by E. T. Jaynes in his famous commentary on the “resurrection of dead hypotheses”. Many of the so-called therapies turn out to be, variously, frauds, scams, grifts, the placebo effect, desirability bias, poor methodology, or any of an assortment of other things. Convince me that whatever you’re advocating isn’t any of those things, and then we can talk about whether it’s really an intervention that produces some desired result…
In the general case? Or in that specific situation?
Presumably, you know your friend, and what he/she likes and dislikes, etc. And, too, there is the fact that being on the receiving end of an expression of concern and affection usually makes people feel good (though not always! but this, too, is something which you presumably know about your friend).
However, note that “cheer up a friend by engaging them in some amusing diversion” is a perfectly ordinary sort of action, which humans have been doing quite naturally for as long as there have been humans. There’s nothing new about it. You certainly didn’t discover it! And, because it’s not new, not surprising, and not in any way difficult to do, there’s no incentive (monetary, status, or otherwise) for you or anyone else to convince people that this sort of “intervention” works when in fact it doesn’t.
(Note: further comments will be delayed by the rate limit. If you would like to see responses from me more quickly, I believe there is some sort of setting which you can use to enable this.)