Who said there has to be any solution? The universe makes us no such guarantee. The answer to your question could very well be “nobody can fix your stuff; suffer”.
(Well, until the singularity, when godlike friendly AIs can rewrite our whole brains to eliminate flaws, or some such speculative thing. But that can be said of anything, and is irrelevant now; I mention it for completeness only—yes, there may not be any physical law that prevents any given problem from being solved, but that doesn’t mean that we can actually solve it.)
Sure, but the conclusion that any given approach you’ve found actually works must be arrived at in the usual way—by updating on evidence—and the prior probability is low. And such a favorable conclusion about the approaches you list in the OP is unwarranted.
(Edited to add note)
(Note: this is my third comment on this topic, and as such, any further comments will be delayed by the rate limit.) If you would like to see further responses, I believe there is some sort of setting which you can use to enable further comments from me.)
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.
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?
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? Or did I commit epistemic sin in making that decision? This is an honest question, because I don’t yet get your point.
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.)
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.
I think the problem is that some techniques that are created that way work while others don’t.
When using techniques we care about whether those we use work. I personally do think that updating on evidence is important and if your goal is technique creation then it matters.
I personally think that making something a “licensed technique” is often a way to create an environment where updating on evidence on how the technique can be improved gets harder but I completely agree with Said that updating on evidence is crucial.
When it comes to sending your friend videos of animated seals, I would expect that for that to work well it’s important that you understand your friend well enough to know that they appreciate getting videos of seals. Likely, you got positive feedback for it.
I don’t think one should generalize from that technique to send everyone who feels blue seal videos. Before doing that it would be good to build a better model of when people are happy to get seal videos and when it annoys them. I would expect that the relationship to the seal video sender also matters.
I don’t think sending them such a video counts as therapy, even if you’re literally doing it to make someone feel better., because it’s short term and minor, and you’ve probably tried a lot of short term, minor interventions in your life, enough to get an idea of what might work. And if you’re wrong, the consequences would be minor.
If someone had depression and you claimed you could cure the depression long term by sending them a cute video, I would indeed say you don’t have enough evidence.
It’s an illustrative example. Even if you don’t believe that therapy can cure depression specifically, it’s supposed to be able to cure things like it.
The problem is your comparison of theraputic interventions to sending someone a cute video. The cute video is there to cure a short term, minor, issue. The therapy is there to cure a long term major, issue. These are different.
Who said there has to be any solution? The universe makes us no such guarantee. The answer to your question could very well be “nobody can fix your stuff; suffer”.
(Well, until the singularity, when godlike friendly AIs can rewrite our whole brains to eliminate flaws, or some such speculative thing. But that can be said of anything, and is irrelevant now; I mention it for completeness only—yes, there may not be any physical law that prevents any given problem from being solved, but that doesn’t mean that we can actually solve it.)
Agreed. But sitting around and sulking is a bummer, so I rather keep learning, exploring, and sometimes finding things that work for me.
Sure, but the conclusion that any given approach you’ve found actually works must be arrived at in the usual way—by updating on evidence—and the prior probability is low. And such a favorable conclusion about the approaches you list in the OP is unwarranted.
(Edited to add note)
(Note: this is my third comment on this topic, and as such, any further comments will be delayed by the rate limit.) If you would like to see further responses, I believe there is some sort of setting which you can use to enable further comments from me.)
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.
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?
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? Or did I commit epistemic sin in making that decision? This is an honest question, because I don’t yet get your point.
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.)
I think the problem is that some techniques that are created that way work while others don’t.
When using techniques we care about whether those we use work. I personally do think that updating on evidence is important and if your goal is technique creation then it matters.
I personally think that making something a “licensed technique” is often a way to create an environment where updating on evidence on how the technique can be improved gets harder but I completely agree with Said that updating on evidence is crucial.
When it comes to sending your friend videos of animated seals, I would expect that for that to work well it’s important that you understand your friend well enough to know that they appreciate getting videos of seals. Likely, you got positive feedback for it.
I don’t think one should generalize from that technique to send everyone who feels blue seal videos. Before doing that it would be good to build a better model of when people are happy to get seal videos and when it annoys them. I would expect that the relationship to the seal video sender also matters.
I don’t think sending them such a video counts as therapy, even if you’re literally doing it to make someone feel better., because it’s short term and minor, and you’ve probably tried a lot of short term, minor interventions in your life, enough to get an idea of what might work. And if you’re wrong, the consequences would be minor.
If someone had depression and you claimed you could cure the depression long term by sending them a cute video, I would indeed say you don’t have enough evidence.
Yea, but I don’t remember claiming anywhere that I can cure anybody’s depression, and don’t really intend to ever do that...?
It’s an illustrative example. Even if you don’t believe that therapy can cure depression specifically, it’s supposed to be able to cure things like it.
The problem is your comparison of theraputic interventions to sending someone a cute video. The cute video is there to cure a short term, minor, issue. The therapy is there to cure a long term major, issue. These are different.