Even though I prefer the written word, I get most of my mental-health (and health) info from Youtube these years. These videos for example taught me important things about trauma, and I think I already knew a lot about it before watching them: https://youtu.be/QHUoSrCOBGEhttps://youtu.be/LAEB5DIPPX8.
Many hundreds of deep experts on health and mental health have made and uploaded to YT tens of thousands of hours of video, and it is significantly easier for me to find the deep experts on health and mental health on YT than it is on the textual web, but if you do not already know a lot about health and mental health, it might not possible for you to tell which YT creators are the deep experts.
The textual web is still superior for many queries / quests, e.g., what are the names of the active forms of vitamin B6? Do any of the experts who treat or research CFS consider disorders of oxalate metabolism and important component, cause or consequence of CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome)? But if the goal is to learn more about CFS or oxalates (rather than the connection or intersection of CFS and oxalates) or trauma disorder or a particular mental-health condition, I would search YT first.
Personally I’m interested in perspectives from developing world countries
I’ve been a heavy consumer of health services and health information since 1985, where “health” here definitely includes mental health (and specifically the effects of childhood trauma).
YT started being my main source of insights about my health and how I might make it better about 3 years ago. During that time I’ve managed to improve my health faster than the rate I managed in the decades before that.
How do you assess the expertise of those YT creators?
A person could write a book about that (which would tend to overlap a lot with a book about general rationality). I’ve probably changed some habit of mine (diet, exercise, etc) about ten times over the last 3 years in response to learnings from YT. I watch carefully for effects of those changes. This watching process involves taking voluminous notes. E.g., I write down everything I ingest every day. So, that is one way I assess experts: basically I experiment on myself.
Thanks a lot for this! I will check both your links. Getting overviews of concepts rather than deep research makes a lot of sense.
I was curious about a more balanced rationalist perspective that LW may be good at, if writers here took an interest.
Getting raw data about people’s experiences is difficult, getting the data into the public domain so common knowledge can be built over it is difficult, getting takes that are not polarised (to being either pro or anti solving trauma) is difficult, building spaces where this stuff can be discussed and debated is difficult.
I would for example be interested in reading a conversation where two psychologists actively debate each other because their raw data (different clients they see) is different and leading them to different conclusions, rather than just a psychologist repeating their textbook knowledge.
Even though I prefer the written word, I get most of my mental-health (and health) info from Youtube these years. These videos for example taught me important things about trauma, and I think I already knew a lot about it before watching them: https://youtu.be/QHUoSrCOBGE https://youtu.be/LAEB5DIPPX8.
Many hundreds of deep experts on health and mental health have made and uploaded to YT tens of thousands of hours of video, and it is significantly easier for me to find the deep experts on health and mental health on YT than it is on the textual web, but if you do not already know a lot about health and mental health, it might not possible for you to tell which YT creators are the deep experts.
The textual web is still superior for many queries / quests, e.g., what are the names of the active forms of vitamin B6? Do any of the experts who treat or research CFS consider disorders of oxalate metabolism and important component, cause or consequence of CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome)? But if the goal is to learn more about CFS or oxalates (rather than the connection or intersection of CFS and oxalates) or trauma disorder or a particular mental-health condition, I would search YT first.
I have nothing relevant here.
How do you assess the expertise of those YT creators? How certain you are of their expertise?
I’ve been a heavy consumer of health services and health information since 1985, where “health” here definitely includes mental health (and specifically the effects of childhood trauma).
YT started being my main source of insights about my health and how I might make it better about 3 years ago. During that time I’ve managed to improve my health faster than the rate I managed in the decades before that.
A person could write a book about that (which would tend to overlap a lot with a book about general rationality). I’ve probably changed some habit of mine (diet, exercise, etc) about ten times over the last 3 years in response to learnings from YT. I watch carefully for effects of those changes. This watching process involves taking voluminous notes. E.g., I write down everything I ingest every day. So, that is one way I assess experts: basically I experiment on myself.
Thanks a lot for this! I will check both your links. Getting overviews of concepts rather than deep research makes a lot of sense.
I was curious about a more balanced rationalist perspective that LW may be good at, if writers here took an interest.
Getting raw data about people’s experiences is difficult, getting the data into the public domain so common knowledge can be built over it is difficult, getting takes that are not polarised (to being either pro or anti solving trauma) is difficult, building spaces where this stuff can be discussed and debated is difficult.
I would for example be interested in reading a conversation where two psychologists actively debate each other because their raw data (different clients they see) is different and leading them to different conclusions, rather than just a psychologist repeating their textbook knowledge.