You’re right that LW is definitely not going to be a cure-all, and obviously I’m not asking for everyone on LW to band together to fight this one problem. A lot of the people here have their own projects. But I think that LW could be a great help to people who are trying to get help and can’t- either because they can’t afford mental health care, or because their health care isn’t helping. LW is a brilliant educational place that bases a lot on science and cognitive studies. I think this could easily extend to helping with mental illness.
Mental illness is a complex thing, and everyone who has one is complex in a different way. That’s why mental illness is so hard to treat. Most of the theories about what the causes are (genetics, brain chemistry, etc.) aren’t supported well enough by science to help. It can take years to find the right cocktail of drugs to fight a specific mental illness a person has, and that same cocktail won’t work for someone else with the same problem. LW sort of has a talent for sorting out bad science.
I wonder if MetaMed does mental illness. Last I heard, they’re still in the early, way-too-expensive-for-the-likes-of-me phase, but they’re more or less “LW-affiliated rationalists try to filter the science to optimize your solution”.
Argh. This post sounds like a lot of inefficiencies.
Let’s be practical and use the KISS principle the right way. What are your problems? What are you trying to improve? I’m no therapist, and my english is too bad to produce a decent quote, but I’m still quite sure that you can get amazing results if you cross off “mental illness” and open a new page with “self improvement”.
You’re free to ad hominem me. You’re free to do whatever you want. But the bottom line is that as long as you don’t strive to better yourself, you’re doomed, no matter who you are.
Your english is better than the english of a lot of native speakers.
Well… yeah, online discussion is inefficient. But when you’re cut off from the efficient options, you probably shouldn’t throw up your hands and give up. I’m not sure if that’s what you meant, though.
I think you may be disregarding the viewpoints of others, here. You can’t do any efficient self-improvement if you refuse to call your problems what they are. It might feel nice to say “You know what? I’m not mentally ill. I just need to improve myself.” I WANT to improve myself. Most people here do. I’ve hit a roadblock here, and I want to talk to other people that have, or have in the past. I’d like to hear the viewpoints of others. What worked, what didn’t, etc. Group therapy/discussions with people with the same problem or similar have been extremely helpful to a lot of people.
Also, “keep it simple, stupid” is only helpful when the problem can be simplified further. Simplifying things is really hard when we don’t understand them, and mental illness is one of science’s big question marks.
I’m not trying to ad hominem you, and I’m sorry if I came off that way.
Your english is better than the english of a lot of native speakers.
I doubt it.
“You know what? I’m not mentally ill. I just need to improve myself.”
Who cares about mental illness? There’s action and inaction. Action WILL lead to something and if you do it well you’ll get GOOD results.. Inaction gets you nothing no matter what you do.
Also, “keep it simple, stupid” is only helpful when the problem can be simplified further.
No, it’s always useful and is a good way to think about things in general. Why should things be more complex when they can be simplier? Do you begin with a simple (or rather, minimal) model and later expand on it or just build a complex theory and try it? The time investment, effort, and return are way better on the simple route, the complex route sucks because by the time you do both you WILL get a sharper pencil using the simple way.
You should also remember that complex things are built out of simple things, so you won’t be a complex master before you’re a simple superhypermegaultragrand-master.
Simplifying things is really hard when we don’t understand them, and mental illness is one of science’s big question marks.
Why should LW be a mental consuler? No offense intended—but I bet there are people out there who will help more than anyone one LW can.
You’re right that LW is definitely not going to be a cure-all, and obviously I’m not asking for everyone on LW to band together to fight this one problem. A lot of the people here have their own projects. But I think that LW could be a great help to people who are trying to get help and can’t- either because they can’t afford mental health care, or because their health care isn’t helping. LW is a brilliant educational place that bases a lot on science and cognitive studies. I think this could easily extend to helping with mental illness.
Mental illness is a complex thing, and everyone who has one is complex in a different way. That’s why mental illness is so hard to treat. Most of the theories about what the causes are (genetics, brain chemistry, etc.) aren’t supported well enough by science to help. It can take years to find the right cocktail of drugs to fight a specific mental illness a person has, and that same cocktail won’t work for someone else with the same problem. LW sort of has a talent for sorting out bad science.
I wonder if MetaMed does mental illness. Last I heard, they’re still in the early, way-too-expensive-for-the-likes-of-me phase, but they’re more or less “LW-affiliated rationalists try to filter the science to optimize your solution”.
Argh. This post sounds like a lot of inefficiencies.
Let’s be practical and use the KISS principle the right way. What are your problems? What are you trying to improve? I’m no therapist, and my english is too bad to produce a decent quote, but I’m still quite sure that you can get amazing results if you cross off “mental illness” and open a new page with “self improvement”.
You’re free to ad hominem me. You’re free to do whatever you want. But the bottom line is that as long as you don’t strive to better yourself, you’re doomed, no matter who you are.
Your english is better than the english of a lot of native speakers.
Well… yeah, online discussion is inefficient. But when you’re cut off from the efficient options, you probably shouldn’t throw up your hands and give up. I’m not sure if that’s what you meant, though.
I think you may be disregarding the viewpoints of others, here. You can’t do any efficient self-improvement if you refuse to call your problems what they are. It might feel nice to say “You know what? I’m not mentally ill. I just need to improve myself.” I WANT to improve myself. Most people here do. I’ve hit a roadblock here, and I want to talk to other people that have, or have in the past. I’d like to hear the viewpoints of others. What worked, what didn’t, etc. Group therapy/discussions with people with the same problem or similar have been extremely helpful to a lot of people.
Also, “keep it simple, stupid” is only helpful when the problem can be simplified further. Simplifying things is really hard when we don’t understand them, and mental illness is one of science’s big question marks.
I’m not trying to ad hominem you, and I’m sorry if I came off that way.
I doubt it.
Who cares about mental illness? There’s action and inaction. Action WILL lead to something and if you do it well you’ll get GOOD results.. Inaction gets you nothing no matter what you do.
No, it’s always useful and is a good way to think about things in general. Why should things be more complex when they can be simplier? Do you begin with a simple (or rather, minimal) model and later expand on it or just build a complex theory and try it? The time investment, effort, and return are way better on the simple route, the complex route sucks because by the time you do both you WILL get a sharper pencil using the simple way.
You should also remember that complex things are built out of simple things, so you won’t be a complex master before you’re a simple superhypermegaultragrand-master.
I think I need anger control.