TonesTones's recent activity
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Comment on Why I am pursuing a life, professionally and personally, of Christian Virtue in ~humanities
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Comment on Lawsuit reveals how colleges really talk about rich applicants in ~life
TonesTones LinkFrankly, I do not totally see why admitting wealthy, connected students even if they are not as qualified is a bad thing. These elite institutions are quite possibly doing their best to serve...Frankly, I do not totally see why admitting wealthy, connected students even if they are not as qualified is a bad thing. These elite institutions are quite possibly doing their best to serve their incoming students. Such a “reveal” is unsuprising to me. (I do not think the article explicitly labeled the practice as a bad thing——it reads like objective journalism——but does suggest the institutions want to hide or deny this behavior. I wonder why?)
In this day and age, having wealth and power or connections to wealth and power is incredibly valuable. For example, if MIT stopped admitting children of wealthy donors and Harvard didn’t stop, I suspect the brightest kids would, on average, be more successful at Harvard. They’d have connections to buisness and venture capital and all the things necessary to enter into a life of privilege. Which is likely what the smart kids admitted into MIT or Harvard want.
The benefits of elite education are and have always been the connections. It is in the best interest of the university and the admitted students for admissions to work the way it does. Is the situation good or just? No. However, I think the only losers in this situation are the rejected candidates. Does a private institution really have any obligation to do favors to students it rejects?
The lawsuit in question is accusing these 12 universities of price fixing (i.e., colluding to give students similar financial aid packages). Which is anticompetitive and absolutely harms the admitted students. However, that isn’t the focus of the article.
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Comment on Question for the women in relationships: how would you react if a male friend asked to hang with you alone? in ~life.women
TonesTones LinkHello! I’m in a different age range, and not a woman, but I hope I can provide something other comments here haven’t. I’m queer, and in particular I identify as aromantic and asexual, so I’m...Hello! I’m in a different age range, and not a woman, but I hope I can provide something other comments here haven’t.
I’m queer, and in particular I identify as aromantic and asexual, so I’m pretty used to relationships that are intimate in one way or another without taking on an explicitly romantic or sexual nature.
Navigating relationships is hard for everybody. We all are essentially driving blind, and rely on cultural knowledge and past experiences to guide us. There doesn’t exist some special set of rules that informs what is appropriate and what isn’t.
Neurodivergence
I’m also neurodivergent and fairly socially adept despite that. I don’t think neurodivergent people struggle socially because they don’t understand the rules. I don’t think anybody truly does. The research shows neurodivergents struggle to recognize facial expressions and body language queues, and therefore have a harder time gauging how somebody else is feeling in a moment. I think the struggle comes from neurodivergents having less signal to make social decisions, and therefore being more prone to make social mistakes.In my experience, people tend to assume the set of rules they are used to is the same as others’ rules, and so infer someone’s intentions based on their own interpretations. This is necessary; you can’t enter every new relationship from scratch.
It seems like you believed that since you were both in committed relationships, the nature of your relationship was obviously strictly platonic. That holds for some people (e.g., some just enjoy flirting with others), but not everyone is so generous with the benefit of the doubt. I think other comments mentioned how your behavior (inviting her to your living place alone, saying no to her boyfriend, emphasizing the 1-1 relationship, etc.) could be interpreted as romantic interest. I think (as do other comments) that these are well-understood conventions. Oops! Mistakes happen, and if you had no bad intentions, I wouldn’t beat yourself up over it.
I want to add this: If you want to do something that could be interpreted in a bad way due to social conventions, you need to explicitly call out the social convention and that it doesn’t apply here. This isn’t always enough, but it seems like a necessary piece to break the rules. I am an aroace person who likes to, for example: flirt, be emotionally vulnerable, go on 1-1 evening outings, etc. with friends. I use something along the lines of: “I know when X happens you are used to it meaning Y, but with me, my intentions are Z.” People genuinely really appreciate the sincerity (but! you have to not change your intentions without very, very explicit communication, otherwise you are now manipulating somebody).
I hope this helps, if not you, then somebody reading this post. Socializing well is a mixture of recognizing and conforming to the common social conventions and empathizing with how someone’s background might inform their individual experience. Honest, clear, and respectful communication is essential. At the end of the day, if you want to be a good friend, it’s about them, not you.
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Comment on The Just World Cultural License—a copyleft license to make the world a better place in ~creative
TonesTones LinkHello @TheMeerkat. From the feedback on the Tildes survey post, it seems like you have returned after some time away fron Tildes. I’m a newer member of the community, but welcome back all the...Hello @TheMeerkat. From the feedback on the Tildes survey post, it seems like you have returned after some time away fron Tildes. I’m a newer member of the community, but welcome back all the same.
I saw this license a few days ago after poking around your website when I noticed the survey was hosted on your domain. I was intrigued and gave it a once-over. I reviewed the FAQ before commenting here. I suppose you are posting it here to generate some sort of discussion, and I’m happy to contribute.
I totally understand where a license like this comes from. I think your website does a good job explaining the motivation behind it. There needs to be some form of accountability for use of works outside of software development. There is an interesting difference, though. The use case for a license for software development is obvious; people want the functionality of a tool or library for their own project.
Therefore, I’m curious to what kinds of work this is intended to apply to. “Cultural works” is quite generic, and I can see how this could be used for something like digital artwork. I’m not a legal scholar, and so I wonder how this would apply to pieces of writing and other forms of artwork. For example, is citing a piece considered sharing or redistributing it? In general, to what range of use cases do you see this being applied to? Are there “cultural works” that I might not even think of?
I think the Preamble and FAQ are well-written and are unambiguous about the intentions of this license. Even if this is the wrong way to accomplish the intended goals (I don’t know enough to say one way or the other), I’m sure the existence acts as a catalyst for someone to make changes they think are relevant. So, this seems like a noble endeavor regardless of effectiveness. Thanks for sharing!
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Comment on The confusing reality of AI friends in ~tech
TonesTones Link ParentI do think that framing as editor/editee is useful. There’s something about the editor/editee process being cyclical with feedback that my framing didn’t include though. It’s not exactly the same....I do think that framing as editor/editee is useful. There’s something about the editor/editee process being cyclical with feedback that my framing didn’t include though. It’s not exactly the same. Again, this article raised more questions for me that I don’t have answers to.
I think that’s the concluding question of the article? The author quoted a few individuals in the field, whose responses range from caution, to cautious optimism, to market supremacy >>> morals.
Indeed it is. In the context of my second-to-last paragraph, I was trying to reframe the concluding question as: what if the user thinks they are talking to a human when in fact the human has been replaced with an LLM? That isn’t discussed explicitly in the article. As usual, it’s inherently unsettling to me but not obvious how it’s philosophically different on a text-based platform.
That’s the question I was trying to evoke with my post. The article asks “Are LLM relationships just as satisfying as human ones?”. I wanted to ask “If they are, then is virtual human contact equivalent to LLM contact, and is it problematic to replace humans with LLMs if everyone benefits?”
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Comment on The confusing reality of AI friends in ~tech
TonesTones (edited )LinkI was already aware these AI companion companies existed, and am unsuprised at their success at capturing customers. Actually hearing from those customers and their feelings for the AIs really...- Exemplary
I was already aware these AI companion companies existed, and am unsuprised at their success at capturing customers.
Actually hearing from those customers and their feelings for the AIs really made me question my own capacity for connection. I consider myself lucky to have many friends, some of whom I have deep, meaningful connections with.
So to what degree are my relationships made possible by my power of language? Many of my friends are my friends because of the combination of what I say and what they say. There is no doubt in my mind that my ability to convey and clarify my ideas, thoughts, and feelings through language dramatically strengthens my ability to be a meaningful human being in a relationship. I cannot imagine having the same relationships with people in a foreign language, even if I could speak and understand it. My mastery over the language wouldn’t be there.
This is obviously true in general when you consider that written and spoken media can evoke emotions. I often read or listen to feel something or think about something. The author’s ability to use that language to that end makes their content more or less compelling.
Some of the interactions with AI companions felt obviously generic to me, but they clearly weren’t to the customers. A sufficiently isolated person might never have interacted with somebody who has the same power over language as an LLM. Does that make their relationship with the LLM more potent than their relationships with a human being? My instinctual answer is obviously NO, but at the same moment, if I were replaced with an equivalent version of myself who simply spoke and wrote German, my relationships with people who speak German would become more potent.
So, when does our capacity for human thought end and our capacity for constructing language begin? My language is inextricable from who I am as a person. To the people around me, I am likely primarily valuable as much as my language is. So, in a human relationship, does it matter when human thought ends and language begins? It’s the same to an observer. But if it doesn’t matter, then why is a relationship with an LLM worse than a human one?
Here on Tildes, I am barely anything more than my language. Maybe I am also characterized by my infrequent but long comments, and my tendency to forgot to respond to my comments’ replies. But if I were to make a robot through which I passed my thoughts and then the robot constructed the comment, but the robot had mastery over language and could convey my thoughts in a way I simply couldn’t, who is more authentic? Surely the robot isn’t me, but it damn well might be strictly more compelling than me. And that terrifies me.
I foresee a potential future where if I get blocked on social media (e.g., a dating app), the person I am talking to will be replaced by an LLM that kindly and emphathetically ends the relationship. The end result is equivalent except my feelings will be less hurt and I’m less likely to be angry. Maybe it decreases stalking cases. Maybe it increases happiness. Surely it increases app retention.
Everyone is better off. Everyone gets what they want. All that is required is a small replacement. Of a person with a robot. But if everyone is better off, that isn’t harmful, right?
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Comment on Slop economics in ~finance
TonesTones LinkI have not seen this creator before. "Slop" (or at least the intentional creation of it) certainly seems like a novel phenomenon. I think the creator made a strong argument connecting "slop" to...I have not seen this creator before. "Slop" (or at least the intentional creation of it) certainly seems like a novel phenomenon. I think the creator made a strong argument connecting "slop" to the perverse incentives of corporations to make something that will hold somebody's attention.
However, the conclusion of this video really fell flat for me. Specifically, I do not think "slop" is defined by something that uses the existing value of the brand without adding to it. The creator themself nearly arrives at this conclusion in their script.
I mentioned Daredevil as an example of good, non-slop, valuable, attractive, Netflix content, but it is a Marvel adaptation. It exploits the already existing, captured value of brand recognition and attachment to a specific, established character.
Instead of recognizing their definition of slop has issues, they decide that there is a "slop spectrum".
There is a "slop"-iness to Daredevil. The edges of the slop principle do become hazy the closer you look. [...] So maybe there's a slop spectrum.
If you consider nearly any event in the cultural zeitgeist, there is at least some exploitation of existing value; it helps get people invested. Avengers: Endgame, the Drake/Kendrick beef, the Star Wars sequels, Taylor Swift's Eras concert. Or, literally any product with a recognizable brand. Most of marketing is about developing and building off of existing cultural value.
That doesn't make everything that has ever been made that builds off previous work slop. Building off previous works can result in an incredible global experience like Eras, or it can forever damage the reputation of the previous work like Star Wars almost overnight. Neither of these examples feel like slop to me because of how strong people felt about these things. These events made people feel things.
I would describe slop as simply palatable. Acceptable. Mediocre. Not doing anything novel, interesting, or challenging, but simply repeating what is known to work. Pillar of Garbage accurately identifies that a) slop slowly degrades the reputation of a brand over time and b) many successful brands are exploited to generate slop that gets guaranteed attention.
There's always been mediocre work. Today, those works simply aren't remembered because they were uninteresting. I think the real novelty of this era is what this creator points out Netflix is doing. Intentionally creating slop to avoid losing people's attention. This might be bad for the culture, but it's clearly what the free market demands. Netflix is profitable when every other independent streaming service is dead, and the dependent ones remain subsidized. This seems unique to the post-Information era.
For those of you who watch F.D. Signifier's analysis of hip hop culture, I think he had a compelling reason why this has happened. F.D. describes the pre-Internet hip hop culture as being dominated by the gatekeepers: record executives, radio hosts, and other powerful industry figures who used to decide who got seen. If you wanted to publish a record, get your song on the radio, and otherwise get a spotlight, you needed to go through the gatekeepers. As a result, the gatekeepers got to determine what the culture looked like, for better or for worse.
In the post-Internet era, F.D. makes the case that while still powerful, these gatekeepers are forced to bend a knee to the all-powerful algorithms. If your song doesn't become a TikTok sensation, another one will. If your streaming service doesn't optimize for watchtime and retention, Netflix will. As the creation and consumption of media is democratized, the algorithms determine what works.
I think what we see happening today is companies learning that slop is what works consistently. They are deciding to produce slop, fully aware that it deteroriates their brand value, to generate capital. Since the gatekeepers lack power, they won't fight fair in the battle for attention. Instead, when some superstar comes out of the masses with new, exciting brand value, they'll use their capital to buy in and repeat. Low-risk with guaranteed returns.
I'm glad I watched the video. I do not think I would have thought about this or come to this conclusion otherwise.
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Comment on ADHD and TODO lists in ~health.mental
TonesTones Link ParentHa! Thanks for the hot take. Just wanted to mention for anyone thinking about their executive functioning issues: there are other neurodiversities (specifically for me, ASD) that also impact...Anybody who claims to have solved it with a single method either doesn't have ADHD or hasn't truly solved it.
Ha! Thanks for the hot take.
Just wanted to mention for anyone thinking about their executive functioning issues: there are other neurodiversities (specifically for me, ASD) that also impact executive function. I have been diagnosed with ADHD, but based on my personal understanding of the condition and myself, I think that was a misdiagnosis from the ASD's impact on my executive functioning.
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Comment on Wonder announces acquisition of Grubhub in ~food
TonesTones Link ParentThe CEO of Wonder is Marc Lore, who is worth (I think) multiple billions of dollars. Since the acquisition was for less than a billion, this seems more comparable to Elon Musk’s purchase of...The CEO of Wonder is Marc Lore, who is worth (I think) multiple billions of dollars. Since the acquisition was for less than a billion, this seems more comparable to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter from a financial standpoint. (I don’t know much about Marc Lore or his goals, so I don’t want to make a non-financial metaphor between the two billionaires.)
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Comment on "I’m withdrawing from DBT and this problematic language is why" in ~health.mental
TonesTones LinkI think mental health journeys are deeply personal, so I won't be writing any advice for people who DBT hasn't worked for, and if DBT hasn't worked for you, none of this is a judgment. I want to...I think mental health journeys are deeply personal, so I won't be writing any advice for people who DBT hasn't worked for, and if DBT hasn't worked for you, none of this is a judgment. I want to explain why I think the author had the reaction they did.
While I think "it depends on the therapist" is largely true, I also think DBT explicitly refuses to engage with trauma exploration because that's not the goal. It trains therapists to address thoughts and behaviors because that's the best way to change feelings. That can feel like it isn't addressing the root causes, but often changing behavior is what is needed to address the root cause of the issue.
I think DBT works this way because for many, DBT is the last in many different modalities of therapy that they have tried. This was the case for me. There comes a point where continuing to dwell on past events is not helpful and can be avoided, and you just need to acknowledge the past cannot be changed and focus on the future. For many who have done substantial therapy to explore, understand, and (begin to) heal their trauma, that's the right next step. If you have DBT before you have done that processing of the past, I can see why the author would have felt the way they did in response to DBT. Also, when somebody is ready to move on depends on the person. Everyone's journey is different, and that's unfortunate for providers.
I also want to mention a distinction between "provider language" and "patient language", where "provider language" is what providers use to discuss patients in reports, and "patient language" is what providers use to talk to patients. I have not heard this explicitly talked about, but it definitely exists, and you can glean a strong difference between provider-facing material and patient-facing material for this reason. Sometimes my therapist uses phrases under their breath that I have never heard of.
I mention this because the author focuses on "therapy-interfering behaviors" as bad language, and I think this is intended to be provider language, and the therapist in question really shouldn't be using it. I think this because I've heard that phrase maybe once or twice between lots of exposure to DBT and three different DBT providers. It's definitely invalidating, especially when used to talk about behaviors that aren't just 'missing session' or 'not taking meds' or something, but it's useful because you have to address therapy-interfering behaviors first before addressing other behaviors.
I think it makes sense that DBT doesn't work for everyone, and the author definitely seems to dislike DBT for reasons that are pretty specific to DBT. It's also sad that we don't know how to address everyone's mental health issues yet. Hopefully pieces like this help get us a little bit closer.
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Comment on ADHD and TODO lists in ~health.mental
TonesTones LinkI also struggle with executive dysfunction. One thing I’ve been trying recently that may or may not help other people is what I call expectation journaling. It’s more or less something I invented...I also struggle with executive dysfunction.
One thing I’ve been trying recently that may or may not help other people is what I call expectation journaling.
It’s more or less something I invented on my own to help myself. Someone may have come up with a similar idea independently, but AFAIK, there’s not any research about effectiveness.
The premise: Instead of writing what you want to get done in a day, or what you plan to get done, write what you expect to get done. This is fundamentally a predictive exercise. (I do it either evening of the day before or day of; it’s probably more helpful to do the day before.)
- If you write down a list of one thing and complete it, success.
- If you write that you believe you’ll spend all day on social media and you do, success.
- If you don’t write any list at all, that’s not a success.
- If you either fail to meet OR exceed your expecations, it’s a failure, but not because of your actions, but because your prediction was wrong.
I try not to actively hold myself to my predictions. I always will, just because by writing something down, you are more likely to do it (that’s part of the point of TODO lists). But it isn’t a moral failure if I don’t get my list done, it’s a predictive failure.
This system is intended to take advantage of the fact that if you decided something is important yesterday, you’ll probably think it’s important today. However, it also acknowledges (like many other comments have) that we often give ourselves too much to do because our expectations are super optimistic.
I began practicing expectation journaling to train myself to keep my expectations in line with my realistic ability. Note that the nature of this journal means it cannot replace hard requirements (where it is a moral failing if you don’t do something, like attend an important event), so I still use calendars, Most/Must prioritization, and other time management tools if I really need to do something on a specific day.
I also write down how long (in a range) I expect time-flexible events and tasks to take and how I expect to feel doing certain tasks (e.g., fear, excitement, anxiety) in the spirit of Cope Ahead from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (by knowing an emotion is coming, you can be prepared to deal with it).
Let me know if you try this! Whether it helps you or not. Might publish a longer piece about this if it’s actually helpful to others.
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Comment on The elite college students who can’t read books in ~humanities
TonesTones Link ParentIt’s good to hear the article has substance from the primary and secondary education perspective. While the “earlier schools aren’t teaching kids to read” narrative was only one piece of the...It’s good to hear the article has substance from the primary and secondary education perspective. While the “earlier schools aren’t teaching kids to read” narrative was only one piece of the article, it was already weakly supported in the piece, and reading one of their sources critique the article so harshly was shocking.
I understand the need to focus on the professorial body, but I wish they had found some of those Reddit teachers if they were claiming primary and secondary school as the cause.
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Comment on The elite college students who can’t read books in ~humanities
TonesTones LinkThis is a compelling article. I read it when posted and was a bit surprised, but largely accepted it. Pedagogy is one of my areas of interest (I work full-time in pedagogical research), and this...This is a compelling article. I read it when posted and was a bit surprised, but largely accepted it.
Pedagogy is one of my areas of interest (I work full-time in pedagogical research), and this article did the rounds.
However, I was recently referred to this blog post by Carrie M. Santo-Thomas, who was interviewed for this piece.That this teacher was taken so explicitly out of context (specifically, she provided evidence to the reporter that her high schoolers did read full-length novels) and that the reporter still chose to include her in the final piece makes this seem like lazy journalism. They seemed to want a headline that they knew would get clicks and formed a narrative around it, even when evidence presented itself to the contrary.
I'll let the piece speak for itself, but I wanted to highlight two sentences.
The rising young generations want texts that matter to them, that reflect their lives and experiences. So when we force-feed yet another vanilla canonical dust collector, and then complain that they aren’t playing along, it’s just not a good look for us.
The world is changing. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are being taught by the Internet about the issues with the world in a way that hasn't occurred in the past. While I haven't done any literary analysis on the classics mentioned (I'm in STEM), I think the author's take that students could be much more interested in reading books that speak to their (new) perception of the world makes a lot of sense.
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Comment on How a break-up of Google could transform tech in ~tech
TonesTones LinkArticles like these frustrate me because they seem to distort the economic discourse. I think the author, and some of the academics and industry experts they quote, have misinformed opinions. I...- Exemplary
Articles like these frustrate me because they seem to distort the economic discourse. I think the author, and some of the academics and industry experts they quote, have misinformed opinions. I genuinely can't tell if these experts are getting their quotes taken out of context, if they are making arguments that are bad faith, or if they actually believe the things they claim.
Before I begin, I recognize these experts quoted don't have the space to give a nuanced take on these issues in articles, and I do. But I also think that if you actually have faith in the nuanced take, your abbreviated, unnuanced take should be the best approximation of the nuanced take. I don't think that's what's happened here.
“Monopolisation cases are difficult to win, but even harder to remedy,” says David Balto, an antitrust lawyer and former Federal Trade Commission official. “It’s very, very hard to change the nature of a market.” That is particularly the case, he adds, in businesses with network effects, where “there are natural reasons why you end up with dominant firms” — something common to many tech markets.
"The nature of the market" is the fundamental idea I have issue with, which makes me so frustrated. There is no natural state of the market. Economies are emergent properties of consumer behaviors, producer behaviors, and the rules set forth by the government. We don't have a natural market, we have a market produced by years of government protecting corporations but failing to protect consumers. The use of "nature of the market" is especially aggravating coming from a former FTC official, since it seems explicitly engineered to absolve the government of responsibility when anti-consumer markets exist.
On Anarchism
I recognize there is a political position where society can exist without a governing body. As far as I'm aware, historical examples of such a society tend to barter (if it can be even called that) via some form of "gift economy" or exchanges where the value of goods is understood by trandition and remains largely fixed.I'm not calling these markets, since (as far as I understand) prices of goods don't really exist, so a lot of economic analysis doesn't apply. Every historical instance I'm aware of that involved market bartering as we understand it involved a governing body or a very quick emergence of a governing body to resolve disputes.
I'm happy to be corrected. However, I'm not dealing with 'just because we haven't tried it, doesn't mean it can't exist'. I agree, but this post is largely meant to show what holds with the economics we do know, which only constitutes the things we have tried.
“If the court broke up Google, it wouldn’t change these monopolistic conditions,” says Michael Cusumano, a management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A break-up would also be an overly harsh punishment for a company that has achieved much of its success through its search innovations, he adds.
"Monopolistic conditions" is probably a better term than "nature of the market", but it still disempowers the government in this context. The key idea for both of these experts seems to be the idea that in some markets, it is easier for a company to gain a monopoly. I absolutely agree, but it's worth repeating that every company wants to have a monopoly. Ostensibly, there may be some companies that are pro-competition, but every company could reduce costs (read: salaries), reduce friction for both their operations and their consumers, and increase profits by monopolizing their markets. Which means every company is incentivzed to create monopolistic conditions in a market if they can be the monopoly.
To me, there seem to be two things that are both independently sufficient for monopolistic conditions, (and these two things are really two sides of the same coin). First, there's high startup costs; if there's a lot of upfront investment required to enter a market, the first firm to do so will achieve a monopoly. Second, there's innovation; if a company does something better than its competition, and wins a majority of consumers in this way, they can leverage their user base to create a monopoly.
Realistically, every instance of high startup costs is an instance of innovation, but there are instances of innovation where there are low startup costs, and in this case, it is fairly easy for competition to replicate the innovation, and end the monopoly. In this scenario, companies use trade secrets (government protection to reduce corporate espionage), non-compete contracts (government protection to reduce monetization of people as assets), patents (government protection to incentivize R&D), and other tools to maintain their monopoly. More recently, we've seen regulatory capture become a new tool, where companies R&D without any government oversight (see self-driving), and once they've developed a safe solution, lobby for regulation so that no other company can replicate their innovation.
On Network Effects
The context for these quotes is as follows:Android and Chrome themselves have strong network effects that make them more attractive, the more people use them. Also, as standalone companies, they would have strong incentives to continue contracting with Google to carry its search engine.
Chrome's network effects are largely manufactured; as @Interesting mentions, because they have a monopoly, they get control over web standards. The same is true for Android; it's a dominant OS because building an app ecosystem is quite hard, but it's the lack of transparency and willingness to cooperate to make app development easier that's manufacturing that network effect.
Network effects are real, but I don't think they are as strong as people often say in a vacuum. For example, consider social media, which is the typical case study in network effects. We've seen new social media pop up (and die); Vine, TikTok, Instagram, etc. When apps innovate, people move. Often, new and innovative social media applications are bought by their competition, which is monopolistic, anticonsumer behavior, and the FTC keeps letting it happen.
Most forms of monopolistic conditions are forms of government protection. There are some instances where companies try to monopolize by outcompeting with subsidization (selling a product for cheaper than its costs to maintain a monopoly and leverage network effects). My opinion is that companies need to actively leverage many different forms of "monopolistic conditions" to maintain a monopoly.
See Youtube, which maintains a dominant market share via regulatory capture, network effects, high startup costs, trade secrets, and subsidization (Youtube's data informs Google's ad business). And there is still competition (streaming services, Nebula, etc.).
The point is that monopolies are primarily protected by the government and legal system. When government takes steps to increase competition, evolution works its magic. Companies are justifiably terrified of competition, since they could die. Competition always benefits the consumer. Sometimes, it doesn't benefit society (patents incentivize R&D, sometimes governments regulate monopolies to reduce duplication of infrastructure, etc.), but it always benefits the individual consumer.
What irritates me is that this is not new or novel economics. This has been known since at least the era of FDR. Companies (and apparently industry experts) like to pretend these are new problems with hard solutions, but they've existed forever, and they are solved with a change in government action (I say change because they are always acting). I hope one day we can invent a passive solution to disincentivize monopolization without damaging society. Until then, godspeed to Lina Khan and the FTC.
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Comment on ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ offers uncertain [and misleading] science in the name of self-help. It’s not alone. in ~health.mental
TonesTones Link ParentI decided to make a second reply, since I wanted to speak to something else you wrote. To me, science is the process of developing falsifiable hypotheses about phenomena and testing them. I don’t...I decided to make a second reply, since I wanted to speak to something else you wrote.
When we call something an art, we are just saying it’s a super complex science we don’t quite understand yet.
To me, science is the process of developing falsifiable hypotheses about phenomena and testing them. I don’t think art can be contained within that definition of science.
Art feels too complex, from the author’s experience, to the viewer’s past experiences, to ever be contained within the hypothesis-test framework. Each piece is individual.
And right now, healing a broken person is an art.
I think I agree here. The ways in which people are broken also feels too individual to be captured within the hypothesis-test framework. You might have a statistical prediction about how effective a treatment will be across a large sample size, but that’s probably the best you can do.
Improving mental health feels like a mix between engineering and art. To me, engineering captures the iterative process of developing a solution, finding holes, and improving it. (That’s a dramatic simplification for some fields, but does capture non-traditional engineering like Software Engineering.)
We iterate on treatments, solutions and tools for specific people until they are able to get better. However, I think most people (including myself) have a few moments like you describe in their journey; a few almost-magical intersections of right place, time, mindset, etc. That can’t be iterated towards, it just has to happen, and that seems to me like art.
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Comment on ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ offers uncertain [and misleading] science in the name of self-help. It’s not alone. in ~health.mental
TonesTones (edited )Link ParentI think we’re mostly on the same page. Edit: Thanks for taking the time to write such a thorough response. I’m happy for you and your journey to healing. I needed to edit this in; sometimes I get...I think we’re mostly on the same page. Edit: Thanks for taking the time to write such a thorough response. I’m happy for you and your journey to healing. I needed to edit this in; sometimes I get caught up in the substance of the text and forget the person behind the screen.
I actually cut out a decent portion of my original response for brevity, and upon rereading, I notice I now never introduce what DBT is before using the abbreviation.
A scientific journal would likely make him a single data point in a study […]
I think the portion of science that takes treatments and analyzes their efficacy across a large sample size is helpful. It provides a basis for therapists’ training and helps society get from mental asylums to helpful holistic treatment centers (we’re still on that path).
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) comes from that field; from the patient’s perspective, it’s essentially a collection of extremely well-defined tools (I know it’s more than that, but I’m not qualified to speak on the therapist’s training portion). The large-dataset studies on it are promising; it works for a lot of people (but not everyone). I do think it’s telling that an effective treatment can be compared to ‘well-defined throwing shit at the wall’. No DBT patient (I think) uses every one of the tools in their day-to-day life. They may try them all, and then use what’s helpful.
I think there’s a community that try to provide a unified theory for some of our mental ailments, and at the moment, they pull from neuroscience to get there. Neuroscience isn’t well-equipped to do that right now, in my opinion. So pieces like this one from the Washington Post appear essentially calling that unified explanation psuedoscience. Hearing those “this is why” explanations can be nice, even if they are wrong. I think our mental health is too emergent from our past experiences to have a “one size fits all” solution. So I think that messaging largely serves as marketing.
I suspect that if such a solution ever appears, it will take the form of DBT, with so many different tools that you get complete or near-complete coverage. And even then, I don’t think either the doctor or the patient will truly know the ‘cause’ of what was wrong to begin with. They might get a vague approximation, like most complex issues in science get, but it won’t be complete.
I removed that nuance in my original comment; it wasn’t the focus of what I was trying to communicate. I do think a scientific approach is helpful from a treatment perspective. I just don’t think it will ever provide a complete explanation as to what the underlying issue is.
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Comment on ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ offers uncertain [and misleading] science in the name of self-help. It’s not alone. in ~health.mental
TonesTones LinkI don’t like speaking about my journey about mental health publicly. For reasons you’ll see in this post, I don’t think a lot of what I have to say will actually help anyone. I also haven’t read...I don’t like speaking about my journey about mental health publicly. For reasons you’ll see in this post, I don’t think a lot of what I have to say will actually help anyone.
I also haven’t read any of the literature mentioned in this critique. I’ve had the book highly commended to me by peers, but I don’t consider myself a victim of any kind of major trauma. Therefore, I will refrain from commenting on those books directly.
That being said, I think this post hits the nail on the head with the issue with society’s commodification of mental health.
I think trying to apply science to mental health is a largely modern phenomena, and while more effective than no treatment, seems to label bad mental health as a problem to be solved with treatments rather than an element of the human condition.
It’s appealing, but that doesn’t capture the whole picture for me. As my mental health has improved, the “why” is best explained by Eastern ideas rather than science. I’m a scientist, and I dislike how far Eastern ideas stray from falsifiability. However, I’ve seen my mental health improve by realizing truths in my head that I can’t really even put into language. And my best attempts always form dialectics——the namesake of DBT——which are logically contradictory statements that remain true.
These ideas are really most explored in Easteen philosophy. For example, Buddhism says that one cannot be taught some truths, but they must be experienced and realized. The monks might be able to show you the path, but you must walk it. I can’t help anyone get “better mental health”, really. I can’t even say, let alone teach, what has helped me.
I don’t practice Buddhism. There are things I dislike about Eastern philisophy. Maybe someday I’ll change my mind. But for now, it’s by far the best analogous comparison I can make to my journey to improve my mental health. And even then, I don’t even know if my mental health has “improved”. I’m just better at living peacefully and effectively with my conditions.
I say all this since it makes sense these books, that so many say are incredibly helpful, preach bad science.
Even O’Connor acknowledges early on that she does “not believe that a neuroscientific perspective on grief is any better than a sociological, a religious, or an anthropological one,” but she feels that “neuroscience is part of the conversation of our times.”
Again, I haven’t read them, but I’d guess that many of the readers that love these books find value in them not for the science, but because the books show these people the path to acceptance of their situation, and therefore the path to relieve their misery.
But the neuroscience, the author’s credentials, and everything else seems to be modern marketing. I doubt their experience in neuroscience is what makes these books so widely praised. After all, no good therapist has their client read the most recent neuroscience literature, and that’s not because they can’t understand it. It’s just not helpful.
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Comment on This is [my dead grandmother]’s special day! in ~tech
TonesTones Link ParentIf someone wanted to remember the dates, they could always include the information on a card in their contacts without syncing it with a calendar. Personally, I definitely don’t want to be...If someone wanted to remember the dates, they could always include the information on a card in their contacts without syncing it with a calendar.
Personally, I definitely don’t want to be reminded of death anniversaries, but it might be useful for records.
Lightning Edit: It occurred to me upon actually reading the post that my calendar/contacts app (BusyCal/BusyContacts) may be smarter than most apps using CalDAV or CardDAV. Always possible to add plain notes to contacts without making them date fields in case those sync like described in the post.
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Comment on Addressing the cause of collapsing fertility: status in ~life
TonesTones Link ParentYou’re absolutely right. I was making a comparison in my head, not an objective statement. A more precise statement might be: modern society has emphasized values that are opposed to having...You’re absolutely right. I was making a comparison in my head, not an objective statement. A more precise statement might be: modern society has emphasized values that are opposed to having children, and simultaneously lessened the social stigma around not having children.
Looking at figures with attention (celebrities, businesspeople, etc.), there are substantially more divorces, remarriages, and generally public admissions that the traditional family structure didn’t work for them. This would’ve been unacceptable 150-200 years ago.
I think having children has always required sacrifices from the parents, there’s just more good options nowadays that don’t involve making those sacrifices. More social mobility, more hobbies and interests to invest time in, etc.
I think it’s true that many people would like to have kids, but I think today it’s much easier to fill in the statement “____ is more important to me than having kids.” and you get less social criticism for making that statement than ages past. That’s what I meant when I said our values are opposed to (i.e., adding pressure against) having kids.
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Comment on Addressing the cause of collapsing fertility: status in ~life
TonesTones LinkThis is a fantastic piece, and I really enjoyed reading it. There's a well-defined premise—the author presents collapsing fertility rates as a socially exisential problem—and paints a clear story...This is a fantastic piece, and I really enjoyed reading it. There's a well-defined premise—the author presents collapsing fertility rates as a socially exisential problem—and paints a clear story connecting this "status framework" to lower fertility rates. A note before diving into my thoughts: I consider a piece of writing good if it causes me to think about things in a different way; I disagree with a lot of what the author concludes, but it caused me to think quite a lot.
I think the status framework could be quite effective for analyzing socioeconomic issues. Our current society has quite different values than past societies. Society operates off of the decisions of well-educated, well-connected, and sometimes ruthless businesspeople and politicians (i.e., venture-starters), as opposed to religious figureheads or royalty. Far more people view the uncapped accumulation of resources, and thus, power and control, as commendable than in eras past. National elections garner far more attention than local elections, as people look to the most powerful people in the world to solve problems. Pre-communications, local politicians were on the hook for people's issues.
I agree with the author that modern society's value set is opposed to having children, except for the most elite. The parenting standards of the early 1900s would be deeply frowned upon today; children were additional labor. Today, they are expected to be in school until 18. I also agree with the author that a lot of the absurd suggestions he proposes would have the effect of increasing fertility.
However, I think this piece has the same fundamental issues as a lot of strong conservative arguments I read: they accept as axioms the wrong ideas. Even if you have a strong argument, if your premise can't hold up to scrutiny, then your conclusions also can't be accepted.In the past, fertility rates were connected strongly to economic growth. In the future, this does not necessarily hold in my view. As we approach a point in history where we are maximally exploiting the world's resources, and the world's resources (and our ability to exploit them) are going to shrink due to climate change, too many people could be a burden on your society.
If you only have enough farmland, water, and energy to support 1/2 of your population, you'll have a civil war before the other 1/2 decide to lay down and die (and that war will cause further resource depletion). In the future, our ability to sustain our society will be far more important than growth; the groups that thrive will be those that aren't greedy for growth. Even if there are more old people than young people, our technology allows such efficient resource extraction that our limitation will be those resources, and not our access to labor.I think the author notices that our current society's set of values is unsustainable; right now, we depend on continuous growth, which we simply won't get in the next fifty years, due to decreases in both labor and resource availability. We will need to shift our value set, but I'm not convinced increasing the fertility rate will be a solution, or even beneficial, to the problems we will face.
Thank you for the touching and meaningful writeup. I felt how much you have been through and how many things you have tried and felt like they haven’t worked.
As somebody who is not particularly religious, I thought I would take some time to encourage and express why I have a lot of respect for religion, including Christianity.
First, churches are one of the few places you can find a community outside of family and work (the “third place”). They also provide a total supportive community, which is actually quite rare in modern urban society. Many people in cities and suburbs rely on just their immediate family and closest friends, which puts stress on everyone when problems arise. A church (or other larger communities) is a much larger supportive network. These are sorely needed in today’s world (people are lonely!), and if secularism continues to grow, I expect some secular solution to this issue to become popular within my lifetime. For now, churches are one of the best places to find a community.
Second, religion encourages belief in a higher power or greater plan. Religion and science are not irreconciliable, but the belief in a greater plan and the belief that the world is fundamentally chaotic are. In particular, scientists that believe in a chaotic world often conclude that humans need to solve their problems with technology to reach utopia. Religion provides an alternative perspective; as I understand, Christianity teaches that the world offers hardships and with strength through God, we can face those hardships with goodness and then reach heaven after life. I think the latter is a much more healthy way of emotionally coping with the injustice, unfairness, and cruelty inherent to our world. Obviously, there are problems we can solve, but not everything is within our control.
Finally, belief in God or something greater is one of the most straightforward paths to true humility. I find the Abrahamic characterization of human as simply creation oddly powerful. It also allows people to believe that we are placed somewhere for a reason; regardless of the truth of that, for me, it makes it way easier to find meaning in my circumstance instead of becoming angry that things aren’t the way I might want.
I hope someone enjoyed reading this. In a positive discussion of religion, I wanted to contribute some of the things I really like about religion and think the secular world could use more of.