It’s kind of disturbing to me that so many people in LW and LW-adjacent talk so casually about psychosis, and like everyone has a friend who’s been psychotic. Nobody in my personal life has experienced psychosis or psychotic symptoms, but it seems like everyone in this space knows someone who has. Maybe it’s all the drugs?
I think there are probably reporting bias and demographic selection effects going on too:
It’s a very transparent community, when someone has a mental break everyone talks about it
And we talk about it more than a normal community would because a rationality community is going to find overwhelming physiologically induced irrationality interesting.
Relatedly, a community that recognizes that bias is difficult to overcome/but can be overcome as a result of recognizing it will also normalize recognizing it. We tend to celebrate admissions of failure more than most communities. So schizophrenics might be less ashamed to confess to these things having happened.
The trainings may give those disposed to psychosis a sense of overconfidence in their rationality that leads them to delay the pursuit of treatment, leading to worse/more surprising breaks when they happen.
For vague aesthetic reasons people with a preexisting disposition to psychosis may be more likely to come here: Rationality training, if it exists, is something they’d want, and they’d appreciate the kinds of people who’re willing to reality check them.
I think you’re exhibiting confirmation bias. All your thoughts are pointed in one direction. You have not attempted to think of reasons why psychosis might be underreported in this community.
If someone says “I think phenomenon X is due to A” and someone responds “I think it’s also due to B, here’s why” I really don’t think it’s evidence of confirmation bias for them not to have written about A in their reply. It’s a comment making a case for B, not an essay that sets out to comprehensively analyze the question.
I agree with you that my comment at the end was excessively combative.
If you just thought of a reason for B, and you wanted to add that, that’s one thing, but my impression is that mako is thinking of reasons for B, and that’s why there’s a list.
It’s directed thinking. An insight that favors one side is one thing, but this is directed thinking.
That can still be productive in a conversation, but it is a basic and bad bias.
I actually don’t think we’d have those reporting biases.
Though I think that might be trivially true; if someone is part of a community, they’re not going to be able or willing to hide their psychosis diagnosis from it. If someone felt a need to hide something like that from a community, they would not really be part of that community.
I wish to reiterate that in the original post what I am talking about is schizotypy, not psychosis. These are distinct conditions and should not be conflated.
Additionally, in that comment, I mention that I have a handful of friends who have experienced psychosis. None of these people were rationalists or had anything to do with rationality.
Yeah that’s one of the comments that inspired me to write mine.
As to your friends not being rationalists- I’m not trying to say that there’s something to do with rationality that’s causing psychosis. The ideology is not the movement, the social graph is more important than the ideas.
It’s kind of disturbing to me that so many people in LW and LW-adjacent talk so casually about psychosis, and like everyone has a friend who’s been psychotic. Nobody in my personal life has experienced psychosis or psychotic symptoms, but it seems like everyone in this space knows someone who has. Maybe it’s all the drugs?
I think there are probably reporting bias and demographic selection effects going on too:
It’s a very transparent community, when someone has a mental break everyone talks about it
And we talk about it more than a normal community would because a rationality community is going to find overwhelming physiologically induced irrationality interesting.
Relatedly, a community that recognizes that bias is difficult to overcome/but can be overcome as a result of recognizing it will also normalize recognizing it. We tend to celebrate admissions of failure more than most communities. So schizophrenics might be less ashamed to confess to these things having happened.
The trainings may give those disposed to psychosis a sense of overconfidence in their rationality that leads them to delay the pursuit of treatment, leading to worse/more surprising breaks when they happen.
For vague aesthetic reasons people with a preexisting disposition to psychosis may be more likely to come here: Rationality training, if it exists, is something they’d want, and they’d appreciate the kinds of people who’re willing to reality check them.
I think you’re exhibiting confirmation bias. All your thoughts are pointed in one direction. You have not attempted to think of reasons why psychosis might be underreported in this community.
This is ironic.
If someone says “I think phenomenon X is due to A” and someone responds “I think it’s also due to B, here’s why” I really don’t think it’s evidence of confirmation bias for them not to have written about A in their reply. It’s a comment making a case for B, not an essay that sets out to comprehensively analyze the question.
I agree with you that my comment at the end was excessively combative.
If you just thought of a reason for B, and you wanted to add that, that’s one thing, but my impression is that mako is thinking of reasons for B, and that’s why there’s a list.
It’s directed thinking. An insight that favors one side is one thing, but this is directed thinking.
That can still be productive in a conversation, but it is a basic and bad bias.
I actually don’t think we’d have those reporting biases.
Though I think that might be trivially true; if someone is part of a community, they’re not going to be able or willing to hide their psychosis diagnosis from it. If someone felt a need to hide something like that from a community, they would not really be part of that community.
Additional data:
I know no one who has experienced psychosis, and have never before mentioned this fact in any context.
I wish to reiterate that in the original post what I am talking about is schizotypy, not psychosis. These are distinct conditions and should not be conflated.
Additionally, in that comment, I mention that I have a handful of friends who have experienced psychosis. None of these people were rationalists or had anything to do with rationality.
Yeah that’s one of the comments that inspired me to write mine.
As to your friends not being rationalists- I’m not trying to say that there’s something to do with rationality that’s causing psychosis. The ideology is not the movement, the social graph is more important than the ideas.