4 ms·

Could say the same about antidepressants. "Fix the causes, not the symptoms!" And yet, here we are.

vouaobrasil 3y ago
I agree, 100%. Here we are indeed. But that doesn't mean we should not try and change things. One step at a time, right?
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  We are here because of free will. What steps would you take? Convince people who have opted out of the dating pool to opt back in? Convince women who would rather be single that their potential partner expectations are unrealistic (even if they genuinely are)? https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/all-the-single-ladies-61-of-women-in-the-uk-are-happy-to-be-single-compared-to-49-of-men/ https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/all-the-single-ladies-61... https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/202102/why-so-many-single-women-without-children-are-happy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/2... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/opinion/marriage-women-men-dating.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/opinion/marriage-women-me... https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-demographic-dating-market-doom https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-demographic-dating-... https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-022-09422-2 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-022-09422-2 You can patch over the outcomes but there is no going back to the before times. Dating app dates and relationships for some, AI companions for others, single life for the rest. It’s not great, it just is.
mejutoco 3y ago
Saying that something exists is not an argument about why something _should_ not exist. But I agree, "should" discussions are rarely the most productive. Shoulda, woulda, coulda, I guess :)
throw18376 3y ago
antidepressants can help people fix root causes. take them for 6 months to 2 years or so, break out of a bad cycle, get some space without depression symptoms to build up healthy habits and restore a social life. there are some bad profit motives to keep people on SSRIs indefinitely. however at least they don't compete with other aspects of your life. and now that they are dirt cheap (at cheapest, $4 for a month supply at Walmart) the profit motives are much less than before. hard to imagine an "AI girlfriend" that could be similarly short-term and bring positive changes. it's just dystopian. the most profitable way to run such a product is not to help, it's to eat up as much user time as possible and outcompete healthy activities and real human relationships.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  Ok, maybe not the best analogy... Painkillers then? Other forms of entertainment in general? It's the relationship version of playing videogames instead of getting a job.
- dspillett 3y ago
  > antidepressants can help people fix root causes Nit-picking rather than disagreeing, but feel it worth making more obvious in the wording: antidepressants can help people deal with the symptoms while they find/fix root causes. Being on them for an extended time can bring its own problems.
- esclerofilo 3y ago
  > hard to imagine an "AI girlfriend" that could be similarly short-term and bring positive changes. Feeling lonely has negative consequences, there's a famous study comparing it to smoking cigarettes. Lonely people can get fixated on that feeling. Mitigating it may help people look for other hobbies, that they kept putting off because they were so focused on their need of a girlfriend. Hell, a realistic enough "woman AI" (not "girlfriend AI") could make you lose the fear of flirting, be useful as practice, to have more confidence when you have a real date. > the most profitable way to run such a product is not to help, it's to eat up as much user time as possible If you charge per-month (like OP), it's more profitable is to eat up less time.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
phatskat 3y ago
> “Fix the causes” How, exactly? Yes, some people experience depression as a symptom of something than can be addressed through various therapies, but what about people who just have it wired into their brains? How do we “fix” that?
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  Even if it is wired into certain brains, that wiring may only cause depression when it interacts with our modern technological society.
  - phatskat 3y ago
    I don’t think that’s how that works. If your depression “goes away” when you stop using Instagram, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about that “wake up on a warm sunny day in a house with your loving family and feel like jumping off the roof” kind of depression. That “everything can be going great and you can’t get out of bed” depression. The kind of depression that isn’t “cured” by turning off your phone or going off the grid. And it certainly isn’t “cured” by antidepressants, however, they can make a huge impact on quality of life for many people.
  - piva00 3y ago
    Have you or a close loved one ever had clinical depression? Diagnosed by a professional which required help? It's a very strange take if you ever had any personal and direct contact with it, it's not only caused by "modern technological society" even though it's pretty aggravated by it.
InfiniteRand 3y ago
I think it's helpful to look at depression as a group of diseases like cancer. There are some cases of depression where we know the root cause: thyroid issues, sleep apnea-related depression, low testosterone related depression, brain tumors, etc. In those cases, addressing the root cause is probably the best treatment method. This is similar in some ways to cancer, where certain cancers have very definite causes and can be treated by dealing directly with those causes (like cervical cancer). Then there are all the other cases, some of which likely have simple causes that are just unknown, some of which have complex causes that are intermeshed deeply with the biology of human thinking. In that case, you have blunt tools, like anti-depressants, to address the pathway of the disease without knowing the exact cause, much like chemo-therapy can be used to attack cancer cells without knowing what prompted the cancer originally. So in short, yes treat the causes, but when you don't know the cause it's not irrational to treat the symptoms as best you can

I agree, 100%. Here we are indeed. But that doesn't mean we should not try and change things. One step at a time, right?

toomuchtodo 3y ago
We are here because of free will. What steps would you take? Convince people who have opted out of the dating pool to opt back in? Convince women who would rather be single that their potential partner expectations are unrealistic (even if they genuinely are)? https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/all-the-single-ladies-61-of-women-in-the-uk-are-happy-to-be-single-compared-to-49-of-men/ https://www.mintel.com/press-centre/all-the-single-ladies-61... https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/202102/why-so-many-single-women-without-children-are-happy https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/2... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/opinion/marriage-women-men-dating.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/opinion/marriage-women-me... https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-demographic-dating-market-doom https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-demographic-dating-... https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-022-09422-2 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12110-022-09422-2 You can patch over the outcomes but there is no going back to the before times. Dating app dates and relationships for some, AI companions for others, single life for the rest. It’s not great, it just is.

mejutoco 3y ago

Saying that something exists is not an argument about why something _should_ not exist. But I agree, "should" discussions are rarely the most productive. Shoulda, woulda, coulda, I guess :)

throw18376 3y ago

antidepressants can help people fix root causes. take them for 6 months to 2 years or so, break out of a bad cycle, get some space without depression symptoms to build up healthy habits and restore a social life. there are some bad profit motives to keep people on SSRIs indefinitely. however at least they don't compete with other aspects of your life. and now that they are dirt cheap (at cheapest, $4 for a month supply at Walmart) the profit motives are much less than before. hard to imagine an "AI girlfriend" that could be similarly short-term and bring positive changes. it's just dystopian. the most profitable way to run such a product is not to help, it's to eat up as much user time as possible and outcompete healthy activities and real human relationships.

HPsquared 3y ago
Ok, maybe not the best analogy... Painkillers then? Other forms of entertainment in general? It's the relationship version of playing videogames instead of getting a job.
dspillett 3y ago
> antidepressants can help people fix root causes Nit-picking rather than disagreeing, but feel it worth making more obvious in the wording: antidepressants can help people deal with the symptoms while they find/fix root causes. Being on them for an extended time can bring its own problems.
esclerofilo 3y ago
> hard to imagine an "AI girlfriend" that could be similarly short-term and bring positive changes. Feeling lonely has negative consequences, there's a famous study comparing it to smoking cigarettes. Lonely people can get fixated on that feeling. Mitigating it may help people look for other hobbies, that they kept putting off because they were so focused on their need of a girlfriend. Hell, a realistic enough "woman AI" (not "girlfriend AI") could make you lose the fear of flirting, be useful as practice, to have more confidence when you have a real date. > the most profitable way to run such a product is not to help, it's to eat up as much user time as possible If you charge per-month (like OP), it's more profitable is to eat up less time.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

phatskat 3y ago

> “Fix the causes” How, exactly? Yes, some people experience depression as a symptom of something than can be addressed through various therapies, but what about people who just have it wired into their brains? How do we “fix” that?

vouaobrasil 3y ago
Even if it is wired into certain brains, that wiring may only cause depression when it interacts with our modern technological society.
- phatskat 3y ago
  I don’t think that’s how that works. If your depression “goes away” when you stop using Instagram, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about that “wake up on a warm sunny day in a house with your loving family and feel like jumping off the roof” kind of depression. That “everything can be going great and you can’t get out of bed” depression. The kind of depression that isn’t “cured” by turning off your phone or going off the grid. And it certainly isn’t “cured” by antidepressants, however, they can make a huge impact on quality of life for many people.
- piva00 3y ago
  Have you or a close loved one ever had clinical depression? Diagnosed by a professional which required help? It's a very strange take if you ever had any personal and direct contact with it, it's not only caused by "modern technological society" even though it's pretty aggravated by it.

InfiniteRand 3y ago

I think it's helpful to look at depression as a group of diseases like cancer. There are some cases of depression where we know the root cause: thyroid issues, sleep apnea-related depression, low testosterone related depression, brain tumors, etc. In those cases, addressing the root cause is probably the best treatment method. This is similar in some ways to cancer, where certain cancers have very definite causes and can be treated by dealing directly with those causes (like cervical cancer). Then there are all the other cases, some of which likely have simple causes that are just unknown, some of which have complex causes that are intermeshed deeply with the biology of human thinking. In that case, you have blunt tools, like anti-depressants, to address the pathway of the disease without knowing the exact cause, much like chemo-therapy can be used to attack cancer cells without knowing what prompted the cancer originally. So in short, yes treat the causes, but when you don't know the cause it's not irrational to treat the symptoms as best you can