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> HN comments are _NOT_ going to help debugging your mental state. Nice paradox you've created there. > People here have trouble agreeing on engineering, prod

by jrowen 3mo ago

> HN comments are _NOT_ going to help debugging your mental state. Nice paradox you've created there. > People here have trouble agreeing on engineering, product and business practices they specialise in. They are _NOT_ going to guide you in the right direction on mental health topics. I don't know that that follows logically. Whatever people they might reach out to in the real world -- be they friends, relatives, therapists -- also actually disagree about things and don't have all the answers. HN comments come from the same general pool of people, who also potentially have experiences and insights a like-minded individual might find valuable. > You are not going to just build a better planning system one day. No but you may be able to over time, through trial and error, and connecting with others and hearing about their experiences. I don't think there's anything wrong or unhealthy about exploring it in this fashion and I don't understand your choice of tone. I do agree that setting a goal for the year of "not making stupid mistakes" is a (stupid?) mistake. It is more of a lifelong journey and process, of striving rather than achieving, and not setting unrealistic expectations for yourself.

grvdrm 3mo ago
Thank you for this reply. I thought the parent comment was blunt, and perhaps honest. But perhaps it could have added some positive and constructive commentary rather than saying what not to do. I hardly think these things are so binary anyways.
- joe_the_user 3mo ago
  I would say "get (professional) help!" is advice that always sounds good and can be good for X percent of people and not so good for the rest. I am part of project that offers food and resources to unhoused people outside the usual state and regulated private agencies and without conditions. So by that fact I see many people who the mental health system fails to help for one reason or another. I can't tell you what percentage of people that is but I can tell you it's more than zero percent. I have no advice about what works but I can't see what's wrong with creating a structure that could help you.
  - magicalist 3mo ago
    Sounds like you help people. Unless the OP edited their post, they said > close HN, reach out to people, get help that seems like perfectly compatible advice. I'm not sure why you're inferring a "professional" in there and then quibbling about it.
  - grayhatter 3mo ago
    [flagged]
    - joe_the_user 3mo ago
      Now to be "that asshole" why unhoused instead of homeless? @dang, flagging. HN standards are basic civility, starting a comment with "I'll be an asshole" is clearly creating a pretext for violating HN standards. I mean, "unhoused" is considered a more polite term among the people I work with, it just basic politeness, there is no other distinction I know about. I don't feel a need to respond to the rest of your argument when you start things that way, though I'll say they put a lie to your initial congratulations and are only tangentially related to the topic at hand ("You mentioned the unhoused there, well let me tell you about the unhoused...")
      - grayhatter 3mo ago
        > I mean, "unhoused" is considered a more polite term among the people I work with, it just basic politeness, there is no other distinction I know about. I was under the [mistaken?] impression the inverse was true. Or that neither had a significant preference, do you have any cite, or is this experience? Because I've heard from 2 different people no one they talked to cares, I've never bothered to try to verify and was happy to default to the single point I had (paramedic in SF), where I was explicitly told, the differentiator between the two wasn't based in reality. I assume you can understand how what I was told conflicts with your reality, and why I might also be confused? > HN standards are basic civility, starting a comment with "I'll be an asshole" is clearly creating a pretext for violating HN standards. Do you feel that my comment was actually in bad faith? Or are you just unhappy with the words I picked to express my question and confusion? I prefixed it with what I thought would be the context for, "I understand this question makes people angry, and I don't understand why", but that's a lot less interesting way to ask that question, and uninteresting questions get ignored. Any thoughts or suggestions for what I should have done different, other than pick different words I mean? (Ideally a suggestion that doesn't get ignored?) > though I'll say they put a lie to your initial congratulations and are only tangentially related to the topic at hand I was completely unable to parse this, thought I might just be too stupid, any help?
vector_spaces 3mo ago
Ooh, slick rhetorical moves you just executed. You couched your comment in the jargon of formal logic, and in doing so situated the parent under a convenient ad-hoc pseudo-formalization where you could paint them a raving illogical, thereby dismissing most of what they wrote through low-effort counterexamples. Mathematical certainty on your side, you make a chivalrous concession to the parent, reinforcing your noble-stoic character, while sealing their dismissal in the mind of any observer. I claim that it is trivial, albeit obnoxious, to dismiss most informal utterances in the way you have just done. This is because informal language is complex and enthymeme in the extreme -- we don't tend to articulate every e.g. assumption and premise and contextual relation up front in every utterance. Language is messy because the concepts under discussion are complex and messy, and vibes are powerful tools for wrangling that complexity and getting at meaning. And the majority of paradoxes and contradictions one can identify carry no signal whatsoever. Perfectly reasonable statements can be rife with them. For example: my interpretation of what the parent wrote was something like "the 'making stupid mistakes' line together with the rest of the blog post signal towards neurodivergence, and someone who is harshly self-critical. so with urgency, I warn the author to be weary of comments on HN, as there is a strong likelihood of being led down an unhelpful path that might aggravate this, particularly given the harsh self-talk and what we know about the subcultures that frequent this place" Speaking of unarticulated contextual relations, "I often make careless mistakes" is literally in the DSM-V as a diagnostic criterion for ADHD.
- jrowen 3mo ago
  I actually love this comment. I feel seen. Thank you. I am prone to a sort of grandstanding that can elicit such responses, which I believe to actually have a similar philosophical aim as mine (and are perhaps subject to similar dramatic flaws?). I do stand by the sentiment I expressed though. I do think it does undermine one's point to bemoan the efficacy of HN comments relating to mental health, while making a comment on HN attempting to speak on mental health. Either don't do it, or accept that you believe it can have value. Your interpretation of their statement is incredibly nuanced. Language matters. Tone matters. Confusion, misinterpretation and miscommunication are the defaults. You certainly understand the importance of endeavoring to express yourself clearly and precisely. I didn't infer the "beware of harsh self-talk" angle, I was too caught up on their comment actually embodying that approach, which I commented on. Based on the surrounding context I got more of a "HN is dumb because they debate about super nuanced technical stuff" vibe. (Also see sp1nningaway's comment for another completely different interpretation). I stand by the sentiment that writing a blog post about your mental health and posting it on HN is a totally valid and respectable strategy and I would argue it's had good results even if it's not a "solved problem" and they should still seek other avenues to understanding as well. P.S. "trivial albeit obnoxious" is an interesting construction I'm still trying to wrap my head around.
sp1nningaway 3mo ago
>> HN comments are _NOT_ going to help debugging your mental state. > Nice paradox you've created there. This is a "...and don't call me Shirley" level of logical interpretation of what they're saying. They are pointing out that "just try harder" is NOT going to work. This resonated with me as I spent my whole life telling myself some version of OP's "stop making stupid mistakes" daily, and then castigating myself when I continued to make those mistakes. Then I got a great therapist who helped me realize that I need to work with what I got and I'm SO much more productive and comfortable with myself now. That doesn't mean never getting better, and like smugglerFlynn I had a strong reaction to OP. He reminds me of myself, and I see him heading down a path that caused me a lot of pain.
- cindyllm 3mo ago
  [dead]
- jrowen 3mo ago
  It was a don't call me Shirley thing to say to begin with. I merely added on. I would dare to say that your interpretation of that vague FUD was largely a projection of your own experience. And I think you sharing that in a constructive and connective way was a lot more clear, empathetic and helpful than the original formulation.
grayhatter 3mo ago
a warning doesn't count as a paradox. Also, a HN comment warning about HN's inability to help with complex issues, when the community can't even agree on domain specific issues (the cited example), is equally not a paradox. But thankfully this comment goes to prove OP's exact point, HN comments will make wild claims as if they're true, but will be completely devoid of functional logic. HN is for entertainment purposes only.

by jrowen 3mo ago

grvdrm 3mo ago

Thank you for this reply. I thought the parent comment was blunt, and perhaps honest. But perhaps it could have added some positive and constructive commentary rather than saying what not to do. I hardly think these things are so binary anyways.

joe_the_user 3mo ago
I would say "get (professional) help!" is advice that always sounds good and can be good for X percent of people and not so good for the rest. I am part of project that offers food and resources to unhoused people outside the usual state and regulated private agencies and without conditions. So by that fact I see many people who the mental health system fails to help for one reason or another. I can't tell you what percentage of people that is but I can tell you it's more than zero percent. I have no advice about what works but I can't see what's wrong with creating a structure that could help you.
- magicalist 3mo ago
  Sounds like you help people. Unless the OP edited their post, they said > close HN, reach out to people, get help that seems like perfectly compatible advice. I'm not sure why you're inferring a "professional" in there and then quibbling about it.
- grayhatter 3mo ago
  [flagged]
  - joe_the_user 3mo ago
    Now to be "that asshole" why unhoused instead of homeless? @dang, flagging. HN standards are basic civility, starting a comment with "I'll be an asshole" is clearly creating a pretext for violating HN standards. I mean, "unhoused" is considered a more polite term among the people I work with, it just basic politeness, there is no other distinction I know about. I don't feel a need to respond to the rest of your argument when you start things that way, though I'll say they put a lie to your initial congratulations and are only tangentially related to the topic at hand ("You mentioned the unhoused there, well let me tell you about the unhoused...")
    - grayhatter 3mo ago
      > I mean, "unhoused" is considered a more polite term among the people I work with, it just basic politeness, there is no other distinction I know about. I was under the [mistaken?] impression the inverse was true. Or that neither had a significant preference, do you have any cite, or is this experience? Because I've heard from 2 different people no one they talked to cares, I've never bothered to try to verify and was happy to default to the single point I had (paramedic in SF), where I was explicitly told, the differentiator between the two wasn't based in reality. I assume you can understand how what I was told conflicts with your reality, and why I might also be confused? > HN standards are basic civility, starting a comment with "I'll be an asshole" is clearly creating a pretext for violating HN standards. Do you feel that my comment was actually in bad faith? Or are you just unhappy with the words I picked to express my question and confusion? I prefixed it with what I thought would be the context for, "I understand this question makes people angry, and I don't understand why", but that's a lot less interesting way to ask that question, and uninteresting questions get ignored. Any thoughts or suggestions for what I should have done different, other than pick different words I mean? (Ideally a suggestion that doesn't get ignored?) > though I'll say they put a lie to your initial congratulations and are only tangentially related to the topic at hand I was completely unable to parse this, thought I might just be too stupid, any help?

vector_spaces 3mo ago

Ooh, slick rhetorical moves you just executed. You couched your comment in the jargon of formal logic, and in doing so situated the parent under a convenient ad-hoc pseudo-formalization where you could paint them a raving illogical, thereby dismissing most of what they wrote through low-effort counterexamples. Mathematical certainty on your side, you make a chivalrous concession to the parent, reinforcing your noble-stoic character, while sealing their dismissal in the mind of any observer. I claim that it is trivial, albeit obnoxious, to dismiss most informal utterances in the way you have just done. This is because informal language is complex and enthymeme in the extreme -- we don't tend to articulate every e.g. assumption and premise and contextual relation up front in every utterance. Language is messy because the concepts under discussion are complex and messy, and vibes are powerful tools for wrangling that complexity and getting at meaning. And the majority of paradoxes and contradictions one can identify carry no signal whatsoever. Perfectly reasonable statements can be rife with them. For example: my interpretation of what the parent wrote was something like "the 'making stupid mistakes' line together with the rest of the blog post signal towards neurodivergence, and someone who is harshly self-critical. so with urgency, I warn the author to be weary of comments on HN, as there is a strong likelihood of being led down an unhelpful path that might aggravate this, particularly given the harsh self-talk and what we know about the subcultures that frequent this place" Speaking of unarticulated contextual relations, "I often make careless mistakes" is literally in the DSM-V as a diagnostic criterion for ADHD.

jrowen 3mo ago
I actually love this comment. I feel seen. Thank you. I am prone to a sort of grandstanding that can elicit such responses, which I believe to actually have a similar philosophical aim as mine (and are perhaps subject to similar dramatic flaws?). I do stand by the sentiment I expressed though. I do think it does undermine one's point to bemoan the efficacy of HN comments relating to mental health, while making a comment on HN attempting to speak on mental health. Either don't do it, or accept that you believe it can have value. Your interpretation of their statement is incredibly nuanced. Language matters. Tone matters. Confusion, misinterpretation and miscommunication are the defaults. You certainly understand the importance of endeavoring to express yourself clearly and precisely. I didn't infer the "beware of harsh self-talk" angle, I was too caught up on their comment actually embodying that approach, which I commented on. Based on the surrounding context I got more of a "HN is dumb because they debate about super nuanced technical stuff" vibe. (Also see sp1nningaway's comment for another completely different interpretation). I stand by the sentiment that writing a blog post about your mental health and posting it on HN is a totally valid and respectable strategy and I would argue it's had good results even if it's not a "solved problem" and they should still seek other avenues to understanding as well. P.S. "trivial albeit obnoxious" is an interesting construction I'm still trying to wrap my head around.

sp1nningaway 3mo ago

>> HN comments are _NOT_ going to help debugging your mental state. > Nice paradox you've created there. This is a "...and don't call me Shirley" level of logical interpretation of what they're saying. They are pointing out that "just try harder" is NOT going to work. This resonated with me as I spent my whole life telling myself some version of OP's "stop making stupid mistakes" daily, and then castigating myself when I continued to make those mistakes. Then I got a great therapist who helped me realize that I need to work with what I got and I'm SO much more productive and comfortable with myself now. That doesn't mean never getting better, and like smugglerFlynn I had a strong reaction to OP. He reminds me of myself, and I see him heading down a path that caused me a lot of pain.

cindyllm 3mo ago
[dead]
jrowen 3mo ago
It was a don't call me Shirley thing to say to begin with. I merely added on. I would dare to say that your interpretation of that vague FUD was largely a projection of your own experience. And I think you sharing that in a constructive and connective way was a lot more clear, empathetic and helpful than the original formulation.

grayhatter 3mo ago

a warning doesn't count as a paradox. Also, a HN comment warning about HN's inability to help with complex issues, when the community can't even agree on domain specific issues (the cited example), is equally not a paradox. But thankfully this comment goes to prove OP's exact point, HN comments will make wild claims as if they're true, but will be completely devoid of functional logic. HN is for entertainment purposes only.