Help Wanted: America’s love affair with amateur advice • Hacker News Board

Re: Help Wanted: America’s love affair with amateur advice

#21

Post by DoreenMichele » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

criley2 wrote: post #20

DoreenMichele wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A psychiatrist that behaves as you describe is literally engaging in malpractice. Not if he is giving the standard advice everyone in the industry gives. There are lots of conditions where the standard expectation is that "people like you don't really get well" and "symptom management is the name of the game." It would be considered malpractice to even tell people with certain diagnoses that you will shoot for curing…

Not if he is giving the standard advice everyone in the industry gives. There are lots of conditions where the standard expectation is that "people like you don't really get well" and "symptom management is the name of the game." It would be considered malpractice to even tell people with certain diagnoses that you will shoot for curing them. This is not a fair summary of your previous point. You previously implied t…

I haven't walked anything back. An awful lot of people are woefully misreading what I said in a much more negative light than I intended, then acting like I changed my story when I try to communicate about the issue.

It's probably best for me to walk away at this point. Most of the remarks here do not strike me as good faith engagement.

Re: Help Wanted: America’s love affair with amateur advice

#22

Post by Domenic_S » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #16

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to invalidate your experience, but, jeez, I really feel awful for anyone that has to live in a world where they're constantly wondering if their friends are trying to take advantage of them. Most situations in life aren't zero sum, what's good for them may very well be what's good for you. Even less situations are zero sum and material; one patient's business is not likely to make or break a psychiatry p…

I've had the following college classes: Intro to Psychology; Social Psychology; Negotiation and Conflict Management. I had a corporate job for over five years. Part of that job was looking for "red flags" and referring it to the fraud department if it looked fishy enough. I also was taught proper procedure for how to handle a file where I had conflict of interest in order to protect the company legally (Answer: You d…

This exchange is a wonderful example of why amateur/anonymous advice shouldn't be automatically taken as better than professional advice! You are both filling in the blanks with your own experience and biases.

Re: Help Wanted: America’s love affair with amateur advice

#23

Post by DoreenMichele » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

Domenic_S wrote: post #22

DoreenMichele wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the following college classes: Intro to Psychology; Social Psychology; Negotiation and Conflict Management. I had a corporate job for over five years. Part of that job was looking for "red flags" and referring it to the fraud department if it looked fishy enough. I also was taught proper procedure for how to handle a file where I had conflict of interest in order to protect the company legally (Answer: You d…

This exchange is a wonderful example of why amateur/anonymous advice shouldn't be automatically taken as better than professional advice! You are both filling in the blanks with your own experience and biases.

I never said it was automatically better. Where are you getting this nonsense? I only indicated that there are situations where one might want to hear from an uninvolved outsider for perspective and this is one reason why "amateur advice" in newspaper columns can have genuine value for some people.

Anyway, I'm done here. This entire discussion is completely off the rails from my perspective.

Re: Help Wanted: America’s love affair with amateur advice

#24

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 10:00 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #21

criley2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if he is giving the standard advice everyone in the industry gives. There are lots of conditions where the standard expectation is that "people like you don't really get well" and "symptom management is the name of the game." It would be considered malpractice to even tell people with certain diagnoses that you will shoot for curing them. This is not a fair summary of your previous point. You previously implied t…

I haven't walked anything back. An awful lot of people are woefully misreading what I said in a much more negative light than I intended, then acting like I changed my story when I try to communicate about the issue. It's probably best for me to walk away at this point. Most of the remarks here do not strike me as good faith engagement.

[deleted]

Re: Help Wanted: America’s love affair with amateur advice

#25

Post by BookmarkSaver » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #2

Q: What qualifies this group for the position of beacon to the masses? A: Not a blessed thing. If you pay a psychiatrist, you have to worry that they have a conflict of interest. If you really get well, you won't need them anymore. They have an inherent motive to help you only enough to take credit for things going better, not enough to set you free from needing their services. If you turn to family, coworkers, or fr…

>...advice columnist may not give good advice, but they are somewhat less likely to give advice designed to encourage you to cut your own throat for their personal benefit.

Yeah, they have absolutely no mechanism to verify that their advice is good, or any consequences if it is terrible, and their primary incentive (far more than a psychiatrist's incentive for the malpractice you describe) is to entertain and satisfy you for more attention.

This is a horrible rationalization.

Re: Help Wanted: America’s love affair with amateur advice

#26

Post by lordCarbonFiber » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 10:02 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #16

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to invalidate your experience, but, jeez, I really feel awful for anyone that has to live in a world where they're constantly wondering if their friends are trying to take advantage of them. Most situations in life aren't zero sum, what's good for them may very well be what's good for you. Even less situations are zero sum and material; one patient's business is not likely to make or break a psychiatry p…

I've had the following college classes: Intro to Psychology; Social Psychology; Negotiation and Conflict Management. I had a corporate job for over five years. Part of that job was looking for "red flags" and referring it to the fraud department if it looked fishy enough. I also was taught proper procedure for how to handle a file where I had conflict of interest in order to protect the company legally (Answer: You d…

I thought ending the comment with "signed anonymous internet person" might be too on the nose but apparently not.

Re: Help Wanted: America’s love affair with amateur advice

#27

Post by jestgrade » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 10:05 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #21

criley2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if he is giving the standard advice everyone in the industry gives. There are lots of conditions where the standard expectation is that "people like you don't really get well" and "symptom management is the name of the game." It would be considered malpractice to even tell people with certain diagnoses that you will shoot for curing them. This is not a fair summary of your previous point. You previously implied t…

I haven't walked anything back. An awful lot of people are woefully misreading what I said in a much more negative light than I intended, then acting like I changed my story when I try to communicate about the issue. It's probably best for me to walk away at this point. Most of the remarks here do not strike me as good faith engagement.

[flagged]

Re: Help Wanted: America’s love affair with amateur advice

#28

Post by askafriend » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 10:05 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #19

chickenfries wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more likely that we're just not that great at "curing" mental illness (whatever that means) than it is that the entire industry has a conflict on interest where they COULD be helping people get better faster but they don't. I've never had a therapist bat an eye when I tell them I'm doing well and I don't need to come in for a while. My last therapist went on maternity leave and recommended me to a collea…

Conflict of interest means you can never be sure why they recommended X, not that X was recommended with malice aforethought. That's precisely why it's such a thorny issue. People with malice aforethought are relatively easy to root out compared to people who mean well, but can't quite get it right for reasons no one can quite put their finger on.

How far do you take this kind of logic though?

Do you never go to a dentist because you can never be sure they're fixing your teeth? You don't know if they're superficially treating your teeth just enough to warrant another visit instead of "fixing" them once and for all.

Do you never hire an engineer onto your team at work? You can never be sure if they're putting bugs into their code on purpose for job security.

I mean if you take this kind of thinking to its logical conclusion, it gets pretty ridiculous.

In any case, "be skeptical to some extent, but don't be _scared_" seems like a good middle ground in this debate.

Re: Help Wanted: America’s love affair with amateur advice

#29

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 10:06 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #21

criley2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if he is giving the standard advice everyone in the industry gives. There are lots of conditions where the standard expectation is that "people like you don't really get well" and "symptom management is the name of the game." It would be considered malpractice to even tell people with certain diagnoses that you will shoot for curing them. This is not a fair summary of your previous point. You previously implied t…

I haven't walked anything back. An awful lot of people are woefully misreading what I said in a much more negative light than I intended, then acting like I changed my story when I try to communicate about the issue. It's probably best for me to walk away at this point. Most of the remarks here do not strike me as good faith engagement.

[deleted]

Re: Help Wanted: America’s love affair with amateur advice

#30

Post by DoreenMichele » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 10:12 PM UTC

jestgrade wrote: post #27

DoreenMichele wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't walked anything back. An awful lot of people are woefully misreading what I said in a much more negative light than I intended, then acting like I changed my story when I try to communicate about the issue. It's probably best for me to walk away at this point. Most of the remarks here do not strike me as good faith engagement.

[flagged]

No, but remarks like this essentially are malicious, regardless of whatever else is going on here. It's basically a personal attack that in no way tries to engage me about whatever point I was trying to make.

The fact that you created an account just moments before taking a dig at me only reinforces the idea that this is absolutely not a good faith comment by you.

There are lots of things that can cause a conversation to go sideways. It's really common for the group to then blame the person at the center. It only serves to compound and entrench the problem.