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The User Is Drunk

theuserisdrunk.com

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Re: The User Is Drunk

#191

Post by TeMPOraL »

sequoia wrote: post #189
TeMPOraL wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is exactly zero reason for bringing up gender in this thread, unless you're the kind of person who wants to turn every discussion into a gender problem. If my service targets general population and I'm using only men in UX testing, I'm not being sexist - I'm just being an idiot, missing out on feedback that could be relevant to 50% of my audience.

> There is exactly zero reason for bringing up gender in this thread What, is it against the rules? No, I don't think it is. I think you should ask yourself why the topic makes you so upset/uncomfortable.

Just because it isn't against the rules, doesn't mean it's on-topic. Also, it's not the topic itself that makes me upset, it's the quality of discussion that usually follows. Most of the people lose their minds when they start to talk about politics. On HN this happens with social justice issues instead.

Re: The User Is Drunk

#192

Post by sleepyhead »

sharkweek wrote: post #15

Love it - How about this as an alternative: The user is stuck in a very (corporate/government/sluggish) environment. I will review your site/app from a major bank's / federal government's offices and report back! Or maybe this: The user is a 65 year old dad whose son doesn't come around often enough to ensure his father hasn't installed countless malware that he blames "internet" on. I will go to my dad's house and u…

The user reviews your site and writes HN-like comments about it.

Re: The User Is Drunk

#193

Post by mistercow »

MaybiusStrip wrote: post #169
Zak wrote: post #62

If you're concerned about your drinking habits, you should probably not check out aa.org. There is little solid evidence that AA is a particularly effective treatment for alcoholism. Various types of therapy with real trained and certified therapists have good success rates backed by actual scientific evidence, as do certain prescription drugs. Combining them likely has an even better success rate. Talk to your docto…

I think you should rephrase that to "you shouldn't solely rely on aa" rather than excluding it entirely. Maybe this just struck a personal chord, because AA helped save me from life-threatening alcoholism, but this seems like a highly irresponsible suggestion (which is why the author of the article you link is very careful not to make it). If you are an alcoholic, you probably should check out AA in addition to check…

> because AA helped save me from life-threatening alcoholism

Given that there's pretty good evidence at this point that AA doesn't work on average, either a) AA didn't actually help you (you would have done it on your own anyway) or b) AA did help you, but that is balanced by an equal amount of harm so that the average still comes out as "not effective".

In either case the conclusion is unescapable that AA should not be relied on at all. At best, you're going to get nothing out of it and you're wasting psychological resources you can't spare. At worst, you're gambling that you're the kind of person it helps, rather than the kind of person it makes things worse for.

I don't want to sound harsh here, but people who have both used AA and recovered from alcoholism seem to have a rationality blindspot around it. From an objective perspective, this is not all that different from a cancer survivor crediting their remission to the "energy crystals" their guru recommended.

I'm super glad for you that your cancer cleared up, but I'm going to keep telling people that those crystals are bullshit.

Re: The User Is Drunk

#194

Post by thedufer »

Devthrowaway80 wrote: post #92
Zak wrote: post #62

If you're concerned about your drinking habits, you should probably not check out aa.org. There is little solid evidence that AA is a particularly effective treatment for alcoholism. Various types of therapy with real trained and certified therapists have good success rates backed by actual scientific evidence, as do certain prescription drugs. Combining them likely has an even better success rate. Talk to your docto…

Definitely talk to your doctor. It's not true to claim that there is no solid evidence suggesting that AA is not effective. There is a lot of shitty evidence both supporting and discrediting 12 step programs, and the author of the linked article has found plenty of shitty science to wave his hand at. Look through the dates of the studies referenced - 1967, 1981, 1985, 1996. The most recent paper there is almost 20 ye…

> The latter interpretation of the results comes from Harvard Medical School professors, the former from some random anonymous dick on the internet.

To be fair, said anonymous dick isn't the only person interpreting the results that way. For example, the only two references on the Wikipedia article about MATCH (that aren't dead links) agree [0] [1].

I'm curious what the actual data looks like that so many seemingly-smart people can draw nearly opposite conclusions, but I'm having trouble finding it.

[0] http://www.peele.net/lib/niaaa.html

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1185549/

Re: The User Is Drunk

#195

Post by patrickmay »

richardlitt wrote: post #20
practicalpants wrote: post #18

I'm assuming this is just attention grabbing for this guy's personal brand. Always interesting to see what kind of marketing stunts get you to the front page. If this were to be taken seriously, a guy regularly getting drunk is just sad, as alcoholism is a real problem that this seems to be brushing aside.

As soon as I get a certain amount of clients, I'll cut this off. I'm not interested in drinking professionally.

So you're not interested in a sales job?

Re: The User Is Drunk

#196

Post by djscram »

sharkweek wrote: post #15

Love it - How about this as an alternative: The user is stuck in a very (corporate/government/sluggish) environment. I will review your site/app from a major bank's / federal government's offices and report back! Or maybe this: The user is a 65 year old dad whose son doesn't come around often enough to ensure his father hasn't installed countless malware that he blames "internet" on. I will go to my dad's house and u…

The user skipped his ADHD meds today.

Re: The User Is Drunk

#198

Post by pfortuny »

mistercow wrote: post #193
MaybiusStrip wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should rephrase that to "you shouldn't solely rely on aa" rather than excluding it entirely. Maybe this just struck a personal chord, because AA helped save me from life-threatening alcoholism, but this seems like a highly irresponsible suggestion (which is why the author of the article you link is very careful not to make it). If you are an alcoholic, you probably should check out AA in addition to check…

> because AA helped save me from life-threatening alcoholism Given that there's pretty good evidence at this point that AA doesn't work on average, either a) AA didn't actually help you (you would have done it on your own anyway) or b) AA did help you, but that is balanced by an equal amount of harm so that the average still comes out as "not effective". In either case the conclusion is unescapable that AA should not…

You start Speaking on average and then conclude that it did not work FOR HIM.

Does not compute, sorry.

Re: The User Is Drunk

#199

Post by DanHulton »

bunkydoo wrote: post #197

So what prevents me from saving $150 and getting some homeless guy at the shelter to do this same shit for the price of a bottle?

Well, the homeless guy probably isn't a trained UX guy, for one, so you're not getting the same value. And you're probably enabling the substance abuse problem of a person in real trouble, so I mean there's an added moral weight here.

Re: The User Is Drunk

#200

Post by bhayden »

amagumori wrote: post #76

> Is this your only job? No. I have a full-time job changing the world. dude, you do frontend development for a social network. how self-aggrandizing can you be. just say you work for a social network ffs.

This is the lamest, most annoying cliche about the startup industry. Everyone building a picture sharing app that people will mostly use for dick pics is "changing the world".
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