How people learn to become resilient (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#31

Post by ceh123 » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

kiba wrote: post #26

newacct583 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow your conclusion here. So... you don't think that there are systemic problems worth correcting? Or you think there are, but you don't want to because the disadvantaged should just be resilient instead? It's one thing to say that there are alternative therapies to pulling down statues and burning shit in the street. It's rather another to reject the goals of a movement because you don't like their tactic…

I don't think that's what he's arguing. Systematic problems are worth correcting and shouldn't be ignored. The problem is that systematic problems requiring systematic solution doesn't provide a framework for individual behavior in the meantime. You can't wait for problems to get fixed. Even if you're working hard or contributing money to those that are working to get problems fixed, you're still stuck in whatever ci…

Yup, this is exactly what I was trying to say.

Systemic critiques are absolutely necessary to improve society, but you can't live every day only in a systemic mindset because that will inevitably move your locus of control much farther outside yourself.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#32

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

kiba wrote: post #26

newacct583 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow your conclusion here. So... you don't think that there are systemic problems worth correcting? Or you think there are, but you don't want to because the disadvantaged should just be resilient instead? It's one thing to say that there are alternative therapies to pulling down statues and burning shit in the street. It's rather another to reject the goals of a movement because you don't like their tactic…

I don't think that's what he's arguing. Systematic problems are worth correcting and shouldn't be ignored. The problem is that systematic problems requiring systematic solution doesn't provide a framework for individual behavior in the meantime. You can't wait for problems to get fixed. Even if you're working hard or contributing money to those that are working to get problems fixed, you're still stuck in whatever ci…

[deleted]

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#33

Post by TameAntelope » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:46 PM UTC

nxc18 wrote: post #28

newacct583 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow your conclusion here. So... you don't think that there are systemic problems worth correcting? Or you think there are, but you don't want to because the disadvantaged should just be resilient instead? It's one thing to say that there are alternative therapies to pulling down statues and burning shit in the street. It's rather another to reject the goals of a movement because you don't like their tactic…

The way leftists approach fixing systemic issues is fundamentally incompatible with actually changing anything. The smart leftists work towards positive change by doing disgusting things like engaging in compromise and working with people who aren’t ideologically pure; when they do such things they inadvertently reveal themselves to be something far more horrible, like a liberal or a progressive-but-not-progressive-e…

Taboo on the word "leftists". You're otherizing, I don't think it's helpful.

I don't see the people you're referring to as being in the driver's seat of any meaningful change that's actually being considered in a way that might actually lead to implementation.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#34

Post by mattgreenrocks » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

ceh123 wrote: post #17

rednerrus wrote: post #3

Someone smarter than I am should draw parallels from this to modern social justice movements.

>Werner wrote. Perhaps most importantly, the resilient children had what psychologists call an “internal locus of control”: they believed that they, and not their circumstances, affected their achievements. The resilient children saw themselves as the orchestrators of their own fates. In fact, on a scale that measured locus of control, they scored more than two standard deviations away from the standardization group.…

What's interesting is that what matters most is the amount of agency you perceive yourself to have, rather than the 'real' amount (which, admittedly, probably doesn't exist, but our brains trick us into thinking it does).

Based on some of the movements that seem to be picking up steam, and my own life, I believe there's something about this current time that promotes a diminished locus of control. There seems to be a real appeal of ideas who that speak to this need.

It's quite a mindvirus. Even if you know you have it, you can't quite shrug it off.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#35

Post by watwut » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

akoncius wrote: post #24

gonetherapin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hi, made this throwaway (or maybe one to keep?) to agree with you. i'm not happy or pleased that my therapist calls me resilient. she uses the word as something positive but i'd rather not be "resilient" at all. the experience and effects of trauma are something i could do 1000% without. and i'm sure most people who have survived such an ordeal can attest to that fact.

on the other hand: you said you would rather not be resilient at all.. so how would you prefer to react to the exact same trauma you experienced previously? assuming that you cannot choose to not have that trauma at all.

The person you are responding to would prefer to never having to go through trauma and would be fine with never building that additional resilience. That trauma is not good price for the supposed resilience he got.

And I can add that another benefit for him would be time and money saved on therapist. Therapy takes time and a lot of money. Being in situation where you don't need it is better, even if you lose on tiny bit of resilience.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#36

Post by hn8788 » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

rednerrus wrote: post #3

Someone smarter than I am should draw parallels from this to modern social justice movements.

That's one of the main findings from the book "The Coddling of the American Mind". Overprotective parents raise children that don't know how to handle conflict, and colleges give in to the student demands for protection from conflict because the colleges care more about collecting tuition than educating.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#37

Post by watwut » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

throwawayboise wrote: post #8

inglor_cz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to think of resilience as a psychical equivalent of the calluses on your fingers that you get from playing the guitar. Developing them is painful, but they give you power to try and do something bigger.

IOW "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

That is motivational, but inaccurate.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#38

Post by mikelyons » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

kian wrote: post #6

The only prescription this article appears to make is "Positive Construal" -- thinking of potentially traumatic events as opportunities for growth, learning, and forming tighter social and community bonds seems to prevent them from becoming actually traumatizing.

Is that where "builds character" comes from?

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#39

Post by TameAntelope » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

kian wrote: post #6

The only prescription this article appears to make is "Positive Construal" -- thinking of potentially traumatic events as opportunities for growth, learning, and forming tighter social and community bonds seems to prevent them from becoming actually traumatizing.

"In research at Columbia, the neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner has shown that teaching people to think of stimuli in different ways—to reframe them in positive terms when the initial response is negative, or in a less emotional way when the initial response is emotionally “hot”—changes how they experience and react to the stimulus. You can train people to better regulate their emotions, and the training seems to have lasting effects."

For some additional prescriptive details.

Re: How people learn to become resilient (2016)

#40

Post by rzzzt » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:51 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #5

psychtrauma wrote: post #2

'Resilience', in this sense, is usually presented as a positive personal trait to be proud of. However, (after a lot of therapy), I see it more as a simple reflection of the undue trauma I faced and was required to handle.

I tend to think of resilience as a psychical equivalent of the calluses on your fingers that you get from playing the guitar. Developing them is painful, but they give you power to try and do something bigger.

For me, resilience is more like bending tree branches. The green ones return to their original shape easily once force is removed, the dry ones keep their form as long as possible, but snap abruptly if too much force is exerted. Repeated bending results in microfractures, then breaking in either type.