Pretentious Crap

J

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
"I wasn't just making this up, there's all kinds of research that supports this claim. That's why the claim was made in the first place, because research supports it."

But was the claim made because research supports it, or was the research carried out to support the claim?
 
nomadthethird

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
josef k. said:
"I wasn't just making this up, there's all kinds of research that supports this claim. That's why the claim was made in the first place, because research supports it."

But was the claim made because research supports it, or was the research carried out to support the claim?
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The research was carried out to see if the ability of depressed and non-depressed people to judge their own control over the circumstances within the experiment differed. The findings happen to suggest that depressed people are better at judging their actual level of control. This blew conventional wisdom out of the water at the time.

But then I'm not fully read up on this... a lot of CBT types will disagree with the interpretation of these results, but I don't have much love for CBT, except maybe in the early stages of drug dependecy recovery (Smart Recovery or groups like that) as a temporary solution for temporary cognitive difficulties experienced during post-acute withdrawal syndrome.
 
J

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
That is admittedly a very interesting article. I love the way that they summarize the clarity of the argument. Beneath the heading: "Arguments"

Since there is evidence that positive illusions are more common in normally mentally healthy individuals than in depressed individuals, Taylor and Brown (1988) argue that they are adaptive.

However, Pacini, Muir and Epstein (1998) have shown that the depressive realism effect may be because depressed people overcompensate for a tendency toward maladaptive intuitive processing by exercising excessive rational control in trivial situations, and note that the difference with non-depressed people disappears in more consequential circumstances.

Knee and Zuckerman (1998) have challenged the definition of mental health used by Taylor and Brown and argue that lack of illusions is associated with a non-defensive personality oriented towards growth and learning and with low ego involvement in outcomes. They present evidence that self-determined individuals are less prone to these illusions.

Dykman et al (1989) argued that, although depressive people make more accurate judgements about having no control in situations where in fact they have no control, they also believe they have no control when in fact they do; and so their perceptions are not more accurate overall.
 
nomadthethird

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
josef k. said:
That is admittedly a very interesting article. I love the way that they summarize the clarity of the argument. Beneath the heading: "Arguments"

Since there is evidence that positive illusions are more common in normally mentally healthy individuals than in depressed individuals, Taylor and Brown (1988) argue that they are adaptive.

However, Pacini, Muir and Epstein (1998) have shown that the depressive realism effect may be because depressed people overcompensate for a tendency toward maladaptive intuitive processing by exercising excessive rational control in trivial situations, and note that the difference with non-depressed people disappears in more consequential circumstances.

Knee and Zuckerman (1998) have challenged the definition of mental health used by Taylor and Brown and argue that lack of illusions is associated with a non-defensive personality oriented towards growth and learning and with low ego involvement in outcomes. They present evidence that self-determined individuals are less prone to these illusions.

Dykman et al (1989) argued that, although depressive people make more accurate judgements about having no control in situations where in fact they have no control, they also believe they have no control when in fact they do; and so their perceptions are not more accurate overall.
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One thing that was made clear was that the control subjects were only classified as mildly depressed, not clinically depressed. So that might account for the confusion in the mind of non-clinicians.
 
nomadthethird

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
Such as?

This ain't my first day at the published research results rodeo, Josef K.

Those little paragraphs are just summaries, they don't include any data. You may want to get a look at the real data before jumping to any conclusions. This would include reading the entire published article by each of the research teams cited above. That would be the way to have an informed opinion on this topic, rather than a superficial one that is more or less invalid.
 
Agent

Agent

dgaf ngaf cgaf
nomadthesecond said:
Anyway this is kind of off topic (it's more relevant across threads) but it seems to fit somewhat and I was just re-reading it today:

Franco Berardi "Schizo-Economy"
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=6a4262036ec5f57641446e35a78dc46303684344e6378dabc95965eaa7bc68bc
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this is really interesting. esp the part about how pathologies now are all 'socio-communicative' - i think Lacan would actually agree: the symbolic Other (or big A) organizes language and therefore the symptom. i was actually reading an article from SubStance this morning (same year, different issue) that addresses some of the same things, but from a very different angle - it has less to do with psychopathology - it's more political and social (post-Marxist) but it seems relevant. Newman basically calls for a revival of anarchist theory and philosophy as an alternative to Marxism: Saul Newman, "Anarchism, Post-Structuralism and the Future of Radical Politics." Derrida makes some of the same points in "Specters of Marx": Marxist theory and critique may be flawed, but we can still draw on the "spirit(s) of Marxism" to fix the world's major problems (he lists 10: foreign debt, ethnic conflict... no terrorism or global warming as the lecture was given in 1993). I don't think any of this has anything to do with what is being discussed here, but what the hell.
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
not sure how relevant this is but the depressives see more clearly thing parallels a dynamic of political awareness:

the more you look at what is going on and has been happening over the years, the more horrific the picture becomes (and more depressed you get).
 
J

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
zhao said:
not sure how relevant this is but the depressives see more clearly thing parallels a dynamic of political awareness:

the more you look at what is going on and has been happening over the years, the more horrific the picture becomes (and more depressed you get).
Click to expand...

The summary of the argument provided on the page about depressive realism DOES NOT seem to me to support Nomad's canard that "depressives see more clearly."

The description of the experiment details a situation in which participants have no control. The happy people falsely think they do. But depressives, who generally think that they have no control, don't think that they have control here either. The correspondence is analogical, NOT epistemological. There is no sense in which the deeper question of what control, in a wider sense, actually IS, is posed by this research. In these times this is not an idle question.

I further note - speaking perhaps to empty benches - that there is a large measure of pretentious crap in any stance that believes that, whenever a misunderstanding arises, it is also due to some failure or stupidity of the other. It takes two to communicate.

I also think the idea the picture is horrific is too simple. There are bad things in the world, but all is not lost. And I don't think that depression represents an appropriate response to the problems that this planet faces.
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
josef k. said:
there is a large measure of pretentious crap in any stance that believes that, whenever a misunderstanding arises, it is also due to some failure or stupidity of the other. It takes two to communicate.
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true enough. i don't think Nomad is really interested in communication or, god forbid, learning anything new, but only to assert her expertise and win arguments. this is why she often conducts debate in a dishonest fashion:

• dismiss the opposing argument without reviewing the information presented (on grounds like "oh i've read lots of things like that")

• willfully ignore valid points made as well as sources cited by the other person (often with a "so what?")

• often without citing her own sources, but only a vague "i've worked with top professionals in this field"

• blatantly misread and misquote information to back up her position

• polarize the other's position, and fictitiously making it seem like something more easily ridiculed and dismissed

• blatantly put words in the other person's mouth, and proceed to prove that these words are wrong

• will never, ever, under any circumstances concede or consider a revision of her position, or even acknowledge that the other person's points are valid, because she is right and the other is wrong. period.

• and when she is ever called on these tactics, will revert to some pseudo-feminist stance about the other person being a male chauvinist who is trying to oppress a woman with something to say (see her future responses below)

examples of all of the above can be found a few pages earlier in this thread.

where as someone with an inquisitive and open mind would approach discussions with an entirely different attitude, one that is not combative and condescending.

but even with the above in mind, what she says is often more interesting than most, and she does regularly bring pertinent information to the table. and i am here, among other things, to learn, so i usually ignore it (or try to) when she is behaving in an unreasoned way, and more or less put up with it.

josef k. said:
I also think the idea the picture is horrific is too simple. There are bad things in the world, but all is not lost. And I don't think that depression represents an appropriate response to the problems that this planet faces.
Click to expand...

also agree with this... but the picture truly is horrific (regarding politics, etc). and the more one learns, the more horrific it is.
 
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nomadthethird

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
zhao said:
true enough. i don't think Nomad is really interested in communication or, god forbid, learning anything new, but only to assert her expertise and win arguments. this is why she often conducts debate in a dishonest fashion:

• dismiss the opposing argument without reviewing the information presented (on grounds like "oh i've read lots of things like that")

• willfully ignore valid points made as well as sources cited by the other person (often with a "so what?")

• often without citing her own sources, but only a vague "i've worked with top professionals in this field"

• blatantly misread and misquote information to back up her position

• polarize the other's position, and fictitiously making it seem like something more easily ridiculed and dismissed

• blatantly put words in the other person's mouth, and proceed to prove that these words are wrong

• will never, ever, under any circumstances concede or consider a revision of her position, or even acknowledge that the other person's points are valid, because she is right and the other is wrong. period.

• and when she is ever called on these tactics, will revert to some pseudo-feminist stance about the other person being a male chauvinist who is trying to oppress a woman with something to say (see her future responses below)

examples of all of the above can be found a few pages earlier in this thread.

where as someone with an inquisitive and open mind would approach discussions with an entirely different attitude, one that is not combative and condescending.

but even with the above in mind, what she says is often more interesting than most, and she does regularly bring pertinent information to the table. and i am here, among other things, to learn, so i usually ignore it (or try to) when she is behaving in an unreasoned way, and more or less put up with it.



also agree with this... but the picture truly is horrific (regarding politics, etc). and the more one learns, the more horrific it is.
Click to expand...

Oh Zhao, fuck you.

READ THE DAMN RESEARCH I ALREADY HAVE.

You don't know what you're talking about, until you have.

Grow the fuck up. Someone disagreed with you about your bogus claims about "marginal" meat eating. Get over it.
 
nomadthethird

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
Let's do a little compendium of Zhao's rhetorical genius.

1) When Zhao doesn't like something, whether it's factual or not, he will make something up. When he is called out on the facticality of these statements, he will change his position, and then claim that you are some kind of big meanie.

2) Zhao is a hippy. He believes what he wants to believe. So it doesn't matter that it's well accepted that hunter-gatherer societies are by far the predominant mode of social organization, (for example), because he will find some hack job on the internet who makes a bogus claim that is not peer-reviewed. Zhao accepts these sorts of hacks as professional scientists.

3) Zhao is a baby. If someone doesn't agree with him, he will call them names. Then, if that person responds in kind, they are met with a slurry of "insults" that Zhao builds up based on imaginary understanding he thinks he has of you as a person, when in fact he's never met you, not even once. He's never even talked to you on the phone. He, really, for our intents and purposes, knows nothing about you.

4) Zhao thinks that everyone needs to "come around" and eventually agree with him, or they are wrong, and what's more, they are bad. He ruins good thread after good thread with this kind of bullshit. Why? I don't know. See number 3

5) When Zhao doesn't understand something, or disagrees with something someone says, it usually ends up getting the "pseudo" treatment. This is an excellent rhetorical device, especially when you're embarrassed because some of your sexual assumptions about female sexuality have been fucking PWNED over and over. See also number 3.

5) Zhao sulks. He might not confront you when he's actually angry at you, so what he'll do is passive-aggressively pop up in every thread you're writing in and try to sabotage that thread by bringing it BACK to the topic that was in dispute in some other, unrelated thread. This is the sort of thing someone with the maturity level of a 5-year-old does. But hey

6) Zhao has this strange need for people to agree with him. If you dislike a movie that he liked, he's so narcissistic that he actually believes, really truly believes, that you only disliked it to prove a point to HIM, when in fact, you just disliked it, and made your opinion known to a large group of anonymous people on the internet. Zhao is such a narcissist, in fact, that he imagines you are thinking and typing about him at moments when he is the furthest thing from your mind. Anything you say about feminism? Well, it's obviously directed solely and only at him. Usually this will feedback into number 4.

And so on.
 
nomadthethird

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
josef k. said:
The summary of the argument provided on the page about depressive realism DOES NOT seem to me to support Nomad's canard that "depressives see more clearly."

The description of the experiment details a situation in which participants have no control. The happy people falsely think they do. But depressives, who generally think that they have no control, don't think that they have control here either. The correspondence is analogical, NOT epistemological. There is no sense in which the deeper question of what control, in a wider sense, actually IS, is posed by this research. In these times this is not an idle question.

I further note - speaking perhaps to empty benches - that there is a large measure of pretentious crap in any stance that believes that, whenever a misunderstanding arises, it is also due to some failure or stupidity of the other. It takes two to communicate.

I also think the idea the picture is horrific is too simple. There are bad things in the world, but all is not lost. And I don't think that depression represents an appropriate response to the problems that this planet faces.
Click to expand...


Josef K, do a quick google search of depressive realism on pubmed. Read the *actual articles*, then get back to me with the results of your inquiry.

There are methodological limitations on all kinds of research. You can obviously never replicate what "control" means in the world at large in a lab, Josef. That doesn't mean that when I make a claim related to depressive realism, that many believe is backed up, many in the business, in the field, that because there are a couple of authors and articles that challenged the original research that this research is entirely invalid.

There are different interpretations of the data, but the data is very clear--positive illusions exist MORE OFTEN in happy people.

THAT was what I meant when I said "depressed people see more clearly", as I made abundantly clear later on in the thread.
 
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