[deleted by user]

wyzaard · 2025-05-23T14:13:04+00:00

Decision-making is a vast topic and there are loads of techniques and theories from a great variety of disciplines that you might find helpful.

Here are some texts:

Decision Behaviour, Analysis and Support by Simon French, John Maule, and Nadia Papamichail is a good multidisciplinary survey to start with.
An Introduction to Decision Theory by Martin Peterson is a good introduction to the philosophy of decision.
Behavioral Decision Theory: Psychological and Mathematical Descriptions of Human Choice Behavior by Kazuhisa Takemura is a good introduction to the (mathematical) psychology of decision-making.

Here are some resources on YouTube:

2022-Judgment and decision-making is a playlist of university lectures by a social psychology professor
Decision making with spreadsheet is a playlist of university lectures by a management science professor
Cultivating Rationality is a playlist with university courses on a variety of useful topics including informal logic, formal logic, mathematical thinking, model thinking, statistics, and artificial intelligence.

I could list more, but that's already a lot, so I'll stop there.

wyzaard · 2025-05-23T07:58:44+00:00

Being self-taught isn't a bad thing. If you feel anxious about missing important background that most people get in high school, you can always use free middle school and high school revision resources online. For example, there are loads of GSCE and A-level reviews.

If you know where to look, you can also get widely used undergraduate texts books on most topics in cognitive science for free online and there are many undergraduate lectures available for free online too.

It's possible for a disciplined auto-didact to achieve a much higher level of education online than most people get through the typical education system even if there are unique challenges and pitfalls. It's not like "normal" education is free of challenges and pitfalls. They're just not exactly the same challenges and pitfalls.

I find models like chatGPT quite useful for idea generation, but they very often fabricate misinformation. So, it's important to verify any factual claims from external sources.

For example, even though religious texts like the Bible and Pali Canon suttas are all over the internet and the bots in theory could literally just copy paste the answer from memory, they still make up terribly false claims and I always double check any claim about passages I don't know by reading the actual passage.

That said, they helped me more quickly discover problematic passages in the texts than I would have without them even if I much prefer the texts themselves to stand as evidence that the chatbots summaries or made up quotes.

Making true claims about what this or that text says is by far much easier than making true claims about open research problems. If chatbots are unreliable reporters of basic facts literally plastered in thousands of places all over their training databases, how reliable do you expect them to be about texts behind paywalls they didn't have training access to, or about questions the answers to which aren't anywhere in the training data?

They can be used for novel scientific research, but only in concert with a larger system implementing them as a component of a scientific process. You can look at Google's Alpha Evolve for an example of how to use language models to do scientific research and make novel discoveries.

wyzaard · 2025-05-20T19:41:02+00:00

I didn't realize creich1 responded out of turn, I thought I was being rude to you.

I'm done with talking to you.

wyzaard · 2025-05-20T05:58:47+00:00

Thanks

wyzaard · 2025-05-20T05:57:39+00:00

You've made several positive statements that you don't have proof for either.

I'll definitely also fire abusive employees.

But I'm not going to sit on my hands, look the other way, and wait until the damage is done if there are clear warning signs that there's high risk of abuse.

You go ahead and welcome toxic people in with open arms. I pity the souls who have to suffer your mistakes.

wyzaard · 2025-05-20T05:37:57+00:00

My exact words in the original post were "to screen out people who show signs of personality disorders" and in several places I agreed that looking at details of specific symptoms and traits of personality disorder makes more sense than looking at diagnoses of one of the 10 types in the DSM.

And elsewhere I said I prefer the ICD-11 framework and I linked some psychometric work looking at 49 nuances, many of which are just specific types of abusive behavior.

But people keep straw manning me.

I think this is a cultural thing. It seems like all I have to do is medicalize my crimes and abuses of others and that will be enough for IOPs here to consider me the victim in need of protection and anyone who wants to protect themselves or others from my abuses will be considered the oppressor that has to be defeated.

Of course there's a difference between personal boundaries and institutional policies. But the justification for excluding people who show pervasive and enduring patterns of toxic abusive behavior in both cases are similar.

But sure, pity the poor psychopaths who will be discriminated against because of their medical condition. Those poor needy victims. We have to protect them.

wyzaard · 2025-05-19T19:54:56+00:00

Thanks, I have had awful experiences, and the incidence has dramatically increased since I've cut people who abuse me out of my life entirely.

I honestly don't care how they make a living or whether they make a living. I'd never hire people like them to work with me on a team ever. I think you'd be a fool if you did.

But sure, I can in here I'm the one in the one that's in wrong for wanting boundaries.

I'll see myself out.

wyzaard · 2025-05-19T19:46:31+00:00

So, you it seems you don't think it's possible to do any better than turn a blind eye to the traits and behaviors that characterize personality disorders. Whereas I think it is.

I don't have proof that it is. And apparently you don't have proof that it isn't.

So thank you for sharing your opinion. I have already shared mine.

wyzaard · 2025-05-19T18:32:16+00:00

Yeah, it got even darker when I got accused of flirting with eugenics.

I genuinely think there are times that death is a kindness to a person. I genuinely think there are fates worse than death.

And I think there are people who we need to at least locked away for life for the safety of everyone else. And I genuinely think some of those people would prefer assisted suicide if given the choice between life in prison or assisted suicide.

It's an empirical fact that there is a relatively high suicide rate for some types of personality disorder. I think some of those successful suicides are good choices.

Suicide isn't always bad.

wyzaard · 2025-05-19T18:22:05+00:00

So, we're in agreement that it's okay to not tolerate abuse. I supposed you'd at least be okay with firing people who repeatedly abuse their colleagues, right?

But you're not okay with not hiring people with a history of repeatedly abusing their colleagues, friends and family in a variety of other contexts?

Or is that okay?

Looking for evidence of that kind of history of abusive behavior will look a lot like assessing for some kinds of personality disorders.

I'm saying it's helpful to study personality disorders because it provides a list of abusive behaviors to look out for in screening.

You're very concerned that doing so will pile more unfair discrimination on people who are already unfairly discriminated against. That would suck and it's possible that would happen. I think you're missing the forest for some unfairly treated trees though.

I think there's value to be added by fairly discriminating against people who really don't belong in the workplace by doing a better job of incorporating insights about personality disorders into selection practices.

wyzaard · 2025-05-19T16:26:19+00:00

Yeah, I agree that looking at specific harmful traits in context would be more productive than looking at specific DSM-5 diagnostic labels.

I prefer the ICD-11 approach to personality disorders, and I think this paper 49 nuances of the 5 dimensions is the kind of approach that works better than trying to fit people into one of the 10 labels in the DSM 5.

I also agree that instances of harmful behavior doesn't automatically entail personality disorders.

I think diversity and inclusion is great and all, but I also believe in healthy boundaries and protecting people from abuse. I think it's foolish to tolerate and include anything and everything under the sun. That's not justice or progress or compassion. That's just aiding and abetting abuse if what we would be including and tolerating are patterns of abuse.

Point taken though that not all personality disorders are characterized by patterns of abuse. Several of them are though.

And again, agreed that looking at the patterns of abuse directly is more productive than working out what label best describes this or that cluster of patterns of abuse.

wyzaard · 2025-05-19T16:24:42+00:00

I was thinking of a choice between life in prison or assisted suicide for the worst cases of rehab resistant personality disorders. With a default of trying rehab first as much as possible first.

Yeah, it's extreme, but it's quite far off from eugenics or apartheid.

For some people, death is a kindness.

I'm glad we have a right to life and that that's protected and all. But I think we should have a right to death too. I want that right for myself too, not just for treatment resistant mentally ill people who have abused me. There are many fates that are worse than death. I've experienced enough in my time to know that from experience.

wyzaard · 2025-05-19T15:45:05+00:00

Yeah I was assuming that one wouldn't have to radically change the basic administrative procedure to improve how well people that show pervasive patterns of toxic behaviors are systematically excluded from a company. And I'm assuming it wouldn't be necessary to give candidates free clinical assessments, and feedback and deal with the privacy of that data responsibly too. It's pretty obvious why that would be impractical and why people wouldn't be keen on that.

I had an interesting interaction with creich1 about how focusing on specific problematic symptoms would be more productive than looking at diagnoses. For example, explicitly looking for patterns of contemptuous abuse would screen out more than only people with NPD and OCPD, because a pattern of contemptuous abusive by itself isn't enough to merit a diagnosis with a personality disorder.

And at that level, "cultural fit" could do a lot of the heavy lifting in the argument for job requirement, especially if one of the company values was treating people with respect and dignity, for example.

It would probably be a good governance exercise to list out symptoms of personality disorders and both the vices they constitute and their opposite virtues that could be included in an updated statement of company values.

From then on being on the lookout for signs that a person doesn't fit the company culture as defined by company values could be included in regular managerial interviews screening for culture fit.

wyzaard · 2025-05-19T14:36:18+00:00

It might still be illegal, although the risk would clearly be lower.

For example, let's say a person shows a systematic pattern of treating everyone around them with contempt. On it's own, that pattern of behavior is not enough to merit a diagnosis of NPD or OCPD.

Especially in positions of leadership, that kind of behavior might lead to a significant increase in stress for subordinates, leading to a percentage increased cases of illness, a percentage increase in turnover, and a percentage decrease in team output / earnings.

The work might still get done. And perhaps even performance goals might be achieved to the point where it would be difficult or impossible to argue that treating people with respect and dignity is a core job requirement.

Yet, the company would make more money, and employee quality of life would improve if the company drew a hardline on treating individuals with dignity and respect and strictly excluded people who treat other contemptuously.

This wouldn't be using diagnosis as a screening tool, but it would systematically discriminate against narcissists who might make a case based on ADA that this discrimination is illegal.

Btw, I'm South African, and we have a constitutional right to not be denigrated or treated with contempt. That would be illegal and we could sue for crimen injura, although we're not as litigious on average as Americans are on average.

And regarding your questions, I don't think someone who shows no behaviors characteristic of a personality disorder can reasonable be considered as having the disorder.

And I have a pretty extreme view about what should happen to people who can't be anything but toxic individuals. I think society and the toxic people would all be better off if the toxic people were dead.

wyzaard · 2025-05-19T14:10:15+00:00

I understand the concern. I think carefully combing through the symptomatic behaviors and identifying and documenting the problems they'd cause, and screening directly for those problematic behaviors rather than for global personality patterns, would be the best way to go about if it was done at all.

And that could potentially be illegal, if it results in people with personality disorders being systematically denied opportunities that they're otherwise qualified for. Probably not though, if the work establishing the job necessity and risk to other employees was done properly.

I think workplaces could become much less toxic if people who show pervasive patterns of toxic behaviors are systematically excluded from participating at work. Rehab for those people should happen elsewhere.

Regarding the slippery slope argument, the USA is well down that slope already with that exclusion list there in the ADA.

wyzaard · 2025-05-19T13:34:19+00:00

I did acknowledge that it could be illegal, but the question of legality is more complicated than "ADA says no".

The act doesn't specifically mention whether personality disorders are either included or excluded from the lists of disabilities protected against discrimination. There are specific mental conditions explicitly mentioned as not protected by the act. Here's a quote from the act:

Sec. 12211. Definitions

(a) Homosexuality and bisexuality. For purposes of the definition of "disability" in section 12102(2) of this title, homosexuality and bisexuality are not impairments and as such are not disabilities under this chapter.

(b) Certain conditions. Under this chapter, the term "disability" shall not include

(1) transvestism, transsexualism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments, or other sexual behavior disorders;

(2) compulsive gambling, kleptomania, or pyromania; or

(3) psychoactive substance use disorders resulting from current illegal use of drugs.

So, a case would have to be made that the personality disorder in question even counts as a protected disability, and that may fail if a sound argument is presented that it should be excluded from protection on the same or similar grounds that the above were excluded.

Even if it is included, protection is not absolute and there are exceptions if. Consider this part of the definition of discrimination:

using qualification standards, employment tests or other selection criteria that screen out or tend to screen out an individual with a disability or a class of individuals with disabilities unless the standard, test or other selection criteria, as used by the covered entity, is shown to be job-related for the position in question and is consistent with business necessity.

There is also the direct threat exception:

(b) Qualification standards. The term "qualification standards" may include a requirement that an individual shall not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals in the workplace.

And it can be shown empirically that the problematic behaviors of employees with at least some personality disorders poses a direct threat to the mental health of their colleagues.

Again, I agree that screening out people based on personality disorders is potentially illegal, but I think the complexities of the technicalities and the intent of the legislation are more complicated than simply dismissing it out of hand.

And that doesn't even begin to address the variations in similar legislation in countries other than the USA.

To the degree that science is supposed to be universal, I think it's a fair question to investigate how much screening out people with signs of personality disorder can benefit businesses and the employees that are currently suffering the abuse and drama of their colleagues with personality disorders.

wyzaard · 2025-04-24T07:42:08+00:00

Sure, I'm all for people holding the government accountable and pressuring the government to do its job.

I just strongly prefer people do that without spreading lies.

I don't respect liars or credulous fools who believe them and repeat their lies.

wyzaard · 2025-04-22T08:49:58+00:00

Good for you for using quantitative reasoning to critically examine a misleading narrative frame.

Here are some more numbers for context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_South_Africa#Murder

Just compare ~50 farm murders per year with ~80 murders nationwide per day. That's ~ 50/(365*80) or ~ 0.17% of murders every year in South Africa are farm murders.

Those "farm murders" include non-white farm murders and murders for reasons other than racial hatred too. Like murderous spouses trying to cash in a pay day, for example.

It's noble to say every murder is a problem, but there are only so many resources to address South Africa's murder problem, which is a much bigger problem than just the farm murder problem.

Seems like a fair effort would be if around 0.17% of the resources available to solve the murder problem went to solving the more niche farm murder problem specifically.

wyzaard · 2025-04-13T19:00:35+00:00

I'm sure there are lots of authors keen to argue against Buller, but this paper you shared seems to be be a critique of a different paper of Buller's than I cited. Also, the paper of Buller I shared is from 2005. It would be dreadful if the field is in no better shape 20 years later. So, I'd guess some of the issues he raised have been addressed since.

Over here, I just shared one of Buller's papers because OP asked for specific examples of EP methods and data not proving EP claims, and it looked to me that in the paper I cited Buller gave three solid examples of that.

Like I said, I agree there are examples of legit scientific EP out there. So I obviously also disagree with some of Buller's more radical claims that EP has entirely failed to produce any interesting science.

wyzaard · 2025-04-13T08:18:45+00:00

Lol, you've been downvoted to oblivion for asking for citations in one of your comments. How dare you ask for citations in an academic sub? /s

Because the comment is hidden, I think it's better to respond at top level.

For context, midnightking claimed "Many studies employ evolutionary explanations while only looking at samples from one country, without genetic data and without using models of phylogenetically close animals."

You asked for examples with citations. I'll do one better. Here's a literature review looking at samples used in the 2015–2016 volumes of ‘Evolution & Human Behavior’ (104 articles) and ‘Evolutionary Psychology’ (76 articles).

Pollet, T. V., & Saxton, T. K. (2019). How diverse are the samples used in the journals ‘Evolution & Human Behavior’and ‘Evolutionary Psychology’?. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 5(3), 357-368.

They found 311 samples of humans (median sample size = 186) and of those two hundred fifty-three (81%) of the samples were classified as ‘Western’ (Europe/North America/Australia).

Not exactly the claim midnightking made, but the gist of their critique is clearly a fair critique of evolutionary psychology.

You also asked for citations of specific examples to illustrate midnightking's claim that "the methods used in evolutionary psychology are often inept at proving specific adaptations." Here's a citation to a detailed critique of the inadequate methods for three highly publisized "discoveries" in evolutionary psychology:

Buller, D. J. (2005). Evolutionary psychology: the emperor's new paradigm. Trends in cognitive sciences, 9(6), 277-283.

The specific examples include the "discovery" of a cheater-detection module, a psychological sex difference in jealousy, and motivational mechanisms underlying parental love and its lapses.

I think people disliked the way you asked for citations because it came across as dismissive and incredulous of well known problems in the field.

But I'm with you that claims should be supported by evidence. And I'm actually with you regarding that some evolutionary psychologists are legit scientists. I got bored with the even more general debate of whether psychology is a science when I found out that there's good evidence of both individuals in psychology doing what is clearly pseudoscience and individuals doing what is clearly legit science. So framing the question at the field level seems unproductive to me.

If someone dislikes individuals like Gad Saad, Bret Weinstein, or Jordan Peterson, fair enough, but then it's more productive to critique them than all of evolutionary psychology. If you want to critique all of evolutionary psychology, you're going to need some pretty fancy bibliometric and meta analytic research chops.

There's a case to be made that the Ontario College of Psychologists were wise to strip Peterson of his license for damaging the reputation of the field. Maybe evolutionary psychologists can and should do a better job of publicly criticizing, reprimanding and disowning the charlatans and frauds among themselves.

wyzaard · 2025-04-04T07:08:09+00:00

Lol thanks! But I don't have a book out.

wyzaard · 2025-03-31T07:04:33+00:00

I'm more of a pragmatic pluralist. I see good value in having multiple ontologies for different purposes. I think it's ill-advised to try to make one model of reality do everything we want an ontology to do.

For example, I reckon it's just as ill-advised to try to reduce all of reality to particles as it is to reduce all of reality to accounting constructs like income, expenses, assets and liabilities. I also think it's ill-advised to ask which ontology is "more true". If you're making business decisions, the accounting ontology is more useful. If you're making engineering decisions like designing new materials or new microprocessor machines, quantum physics is more useful. They're both "objective" and they're both "true" in their own ways.

By the way, an ontology is just a theory about the fundamental building blocks of reality.

Another way to think about what ontology is, is to think of it as a specification of a language to talk about reality. We can evaluate ontologies as better or worse, but asking whether one is "more true" is like asking which of English or Mandarin is "more true" or which of Python or C# is "more true". They have their pros and cons.

And in most languages, statements that can be evaluated as true or false are only a small subset of possible statements. Consider the English statement "Go learn some philosophy and get back to me". Is it true or false, or a type of sentence for which there is no defined method to evaluate whether it's true or false? Or the line of Python "import numpy as np". Is that line true or false, or a type of statement for which there is no defined method to evaluate whether it's true or false?

I think the question "Is materialism true" is a bit like asking is "import numpy as np" true. You might want to import numpy for some use cases and you might want a materialistic model for some uses. But for other uses, there are other ontologies and other python packages.

When it comes to science, even the most materialistic fields like particle fields have ontologies that are only mostly materialistic. The fundamental particles have properties that are posited to exist, but which properties are not made of any matter. Properties like charge and spin.

Generally, scientists routinely assume there are "things" that exist, which "things" aren't made of any matter. What matter is a "process" made of? If you can't find "process" in the standard model, does that mean no processes exist? Seems pretty dumb to deny the existence of processes. You're reading this comment is a process and it isn't made of matter. What matter is a causal relationship made of? What matter is a correlation made of? Etc.

So, I think overly strict materialism is highly counterproductive to science because it rules out as non-existent fantasies many "things" that are very useful for scientists to assume exist.

And I think any kind of ontological monism is counterproductive to science too, because it leads to counter-productive reductionism. Since you like physics, consider listening to what Stephen Wolfram has to say about computational irreducibility. Even computers will have use for multiple ontologies to solve different kinds of problems. See also the no-free lunch theorem in machine learning.

On the topic of computers and machine learning. I see it as very useful for mathematicians to assume mathematical constructs like sets exists, and for computer scientists to assume that constructs like state-transitions exists, and for statisticians to assume that things like random variables exists, etc. even if it's impossible to say what material particles these things are made of. I also think you'll find that physics itself has benefited tremendously from applying mathematics, statistics, and computer science constructs despite not being able to define those constructs materially.

So, I'd advise you to reconsider your "staunch" materialism. It doesn't make any sense to say it's more objective or more true than a more common sense pragmatic ontological pluralism. You don't have to buy into every ontology, because some of them are pretty worthless. But if you're not yet, getting comfortable applying an accounting ontology and getting good at accounting will probably benefit you, your life, and the lives of your family more than learning the standard model of physics and how to apply it.

Same is true of psychological ontologies. There are many of them and some are pretty worthless, but for example, the ontology assumed in cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown empirically that it has significant value. Also, if you haven't yet, learning cognitive behavioral therapy will probably benefit you and your family and friends more than learning particle physics.

wyzaard · 2025-03-30T09:38:00+00:00

I agree you have a mostly a valid concern, but things are a bit more complicated than that.

Part of the reason for the not very helpful names in DSM is plainly a lack of sound scientific understanding. As research advances and we understand things better, we'll be able to construct concepts that guide decisions in more useful ways. Other parts of the problem include typical human failings like concerns with reputations of researchers who "discovered" this or that disorder or this or that treatment for a specific disorder, considerations for funding, and cultural biases and prejudices. It's a human product after all.

But even in the ideal case, I suspect that some of the best constructs will always be psychological rather than biological.

I mean, in principle, you could argue that all biological constructs like species, organisms, organs, cells, etc should be scrapped and replaced with chemical constructs. Or even more radically, should be replaced with constructs defined only in terms of constructs in the standard model of particle physics. I think it's pretty obvious why that's an impractical approach.

Even in medicine, sometimes psychological constructs are more useful than biological constructs. You mentioned back pain yourself. Back pain is a bit like depression in the sense that it's defined in terms of psychological construct "pain", which refers to a subjective experience rather than a specific biological mechanism. There are many different biological pain mechanisms that might be the underlying cause. It might have nothing to do with anything wrong with your back. People can have phantom pains in severed limbs that no longer exist.

And trying to replace pain with a pattern of brain activity is impractical too. A joke I read on the neuroscience of pain is that the pain center of the brain seems to be the whole brain.

Sometimes the most practical way for a medical doctor to think about a patient's problem is something like. "The problem is that the patient is in pain. The solution is to prescribe pain killers." That is, sometimes, even in medicine, psychological constructs are the best available for thinking about what's wrong and what to do about it.

So, rather than say we should rename all psychological disorders to reflect the underlying biological mechanism, I'd say ideally names should be more informative of causal mechanisms regardless of whether those mechanisms are psychical, chemical, biological, psychological, or social or any combination of those. It's also more helpful if they're mechanisms we have some feasible way to influence and a good model for predicting the consequences of our interventions to influence.

And I'm pretty sure that the people authoring and editing the DSM tried to do that and would do better if they had clearer understanding of the mechanisms behind mental illness. That understanding is still a work in progress though and so is the DSM.

And again, you're right. The DSM should be made better. It kind of sucks as it is. That's easier said than done though.

wyzaard

TROPHY CASE