Remembering the Good Old Days When Evidence Mattered

"I have a mental illness that makes me think that people will change their minds if i present the correct arguments with the appropriate facts and data."

And to make things even worse, consider the Boomerang Effect. I turn to Grok:

The boomerang effect (also known as the backfire effect in some psychological literature). Is a persuasion paradox where presenting strong evidence or arguments to debunk a false belief doesn't sway people; instead, it often reinforces their original misconception, making them dig in even deeper. This happens because the challenge feels like a threat to their identity, worldview, or autonomy, triggering defensive reasoning—think of it as the brain "boomeranging" the message right back at you with amplified conviction.Classic examples include political debates (e.g., fact-checking a conspiracy theory that only rallies believers more) or health campaigns (e.g., anti-smoking ads that ironically boost smoking among defiant teens). Studies show it spikes when the persuasion feels too forceful, emotional, or condescending, as people resist perceived control. To counter it, softer approaches like asking open questions or building rapport work better than direct confrontation.It's a frustrating reminder that facts alone don't always win—emotions and ego often steal the show.

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About the Dark Triad

Evolutionary biologist Geoffrey Miller explains the concept:

Remember, kids:

The 'Dark Triad' of personality traits (Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism) is hugely over-represented among people who manage to make themselves famous.

And it explains why so many of them, sooner or later, adopt toxic, delusional beliefs that make them infamous.

Rob Henderson adds this:

Dark Triad personality traits correlate with victim-signaling (e.g., "Expressed how people like me are underrepresented in the media and leadership.").

Psychopathy (r = .58), Machiavellianism (r = .43) and narcissism (r = .30)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32614222/

Psychologist Jordan Peterson:

Jordan Peterson:

We're talking about this Machiavellian personality triad, the dark triad, ... Okay, so here's something really interesting. It's the bad boy paradox. They call it that. Young, naive women are attracted to those Machiavellian types, but when they get older and more experienced, they start to be able to see through that. The reason they're attracted to it, as far as I can tell, and I talked about this with bus to see if I was way off on the wrong track, is that those reckless, fearless people mimic real, fearless competence. And young women aren't good at distinguishing between the two, and so they get sucked in by the sort of psychopathic recklessness, because they think it's fearless competence. And of course, the guys who are doing that, they'll prey on that because they're trying to ape competence. But what the women are really after in their heart of hearts, they might be out for an adventure too, because there's that element of it. But they want that fearlessness that does go along with true generosity and competence and also the ability to keep, you know, real darkness away so well.

[Unknown speaker]

A lot of those people who display that kind of, what you call mimicking fearlessness macho, that's they're actually hiding the opposite. They're actually very, very riddled with insecurities. They're not, you know, and they're, they're, they kind of create this sort of bravado and this false front, and they go to an extreme to kind of project this machismo when, in fact, they're riddled with insecurities. And that's their way of dealing with it. With it.

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Therapy that Cannot Stand the Pain

In talking with some acquaintances and viewing videos of people who are clearly struggling to cope, I'm often distracted by their use of language that abstracts away from human-to-human conflict. Their focus has been repackaged into sterilized abstruse terminology. It's as though the emotions and suffering have been packed away into the basement and they are trapped upstairs in a nonstop web of psychological chatter that is facilitated by their therapists.

Freya India points out the increasingly common problem of therapy buzzwords in a communication to Ayishat Akanbi, a writer:

I’m very skeptical of therapy-speak, unconvinced it even helps us open up. More often I think it actually closes down our ability to have honest conversations.

But you got to the heart of what bothers me about it, the insincerity. If someone tells me about their “fearful-avoidant” attachment style or how they are learning to “hold space” for others, I find it hard to feel anything. But if they tell me about their hurt and heartbreak, or how they are trying to be less selfish, I’m listening. We are talking human to human now.

As you write, “We’re encouraged to describe even ordinary interpersonal conflict in the language of pathology and melodramatic categories. So we start treating every slight like persecution because exaggeration is the only way to make pain legible.”

But I’ve been wondering lately if two things are happening at once. On one hand, we have this therapeutic group-speak, this exaggeration of suffering. But on the other hand, I think we are also losing the ability to talk about actual pain.

The writer Samuel Kronen, in a piece about chronic illness, put it like this: “There still appears to be a lot of unrewarded suffering in the world and our culture can seem pretty cruel and callous toward the vulnerable…If anything, I think our screen-addled, instantly-gratifying, digitally-intoxicated culture actually makes people less sensitive and conscious of suffering in certain ways, contributing to a more casual cruelty.”

I think he’s right. We might pathologise ordinary feelings and exaggerate small slights, but we also seem unwilling to accept genuine suffering. We can’t seem to cope with it. It’s hard, for example, to have a sincere conversation about something like family breakdown. I hear so many young women talking about their attachment styles, about “reparenting” themselves and healing their inner child, but not so much about the pain of divorce. I think this is why, as a culture, we have ended up with so much therapeutic advice and so little wisdom. Because we aren’t speaking about our problems in any recognisably human way. Maybe we are trying to make things easier on ourselves. If you phrase your problem as “anxious attachment”, you need a therapist. If you phrase it as your parents’ divorce, you need a difficult conversation with your dad.

As I read India's email to Akanbi, I was reminded of a book I read in college: The Myth of Mental Illness (1961), by Thomas Szasz. I think Szasz overstated his case in his book, but he did draw necessary attention to whether metaphoric terms like "mental illness" been literalized to unduly justify psychiatry's authority, turning common problems of living into impenetrable diagnoses, often harming individuals by stripping them of agency and responsibility for their actions.

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Does Treatment for People Who Claim to be Transgender Reduce Suicides?

?Would you rather have a live daughter or a dead son? Transgender activists would ask this question to incentivize parents to provide "gender affirming care" to their sexually confused children.

But is it true that medical interventions reduce the number of suicides?

Consider this excerpt from "ACLU Attorney Confesses: Transgender-Suicide Claim is a Myth." Arguing before the Supreme Court, the ACLU's Chase Strangio concedes that suicide is “thankfully and admittedly rare” among transgender-identifying people:

Unfortunately for Strangio, Justice Alito had done his homework. Citing the U.K.’s Cass Review, Alito observed that “there is no evidence that gender-affirmative treatments reduce suicide.”

Then came Strangio’s remarkable concession:

MR. STRANGIO: What I think that is referring to is there is no evidence in some—in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide. And the reason for that is completed suicide, thankfully and admittedly, is rare and we’re talking about a very small population of individuals with studies that don’t necessarily have completed suicides within them.

However, there are multiple studies, long-term longitudinal studies that do show that there is a reduction in—in suicidality . . .

Here, the ACLU’s star attorney on trans issues seems to be at odds with Solicitor General Prelogar, who had said that the “rates” of “suicide” among gender-dysphoric youth were “striking.” Strangio admits, under oath, that suicide is actually “rare,” and that the research purporting to demonstrate benefits from hormones concerns suicidality, not suicide. Strangio’s use of “admittedly” is also striking, as it suggests the attorney is aware that claims about suicide prevention through sex “change” are false.

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