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Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

The concert example was was taken out of context. The paper used it in a section about people believing a specific, unlikely alternative explanation in the face of contradictory evidence of intent.

> People can believe something to be true because it “feels” that way. To illustrate, please read the following passages

> B.Ted’s boss told him that his performance at the company has been good. Yet, Ted wonders if he could have done better. In fact, he feels like a failure. Consequently, he starts to believe he is a failure

The point isn't about whether or not the statements are 100% factually true.

The point is that some people will discard the statements entirely and substitute their own worst-case alternative explanation, regardless of any evidence to the contrary.

If you're focusing on the statements, you're missing the point of the paper. The point is about assuming the worst in the face of uncertainty.

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What contradictory evidence is provided in the sample? It doesn't say that they drew lots. As the statement is presented it only sates that a group of people told one person they can't come. The number of tickets does not by itself justify why this particular person isn't going. With such a lack of evidence we could say the reason is unknown, intent is an unknown quantity, but that isn't the desired reasoning because the very fact of the unknowns implies ill intent as a possibility, which is not charitable, therefore the only implied correct position to hold is the actively non-negative one.

You’re missing the point of the example: The authors deliberate left the ground truth as vague but provided a not-100% but otherwise good faith explanation of one interpretation.

Then the listener discarded the explanation and inserted their own worst-case explanation instead.

Inserting the worst-case explanation as the certain explanation is the cognitive distortion the paper is talking about.

The point isn’t that ill intent is impossible.

The point is that it’s a mistake to be certain about the worst interpretation in the face of uncertainty.

You’re missing the point of the example: The authors deliberate left the ground truth as vague but provided a not-100% but otherwise good faith explanation of one interpretation.

The authors provided a world view and pathologized those who didn't follow that world view.

This sounds a lot like the 'catastrophizing' that depression often causes, which hurts people and puts them into downward cycles of depression.

Incidentally, if GP is worried about pathologizing, this may not be the answer most likely to change their mind.

The thing is, in my observations, depression pushes people into endless sets of no win conditions by punishing them for not obeying ever more restrictive and absurd rules. I don't want to claim what is/isn't a disease, but it's pretty obvious that some thought patterns hurt people a lot once you understand a little about how they work and get people to contort their lives around them. Getting out of that looks more like getting rid of the insecurities more than learning to walk a narrow path through endless fields of eggshells.

The thing about this you're engaging in a clear fallacy. Depressed people tend to draw negative conclusions and reinforce their conclusions, therefore if someone draws a negative conclusion (that you consider unwarranted), they are depressed and making themselves worse.

It's kind of logical for the entire bad-faith exercise involved in this article and the comments defending it. The whole thing is putting elaborate psycho-trappings on the "boomer" complaint of "you kids just too sensitive these days" (but just said about to things you consider fine).

> The thing about this you're engaging in a clear fallacy. Depressed people tend to draw negative conclusions and reinforce their conclusions, therefore if someone draws a negative conclusion (that you consider unwarranted), they are depressed and making themselves worse.

I claimed that depression often leads to catastrophizing, not that catastrophizing is somehow exclusive to depression.

So the "clear fallacy" here is reading a comment about how A sometimes implies B, then attacking the notion that B implies A, despite there being no logical connection between the two propositions.

I don't believe there's any evidence cognitive therapy works better than other forms of therapy for depression, which suggests to me the various claims of how the human mind works ("catastrophizing" or whatever) are not true.

"However, studies that compared CBT to other active treatments, such as psychodynamic treatment, problem-solving therapy, and interpersonal psychotherapy, found mixed results. Specifically, meta-analyses found CBT to be equally effective in comparison to other psychological treatments"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3584580/#!po=0....

You don't need anything from CBT to think that depressed people tend to reach for explanations that mean everything is as horrible as possible preferentially.

Just being with one for a while will show you that bias very quickly when you hear about how every random person they passed on the street secretly hates them or thinks they're ugly or somehow did something that relates to their biggest insecurity.

It's true that I can't prove the world doesn't secretly hate them, but my own experience of literally never thinking about the random strangers I walk past informs my belief that this likely has more to do with the person's insecurity than the reality of what's going on in those people's minds.

Isn’t the explanation incomplete? It explains why someone couldn’t come, but it doesn’t explain why Kim in particular couldn’t come. Therefore, Kim must contend both with the outcome (that she couldn’t come), and with the fact that the selection process was hidden from her. The concealment creates the bias towards negativity imo, in the absence of other information.

The is another example that is missing context. Both statements can be true. Bob might have done a good enough job for the boss, but not for Bob. Maybe Bob needs to realize he doesn't need to strive for perfection. And if the boss is happy, then great. On the other hand maybe Bob could have done better. And thus getting a larger bonus or something

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