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Comment by mynameisvlad | Hacker News Reader

More than one thing can be at fault here. It's not like it's an either or situation.

There's very little story in "testosterone-fueled man does testosterone-fueled things", though. People generally know the side effects of it.

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testosterone doesn't make you suicidal

it hinders you long term decision making and in turn makes it more likely to do risky decisions which could end bad for you (because you are slightly less risk adverse)

but that is _very_ different to doing decisions with the intend to kill yourself

you always need an different source for this, which here seem to have been ChatGPT

also how do you think he ended up thinking he needs to take that levels of testosterone, or testosterone at all. Common source of that are absurdly body ideals, often propagated by doctored pictures. Or the kind of non-realistic pictures ChatGPT tends to produce for certain topics.

and we also know that people with mental health issues have gone basically psychotic due to AI chats without taking any additional drugs...

but overall this is irrelevant

what is relevant is that they are hiding evidence which makes them look bad in a (self) murder case, likely with the intend to avoid any form of legal liability/investigation

that tells a lot about a company, or about how likely the company thinks they might be found at least partially liable

if that really where a nothing burger they had nothing to risk, and could even profit from such a law suite by setting precedence in their favor

Who, exactly, are you trying to argue against? Because nowhere in my comment did I absolve OpenAI of anything; I explicitly said multiple things can be a factor.

And, no, I don’t buy for a second the mental gymnastics you went to to pretend testosterone wasn’t a huge factor in this.

People are generally misguided about the side effects more like. High testosterone levels driving people to extreme violence or suicide is a complete absurdity to anyone with a modicum of experience.

The side effects of long term testosterone use have been studied and include depression, self-harm and suicide.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35437187/

So, no, not really absurd at all.

Notably, murder and homicidal thoughts are missing from this list.

Here's a meta-analysis on violence and testosterone: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31785281/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20153798/

> Use of AAS in combination with alcohol largely increases the risk of violence and aggression.

> Based on the scores for acute and chronic adverse health effects, the prevalence of use, social harm and criminality, AAS were ranked among 19 illicit drugs as a group of drugs with a relatively low harm.

It's hard to get good research data on extreme abuse of illegal drugs, for obvious reasons.

It is typically possible to find a study for any claim, which is why I reach for meta-analyses.

It's worth noting alcohol is very well-documented for its risk of increased aggression and violence - testosterone is not necessary.

There's a correlation, but it's because violent and unhinged people are more likely to take anabolics, and certain anabolics will increase aggression, it's quite simple really. Will they turn someone from completely normal into a violent psychopath? Absolutely not, that's completely absurd. You have to be very careful with "study says this!".

Alcohol has a FAR, FAR greater connection with violence, and yet most people up in arms about "roid rage" are happily sipping away apparently unaware of the irony.

We get it, you take testosterone.

Nobody here has said they turn you into a raging psychopath. Nobody even mentioned alcohol. That’s called moving the goalposts.

Replying to three people in the same comment thread does not help your case.

Neither is ignoring the entirety of my comment even though it directly contradicted the majority of yours.

I suggested that the claim that testosterone driving people to suicide or extreme violence is absurd and your attempted refutation of that was an epidemiological study showing that testosterone users are more likely to be depressed or kill themselves… I’m not ignoring it, I’m reiterating my original point which your study doesn’t even slightly refute. Maybe I’m missing something, can you elaborate on why your study shows that it is not absurd?

I apologise for being passionate about the subject, it’s just frustrating to me that the mainstream view is so out of touch with reality.

That's ironic, as most evidence-based medicine says the completely opposite. There is a clear connection between violence and exogenous testosterone use.

Exactly. We have the phrase "roid-rage" for a reason.

Particular steroids will increase aggression, most people avoid those ones. But they won't turn you from a normal person into a complete raging psychopath, if you tried them you would see how completely ridiculous that is. With most steroids you won't notice any increase in aggression. The reason studies show a CORRELATION, is because violent, aggressive, unhinged people are more likely to take steroids. It's really that simple.

Do you drink alcohol? Because there is a FAR greater direct connection between alcohol and violence. Maybe sit on that for a bit.

The reason we have the phrase "roid rage" is sensationalist journalism. If someone commits a crime and they happen to take steroids it's automatically labelled as "roid rage". Think about this.

If you were experienced with steroids or knew many steroid users you would absolutely not hold this opinion, I guarantee it.

Regardless of this particular situation, many figures of speech don't have an actual basis in science. I wouldn't take this as gospel.

There is a correlation yes. Violent individuals are more likely to use anabolic steroids. The mild increase in aggression from particular compounds isn't enough to turn someone from sane to insane or psychopathic. Be careful of studies, you have to look deeper than layer 1.

We're not trying to characterize typical use, but rather pathological levels of supplemental hormone

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