mtpn

I'm more concerned with, when you discount the studies that have been shown to be poor, does the overall system 1/system 2 model become weaker? I think it does, a bit, but he takes pains to point out that it is just a shorthand and not a real thing, so we should already be skeptical of taking it too far? How about the thinking vs remembering selves? I think that holds up ok.

We're early in our understanding of human behavior. Many of our ideas are wrong. Everything is hard to test. But though the book has flaws and should be evaluated again (would love to see it rewritten), I still think there is usefulness in the models he suggested. And in behavioral economics in general. I think we're far away from having enough replicated studies to be really "sure" of anything, especially with this crisis, but moving in a reasonable direction.

This comment itself seems much more accurate than your original post. It allows for the fact that - sometimes - you don't have the power to change things right then. Sometimes the best you can do is survive, endure, and accept. You can only fix things when you can fix things.

It seems like you don't know how your first post got me thinking "try harder" so I want to highlight the things you said that gave me this impression.

>I was determined to end this trend, no matter what. After a few months (literally) of me not raising my voice, unless it was totally and completely justified (which I discovered was very rare) I could then say to my kids (and wife), I expect you to talk nice and decently to eachother, and as soon as they accused me of being grouchy, I pointed out that I hadn't been for months, and something changed, everyone started to listen to me, even when I talked quietly.

- Your determination seems to be the key factor in how you tell this. You made a choice and tried really hard to to follow through.

> I've become a morning person, I started jogging about 5 years ago (I hated exercise), I stopped eating white sugar in 1995 (because it was controlling me like a narcotic), and I have worked on many of my other bad habits and traits. I think anyone can change anything.

- this is a list of great accomplishments but avoids expressing that any of this was difficult. Just that anybody can change anything. I disagree, but so far we are just talking about behavior changes, you haven't mentioned depression yet, so fair enough.

> We just need enough of a reason to do something, and then we can do it.

- This is where I think you are just plain wrong. It oversimplifies the situation. Dismisses the many factors that effect motivation and mental health.

> The trick seems to be, can you make up your own reasons? I know we can.

- this is your own personal framework that worked for you. To my mind, reasons require logic to be available to the person.

> (also I defeated crippling life long depression, food addictions, weight loss, and few other things many people want to label "diseases" we have no cure for or control over, I call bologna on that, we can change anything

- This is where you bring up depression, which was my main problem. You put quotes around "diseases" and call bologna on the whole list, again offering that that "anyone" can change anything, presumably using that single method you have described. "Have a reason, make a choice, be determined." It's so dismissive, and I believe it's inherently false, plus it also sounds like it's not even what you really think?

You didn't, in the first post, mention anything at all about asking for help, or going through periods where you could not help yourself or change at the time. You only suggested that if the person thinks right, they can change literally anything.

People feel such guilt when they are engaged in behavior that hurts the people they love, and watch themselves make the bad choices in spite of knowing better. Family members wonder how their parent could ever sure by suicide, unless they hated their family. Etc etc. Reasons, alone, are not sufficient.

> But telling someone they can face their problems, and having that person feeling guilt or worthless because of that is not the same thing.

That depends on who is listening, which is why, initially, I urged care to be taken in how we frame these things. On the internet we don't know who is reading or what they need to get better. At the right moment, for the right person, your advice could be just what they need, but at the wrong moment, it could add to their despair. Because we can't choose who is reading.

> The ones that are meant to program would flourish under a computer with just a black and white Terminal app on their disposal.

I don't know about "meant to". I avoided writing anything but plain HTML and CSS for years because I thought I wasn't a programming type person (wasn't smart in the right way, didn't like math, hit brick walls with basic as a teenager, etc). The terminal did nothing for me and still isn't my favorite place to be, but I do really like writing little web apps that solve problems and work. Programming, like most things, is available to anybody who wants to do the work to understand it and can put in the hours to get competent.

I see the risk in Scratch turning some kids off and would never suggest just providing anybody with one option for how to learn a skill. But I don't know about this "meant to program" idea. I'm more in favor of fostering the curiosity that can fuel real learning by any means that work.

Man, as I continue to try to see the shades and subtleties in what you are saying, statements like this gross oversimplification get in the way:

> If you do that, it's not possible to be depressed. If you try this and it doesn't work, keep worrying about other people more than yourself until it does.

Some good recommendations here! I do think that in the original parent post, but not in yours, the implication is that people who had problems had simply not found the correct motivation to solve them. I appreciate your take too though, and think I was maybe too hard on first poster, who maybe didn’t mean it the way it sounded.

> If that person reads my writing, they don't get any value from it.

To be fair, they may well think you are referring to them, because of your words here and how you don't seem to acknowledge the reality of their condition:

> also I defeated crippling life long depression, food addictions, weight loss, and few other things many people want to label "diseases" we have no cure for or control over

Sometimes really all the person can do is avoid suicide for another day. That's the only choice available. To keep living or not. Traditional logic is not available to the suicidal person at that point. Only depression logic, and as the saying goes: depression lies. People who love their families end up feeling that their family would be better off without them dragging them down and instead of asking for a hug, they kill themselves. Depression blinds you to what your options really are, and what the truth is. You can't rationalize your way out of it with facts because depression destroys facts and replaces them with the conviction that you aren't worth anything.

> But for everyone else, I hope they can see that real change is possible, and ignore all the neigh sayers that will give them an excuse not to try.

I agree with you that the availability of an illness to be used as an excuse for poor choices comes with some baggage. And many people can improve their quality of life and relationships through making better choices in what to do, and allowing those better choices the time to accumulate into meaningful change. I am proud of you for improving life for you and your family.

In terms of professional help, I do believe it starts with taking and listening to a therapist and trying to create change based on thinking differently. It often works. If that fails, a trial-and-error journey with medication begins. If that also fails, the person is screwed until further notice, or they can try a bunch of experimental things. All of this is only possible if they can afford the costs of therapy and treatment, which is by no means a given.

I know people who escaped severe depression and suicidal thoughts only through medication, after trying all the talky-thinky stuff they could. I also know people who manage their depression with just cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, exercise, etc and are broadly successful at keeping things together. I'm all for ignoring advice that doesn't speak to you. I'm against a suicidal person reading something that increases their level of guilt and worthlessness.

> I call bologna on that, we can change anything.

Please be cautious about making such statements. I respect your experience and success at changing things for yourself with this model. I don't for a second doubt your sincerity. But the belief that a depressed/addicted person could get better if they just tried harder is part of a very dangerous feedback loop when you are down. You can't control everything you experience or the feelings you have. You can, sometimes, control your interpretation and response to those things, if you are careful. You can do everything right and still not be able to break the cycle. We're all different, I'm glad this worked for you but it doesn't necessarily follow that your approach would help others.

It's essentially an ad that gets you to click it by making you think you are somehow logged in on a site you don't have an account on. I emailed them about this because I think it's an awful pattern, and did get a response but not one that indicated they understood the problem with this deceptive marketing technique. It makes me avoid clicking links to dev.to.

Good to hear- I’m hoping to switch to full time web development some time in the new year. It's actually my favorite thing at these other jobs.

I’m a web developer in my spare time. I write little things that solve problems in my two day jobs, they haven’t tended to be pretty because often I’m learning as I go and when it works then it’s truly time to move on to the next problem, even though I now know enough to solve the old problem again more elegantly. I’m trying to use better practices and modern JS frameworks in new projects just for experience, even though they are actually overkill in many cases. Certainly the people I work for would rather have two useful utilities written in plain es5 and php than one useful utility plus a story about the code quality. I’m gradually finding the middle ground where somebody call look at my code and not instantly want to take a shower.

When a customer is burned by a bad product with excellent reviews, especially more than once, ordering from Amazon could quickly become more trouble than it's worth.

(please ignore this, I apparently didn't read your comment fully!)