Tasky comments on Avoid misinterpreting your emotions - Less Wrong

66 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 14 February 2012 11:51PM

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Comment author: gwern 10 February 2012 04:57:09PM *  9 points [-]

The tragedy of depressive realism is that if you get better, you write off all the insights you gained as just part of the disease.

Comment author: JenniferRM 14 February 2012 03:47:06PM 1 point [-]

Insights acquired while depressed will be written off afterwards? This runs counter to about a third of the the evolutionary argument I've heard for the potential adaptiveness of certain kinds of depression. I don't see evidence in either of the links. Did you hear this somewhere? It would be interesting to me if it was true.

Comment author: gwern 14 February 2012 04:09:40PM 1 point [-]

It was a joke.

Comment author: JenniferRM 14 February 2012 05:11:14PM 2 points [-]

Heh. You're normally such a good source of well researched "base-rate-consistent wisdom" I did not catch that.

The link you added as an edit to clarify the humor is doubly amusing (to me anyway) because one has to read the link and have an insight which which requires significant reading comprehension to see the connection between the aftermath of depression and the aftermath of a humorous and hypothetical left-ear-squirting procedure. (That starts to make the joke work, but I think you're overestimating your audience, it took me a number of minutes to read and reconstruct everything but I doubt most people will spend the minutes. Link-in-cheek jokes are an art form with a small audience. I suspect many of your upvotes were simply for offering a link to the interesting and post-related concept of depressive realism.)

Comment author: gwern 14 February 2012 05:44:33PM 4 points [-]

I suspect many of your upvotes were simply for offering a link to the interesting and post-related concept of depressive realism.

A good joke is both informative and funny. Those who get the first contrarian level of the joke, depressive realism as a counterpoint to ksotala's arguments, will learn something; those who get the second level, the claim of depressive realism being related to Yvain's neurological oddity, will both be educated and be able to interpreted ksotala's post as an example of the backlash, which is very funny. (All in one sentence too.)