Vague, yes, but I disagree that it's useless. It at least is an extremely basic overview that someone can build on.
Hmm. I wouldn't call stupidity mental illness- low IQ doesn't necessarily mean they're an illogical person. it can mean they're slow, or challenged, etc. A person can be "stupid" and not, say, think the moon is made of cheese. Limitations on your complexity of thought doesn't necessarily mean the thoughts you have are wrong.
No, 100 years ago, a woman getting mad at her husband was a sign of mental illness. Mental illness was considered very common. People were put in asylums for anything from homosexuality to being too smart, or being transhumanist, or atheist.
I can see how the concept is dangerous, but only if misused. Cars are dangerous if misused. We use them daily. The idea isn't to toss pills at anyone unhappy or who happens to have different beliefs, the point is that some patterns are harmful and some people would like help with that. I think deciding for others what is harmful is, itself, harmful- if a person enjoys their hallucinations, and the hallucinations don't cause them to do harm, then honestly, we should leave them alone. If a person likes murder, we shouldn't. If you want to lose weight, you should get nutrition and exercise advice. It becomes a diseased thinking pattern if you think you still need to lose weight when you have a body fat index of 5%, or if you think no one will ever care about you if you weigh above 125. If you feel dissatisfied with life, the question is why. If you have everything going perfectly in your life and you're still constantly sad, that's a sign of a problem, and you should probably see a doctor. You might be prescribed therapy rather than a pill.
I think most people decide for themselves if they like their thinking patterns. I don't like mine. I'm seeking help. A person might be friends with the voices in their heads. A person might be tired of them telling him to kill himself. A transgender person may be miserable with their body-mind disjointedness and want therapy and/or a treatment plan to become what they want to be.
For a site extremely focused on fixing bad thinking patterns, I've noticed a bizarre lack of discussion here. Considering the high correlation between intelligence and mental illness, you'd think it would be a bigger topic.
I personally suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder and a very tame panic disorder. Most of this is focused on financial and academic things, but I will also get panicky about social interaction, responsibilities, and things that happened in the past that seriously shouldn't bother me. I have an almost amusing response to anxiety that is basically my brain panicking and telling me to go hide under my desk.
I know lukeprog and Alicorn managed to fight off a good deal of their issues in this area and wrote up how, but I don't think enough has been done. They mostly dealt with depression. What about rational schizophrenics and phobics and bipolar people? It's difficult to find anxiety advice that goes beyond "do yoga while watching the sunrise!" Pop psych isn't very helpful. I think LessWrong could be. What's mental illness but a wrongness in the head?
Mental illness seems to be worse to intelligent people than your typical biases, honestly. Hiding under my desk is even less useful than, say, appealing to authority during an argument. At least the latter has the potential to be useful. I know it's limiting me, and starting cycles of avoidance, and so much more. And my mental illness isn't even that bad! Trying to be rational and successful when schizophrenic sounds like a Sisyphusian nightmare.
I'm not fighting my difficulties nearly well enough to feel qualified to author my own posts. Hearing from people who are managing is more likely to help. If nothing else, maybe a Rational Support Group would be a lot of fun.