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Comment by rajin444 | Hacker News Reader

I used to be really big on trust the experts, seek authorities for advice, etc etc. Especially for areas involving mental / general health. Specifics like fixing a broken arm I’m still on the experts side :)

Decades later I’ve had many (eerily similar) experiences to what you detailed above. I’ve gotten the best results evaluating issues on my own / with the help of a few trusted sources. Expert advice is about as reliable as chatgpt (in the majority of cases). There’s too many devils in the details when it comes to complex issues like health. Find people who got results or find results yourself.

I think the majority of modern healthcare exists to make a profit and curing patients isn’t really a good business model. Unfortunately they can use those profits to create an army of experts and studies.

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You don't want to trust experts for mental/general health, and you encourage people find others who "got results". In essence, you have just made random people the experts, but worse, allowed them to run freely without any risk of reputation harm. I can sue a doctor for malpractice, I can't sue user21389 for false results. Why do you so quickly believe these experiences of randoms?

This idea modern healthcare exists to make a profit doesn't apply in all cases, and you imply they use these profits to create a false narrative of experts. But yet ignore that exact same thing is happening with the supplement industry (not regulated btw), of people claiming their ADHD was cured by taking a couple of supplements - "it's better than being drugged by Big Pharma" they say. This individualistic mindset only encourages these predatory companies to swoop in and say hey, I know exactly the right cure smoke this, crush these herbs, drink that.

Made even worse by the fact people aren't honest about how their meds have helped them get to a stage where they have replaced old routines with better ones, started therapy, etc. Yet they look back, post on social media "antidepressants are the worst - quit now!"

Forgive me if this is harsh, I've seen way too many people spend way too much money and time on BS when they could have got serious help.

Don't get me wrong, finding a diet that works for you, being more active, being more social, these are all great things nobody disagrees on. But this idea I'm supposed to trust a random person online, cured of his ADD, because he started eating less bread is one I am going to treat with the same severe skepticism you hold regarding mental health experts. :)

I don't think they were telling you to do this. They were just giving their own experience.

You the reader get to read their experience and decide if you would do that or not.

I don’t distrust modern medical community, but I think it often suffers from overconfidence that leads me to more carefully scrutinize (but not outright reject) expert opinion.

I’ve been listening to a podcast called Sawbones where they talk through the history of medicine. It’s basically a tour of all the ways we got things wrong. My conclusion has been: and why are we so confident that this time we’re right? Seems like every generation is confident that finally, they’ve got it right.

If we expect every day to be an improvement, the needle has been moved forward that much more, how else would history function except a retelling of mistakes, missteps, and wrongdoings?

I think modern medicine suffers heavily from generalising patients - so much advice attempts to be so one-size-fits-all that it fits almost nobody.

Like story of the fighter cockpit that was designed to perfectly fit the average dimensions of all pilots and was uncomfortable for everyone - no person is average in all dimensions.

On top of that is the absolutist advice - "never do X, always do Y" (particularly when the result of doing X is not shared - it could be a minor inconvenience, or a fatal error, they seem to be treated the same) rather than a nuanced process of tradeoffs and balancing outcomes.

>and why are we so confident that this time we’re right?

I don't have to be confident that the current scientific consensus is entirely correct to believe that it's virtually guaranteed to be more correct than whatever alternative I'd come up with in some area I completely lack expertise.

> I think the majority of modern healthcare exists to make a profit and curing patients isn’t really a good business model. Unfortunately they can use those profits to create an army of experts and studies.

Not all healthcare is for-profit healthcare. I agree incentive alignment is an issue when we're talking about for-profit healthcare, but in other cases medical professionals treat patients to the best of their ability.

I think most Americans have their head in the sand when it comes to healthcare. I agree with you completely btw, as an American expat living abroad. It's so bloody obvious how the profit motive distorts all of US medicine when you are not living in that system anymore. Honestly, it's like something out of a corpo-capitalist dystopian film.

I wouldn't trust a US doctor or dentist (oh god, US dentists are probably the scummiest healthcare professionals on the planet) unless it's something very obvious.

Socialized healthcare still has a "profit motive" unless everyone involved is paid unrelated to any performance metrics. Which would be a weird way to do it.

(And most hospitals in the US are nonprofits, which certainly doesn't stop them from being way too expensive.)

> I think the majority of modern healthcare exists to make a profit

100%. Healthcare is a big, big business.

Curing patients is a great business model. If you don't do it someone else will, and they'll take your customers.

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