I'm not saying meditation is bad per se. But claiming straiht away that it can't do harm before you try it is just too strong of a statement. It's easy to dismiss the effect of opportunity cost.
You don't. Just as equally you can't say a recommendation is harmful that you haven't actually evaluated or performed yourself. No one dismissed opportunity cost, in fact its was clearly stated above that everything has a cost, both doing and not doing something.
The problem isn't that you have to try it to see if it's works. The problem is that psych professionals a) have a poor grasp of decision theory and b) have an incentive to optimise their time and not the patients.
The time frame is not relevant as people differ in their abilities, as you have noted. Typically there would be some measurable change that helps determine how "you" are feeling overall in the process, not how other people felt at the indicated time frame. After all the goal is for "you" to feel better, which is subjective to everyone.
> The problem isn't that you have to try it to see if it's works.
I'm not sure I see how this would work any other way than trying it. A person is only trying the recommendation not perfecting it.
> The problem is that psych professionals a) have a poor grasp of decision theory and b) have an incentive to optimise their time and not the patients.
I'm not directly following how this relates to the original comment stating that recommending something for someone was toxic. Much like all professions some people are better at their job than others, sometimes you find the right fit, sometimes you have to keep going. We all have to walk our own path, no one can walk it for us.
*"you" is in the objective sense, not directed at you specifically.
>Here is why it is toxic: for people who those things don't work, or for whom the proposed solution is beyond their ability, it's a short step to blaming them for their problems and writing them off.
It seems very illogical to be on a recommendation engine of a site if its difficult for you to to reason with the recommendations posted and/or the direct feedback that people also post, relating to the topic at hand. I pointed out that this is what HN was based on. I disagree that it is toxic for someone else to make a recommendation, based on their perspectives, to try something on a site like HN.
If you had possible insight I would like to understand two things:
1. Why is someone one a site like HN if they aren't the intended audience?
2. What value would they derive from the site, presumably knowing their own mental health and that any recommendation they could read would be toxic to them because they may not be able to achieve the desired outcome?
It's hard to do harm with taking a one hour walk every day.
It's hard to do harm doing yoga for an hour a day.
It's hard to do harm with cooking a really healthy meal every day.
It's hard to do harm watching a self-improvement video on youtube every day.
It's hard to do harm writing down self-reflective thoughts for half an hour before going to bed every night.
...
No, if you compare it with sitting on the sofa staring into the wall, then no, it's likely not going to harm. But that's the wrong comparison. You need to compare with what you instead do not do with your limited time. And then doing all those things can do a lot of (relative) harm.
It's easy to do harm with claiming a certain thing is hard to do harm with.