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Men are opening up about mental health to AI instead of humans

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  • The real problem becomes when bad or non scientific advice gets regurgitated to people over and over.

  • read the whole comment

    I did, but your main assertion that therapists are women, women don't understand the male perspective therefore mental healthcare for men, (like talk therapy and counseling) are ineffective. Is not just completely wrong, it is dangerous. You start talking about how gendered biases effect the outcome of therapy. Ignoring that psychology is an incredibly complex, extremely well-documented, highly diverse and well regarded field of study, That's like saying you wouldn't trust a female virtuoso guitarist to perform 'Master of Puppets' because her female perspective would bias her against playing a solo written by a man. I am a man, I have had some success in therapy and counseling. I need more work, I'll admit. But, all of the best practitioners I have worked with have been women. If you go to counseling, with a social worker, or a master's student in psychology, yeah that can be a bit dodgy. But the idea that a registered psychotherapist, a doctor, would not be able to provide effective treatment because women can't understand men is absolutely petulant. It is a myth, pervaded by a lot of influential male voices online and pop-psychology. It misunderstands the whole purpose of talk therapy and then it's mis-characterised as "giving advice" and "putting biases in your head." When psychotherapists are literally just there to help you confront and come to terms with things that you identify are affecting your ability to live. This stupid argument is always propped up by the same idea of women not being able to understand the male perspective, goes hand-in-hand with reported instances of mental health disorders. When really, the disparity between the sexes in terms of reported mental issues, is actually because people make arguments like yours. They say "all therapists are women and women don't understand the male perspective" and "women report higher levels of depression and anxiety, therefore mood disorders are women's issues." When, in fact, it is men that dominate the field of psychotherapy, psychology and psychiatry. It is also us men that are killing themselves in record numbers, it is us that drive cars into street markets, it is us that shoot into crowds of people and then turn the gun on ourselves and it is boys that go online and see men like you. Making these harmful, disingenuous, ignorant arguments that makes them believe that their mental health is unimportant and that any pain, or issue they are having difficulty with is their problem and a flaw in themselves. Which just leads to self-victimisation.

    I have read your comment, I have read all of your comments in this thread and your rhetoric is not just wholly emblematic of someone who has never done any meaningful work in therapy, it is dangerous and invalidating to kids who don't have the experience and don't know any better. That's why you expand your argument, from "women therapists" to the entire field, because then it goes from sexist nonsense, to a broader discussion on the existence of human bias in the field. Conveniently, then you don't have to confront the obvious flaws in what you're saying. Personally, I wouldn't trust someone, who has never so much as opened a textbook on abnormal psychology, to be a great judge of the existence of gendered biases in contemporary psychological care. I swear, if more men could be brave enough to admit that we endure psychological strain and experience issues through that strain that manifest in ways that effect our lives, we wouldn't have Trump. Roe V Wade would be codified. So many of today's problems exist because of the stigma round men seeking professional help with their mental health. So, yes I read your whole comment, I recognise your arguments and your perspectives. I say they are categoriaclly prejudiced, unhelpful, disingenuous and dangerous. When young men see this stuff and haven't developed a sense of identity yet, they adopt this. Because this is what they think they're supposed to believe, because boys look to contemporary male ideas and figures to emulate what they perceive to be masculinity. That's how you get idiots on the Internet trying to discredit what is arguably the single most needed field of medicine in the world right now. When those men face crises, in their lives and need help, where do they go? If the main medical avenue of psychotherapy is seen as weak, or feminine or ineffective. Where do they go? That's how you normalise male loneliness and hopelessness. You make young men feel like no one can understand what they're going through, or help them understand themselves and navigate it. That is how you get drug addicts, that is how you get alcoholics. That's how you get radicalisation, incels, domestic terrorists and victims of suicide. So, maybe just stop with the whole injustice over the feeling of being a man whose feelings are not understood. "But therapy doesn't work, because nobody can understand me bro" and actually go to therapy. It might help you empathise with other people's perspectives, perhaps you could analyse why you have these uninformed beliefs about this field of healthcare.

    Which you seem so impassioned about discrediting and maybe it could even help you understand why it feels like no one gets you. Why you feel this is the correct way to approach mental health issues. The effect your words have on the well-being of impressionable members of our sex and what that stigmatisation of mental health problems and empathetic emotional recognition means, for men as a whole. What it means for our feelings about our place in society. It would help all of us, a lot more, than you maligning being told to "man up" whilst also perpetuating the concept of "man up" by spreading actual lies that psychotherapy doesn't work for men. If society's view of male mental health is so troubling to you. Maybe, don't regurgitate misinformation about mental health that specifically invalidates the feelings and experiences of men struggling with addiction, or trauma, or grief, or psychological disturbance? Men, who would otherwise be comfortable enough in their masculinity and strong enough emotionally, to admit they have a problem to seek out professional help. Mental healthcare is healthcare, it is not a moral failing, personal flaw, or emasculating experience. If you actually gave a shit about men's issues you'd understand that. Instead of just, first, trying to sound above it (by being incorrect about what therapy is and largely sexist), then posturing victimhood by co-opting men's issues and trying to make the conversation about how society disregards male feelings and how nobody gets us. Your feelings are your own and you can feel however you'd like about anything. But you don't preface that it's your feelings, or your opinion based on shit you have absorbed from other male figures and spaces. You say this is how it is, before saying that therapists are women who are biased against men. Which is not true and reinforces this idea that men and women are completely diametrically opposed opposites and not just humans with the same breadth of emotions and very similar psychological conditions. Bi-polar depression doesn't care what genitals you have. Trauma effects everyone. Mental health is NOT a gendered issue. Your reasoning throughout this entire thread is deeply flawed, divisive and doesn't even make sense. If you feel like nobody cares about men's feelings and men's psychological and social issues, why is your position to take away one of the only recognised avenues by which men who are suffering can have those issues validated and explore their feelings in a safe, non-judgemental way? That is what you do when you lie like that and misrepresent the purpose and efficacy of psychotherapy.

    You argue for positions directly in opposition to men's issues. It's quite extraordinary. I doubt everything you say about your experiences with therapy, just based on how you talk about it as a gendered issue. Also, the idea that people with biases put ideas in your head. Which is genuinely, just a fallacious red-pill talking point, that completely goes against the process and purpose of talk therapy. It allows men to live in denial about their actions and feelings and also validate those insecurities because nobody understands the male position, society doesn't care and it's not our fault. Which is all well and good, until your misrepresentation leads to someone's death. So, I'll say it again.

    Incel Talk

  • Yeah, but also one of them is helpful and the other is the exact opposite. If the choices are AI therapist or no therapist, you are still better off with no therapist.

    I'm gonna need a source on that.

  • A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

    “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

    I see a lot of people in this thread reacting with open hostility and derailment every time men's issues are mentioned. Have you tried not being a part of the problem?

  • A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

    “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

    I think we may be (re)-discovering the appeal of monotheistic religions, and why they hew patriarchal.

    On average, men desperately need more mental health resources. But, on average, they are not comfortable building that with other men, and it often isn't appropriate or effective to lean on their female significant other (if a straight man).

    So - enter the primary description of 'God'. Can listen any time but will always forgive, is super masculine but won't emasculate you, and has never told another soul what you are thinking.

    AI is always available and is unlikely to emasculate anyone, but that third item... Well, we'll see where this goes.

  • AI is what cracked my egg shell, fucking wild...

    Well that's gotta be an interesting story! Don't leave us hanging!

  • AI will reinforce delusional thinking. This is definitely not good.

    more delusional people means more people that can make good music

  • I don't think the open internet is a great place to open up about your mental health either. Trusted family, friends, and medical/mental health professionals are the best resources. Entrusting something as precious as your mental health to AI or the internet is a profoundly bad idea.

    A local llm could (at least appear to) be the best option (on an individual scale) for people that would be reported by mandatory reporters (which mental health professionals are), such as suicidal people or murderers or pedophiles.

  • LLM will not be able to raise alarm bells

    this is like the "benefit" of what LLM-therapy would provide if it worked. The reality is that, it doesn't but it serves as a proof of concept that there is a need for anonymous therapy. Therapy in the USA is only for people with socially acceptable illnesses. People rightfully live in fear of getting labeled as untreatable, a danger to self and others, and then at best dropped from therapy and at worst institutionalized.

    yep, almost nobody wants to be committed to a psych ward without consent

  • a terrible therapist at least has an ethics board

    a terrible therapist at least has evidence-based interventions on their side

    a terrible therapist at lest has the fact that ~80% of positive outcomes have nothing to do with the interventions or anything the therapist does besides show up and be cool (a statistic I remember quite well from grad school)

    AI has none of these things

    therapy isn't fucking magic. it's a relationship. you can't have a relationship with an LLM. there's no such thing as AI therapy, you're just training it to tell you about CBT worksheets while you bitch about your problems like you're in a nail salon

    a terrible therapist can lock you in a room, some people don't want that risk

  • A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

    “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

    Much easier if you just bury your feelings deep deep down. No repercussions whatsoever. The occasional psychic breakdowns but that’s normal.

  • I see a lot of people in this thread reacting with open hostility and derailment every time men's issues are mentioned. Have you tried not being a part of the problem?

    There are people like that for anything related to AI.

    Combine that with men stuff and this going to be crack for all of those people

  • I think we may be (re)-discovering the appeal of monotheistic religions, and why they hew patriarchal.

    On average, men desperately need more mental health resources. But, on average, they are not comfortable building that with other men, and it often isn't appropriate or effective to lean on their female significant other (if a straight man).

    So - enter the primary description of 'God'. Can listen any time but will always forgive, is super masculine but won't emasculate you, and has never told another soul what you are thinking.

    AI is always available and is unlikely to emasculate anyone, but that third item... Well, we'll see where this goes.

    Omg self host it omg

  • As long as the AI doesn't suggests violence.

    What if it suggests to engender conditions which may statistically be more likely to involve unintended unwanted violence? But also will make a lot of money

  • A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

    “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

    Sounds like the smart and sensible thing to do tbh, opening up to people in this day and age is just suicide

  • are people using their brains or what?

    What? No. Seriously, are you new here? And by here I mean Earth.

    I see idiots all around me. Everybody only interested in advancing themselves. But if we advanced the group, it would be better for EVERYBODY.

    But we as a species are too stupid to build a society that benefits everybody.

    So no. No brain use here.

  • I can kinda understand the appeal. An AI isn't gonna judge you, an AI isn't gonna leave a mean comment or tell you to get over it and man up. It's giving an unnerving amount of personal information to corporations, but I can sympathise with the thoughts these men are having.

    An AI isn’t gonna judge you,

    Guess what is happening with that chat history.

  • A profound relational revolution is underway, not orchestrated by tech developers but driven by users themselves. Many of the 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT are seeking more than just assistance with emails or information on food safety; they are looking for emotional support.

    “Therapy and companionship” have emerged as two of the most frequent applications for generative AI globally, according to the Harvard Business Review. This trend marks a significant, unplanned pivot in how people interact with technology.

    Unironically the "Men will do X besides going to therapy" meme

  • Unironically the "Men will do X besides going to therapy" meme

    Even therapists are suffering these days. It’s just more challenging than it’s ever been to gaslight clients into believing their concerns about the world aren’t objectively true and instead the symptom of an internal struggle.

  • I can kinda understand the appeal. An AI isn't gonna judge you, an AI isn't gonna leave a mean comment or tell you to get over it and man up. It's giving an unnerving amount of personal information to corporations, but I can sympathise with the thoughts these men are having.

    It might even, gasp, offer solutions.

  • International Criminal Court hit with "sophisticated" cyberattack

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    A real mystery indeed.
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    captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.worksC
    So...let's actually set up a pretend scenario here. Pretend. We are pretend red teaming here; any resemblance to actual terrorist plots living or dead is purely coincidental. Let's pretend our terrorist cell is going to spit up, travel to 10 places around the United States, and we're going to do a coordinated strike on 10 government buildings. Probably the smartest thing to do is just...do it at a planned time and not communicate after we split up. But for some convoluted Ocean's Umpteen reason we need to communicate and coordinate. I see 3 possible scenarios here: Leader just needs to say GO to the rest of the team, expecting no reply. So one, very brief, one-way communique. Leader needs to send several detailed instructions over a long period of time, expecting no reply. Repeated, large, one-way communiques. The team is going to gather some intelligence and report back, and based on all their observations the leader will say go. Full on two-way communication. In all three cases, the internet is the better tool for this. You are correct in that it is difficult or impossible to remotely detect radio receivers, no matter what the BBC tells you. There's no machinery making a log of who accesses what over analog radio. But the realities of radio equipment and propagation are going to eat into that advantage somewhat. If we're talking truly coast-to-coast, you're going to need HF. MF/longwave won't reach far enough, you need skywave propagation, and you get that on HF...mostly at night mostly during favorable sunspot activity. I bet you're imagining most of the team using one of those handheld commodity shortwave receivers that does AM/FM and shortwave, about the size of a pencil case with one of those telescoping whip antennas. That might do for 1 and 2, people hear hams on those sometimes. The bosses transmitter would need to be a reasonably serious bit of kit. At the very least something like an Icom 706 mobile HF rig plus power supply and at least a two element yagi for 20 or 40m. This is an antenna that's 30 to 60 feet wide. Hams do routinely make do with less, but when you're talking to someone with those crappy little antennas, probably inside a building, I'd want to focus my beam at least a bit. A wire in a tree ain't gonna do. Oh, and, let's say Boss is in Washington DC. It's possible he can make himself heard in Los Angeles but not Wichita, because the "optics" of the ionosphere doesn't bounce his signal down to the ground in the middle of the continent. One communique of "Baker this is Oven: Preheat complete, insert the bread. Repeat: Insert the bread." might not be noticed. Or some ham somewhere will hear it and go "What the hell, who's horsing around?" If you don't transmit again, you're probably not going to be direction found. But that big radio tower you've got is a weird thing to have. If you need to make routine transmissions, well now you're going to have to try some steganography crap. They did recently relax the baud restrictions on HF, but you're still talking about 2.8kHz of analog bandwidth that MIGHT get through. It's gonna look really weird if you're repeatedly sending digital pictures to...no one in particular on a regular basis. Now, to blend in, you'll need some genuine callsigns, because the FCC amateur radio license database is a matter of public record. You use a bogus callsign and you'll be found out. If you're transmitting a lot, people will find you, possibly out of curiosity. Especially if you're talking about everyone in the terrorist cell communicating, well now EVERYONE has to have an amateur radio license from the government, and fairly large, fairly conspicuous radio hardware. There have been spies caught with shortwave radio equipment, and said equipment was used as evidence against them. Entering the US with a smart phone and laptop is utterly normal, entering the US with a shortwave radio is weird. OR Get accounts on Reddit, and post cat memes. Compared to sitting around listening to static on an HF set, that looks way more normal these days. Yes, there probably is a log of what IP addresses sent and received what, but it's really easy to make two-way secret communications look like perfectly legitimate traffic. The equipment required doesn't draw as much attention. Keep the steganography subtle or a matter of "which picture I post" and not doctor them at all, well now it's 100% indistinguishable from people having casual fun. Some guy posts a picture of an orange cat, it gets 30,000 views 975 likes and 75 comments, and ten IRS buildings explode. Do you think the authorities make the connection to the cat meme in the first place?
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    Says the same IT group of humanity with their heads buried in code mumbling i hate people into their monitors /s its just a joke. Im describing myself
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    That’s not the right analogy here. The better analogy would be something like: Your scary mafia-related neighbor shows up with a document saying your house belongs to his land. You said no way, you have connections with someone important that assured you your house is yours only and they’ll help you with another mafia if they want to invade your house. The whole neighborhood gets scared of an upcoming bloodbath that might drag everyone into it. But now your son says he actually agrees that your house belongs to your neighbor, and he’s likely waiting until you’re old enough to possibly give it up to him.
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    I use powerpoint all the time. Impress is very far behind in terms of usability and basic functionality. But I'm hopeful it will get better as adoption increases.