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

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.

That’s interesting… had never seen it put that way before…

It’s almost like telling men that it’s okay to show your feelings is bullshit lol

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.

won’t ruin your career

Granted, but it still will suck a fuck ton of coal produced electricity.

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

You know what i see? Men being afraid of going alone with their kid to the park, because the mom's there believe they are a sexual predator just by gender. Men not appliying for kindergarden or school jobs because of a tendency of mothers to see every man in childcare as a pedophile. Men getting called the cops onto them in the parking lot when going to their car after shopping.

And it's the same with violence against women - every man is automatically seen as a brutalizer, or someone who would daterape.

As long as those prejudices exist - and they are mainly female prejudices! - men will not open up. When you are seen as a threat even if you aren't one (see the man and the bear in the woods), there is no way they will become empathic, because innocently playing with your child in the park could have lifelong consequences for you.

Everyone else is blaming women for how men act. You disagree?

One guy said women raise boys, so it's their fault.

Another said therapy only works for women and suggested women aren't under any social pressure.

You think those are intelligent, well thought arguments? Because they're stupid.

Either you don't talk to women or you have some insecurities you need to reconcile.

I'm sure some of this exists in some people, but this isn't the whole of reality.

I don't give a single fuck what happens when I open up, and if anyone around me doesn't like it, I do not give a shit.

Just be yourself unapologetically, and if the people around you don't like it, find new people. And this isn't to say be that person that's always just a giant shithead and go "I'm just blunt, I say it like it is, I've always been this way so it's fine" What I mean is be kind, be yourself, talk about your emotions, communicate, and if you can't do that around the people you know, fix whatever hangups you have with yourself in doing that, or fix the people around you.

Lol see where it goes? If you think these AI companies, that are very publicly bleeding money, aren't selling your data out for pennies on the dollar, you're just keeping your head in the sand.

So somewhere they feel safe to do so. Says something pretty fucked up about our culture that men don't feel safe to open up anywhere. And no, it's not their own fault.

Haha, not every place is in the US. Hopefully, I won't face this kind of treatment as I do not live in that shit hole of a country

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.

Phasers to stun please. I was agreeing with you?

One chat request to an LLM produces about as much CO2 as burning one droplet of gasoline (if it was from coal fired power, less if it comes from cleaner sources). It makes far less CO2 to talk to a chatbot for hours upon hours than a ten minute drive to see a therapist once a week.

Sorry, you’re right. I meant the training of the LLM is what uses lots of energy, I guess that’s not end user’s fault.

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.

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.

@MrLLM @Womble

Question ... did someone once do a study comparing a regular fulltext indexed based search vs ai in terms of energy consumption

Second ... if people would keep using "old" tech -> wouldn't that be better for employment of people and therefor for social stability on this planet ?

I'll admit I tried talking to a local deepseek about a minor mental health issue one night when I just didn't want to wake up/bother my friends. Broke the AI within about 6 prompts where no matter what I said it would repeat the same answer word-for-word about going for walks and eating better. Honestly, breaking the AI and laughing at it did more for my mental health than anything anyone could have said, but I'm an AI hater. I wouldn't recommend anyone in real need use AI for mental health advice.