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Unfortunately that only helps for those with the necessary experience to discern good work, and also the time and desire to inspect it.
It's unfortunate that monetary incentives are notoriously vulnerable to being Goodharted into uselessness or worse. You try to offer a bounty on X [undesirable thing], people start [building/breeding] more of them and making a killing.
This is not to say incentives and/or subsidies can never work, only that implementing them effectively is a non-trivial task.
While they don't expect to literally see Jesus in person, there's a lot of emphasis on 'personal revelation' which is for the most part just conditioning to get believers to interpret their own regular ol' intuition/emotions as communication from the Holy Spirit. If someone believes that strongly enough, the brain provides whatever thoughts/feelings they subconsciously expect to 'receive'. It's both impressive and disturbing how well this cycle can work. Anticipation can easily function as a self-fulfilling prophecy as long as the anticipated experience is fully mental and emotional.
And because this 'evidence' has been accepted by them, they also expect their prayers to be able to miraculously heal sickness/disease (except for when it doesn't of course; "God's will" etc etc.)
I think they are genuinely unvaccinated. They believe (or profess to believe) in tons of quack medicine but AFAIK they don't spend loads of money on it. If they had a health emergency they'd still go to an ER, so they're not completely in denial of modern medicine.
Thanks for that! You're fortunate you got out before going on a mission. I lasted only a few months before I became bored out of my mind and couldn't do it any more.
I'm not even going to attempt to convince my parents. I know them well enough that if I prepared a good enough strategy I'd estimate a >40% chance of convincing at least one of them, but their lives and personalities are so enmeshed with the church that losing it would likely do them more harm than good at this point.
How did you approach dating after leaving? I don't have much of a friend group now (not specifically because I left, I just drifted away from my friends from HS after a few years) so it's really tough to meet women.
That's neat! In my case I didn't leave because of HPMOR specifically, although it certainly didn't hurt.
I'm doing decently well, thanks for asking!
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I don't think any but the most rational/educated theists think in terms of probability to that degree. Many feel they are certain in their beliefs.
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It doesn't make a huge difference. I know several Mormons who are likely smarter than I am (mathematicians & engineers, etc). Shaking off an entire upbringing of brainwashing is a test of critical thinking, not general intelligence. Intelligence only helps to solve problems once you apply it to the situation. Once you compartmentalize religion and surround it with mental caution tape, no amount of brilliance is likely to help unless you allow the tape to be removed.
I think one of the most important steps to being able to walk away was realizing that I could take the things I thought were good with me, while leaving out the things that I thought were false or wrong.
I second this, thanks!
I would say it's possible, just at a lower probability proportional to the difference in intelligence. More intelligence will still correspond to better ideas on average.
That said, it was not acclaimed scientists or ivy-league research teams that invented the airplane. It was two random high-school dropouts in Ohio. This is not to say that education or prestige are the same thing as intelligence[1], simply that brilliant innovations can sometimes be made by the little guy who's not afraid to dream big.
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By all accounts the Wright Brothers were intelligent
To clarify, I was allowed to read fiction[1], just not on Sundays. Although my mom did disapprove of Harry Potter for a long while because 'something something glorifies occult beliefs something something'.
A couple of my own hypothesis to take with a grain of salt:
- One big part of the problem is the tendency of some to vastly underestimate how difficult it is to cover up anything that a lot of people know. Also a lack of fact checking. (My friend/relative/trusted neighbor told me this, therefore it must be true)
- I think QAnon theories appeal to much of the same crowd as cults. If someone is willing to believe <small niche group> has secret knowledge that has
failed peer reviewbeen suppressed by <Big Government/Forces of Ambiguous Evil>, they are more likely to accept the plausibility of other claims with similar appeal. So 911 conspiracy people are more likely to also believe that vaccines cause autism or <snake oil/homeopathy/fad treatment of the week> cures cancer but Big Pharma is keeping it secret, etc.
I wonder if there's any good data tracking the relative frequency of this sort of thing?
In a similar vein, Utah has more MLM schemes per capita than any other state.[2]
At least nobody I know believes in Flat Earth...as far as I know.
When you grow up knowing nothing else, it just feels normal[1] (except for occasional twinge of cognitive dissonance when evidence contradicts something you believe[2])
A culture of strong neighborhood communities and tight-knit extended families which provide a social support system and financial and physical safety net. Growing up, if my family had a crisis[3] or even some mundane need like running out of eggs for a recipe[4] we knew 10+ people living on the same block we could call or walk over to on a moments notice.
Despite my disenfranchisement with the LDS church as a whole, individual members and local leaders are generally nice[5] people who fulfill useful and productive roles in society.
There's also a admirable emphasis on education for the sake of becoming better/more effective as opposed to education for it's own sake[6].
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assuming it wasn't the type of emergency to necessitate calling 911
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which can become a particularly serious problem if you don't believe in shopping on Sunday
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As with many things, mileage may vary. Some Mormons are more insular than others. A few years ago a General Authority (Basically somebody who's high up in the leadership of the entire church) chastised "members of the church who forbid their kids from playing with the children of non-members"[paraphrased]
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As with most metrics, it's easy to Goodhart.
On a completely unrelated note, footnotes can be used to enhance communication, so why shouldn't I start evaluating my comments by how many footnotes I can cram in?
It was a gradual process over several years. Eventually one or two relatively small things became the metaphorical straws that broke the camel's back.
Especially after beginning to study science and statistics in earnest, I became increasingly aware of how inconsistent it was to have different standards of evidence for religion vs science. Once I could no longer fool myself into arbitrarily moving the goalposts my beliefs collapsed very quickly.
Something else that helped me was the good ol' Sagan standard of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
About the same way many non-religious people rate the bible: It has many consistency and continuity issues, with a few potentially insightful things mixed in that you could find elsewhere more efficiently.
Growing up being expected to read every day to search for 'personal revelation' somewhat puts a sour taste in my mouth when I think about it now. I certainly have better things to read when I have a choice in the matter.
My favorite part these days is the amusingly flagrant disregard of archeological plausibility. (A civilization called the 'Jaredites' allegedly numbered in the millions on the American continents before wiping themselves out in a series of wars. Archaeological evidence? Very little if any.
e.g. "practically how do you explore alcohol in a way that isn't dangerous")
Yeah, that's the sort of thing that could be useful. I still have never tried alcohol. I know in theory it would be fine when used responsibly and in moderation, but lack of knowledge/deep conditioning are hard to overcome. I could go to a bar, but I wouldn't even know the approximate 'strength' of various types of drinks or how fast alcohol takes effect/wears off/how soon it would be safe to drive again.
Not to mention I don't have any idea how sensitive I am personally to alcohol, so I wouldn't go try a drink without a trusted friend with me to stop me from doing anything really stupid.
explicitly avoiding a permanent state of having an "ex-mormon" identity, which strikes me as healthy
Yeah, I agree. I avoid dedicated ex-mormon communities. In my answer to Joseph_C I said:
"...r/exmormon is quite a bad environment IMHO. While there are some nice and reasonable folks, they seem to be either a minority or simply less vocal than those who are not. A significant portion of those who frequent exmo-specific groups (or at least post often) tend to be those who are angry and bitter. As far as I can tell some of them still blame the church for everything bad in their life even decades after leaving.
Those with a more healthy outlook tend to move on and find better things to do."
NB: I have a casual interest in high-demand religions, but have never been a part of one (with the arguable exception of the rationality/EA community).
From what I can tell, the rationality/EA community is lacking many 'tells' that tend to be present in high demand religions. For example:
- There's no taboo against criticizing leadership
- There's no intrusive way to extort monetary contributions (occasional requests for donations are a lot less intrusive than "pay your tithing or lose out on privileges/go on guilt trip"
- Ideas are just ideas, not some unified one-size-fits-all this-is-how-to-live-your-life-or-consequences (social or otherwise).
This seems like bait but I'm answering anyway.
No, I think it's still a bad thing because (as with most religions) it fuels beliefs that prevent people from even considering trying to solve problems like aging and death because "heaven will be better than mortality", "God will make everything better", etc.
In addition, even while they have more children than the general population there's an estimated 46-60% retention rate of young adults staying in the church. If you factor that in, even assuming 60% retention the overall birthrate of ~3.4 * 0.6 = 2.04 birthrate of those who stay Mormon[1], and so by that metric they are disappearing just like the majority of the developed world (this is not taking new converts into account).
That being said, population sustainability is a real economic and practical problem in the long-term. Any rationalist with a sufficiently stable economic situation should seriously consider having kids, if for no other reason so that more humans grow up in an intellectually healthy situation.
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Please correct me if this is the wrong way to estimate this.
- I found LessWrong via HPMoR. I found HPMoR because it was mentioned offhand on an unrelated article as an example of a piece of fan-fiction that was actually good...and it was.
- Many of my friends and most of my immediate and extended family are Mormon. I'll happily discuss my opinions to any who seem like they want help/are searching for answers, but I'm not in the habit of proactively questioning their beliefs since bringing up info directly critical of the Church tends to make True Believers instantly defensive and suspicious. Social 'immune systems' are incredible in how they defend existing beliefs.
I do try to indirectly raise the sanity waterline in the hope that others will find their own way out of their own volition.
I'm more or less resigned to leave those who are content alone, it seems quite futile to try to rescue someone who doesn't want to be rescued, and they might not appreciate it even if the 'brute force logic' solution did manage to convince them. - Anything that can be destroyed by the truth should be. 50 years ago would have been more difficult to find my way out of because the internet didn't exist.
- Even between households there's a lot of variation in how certain rules and interpreted. My family was more on the extreme end of the Sabbath Observance spectrum, while most other kids I knew were allowed to play video games and generally do what they wanted on Sunday. It was very difficult to grow up dreading every Sunday, and even though I wasn't all that 'rebellious' of a teenager necessity caused me to find a quiet spot to read sci-fi/fantasy novels or play video games when my parents weren't looking.
Some other things my parents didn't allow:- No Pg-13 movies, mostly because anything remotely sexually suggestive was considered 'inappropriate'. This essentially was enforced only at home. They acknowledged there was nothing stopping us from watching whatever movies at our friends houses and they wouldn't try to stop us, but they would passively disapprove. Most other Mormon families were far more lax about this and less prudish about media in general.
- They discouraged caffeine, although that was more relaxed. I know there are some Mormon communities that consider ALL caffeinated drinks taboo instead of just Tea and Coffee.
- Teenagers were not allowed to date at all until age 16 or older. Being a socially awkward early-teen boy this had the unfortunate consequence of me reasoning that "since I can't date anyway what's the point of getting to know girls?"...Which I would realize later was just an excuse to avoid doing things out of my comfort zone and I should have used that important time to develop my social skills in a safe environment.
- I had a decent amount of internet access and quickly became better at computers than both of my parents. I taught myself coding by learning to mod games, and my skill with code eventually turned into a career. There wasn't total isolation from current events, although everything I heard was filtered through the highly-conservative lens of the adults around me. (A few of my relatives are also members of the JBS and believe that 911 was an 'inside job' and similar things from the Q-Anon bingo chart.) My parents were very opposed to all attempts to build high-density housing[1] nearby because of traffic/infrastructure concerns.
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(i.e. anything more dense than 1/3 acre lots with a yard)
Strong neighborhood communities called "wards" are a very nice thing to have. The one where I grew up was full of nice people who would watch out for each other, help elderly people with yard maintenance, etc. IIRC Cities in Utah county have some of the lowest crime rates in the USA, despite having a moderate (~600k within 5,550 sq.km) population.
Not all Mormon neighborhoods are equal, but the good ones are excellent places to live. I definitely miss the instant community connection that (good) wards have. (They don't exclude non-members from neighborhood events, but a lot of the 'structural' social interaction happens at church and church-related activities)
I do still live in Utah. I haven't told my family yet. One of my siblings already left the church and my family didn't cut them off, and I'm confident they wouldn't cut me off either.
On the other hand, my sibling leaving broke my mom's heart so I don't see any reason to do that any sooner than I have to. In this case, what she doesn't know can actually hurt her once she does. In her perspective she sees a personal failure on her part if her children lose faith, which is obviously irrational and unfair to both herself and us.
r/exmormon is quite a bad environment IMHO. While there are some nice and reasonable folks, they seem to be either a minority or simply less vocal than those who are not. A significant portion of those who frequent exmo-specific groups (or at least post often) tend to be those who are angry and bitter. As far as I can tell some of them still blame the church for everything bad in their life even decades after leaving.
Those with a more healthy outlook tend to move on and find better things to do.
Back when I was a questioning-but-not-yet-disenfranchised member, encountering exmo groups was counter-productive because it only served to feed the confirmation bias of "wow, all these ex-mormons sure are miserable, just like I've been told!"
This makes me grateful that I work for a small company. I was the 13th employee when I started a few years ago. I estimate we have ~70 now. There are at most 3 levels of management, and in many cases only 2. Every department leader personally knows every person working under them.
One thing that I think keeps my org low-maze is that there is nobody who's job is solely 'managing other people'. The CEO and department heads all spend a significant amount of time doing object-level tasks. This type of model requires a high bar of individual competency, as there is much less micromanagement than in many industries. The management responsibilities are mostly to divvy out tasks among their team and serve as a knowledgeable person to ask questions. They are still part of the team and working alongside them.
IMO, organizations are healthier if they can stay under Dunbar's number. Grow bigger than that and 'Mazification' is only a matter of time.
If this is the case, would it be possible and/or useful to trace the "dependency tree", determine what instrument lay most precarious atop the mound of interconnected dependencies, and determine a good bet on its likelihood of failure as compared to that of less dependent instruments? [1]
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...Or did I just describe something that has already been done or dismissed/invalidated/etc? It gives me the same vague suspicion I got as a fresh undergrad having just independently theorized file compression for the umpteenth time (many students having learned some basics of information theory do this if they don't already know how compression works.)
I agree about fish by the way. Longevity and well-being aren't exactly the same, but it's a fair point nonetheless. I think small fish are more on the simple side as far as animals go, though. This might be why fish is the go-to if you want to get away with animal cruelty.
My conjecture as to why certain small fish do well in captivity is that (for those I've taken the time to research) their lifestyle is something along the lines of "find a cozy home in a rock/hole/anemone/coral and stay there waiting for food to come to you". If an aquarium provides access to that same lifestyle + the added benefit of no predators, why wouldn't they be better off? Humans only feel like an aquarium is abusive because our own psychology would go stir-crazy if we were trapped in a box all the time. But for an animal that will voluntarily live it's entire adult life within a single square meter of reef? Why should it mind?
On the other hand, I do think its cruel to keep certain other type of fish in aquaria (e.g. tangs and other types of surgeonfish) because their growth will be stunted in an aquarium setting and in the wild they are grazers that might swim many kilometers in a single day.
How can I boost real-life 'charisma checks' with int?
(For those less familiar with D&D lingo, I'll rephrase: What are some methods to become better at social skills using study and theory if one lacks the intuitive understanding that extroverts appear to naturally possess?)
For example:
In my case, attempting to get to know other students in my university classes is made more difficult by my aversion to small talk.
Why am I averse to small talk? Because while growing up I didn't see the value so I didn't bother to learn very many 'canned' questions and responses that other people seem to be equipped with. Since I don't have many cached patterns for things are useful for small talk it makes it much more 'risky' to attempt, since I have a significant chance of running out of things to say before any productive headway is made in a conversation.
Is there any collection of small talk patterns that can be read to fill in this deficiency? Has anyone published a study about, say, the 500 most common small talk patterns and responses?
(And yes, I acknowledge that actual practice is necessary as well, but until I'm confident that I have sufficient 'tools' to succeed I will find it difficult to make myself attempt any practice.)
This difficulty doesn't seem to share much connection with my proficiency in more general social skills. For example, I have few difficulties talking to coworkers, since in a work environment I will typically have a purpose in mind for talking to someone. The open-ended nature of —talking to strangers for the purpose of getting to know them— seems to be a large part of the challenge.
society is still run entirely by these biases
Here's what I see as one key difference of opinion between my view and yours. I would say that society manages to function in spite of these biases, not because of them.
>Upon reflection, I think the fatal mistake that the modern society makes is that it tries to control complex systems rather than letting them control themselves. interfering is the biggest cause of problems. Most things which are "good", you will never arrive at by aiming at them directly. They're side effects, more often than not born out of their opposites.
I think the reason you tend to see only comments from people who agree with you is those who disagree see how effort-prohibitive it would be to make an attempt to address so many broad conclusions that have no clear explanation of reasoning given. For example: "the fatal mistake", "interfering is the biggest", "Most things which are "good" are so vague and general that they are unreasonably 'slippery' to qualify and evaluate.
What reasoning do you have to support these conclusions as opposed to any of the other potential options one could draw? A common problem with such generalizations is that they fail to adequately apply to everything they're attempting to describe.
The answers to those questions would require a post of their own. It would be a waste to write such an in-depth explanation in a comment thread. If you do decide to take the time to go through and explain your reasoning from the ground up then let me know, I'd be happy to read it.
> If your experiences with, say, mormons is postive or negative, then your stance is completely justified.
Opinions based on anecdotal evidence are not intrinsically good justification for forming a generalized opinion about an entire group, even if first hand experiences are more reliable than hearsay. I don't see any distinction between that and "The rich people I've seen/heard of are greedy and selfish, therefore all rich people are evil."
> Any other like or dislike, being based on reality
That's not necessarily the case. Individuals frequently draw factually incorrect conclusions from their own experiences, which then influence their opinions. While opinions are themselves subjective and therefore neither "true" nor "untrue", if a belief one holds about the world turns out to be false, every opinion based on it is more or less invalidated, depending on if there are other supporting factors involved in the formation of the opinion.
>What the world is currently doing, is attacking the very best things we've come up with, demanding that they change. Why? Japan has some of the lowest crime rates, so if anything, we should be more like Japan. Instead, we're demanding that Japan be more like the America, which has much more crime. We say it's "immoral" because immigration is difficult, but what if this is the reason Japan is doing well?
I'm not sure who "we" is referring to in this case or what specific policies you're talking about here.
And I think it's quite telling that the rate of depression is almost negatively correlated with standards of living.
Lack of exercise is a large contributor to this trend, as demonstrated by the well-established data that exercise is one of the biggest factors benefiting mental health. (I suspect you already agree with this point considering you previously mentioned sedentary behavior as one of the problems with modern life, but I'm citing some sources for any who want to verify the claim.)
And even knowing this, it's still difficult for me to make myself exercise regularly. Stupid psychology.
>if you search on Reddit, many other people have experienced similar things.
I try to avoid using anecdotal data to update my map. Social media tends to be biased towards negativity, so I would guess that those who are happy with their results with medication are a lot less likely to post their experience than those who have issues they want to discuss. That is not to say their issues are not relevant problems to address, but it does raise questions as to how large the proportion of people with undesirable side effects is relative to the proportion of patients who are satisfied with their treatment.
>"Logically", a zoo animal should be happy because they have all the food and water they could ever want, as well as absolutely safety. But zoo animals are known to have high rates of depression and anxiety just like the general population in modern socities.
It's logical only if one assumes that food, water and safety are their only important needs. Perhaps we haven't made the effort to understand what they need that the zoo isn't set up to provide. (Like, say, a few more square kilometers of running space)
It's interesting that this does not apply to all animals in captivity. For instance, the types of fish that do well in captivity have a significantly longer lifespan on average (assuming proper aquarium conditions) than the same species does in the wild. For example: Clownfish in the wild on average live between 4 and 10 years. Clownfish in a well-maintained aquarium have been known to live more than 20 years. (Note that while their lifespan in the wild has been scientifically studied, the lifespan in captivity is entirely based on anecdotal reports)
You mean "immoral" actions? This definition includes many healthy things, which are deemed bad by a large number of people who are too weak to undertake said healthy things.
No, because of the subjective nature of the term as commonly used. The average person's moral compass is strongly influenced by appeals to emotion and other common irrational arguments. This is precisely the reason why it is important to work to overcome as much of our own biases as we can.
> bad students might mock their nerdy friends for getting good grades in school, discouraging them from competing and getting ahead.
> That all rich people are evil and that all privilege is a result of exploitation of the harmless (and thus innocent and good) average person?
Yes, it seems to be a common fallacy today that all success must be intrinsically at someone else's expense. In the generalization it is forgotten (or never realized) that interpersonal and economic interactions are a spectrum ranging from mutually beneficial to parasitic and everything in between.
A useful flag for spotting an opinion based on faulty reasoning is if they try to label an entire broad category of <subject> as absolutely good or absolutely evil. E.G. "all rich people are evil".
Both ADHD medicine and anti-depressants have the side-effect of emotional blunting, making one into a robot or a zombie respectively.
That seems far too broad of a stroke. The statement "making one into a robot or a zombie" seems like a largely rhetorical and hyperbolic comparison rather than a useful observation describing detrimental effect. Side effects are highly variable between individuals.
While I don't doubt emotional blunting is among the potential side effects, do we have substantial evidence to indicate that it has high frequency in the population and high severity among those that do experience it? (I have not researched this particular issue so I don't know what the data actually says.)
Anecdotally, I've found depression to dull my emotions far more than antidepressants. And I feel a lot more enthusiasm and curiosity in general when taking my ADHD medication.
It may be interesting to note that I was not diagnosed for ADHD until I was 18. If I had been diagnosed as a kid I probably would have done much better in school. I used to hate math until I got treatment, now I have the ability to enjoy it.
That being said, I do agree that the United States school system in particular is dysfunctional and has far too much tedium and busywork.
> Everyone reacts differently to medication, and the positives can outweight the negatives, but it's still better to get away from bad environments than it is to help people cope with remaining in said environments.
I agree to that.
Such people exist, but they make up perhaps 5% of all cases of depression. Your brain will give you the neurotransmitters you need if you fulfill your own needs, but what if your need of agency is higher than what the modern world allows, or if you work too many hours to have a social life as well?
Do you have a source for that number? It seems like it would be difficult to pin down in a clinical trial setting. The "perhaps" sounds like it was a ballpark estimate from memory or similar, which is fine but I would like to see the underlying data supporting it.
I would say "a healthy brain will produce the neurotransmitters needed if sufficient physical/social needs are met."
I'm part of the population that was clinical and chronic. I felt depressed despite consciously acknowledging that things were going relatively well in my life and I could not pin down any good reason why I would feel so numb and empty.
Said emotions exist to motivate us towards better health, but we're making the emotions themselves out to be bad
Said emotions exist to motivate us to take actions that benefit our likelihood of reproductive success, of which our health is a contributing variable.
The subset of possible actions that benefit our individual likelyhood of reproductive success includes many things that are detrimental to collective human health and prosperity, and as such, actions motivated by emotions that were generated by selecting for said purpose are not to be trusted as strictly beneficial to our long-term well-being, goals, and desires.
Example: Thag the hunter-gatherer is envious of Oog because Oog gets more attention from women. Dropping a rock on Oogs head while he sleeps would increase Thag's relative appeal and subsequent reproductive success. But that plan is rejected when Thag has the rational realization that since Oog is the tribe's best hunter he might go hungry if Oog dies.
The correct use case of medication to treat depression and ADHD is not to "drag the non-conformers into line" but to help alleviate chronic, clinically measurable deficiencies in brain chemistry. A clinically depressed person will be consistently depressed irrespective of outside conditions. A person with severe ADHD will struggle to find motivation to focus on anything that doesn't capture their interest immediately, even if they genuinely want to do that thing.
I used to suffer from severe clinical depression, and it made it difficult to eke any enjoyment from anything, even things I once enjoyed. Those who are depressed but less self aware tend to blame whatever is going on around them as the root cause ("I feel awful and society sucks. I must feel awful because of society's problems"), but for cases of clinical depression it is a proven imbalance of neurotransmitters that are at least partially responsible.
I still struggle with some aspects of ADHD, but for both of them medication has changed my life. I can find motivation to accomplish things, curiosity to learn and joy from simple experiences.
Without modern medicine I can confidently say that I would be a shadow of who I am now, because in my depressed and distracted state I never would have found the motivation and resilience to succeed at any of the hobbies and career choices that have taught me and brought me enjoyment. For that matter, I would likely never have discovered this site.
I know it's been 4 years since your comment, but if I'm reading this many years later there will be others later still.
Another former Mormon here. I also encountered the infuriating prevalence of destructive criticism.
Also of note is the toxicity of places like r/exmormon. A significant portion of those who frequent exmo-specific groups tend to be those who are angry, bitter and still blame the church for everything bad in their life even decades after leaving. Those with a more healthy outlook tend to move on and find better things to do. Those with a less healthy outlook also seem to be more likely to produce Mormon-critical media and infect others with their own biases, dispite having otherwise valid criticism.
Back when I was a questioning member, encountering exmo groups was counter-productive because it only served to feed the confirmation bias of "wow, all these ex-mormons sure are miserable, just like I've been told!"
"It might seem like the diseases listed in the quote (I would add Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Bipolar disorder and Schizophrenia) are unlikely nominees, but that’s always what it feels like when you are trapped in Hades."
Regarding the apparent lack of progress in Alzheimer's specifically, I'm aware of an interesting explanation. To paraphrase, there have been enough trials done on various experimental treatments that the lack of sufficiently positive results is statistically unusual (prior to 2023 it had been decades since a new drug was approved for treating Alzheimer's), despite hundreds of trials. With a target P of 0.05 there should have been on average one 'successful study' per 20 due to type-1 error, which caused certain researchers to suspect something about the underlying methodology and/or evaluation process was masking both type 1 error and the potential for actual success.
To attempt a summary: the approval requirements set by the FDA were requiring success on two axis of measurement rather than just one, which was raising the needed effect of any treatment by a significant degree. (Follow the link for the actual explanation by the statistician who presented on it. It is likely I have explained it poorly.)
Context: I am an undergrad software developer working for a pharmaceutical statistics-related firm, not a statistician. Regarding advanced statistics I can only repeat what I've had explained to me. I'll leave to those with better understanding of the fields involved whether this example is a good parallel to the principal of Epistemic Hell as described in the post.