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Comment by Shri Samson (Shri_S) on Saul Munn's Shortform · 2024-12-03T05:57:34.033Z · LW · GW

Crux elasticity might be better phrased as 'crux sensitivity'. There is a large literature on Sensitivity Analysis, which gets at how much a change in a given input changes an output.

I'd wager saying 'my most sensitive crux is X' gets the meaning across with less explanation, whereas elasticity requires some background econ knowledge.

Comment by Shri Samson (Shri_S) on Different Worlds · 2017-10-06T12:10:44.091Z · LW · GW


One of the best predictors of successful outcomes for a therapy patient, is that the patient trusts the therapist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_relationship

This position is roughly 80 years old. Personally I think the best heuristic for telling wether a therapist is any good is whether they believe the connection between the two of you is more important than their personal preferred theoretic approach.

Relevant scholarship:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_factors_theory

I model therapy as an art and craft, a special subset of social skills, just like empathetic listening or building rapport, rather than a deterministic applied science like EEng or MechEng. Then, getting different results from the same therapist doing the same technique is exactly what I would expect because they probably aren't doing all the non-verbal communication which makes the largest impact in social situations. Just like Scott has the passive ability of making people around him devolve into really civil calm discussions, a desired social effect is not something easily reproduced by others, nor learned in many cases less rare than Scott's reality distortion field of civility.

I feel like I'm being a little mean and condescending here. My apologies, I've been up too late. But I think it's poor practice to throw stones at glass houses of the academy, without doing some good scholarship first.