Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease
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Summary
Dissolves the perennial 'is X a real disease?' debate (obesity, addiction, depression, ADHD, shyness/social-anxiety) by treating 'disease' as a blegg-style cluster of ~6 correlated criteria (biological cause, involuntariness, rarity, unpleasantness, discreteness, science-y treatment); marginal conditions satisfy some and not others, so asking whether they 'really' qualify is as meaningless as 'is Pluto really a planet?'. The hidden inferences riding on the label are what matter: whether the person gets sympathy vs. condemnation, and whether medical treatment is legitimate. Scott replaces the deontological-libertarian (free-will) model of blame with a determinist-consequentialist one — condemn conditions where condemnation actually reduces them (laziness), sympathize where it can't (cancer); allow effective medical treatment regardless of the 'character flaw vs. disease' framing (the heroin/personal-responsibility reversal test; Katja Grace's signaling account of why people resent easy solutions).
Why this score
Quality 78 · Excellent. Excellent (low). A clear, foundational piece of applied rationality that prefigures much of Scott's later psychiatry writing — it takes the dissolve-the-question and cluster-concept techniques and reaches a genuinely useful original synthesis (the consequentialist model of when to blame vs. sympathize). Held at 78 because it leans on Yudkowsky's prior techniques (disguised queries, dissolving questions). 78.
Claude’s paradigm shift 55 · Moderate. Moderate. Applies existing LW techniques, but the consequentialist blame/treatment model and the disease-as-cluster dissolution were a fresh 2010 synthesis. 55.
Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. A foundational applied-rationality piece (dissolve 'is X a real disease?' via a cluster-concept) that prefigures much of Scott's later psychiatry writing and reaches a useful original synthesis (when to blame vs. sympathize). Conceptual influence within rationalist/psychiatry discourse, no material change — modest RWI.