it's an interesting article, but i think the authors are conflating friction for wanting genuine human interaction; its easier than ever for me to make friends because i can instantly connect with and message back and forth, quickly and in real time, over various platforms e.g. discord, the depth of which is only limited by our interactions and how we treat them. forcing us back to sms/email/paper mail doesn't make our interactions deeper, even though it adds friction. it means we can easily choose what the depth of connection we want is
that isn't to say that there aren't examples where less friction leads to less interaction. dating apps are a great example. but i think the authors are conflating the friction for the interaction. yes, you could add friction that would encourage interaction, but you could also add friction that doesn't. i think the more salient point would be, encouraging interaction often includes friction, but one shouldn't shy away from that, as a UI/UX developer
which, granted, isn't as catchy of a title. but they could have gone into greater detail for that in the article, too
regardless of this critique, i enjoyed reading it and the perspective it offered, even if i don't strictly agree
oh okay, sorry, i took away a different impression from your OP talking about how the FDA process is flawed due to appeals being the starting point (which very well may be true) - but including that with this article made it seem like you felt that way about this particular incident (e.g. the link was supporting evidence), not that the commentary on the FDA process was it's own, unrelated thing
glad to hear that we're in agreement about the denial, though
i can't really comment on the process, i've never taken mdma myself. that said, you say there's no way you wouldn't know you're on it, but there's a number of substances out there where you'd think that would be the case, but it isn't (think like, the stereotype of people acting drunk with little / no alcohol, just thinking they had it). also, the dosages may be lower / less obvious, although i have no idea what the dosages used for recreational use vs for therapeutic use are here
idk dawg this seems pretty sound according to the article
The FDA and its advisors identified flaws in the design of the clinical trials, missing data, and a variety of biases in people involved with the trials, including an alleged cult-like support of psychedelics. Lykos is a commercial spinoff of the psychedelic advocacy nonprofit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).
FDA advisors also noted the public allegations of a sexual assault of a trial participant during a Phase II trial by an unlicensed therapist providing the MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.
...
On Saturday, using the existing data and scientific literature to support MDMA therapy got a little more difficult for Lykos. The journal Psychopharmacology posted retraction notices for three studies that involved Phase II clinical data of the therapy. The studies included a 2019 rationale for a Phase III trial design, a 2020 pooled analysis, and a 2020 study on how antidepressant use may affect the response to MDMA therapy.
The retraction notice cited two reasons for the retractions, including "protocol violations amounting to unethical conduct" at one of the clinical trial sites—a reference to the sexual assault allegations—and undisclosed conflicts of interest by the authors.
like. these are pretty good reasons for not going ahead. it's on lykos and the scientists running the trials for not keeping their paperwork straight and, you know, not warning people about the risks of the study
from an article cited within (https://qz.com/1809184/psychedelic-therapy-has-a-sexual-abuse-problem-3):
A few years ago, a therapist working in a MAPS MDMA study publicly spoke about his challenges dealing with a patient’s sexuality. Early in his career, Richard Yensen was working with a “lovely young lady who became very sexualized in her relationship around the [MDMA] sessions,” he told an audience at California Institute of Integral Studies in 2016. “It got so intense,” said Yensen, that the chair of his department saw him mid-therapy session and told him to leave the room, warning him to always have another therapist alongside him during sessions. “And thank god, because she became more and more and more activated sexually,” said Yensen. “I don’t think I could have handled it.”
Not long after, Yensen was accused of sexually assaulting a PTSD patient, Meaghan Buisson, during a MAPS clinical trial on MDMA
like. even GENEROUSLY assuming that nothing truly unethical happened. this is a huge issue that will only get worse if it's made publicly available
i'm not taking a position on whether or not it should be made available as a treatment. i don't know and i'm not qualified to determine that. but given what's been said, it feels reasonable to want more data and perhaps go "hey think you could run a trial without getting accused of assaulting people?"
can they just please make a lower budget game for the sake of branching out instead of pushing millions into a game expecting it to explode in sales? no? too much to ask? ok...
i think it would be really helpful for you to include which country you're from. in the US, i would think it's pretty comparable, but in other countries, there are probably different cultural factors at play that make it difficult to speak to without taking them into account
from the way you write and your dismissal of e.g. candy crush as "not a real game", i think those cultural factors are probably what's preventing either 1) women from feeling like they're allowed to participate or 2) women from revealing, around you, that they play games
fwiw, i wouldn't assume that women as a whole assume games are silly or childish. some women probably think that, for sure, just like some men do. but their viewpoints are as varied as women themselves are. it's very possible that they simply view them as a masculine hobby that isn't "for women", or just haven't been exposed to any they'd be interested in, or, similarly to you, wouldn't consider being interested in mobile games to be "real gaming"
i was househunting for a while recently and i felt the same way about sending out viewing requests. i was wondering how many these people were getting from spam to begin with, and now ai generated. it didn't help that the messages were nearly identical despite handwriting them all... i really should have just made a template lmao
not that we should be equivocating meth and adhd meds in the adhd community 😭
but otherwise yea, very good point being made. i didn't realize that was a criteria
you're correct that the term normally used is "drop out". i think this article may be using "stop out" to specifically refer to people who merely did not enroll in a new semester (vs. people who e.g. failed out, or were otherwise forcibly removed from the school), but i wasn't able to conclude this 100% from my reading
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