[Hasu]

I can use Google, and found this [1] article claiming over 4 million DAUs for Calm in June of 2020, with trendlines going up and to the right.

So the lower bound of your estimate gives us ~200,000 people who would be adversely affected. Looking through negative reviews, it's all complaints about pricing and paywalls. The same is true for Headspace, the second biggest app in this space (I don't have DAUs for them, but it's got about half as many downloads and reviews, so let's assume less than half as big).

I can't find a single complaint about adverse mental health effects, which doesn't mean it never happens, but it's not anywhere close to 5%.

[1] https://blog.apptopia.com/calm-app-outperforms-headspace-dur...

[bowsamic]

Interesting conclusion. I don’t agree, but I’ll leave you to it. I don’t even think that it’s possible to have the kind of experiences I’m talking about with headspace, unless it promotes a daily mindfulness practise of more than 15 to 20 mins a day

[vorpalhex]

You're assuming the people having issues realize Calm is the source. Also a DAU is not always someone meditating.

[Hasu]

Sure, it's a coarse and crude method that isn't perfect, but the point is that almost no one that practices "secular meditation" has any problems whatsoever - there is simply no good evidence supporting that meditation practice is dangerous in any way. The vast body of research available shows mild benefits.

The claimed hypothesis is absurd on its face. It's a wild and strong claim that needs strong evidence, so we don't need to be super precise here, if the effects were nearly as strong as 5-10%, we would see it.

[vorpalhex]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32820538/

We don't have to engage in crude methodology. We have tons of research.

[Hasu]

There's even more tons of research showing positive effects from meditation.

Meditation research generally is low quality, as is suffers from lack of defined methodology, lack of a consensus definition of what meditation is, and the general subjective experience of meditation. (Concretely, if you want to do brain scans on someone meditating, how do you know they're actually meditating? This extends to scans on people who are "experienced practitioners", how do you know they are experienced practitioners?)

Regardless, the vast body of research does not point to negative effects, most point to mild positive effects, and the medical field considers it perfectly safe for healthy people. If you want to use research, don't pick and choose the studies that find adverse effects, look at the overall body of research.

[bowsamic]

So you stand by the assertion that meditation has no negative effects?

[Hasu]

I never claimed that.

[bowsamic]

Is there good evidence suggesting it’s 100% completely safe?

[Hasu]

There isn't good evidence suggesting anything is "100% completely safe", but yes, the vast majority of meditation research shows mild positive benefits for practitioners, and the medical consensus is that meditation is perfectly safe for healthy individuals.

It feels a lot like the goalposts are being moved here, the original claim was that meditation is extremely dangerous unless you're doing Buddhism right, now we're asking if there's evidence that it's completely safe.

[bowsamic]

No, the original claim is that meditation _can_ be dangerous unless you are doing Buddhism right. You are claiming that if meditation had dangers, it would be trivially easy to find data about it, and thus it doesn't. We aren't claiming it's always dangerous, we are claiming that it can be if traditional advice is ignored. You are the one shifting the goalposts. Re-read the thread and reflect

[Hasu]

I can't reply to your other comment, so I'll do it here, and this will likely be my last comment in this thread, because I don't think you're being a very good discussion partner.

I explicitly noted that there are probably rare cases where meditation leads to negative experiences (and I am not distinguishing between traditional methods and so-called secular methods, the risk should be the same for both, according to my model). But that is my point: these will be rare, and not extreme, except in people with pre-existing mental health issues. Normal, healthy people simply do not develop psychosis from meditation practice. Furthermore, there is no body of research or evidence known to me that shows that the (small in both effect size and frequency) risks are changed by the meditation practice or tradition. The research that we have shows small effects for meditation in any direction, but is overall positive regardless of tradition. My proposed experiment was an attempt at distinguishing between secular methods and traditional Buddhist methods, in an attempt to find any evidence of the massive effect size you claimed (5-10%!). This is the crux if the disagreement, not "can meditation EVER be dangerous in ANY circumstances", but "Under what circumstances, and how dangerous". I say, "Only in rare cases where there are underlying mental health issues regardless of tradition". You say, "Commonly (5-10%), for people who don't do Buddhism, and almost(?) never for those following Buddhist teachings". (I'm not actually sure if you think Buddhism removes all risk or is just much less risky, but either way I disagree.)

You made an outrageous claim that you've still provided no evidence for, and you've constructed a straw man of my argument to knock down. You're not arguing in good faith.

I'd be happy to reset if you want to discuss the relative difference in risks between Buddhist and secular methods (evidence on other meditation traditions would also be welcome), but I'm not going to argue with you about the words I've written and their plain meaning.