Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#11

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 9:28 PM UTC

cryoshon wrote: post #8

PaulHoule wrote: post #3

Mental illness is a complex entity. Beware of any simple "definition of insanity" I recently discovered I have a mutation which makes my verbal intelligence too high to measure but has negative effects in other areas. Other people have similar variations. Some kinds of mental illness such as schizophrenia seem very much to be a biological phenomenon, but stress and particularly the way stress is structured has a defi…

Are you talking about the Met-158 mutation? If not, which? I agree that the real culprit is stress-- biological differences to processing and coping with stress are likely the actual mechanism at play rather than generalized "coercion" like the article suggests without providing evidence. Our society is intensely stressful, and provides no real permanent reductions in stress level.

[deleted]

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#12

Post by PaulHoule » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 9:28 PM UTC

cryoshon wrote: post #8

PaulHoule wrote: post #3

Mental illness is a complex entity. Beware of any simple "definition of insanity" I recently discovered I have a mutation which makes my verbal intelligence too high to measure but has negative effects in other areas. Other people have similar variations. Some kinds of mental illness such as schizophrenia seem very much to be a biological phenomenon, but stress and particularly the way stress is structured has a defi…

Are you talking about the Met-158 mutation? If not, which? I agree that the real culprit is stress-- biological differences to processing and coping with stress are likely the actual mechanism at play rather than generalized "coercion" like the article suggests without providing evidence. Our society is intensely stressful, and provides no real permanent reductions in stress level.

I don't have Met-158 thank god I am not like that crazy killer family from the Netherlands.

I am hetero at SNP rs1800497.

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#13

Post by wickedgain » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 9:32 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #12

cryoshon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about the Met-158 mutation? If not, which? I agree that the real culprit is stress-- biological differences to processing and coping with stress are likely the actual mechanism at play rather than generalized "coercion" like the article suggests without providing evidence. Our society is intensely stressful, and provides no real permanent reductions in stress level.

I don't have Met-158 thank god I am not like that crazy killer family from the Netherlands. I am hetero at SNP rs1800497.

How did you find out?

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#14

Post by butterfinger » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

Another point that this article does not discuss is that in many of the "less coercive" societies, schizophrenia or related diseases are not seen as a disease or problematic at all.

McKenna writes: "A shaman is someone who swims in the same ocean as the schizophrenic, but the shaman has thousands and thousands of years of sanctioned technique and tradition to draw upon. In a traditional society, if you exhibited “schizophrenic” tendencies, you are immediately drawn out of the pack and put under the care and tutelage of master shamans. You are told: “You are special. Your abilities are very central to the health of our society. You will cure. You will prophesy. You will guide our society in its most fundamental decisions.”" [0]

[0]: http://www.scribd.com/doc/12470230/Eros-and-the-Eschaton-rou...

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#15

Post by zwischenzug » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 9:39 PM UTC

A great book to read in this context:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dont-Sleep-There-are-Snakes/dp/18466...

or indeed, any context. It's a fabulous book about the good and bad in societies untouched by civilization, and about one man's attempts to understand a language with no reference points. And his struggle with his Christian mission, ending up in his atheism. It's got everything, and would make a great film.

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#16

Post by gooftop » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 9:40 PM UTC

Not clear to me if the article implies that totalitarian societies have more coercion - but if it does, should a country like China have more mental illness? I don't know if thats the case, at least in percentage of entire population. What does that mean for the central hypothesis of the article and its validity?

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#17

Post by jessriedel » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 9:49 PM UTC

butterfinger wrote: post #14

Another point that this article does not discuss is that in many of the "less coercive" societies, schizophrenia or related diseases are not seen as a disease or problematic at all. McKenna writes: "A shaman is someone who swims in the same ocean as the schizophrenic, but the shaman has thousands and thousands of years of sanctioned technique and tradition to draw upon. In a traditional society, if you exhibited “sch…

I'm willing to bet that the welfare of the average schizophrenic is quite poor essentially everywhere in the world, a handful of tribes supporting them for myth-related reasons notwithstanding.

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#18

Post by krapp » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 9:49 PM UTC

butterfinger wrote: post #14

Another point that this article does not discuss is that in many of the "less coercive" societies, schizophrenia or related diseases are not seen as a disease or problematic at all. McKenna writes: "A shaman is someone who swims in the same ocean as the schizophrenic, but the shaman has thousands and thousands of years of sanctioned technique and tradition to draw upon. In a traditional society, if you exhibited “sch…

>In a traditional society, if you exhibited “schizophrenic” tendencies, you are immediately drawn out of the pack and put under the care and tutelage of master shamans.

This is a form of coercion in and of itself. And as there's no such thing as prophecy, or magical cures, it turns out to be a profoundly unhelpful kind of coercion, both for the "shaman" and the society in general.

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#19

Post by Kinnard » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

I imagine its hard to get good data on mental illness let alone a good definition of what "mental illness" is across societies. Is homosexuality still considered a mental illness in most of the world?

Re: Societies with Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness (2013)

#20

Post by pasquinelli » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 10:07 PM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #5

Coercion and compliance are basically high-signal low-content terms. It's sort of dose-makes-the-poison in that you can't reasonably compare something like taxation (which is often described as coercion) to something like forced medication.

what do you mean by high-signal and low-content? i don't know about signal and content, but typically the word coercion is used to refer to forcing people to do something using violence and the threat of violence.