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Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

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Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#101

Post by aaron-lebo »

imgabe wrote: post #98
aaron-lebo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not my point. My point is why do you want to live forever? Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years, when the entirety of human civilization which made that possible is now dead? Nobody is that important or has that much to offer to the world. It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals. I'm not assigning moral right and wrong to it, I'm just saying it's ir…

> Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years Nobody is important and nobody deserves anything. There's no outside force making decisions about who is allowed to have what. You get what you figure out how to get and you keep it as long as you figure out how to keep it. > It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals. But assigning yourself to be the arbiter of who is o…

But assigning yourself to be the arbiter of who is or isn't "important" enough to "deserve" an extended lifespan isn't ego-driven?

I realize I'm not important. My opinion that ultimately no individual is especially important is not based out of ego but a recognition that there's been like 10 billion of us and there will be more. But if you want it, have at it; maybe just consider why you want it.

If you're going to let your own mood be dictated by the never-ending stream of terrible things in the world, I'd be surprised if you could make it through even a a normal lifetime. There's a lot of wonderful things in the world too. Why ignore those?

That's what keeps me going.

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#102

Post by ozmodiar »

ams6110 wrote: post #63
ozmodiar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article resonated with me. I find inequality very upsetting and can be prone to depression. I wouldn't say that the depression is caused by a lack of reciprocity in others. If anything I've found that almost everyone, even otherwise 'selfish' people, can be extremely generous if they view you as someone who does good by others. I'm also no fool if I know someone is trying to rip me off. I do think the depression…

It's helpful to be realistic about the world. People should have equal opportunity but equal outcomes are impossible. People have different levels of intelligence and motivation, different interests, different values.

Oh I agree, and for the most part I'm using equality to mean equal opportunity, or perhaps equal outcome for equal personal investment. Not so much that everyone should have identical lives. Maybe a better way to put it is I don't want anyone getting a raw deal in life.

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#103

Post by gph »

imgabe wrote: post #98
aaron-lebo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not my point. My point is why do you want to live forever? Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years, when the entirety of human civilization which made that possible is now dead? Nobody is that important or has that much to offer to the world. It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals. I'm not assigning moral right and wrong to it, I'm just saying it's ir…

> Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years Nobody is important and nobody deserves anything. There's no outside force making decisions about who is allowed to have what. You get what you figure out how to get and you keep it as long as you figure out how to keep it. > It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals. But assigning yourself to be the arbiter of who is o…

Thank you. It seems like a lot of people try to reason in an egoless manner, but all they end up doing is transferring their ego-driven hang-ups onto their concept of a universal objective viewpoint.

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#104

Post by chiefalchemist »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #7
k-mcgrady wrote: post #2

The point here seems to be that unselfish people are more empathetic to the plight of others. while I don't disagree I wonder if unselfishness leads people into situations where they work towards others benefit (people they perceive as being treated unfairly) at their own detriment also possibly leading to issues with depression. That's the point I presumed the article would make before I read it.

When I see people talk about living indefinitely around here in threads that come up occasionally, it does make me wonder if they are on the other side of some selfishness cutoff. It's weird to think that you'd be interested in living for centuries or longer in a world that has seen everyone before you die and day by day sees horrific injustice. It's almost solipsistic. The same dynamic exists with those hundred mill…

My theory is that some/many prepers are either in denial, or haven't take the time (and/or lack the capacity) to imagine the true state of the world they're prepping for. And certainlybsome do it for a sense of security, as false as it might be.

Moi? If I knew there was going to be a nuclear explosion I'd likely drive into the mushroom cloud. Perhaps in this case my imagination has gotten the better of me?

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#105

Post by fictionfuture »

What defines someone as 'unselfish?'

In my experience, many 'unselfish' people are people that don't take the time to study and understand human nature. Since it's human nature to be 'nice' they default to this behavior and never seem to get the results they are after. Hence the depression.

On the other hand, once you study, you'll learn that principled selfishness is the KEY to getting what you want. Hence better results and less depression.

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#106

Post by Retric »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #76
greggman wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own perspective (which I can already tell you'll likely disagree with) is that I want to live forever to remove the burden of having to choose only 1 to 2 more major experiences in my life (I'm 52). As an example I leaned Japanese. To do so I moved to Japan at 33. My experience there tells me if I want to learn Chinese and actually remember it I need to move to China for 6-8 years. Given I only have 20-30 years le…

I don't agree with your assertion wanting to live a long long time has anything to do with ego. It's the definition of ego: a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance. It's not a moral argument, it's the recognition that your desire to live all of those lives is an egotistical thing (this is not a judgment).

Feeling important has little to do with wanting things.

Poor people want be rich and have a Mansion not because the think they are important enough to have a Mansion, but because being able to afford a Mansion is better than not being able to afford a Mansion.

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#107

Post by FullMtlAlcoholc »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #46
drngdds wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'd have it much better than all the people who had to die. But I already have it much better than all the people who are killed or crippled by preventable illnesses because they were unlucky enough to be born into poverty. But that doesn't really factor into my moral reasoning. My living forever wouldn't necessarily make things worse for people who don't get to do that. So, as a consequentialist, I don't think…

That's not my point. My point is why do you want to live forever? Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years, when the entirety of human civilization which made that possible is now dead? Nobody is that important or has that much to offer to the world. It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals. I'm not assigning moral right and wrong to it, I'm just saying it's ir…

I want to live longer because I want to see amazing tech. I imagine rhis is one of the primary reasons that people want a longer lifespan.

Beyond that, I want to live long enough to go on interplanetary and/or interstellar voyages. My desire to experience the marvels and mysteries of the universe are irrespective of humanity's conditions, whether we are facing an apocalypse or living in a global golden age.

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#108

Post by z0r »

phil21 wrote: post #41
bhewes wrote: post #17

Canary in the coal mine. Depression may be a social illness because people with heighten empathy feel something is wrong with the system around them resulting in depression. That seems a stronger argument then some macro economic argument about ill defined inequality.

Someone already replied to you with some of the same point - but I think the problem is exceedingly obvious - we lack community in the US. I put a large part of the blame on suburban development. What did we expect when we took social animals and then sequestered them into little boxes far away from where humans congregate - requiring you to fit into another little box to drive to the next box for your planned and hi…

A suburb with access to schools, libraries and parks is a fine thing. I grew up in such a suburb (in Toronto, if you're curious) and I'm not sure I understand what kind of city community provides the village experience you're imagining in your second paragraph. In my experience city dwellers have not been more neighbourly than those I remember from the suburb of my youth.

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#109

Post by lliamander »

racer-v wrote: post #64
bagacrap wrote: post #20

I can't tell where they flipped the directionality around for the headline, because the first line of the article is "People with depression are more likely to feel bad in response to perceived inequality" and the rest of the article sticks to that finding. It seems intuitive that people with depression are more likely to feel bad in response to X, for all X.

Nope - clinical depression is different from "feeling bad in response" to a specific stimulus. If you do something hurtful to me and I feel bad about it, that's not depression. When nothing is happening and I feel bad in general, that's depression. The article says, people who feel bad in response to specific types of stimulus (a perceived slight), rather than just shrugging it off, are more likely to develop full-bl…

However, there is a personality trait, Neuroticism, which has to do with sensitivity to negative emotion, and also does correlate with depression, anxiety, etc. In other words, if you are higher in Neuroticism (i.e. more susceptible to negative emotions) then you are more likely to also develop clinical depression.

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#110

Post by xelxebar »

Retric wrote: post #28
aaron-lebo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see people talk about living indefinitely around here in threads that come up occasionally, it does make me wonder if they are on the other side of some selfishness cutoff. It's weird to think that you'd be interested in living for centuries or longer in a world that has seen everyone before you die and day by day sees horrific injustice. It's almost solipsistic. The same dynamic exists with those hundred mill…

Like most people, I don't control the world and my actions have minuscule impacts on the global scale. As such I find caring about things outside of my control a rather egotistical standpoint. There is nothing selfish about focusing on things that I can impact, and recognizing your a tiny fish in the vastness of space.

The main issue with that stance is that a lot of human suffering happens because others claim it is "out of their control" to do anything. Dividing things into the two buckets "in my control" and "out if my control" allows a lot of leeway for us to excuse selfish behavior.

I think it's prudent to make it out business to get control over and fix things that are actively causing harm. Or as Raymond Chen might say, "Be somebody":

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110118-00/?p=...

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