Depression and suicide linked to air pollution in new global study • Hacker News Board

Re: Depression and suicide linked to air pollution in new global study

#171

Post by squish78 » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

the_gastropod wrote: post #166

squish78 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our brains spent millions of years evolving in nature, makes sense that cramming into cities with unnatural lights and disrupting biological rhythm would make them go haywire

"Our bodies spent millions of years evolving in nature, makes sense that taking showers with unnatural temperatures and disrupting biological skin bacteria would make them go haywire" "Our teeth spent millions of years evolving in nature, makes sense that scrubbing them with unnatural mint-flavored pastes and plastic bristles would make them go haywire" "Our eyes spent millions of years evolving in nature, makes sens…

I appreciate your pedantry - the scientific community understands the mechanical physiological body (skin, eyes, hair) on a cause-and-affect level, but hardly understands the mind and mood because mental health is such a subjective experience, it's nearly impossible to fit into modern a scientific paradigm

Re: Depression and suicide linked to air pollution in new global study

#172

Post by myself248 » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

icandoit wrote: post #169

im3w1l wrote: post #7

> The results show strong correlations, but research that would prove a causal link is difficult because ethical experiments cannot deliberately expose people to harm. This is kind of my hobby horse: you don't need to subject people to harm to test causuality. You can do the opposite: Remove harm and see what happens. Maybe give people free HVAC upgrades to filter more particles.

Differences in Birth Weight Associated with the 2008 Beijing Olympics Air Pollution Reduction: Results from a Natural Experiment https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1408795 Personally, I'm down with harm reduction even if it doesn't teach us anything. As a goal it seems pretty good on its own.

As the old comic goes: "What if it's all a hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"

Re: Depression and suicide linked to air pollution in new global study

#173

Post by icandoit » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

squish78 wrote: post #171

the_gastropod wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Our bodies spent millions of years evolving in nature, makes sense that taking showers with unnatural temperatures and disrupting biological skin bacteria would make them go haywire" "Our teeth spent millions of years evolving in nature, makes sense that scrubbing them with unnatural mint-flavored pastes and plastic bristles would make them go haywire" "Our eyes spent millions of years evolving in nature, makes sens…

I appreciate your pedantry - the scientific community understands the mechanical physiological body (skin, eyes, hair) on a cause-and-affect level, but hardly understands the mind and mood because mental health is such a subjective experience, it's nearly impossible to fit into modern a scientific paradigm

Mental health isn't a strictly subjective experience though. You can measure days called-in-sick. You can measure suicide count.

Cause and effect isn't necessary to reduce harm. You with me? It's nice to have certainly, but it is not required.

Imagine that I am a friend of yours. I tell you that my child is depressed and the doctor suggests pill1, it makes my child more lethargic. We try pill2 and the depression is gone.

I tell you that I am happy with the results of pill2 and that while I am interested in how it works and potential long-term consequences, I'm happy staying on pill2.

Is this imagined parent strictly better than a parent that refuses to try any pill until convinced of its mechanism and success? I would say yes.

Observation is the workhorse of the scientific paradigm, not idealized experimentation. The quantity, and thus value, of Inductive evidence is greater than that of Deductive evidence.

Re: Depression and suicide linked to air pollution in new global study

#174

Post by poulsbohemian » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

Way back in the 1920s, my great-great grandfather killed himself. The obituary paralleled the family story of his life: he'd been a drifter of sorts his whole life, always looking for some way out of the life of a dirt-poor, subsistence farmer. He was the first member of the family to leave the Amish / Mennonite colonies of the east and come west. When he died, he was far from home in the middle of nowhere, not a penny to his name.

Last night around the dinner table we were discussing an article from The Week about video game addiction. It described young men a lot like my great-great grandfather, with just the moment in history changed. It seems fairly straightforward that the root causes are:

-- Limited economic opportunities / safety net. -- Lack (for whatever reason) of social ties and support. A lack of an outlet for emotional intimacy.

Are chemicals, including in our air, at play? Sure, possibly. But, it seems clear that in any case you hear about a suicide the story is basically the same - someone simply did not see a future for themselves. We have not come fully to grips with a post-industrial / post-agrarian economy here in the US, leaving many men in particular without much purpose.

The rural / urban divide is mentioned in this thread - living here in rural America (hi y'all!) is a microcosm of the rest of the country - we have the same problems as cities, just on a different but compressed scale. You see both the happiest and most miserable people up close. If you have the financial means to live away from the city, then you can be the big fish in the small pond, IE: both the financial and social I mentioned above. On the other hand, if you are living paycheck to paycheck, surrounded by a limited social network, etc, is it really that surprising it leads to depression? That's the same regardless of your physical location.

Re: Depression and suicide linked to air pollution in new global study

#175

Post by the_gastropod » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 5:23 PM UTC

squish78 wrote: post #171

the_gastropod wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Our bodies spent millions of years evolving in nature, makes sense that taking showers with unnatural temperatures and disrupting biological skin bacteria would make them go haywire" "Our teeth spent millions of years evolving in nature, makes sense that scrubbing them with unnatural mint-flavored pastes and plastic bristles would make them go haywire" "Our eyes spent millions of years evolving in nature, makes sens…

I appreciate your pedantry - the scientific community understands the mechanical physiological body (skin, eyes, hair) on a cause-and-affect level, but hardly understands the mind and mood because mental health is such a subjective experience, it's nearly impossible to fit into modern a scientific paradigm

C'mon. The comment you're replying to with "makes sense" is about city living vs rural. You weren't commenting that it's unknowable. You stated that "unnatural lights" and "disrupting biological rhythm" (whatever that means) probably cause one's brain to go "haywire" (implication being: and commit suicide).

As if there aren't uncountable other variables that have changed dramatically over millions of years. Or hell, do you even know if suicide rates are higher today than they were millions of years ago? No. You came here to try to suggest city living was inferior to rural living, and used "millions of years of evolution", and some implication that modern rural life is somehow more similar to those millions of years than urban life.

Re: Depression and suicide linked to air pollution in new global study

#176

Post by icandoit » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #170

icandoit wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spousal death is a big cause of depression. Is that sufficient to convince you of a causal chain? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4119479/ I wish I had as many advocates as the devil did.

I don't think that's the kind of causal chain they are going for. Article seems to suggest that the depression comes from damage to the body from the particles.

I have a friend Galant who cleans his room everyday and has wealth and happiness. I have another friend Goofus whose room is a mess.

I'm not suggesting that the things in a room cause depression. Correlation tells you more than strict causation ever could.

An example: Income is higher among vim users than eclipse users. Does that suggest anything to you?

It does to me, but that's because I'm willing to let the evidence shape my decisions. If I waited for strictly-causal proof then I'm leaving money on the table.

Another tip: When will it stop being the case that vim users make more money than eclipse users? When evidence mounts and marginally push the lazy-about-evidence-people toward vim. By the time the last eclipse user switches away there won't be any more money on the table to take. Also eclipse will be dead by then.

Be greedy with evidence and lazy with your attachments, not the reverse.

Re: Depression and suicide linked to air pollution in new global study

#177

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

icandoit wrote: post #173

squish78 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your pedantry - the scientific community understands the mechanical physiological body (skin, eyes, hair) on a cause-and-affect level, but hardly understands the mind and mood because mental health is such a subjective experience, it's nearly impossible to fit into modern a scientific paradigm

Mental health isn't a strictly subjective experience though. You can measure days called-in-sick. You can measure suicide count. Cause and effect isn't necessary to reduce harm. You with me? It's nice to have certainly, but it is not required. Imagine that I am a friend of yours. I tell you that my child is depressed and the doctor suggests pill1, it makes my child more lethargic. We try pill2 and the depression is g…

[deleted]

Re: Depression and suicide linked to air pollution in new global study

#178

Post by squish78 » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 5:29 PM UTC

the_gastropod wrote: post #175

squish78 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your pedantry - the scientific community understands the mechanical physiological body (skin, eyes, hair) on a cause-and-affect level, but hardly understands the mind and mood because mental health is such a subjective experience, it's nearly impossible to fit into modern a scientific paradigm

C'mon. The comment you're replying to with "makes sense" is about city living vs rural. You weren't commenting that it's unknowable. You stated that "unnatural lights" and "disrupting biological rhythm" (whatever that means) probably cause one's brain to go "haywire" (implication being: and commit suicide). As if there aren't uncountable other variables that have changed dramatically over millions of years. Or hell,…

I made no implication that contemporary rural life is superior or in any way comparable to historical rural life.

Re: Depression and suicide linked to air pollution in new global study

#179

Post by squish78 » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

icandoit wrote: post #173

squish78 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your pedantry - the scientific community understands the mechanical physiological body (skin, eyes, hair) on a cause-and-affect level, but hardly understands the mind and mood because mental health is such a subjective experience, it's nearly impossible to fit into modern a scientific paradigm

Mental health isn't a strictly subjective experience though. You can measure days called-in-sick. You can measure suicide count. Cause and effect isn't necessary to reduce harm. You with me? It's nice to have certainly, but it is not required. Imagine that I am a friend of yours. I tell you that my child is depressed and the doctor suggests pill1, it makes my child more lethargic. We try pill2 and the depression is g…

This scientific paradigm only is able to describe a treatment, it fails to diagnose a specific cause

Re: Depression and suicide linked to air pollution in new global study

#180

Post by the_gastropod » Thu, Dec 19, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

squish78 wrote: post #178

the_gastropod wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C'mon. The comment you're replying to with "makes sense" is about city living vs rural. You weren't commenting that it's unknowable. You stated that "unnatural lights" and "disrupting biological rhythm" (whatever that means) probably cause one's brain to go "haywire" (implication being: and commit suicide). As if there aren't uncountable other variables that have changed dramatically over millions of years. Or hell,…

I made no implication that contemporary rural life is superior or in any way comparable to historical rural life.

"...makes sense that cramming into cities with unnatural lights and disrupting biological rhythm would make them go haywire"

Then what does this suggest? Why does "unnatural light" (ignoring that humans have built "unnatural light" fires for ~1.7 million years) make a brain go haywire, but not, say, clipping one's toenails? Or reading books, or sitting on chairs, or being blasted by radio waves, or running on treadmills, or traveling over 15mph, or wearing clothes, or flying in airplanes, etc. What are you saying?