A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression • Hacker News Board

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#381

Post by penagwin » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:10 AM UTC

pstuart wrote: post #379

whiddershins wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might encourage you to reconsider the reality tunnel you are subscribing to. Not because it is false, but because it is opinion-based, and interpretive, and reliant on certain assumptions. If it is making you miserable, it might be worth exploring a different, equally compelling, version of reality.

I'm always welcome to new input, but the two cases I cited have compelling facts behind them. Being that I'm not thrilled to carry these notions, I'd be more than happy to have my mind "changed". Go for it: change my mind. I'm not spoiling for a fight -- I genuinely don't like being "wrong."

Not op, but to phrase it another way, consider if it's benificial to worry about - vote for who you want etc. But that doesn't mean you have to watch every political "event" - you'll just burn yourself out.

I'm not saying bad things aren't happening - just that if there's nothing more you can do, try not to envolope your life with it. It's like high school drama - it can feel like it's your entire world but in reality it doesn't necessarily matter.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#382

Post by daseiner1 » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:11 AM UTC

courtf wrote: post #335

daseiner1 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fine points up to the third paragraph. you said yourself that the pathways of meaning have been blocked - of course then things would feel meaningless! there’s doesn’t need to be a M eaning to life for life to have meaning

I agree, the meaning of life is just that simple: to be alive. No greater meaning exists, and that's fine. We can live life without so much meta-analysis. To arrive there though, we often need to see other personal sources of meaning exposed as illusory, or at least I did. I am trying to describe that process in the third paragraph.

Good to hear; it’d be hard to be capable of the perception of the start without also being capable of seeing the road past & through the conclusion at the end of your comment. I just tend to take issue with the naïve cynic nihilist take i detected in the latter half of your initial comment.

ps you may enjoy Nietzsche if you haven’t been exposed to him yet - his project essentially starts with - OK, we’ve been freed from the prison of (religious) dogma, now what? His greatest aim, imo, was to answer the question of the (totally true, accurate) nihilistic observation you’ve reached. start w beyond good and evil

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#383

Post by cortesoft » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:15 AM UTC

westoncb wrote: post #361

cortesoft wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The base rate part is just explaining why the diagnostic doesn't work when applied on a healthy population (like med students) The instruction would be something like "if the patient complains of x, check for symptom y... if the have symptom y, they are likely suffering from z" But the med student then checks themselves for symptom y, and thinks they have z, but that is only the case if they are suffering from x. The…

But in the patient's complaint about X, wouldn't X just be another symptom? For instance, let's say a patient complains of a headache. The doctor uses whatever other knowledge they have of the patient to come up with some candidate diagnoses, and proceeds checking for symptoms from each of the candidates. Presumably 'headache' is just another symptom on the diagnostic criteria for each of the other candidates. So why…

Right, my point is that the symptom X is often an implied one.... it isn't expressed in the diagnostic test explicitly, because the diagnostic test is run only when someone has symptom x.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#384

Post by JSavageOne » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #377

foob4r wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False optimism about the future from older generations is nothing new - been happening for years now

sorry but typically in the past older generations have been optimistic about the future and younger generations have been pessimistic. That is a a common phenomenon observed by social scientists which is that people in their twenties are a lot more pessimistic than people in their 40s and 50s. Let's be clear: globally the world is much better off than it has ever been and therefore the optimists were correct. Even in…

If the world is better overall it's due to technological advancement, not due to governance. Our current president is Trump, an idiot who completely mismanaged the coronavirus pandemic, lied about how well he was handling it, refuses to be televised wearing a mask while mask-shaming others, and spends his time peddling conspiracy theories on Twitter, and now threatening to shut down the platform for fact-checking his blatant disinformation. We have probably the worst president to ever disgrace the office next to Andrew Jackson, so yea people are pessimistic.

Also this is the first time in our history that the youth are expected to make less than their parents. The older generation stripped away pension plans, affordable university, affordable healthcare, job stability - basically everything that was working well, and sold their kids off into student loan debt.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#385

Post by JSavageOne » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:28 AM UTC

jyrkesh wrote: post #368

malandrew wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think some big investment in infrastructure could be a way to make that happen I'm curious what infrastructure you think would excite young Americans. With the exception of changing energy generation from fossil fuels to renewables, I can't think of a single thing that I could generalize young Americans caring about, much less be excited about. Not saying that there aren't people like yourself and others that get…

I'm a "young"-ish American (lower end of millenial), and the growth of public transit in my local city was immensely exciting. New trains and bus routes were probably a huge factor in me staying where I'm at, and I feel more engaged in local politics than anything happening on the national stage. Contrast that with some of the underfunded, addiction-riddled states where nothing new has been built since the 1960s...I…

I grew up in the suburbs of Washington DC. My suburb still 30 years later still looks exactly the same, just with less local businesses and more big chains, and more homeless people. There is still no viable public transportation accessible without a car. Needless to say I left a long time ago (to NYC, where I saw firsthand the subway get worse and worse every year and is currently in a dire state).

I ended up leaving the U.S, and was surprised to learn that public transportation and not needing a car is pretty much standard in the rest of the world.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#386

Post by JSavageOne » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:34 AM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #378

idoby wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-American, why do you care about who is in the white house so much? How does it affect your life concretely? Try watching less talking heads/browsing Twitter less, maybe, and you'll feel better?

As an American I completely agree with you. The fact of the matter is that the federal government does not have a huge bearing on most Americans lives. I live in Colorado and therefore get to enjoy marijuana whenever I want despite the fact that it's not legal at the federal level. I like it that way. Yet when we talk about this virus that is making everybody so miserable via lockdowns and for some killing them, sudd…

The whole reason the U.S. had to go into lockdown was because of the failure at the federal level to contain this crisis.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#387

Post by JSavageOne » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:36 AM UTC

idoby wrote: post #263

JSavageOne wrote: post #131

As an American it's not surprising at all. Six figures of student loan debt, job insecurity, healthcare insecurity, rampant poverty / homelessness, the most despicable president to disgrace the white house (who didn't even win the popular vote), stay-at-home orders because the U.S. couldn't manage the crisis, lack of community (doesn't help that 99% of the country is sprawl), rampant obesity, and general lack of hope…

As a non-American, why do you care about who is in the white house so much? How does it affect your life concretely? Try watching less talking heads/browsing Twitter less, maybe, and you'll feel better?

It's harder to feel optimistic about the future when there's an idiot in office who's actively trying to dismantle everything that's good about the country.

Trump still being in office points to a systemic failure of our government, which nobody is really talking about changing. Sad to feel optimism in a country with a failed government.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#388

Post by guevara » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:42 AM UTC

thelean12 wrote: post #355

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a perfect encapsulation of the individualism that drives the special American breed of blame-the-victim mentality. It allows society to erode the well-being of huge swaths of the population while simultaneously making them feel ashamed of their inability to triumph over the ruthless machine grinding them into the dirt. Yes, we need personal responsibility, but maybe we could also stop making it harder for people…

While the person you're responding to has a horrible tone, I've sort of grown to agree with the general sentiment. Most of the problems I've seen people face can be solved on their own, or could have been prevented on their own. Pandemic made you lose your job? Absolutely not your fault. Massive injury or illness wipe out your savings and leave you in debt? Absolutely not your fault. These are things we can and shoul…

Glad we can see eye to eye. Student loans definitely get my noggin' joggin'. I mean, if you're end goal is to go to a state school, why not go to community college and then transfer there? Even then, some people go to shitty schools like William Patterson or NJCU, and take out massive loans. I know people from high school to took out $18K+ in loans to go to NJCU (for context, these are garbage F-tier schools in NJ).

Then there's the whole major debacle. I mean, if you got the cash to study Creative Writing, by all means go for it. But, if you're a first-generation kid who's broke as fuck with no scholarships, you really don't have a lot of options if you're still set on going to college.

Regardless, I do not apologize for being an asshole. Goodbye internet points :'(

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#389

Post by JPKab » Thu, May 28, 2020, 3:57 AM UTC

JSavageOne wrote: post #384

JPKab wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry but typically in the past older generations have been optimistic about the future and younger generations have been pessimistic. That is a a common phenomenon observed by social scientists which is that people in their twenties are a lot more pessimistic than people in their 40s and 50s. Let's be clear: globally the world is much better off than it has ever been and therefore the optimists were correct. Even in…

If the world is better overall it's due to technological advancement, not due to governance. Our current president is Trump, an idiot who completely mismanaged the coronavirus pandemic, lied about how well he was handling it, refuses to be televised wearing a mask while mask-shaming others, and spends his time peddling conspiracy theories on Twitter, and now threatening to shut down the platform for fact-checking his…

I agree that Trump sucks. Rhetorically, worst president. But as policies and outcomes go, there have been worse. Hoover? How about the fact that we banned alcohol for over a decade? Bush started a ruinous war on false pretenses. FDR incarcerated Japanese Americans in internment camps. LBJ and Vietnam. What about the chain of corporate owned presidents that allowed, and encouraged, outsourcing of manufacturing? That certainly hurt coronavirus response. SK and China were able to make their own PPE. US factories have dwindled over decades. Trump didn't create that mess. Clinton and Newt Gingrich did in a bipartisan sell out of the working class.

Read a history book and gain some perspective. You lack it.

By the way, you left out affordable housing. That is a huge generational theft, and is the worst in areas like California, where baby boomers used zoning laws to prevent an adequate supply of new housing from being built.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#390

Post by JPKab » Thu, May 28, 2020, 4:27 AM UTC

JSavageOne wrote: post #386

JPKab wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American I completely agree with you. The fact of the matter is that the federal government does not have a huge bearing on most Americans lives. I live in Colorado and therefore get to enjoy marijuana whenever I want despite the fact that it's not legal at the federal level. I like it that way. Yet when we talk about this virus that is making everybody so miserable via lockdowns and for some killing them, sudd…

The whole reason the U.S. had to go into lockdown was because of the failure at the federal level to contain this crisis.

You say that as if it COULD have been contained. What is unique about the USA compared to every other country that locked down?

Whose fault was it that Italy, UK, Spain, Belgium, Germany had to lock down?

This election year absurdity has warped the reality of this virus.

The virus is insanely transmissible with a long incubation period and high percentage of asymptomatic carriers. It couldn't have been contained in a free country.

The "had to go into lockdown" is debatable for most of USA. NYC needed a lockdown. Rest of US probably not.

Remember when Sweden was going to be a disaster a few weeks ago? Georgia and Florida? Yeah, they ended lockdowns, moron journalists pretending to be epidemiologists predicted doom.

All wrong. Sweden is fine. Georgia is fine. Florida is fine.

Why? Because they aren't the same as NYC and shouldn't be treated the same.