Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

apa.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 266 posts

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#121

Post by dataisfun »

derefr wrote: post #27
cc_ashby wrote: post #7

But what are you sacrificing in return for your “perseverance”? Very few people tend to look at the mind as a system, and also seem to ignore that depression, anxiety, panic disorders, etc. happen for a reason. The reason why modern humanity have increased risk of these symptoms is because they know, given their perhaps wrongly learned models of the world or otherwise, that even when they achieve their so-called life…

> seem to ignore that depression, anxiety, panic disorders, etc. happen for a reason ...no? In almost all cases, these syndromes are not appropriate responses to the environmental stimulus. OCD is not adaptive in any situation. Neither is Tourette's. Neither is anorexia nervosa. Neither is akinetic mutism. Neither is tardive dyskinesia. (Hypomania and ADHD-PI might be adaptive in exceptional environments — there's so…

Yikes. You make some pretty strong claims that are not credible on their face.

1. "Not adaptive in any situation..."

Putting aside the many problems with evolutionary psychological explanations (just-so theory, underdetermination, so-called disjunction and grain problems), there's actually an very strong argument to OCD's adaptive role, both at the individual (threat response) and group. I think the group argument is most compelling, as various degrees of neuroticism have very high upside for risk management over time.

Or take depression for example. It can serve, theoretically, to reduce risk of conflict and death when social hierarchies might be in flux, it's a way to honestly signal a problem to ones group, it could be a mechanism to accurately try and signal a problem to oneself like physical pain does, its been theorized to potentially reduce risk of infection, etc.

2. These genes very clearly do not weed themselves out of the gene pool. In fact, mental illness has been on the rise, probably mostly because neurodiversity has been increasingly pathologized. The social construct in which these are considered disordered is hugely important.

3. Your comment about that empathy snp is extreme genetic essentialsm and determinism. Moreover, it's a single snp. I don't know of a single researcher who'd claim that something as complicated as empathy is either toast or not toast from a single snp.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#122

Post by bloodorange »

eric4smith wrote: post #39
andi999 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you explained what are not missions, can you give examples for missions?

Sure, here are just a few. 1. Rearing children with the goal of making them read at 2 years old. Then with the goal of learning calculus at 10. Then others as they grow older. 2. Learning programming by writing a real system that actual people will use -- instead of code katas or reading programming books or attending a boot camp. 3. Marrying not only for love, but with the intention of building a business or farm to…

I pity the child. There is but one childhood and I hope every child gets a chance to enjoy a carefree, fulfilling and fun childhood.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#123

Post by rv-de »

sfgweilr4f wrote: post #60

There's a ship. It has no captain, no crew. Where is it going? There's another ship. It has a captain and crew but no destination is set. Where is it going? There's another ship. It has captain, crew, destination but no course is set. Where is it going? There's another ship. It has captain, crew, destination and a course set. Everyone is ready to go and intends to go. Where is it going? Only one of these ships will s…

So the fourth ship has cpt, crew, dest and course set - but ... what if instruments determining the course are broken? (that aims towards a distortion of perception - maybe due to schizophrenia). Take that previous ship assuming the instruments are sufficiently fine - so it will reach a destination - great - but how was that destination chosen to begin with? Was it maybe just the result of what parents, peers, society expected or led you to believe to be the right destination? Like working a lot to finally retire in a house next to a lake (just making something generic up here) - the cpt will see the destination long before they reach it and before that she'll have had plenty of time to overthink the endeavour - and it dawns on him she's on his way to somewhere she actually doesn't want to go - what now? She's too old to change course somewhere else - at least that's what she thinks - and anyway where would he go now? What if the map is basically bullshit? What if the destination is destroyed by a typhoon ( illness) during course? What if the appeal of the destination is its uniqueness but b/c TV tells every cpt to go there it looses it and becomes overcrowded by disrespectful and obnoxious people?

Maybe the cpt was actually - in hindsight - coming from a pretty decent place. She was just too impatient and immature to realize it. Then she watches a biopic about Jeff Bezos and his "regret minimization framework" (aka FOMO) - so she thought she has to take that risk just because she might regret it. should have never set sail anywhere. in another alternative universe she does everything above (the wrong thing technically) but his home town got nuked and she thinks - good that I left. better live in a boring house next to some boring lake with a husband that I don't love anymore than being dead or crippled by cancer due to the radiation.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#124

Post by dorgo »

mirimir wrote: post #76
JamesBarney wrote: post #71

“Our findings suggest that people can improve their mental health by raising or maintaining high levels of tenacity, resilience and optimism,” she said. “Aspiring toward personal and career goals can make people feel like their lives have meaning. On the other hand, disengaging from striving toward those aims or having a cynical attitude can have high mental health costs.” No they don't. Your findings suggest that pe…

Yes, correlation causality.

But we are talking about psychology. I mean, I can improve my mood by smiling.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#125

Post by yesenadam »

coldtea wrote: post #109
yesenadam wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to blow your mind then, but to quote an HN comment of mine: It seems Frankl has been somewhat exposed/debunked. Would you believe he was at Auschwitz for only a few days, performed medical experiments on Jews himself, and it appears his main thesis about attitude mattering above all else for survival in the camps is simply false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl#Controversy There was a bit of a discu…

> It seems Frankl has been somewhat exposed/debunked. Would you believe he was at Auschwitz for only a few days, performed medical experiments on Jews himself The Wikipedia link doesn't mention anything of the sort. And the other discussion just points to the same link / "proof". On the contrary, it does mention that he helped save thousands of mental patients from the Nazis, and that he was held not just in Auschwit…

I really loved Frankl's book as a teenager. I only learnt about his dark side, that the book was full of lies, recently. I didn't just read the wikipedia page, followed up the references, reading into several books that go into detail about it. The more you learn, the more disturbing and weird it gets. Yes in fact they do sound like disturbing Mengele-like experiments on people. His massive-bestseller book makes it sound like he was in Auschwitz for a long period, which is a total lie. (Did you read it? I can't imagine anyone who loved the book thinking it "irrelevant" whether he actually was at Auschwitz!)

edit: Gee, you're right about the wikpedia page! The controversy section has been entirely erased since I last looked! Very weird. Sorry about that. e.g. in April last year it looked like

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Viktor_Frankl&typ...

I guess all the references to things have been removed too. I'm not sure why. The books and papers it led me to seemed believable.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#126

Post by [deleted] »

sfgweilr4f wrote: post #60

There's a ship. It has no captain, no crew. Where is it going? There's another ship. It has a captain and crew but no destination is set. Where is it going? There's another ship. It has captain, crew, destination but no course is set. Where is it going? There's another ship. It has captain, crew, destination and a course set. Everyone is ready to go and intends to go. Where is it going? Only one of these ships will s…

[deleted]

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#127

Post by circlefavshape »

deerpig wrote: post #103
cc_ashby wrote: post #7

But what are you sacrificing in return for your “perseverance”? Very few people tend to look at the mind as a system, and also seem to ignore that depression, anxiety, panic disorders, etc. happen for a reason. The reason why modern humanity have increased risk of these symptoms is because they know, given their perhaps wrongly learned models of the world or otherwise, that even when they achieve their so-called life…

I disagree, perseverance is not the same as goal-seeking for goal seeking's sake, or at least, it doesn't have to be. Twenty years ago I set a thirty year goal, literally bet my life on it. It wasn't until two years ago that I was reasonably sure it had a chance of success. I had to, and continue to basically give up everything, no one funds very long term research, so I had to learn to live on less than $200 a month…

> I have seen and done things that most people couldn't imagine, that has been, many times, too weird to be believable even as fiction.

What? I'm really curious now. What is the project? What was the goal? Don't leave us hanging!

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#129

Post by circlefavshape »

eric4smith wrote: post #33

Yes to this. I often counsel my younger friends to have a "mission". Then once that is completed, to find another one. In fact, one can have multiple missions running at the same time. It's rarely said that marriage, kids, job, degree, a house, car, and most physical things are not missions. And in fact, most of these things -- unless accompanied by a "why am i doing this" and attendant missions/goals do not lead to…

Your last paragraph is insane

It is also untrue. I have no mission for my marriage, or my children. Neither did my parents, or my wife's parents, nor do my siblings. No divorce in that cohort, and no abandonment.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#130

Post by burntoutfire »

kerkeslager wrote: post #41
cc_ashby wrote: post #7

But what are you sacrificing in return for your “perseverance”? Very few people tend to look at the mind as a system, and also seem to ignore that depression, anxiety, panic disorders, etc. happen for a reason. The reason why modern humanity have increased risk of these symptoms is because they know, given their perhaps wrongly learned models of the world or otherwise, that even when they achieve their so-called life…

> But what are you sacrificing in return for your “perseverance”? Nothing that matters to you. If it mattered to you it would be a life goal. > The reason why modern humanity have increased risk of these symptoms is because they know, given their perhaps wrongly learned models of the world or otherwise, that even when they achieve their so-called life goals, that they wouldn’t achieve philosophical nor psychological…

> In his essay, Yes, We Have Noticed the Skulls, Scott Alexander notes that any intellectual movement that has been around for a while has made some mistakes, and is probably aware of them, so if there's some obvious failure of a movement, the people who still believe in the movement probably have learned from that failure. Communists are aware of Stalin murdering people and are wary of totalitarianism.

I'm not so sure about that. So far, we've had dozens of implementations of communism all over the world and 100% of them ended up being authoritarian (i.e. if you disagree with the ruling party, you go to jail) or straight up murderous. This uncanny correlation suggests that it may not be impossible to actually implement anything like communism without it being evil. Jordan Peterson explores reasons for why that might be so.

Post reply on HN