Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#231

Post by williamtrask » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 5:26 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #193

remarkEon wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans have tried "we believe in nothing", throughout history, and yet ... I see no Cathedrals, no beautiful songs, no art, no science, no entire civilizations built to the honor of ... nothing. >which is why people are leaving it. Attendance at TLM is increasing , not decreasing.

>I see no Cathedrals, no beautiful songs, no art, no science, no entire civilizations built to the honor of ... nothing. Not believing in God isn't equivalent to a belief in nothing. Of course, plenty of songs, art and literally all of science have been created outside of the religious sphere. It seems regressive to the point of being archaic to dismiss the validity of all human effort not explicitly done in "honor"…

I think it’s interesting to observe that science is a fork of religion both in historical record and in substance, but with the “belief in something” removed. At its base is the same problem: nobody lives long enough to know what’s going on, so we write it down in a literary cannon of truth. Science’s entrance requirement is based on the scientific method (repeatable experimentation). Religions tend to have differing entrance requirements. Perhaps the most common (and useful to this convo) is the opposite of science: things I saw that break the pattern (miracles, disasters, etc….divine interventions) and which cannot be repeated.

If we do live in a simulation this is the only kind of evidence that could point to it… external signs that break the rules of the game. But by definition science cannot discover this kind of information.

Also religions have a knack for solving collective action problems through locally irrational beliefs (like karma). Science has trouble allowing these into a cannon. In the case of karma this is because it’s unscientific. It’s not enough to believe that karma would be good for society scientifically and thus we should believe in it. This doesn’t solve the prisoners dilemma. It’s only by (everyone) literally believing in karma that it can have its effect.

It’s things like this that science structurally struggles to contribute to society. Proving things outside the system (we’re in a simulation), consciousness, collective action, etc.

Not: It’s also worth noting that many of the greatest scientists and artists were religious. Hard to know where to give credit there.

Nit: A photo from Hubble isn’t beautiful because of the telescope, it’s beautiful because of what nature made it to be. Hubble is merely a reflection.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#232

Post by sidlls » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 5:27 AM UTC

weakfortress wrote: post #138

zmgsabst wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, college is when that transition happens: - freshman year, start off supported and end with a job - sophomore year, housing is dorms but otherwise on your own - junior and senior year, apartments with roommates and supporting yourself

What era is this? Certainly it's not the last 20-25 years. I don't remember being able to afford anything until after I graduated and was fortunate enough to have parents that let me live in the basement while I got on my feet. My college jobs were barely enough to feed me, pay the interest on my loans, and pay my parents a pittance for my chunk of the power bill. Maybe it's easier for these kids to get a programming…

I moved into an apartment before my freshman year was done. Worked two jobs and had loans, scholarships, etc. That was a bit more than 25 years ago though.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#233

Post by skibidibipiti » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 5:28 AM UTC

granshaw wrote: post #216

lostmsu wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my sample of 1 young adults no longer fight to be treated like grown-ups. Moreover, don't seem to want that in the first place.

I find this pretty interesting - does it go hand in hand with younger generations seeing no hope for their future, whether it be climate change, being financially stable, having a fulfilling life, finding a partner?

Older generations had the incentives of getting to own a house, having a car, having a family, and having enough free time after work to enjoy these perks. Exploitative land lords, congested traffic or long commute times, and working late being a requirement for progression have extracted all the reward. Why do you think the stock market has bubbles so well recently? Boomers have gotten much better at extracting our wealth.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#234

Post by missedthecue » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 5:29 AM UTC

lostmsu wrote: post #208

this_user wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, US colleges/universities seem more like boarding schools. Here, no university would think that they have any business interfering with students' personal lives or anything they do outside a lecture hall, because they are considered adults. More broadly speaking, there seems to be a tendency in current US culture of infantilising young adults. I have repeatedly seen people in their early 20s referred to…

From my sample of 1 young adults no longer fight to be treated like grown-ups. Moreover, don't seem to want that in the first place.

I also see this very widespread! Young adults today seem to hold desperately onto parts of their youth. Entertainment, experiences, lifestyles, even food and clothing.

When I was a kid, it was a scramble to get your driver's license as soon as you were legally old enough. Today I know so many 22 year olds without a license and zero interest in getting it. Where has the ambition gone?

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#235

Post by ChuckMcM » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 5:29 AM UTC

I worry about generalizations in this regard, but consistently my daughter's peers in college who had helicopter parents were less functional. May simply be correlation of course so drawing conclusions would be bad.

That said, it's super hard to experiment on kids without getting in trouble :-). As a parent unfortunately you have to pick a path. My eldest had the tendency to only learn through experiencing the negative side effects of choices directly, called "natural consequences" in parenting books from the turn of the century. That led my wife and I to help get those experiences in early before they could do real harm and to try to give experience with things not going well, and then going back and taking a different route and experiencing things going better. Was that what helped them become functional adults in college? Or was it my wife insisting they did their own laundry once they turned 10? Three times a week one of them was asked to prepare dinner for the family once they were old enough to reach all of the appliances and use kitchen utensils with proper care.

You don't get multiple universes to try out different techniques to find the best one. Talking with other parents of similarly aged kids helps and is reasonably cathartic. Exposure to lots of different choices helps surface things that are similar and things that are different.

Conflict management is something else entirely. Both my and my wife's family of origin were "conflict avoiders," which really had a hard time growing beyond their specific complexes. When we found ourselves doing that with each other we recognized it and got some help with working through it. Our kids benefited by our modeling and all of them have remarked at one time or another that their friends have said something positive about their ability to negotiate touchy subjects. I count that as a win.

Bottom line is that parenting is a tough job and its good to seek out advice.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#236

Post by nradov » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 5:30 AM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #159

jim-jim-jim wrote: post #43

This is mostly about parenting, but the point about conflict struck me. I've found that lots of people out there seemingly can't handle disagreement at all, and attribute a fundamental moral failure to their conversation partner if they don't see eye to eye. And most of these people are incredibly unhappy. I would be too if I couldn't trust anybody other than my perfect clone. It's an antiquated idea, but explicit cl…

>I've found that lots of people out there seemingly can't handle disagreement at all, and attribute a fundamental moral failure to their conversation partner if they don't see eye to eye. This is because we don't let kids fight each other on the playground anymore. No, I'm serious. For a lot of young people the first time they encounter real conflict that isn't adjudicated by some superior is when they're experiencin…

Zero tolerance towards violence was a huge mistake. I know there were legitimate concerns about school bullying, but violence will always be a part of the human condition and we need to develop some familiarity with it. Shielding children from that reality does them no favors.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#237

Post by williamtrask » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 5:32 AM UTC

xabotage wrote: post #115

meowtimemania wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the modern replacement for religion? Growing up I felt like I had this huge tight-knit community via the mormon church. I've since left mormonism and don't think I'll ever find a replacement for the community I had in the church.

There won't be an exact replacement because the circumstances that led to the community cannot (or rather, should not) be replicated. For the sake of the survival of the planet/species, I also don't think any institution based around magical thinking should fill the gap. Keep in mind that high-demand religions require a huge investment of time and money. Devoting even just a fraction of those resources to hobbies, ar…

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Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#238

Post by xabotage » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 5:40 AM UTC

williamtrask wrote: post #163

xabotage wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There won't be an exact replacement because the circumstances that led to the community cannot (or rather, should not) be replicated. For the sake of the survival of the planet/species, I also don't think any institution based around magical thinking should fill the gap. Keep in mind that high-demand religions require a huge investment of time and money. Devoting even just a fraction of those resources to hobbies, ar…

> For the sake of the survival of the planet/species, I also don't think any institution based around magical thinking should fill the gap. I know this won’t be a popular point, but I think we have nearly all of human history as evidence that “magical believing” societies survive more effectively than not. At any time literally any tribe could have chosen to believe in nothing. It’s almost impossible to think that no…

You are assuming that magical thinking is the optimal survival strategy as opposed to a lesser-evil byproduct of advanced cognition in a particular environment. This is like assuming that because all humans have appendices, having an appendix is necessarily a better survival strategy. It's not. It may have once served a purpose, but now the best it can do is kill you.

Nukes could wipe out the human race, but so could an asteroid. Coincidentally I'd be much less worried about having nukes if there was a lot less magical thinking in the world.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#239

Post by tnel77 » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 5:41 AM UTC

jasonhansel wrote: post #120

OJFord wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet they also expect children to live away from home fairly early for college Except American children away from home 'for college' are still exactly 'children', home with different parents. The culture of halls and canteens and the way it's funded is much more 'provided for you' than 'you're providing for yourself now'. I don't get the sense (from NA undergrads I've known, film, etc.) that much learning to cook go…

> Certainly anyone living 'off-campus' and having bills to pay is in a minority. Only among wealthier students: - 70% of students have jobs while enrolled, depending crucially on socioeconomic status: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/11/18/most-college-... - In typical public colleges, only 36% of students live in dorms, vs. 58% in typical private colleges: https://collegeaffordability.urban.org/prices-and-ex…

Related: I went to a private school and they required you to live on campus until you were a senior.

Also: the namesake of the college owned the student housing so he was making serious money from all that forced rental income.

Re: Young adults and mental health: Is more childhood independence the answer?

#240

Post by voviz » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 5:43 AM UTC

lostmsu wrote: post #208

this_user wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, US colleges/universities seem more like boarding schools. Here, no university would think that they have any business interfering with students' personal lives or anything they do outside a lecture hall, because they are considered adults. More broadly speaking, there seems to be a tendency in current US culture of infantilising young adults. I have repeatedly seen people in their early 20s referred to…

From my sample of 1 young adults no longer fight to be treated like grown-ups. Moreover, don't seem to want that in the first place.

From my sample of also N=1 (me, a 22 year old college student) I agree.

I don't fight with my parents because I'm conflict avoidant. Plus, I'm financially dependent on my parents. I'm not going to risk my food and shelter for abstract ideas like "agency" or "maturing."