Earlier quoted context omitted.
When taking care of a neighbor is none of your business, what you have with them is not community.
What you have with them is not the community you envision.
Arguments over definitions don't add to the conversation.
No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse
101–110 of 137 posts
Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse
#102From the article: >Lorenz isn’t wrong to suggest that economic conditions can influence the prevalence of mental distress. Unemployment and poverty are both major risk factors for depression. Recessions are associated with elevated rates of suicide. And there is some evidence that robust social-welfare states improve mental health by reducing material insecurity. It is therefore reasonable to suspect that America’s r…
The whole point of the article is that, although in general economic conditions can negatively impact mental health, in this case the increase in mental health problems does not coincide with a deterioration in overall economic conditions.
The point of the article seems more like NY Mag getting clicks by having one of their writers throw together a rebuttal to some recently popular tweets. I think the lack of seriousness is highlighted by the paragraph I quoted along with other bits from the author like this one:
>Thus it is possible that the social pathologies cited by Lorenz are preconditions for today’s mental-health crisis.
and
>It’s possible that Lorenz’s general intuitions may someday be validated.
and
>What we can say with confidence is that we do not know and that we owe it to those suffering in our mental-health crisis to be honest about that fact.
It’s clickbait meant to congratulate people that disagreed with Lorenz before they clicked on the article. Its substance is considerably less strong or confident than the headline assigned by the editor.
Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you have with them is not the community you envision.
Arguments over definitions don't add to the conversation.
Yes that would be preposterous. What adds to the conversation is to snipe arguably at least 2nd if not 3+rd comment regarding the use of the word, then simply say the comment doesn't add to the conversation and nothing more. I truly appreciate this non-hypocritical value add.
Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW, it appears it's a free read for those of us who have never visited before. It's a very thought-provoking article and one that deserves more time than just might lunch break to ponder. In particular, this quote at the end of the article articulates an increasing discomfort I've been feeling around conversations about harm: > I am increasingly convinced that there are tremendously negative long-term consequences,…
It is different from saying, "If we teach people to recognize ways they've been harmed, then they feel bad, so we shouldn't teach them how to recognize harm"? Framed another way, it looks like the language of harm is winning in the marketplace of ideas and the language of "those aren't actually that bad," is losing.
The important language is the language of "actions you can take by yourself and with others to meaningfully address your problems in a variety of ways".
Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Arguments over definitions don't add to the conversation.
Yes that would be preposterous. What adds to the conversation is to snipe arguably at least 2nd if not 3+rd comment regarding the use of the word, then simply say the comment doesn't add to the conversation and nothing more. I truly appreciate this non-hypocritical value add.
The previous commenters are disagreeing over whether "community" (in the locale sense) is distinct from "neighborhood". Not (from what I see) the extent to which "unified body" or "common interests" are present when the individuals of such a body do not see to the interests of members of the body.
The fundamental argument between jackson1442, Dalewyn, and giraffe_lady is this argument as to whether a "good neighbor" can exist if a community does not exist. Dalewyn is saying "yes", jackson1442 and giraffe_lady are saying "no".
You're stating that "community" encompasses both. And by stating that you're effectively ignoring the definition of the term that giraffe_lady and jackson1442 are using. If ignoring this distinction was not your intent, then your original comment needed to be more verbose.
Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is different from saying, "If we teach people to recognize ways they've been harmed, then they feel bad, so we shouldn't teach them how to recognize harm"? Framed another way, it looks like the language of harm is winning in the marketplace of ideas and the language of "those aren't actually that bad," is losing.
The important language is the language of "actions you can take by yourself and with others to meaningfully address your problems in a variety of ways".
That just doesn't pass the smell test. It sounds like what you want to say is that, "people should spend their effort on fixing things they have control over," but instead it's coming out as, "language that expresses concepts that people can't affect is less important."
It's trivial to find a counter example to the argument expressed literally. I can't change the laws of physics. Therefore the language used to express the laws of physics is less important. The conclusion doesn't make any sense because the argument doesn't make any sense.
Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
The important language is the language of "actions you can take by yourself and with others to meaningfully address your problems in a variety of ways".
That just doesn't pass the smell test. It sounds like what you want to say is that, "people should spend their effort on fixing things they have control over," but instead it's coming out as, "language that expresses concepts that people can't affect is less important." It's trivial to find a counter example to the argument expressed literally. I can't change the laws of physics. Therefore the language used to expres…
When compared to the "language of harm" and the language of "everything's really kind of okay".
This third language is the language of "I don't like the status quo, or a change to the status quo. How do I deal with this?" You can deal with it through:
- Changing your point of view.
- Changing your circumstances.
- Tackling it head on to stop it.
- Team with others to address it.
That's all that I meant. The first two options kind of go with the "it's not so bad" language, and the last three with the "language of harm" (yes, option 2 kind of belongs to both). So it's really not an alternative to either, but the means of moving on from the other two.
Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes that would be preposterous. What adds to the conversation is to snipe arguably at least 2nd if not 3+rd comment regarding the use of the word, then simply say the comment doesn't add to the conversation and nothing more. I truly appreciate this non-hypocritical value add.
The previous commenters are disagreeing over whether "community" (in the locale sense) is distinct from "neighborhood". Not (from what I see) the extent to which "unified body" or "common interests" are present when the individuals of such a body do not see to the interests of members of the body. The fundamental argument between jackson1442, Dalewyn, and giraffe_lady is this argument as to whether a "good neighbor"…
giraffe used the pattern of "X is not A"
I used the same pattern to further weaken it to "X is not A of type B" (which, logically, must be true if giraffe's statement is true).
They've said it's not 'A.' My statement was COMPATIBLE in fact with their original statement being true, it just leaves open the door that it may not be. It's certainly possible something could be both not a community and not the community they envision, and in fact if it weren't a community it couldn't possibly be the one they envision. Nothing I said necessarily conflicts with their definition.
Given that the comment I responded to and my comment used very similar patterns with mine only weakening the 'not' possibilities I'm really struggling to understand why my comment suddenly crossed the line to you. It didn't even assert the previous comment or definition was incorrect.
Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
+1 to this How many teens had to watch their parent come home and announce that they got laid off from their job and that this year there wasn't going to be a yearly family trip?
Yearly vacations are a fairly modern thing. My older relatives have stories about not being able to afford food, either due to the depression, or rationing during the war. Car ownership in the US broke 50% mid-century. The majority of my silent-generation relatives never, in their entire lives, traveled more than 100 miles from their birthplace. Poverty and unemployment continue to exist in other places around the gl…
I believe that humans adapt to their environment and I think any one can live a happy life without X or Y luxury, in this case a family trip.
What I’m talking about is a sudden change in normalcy - since you were a kid every year there was a trip. Now there’s not a trip.
If I put you in a loincloth with a club in the wilderness, you might be pretty upset at that. But literally millions (billions?) of our cro magnon ancestors did it just fine.
Re: No, Teen Suicide Isn’t Rising Because Life Got Objectively Worse
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In many cases we have replaced those personal obligations (e.g. to take care of elders) with abstract government funded systems. I can almost guarantee that young people don't have social security on the top of their minds. It's school school school internship work, that's it. Those bars are raised each year. Leisure time is social media and video games. All that got amplified in 2020. Not hard to see why they're d…
> I can almost guarantee that young people don't have social security on the top of their minds. It's school school school internship work, that's it. Those bars are raised each year. Leisure time is social media and video games. All that got amplified in 2020. Not hard to see why they're depressed. You’re assuming a level of insight into people’s meta-knowledge of their own mental state that I don’t think is warrant…
It's incredibly ironic that you're accusing the parent post of "assuming a level of insight into people’s meta-knowledge of their own mental state" while up and down the thread you're making gigantic reactionary assumptions about what cultural factors are causing teens to feel less fulfilled today. It feels good and easy to pine for the "good old days" where 50% of kids flipped burgers at McDonald's or whatever but the fact of the matter is, given how many confounding variables there are, you're just as clueless as anyone else about this.
If we're going to make random stabs in the dark and bring in our own bargain basement personal opinions into this, I can tell you at least that interacting with my abusive family much less has only been fantastic for my mental health. Obviously this isn't the case for everyone, but maybe that's not important and I should just universalize this viewpoint like you, right?