11–20 of 89 posts
I sincerely hope that nobody assumes that because this is on the top of HN that this isn't batshit crazy garbage. HN is an echo chamber that can turn a logical mind into one that starts assuming every premise upvoted on here is acceptable. Don't fall into that trap.
“The surprising science of happiness”, from Dan Gilbert, is one of the best TED talks of all time (over 4M views). In his amazing & funny 20’ presentation, he explains how our brains are wired and how it relates to happiness. The article reminded me of this great content
Happiness, like pain, is definitely a spectrum.
Speaking of ancestors, I think it is unfortunate that so many are unaware of what they found to be true about happiness, and what happiness is, and what it isn't. I am not impressed by evolutionary psychology and its superficial and half-baked just-so stories. Biology and psychology can give us hints and signs about things which are then folded into any sound account of the human person, but it is just that: informat…
Just because you don't have a dedicated word for something, doesn't mean that it is a foreign concept. In Arabic and Hebrew there's no dedicated verbs for "to have" or "to be" in the present tense, and yet these societies understand ownership and existence in the present perfectly. You can't take, like, two words from a language, and then say something meaningful about a whole society.
I now use alcohol as a way to "call upon my ancient ancestors to guide my actions".
I sincerely hope that nobody assumes that because this is on the top of HN that this isn't batshit crazy garbage. HN is an echo chamber that can turn a logical mind into one that starts assuming every premise upvoted on here is acceptable. Don't fall into that trap.
Can you elaborate on what you think is "batshit crazy garbage"? I'm not challenging the notion, I just think your post would have much more value if, instead of dragging HN's populace through the mud, you concentrated on specific points in the article that you think are prime examples of its impracticalities.
Aside from the ignorance of brain chemistry, situational factors that can contribute to depression, and the glaringly obvious fact of the subjectivity of how depression is experienced, the hubris to assert that this blogger ~knows the cure ~ inspires very little confidence in their credibility.
For example, if you read me the first few sentences of this article and then said “This was written by someone that doesn’t provide any reason to trust their reasoning” I would not be surprised. In fact if you told me that the person that brags about their cure for depression in their blog was not very bright, I wouldn’t see cause to argue with you.
I sincerely hope that nobody assumes that because this is on the top of HN that this isn't batshit crazy garbage. HN is an echo chamber that can turn a logical mind into one that starts assuming every premise upvoted on here is acceptable. Don't fall into that trap.
Can you elaborate on what you think is "batshit crazy garbage"? I'm not challenging the notion, I just think your post would have much more value if, instead of dragging HN's populace through the mud, you concentrated on specific points in the article that you think are prime examples of its impracticalities.
Her argument can best be illustrated by a paragraph from another article titled How I cured myself with evolutionary psychology [1]
> In order to cure my depression, I did the evolutionary psychology thing hard-core: I got married and had children. I dropped out of university. I moved to the countryside. I started to renovate and build houses and to grow food for my family.
As far as I can tell, she has no training as an evolutionary psychologist. It's self help woo woo wrapped up in barely coherent scientific jargon - that demographic loves evolutionary psychology because it can be used to spin any story you wish about why humans are the way they are.
[1] https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/how-i-cured-myself-with-...
Speaking of ancestors, I think it is unfortunate that so many are unaware of what they found to be true about happiness, and what happiness is, and what it isn't. I am not impressed by evolutionary psychology and its superficial and half-baked just-so stories. Biology and psychology can give us hints and signs about things which are then folded into any sound account of the human person, but it is just that: informat…
I don’t think we can look too much at our ancestors to conjure a definition of happiness.
It’s probably wrong to labor under the idea that people ought to be happy.
The fact that the human mind has such an infinite capacity for suffering and misery, while on the other hand having relatively less capacity for happiness, suggests that our minds are predisposed to not being happy, or not being happy for too long.