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Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com

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Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

#101

Post by AngryData »

adamwong246 wrote: post #16
notmyjob wrote: post #11

“The prevalence of cognitive disorders is increasing year by year, placing a heavy burden on patients, families, and society. It is estimated that the total annual cost of dementia disease in China will reach $1.89 trillion in 2050 [4]. However, there is no drug that can stop or reverse the progression of dementia.” That is my own RNT. If only there were a way to escape from this reality. Death, taxes and global popu…

It's common for old fogies to claim that the future is bad and the past was best. But I don't remember a time in my life that was this stressful. I really do think the world is getting crazier, dumber, and just all around worse, this past decade most specifically. It seems the world has decided to just go nuts, shift into overdrive and metaphorically drive off a cliff. Everybody wants to escape the real world and liv…

I don't think its getting especially dumber and crazier now, but more like we let dumb and crazy fester and let the problems keep building for decades while we used technological progress as a distraction from it all and an excuse to do as little as possible. People started believing technological progress will fix everything and that 30 years down the live they will be living like the Jetsons with personal butler robots so that the problems of today don't matter, except it didn't happen, and will continue to not happen, and problems continue to mount.

Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

#104

Post by OhioMan2943 »

bogdan wrote: post #103
OhioMan2943 wrote: post #102

Looks like we're in for further mass cognitive decline given the state of the world then. Cheery.

Don't be so negative.

Hard not to be negative when you're 22 and have firsthand knowledge of how emotionally and intellectually stunted the coming generation is, and how much you've lost out on.

Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

#108

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

hliyan wrote: post #28

I have a personal theory (I'm sure it's not a novel one and it probably has a name) that human brains are naturally predisposed to negative thought than positive thought because our brains are essentially evolved prediction engines. And because it is often easier and faster to lose something than gain it (e.g. it is usually less urgent to act on the signs of deer you might want to hunt and eat, than the sign of a tig…

It seems to be an established fact that humans are loss averse, and feel the pain of a loss more than the pleasure of a gain. This seems to make sense from an evolutionary point of view - taking a risk to gain something, at the expense of losing something already in hand, seems generally maladaptive (perhaps moreso when you are old and frail, and less resilient to loss).

Perhaps this translates into a tendency to dwell on the negatives of a situation rather than the potential benefits?

OTOH the human mind seems to fail in common ways when old age and dementia sets in, perhaps with no benefit, so this may just be one of those things. Old people tend to have bad joints. News at 11.

Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

#109

Post by munificent »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #104
bogdan wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be so negative.

Hard not to be negative when you're 22 and have firsthand knowledge of how emotionally and intellectually stunted the coming generation is, and how much you've lost out on.

Consider how emotionally and intellectually stunted many generations were hundreds of years ago when information wasn't available, we knew very little about human psychology, and the state of medicine and technology meant that almost everyone suffered incredible trauma in their lives.

And yet those where the generations that by care and force of will eventually birthed ours.

Yes, it is a very scary time in the world right now. But it's not as scary as the Great Death, the Great Depression, or WWII and we were able to get from those to the prosperity that we have today.

Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

#110

Post by gxs »

jncfhnb wrote: post #84
gxs wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes perfect sense People forget that nature only optimizes for sexual reproduction and that’s pretty much it In this case for example, it doesn’t really give a shit about your psychological well being or shaving years off your life because of some negative thought pattern If being on your toes, anxious, paranoid, and always looking over your shoulder keeps you alive and making babies - then as far as the devel…

> People forget that nature only optimizes for sexual reproduction and that’s pretty much it Common misunderstanding. Evolution optimizes for system success. Not individual gene propagation. Genomes are not agents with individual goals. Many species, but especially social animals, have numerous behaviors and traits designed to prompt communal success rather than individual survival and reproduction

It may be more of a common over simplification than misunderstanding

Even saying it optimizes for system success is an oversimplification it just depends how far down the rabbit hole you want to go

My only intention was to communicate and stress that we aren’t “designed” in the way a lot of people think

But thanks for the clarification

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