151–160 of 185 posts
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Perhaps HN attracts many gifted folks? Would that be so unexpected? The level of discourse is quite high.
Is this a joke?
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Uhm. "Not giving a damn" doesn't cause depression I think. It's kinda the other way around? You know, caring too much and whatnot, or caring about things you can't change in a way as if you could. Personally, I find the heat death of the universe comforting. That is, considering human society as it is now: no matter what, there will be no boot stamping on a human face forever . Those who "become one with the dust" ca…
where there is no reason to believe power, control and deception will not be absolute and insubvertible one day But neither is there a reason to believe they will be. If the universe has no teleology, that means it does not inevitably tend towards evil.
Yes, I agree with that, I just didn't know how to put it.
But still, the idea of complete autocratic slavery for a million years is such a bad scenario for me, that even just a small likelihood would be enough for me to welcome the fact that nothing lasts forever. Having that idea in a world where chickens are stuffed into dark rooms and have their beaks singed off so they don't peck each other to death doesn't help.
Maybe the universe doesn't tend towards evil, but power sure does. And newborns don't change; that is, humans get born as blank slates, but are faced with and molded by structures that can be arbitrarily old, complex and twisted. We no longer know what our parents know by the time we're 10; most of us wouldn't find out half of what is going on if we lived to be 1000. And it really only takes one sufficiently isolated generation to rewrite history into anything you want. And those who would want to do that, will make sure it's nasty and sticky. That doesn't mean it will come to that, but it really only takes one singularity event, doesn't it. So if it came to that, chances might be good it will not come to anything else ever again.
The Roman Empire didn't collapse because they thought "let's do something else instead, this is really petty and dumb", but because there was an outside, and because communication got slow as it grew in size. That communication changed a lot is obvious, and I would argue if you consider it from a class perspective, not from a nation perspective, there is no outside either, it's one huge blob. There may be an "outer lower class", but plenty of it identifies with and loves big brother dearly, and when push comes to shove, you don't really need that many faithful, you don't even need the smartest, they just need to be really dedicated and obedient and have the best weapons money can buy. And then there is robotics. I really fear that in a few hundred years tops it'll be _over_, if we keep on sleepwalking like we do.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic, and surely I read and watched too much dystopian science fiction; but I kinda think the reason we don't live on conveyor belts in a world made out of cast iron is because we're still building that world; but not because that's not exactly the world power wants, must want. Of course, such a blind lust for power is also by definition lacking in awareness, if not to say stupid. So there's that hope always, too, that it might trip over itself.
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Your [excellent] post was essentially written over 2000 years ago in the short old testament book of Ecclesisates. "Everything is meaningless, there is nothing new under the sun, nobody is completely righteous, etc." It is the height of folly to think that people a hundred generations ago didn't have the same frustrations.
Thanks, I was aware I was rambling more about being frustrated about society than existential depression, and probably being unfair to the poster I replied to, but I couldn't help myself. I love me some cherry picked OT, there is so much wisdom in it! I also love this: When people no longer fear the power of government, a far greater empowerment appears, the Great Integrity, which never needs to enforce itself. Then,…
Actually, I think you were more on target than not, as it is very difficult to delink the two. The article discusses frustration about society or the "less-than-ideal" state of things as some of the preconditions leading up to the existential depression that some gifted kids experience.
Sure, there remain issues of our smallness, purpose, etc. However, I have often wondered what the Laozi quote you referenced crystallizes so well: what if we weren't all induced to participate in this "Matrix" of a society that pushes many of us into a life of subsistence while others profit from our efforts? What if instead we were more community than competitors and were more free to pursue what fulfills us and betters humankind? Would we feel as small and hopeless? Or would we be empowered and enlightened by our hand in creating and participating in a just society? And would the discoveries and progress that ensue as a result of so much effort and brainpower dedicated to causes other than personal economic benefit actually offset at least some of our sense of lostness and insignificance? That is, would we be more evolved and literally more significant or aware of our significance? Perhaps we humans are actually far, far more powerful and significant than any of us presently realize.
The world's resources would surely support such an arrangement if our mechanisms for allocating them were more evolved than "mere economics".
Surely, when gifted kids have such thoughts but are instead forced headlong into the Matrix, the temptation towards a more hopeless state and subsequent existential depression becomes highly possible if not probable.
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Just don't get too used to thinking being gifted is particularly rare and requires a different system to thrive. Many acquaintances of mine at a certain crimson ivy university grew up with similar notions, and got into a different kind of depression once being surrounded by other 'gifted' individuals - due to having the 'world view' they've internalized so far, around the notion of them being special, getting totally…
I agree that the system makes us think we're a special little snowflake and I've had the whole "I'm not that special" crushing experience, but I do truly believe that gifted children need a different environment to thrive. I wouldn't have lasted long among my peers, socially and academically.
I think this is a really pathetic reason to be depressed. And these "gifted" people have it all wrong. No, the laws of physics don't directly dictate that all governments be democratic, or that people drive on the right side of the road. But if they thought about the world on a deeper level, they would realize that there is structure, and that it's breathtakingly-beautiful (albeit subtle and not always easy to pick u…
AFAIK Depression isn't something one reasons oneself into.
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where there is no reason to believe power, control and deception will not be absolute and insubvertible one day But neither is there a reason to believe they will be. If the universe has no teleology, that means it does not inevitably tend towards evil.
But neither is there a reason to believe they will be. Yes, I agree with that, I just didn't know how to put it. But still, the idea of complete autocratic slavery for a million years is such a bad scenario for me, that even just a small likelihood would be enough for me to welcome the fact that nothing lasts forever. Having that idea in a world where chickens are stuffed into dark rooms and have their beaks singed o…
While I've read a fair bit of existentialist works I've never seen this term, but I think I know what it means. I also think the article would be improved by just titling itself "Existential Depression". The narrow focus is odd, even if true, and might serve better as a footnote. There's the strangest feeling I come across from time to time, and I think "come across" is the only good way to describe it. Everyone has…
The narrow focus is odd, even if true, and might serve better as a footnote. Not odd at all. The concentration or severity of existential depression in gifted children is well documented if not well known. And Jim Webb, the author, has devoted a good deal of his life (30+ years) to understanding the needs of and helping the gifted, with a focus on gifted children [1]. He also founded SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs…
Where is there any evidence WHATEVER that the severity of existential depression is any different for gifted people than it is for anybody else? I know Jim Webb, and I'm pickled in the writings of the gifted education movement. (I'll be spending the following two weeks presenting parent seminars on gifted education at Epsilon Camp 2013, so I keep up with all the latest literature on this subject.) I think "existential depression" is a euphemism used for "depression" among some but fortunately not all families who have gifted children--nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else.
Yes, it is crucial to help people who feel depressed, and I applaud anyone on HN who does so when depression comes up in submitted stories or comment threads from time to time. But I see utterly no evidence in the professional literature on depression that the manifestation of depression is much different in gifted people from its manifestation in all other human beings. Everyone who experiences depression needs to feel connected with fellow human beings who show compassion.
I'm not sure how much being gifted has to do with it. Strangely, one of the things that has helped develop my framework for life is a fanfiction (Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality) [1], written by Eliezer Yudkowsky.
I think it's been recommended several times before on Hacker News, but it really is a great fanfiction. The protagonist is an atheist and transhumanist who wants to defeat death.
The author has also written many other essays that I find interesting and sane. I'm an atheist who has occasionally struggled with the idea of death and meaninglessness, and his essays were the first viewpoints that seemed to make sense. [2] [3]
[2] http://yudkowsky.net/other/yehuda
[3] http://lesswrong.com/lw/sc/existential_angst_factory/
I really recommend that anyone here who has struggled with existential depression to read the above three writings. Of course, it's very possible that you'll still be depressed, in which case you'll need to look for other solutions.
But Eliezer's writing helped significantly in cleaning up my life views.
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I've often thought that in a warped, twisted way totalitarianism gives meaning to life for certain people. If it opression is so intense to make life worthless, then one has a cause dearer than life itself - to fight this opression. This struggle itself is meaningful. Many 'hero' movies are structured in this way, the 'good guys' have a cause, usually around defeating some kind of evil, that gives them ultimate purpo…
Man's Search for Meaning is about totalitarianism to the extreme; having no freedom except that in how you choose to react. The author was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. And about first world banality - the book of Ecclesiastes in the the bible addresses this also: "I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all…
I faced this "existential" crisis of a pretty severe nature in my college years. I kept reading stuff about psychology, philosophy, and physics in the hopes of an answer. The first breakthrough against this existential demon came in the form of a course "non-linear dynamics and chaos", the ability of chaotic equations to exhibit life and nature like behaviour, and understanding that life is chaotic, and so is nature.…
I loved this comment and went through a serious critical study of those domains as well. I have a clarifying question: Isn't human consciousness and troublesome curiosity -- things you seem to be minimalizing and attempting to tone down -- just as real as everything else? Could your view that questioning your place in the universe as futile not be seen as escapist/defeatist? Why do you trust the biological system for…
Rest of this stuff is revealed when you actually do something, and push your limits in it, the patterns that are revealed, and how the system based abstractions and patterns really transcend various fields of knowledge and practice.
Anyways. This is what I think, and since I am not rich or haven't "made it big", , I won't be taken seriously by many people. And when, and if, I get rich, people would try to "dig my brain", so to say. But I don't think a lot of this stuff is "portable". Everyone needs to realize this type of stuff on their own, come up with their own explanation.