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U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs

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191–199 of 199 posts

Re: U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs

#191
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the US have higher depression rates than any country in Africa then? Aren't there a lot of people there under financial stress?

Just spitballing here, but a culture which focuses more on individualism, less emphasis on family and community. People disown their families over petty things like political differences, don't engage in their communities because they're shut up inside watching TV all day, then find themselves without social support networks to help when they're feeling down.

>petty things like political differences

To be fair, political differences are a result of moral and ethical ideology. It's fine to not involve yourself with someone whose ideology is antithetical to goodness as subjective as it may be for some.

I will never understand someone who says political differences are petty. Thinking that the traffic light's hue of yellow is a shade too light or dark is petty. Thinking that pregnant women should die because the unviable fetus their carrying is more important than they are is not petty.

Re: U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs

#192

People work twice as much for the same wage. Most households now have two full time workers. Strangers raise our kids. Affordable small houses are no longer built. There're few legal or free places to rest. The rich pay significantly less taxes than when America was in its prime. Poverty is the cause. The US will only get worse until citizens vote for corporations to pay their historical tax rates and reduce outsourc…

> The rich pay significantly less taxes than when America was in its prime. > The US will only get worse until citizens vote for corporations to pay their historical tax rates When do you consider America at its prime? Because I guarantee both taxation and government expenditure as a fraction of GDP were less than what they are now. If you're talking about the Gilded Age in the late 1800s, there literally wasn't an i…

The war on drugs was never about drugs. The war on terror was never about terror. The war on poverty was also never about poverty. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the intent behind these programs. For example, the War on Drugs was to disrupt minority and leftist populations explicitly.

Re: U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs

#193
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's debatable whether that is true for everyone . I know I've tried to make myself like men on several occasions. I was definitely willing and not doing it out of self-hatred.

I'm the opposite, I found that certain mental tools I'd developed in order to overcome my fear of heights and such, had inadvertently also allowed me to adopt just about any sort of sexuality (save for things involving sharp incongruity because my adhd pulls me out of it) with about two weeks to a month of conditioning. I did this a couple of years ago to increase the number of races I'm attracted to, in order to inc…

Have you tried with acts you don't like or just physical characteristics? I found that I could see attractiveness in men, but I could never engage in PIV intercourse or give them oral. (Which pretty much rules dating them out because that's a shitty thing to do). I can condition myself into most things, but men seem to be one of my sharp incongruities.

I'd bet that a substantial portion of humans are naturally bi and shaped by their environment but there are some humans that really are Kinsey 0s or 6s. We're just rarer. I'd also guess the reputation that conversion therapy has for not working is because anybody in such a hostile environment with even a smidge of opposite-sex attraction is going to act 'straight' and the only people sent off to the conversion camps are the people for whom it wouldn't work.

Re: U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rich pay significantly less taxes than when America was in its prime. > The US will only get worse until citizens vote for corporations to pay their historical tax rates When do you consider America at its prime? Because I guarantee both taxation and government expenditure as a fraction of GDP were less than what they are now. If you're talking about the Gilded Age in the late 1800s, there literally wasn't an i…

The war on drugs was never about drugs. The war on terror was never about terror. The war on poverty was also never about poverty. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the intent behind these programs. For example, the War on Drugs was to disrupt minority and leftist populations explicitly.

What was the explicit intent behind the War on Poverty?

Re: U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just spitballing here, but a culture which focuses more on individualism, less emphasis on family and community. People disown their families over petty things like political differences, don't engage in their communities because they're shut up inside watching TV all day, then find themselves without social support networks to help when they're feeling down.

>petty things like political differences To be fair, political differences are a result of moral and ethical ideology. It's fine to not involve yourself with someone whose ideology is antithetical to goodness as subjective as it may be for some. I will never understand someone who says political differences are petty. Thinking that the traffic light's hue of yellow is a shade too light or dark is petty. Thinking that…

People who are opposed to abortion absolutely don't want anyone to die. It's a trolley problem to them, one with varying degrees of answers and consequences. How would you like it if someone called you an evil murderer (or whatever you're implying they are after calling them "antiethical to goodness") for making a moral choice in the trolley problem? I can predict your reply, and I will tell you that to pro-life people, a fetus is a human life not unlike a 1 day old baby. If they believed otherwise, they wouldn't be against abortion, they'd agree with you.

Re: U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>petty things like political differences To be fair, political differences are a result of moral and ethical ideology. It's fine to not involve yourself with someone whose ideology is antithetical to goodness as subjective as it may be for some. I will never understand someone who says political differences are petty. Thinking that the traffic light's hue of yellow is a shade too light or dark is petty. Thinking that…

People who are opposed to abortion absolutely don't want anyone to die. It's a trolley problem to them, one with varying degrees of answers and consequences. How would you like it if someone called you an evil murderer (or whatever you're implying they are after calling them "antiethical to goodness") for making a moral choice in the trolley problem? I can predict your reply, and I will tell you that to pro-life peop…

A woman carrying an unviable fetus will die if she is forced to continue the pregnancy. The pro-life crowd overwhelmingly puts in place policy that doesn't take anything into consideration about the impact of the pregnancy on the mother. This means that they want her to die to punish her for her decision to have sex.

I'm not in favor of abortion personally but I will always be staunchly pro-choice. It's the only ethical, moral, and logical position one can have. Anything else is punitive and regressive.

See also preventing folks from getting medical care, access to support services, children having food at school, or any other conservative position on anything that drives the welfare of disadvantaged people. It's immoral, unethical, and illogical. You can safely cut those people out of your life without being petty or other vapid argumentative nonsense.

Re: U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs

#197
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Please have some perspective ("touch grass", if you will). I live in one of the most socially conservative states in the union and there are openly married gay people here, gainfully employed and forming a part of society. Meanwhile, in a full third of all the countries in the world, homosexuality is still illegal (sometimes punishable by death), and the majority of the world population still thinks homosexuality is…

A leading candidate for the 2024 US presidential election has made a campaign promise to make healthcare that I rely on virtually illegal. Dozens of representatives in congress have cosponsored a bill that would make it illegal to even teach doctors about this form of care. I would not survive without this care. Things may be worse in the rest of the world, but if healthcare I rely on is taken away then there is no way I will stay in this country.

Re: U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs

#198

[flagged]

How does that follow? The implication is that the USA would have less depression if there were no corporations. I disagree.

If corporations were at least like Mondragon Corporation, the US would be a lot farther.

I’m not sure what you mean by no corporations or why that is an implication.

China and other countries put corporations in their place all the time.

Re: U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I disagree with engaging with GP's non-comment, I also don't think this is really steel-manning their assumed point-of-view. Likely they are thinking of a society where corporations are "different" rather than "abolished".

I'm not a mind reader so it is hard to identify their POV, but it matches a popular brand of political sloganeering. In the context of depression, I think it is may be easier for people to project their unhappiness upon these faraway and indistinct entities outside of their control rather than deal with what might be the more immediate causes of their unhappiness. From that point perhaps it is worth asking if this br…

We live in a right wing world right now with the USA as the center of right wing capitalism. Trying to blame individuals is a common tactic in the current status quo.
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