Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

afterbabel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 824 posts

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#311

Post by scruple »

Filligree wrote: post #203
phil21 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mad rush to as quickly abolish religious practices in mainstream U.S. culture without any form of societal replacement is puzzling to me. I am no fan of religion having grown up in an exceedingly religious environment. But it was always completely obvious to me even as a child that the primary purpose of religion was to form local communities and have others with shared values to rely on. We seem to be doing it w…

> The mad rush to as quickly abolish religious practices in mainstream U.S. culture without any form of societal replacement is puzzling to me. > I am no fan of religion having grown up in an exceedingly religious environment. But it was always completely obvious to me even as a child that the primary purpose of religion was to form local communities and have others with shared values to rely on. It is a problem, but…

The church that I was raised in and grew up in for the first 18 years of my life... I became a militant atheist when I left that church at 18, close to 30 years ago. In my 30s, I started to drift between Zen Buddhism, Druidry, wicca, paganism, looked into Daoism, and on and on it went. And I finally realized, quite recently, that I had a God-shaped hole running right through the center of me. I still haven't quite figured out what to do about that, I've been looking deeply into Eastern Orthodox Christianity because I find it very compelling, and I have no interest in going back to Protestantism and am deeply troubled by the Catholic Church and it's hierarchy, but I have my doubts and skepticism still.

Regardless, I personally find all of that to be vastly preferable to whatever the fuck is happening to us in the absence of Christianity.

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#312

Post by Wytwwww »

Balgair wrote: post #223
dukeyukey wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a non-American who visited for the first time last year: > But, it's considered taboo to express a love of the USA American flags _everywhere_' Like seriously, I visited both liberal areas (Seattle) and conservative areas (Spokane's surrounds) and y'all patriotic as _fuck_. > Wars used to be a way to unify a country... Also because the US is just not threatened by anyone. I'd hope that going back to being…

> I'd hope that going back to being the Arsenal of Democracy for Ukraine (and maybe Taiwan or South Korea if things go bad) would've tied the US together, but man I was wrong there. I mean, it's not like we need to be rolling out a B-29 every minute or an aircraft carrier a week to defeat Russia there. Just cleaning out some of the stock from the 80's held them off for months. Logistically, the war in Ukraine just is…

At a certain point (probably to a large extent already) Ukraine will simply run out of manpower. Demographically it was in a very poor state to begin with to such a degree they had to keep the MINIMUM age of conscription at 27 and lowered it to 25 a few months ago.

There were only ~2.6 million men aged 15 to 30 and another 3 million in their 30s back in 2022. Around 0.6-0.8 million Ukrainian men have left the country for the EU (18-60, but I assume it's highly skewed towards lower ages).

A significant proportion (probably the majority) of those that remain in the country are not particularly motivated, capable or otherwise keen about going to the frontline. It's hard to tell but looking at estimates > 150k have died or been severely wounded and presumably a several times more suffered lighter injuries.

This isn't WW1/2. Poorly trained and/or highly unmotivated men are not very combat effective and mobilizing such a large proportion of population as back then is not feasible (especially considering that men in their 30s and 40s have been doing most of the fighting). So how long do you think Ukraine can hold out if we extrapolate the casualties rates from the last 12-24 months or so? By the time the West fully ramps up military production it might be too late.

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#313

Post by muffinman26 »

saulpw wrote: post #279
diputsmonro wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...but that doesn't have to affect their ability to engage with trans people, or vice versa. I disagree. How am I supposed to trust and feel safe around someone who knowingly voted for a politician who loudly campaigned on removing my rights and demonizing my very existence? A politician who supports an esoteric policy that disadvantages me in some way is entirely different than one who loudly and plainly says that…

Bingo. I'm afraid, internet stranger, that you are part of the problem here. The original topic for this thread was about "community" and the mental health crisis. Community brings diverse people into contact with each other, which fosters communication and thus has the potential to heal division and increase empathy. Do you not realize that a lot of people think that abortion is literally murder? That voting for the…

I would certainly be a better person if I was the sort of saint that can talk to people who hate my guts that badly, but not all of us are saints.

It's currently illegal for me to use a public bathroom in Florida. Or rather, technically I am legally required to use the women's bathroom, but since I have a significant beard it's quite likely the police would get called on me for attempting to do so.

The next best solution would be protest. What I should really be doing is flying to Florida, using the women's bathroom as legally required, and making sure that as many journalists and lawyers as possible know about the arrest. I haven't quite worked up the courage yet, though. Plenty of trans people can and do flee the states that have successfully deprived them of bathroom access and healthcare because they don't have the energy to stand and fight. The descent to attempted murder has already happened, and it's not the trans people starting it.

It's only a matter of time before so-called "pro-life" policies start killing people too. Hospitals in Idaho are flying women to other states because they're not legally allowed to end ectopic pregnancies - which are never viable and always result in the death of the mother if not terminated - until the woman is too close to death. (https://www.npr.org/2024/04/25/1246990306/more-emergency-fli...)

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#314

Post by ToValueFunfetti »

krapp wrote: post #256
2snakes wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certain elements that are not true. But other ones are true. There are many ways to alleviate suffering.

God is not true, at least not the sense that any religion claims (God as an abstraction and a meme is as real as any other, as real as Harry Potter or Slenderman) Claims of absolute moral right or authority derived from divine right are not true. Claims made by the religious that belief in God is a prerequisite to morality, community or cultural identity are not true. Claims made by religious teachings about the natu…

God is not a testable hypothesis. There is no empirical way to conclude God does not exist except by assuming that anything that cannot be tested does not exist. Such an assumption also rules out morality, as there is no empirical basis for that either.

Assuming you're utilitarian, you're working off of the untestable belief that making people happier has some property called 'goodness', and that there is some inherent value to it. But that doesn't even matter because happiness is a qualia that cannot be tested anyway.

So, while I agree that faith in God is not a prerequisite for morality, faith in something certainly is. And once you've allowed faith into your worldview, stating with certainty that God doesn't exist becomes inconsistent.

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#315

Post by s1gsegv »

api wrote: post #292
vegadw wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What frustrates me is that, it seems (Read as: the following is just my vibe) that the majority of 3rd places left are religious in nature, but I, personally, don't want to be religious or raise children that are. There are some options, of course, but they're limited and often of poor quality, at least locally. Libraries are trying to adapt to fill this gap, and maker spaces spring up but most don't have funding to…

You could even go so far as to say that third spaces that are tied to political, religious, or other types of groups are "monetized" in the sense that they exist to further the cause of growing that group. What's nearly extinct is neutral third spaces with zero agenda.

I suppose parks (national, provincial/state, or just local) and libraries are neutral.

Perhaps this was always true, but it seems for a brief time places like shopping malls were not as concerned as much somehow with having purely immediately profitable people inside and that’s why they were able to be that third place.

Hopefully in time a new generation of voters will want to fund more third places with taxes, because that seems to be the way to get long lasting third places that really do serve their purpose without an agenda.

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#316

Post by scruple »

nineplay wrote: post #243
phil21 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mad rush to as quickly abolish religious practices in mainstream U.S. culture without any form of societal replacement is puzzling to me. I am no fan of religion having grown up in an exceedingly religious environment. But it was always completely obvious to me even as a child that the primary purpose of religion was to form local communities and have others with shared values to rely on. We seem to be doing it w…

I understand what you mean, I grew up in a church with a youth group and group friends which I valued. However I also grew up with constant anxiety about sin and hell. It still gets back to me when my insomnia is bad. So churches and church membership aren't necessarily a net-positive. I too wish there was some sort of community my family could belong to. But I'm not taking my kids to church anytime soon.

> I also grew up with constant anxiety about sin and hell.

Erik Butler has a fantastic book on this overall subject called "The Devil and His Advocates" that you might be interested in.

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#317

Post by aantix »

fergonco wrote: post #57

Just a data point: In Valencia, Spain, in the 80s, children played in the street with no much supervision from parents. Occasionally we would stop the football match to let a car drive by. Forgetting your keys at home was no issue, you could get a glass of milk in ten different places while you wait for other (more attentive) members of your family. Nowadays there is hardly a place to park your car. Parents don't all…

There's now an intolerance to letting kids play freely.

And if you do let your kids play freely, and something happens - they get hurt, they break something, they're being loud, there's the attitude from others of "why aren't you watching your f*ing kid?".

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#318

Post by s1artibartfast »

bilbo0s wrote: post #267
dv_dt wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't the divorce rate also gone down. So one question is if the method of meeting is improving that rate

Yeah. Marriage rate and divorce rate have plummeted since 1940. Probably not much to do with electronic media there. A lot more likely that financial and social pressures are squeezing what were previously considered cultural imperatives. ie - church, marriage, home ownership, etc.

Or simply that fewer marginally good fit marriages are occurring.

Fewer teen marriages, shotgun weddings, ect.

There were always a lot of financial imperatives to wed.

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#319

Post by NickC25 »

squigz wrote: post #94
aklein wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, you need a mechanism. (Ice cream makes you fat, fat people can't swim, ergo drownings). Haight clearly outlines the mechanisms by which social media and smartphones have detrimental effects on mental health, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l2TdinWoM8

But ice cream doesn't make you fat. Eating too much ice cream makes you fat.

And if you swim enough, you can't get fat no matter how much ice cream you eat. Ever seen the diet Phelps was on? Guy ate like crap, has over 20 gold medals to his name.

Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community

#320

Post by ryandrake »

JohnFen wrote: post #38
xhrpost wrote: post #8

I've personally noticed that my own value of autonomy has often contributed to a reduction in social activity and community integration. I used to be very selective of what I did with others. If I had an invite from friends and the activity didn't seem immediately interesting to me, I'd decline. I've since learned to say yes more (but not always) to invites and particularly consider ones that are more outside my comf…

> If I had an invite from friends and the activity didn't seem immediately interesting to me, I'd decline. I have seen many (usually younger) people make this mistake. The mistake is thinking that the point of the activity is the activity itself. It isn't. The point is the genuine social engagement. (Edited to add:) > I've since learned to say yes more Years ago, I learned to change my default answer to things from "…

Usually, though, the activity at least needs to happen, otherwise the point of getting together goes out the window.

I used to host both movie nights and poker nights at my house for (different groups of) friends. These both slowly fizzled out and largely stopped, because people lost interest in doing anything besides scrolling their phones. Like we'd make popcorn, turn the lights down, start the movie, and within 5 minutes, everyone would be scrolling their Instagrams rather than watching the movie. Even before the opening credits were done, people were all tuned out. And these were movies everyone agreed to! Same for the card games. People would miss their turn and just not engage with the game because they were on their phones.

Asking people to leave their phones at the door or turn them off would be socially unacceptable.

So, yea, default to "yes" but please do actually show up and engage, too!

Post reply on HN