Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels • Hacker News Board

Re: Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

#421

Post by tblt » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 3:03 PM UTC

DrillShopper wrote: post #410

falcor84 wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know where you're coming from, but despair is never the logical response. Whatever the situation is, it's better to do something about it, even if it's just to rage and call for help, rather than to quietly despair. Regardless of how bad things are, we still have hope, both as individuals and as a civilization.

> despair is never the logical response My partner is disabled and her transplanted kidney is failing. She will, in the next year or two, need dialysis and then a kidney transplant. Her Medicaid will be cut. The hospital she goes to will be closed. Both as a result of a bill that just passed. The average kidney transplant out of pocket costs $250,000, and because her first transplant happened before she met me, my in…

Despair seems eminently logical in your situation; I felt it, when I put myself in your shoes, reading your comment. That is not to say it need take precedence, or supremacy, to that most human of emotions: hope. I have hope, that you and your partner will prevail, and live a life agreeable to both your terms. I’m sure many who read your story will too. Please, lean on hope, not despair.

Re: Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

#422

Post by nradov » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 3:07 PM UTC

machinawhite wrote: post #356

nradov wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers only have to provide accommodations for actual diagnosed disabilities. And even then legally required accommodations only have to be reasonable . If the job fundamentally requires showing up for meetings and completing assignments on schedule then employers don't need to allow disabled employees to be late.

AHDH is an actual diagnosed disability. If I have to take meds that would leave you tweaking for 3 days then employers better allow me being late sometimes.

Nope. A disability diagnosis isn't a blank check where employers have to accommodate everything you want. If the job requires being on time then at least under the Americans with Disabilities Act an employer is totally allowed to fire an employee who shows up late. There are some nuances here that won't fit in a comment so consult an employment attorney if you have questions about your legal rights.

Re: Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

#423

Post by rorylaitila » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 3:10 PM UTC

Psychology (professional and layman) has helped me immensely, but I also recognized it can be a trap. I had a therapist for a couple months help me through an intense depression, but I could also feel when it was becoming naval gazing, so then I stopped.

Psychology is a means to an end. But some people are attempting to make it an end. I do feel a cathartic release to get a 'diagnosis', but this catharsis is transient. There is infinite sub-categorizations to achieve infinite catharsis, but each further division, brings diminishing returns.

I hope that this trend is going to burn itself out. There is no promised land in medical psychology as popularly experienced. It can be used as a scaffold to leap into a higher self-awareness, but then it must be left aside.

Re: Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

#424

Post by watwut » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 3:11 PM UTC

giingyui wrote: post #303

It’s surprising that this article doesn’t mention LGBT or disabilities at all. The same effect extends to those two. And, in the same vein, it’s females “buying” it. “…between 19% and 22% of women aged 18 to 25 identify as bi.” https://nypost.com/2023/04/18/gen-z-women-identify-as-bisexu...

Why would it be unrealistic for 20% of women to like women too at least somewhat? It is not stigmatized anymore. And statistically, males are more more dangerous partly due to strength and partly due to ideologies they sign up for. So, a woman a little attracted to other woman has more motivation to admit it.

The phenomenon of men having sex relationships with other men in male only environments (jail, army) existed before. They reverted to heterosexual relationships when they left the environment and would not call themselves "bi". It is opposite side of it - clearly having something out of same sex relation did not made them bi, because it would be shameful.

Re: Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

#425

Post by seethedeaduu » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 3:17 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #408

seethedeaduu wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of my doctor who thought that adhd was not real and his solution to my issues was "just do it lmao"

You're really missing the point. No one here is claiming that ADHD isn't real. It's listed in the DSM. But there are practical techniques that people can use to improve their lives regardless of whether they have a mental health condition or not.

He did not deny that it is in DSM or that there are people who fit the definition provided there.

Usually such techniques tend to not work when they are suggested by people who haven't experienced the consdition and haven't put serious thought into them.

Re: Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

#426

Post by watwut » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 3:21 PM UTC

jjani wrote: post #187

parpfish wrote: post #63

Decades ago in my first abnormal psych course, the prof warned us that there was an almost iron-clad law that students will immediately start self diagnosing themselves with “weak” versions of every disorder we learn about. In my years since then, it has absolutely held true and now is supercharged by a whole industry of TikTok self-diagnoses. But there are a few things we can learn from this: - if you give people th…

> But there are a few things we can learn from this: > - if you give people the chance to place a label on themselves that makes them feel unique, they’ll take it. This is almost the opposite of what we can learn about this, and the article does a great job at pointing that out. It's a very recent social phenomenon. Yes, that contradicts your abnornal psych class, but think about it. 20 years ago (in 2005), did anyon…

20 years ago, in our math and tech focused university, people were literally pretending to have lower social skills then they had. People would do weird things on purpose and brag about social mishaps. Because lower social skills were associated with being genius and everyone wanted to be seen as a genius.

Obviously, if your deficit appears only when it is socially advantageous and disappears when disadvantageous, it is something else. But it was a thing.

Re: Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

#427

Post by mystified5016 » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 3:32 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #101

parpfish wrote: post #63

Decades ago in my first abnormal psych course, the prof warned us that there was an almost iron-clad law that students will immediately start self diagnosing themselves with “weak” versions of every disorder we learn about. In my years since then, it has absolutely held true and now is supercharged by a whole industry of TikTok self-diagnoses. But there are a few things we can learn from this: - if you give people th…

> - if you give people the chance to place a label on themselves to give a name/form to a problem, they’ll take it. This one is widespread among the young people I’ve worked with recently. It’s remarkable how I can identify the current TikTok self diagnosis trends without ever watching TikTok. There’s a widespread belief that once you put a label on a problem, other people are not allowed to criticize you for it. Man…

This was a huge trend on Tumblr like ten years ago. The millennials got bit bad by this and I guess genz inherited it.

Or maybe this is just how young people think when given access to this type of information.

Re: Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

#428

Post by pseudalopex » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 3:37 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #399

zug_zug wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you're approaching this as a hard-scientist that's not the case (for psychology). Because "disorder" may be on a spectrum, because "negative" and "impact" may be on a spectrum. Conditions like depression follow a bell-curve, there's no clear line between depressed and not, and we can draw a line in the sand, but statistically there's no justification for where that line falls. One way to try to draw a line i…

> there's no clear line between depressed and not There’s a meaningful line in the sand for treatments with major side effects. CBT therapy may be “fine” for normal people, but the most effective treatment for depression is ECT which has major side effects. Including a ~1 in 50k chance of death. Saying something is a bell curve distribution is an approximation, it doesn’t mean there’s actually a continuous function o…

When to resort to ECT is a subjective decision of doctor and patient. It is clear it should come after other treatments failed. But there is no clear line.

Re: Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

#429

Post by pseudalopex » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 3:43 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #278

Aurornis wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - if you give people the chance to place a label on themselves to give a name/form to a problem, they’ll take it. This one is widespread among the young people I’ve worked with recently. It’s remarkable how I can identify the current TikTok self diagnosis trends without ever watching TikTok. There’s a widespread belief that once you put a label on a problem, other people are not allowed to criticize you for it. Man…

I think after a few expressions of time blindness, they'll discover that their contracts have continuity deficiency and their career vertical expression challenges. The feedback of reality will fix it, like for all young people.

> The feedback of reality will fix it, like for all young people.

Decades of studies refute this.

Re: Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

#430

Post by stevenAthompson » Mon, Jul 07, 2025, 3:43 PM UTC

machinawhite wrote: post #411

stevenAthompson wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> better allow me being late sometimes That would depend on the jobs requirements, wouldn't it? In some roles that might be a complete deal breaker. For example, anything customer/client facing. If you can't perform the jobs duties with reasonable accommodation, maybe you should find another job? Similarly, if you are 3 feet tall you'll likely never be the worlds slam dunk champion. Not even if they provide you with…

[flagged]

> fun and easy

It's not fun or easy for anyone to find a new job. However, it's usually less painful than staying if you're poorly suited to your current role.

We all have strengths and weaknesses. The secret to living a good life is learning to take an honest inventory of your personal capabilities and then figuring out how to work with what you have.

I truly hope that things improve for you.