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The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
501–510 of 824 posts
Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's always looked to me like from a first approximation, people just do whatever they want and come up with justifications. The smarter they are, the more elaborate the justification. I doubt I'm above it.
I think you're right, but that developing a sense of ethics and believing those ethics and morals down to your bones will make you not want to do certain things. People without empathy don't have trouble lying to, stealing from, or committing violence against other people - but those things feel wrong to me intrinsically, because I was raised to feel empathy. But empathy is taught. Seemingly immoral things can be eve…
I suspect empathy is mostly nature with some influence via nurture. Once you encounter a few genuine psychopaths who aren’t particularly good at hiding it, it sure seems like it’s just something innate to them.
Certainly you can instill reverence in people - give people a challenge that involves using a cross as a hammer to complete and they’ll recoil instinctively, but I think that’s just software tapping into something more akin to firmware.
Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
#503Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
#504Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
Faith in something doesn't need presuppose faith in anything supernatural. And theists have no empirical basis for their morality either, because faith by definition is belief in the absence of such evidence. People just believe what they believe. I prefer to be fed rather than starve, I prefer peace to suffering, I prefer liberty to slavery. I'm a social being capable of empathy and extending my beliefs about myself…
Faith in something that is the basis for any morality absolutely does presuppose faith in something supernatural. If you know of anything in the natural world that proves the existence of right and wrong, by all means let me know. I don't disagree that theists lack empirical basis for morality, both because I don't think anyone does and because I don't believe there is an empirical basis for God. But it doesn't sound…
>If my friend Bob the sadist says he loves it when people starve, would you be in the right to tell him he's wrong? On what grounds?
You first. You don't believe there is an empirical basis for God yet you believe morality absolutely presupposes faith in the supernatural. Presumably, you also consider yourself to have morality. On what supernaturally-derived basis would you (presumably) believe Bob is wrong? and given that the supernatural cannot be objectively proven, how does that faith differ from a preference, on your part?
Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
#506And what are the causes for the loss of community ?
Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
#507Well, yes, we've doubled down on mediating social interactions through economic relationships. Most of the interactions adults have in their lives are with or in the framing of economic relations. Homes, are being invaded with tablets and mobile devices which bring along with them framing interactions as economic relations through ad and consumer frames. Workplaces are inherently settings of economic relations, and t…
I constantly see people lament some loss of "free" third places that apparently used to exist and be so common but no longer exist. What are these free third places which used to but no longer exist?
When I was a child my parents used to sit in front of our house and drink tea. The neighbors would do the same and all children would play together. But thanks to longer working hours and the fear induced by the 24/7 news cycle no one dares sit outside anymore. My nieces don't know their neighbors.
When I was a teenager there was a specific square where one would go after school (or during if you skipped class that day). As far as I know my nieces don't have such a tradition.
Less clear example: in my country of origin those living in apartments used to have monthly meetings to discuss any issues they had about the building. People used to complain going to those, but at least you'd get an overview of who is who. I believe these meetings are gone, replaced by email. No one complains about them anymore but, at the same time, no one knows who their apartment neighbors are.
Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
#508One big change I've noticed between growing up in a small town and now where I'm in my mid 40s in a big metro city in India is increased "transactional" nature of interactions of my daily life. Back then we had a deeper ties with all those who served us by which I mean vegetable vendor, carpenter, doctor, knife sharpener, cloth shop, grocer, baker and so on. Whenever we interacted with them it would be a small chit-c…
I would call that the difference between a small town and a city, which isn't new. You establish those ties because you see the same grocer regularly - there's only two grocers in town, after all. Meanwhile, in the city, you could buy groceries twice a week and never see the same clerk twice.
This isn't the difference between a small town and city, it's the inevitable result of late stage capitalism. In cities it's still possible to go to small stores and create connection with your local grocer, butcher, etc. I purposefully do it, but I have to seek out the places it's still possible, they're dwindling every year. The problem is capitalism wants to consolidate and treat people as fungible to extract more value, which has the side effect of preventing the formation of social bonds.
Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're right, but that developing a sense of ethics and believing those ethics and morals down to your bones will make you not want to do certain things. People without empathy don't have trouble lying to, stealing from, or committing violence against other people - but those things feel wrong to me intrinsically, because I was raised to feel empathy. But empathy is taught. Seemingly immoral things can be eve…
I suspect empathy is mostly nature with some influence via nurture. Once you encounter a few genuine psychopaths who aren’t particularly good at hiding it, it sure seems like it’s just something innate to them. Certainly you can instill reverence in people - give people a challenge that involves using a cross as a hammer to complete and they’ll recoil instinctively, but I think that’s just software tapping into somet…
This is just my conjecture, but I think that it's that psychopaths lack the capacity for empathy, and empathy is otherwise like a muscle in that it can be trained. I suspect this because I've grown more empathetic compared to when I was a kid, and some other people I've talked to said it was like that for them (not very scientific, I know). I remember being somewhat selfish and amoral.
I think it's a combination of the environment you grew up in, the behavior of the people you grew up with, the values you were raised with, and the education you received, and some of it is also purely self-driven. And so toddlers and little kids are like amoral sponges, since they're still developing their senses of justice, morality, and empathy.
Re: The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
#510One big change I've noticed between growing up in a small town and now where I'm in my mid 40s in a big metro city in India is increased "transactional" nature of interactions of my daily life. Back then we had a deeper ties with all those who served us by which I mean vegetable vendor, carpenter, doctor, knife sharpener, cloth shop, grocer, baker and so on. Whenever we interacted with them it would be a small chit-c…
I would call that the difference between a small town and a city, which isn't new. You establish those ties because you see the same grocer regularly - there's only two grocers in town, after all. Meanwhile, in the city, you could buy groceries twice a week and never see the same clerk twice.
There can be small grocers in big cities and faceless corporations in small towns, in fact in my experience in midwest America small towns (sub 5000, say) have 0 shops, people drive the 15 minutes to the nearest walmart
midsize cities / college towns ~100k will have a specialty butcher and a tobacconist where you can actually get to know the shopowners