The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community • Hacker News Board

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

#641

Post by ricardo81 » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 1:19 PM UTC

vishnugupta wrote: post #101

One 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…

Not too different to myself in my mid forties in Scotland though in my case it's still the small town I was born in, the pleasures of working from home.

There used to be local vendors as you describe (what comes to mind is a local shop, an ice cream van, milk man, a fizzy drinks vendor, a butcher/baker), but they've all been replaced by economies of scale (supermarkets and now online).

So now there are no local shops, no weekly vans with their specialist goods. And those half a dozen well known local faces aren't doing their rounds.

A local shop serves as a meeting place where conversations can take place. Even in the 80s in the UK when TV was at its peak, people could have conversations the next day on what they watched last night out of the 4 channels available.

I guess the local social cohesion can be thought of as a necessity when you're going to deal with lots of local people and with recent trends said in the article it's considered optional.

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

#642

Post by anon291 » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 1:20 PM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #462

vishnugupta wrote: post #101

One 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.

> Meanwhile, in the city, you could buy groceries twice a week and never see the same clerk twice.

So even a cursory reading of older books and novels that detail city life just a few hundred years ago shows this not to be the case.

What's gone on is that the phenomenon described above has started in cities and spread everywhere, for better or worse.

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

#643

Post by anon291 » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 1:21 PM UTC

theossuary wrote: post #561

parineum wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism isn't a person, it doesn't want things. The problem with people that talk about capitalism the way you do is that they mistake human nature for the system that was built around it so when they try to change the system, the people are maladapted and transgress against it by default then it fails miserably.

No, the issue is pedantic people like you who can't understand that "want" is a simple way of saying that a system is biased towards certain outcomes. Capitalism is not an expression of human nature, it's a single possible pareto equilibrium. To say otherwise ignores huge swaths of humans history, and many modern nations which have achieved equilibrium in different ways.

Capitalism is biased towards whatever the governing authority says it is. In America, due to onerous regulations and taxes, it's difficult for independent players to become established and the regulations favor a handful of large companies in most sectors. This is not universally true in every country, and they're just as capitalist (arguably more so) than us

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

#644

Post by anon291 » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 1:27 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #455

goethes_kind wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my 30s but I'm feeling this so hard. Growing up we used to have these kid/youth centres that were run by local Catholic organizations. We used to hang out there after school. Ostensibly the point was that there'd be 30 minutes of catechism doctrine, but we didn't really care about that. To us it was just a the place where everyone would be. I miss that so much. A place where you can just go and meet people you…

Are you saying that a group where everyone has to be a catholic is somehow diverse? Also, nothing will ever be like the stuff we had when we were kids. Because in all our minds, that is the norm.

The Catholic church is racially and socioeconomically quite diverse, and produces the highest rate of interracial marriages of any religious group, and even slightly edges out atheists.

It's as diverse as any company or organization championing diversity, because obviously anyone part of one particular movement / entity is not diverse in one axis of their life (institutional allegiance)

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

#645

Post by silexia » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 1:31 PM UTC

The spike in young Asian and white male suicides is the discrimination against them. See here where only 15% of them who are in the academic top ten percent are admitted vs 57% of black students in the top ten percent. https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-acti...

End all racism.

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

#646

Post by anon291 » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 1:35 PM UTC

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #412

goethes_kind wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my 30s but I'm feeling this so hard. Growing up we used to have these kid/youth centres that were run by local Catholic organizations. We used to hang out there after school. Ostensibly the point was that there'd be 30 minutes of catechism doctrine, but we didn't really care about that. To us it was just a the place where everyone would be. I miss that so much. A place where you can just go and meet people you…

Consider the following: 1. The chief unit and source of community is the family. The married couple, the family, have been deteriorating for some time. It shouldn't be surprising that the consequences would spread outward. Societies are a manner of extended family organized according to the principle of subsidiary. 2. American culture especially is hyperindividualistic. It conceives of people not as persons, but as i…

JD Vance talked about this a lot in his RNC speech. He says:

> You know, one of the things that you hear people say sometimes is that America is an idea. And to be clear, America was indeed founded on brilliant ideas, like the rule of law and religious liberty. Things written into the fabric of our Constitution and our nation. But America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.

And he's right. America does have a culture and social norms that are particular to this nation. Ask any immigrant, like my own parents, and they will tell you stories of adapting to them (if they've assimilated properly).

And yet, many Americans refuse to acknowledge that these exist, and if they do, some work actively against it, to disestablish them, as if that'd be good for a country.

IMO, this is the cause of the great divide in this country. On one side you have people that think that social norms and culture should exist and be protected by the government (to an extent) and on the other you have those that believe the norms are harmful. To the former group, the various 'small' changes proposed by the latter group feel 'gross' because they reduce community cohesion, even if any one particular instance of letting go of a norm isn't going to cause that much trouble.

See all the debate on whether English should be a national language for a good illustration of this whole phenomenon independent of most of the culture war issues.

This is not to say that America has no ideas, but any group of people pursuing a common goal is not just the idea, it's also their culture. For example, I've worked at several companies competing in the same space, and despite having the same goal (dominate the industry), the cultures are extremely different, to the point where you feel comfortable in one, and uncomfortable in the other. That's how people are, and we should recognize and acknowledge that.

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

#647

Post by anon291 » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 1:39 PM UTC

lovethevoid wrote: post #450

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the following: 1. The chief unit and source of community is the family. The married couple, the family, have been deteriorating for some time. It shouldn't be surprising that the consequences would spread outward. Societies are a manner of extended family organized according to the principle of subsidiary. 2. American culture especially is hyperindividualistic. It conceives of people not as persons, but as i…

> The chief unit and source of community is the family. This view stems from Judeo-Christian beliefs. The very invention of marriage was a separation of community, where men wanted ownership of women and their children. I also wonder if you're fully aware of how much you've attempted to repackage the original sin in your comment.

> This view stems from Judeo-Christian beliefs.

It's really not, as marriage is present in pre-Christian belief and in non-Christian traditions.

Does it look exactly like Christian marriage / family? No

But it does share common characteristics. There is a single man, and one or more women who bear his children. The man and woman have particular authorities over their children, and as the children grow there is a system to determine how they inherit their parent's resources, and then perhaps some duties they owe their parents.

We see this in the Roman paterfamilias system, the Confucian filial piety system, the various Indic philosophies, the ancient Egyptian family system, the Babylonian familial system, etc. Together these encompass the basis of the vast majority of civilization.

You're right that in hunter gatherer tribes they may have not even understood how reproduction works, but given that these social systems are not sophisticated enough to run our society, I'm happy to just ignore them. There were hunter gatherer tribes that believed that prince phillip was a god; they're not that sophisticated

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

#648

Post by Nextgrid » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 1:46 PM UTC

vishnugupta wrote: post #101

One 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…

Everyone is under more pressure thanks to cost of living and Western society being a property-indexed Ponzi scheme which requires endless growth just to keep up. Back when rent/home ownership was affordable and everyone had more "slack" it's easy to add humanity to transactions - you can spare the small opportunity cost even though you'd make more money short-term ignoring humanity and focusing purely on transactionality.

Nowadays when everyone's busy trying to make as much money as possible to be able to make rent or survive in ever-increasing inflation, an extra dining table they didn't give away is one they can sell for money. Similarly, borrowing money is harder/less acceptable because everyone else too is under pressure and is less likely to be able to help (or at least it would cause them more hardship).

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

#649

Post by Nextgrid » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 1:47 PM UTC

TbobbyZ wrote: post #201

vishnugupta wrote: post #101

One 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…

Money is now our God.

Money is just a means of exchange. But basic human rights such as housing now being monetized and rented out and/or used as an investment means the endless pursuit of money is now mandatory to survive.

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

#650

Post by anon291 » Sat, Aug 03, 2024, 1:48 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #638

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…

This is all a very valid set of concerns; not quite a new one, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone (2000), but definitely a Thing. > The mad rush to as quickly abolish religious practices in mainstream U.S. culture without any form of societal replacement is puzzling to me. People need to acknowledge how much the downside of this kind of closeness was conformism, enforced by shunning (or worse) the noncom…

The sexual revolution is intrinsically linked to the lack of community. The sexual revolution is not actually about free sex. People have been having weird sex for centuries; with or without their partners knowing.

What is novel about the sexual revolution is that it dismissed any needs for norms. Over the past two decades we've seen non-religious attempts to reinstate those norms (consent, kink, safe words, etc). However, what's unpalatable to religious people is not the sex per se, but the lack of norms.

And we need norms to function as a community with a common culture. Throwing those out does not actually help.

You mention the sexual abuse by the Catholic church, but that was caused by the sexual revolution. At the time, the psychological community encouraged moving pedophiles around. The church was -- at the time -- attempting to modernize, and part of the modernization was listening to 'science', including psychologists. Psychologists at the time insisted these things could be cured and criminalization would not help.

The church is not the only organization to have been affected by this, but it is one of the few prominent examples of institutions being held accountable for it. The same ideology caused the German foster care scandals [1] [2].

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/26/the-german-exp...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Kentler