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Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

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Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#91

Post by KirinDave »

thriftwy wrote: post #59
dan00 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually, yes, this distinction of selfish versus unselfish is sooo pre-high school. If your reasoning here is, that every person just does what feels good for them and therefore everyone is just "selfish", then that certainly isn't the whole picture why people do what they do. There're certainly people doing things because they feel right, but it might not be a pleasure for them doing it. Reducing everything to ju…

What you have described is three quarters, let me fill this for you: Person wishing to do the right thing and doing it ("unselfish") Person doing the right thing against their wishes ("righteous") Person wishing to do the right thing but not doing it (akrasia, you missed this one) Person not doing the right thing and not wishing so ("selfish") It's all about image of oneself and the experience of being burned by your…

> So dividing people doesn't make sense.

Exceeeept when you're doing it arbitrarily to make a point?

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#92

Post by maxxxxx »

KirinDave wrote: post #90
maxxxxx wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't want to be too negative. My point is that it's really hard to distinguish between truly unselfish behavior and non-assertiveness or passive-aggressive behavior. Selfish behavior seems easier to identify.

Why is that observation important to the discussion at hand?

Because people who think of themselves as unselfish but are just passive may get depressed because they never get their way. For example people may be unhappy with their pay but are afraid to ask for more.

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#93

Post by [deleted] »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #46
drngdds wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'd have it much better than all the people who had to die. But I already have it much better than all the people who are killed or crippled by preventable illnesses because they were unlucky enough to be born into poverty. But that doesn't really factor into my moral reasoning. My living forever wouldn't necessarily make things worse for people who don't get to do that. So, as a consequentialist, I don't think…

That's not my point. My point is why do you want to live forever? Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years, when the entirety of human civilization which made that possible is now dead? Nobody is that important or has that much to offer to the world. It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals. I'm not assigning moral right and wrong to it, I'm just saying it's ir…

[deleted]

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#94

Post by dismantlethesun »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #46
drngdds wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'd have it much better than all the people who had to die. But I already have it much better than all the people who are killed or crippled by preventable illnesses because they were unlucky enough to be born into poverty. But that doesn't really factor into my moral reasoning. My living forever wouldn't necessarily make things worse for people who don't get to do that. So, as a consequentialist, I don't think…

That's not my point. My point is why do you want to live forever? Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years, when the entirety of human civilization which made that possible is now dead? Nobody is that important or has that much to offer to the world. It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals. I'm not assigning moral right and wrong to it, I'm just saying it's ir…

> That's not my point. My point is why do you want to live forever?

From an emotional point of view, I do not want my parents to die.

They're in 70s, but I think that the time they have left is too short. I'd like them to live to see their 80s, their 100s, their 200s. I would like them to be there in 20 years when the last of my children graduate university. I would like them to see their grandchildren get married, and celebrate the birth of their great grand children.

I do not want to see my friends die. I have been with them since we were 4 years old, and I'd like to celebrate life with them for more than the 30 years have left according to actuarial charts.

I do not want my mentors to die. They're already in retirement homes, but they have so much more to experience, but many won't see their life's work come to fruition.

I would like everyone I know to live to see their 300th birthday, and I would like to be there with them.

Is that forever? No.

Forever may be too long, but 70 years upon this earth is too short by far. If living to see 500 healthy years is within the grasp of our technology, we should seize upon it.

I do not think this view is egotistical, or selfish. A world where no one dies except by accident or deliberate choice would be a much better world than what we have today.

Too often 'live forever' posts focus on the greats of history, theorising what would happen if they lived longer... but I challenge you to think of it in a more personal respect. Do you want your friends and family to die when they do not want to?

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#95

Post by [deleted] »

sol_remmy wrote: post #80
aaron-lebo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see people talk about living indefinitely around here in threads that come up occasionally, it does make me wonder if they are on the other side of some selfishness cutoff. It's weird to think that you'd be interested in living for centuries or longer in a world that has seen everyone before you die and day by day sees horrific injustice. It's almost solipsistic. The same dynamic exists with those hundred mill…

With that kind of thinking, why are you even posting here? Why do you allow yourself any leisure time when people in the world are starving?

[deleted]

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#96

Post by Pigo »

notananthem wrote: post #55
bagacrap wrote: post #20

I can't tell where they flipped the directionality around for the headline, because the first line of the article is "People with depression are more likely to feel bad in response to perceived inequality" and the rest of the article sticks to that finding. It seems intuitive that people with depression are more likely to feel bad in response to X, for all X.

Yeah that's why Vice isn't a news/research source

Having looked at their frontpage recently, it's amazing how far it's fallen. Not that I every considered it a reliable source, but it genuinely had some interesting articles in the past. There was one article about the actual story that inspired True Detective that really stuck with me. Now it's just another place to vent about the President.

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#97

Post by kazinator »

bagacrap wrote: post #20

I can't tell where they flipped the directionality around for the headline, because the first line of the article is "People with depression are more likely to feel bad in response to perceived inequality" and the rest of the article sticks to that finding. It seems intuitive that people with depression are more likely to feel bad in response to X, for all X.

The spurious directionality is introduced by the unfortunate insertion of the phrasal verb "wind up".

Likelihood as such doesn't have directionality; it expresses the frequency of co-occurence of two phenomena.

That is to say, "Unselfish People More Likely to be Depressed" doesn't assert causality as much, and "Depression Correlates with Unselfish Traits" even less.

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#98

Post by imgabe »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #46
drngdds wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'd have it much better than all the people who had to die. But I already have it much better than all the people who are killed or crippled by preventable illnesses because they were unlucky enough to be born into poverty. But that doesn't really factor into my moral reasoning. My living forever wouldn't necessarily make things worse for people who don't get to do that. So, as a consequentialist, I don't think…

That's not my point. My point is why do you want to live forever? Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years, when the entirety of human civilization which made that possible is now dead? Nobody is that important or has that much to offer to the world. It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals. I'm not assigning moral right and wrong to it, I'm just saying it's ir…

> Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years

Nobody is important and nobody deserves anything. There's no outside force making decisions about who is allowed to have what. You get what you figure out how to get and you keep it as long as you figure out how to keep it.

> It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals.

But assigning yourself to be the arbiter of who is or isn't "important" enough to "deserve" an extended lifespan isn't ego-driven?

> If you can live for 150 years and not get worn down by the things people do to each other, more power to you.

If you're going to let your own mood be dictated by the never-ending stream of terrible things in the world, I'd be surprised if you could make it through even a a normal lifetime. There's a lot of wonderful things in the world too. Why ignore those?

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#99

Post by tzar »

bagacrap wrote: post #20

I can't tell where they flipped the directionality around for the headline, because the first line of the article is "People with depression are more likely to feel bad in response to perceived inequality" and the rest of the article sticks to that finding. It seems intuitive that people with depression are more likely to feel bad in response to X, for all X.

From the study:

> Here, we demonstrate that functional magnetic resonance imaging activity patterns in the amygdala and hippocampus induced by the inequity between the self and other rewards during an economic game can predict participants’ present and future (measured one year later) depression indices.

This seems to suggest that the headline is not terribly inaccurate with respect to the study itself, at least. Unselfishness (sensitivity to economic inequality) predicts markers for depression.

Re: Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression

#100

Post by NiklasMort »

eduren wrote: post #81
NiklasMort wrote: post #44

Look at the world, how can one not be sad or depressed about reality? 'Ignorance is bliss' is a widely known for a reason

'Ignorance is bliss' taken to its logical conclusion is advocating for cessation of life. What is the ultimate ignorance? Death. I don't mean to offend or flame, but putting this bluntly feels important: Why don't you want to keep living?

I am pretty sure if we wouldn't have this instinct to survive, reflexes etc., lot of people would op out. Btw the ultimate ignorance is not death, but the act of killing yourself
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