6 ms·

Most People Are Depressed For a Very Good Reason

35 points by hhm 19y ago

dpapathanasiou 19y ago
Another way of looking at it: "If a little is not enough for you, nothing is." http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/12/hedonist-philosopher-epicurus-was-right.php http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/12/hedonist-philosopher-epicur...
kmt 19y ago
I'm skiing at SnowBird at the moment and let me tell you: this is one of the true antidepressants. I sense even reading the RTFA could potentially be depressing. :-) Take care of yourselves boys and girls.
daniel-cussen 19y ago
My hypothesis: Happiness is a response your body gives you when you do something right. Because it's somewhat outdated, it rewards hunting, eating and mating than studying or doing a desk job. It's basically a way your genes judge how well you're doing their bidding, and it is often way off. I see it as a byproduct of achieving other, more worthwhile goals, and not something worth pursuing for its own sake. Your nucleus accumbens is an outdated, selfish judge of success that has too much control over your brain. It's a bad judge. I ignore it as much as I can. Obviously, I run the risk of being unhappy. It's probably a bad decision, and I might have to give in eventually. I'll see how it goes.
- trekker7 19y ago
  Interesting. But how do you define "worthwhile", when deciding what to pursue besides happiness?
  - daniel-cussen 19y ago
    If your brain and your genes are similar in that they both see continuing to exist as their ultimate goal (because if they didn't they'd stop existing and be replaced by things that are driven to keep existing), you could prioritize immortalizing your mind, if that's what you think "you" "are." That might mean trying to live as long as possible, uploading your mind to a computer, spreading memes as a way of spreading your mind piecemeal, or writing and art as a way to leave a footprint. Of course, it would be good to get your cake and eat it too; it might someday be possible to calibrate your brain's reward system so it rewards whey protein instead of trans fats, say. It might be possible to stop the negative feedback mechanism that regulates dopamine levels. If you could permanently increase dopamine levels, you could be happy ever after.
- Readmore 19y ago
  You must be a hiring manager at IBM. ;)
  - daniel-cussen 19y ago
    It's true. I'm an HR rep with too much spare time. That will change when the recession hits, but until then, I try to make programmers accept the misery of working in cubicles in pursuit of a very slightly higher expected outcome. And I could have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for these pesky Hacker News commenters.
whacked_new 19y ago
Haha, VA on news.yc... Most people who make generalizations about most people make mostly bad generalizations. {yes, the irony}. I agree that widespread depression is a social problem, but those anecdotes about "reason" amount to little. Mental disorders are overdiagnosed in USA, but "their lives suck"? Not that I dispute this entirely, but it's still quite a preposterous assumption. If one can readily identify a reason for depression then they already fall into a different group of people than those who get depressed for no apparent reason. And this is the depression that induces one to think one's life sucks ,when it seemed fine the day, or hour, ago.
kajecounterhack 19y ago
function DepressionDefined('name') { //Lets make some equations! //First lets define depression var Depression = sad state of mind; var Super = 10000000000000; Super + Depression = "super sad state of mind"; //Now geek, special classification var Geek = obsessive state of mind; //Add them up... var Suicide; Depression + Geek = Super + Depression = Suicide; //Call advanced functions Suicide = Permanent solution to temporary problem('name'); //And that returns Return Suicide; } Lets see the output "NAME has committed suicide. SUICIDE is FAIL."
- icky 19y ago
  Parse error.
watmough 19y ago
Modded up for truthiness. Funnily enough, I was reading my school report card the other day, and it was full of "inattentive", "lacks zest", "work patchy", and I thought, "Wow, I must have been really depressed." And then I realized, I was 16 at the time, with bad acne, crappy grades, and a severe popularity problem. No shit sherlock, my life really did suck. ;-)
- yters 19y ago
  Yeah, my outlook improved once I had more control over my life and didn't have to live in the socially backward world of public school. Once my social worth became dependent on the actual productive things I did than on my ability to fit in, I had higher self esteem. That's why I think the US is pretty cool. Just think, in many countries people have to live in public school society for the whole of their lives.
gregwebs 19y ago
There is evidence that suggests otherwise. Specifically, people's happiness levels don't change much over their lives. After a major life event (death of someone close, marriage) happiness levels return back to normal after a year.
tarkin2 19y ago
I agree with the article. Yet I wish he'd put more emphasis on how drugs can break you out of a loop of depression (what? i'm a computer scientist. can't I make awful cs puns?), and are very useful as long as the users doesn't become dependent on the drugs for that help. There's a good article about psychedelic drugs (although I realise the author was speaking about legal drugs) and psychotherapy here: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=psychedelic-healing&page=1 http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=psychedelic-healing&... which I previously couldn't decide whether to submit or not.

35 points by hhm 19y ago

Another way of looking at it: "If a little is not enough for you, nothing is." http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/12/hedonist-philosopher-epicurus-was-right.php http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/12/hedonist-philosopher-epicur...

kmt 19y ago

I'm skiing at SnowBird at the moment and let me tell you: this is one of the true antidepressants. I sense even reading the RTFA could potentially be depressing. :-) Take care of yourselves boys and girls.

daniel-cussen 19y ago

My hypothesis: Happiness is a response your body gives you when you do something right. Because it's somewhat outdated, it rewards hunting, eating and mating than studying or doing a desk job. It's basically a way your genes judge how well you're doing their bidding, and it is often way off. I see it as a byproduct of achieving other, more worthwhile goals, and not something worth pursuing for its own sake. Your nucleus accumbens is an outdated, selfish judge of success that has too much control over your brain. It's a bad judge. I ignore it as much as I can. Obviously, I run the risk of being unhappy. It's probably a bad decision, and I might have to give in eventually. I'll see how it goes.

trekker7 19y ago
Interesting. But how do you define "worthwhile", when deciding what to pursue besides happiness?
- daniel-cussen 19y ago
  If your brain and your genes are similar in that they both see continuing to exist as their ultimate goal (because if they didn't they'd stop existing and be replaced by things that are driven to keep existing), you could prioritize immortalizing your mind, if that's what you think "you" "are." That might mean trying to live as long as possible, uploading your mind to a computer, spreading memes as a way of spreading your mind piecemeal, or writing and art as a way to leave a footprint. Of course, it would be good to get your cake and eat it too; it might someday be possible to calibrate your brain's reward system so it rewards whey protein instead of trans fats, say. It might be possible to stop the negative feedback mechanism that regulates dopamine levels. If you could permanently increase dopamine levels, you could be happy ever after.
Readmore 19y ago
You must be a hiring manager at IBM. ;)
- daniel-cussen 19y ago
  It's true. I'm an HR rep with too much spare time. That will change when the recession hits, but until then, I try to make programmers accept the misery of working in cubicles in pursuit of a very slightly higher expected outcome. And I could have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for these pesky Hacker News commenters.

whacked_new 19y ago

Haha, VA on news.yc... Most people who make generalizations about most people make mostly bad generalizations. {yes, the irony}. I agree that widespread depression is a social problem, but those anecdotes about "reason" amount to little. Mental disorders are overdiagnosed in USA, but "their lives suck"? Not that I dispute this entirely, but it's still quite a preposterous assumption. If one can readily identify a reason for depression then they already fall into a different group of people than those who get depressed for no apparent reason. And this is the depression that induces one to think one's life sucks ,when it seemed fine the day, or hour, ago.

kajecounterhack 19y ago

function DepressionDefined('name') { //Lets make some equations! //First lets define depression var Depression = sad state of mind; var Super = 10000000000000; Super + Depression = "super sad state of mind"; //Now geek, special classification var Geek = obsessive state of mind; //Add them up... var Suicide; Depression + Geek = Super + Depression = Suicide; //Call advanced functions Suicide = Permanent solution to temporary problem('name'); //And that returns Return Suicide; } Lets see the output "NAME has committed suicide. SUICIDE is FAIL."

icky 19y ago
Parse error.

watmough 19y ago

Modded up for truthiness. Funnily enough, I was reading my school report card the other day, and it was full of "inattentive", "lacks zest", "work patchy", and I thought, "Wow, I must have been really depressed." And then I realized, I was 16 at the time, with bad acne, crappy grades, and a severe popularity problem. No shit sherlock, my life really did suck. ;-)

yters 19y ago
Yeah, my outlook improved once I had more control over my life and didn't have to live in the socially backward world of public school. Once my social worth became dependent on the actual productive things I did than on my ability to fit in, I had higher self esteem. That's why I think the US is pretty cool. Just think, in many countries people have to live in public school society for the whole of their lives.

gregwebs 19y ago

There is evidence that suggests otherwise. Specifically, people's happiness levels don't change much over their lives. After a major life event (death of someone close, marriage) happiness levels return back to normal after a year.

tarkin2 19y ago

I agree with the article. Yet I wish he'd put more emphasis on how drugs can break you out of a loop of depression (what? i'm a computer scientist. can't I make awful cs puns?), and are very useful as long as the users doesn't become dependent on the drugs for that help. There's a good article about psychedelic drugs (although I realise the author was speaking about legal drugs) and psychotherapy here: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=psychedelic-healing&page=1 http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=psychedelic-healing&... which I previously couldn't decide whether to submit or not.