4 ms·

Could it be that people who see the world Realistically, get depressed?

by buboard 7y ago

SpeakMouthWords 7y ago
You would be hard pressed to elucidate a biological causation there.
- bjornsing 7y ago
  Isn’t it the other way around? The OP is making a causal claim (“depression causes realistic world view”). The parent is merely pointing out the room for selection bias. Burden of proof should be on the OP IMHO.
wolfgke 7y ago
> Could it be that people who see the world Realistically, get depressed? This fits my experience quite well. To give a software development analogy: The more you learn about deep, esoteric details of various parts of computers (i.e. you get to see computers more realistically than idealized), the more depressed you get about the current state of software development. And yes, late at night, I often work privately on how to improve this situation - but I talk to a brick wall.
- kharak 7y ago
  Could you give an example? What's depressing about the current world of software?
  - wolfgke 7y ago
    > What's depressing about the current world of software? For example the insanity that it is impossible to understand what actually happens below the surface. The ideal that I have in the back of my mind is that a highly gifted person who can afford to spend a few years of intensive study can really understand each individual line/byte of code that gets executed on the computer (i.e. all of the software that runs on it) completely. --- An interesting lecture by Jonathan Blow: Jonathan Blow - Preventing the Collapse of Civilization > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk --- Also read some texts of Alan Kay's STEPS project: For a well-readable overview, consider https://blog.regehr.org/archives/663 https://blog.regehr.org/archives/663 Some progress reports: > http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf > http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf Lots of additional papers about STEPS (and other topics): http://www.vpri.org/writings.php http://www.vpri.org/writings.php (I want to make it clear that I consider what came out of the STEPS project to be very disappointing :-( ).
    - kharak 7y ago
      I had this sentiment quit often in the beginning of my career. Now, I simply realize that my lack of understanding crosses every single piece of technology there is. Fridge? No idea. Cars? Well, I can drive it almost as well as I can open a fridge, everything else is magic. How about bicycle? That's easy, right? Well, I challenge you to just now sit down and write a detailed schematic, describing everything that is needed to make a bicycle what it is. Extra points if you can explain why driving on two wheels actually works out. I know nothing about anything and almost don´t care anymore. The last bit of wanting to understand is bathed the absurdity of it all. Thanks for the links, sounds interesting.
      - cr0sh 7y ago
        I'll take up the challenge: Fridge - well, the standard compressor powered refrigeration system is essentially a heat moving system. What we are doing is moving heat from the inside of the system (which is insulated and mostly "isolated" from the outside of the system) to the outside of the system. This is why you can't cool your house by opening your refrigerator's door, because the heat from the inside of the fridge is moved to the "outside" (the room it is in) - eventually, it would reach equilibrium (and the compressor would probably be overheated). So anyhow, how does this work? Well - basically by compression and expansion. A working fluid (the refrigerant - usually a gas in the low-pressure state, and a fluid in the high pressure state) is compressed using a compressor. This turns the gas into its fluid state, and also heats up the gas. It is moved (via the compressor) thru coils on the inside (insulated) of the system, where it is allowed to expand. Note that in this system there is also a series of check valves and such to prevent the fluid and gas from "moving backwards" in the system; there are also stages where the gas and fluid exist at the same time (like a fizzy drink if you could see it). During this expansion, it absorbs heat and it also gains volume (turns from a fluid back into a gas). It continues to move (with it's heat content) from the insulated side of the system (inside) to the outside of the system, where it goes thru other coils (radiator), usually with a fan or other cooling system blowing over them to remove the excess heat from them, before the gas goes back to the compressor to be compressed and turned into a fluid again - to begin the cycle anew. That's the basics of how a refrigerator work. Now - usually, if there's a freezer section, the freezer is where the heat exchange really happens, and cold air from the freezer is periodically circulated from the freezer to the refrigerator portion to keep that side at a cooler temperature. Air conditioners work the same way - except the "inside" is the house and the outside is...the outdoors. Heat pumps can run in reverse, so to warm your house, heat is moved from the "outside" to the inside of the house, by the very same process (even when it is "freezing" outside - there is still a ton of heat energy available). This cycle can also be done with heat alone, provided you have a working fluid (refrigerant) which is liquid at the "outside" temperature (under whatever pressure the liquid is at); add a check valve, heat the liquid up, it will expand and turn into a gas, feed it into the insulated part of the system to absorb more heat and then into some outside coils to be cooled down and turned back into a liquid. You can make a fridge where the refrigerant is gasoline (petrol) if you so wanted to. Ammonia is another alternative. LPG can also be used like this, too. That's basically how a propane or solar powered refrigerator works (I won't go into how dark-sky refrigeration works, suffice to say it is another form of "solar" refrigeration, more of a "backwards" method). Car? Well - a four-cycle engine is basically this: suck (intake), squeeze (compression), bang (ignition/power), blow (exhaust). Also, for an engine to run, you need fuel, spark, and air - miss any of those (or wrong timing or proportions) things won't work. I won't go into further detail - I really could, I'm sure you can see. Suffice to say - I could also describe that bicycle very exactly, how it works, how it is steered (the whole "turn in the opposite direction of the lean" thing...), etc. I've got a ton of this crap shoved into my head; I relish learning new stuff all the time, no matter what it is. Sometimes (most of the time) I don't absorb it all in one shot. But I usually retain enough of it to be able to understand more a second and third time around. Some things I will probably never fully understand (higher math is my bane, though I try - also, I'll probably never understand chemistry or biology on anything more than a superficial level), but that doesn't keep them from my interest. Why am I like this? Not sure, I've always been a very curious and inquisitive person since I was a child. I've found that having these tidbits and more of knowledge and such socked away has helped me make connections and analogies in other areas, to solve problems - and sometimes raise other questions, which just leads me down another rabbit hole at times. As you can tell - take me to a library and I could easily get lost for hours. Don't get me started on any of the warrens available on the internet (or the internet itself for that matter)...
  - LeonB 7y ago
    I wouldn’t call it depressing but I think for example, when you look at even the most fundamental types, for example in c#, they have difficult problems. Floating point numbers for example. Or date times. Egad! Or strings. There’s a Jon Skeet talk that covers this very well. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l3nPJ-yK-LU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l3nPJ-yK-LU
  - megous 7y ago
    For me it's the amount of bloat and too many levels of not so good abstraction. It's not really depressing yet, but more irritating to me. And I take it as an opportunity.
- non-entity 7y ago
  > esoteric details of various parts of computers (i.e. you get to see computers more realistically than idealized), the more depressed you get about the current state of software development. Honestly the most depressing part is hearing all these older guys talk about the really cool problems they worked on during the dawn of modern computing, knowing I'm just gonna be writing shitty business apps till I retire
  - wolfgke 7y ago
    > Honestly the most depressing part is hearing all these older guys talk about the really cool problems they worked on during the dawn of modern computing, knowing I'm just gonna be writing shitty business apps till I retire You can do this cool stuff at night and weekends (I do!).
journalctl 7y ago
I just learned about King Leopold and what he did to the people of Congo [1]. How anyone can be at all educated about the world and not be depressed is beyond me. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free...
- tim333 7y ago
  At least that stuff is dying out.
  - LeonB 7y ago
    It's not "dying out" -- people are working very hard to reduce it. Sometimes we say things like "the world has changed" but the truth is that people have changed the world, through tremendous efforts. It's easy for a bystander to say "the problem just seemed to go away!" when the people who are doing the work can stare at them and say, "Ahem... it didn't just go away."
    - tim333 7y ago
      I don't deny that. Atrocities have reduced partly because people have worked hard to reduce them. Also technology has helped - you do bad stuff now and someone will film it on their phone, upload to youtube and the whole world can see and make a fuss.
gwd 7y ago
One possible explanation of results: 1. The world is, in fact, pretty messed up a lot of the time. 2. There are different ways to deal with it: 2a. Don't deal well with it; get depressed 2b. Denial: Refuse to face up to how messed up the world is. 2c. Deal with the world in some other way that is neither denial nor depression. Presumably in their study 2a and 2c would both score more "realistic" and 2b would score less "realistic"; but 2b and 2c would be grouped together in the study, causing the "not depressed" group as a whole to score lower on the "realistic" axis. IOW, the simplistic conclusion of this study would be, "The only way to avoid being depressed is to go into denial"; but the study may also be consistent with, "One way people avoid being depressed is to go into denial; but there may be ways to avoid depression other than denial".
- buboard 7y ago
  The two (realism/knowledge and depression) seem to be in a feedback loop. Probably children are happier because they dont know enough yet. And fools/ignoramuses - that conventional wisdom has some merit. It's a question though why humans would evolve to become inert in the face of knowledge. Who knows, it may be an advantage.
throwaway932 7y ago
Yes, but there is a social element: People who see the world realistically while living in a "positive thinking" society often feel like there something wrong in them.

Could it be that people who see the world Realistically, get depressed?

SpeakMouthWords 7y ago

You would be hard pressed to elucidate a biological causation there.

bjornsing 7y ago
Isn’t it the other way around? The OP is making a causal claim (“depression causes realistic world view”). The parent is merely pointing out the room for selection bias. Burden of proof should be on the OP IMHO.

wolfgke 7y ago

> Could it be that people who see the world Realistically, get depressed? This fits my experience quite well. To give a software development analogy: The more you learn about deep, esoteric details of various parts of computers (i.e. you get to see computers more realistically than idealized), the more depressed you get about the current state of software development. And yes, late at night, I often work privately on how to improve this situation - but I talk to a brick wall.

kharak 7y ago
Could you give an example? What's depressing about the current world of software?
- wolfgke 7y ago
  > What's depressing about the current world of software? For example the insanity that it is impossible to understand what actually happens below the surface. The ideal that I have in the back of my mind is that a highly gifted person who can afford to spend a few years of intensive study can really understand each individual line/byte of code that gets executed on the computer (i.e. all of the software that runs on it) completely. --- An interesting lecture by Jonathan Blow: Jonathan Blow - Preventing the Collapse of Civilization > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk --- Also read some texts of Alan Kay's STEPS project: For a well-readable overview, consider https://blog.regehr.org/archives/663 https://blog.regehr.org/archives/663 Some progress reports: > http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2007008_steps.pdf > http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2011004_steps11.pdf Lots of additional papers about STEPS (and other topics): http://www.vpri.org/writings.php http://www.vpri.org/writings.php (I want to make it clear that I consider what came out of the STEPS project to be very disappointing :-( ).
  - kharak 7y ago
    I had this sentiment quit often in the beginning of my career. Now, I simply realize that my lack of understanding crosses every single piece of technology there is. Fridge? No idea. Cars? Well, I can drive it almost as well as I can open a fridge, everything else is magic. How about bicycle? That's easy, right? Well, I challenge you to just now sit down and write a detailed schematic, describing everything that is needed to make a bicycle what it is. Extra points if you can explain why driving on two wheels actually works out. I know nothing about anything and almost don´t care anymore. The last bit of wanting to understand is bathed the absurdity of it all. Thanks for the links, sounds interesting.
    - cr0sh 7y ago
      I'll take up the challenge: Fridge - well, the standard compressor powered refrigeration system is essentially a heat moving system. What we are doing is moving heat from the inside of the system (which is insulated and mostly "isolated" from the outside of the system) to the outside of the system. This is why you can't cool your house by opening your refrigerator's door, because the heat from the inside of the fridge is moved to the "outside" (the room it is in) - eventually, it would reach equilibrium (and the compressor would probably be overheated). So anyhow, how does this work? Well - basically by compression and expansion. A working fluid (the refrigerant - usually a gas in the low-pressure state, and a fluid in the high pressure state) is compressed using a compressor. This turns the gas into its fluid state, and also heats up the gas. It is moved (via the compressor) thru coils on the inside (insulated) of the system, where it is allowed to expand. Note that in this system there is also a series of check valves and such to prevent the fluid and gas from "moving backwards" in the system; there are also stages where the gas and fluid exist at the same time (like a fizzy drink if you could see it). During this expansion, it absorbs heat and it also gains volume (turns from a fluid back into a gas). It continues to move (with it's heat content) from the insulated side of the system (inside) to the outside of the system, where it goes thru other coils (radiator), usually with a fan or other cooling system blowing over them to remove the excess heat from them, before the gas goes back to the compressor to be compressed and turned into a fluid again - to begin the cycle anew. That's the basics of how a refrigerator work. Now - usually, if there's a freezer section, the freezer is where the heat exchange really happens, and cold air from the freezer is periodically circulated from the freezer to the refrigerator portion to keep that side at a cooler temperature. Air conditioners work the same way - except the "inside" is the house and the outside is...the outdoors. Heat pumps can run in reverse, so to warm your house, heat is moved from the "outside" to the inside of the house, by the very same process (even when it is "freezing" outside - there is still a ton of heat energy available). This cycle can also be done with heat alone, provided you have a working fluid (refrigerant) which is liquid at the "outside" temperature (under whatever pressure the liquid is at); add a check valve, heat the liquid up, it will expand and turn into a gas, feed it into the insulated part of the system to absorb more heat and then into some outside coils to be cooled down and turned back into a liquid. You can make a fridge where the refrigerant is gasoline (petrol) if you so wanted to. Ammonia is another alternative. LPG can also be used like this, too. That's basically how a propane or solar powered refrigerator works (I won't go into how dark-sky refrigeration works, suffice to say it is another form of "solar" refrigeration, more of a "backwards" method). Car? Well - a four-cycle engine is basically this: suck (intake), squeeze (compression), bang (ignition/power), blow (exhaust). Also, for an engine to run, you need fuel, spark, and air - miss any of those (or wrong timing or proportions) things won't work. I won't go into further detail - I really could, I'm sure you can see. Suffice to say - I could also describe that bicycle very exactly, how it works, how it is steered (the whole "turn in the opposite direction of the lean" thing...), etc. I've got a ton of this crap shoved into my head; I relish learning new stuff all the time, no matter what it is. Sometimes (most of the time) I don't absorb it all in one shot. But I usually retain enough of it to be able to understand more a second and third time around. Some things I will probably never fully understand (higher math is my bane, though I try - also, I'll probably never understand chemistry or biology on anything more than a superficial level), but that doesn't keep them from my interest. Why am I like this? Not sure, I've always been a very curious and inquisitive person since I was a child. I've found that having these tidbits and more of knowledge and such socked away has helped me make connections and analogies in other areas, to solve problems - and sometimes raise other questions, which just leads me down another rabbit hole at times. As you can tell - take me to a library and I could easily get lost for hours. Don't get me started on any of the warrens available on the internet (or the internet itself for that matter)...
- LeonB 7y ago
  I wouldn’t call it depressing but I think for example, when you look at even the most fundamental types, for example in c#, they have difficult problems. Floating point numbers for example. Or date times. Egad! Or strings. There’s a Jon Skeet talk that covers this very well. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l3nPJ-yK-LU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l3nPJ-yK-LU
- megous 7y ago
  For me it's the amount of bloat and too many levels of not so good abstraction. It's not really depressing yet, but more irritating to me. And I take it as an opportunity.
non-entity 7y ago
> esoteric details of various parts of computers (i.e. you get to see computers more realistically than idealized), the more depressed you get about the current state of software development. Honestly the most depressing part is hearing all these older guys talk about the really cool problems they worked on during the dawn of modern computing, knowing I'm just gonna be writing shitty business apps till I retire
- wolfgke 7y ago
  > Honestly the most depressing part is hearing all these older guys talk about the really cool problems they worked on during the dawn of modern computing, knowing I'm just gonna be writing shitty business apps till I retire You can do this cool stuff at night and weekends (I do!).

journalctl 7y ago

I just learned about King Leopold and what he did to the people of Congo [1]. How anyone can be at all educated about the world and not be depressed is beyond me. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free...

tim333 7y ago
At least that stuff is dying out.
- LeonB 7y ago
  It's not "dying out" -- people are working very hard to reduce it. Sometimes we say things like "the world has changed" but the truth is that people have changed the world, through tremendous efforts. It's easy for a bystander to say "the problem just seemed to go away!" when the people who are doing the work can stare at them and say, "Ahem... it didn't just go away."
  - tim333 7y ago
    I don't deny that. Atrocities have reduced partly because people have worked hard to reduce them. Also technology has helped - you do bad stuff now and someone will film it on their phone, upload to youtube and the whole world can see and make a fuss.

gwd 7y ago

One possible explanation of results: 1. The world is, in fact, pretty messed up a lot of the time. 2. There are different ways to deal with it: 2a. Don't deal well with it; get depressed 2b. Denial: Refuse to face up to how messed up the world is. 2c. Deal with the world in some other way that is neither denial nor depression. Presumably in their study 2a and 2c would both score more "realistic" and 2b would score less "realistic"; but 2b and 2c would be grouped together in the study, causing the "not depressed" group as a whole to score lower on the "realistic" axis. IOW, the simplistic conclusion of this study would be, "The only way to avoid being depressed is to go into denial"; but the study may also be consistent with, "One way people avoid being depressed is to go into denial; but there may be ways to avoid depression other than denial".

buboard 7y ago
The two (realism/knowledge and depression) seem to be in a feedback loop. Probably children are happier because they dont know enough yet. And fools/ignoramuses - that conventional wisdom has some merit. It's a question though why humans would evolve to become inert in the face of knowledge. Who knows, it may be an advantage.

throwaway932 7y ago

Yes, but there is a social element: People who see the world realistically while living in a "positive thinking" society often feel like there something wrong in them.