4 ms·

What gives you this certainty?

by sooheon 7y ago

tomrod 7y ago
Bayesian priors, I reckon.
- sooheon 7y ago
  This is begging the question, which priors are strong enough to merit “certainty” in the face of opposing evidence?
  - tomrod 7y ago
    Fair critique, as the GP didn't say certainty but my response was pre-supposed. I would say that we don't have a well-founded, commonly known model linking air pollution and depression. However their confounding experience through poverty is accepted and easily understood.
    - sooheon 7y ago
      My bad, I read “confidence” and put “certainty” in their mouth. I can agree other already understood factors exist, and may confound the problem. But confounding != negation. And the health effects of air pollution are well understood and bad enough that denying the link from pollution -> depression is equivalent to denying link from bad health -> depression.
      - tomrod 7y ago
        We agree on this point.
  - ailideex 7y ago
    There is opposing evidence?
    - sooheon 7y ago
      Multiple links to recent studies in the article, and a large body of work on the effects of pollution on health in general.
c048 7y ago
Because pinpointing the solution to complex problems to one, easily defined root cause has, in the past, always proven to be bullshit. Silver bullets, just like with code, do not exist for real life problems.
- sooheon 7y ago
  There is no silver bullet in the study, they explicitly call it just a “link”. The straw man is in your mind.
aalleavitch 7y ago
Because the medicalization of depression is a convenient way to avoid thinking about the fact that it is a prominent feature of the status quo, not some aberration. Pollution correlates with industrial manufacturing and warehouse work environments and crushing poverty that forces people to live in a manner consistent with economic efficiency rather than with human happiness and well-being. Long work hours and little money contribute to social isolation. Debt traps put people in situations in which they could not possibly ever claw their way out. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24121465 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24121465 > A meta-analysis of pooled odds ratios showed a significant relationship between debt and mental disorder (OR=3.24), depression (OR=2.77), suicide completion (OR=7.9), suicide completion or attempt (OR=5.76), problem drinking (OR=2.68), drug dependence (OR=8.57), neurotic disorder (OR=3.21) and psychotic disorders (OR=4.03). When are we going to start designing our economies around creating a healthy and enjoyable environment for humans to actually live in, and not arranging human lives around squeezing the greatest amount of economic efficiency out of them as possible? The way we make ourselves live is tantamount to animal abuse.
- sooheon 7y ago
  I agree that depression is a serious and systemic problem, but I don't see why that invalidates medical inquiry into physical causes as well. We can study a problem from multiple angles, because we're merely trying to understand better. Everything you said about depression is bad, and 24/7 smog is also a bad thing which may lead to depression, one does not preclude the other from being factual.
  - aalleavitch 7y ago
    I don't disagree in principle with the idea that the physical aspects of/influences on depression are worth studying. I do, however, think the overall approach we are taking towards depression as a society is fundamentally backwards. We have a massive industry that is focused around producing psychiatric medication so that people can more effectively operate in the society we've structured around them, but we didn't even stop to consider the idea that maybe it is the systems we've built around them that are pathological in themselves. We have this basic notion that if someone doesn't fit in with this social mold we've built that it must be a fault in them, it must be a sickness they suffer from that prevents them from thriving in the ways we expect them to. But why are we not asking ourselves whether the square hole that we are trying to shove their round peg into isn't the problem in itself? Why do we think we are helpless to change things on a systemic level? We grate against the idea that the world we've built might be a bad fit for us, and not the other way around. Instead, we have pathologized what is an entirely natural reaction to the world people live in. We think we need medication to make humans fit better into this system, but really it is the system that is failing us. We built this world for us to live in, why did we make it so incredibly hostile to human happiness?

What gives you this certainty?

tomrod 7y ago

Bayesian priors, I reckon.

sooheon 7y ago
This is begging the question, which priors are strong enough to merit “certainty” in the face of opposing evidence?
- tomrod 7y ago
  Fair critique, as the GP didn't say certainty but my response was pre-supposed. I would say that we don't have a well-founded, commonly known model linking air pollution and depression. However their confounding experience through poverty is accepted and easily understood.
  - sooheon 7y ago
    My bad, I read “confidence” and put “certainty” in their mouth. I can agree other already understood factors exist, and may confound the problem. But confounding != negation. And the health effects of air pollution are well understood and bad enough that denying the link from pollution -> depression is equivalent to denying link from bad health -> depression.
    - tomrod 7y ago
      We agree on this point.
- ailideex 7y ago
  There is opposing evidence?
  - sooheon 7y ago
    Multiple links to recent studies in the article, and a large body of work on the effects of pollution on health in general.

c048 7y ago

Because pinpointing the solution to complex problems to one, easily defined root cause has, in the past, always proven to be bullshit. Silver bullets, just like with code, do not exist for real life problems.

sooheon 7y ago
There is no silver bullet in the study, they explicitly call it just a “link”. The straw man is in your mind.

aalleavitch 7y ago

Because the medicalization of depression is a convenient way to avoid thinking about the fact that it is a prominent feature of the status quo, not some aberration. Pollution correlates with industrial manufacturing and warehouse work environments and crushing poverty that forces people to live in a manner consistent with economic efficiency rather than with human happiness and well-being. Long work hours and little money contribute to social isolation. Debt traps put people in situations in which they could not possibly ever claw their way out. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24121465 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24121465 > A meta-analysis of pooled odds ratios showed a significant relationship between debt and mental disorder (OR=3.24), depression (OR=2.77), suicide completion (OR=7.9), suicide completion or attempt (OR=5.76), problem drinking (OR=2.68), drug dependence (OR=8.57), neurotic disorder (OR=3.21) and psychotic disorders (OR=4.03). When are we going to start designing our economies around creating a healthy and enjoyable environment for humans to actually live in, and not arranging human lives around squeezing the greatest amount of economic efficiency out of them as possible? The way we make ourselves live is tantamount to animal abuse.

sooheon 7y ago
I agree that depression is a serious and systemic problem, but I don't see why that invalidates medical inquiry into physical causes as well. We can study a problem from multiple angles, because we're merely trying to understand better. Everything you said about depression is bad, and 24/7 smog is also a bad thing which may lead to depression, one does not preclude the other from being factual.
- aalleavitch 7y ago
  I don't disagree in principle with the idea that the physical aspects of/influences on depression are worth studying. I do, however, think the overall approach we are taking towards depression as a society is fundamentally backwards. We have a massive industry that is focused around producing psychiatric medication so that people can more effectively operate in the society we've structured around them, but we didn't even stop to consider the idea that maybe it is the systems we've built around them that are pathological in themselves. We have this basic notion that if someone doesn't fit in with this social mold we've built that it must be a fault in them, it must be a sickness they suffer from that prevents them from thriving in the ways we expect them to. But why are we not asking ourselves whether the square hole that we are trying to shove their round peg into isn't the problem in itself? Why do we think we are helpless to change things on a systemic level? We grate against the idea that the world we've built might be a bad fit for us, and not the other way around. Instead, we have pathologized what is an entirely natural reaction to the world people live in. We think we need medication to make humans fit better into this system, but really it is the system that is failing us. We built this world for us to live in, why did we make it so incredibly hostile to human happiness?