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I remember talking to a technically minded friend about my clinical depression, and I remember how she mentioned building an app to help solve it. I remember th

I remember talking to a technically minded friend about my clinical depression, and I remember how she mentioned building an app to help solve it. I remember thinking at the time how sometimes building an app isn't the solution to a problem. Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest, most straightforward, and the least innovative ones: voting in policymakers who craft empathetic public policy, donating to charity, being there for a friend. Hope you all are doing well :)

copperx 6y ago
Your friend must be hilarious. I don't think anyone would say something like that seriously.
- chongli 6y ago
  I also knew someone who built an app to try to help depressed people. She was pretty serious about it. As a person who has battled depression off and on, I also found it difficult to believe someone would take such an app seriously.
  - Mirioron 6y ago
    It depends on what the app does though. One of the ways people cope with things like that is escapism. If your app can provide that then it can help some people. Eg a game or an app for stories, jokes etc. Another thing that can help with depression is exercise. But it's difficult to exercise while depressed. If you can somehow build an app that tricks people into exercising (like Pokémon Go "tricked" people into going outside) then that could help too. It's not as weird as it sounds.
    - chongli 6y ago
      Those are good all good ideas. This was not what she built though. She had a chat bot that was supposed to talk to depressed people. The idea really did not appeal to me at all.
vmception 6y ago
> I remember thinking at the time how sometimes building an app isn't the solution to a problem. Is it ever? Let Apple and Google churn out that stuff. Let the rest of us sell shovels for $180k/yr to tech company founders. Or $500k/yr to Apple and Google.
rohitb91 6y ago
That's a hilarious sort of tech delusion that people make fun of Surely a react app is the only thing in the way between global peace and happiness and harmony, let's just make a nice webpage and raise hundreds of millions of dollars for it :)
- baddox 6y ago
  It's also somewhat delusional to think that things will change if you just vote really hard and tell your friends to vote really hard.
- Florin_Andrei 6y ago
  > That's a hilarious sort of tech delusion When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
wavepruner 6y ago
"Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest, most straightforward, and the least innovative ones: voting in policymakers who craft empathetic public policy" This gets extraordinarily complicated because many political groups refuse to empathize with anyone who doesn't have the same life experience as themselves.
Melting_Harps 6y ago
> I remember thinking at the time how sometimes building an app isn't the solution to a problem. > Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest... I agreed with your reasoning and logic but not your conclusion. And while I'm a proponent of UBI, and to an extent Andrew Yang's platform, simply voting someone in doesn't solve the many pitfalls of the Human Condition. Which includes, but is not limited to, finding value and self-wroth from one's achievements and work in Society and in Daily Life. Nothing stops you from going and planting a community garden, or if that's not available in your area guerilla gardening, or volunteering in several capacities. Even taking up hobbies you may have put off is a very good use of time. Or launching a side gig that can teach you new skills in a otherwise neglected facet of your Life. I personally went back to school in Jan as a plan B to my pursuit to go to SpaceX, as I have been out of Supply Chain since 2017 when I left BMW and VW, and that has kept me pretty engaged. On top of that I also have neglected off-road project I needed to do some much needed maintenance on after driving through the 3ft+ of snow, so while my normal social-life has completely gone away (and I feel it, although they did temporarily open the clubs last week for 2 nights, only to re-close this weeks events) I'm still pretty engaged with my old team as well as have school and cars to keep me engaged--honestly, this feels too much like HS for my taste. In short: Public Policy can and should address many things, like de-funding and de-militarizing the police to focus on community outreach, but it cannot overcome the many perils of being Human. We need to feel engaged in our Community and within ourselves, and I think very few people have adjusted to that well, as most of Civilization has been built on overcoming the (in)convenience of Life and left very little room for self-reflection. Sidenote: I've been chef for the past years after leaving Tech, and the way restaurants operate now is completely odd and not at all appealing to me for in-room dining; I went with some friends and it's not at all pleasant, and they let us take off our masks at the table/bar area we were sat at. I don't foresee myself going on dinner dates at a resteraunt anytime soon. Its good for a take out deal and walk somewhere or go home, but I can cook, so the ambiance is really the only thing I pay for. > That's a hilarious sort of tech delusion that people make fun of Honestly, that seemed like something Mike Judge wrote if we had a new season of COVID based Silicon Valley, I can see the main character pitching something like: Pied Piper now has a mood optimizer attached to your VR headset and relies on real-time data acquisition gathered from your fitbit to adjust the visuals to fit your Lifestyle! I'm glad I left the Valley when I did. The collective mind-set there is not just delusional, its outright absurd and perhaps even dangerous. Having so many people unable to do even basic tasks outside of their controlled environment/World is a disaster waiting to happen. Honestly, I'm looking forward to the crazy twisted things coming out of Charlie Brooker's head right now for Black Mirror. I have a fan-art script I have been working on/off for years that probably would go really well in this social distancing era as it was about the emergence of people like this, and oddly enough I started writing it only months before this article came out in 2014: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eating-in-front-of-webcam-south-korea_n_4686596 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eating-in-front-of-webcam-sou...
cosmodisk 6y ago
As long as it's not written in JS,right? Your friend's solution to the problem,while quite hilarious, shows a complete lack of understanding of how the world works among some techies. That's why we end up with AI based dog leash, remote juice press,or watches that do everything but show time...
smilewide 6y ago
This reminds me indirectly of a great metaphor from The Wire. One of the working class guys is buying a bird and asks the handler, "Why don't they fly away?" "Because their wings are clipped." Not directly applicable, but thinking you can just provide job training or an app or whatever and solve this problem is incredibly naive.

copperx 6y ago

Your friend must be hilarious. I don't think anyone would say something like that seriously.

chongli 6y ago
I also knew someone who built an app to try to help depressed people. She was pretty serious about it. As a person who has battled depression off and on, I also found it difficult to believe someone would take such an app seriously.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  It depends on what the app does though. One of the ways people cope with things like that is escapism. If your app can provide that then it can help some people. Eg a game or an app for stories, jokes etc. Another thing that can help with depression is exercise. But it's difficult to exercise while depressed. If you can somehow build an app that tricks people into exercising (like Pokémon Go "tricked" people into going outside) then that could help too. It's not as weird as it sounds.
  - chongli 6y ago
    Those are good all good ideas. This was not what she built though. She had a chat bot that was supposed to talk to depressed people. The idea really did not appeal to me at all.

vmception 6y ago

> I remember thinking at the time how sometimes building an app isn't the solution to a problem. Is it ever? Let Apple and Google churn out that stuff. Let the rest of us sell shovels for $180k/yr to tech company founders. Or $500k/yr to Apple and Google.

rohitb91 6y ago

That's a hilarious sort of tech delusion that people make fun of Surely a react app is the only thing in the way between global peace and happiness and harmony, let's just make a nice webpage and raise hundreds of millions of dollars for it :)

baddox 6y ago
It's also somewhat delusional to think that things will change if you just vote really hard and tell your friends to vote really hard.
Florin_Andrei 6y ago
> That's a hilarious sort of tech delusion When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

wavepruner 6y ago

"Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest, most straightforward, and the least innovative ones: voting in policymakers who craft empathetic public policy" This gets extraordinarily complicated because many political groups refuse to empathize with anyone who doesn't have the same life experience as themselves.

Melting_Harps 6y ago

> I remember thinking at the time how sometimes building an app isn't the solution to a problem. > Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest... I agreed with your reasoning and logic but not your conclusion. And while I'm a proponent of UBI, and to an extent Andrew Yang's platform, simply voting someone in doesn't solve the many pitfalls of the Human Condition. Which includes, but is not limited to, finding value and self-wroth from one's achievements and work in Society and in Daily Life. Nothing stops you from going and planting a community garden, or if that's not available in your area guerilla gardening, or volunteering in several capacities. Even taking up hobbies you may have put off is a very good use of time. Or launching a side gig that can teach you new skills in a otherwise neglected facet of your Life. I personally went back to school in Jan as a plan B to my pursuit to go to SpaceX, as I have been out of Supply Chain since 2017 when I left BMW and VW, and that has kept me pretty engaged. On top of that I also have neglected off-road project I needed to do some much needed maintenance on after driving through the 3ft+ of snow, so while my normal social-life has completely gone away (and I feel it, although they did temporarily open the clubs last week for 2 nights, only to re-close this weeks events) I'm still pretty engaged with my old team as well as have school and cars to keep me engaged--honestly, this feels too much like HS for my taste. In short: Public Policy can and should address many things, like de-funding and de-militarizing the police to focus on community outreach, but it cannot overcome the many perils of being Human. We need to feel engaged in our Community and within ourselves, and I think very few people have adjusted to that well, as most of Civilization has been built on overcoming the (in)convenience of Life and left very little room for self-reflection. Sidenote: I've been chef for the past years after leaving Tech, and the way restaurants operate now is completely odd and not at all appealing to me for in-room dining; I went with some friends and it's not at all pleasant, and they let us take off our masks at the table/bar area we were sat at. I don't foresee myself going on dinner dates at a resteraunt anytime soon. Its good for a take out deal and walk somewhere or go home, but I can cook, so the ambiance is really the only thing I pay for. > That's a hilarious sort of tech delusion that people make fun of Honestly, that seemed like something Mike Judge wrote if we had a new season of COVID based Silicon Valley, I can see the main character pitching something like: Pied Piper now has a mood optimizer attached to your VR headset and relies on real-time data acquisition gathered from your fitbit to adjust the visuals to fit your Lifestyle! I'm glad I left the Valley when I did. The collective mind-set there is not just delusional, its outright absurd and perhaps even dangerous. Having so many people unable to do even basic tasks outside of their controlled environment/World is a disaster waiting to happen. Honestly, I'm looking forward to the crazy twisted things coming out of Charlie Brooker's head right now for Black Mirror. I have a fan-art script I have been working on/off for years that probably would go really well in this social distancing era as it was about the emergence of people like this, and oddly enough I started writing it only months before this article came out in 2014: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eating-in-front-of-webcam-south-korea_n_4686596 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eating-in-front-of-webcam-sou...

cosmodisk 6y ago

As long as it's not written in JS,right? Your friend's solution to the problem,while quite hilarious, shows a complete lack of understanding of how the world works among some techies. That's why we end up with AI based dog leash, remote juice press,or watches that do everything but show time...

smilewide 6y ago

This reminds me indirectly of a great metaphor from The Wire. One of the working class guys is buying a bird and asks the handler, "Why don't they fly away?" "Because their wings are clipped." Not directly applicable, but thinking you can just provide job training or an app or whatever and solve this problem is incredibly naive.