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Wow, it's almost as if the modern economic system itself is the problem... /s Their insistence on framing depression as if it were a biological illness (and no

Wow, it's almost as if the modern economic system itself is the problem... /s Their insistence on framing depression as if it were a biological illness (and not a result of the complex and historical interplay between psyche/desire and environment) is repulsive to me. Feels like blatant propaganda to discuss depression as "merely" an economic problem, in "scientific" american no less.

quotemstr 5y ago
> Wow, it's almost as if the modern economic system itself is the problem What makes you so sure that it's our economic system (inb4 "let's blame capitalism for everything") and not all the other aspects of modernity that make is isolated, atomized, and nihilistic?
- Nav_Panel 5y ago
  We don't need to invoke "capitalism" to discuss the psychic distress involved in repetitive work schedules and, more generally, the expectations surrounding labor and wages, i.e. the modern economic system. The term contains too much, although I do personally agree with many critiques of capitalism.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    Because life as a hunter gatherer just a few days away from starvation at any point was less stressful? Generations upon generations of farming was less repetitive?
    - Nav_Panel 5y ago
      I'm assuming you misread me, because I'm saying something to the effect of "reducing work hours and providing flexibility might be helpful for people, but the present social equilibria prevent that from happening, and mental health provides an excuse to avoid changing aspects of the economic system that have issues", and not some primitivist whatever. Also, stress alone isn't the issue here at all.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      > Generations upon generations of farming was less repetitive? It was. Medieval serfs worked less than us. http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_w...
  - Toks 5y ago
    I don't think it's repetitive work or expectations surrounding labour that cause psychic distress, but worker alienation, which is one of my main gripe with capitalism. I might be wrong here, but I feel that we can endure a repetitive work schedule and high expectations if we feel connected to the work and the fruit of our labour.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      Feeling connected to work and the fruit of our labor is largely a matter of attitude. I've mopped floors for minimum wage and still took satisfaction in doing it well.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        There is a matter of attitude and a matter of reality. Deluding yourself into feeling connected into meaningless work that will benefit no one but a few is just that, delusion. Besides, worker alienation and alienation in general is way more than just taking satisfaction in doing things well, it's actually feeling connected to what you are doing and it's purpose, and feeling connected to the social relationships that enable your life instead of seeing them as impersonal exchanges of commodity on the market.
        throwawayboise 5y ago
        Strikes me that a lot of this is what people used to get from religion. I'm not religious myself, so definitely not trying to push it, but it does seem that there's a correlation between the rise in incidence of depression, feelings of disconnectedness, and lack of a sense if purpose that goes along with the decline in participation in organized religion.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- pmiller2 5y ago
  Serious people do believe capitalism causes mental illnesses. I’m one of them. So is Gabor Maté. https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/gabor-mate-how-capitalism-makes-us-sick https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/gabor-mate-how-... Edit: another good link with Gabor Maté talking about how capitalism harms our mental health. https://patch.com/california/berkeley/ev--an-evening-with-dr-gabor-mat https://patch.com/california/berkeley/ev--an-evening-with-dr...
  - quotemstr 5y ago
    What's the guy's point? Skimming the article, he's just saying that some people have more than others. And? So what? Is that supposed to be self evidently mentally distressing?
    - pmiller2 5y ago
      No, what’s distressing is that those at the bottom have nothing, and those just above the bottom are literally swimming for their lives, treading water and trying not to die. Do you know what one of the animal models for depression is? It’s called the “behavioral despair test,” but it’s actually much crueler and more insidious than it sounds. Put a mouse in an inescapable cylinder filled partly with water. The mouse will initially try to swim and escape, but eventually gives up. Remove the mouse after 15 minutes. Just 24 hours later, the procedure is repeated and the mouse gives up after less than 5 minutes. The mouse has become depressed. These are the conditions that capitalism knowingly imposes on those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Living paycheck to paycheck just to keep a roof over one’s head, if one is lucky, is what it’s like for a huge swath of America. And, this is, if not “by design,” working as intended! Can you honestly tell me that a literal 24/7 struggle to survive isn’t “self evidently mentally distressing?” Because it sounds to me like a recipe for PTSD and depression. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_despair_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_despair_test
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        "a literal 24/7 struggle to survive" Doesn't this describe nearly all of human history, for the vast majority of humans who have ever lived? For far longer than capitalism was ever the basis for any kind of human society?
- chewz 5y ago
  As my meditation teacher explained to me - consumer capitalism needs to make us feel unhappy all over again in order to sell us all the stuff. People content with their life do not need to buy stuff or experience to fill their inner void, they do not make good citizens of caplitalism.
- caddemon 5y ago
  Yeah capitalism was much more ruthless in the early days of the US yet there seems to have been less depression (of course due to different societal factors surrounding diagnosis this can't be said with certainty). Even looking more recently where we have better data - suicides continue to go up through the 2000s. Is the claim seriously that the US is more capitalistic or forces more work/less engaging work now than it did in the 80s and 90s? I find that hard to believe but would be interested in data that could inform the question either way. Certainly bad financial situations are a risk factor for depression, and we should do more to address these issues so that people working full time jobs can actually make ends meet. But I do also worry that the push on the other side to continually cut back work hours will only make things worse. HN is a total bubble, most people without a career do not know what to do with themselves. Sustaining intrinsic motivation for long periods can be very difficult. Continuing a project without regular feedback can feel impossible. These are big reasons why doing a PhD can be a really tough experience. You might not think it matters if people are productive, but in the long run it is critical to the mental health of many that they feel productive. Work also generally keeps people on a routine schedule, forces some amount of social interaction, etc. These are important for a healthy life.
  - watwut 5y ago
    > Yeah capitalism was much more ruthless in the early days of the US yet there seems to have been less depression What makes you think so? It is 100% honest question: what historical evidence makes you guess the rates of depression in early days of US?
    - caddemon 5y ago
      As I mentioned the further back you go the harder it is to say anything definitive. But I do think it's telling that depression rates keep rising, and this isn't even just a 21st century phenomenon. There are epidemiological studies from the late 80s that read very similarly to the alarm raised now: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/377029 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/37702... Going further back, discussion of a link between modernity/depression is largely speculation, but it is a popular hypothesis and there are some studies that focus on suicide rates for a more data-driven approach. It is harder to find information on US numbers but Scandinavian countries are notorious for access to thorough epidemiological data: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2307/1389426 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2307/1389426
johncolanduoni 5y ago
I think it’s worth noting that though many people would understandably view those two aspects as contradictory (biological in nature and often social and environmental in instigation) this is definitely not the dominant view of psychiatric professionals or researchers. Lead poisoning has a relatively simple cause and effect chain that few would claim is not biological, but nobody trying to combat it is blind to the environmental and social factors that determine who gets it. You may not be the target audience of this particle piece, in the sense that they don’t have to convince you depression is worth paying attention to. When trying to signal-boost an issue, you often have to play up aspects of it that you yourself might not find to be the most acute, or even the most humane as in this case. If this is the angle that has to be taken to get it taken seriously by some people, I’d rather the argument be made than not.
sarsway 5y ago
Of course. The prospect of working 40 hours a week for the rest of your life on some miserable bullshit job, with no perspective and the future looking bleak, tends to make people depressed. But instead of admitting that their life simply sucks, they are brainwashed into thinking that there must be something wrong with them. It's part of the reason why psilocybin is so effective. It makes people actually realize that. That no amount of meds will fix it. That to be happy, you will have to change your life, get unstuck from all the things you don't really need, and prioritize happiness.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Don't recall where I read it, but it resonated with me intuitively: depression is the body's way of telling you that you need to make a change in your environment. Whether it's move to a different city, get a different job, a different girlfriend; something in your life right now isn't working for you. It's problematic when you can't make those changes, e.g. you're young and still living with/dependent upon parents, or you feel you'd have to give up too much e.g. being close to your kids, or people are telling you to just take a pill and it will be better. IDK about psilocybin, never tried it, seems like more snake oil honestly, there are no magic answers here.
  - gleenn 5y ago
    Definitely makes sense and sounds like a super healthy response to depression to realize that something should change if you're very depressed. Might not be easy of course. I think psilocybin isn't snake oil because I don't think anyone is promising it as a cure, taking some might break you out of your normal mental state enough to make you realize all sorts of things, including that you might have to change a whole bunch to get better. Not a cure, just something that make you recognize the problem or at least the existence of some problem.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    > depression is the body's way of telling you that you need to make a change in your environment That doesn't sound plausible, as one of the main parts of depression is often debilitating lack of motivation (much more than sadness or anxiety). So depressed people are usually the least likely to be able to independently make any kind of significant change in their life - they're already spending most of their "energy" on getting out of bed and following a routine. Not to mention, establishing clear routines and minor goals is one of the main recommendations (outside medication) for dealing with depression.
elevenoh 5y ago
>Their insistence on framing depression as if it were a biological illness (and not a result of the complex and historical interplay between psyche/desire and environment) is repulsive to me. Feels like blatant propaganda to discuss depression as "merely" an economic problem, in "scientific" american no less. It's not one or the other. It's both, bio & environmental, like near-everything else.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
maybelsyrup 5y ago
I’m glad this reply is not at the bottom of the page, but I’m sad it’s not at the top. I did come here hoping to see it, though, so I’m netting pretty content right now.

quotemstr 5y ago

> Wow, it's almost as if the modern economic system itself is the problem What makes you so sure that it's our economic system (inb4 "let's blame capitalism for everything") and not all the other aspects of modernity that make is isolated, atomized, and nihilistic?

Nav_Panel 5y ago
We don't need to invoke "capitalism" to discuss the psychic distress involved in repetitive work schedules and, more generally, the expectations surrounding labor and wages, i.e. the modern economic system. The term contains too much, although I do personally agree with many critiques of capitalism.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Because life as a hunter gatherer just a few days away from starvation at any point was less stressful? Generations upon generations of farming was less repetitive?
  - Nav_Panel 5y ago
    I'm assuming you misread me, because I'm saying something to the effect of "reducing work hours and providing flexibility might be helpful for people, but the present social equilibria prevent that from happening, and mental health provides an excuse to avoid changing aspects of the economic system that have issues", and not some primitivist whatever. Also, stress alone isn't the issue here at all.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    > Generations upon generations of farming was less repetitive? It was. Medieval serfs worked less than us. http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_w...
- Toks 5y ago
  I don't think it's repetitive work or expectations surrounding labour that cause psychic distress, but worker alienation, which is one of my main gripe with capitalism. I might be wrong here, but I feel that we can endure a repetitive work schedule and high expectations if we feel connected to the work and the fruit of our labour.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Feeling connected to work and the fruit of our labor is largely a matter of attitude. I've mopped floors for minimum wage and still took satisfaction in doing it well.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      There is a matter of attitude and a matter of reality. Deluding yourself into feeling connected into meaningless work that will benefit no one but a few is just that, delusion. Besides, worker alienation and alienation in general is way more than just taking satisfaction in doing things well, it's actually feeling connected to what you are doing and it's purpose, and feeling connected to the social relationships that enable your life instead of seeing them as impersonal exchanges of commodity on the market.
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        Strikes me that a lot of this is what people used to get from religion. I'm not religious myself, so definitely not trying to push it, but it does seem that there's a correlation between the rise in incidence of depression, feelings of disconnectedness, and lack of a sense if purpose that goes along with the decline in participation in organized religion.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
pmiller2 5y ago
Serious people do believe capitalism causes mental illnesses. I’m one of them. So is Gabor Maté. https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/gabor-mate-how-capitalism-makes-us-sick https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/gabor-mate-how-... Edit: another good link with Gabor Maté talking about how capitalism harms our mental health. https://patch.com/california/berkeley/ev--an-evening-with-dr-gabor-mat https://patch.com/california/berkeley/ev--an-evening-with-dr...
- quotemstr 5y ago
  What's the guy's point? Skimming the article, he's just saying that some people have more than others. And? So what? Is that supposed to be self evidently mentally distressing?
  - pmiller2 5y ago
    No, what’s distressing is that those at the bottom have nothing, and those just above the bottom are literally swimming for their lives, treading water and trying not to die. Do you know what one of the animal models for depression is? It’s called the “behavioral despair test,” but it’s actually much crueler and more insidious than it sounds. Put a mouse in an inescapable cylinder filled partly with water. The mouse will initially try to swim and escape, but eventually gives up. Remove the mouse after 15 minutes. Just 24 hours later, the procedure is repeated and the mouse gives up after less than 5 minutes. The mouse has become depressed. These are the conditions that capitalism knowingly imposes on those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Living paycheck to paycheck just to keep a roof over one’s head, if one is lucky, is what it’s like for a huge swath of America. And, this is, if not “by design,” working as intended! Can you honestly tell me that a literal 24/7 struggle to survive isn’t “self evidently mentally distressing?” Because it sounds to me like a recipe for PTSD and depression. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_despair_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_despair_test
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      "a literal 24/7 struggle to survive" Doesn't this describe nearly all of human history, for the vast majority of humans who have ever lived? For far longer than capitalism was ever the basis for any kind of human society?
chewz 5y ago
As my meditation teacher explained to me - consumer capitalism needs to make us feel unhappy all over again in order to sell us all the stuff. People content with their life do not need to buy stuff or experience to fill their inner void, they do not make good citizens of caplitalism.
caddemon 5y ago
Yeah capitalism was much more ruthless in the early days of the US yet there seems to have been less depression (of course due to different societal factors surrounding diagnosis this can't be said with certainty). Even looking more recently where we have better data - suicides continue to go up through the 2000s. Is the claim seriously that the US is more capitalistic or forces more work/less engaging work now than it did in the 80s and 90s? I find that hard to believe but would be interested in data that could inform the question either way. Certainly bad financial situations are a risk factor for depression, and we should do more to address these issues so that people working full time jobs can actually make ends meet. But I do also worry that the push on the other side to continually cut back work hours will only make things worse. HN is a total bubble, most people without a career do not know what to do with themselves. Sustaining intrinsic motivation for long periods can be very difficult. Continuing a project without regular feedback can feel impossible. These are big reasons why doing a PhD can be a really tough experience. You might not think it matters if people are productive, but in the long run it is critical to the mental health of many that they feel productive. Work also generally keeps people on a routine schedule, forces some amount of social interaction, etc. These are important for a healthy life.
- watwut 5y ago
  > Yeah capitalism was much more ruthless in the early days of the US yet there seems to have been less depression What makes you think so? It is 100% honest question: what historical evidence makes you guess the rates of depression in early days of US?
  - caddemon 5y ago
    As I mentioned the further back you go the harder it is to say anything definitive. But I do think it's telling that depression rates keep rising, and this isn't even just a 21st century phenomenon. There are epidemiological studies from the late 80s that read very similarly to the alarm raised now: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/377029 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/37702... Going further back, discussion of a link between modernity/depression is largely speculation, but it is a popular hypothesis and there are some studies that focus on suicide rates for a more data-driven approach. It is harder to find information on US numbers but Scandinavian countries are notorious for access to thorough epidemiological data: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2307/1389426 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2307/1389426

johncolanduoni 5y ago

I think it’s worth noting that though many people would understandably view those two aspects as contradictory (biological in nature and often social and environmental in instigation) this is definitely not the dominant view of psychiatric professionals or researchers. Lead poisoning has a relatively simple cause and effect chain that few would claim is not biological, but nobody trying to combat it is blind to the environmental and social factors that determine who gets it. You may not be the target audience of this particle piece, in the sense that they don’t have to convince you depression is worth paying attention to. When trying to signal-boost an issue, you often have to play up aspects of it that you yourself might not find to be the most acute, or even the most humane as in this case. If this is the angle that has to be taken to get it taken seriously by some people, I’d rather the argument be made than not.

sarsway 5y ago

Of course. The prospect of working 40 hours a week for the rest of your life on some miserable bullshit job, with no perspective and the future looking bleak, tends to make people depressed. But instead of admitting that their life simply sucks, they are brainwashed into thinking that there must be something wrong with them. It's part of the reason why psilocybin is so effective. It makes people actually realize that. That no amount of meds will fix it. That to be happy, you will have to change your life, get unstuck from all the things you don't really need, and prioritize happiness.

throwawayboise 5y ago
Don't recall where I read it, but it resonated with me intuitively: depression is the body's way of telling you that you need to make a change in your environment. Whether it's move to a different city, get a different job, a different girlfriend; something in your life right now isn't working for you. It's problematic when you can't make those changes, e.g. you're young and still living with/dependent upon parents, or you feel you'd have to give up too much e.g. being close to your kids, or people are telling you to just take a pill and it will be better. IDK about psilocybin, never tried it, seems like more snake oil honestly, there are no magic answers here.
- gleenn 5y ago
  Definitely makes sense and sounds like a super healthy response to depression to realize that something should change if you're very depressed. Might not be easy of course. I think psilocybin isn't snake oil because I don't think anyone is promising it as a cure, taking some might break you out of your normal mental state enough to make you realize all sorts of things, including that you might have to change a whole bunch to get better. Not a cure, just something that make you recognize the problem or at least the existence of some problem.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  > depression is the body's way of telling you that you need to make a change in your environment That doesn't sound plausible, as one of the main parts of depression is often debilitating lack of motivation (much more than sadness or anxiety). So depressed people are usually the least likely to be able to independently make any kind of significant change in their life - they're already spending most of their "energy" on getting out of bed and following a routine. Not to mention, establishing clear routines and minor goals is one of the main recommendations (outside medication) for dealing with depression.

elevenoh 5y ago

>Their insistence on framing depression as if it were a biological illness (and not a result of the complex and historical interplay between psyche/desire and environment) is repulsive to me. Feels like blatant propaganda to discuss depression as "merely" an economic problem, in "scientific" american no less. It's not one or the other. It's both, bio & environmental, like near-everything else.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

maybelsyrup 5y ago

I’m glad this reply is not at the bottom of the page, but I’m sad it’s not at the top. I did come here hoping to see it, though, so I’m netting pretty content right now.