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I agree with your first paragraph. However, I don't think your 2nd paragraph is a fix that'll help very many people at all. This idea that just throwing free t

I agree with your first paragraph. However, I don't think your 2nd paragraph is a fix that'll help very many people at all. This idea that just throwing free things at people will give them any amount of deeper happiness is typically proven false. I also don't find therapists all that useful but I guess that's a personal subjective take... maybe for the right people they can be. The healthy food thing is a cultural issue and no amount of subsidizing it to make it cheaper will get people to eat healthier. The percentage of obese people is too high to place all the obesity blame on food pricing. The issue is simply that modern day life is typically TOO easy for most people and gives back very little deep meaning. We've created a culture that gives zero meaning to anyone and promotes nihilism. You will not fix that with welfare. Some of the most depressed mentally ill people you find will be very well off financially.

juve1996 4y ago
> Some of the most depressed mentally ill people you find will be very well off financially. Is this statistically true? otherwise this is worthless. See: Study Finds Strong Relation Between Income and Happiness, Does Not Max Out at $75k. Turns out that famous study that everyone loved to quote isn't exactly truth. https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/nextgen/nextgen-article/study-finds-strong-relation-between-income-and-happiness-does-not-max-out-at-75k https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/nextgen/nextgen-ar...
- DrThunder 4y ago
  Happiness has nothing to do with clinical mental illness.
idontpost 4y ago
[dead]
landemva 4y ago
> modern day life is typically TOO easy for most people and gives back very little deep meaning. That is about accurate for USA. People can start a garden or put a pepper plant under a CFL bulb. Grow some food to get some appreciation for how life has become easier.
rcarr 4y ago
I didn’t say free, I said subsidised. You need to reduce friction for good habits and increase friction for bad ones. At the minute, our societies do the exact opposite. Unhealthy food and Netflix and cheap. Healthy food and education are expensive. It doesn’t matter how it happened, once someone is in the hole, the negative feedback loop makes it very hard for them to escape. If you are worked to the bone on minimum wage to keep an overpriced roof over your head you will likely fall into the trap of eating shit food and binging on Netflix because summoning the energy to cook, teach yourself skills and exercise is going to be difficult. And the more you give in to doing that the deeper into the hole you fall. People at the bottom need breathing space. Reduce the amount of money they have to spend to survive which means they don’t have to work themselves to the bone to survive and they can actually focus on improving themselves. I’ve literally seen it happen with my own eyes. And yes, for some people life can be too easy and that can also cause depression. Which is why I believe we need finer grained categories to narrows down the root causes and provide more tailored solutions than just handing out happy pills willy nilly to everyone.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  >You need to reduce friction for good habits and increase friction for bad ones. At the minute, our societies do the exact opposite. Unhealthy food and Netflix and cheap. Healthy food and education are expensive I would argue the opposite. healthy food is already dirt cheap, and education is free. One hour at minimum wage can buy enough clean healthy food to last an adult most of a week.[1] Free education as available at online and at libraries, ranging all the way from simple tasks to Phd courses from Stanford. My point isn't to minimize the hardship of the depressed, but point out that friction isn't the issue. If 5 minutes of cooking, picking up a book, or typing an educational topic into youtube is too much effort, there is a different problem. Why does reading a book, cooking, or learning seem like work, and not fun? It certainly isn't because it is too hard in reality, especially when the same depressed person found pleasure and relaxation in doing these things before they were depressed. [1] I was at the store yesterday and pork was 88 cents/lb, frozen vegetables ~ $1/lb, and rice and beans ~$1/lb.
  - rcarr 4y ago
digdugdirk 4y ago
I believe you're interpreting the OP's second paragraph differently to how it was intended. The idea isn't that you're "giving" or "providing" or "subsidizing" with welfare - the point is that the subsidization has already occurred, just in a non-human focused way. Factory farming has been subsidized so processed sugars and unhealthy food are the norm. Companies are effectively subsidized by allowing minimum wage scheduling without providing healthcare. This all has knock on effects. Healthy food isn't just a cultural issue, many people simply don't have the time or access to be able to cook healthy natural food. For the vast majority of people, they have no possible access to a therapist, even if they wanted to or were able to afford it (unlikely in the case of the US healthcare system). And of course, since there's minimal insurance support for general therapy, there's a much smaller market for people to go into it. The negative feedback loop continues. I agree with your general point that life gives back very little meaning in our society, but its important to understand that this doesn't just occur because life is too easy. For many people, life is hard. And there isn't a visible path out of the situation they're currently in. Checking out/dropping out/giving up is honestly a reasonable response. TLDR: Try not to think of Welfare as a handout. See it as a signal of a broken society that needs fixing.
D-Coder 4y ago
> The issue is simply that modern day life is typically TOO easy for most people and gives back very little deep meaning. Any references that people were less depressed when things were more difficult?
- DrThunder 4y ago
  Read Viktor Frankl’s book please. People would not have had time to be depressed in the past. They were just surviving. Wallowing in depression would have meant death.
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
I disagree that modern day life is too easy for most people and that's why people are depressed. Specifically, I don't think there's any evidence that lives with more adversity are less prone to mental illness. By this logic, PTSD shouldn't exist, neither should the myriad of studies that prove beating your children statistically results in a whole host of negative outcomes. I think you personally just might not be engaging with people who aren't well off financially. The rate of mental illness among the homeless and the jailed populations is way, way higher than the rate of mental illness among the wealthy.

juve1996 4y ago

> Some of the most depressed mentally ill people you find will be very well off financially. Is this statistically true? otherwise this is worthless. See: Study Finds Strong Relation Between Income and Happiness, Does Not Max Out at $75k. Turns out that famous study that everyone loved to quote isn't exactly truth. https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/nextgen/nextgen-article/study-finds-strong-relation-between-income-and-happiness-does-not-max-out-at-75k https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/nextgen/nextgen-ar...

DrThunder 4y ago
Happiness has nothing to do with clinical mental illness.

idontpost 4y ago

[dead]

landemva 4y ago

> modern day life is typically TOO easy for most people and gives back very little deep meaning. That is about accurate for USA. People can start a garden or put a pepper plant under a CFL bulb. Grow some food to get some appreciation for how life has become easier.

rcarr 4y ago

I didn’t say free, I said subsidised. You need to reduce friction for good habits and increase friction for bad ones. At the minute, our societies do the exact opposite. Unhealthy food and Netflix and cheap. Healthy food and education are expensive. It doesn’t matter how it happened, once someone is in the hole, the negative feedback loop makes it very hard for them to escape. If you are worked to the bone on minimum wage to keep an overpriced roof over your head you will likely fall into the trap of eating shit food and binging on Netflix because summoning the energy to cook, teach yourself skills and exercise is going to be difficult. And the more you give in to doing that the deeper into the hole you fall. People at the bottom need breathing space. Reduce the amount of money they have to spend to survive which means they don’t have to work themselves to the bone to survive and they can actually focus on improving themselves. I’ve literally seen it happen with my own eyes. And yes, for some people life can be too easy and that can also cause depression. Which is why I believe we need finer grained categories to narrows down the root causes and provide more tailored solutions than just handing out happy pills willy nilly to everyone.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
>You need to reduce friction for good habits and increase friction for bad ones. At the minute, our societies do the exact opposite. Unhealthy food and Netflix and cheap. Healthy food and education are expensive I would argue the opposite. healthy food is already dirt cheap, and education is free. One hour at minimum wage can buy enough clean healthy food to last an adult most of a week.[1] Free education as available at online and at libraries, ranging all the way from simple tasks to Phd courses from Stanford. My point isn't to minimize the hardship of the depressed, but point out that friction isn't the issue. If 5 minutes of cooking, picking up a book, or typing an educational topic into youtube is too much effort, there is a different problem. Why does reading a book, cooking, or learning seem like work, and not fun? It certainly isn't because it is too hard in reality, especially when the same depressed person found pleasure and relaxation in doing these things before they were depressed. [1] I was at the store yesterday and pork was 88 cents/lb, frozen vegetables ~ $1/lb, and rice and beans ~$1/lb.
- rcarr 4y ago

digdugdirk 4y ago

I believe you're interpreting the OP's second paragraph differently to how it was intended. The idea isn't that you're "giving" or "providing" or "subsidizing" with welfare - the point is that the subsidization has already occurred, just in a non-human focused way. Factory farming has been subsidized so processed sugars and unhealthy food are the norm. Companies are effectively subsidized by allowing minimum wage scheduling without providing healthcare. This all has knock on effects. Healthy food isn't just a cultural issue, many people simply don't have the time or access to be able to cook healthy natural food. For the vast majority of people, they have no possible access to a therapist, even if they wanted to or were able to afford it (unlikely in the case of the US healthcare system). And of course, since there's minimal insurance support for general therapy, there's a much smaller market for people to go into it. The negative feedback loop continues. I agree with your general point that life gives back very little meaning in our society, but its important to understand that this doesn't just occur because life is too easy. For many people, life is hard. And there isn't a visible path out of the situation they're currently in. Checking out/dropping out/giving up is honestly a reasonable response. TLDR: Try not to think of Welfare as a handout. See it as a signal of a broken society that needs fixing.

D-Coder 4y ago

> The issue is simply that modern day life is typically TOO easy for most people and gives back very little deep meaning. Any references that people were less depressed when things were more difficult?

DrThunder 4y ago
Read Viktor Frankl’s book please. People would not have had time to be depressed in the past. They were just surviving. Wallowing in depression would have meant death.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago

I disagree that modern day life is too easy for most people and that's why people are depressed. Specifically, I don't think there's any evidence that lives with more adversity are less prone to mental illness. By this logic, PTSD shouldn't exist, neither should the myriad of studies that prove beating your children statistically results in a whole host of negative outcomes. I think you personally just might not be engaging with people who aren't well off financially. The rate of mental illness among the homeless and the jailed populations is way, way higher than the rate of mental illness among the wealthy.