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I do educate myself. I read many different viewpoints, including for example parents whose own kids were diagnosed with ADHD and did more research. As one examp

by EGreg 4y ago

I do educate myself. I read many different viewpoints, including for example parents whose own kids were diagnosed with ADHD and did more research. As one example: https://www.amazon.com/ADHD-Hunter-Farmers-Thom-Hartmann/dp/162055898X https://www.amazon.com/ADHD-Hunter-Farmers-Thom-Hartmann/dp/... First of all, I appreciate your sharing of personal anecdotal experience (I mean that sincerely), and I am open to more infomation. But you should be also willing to educate yourself on what your country and system are doing. What I am about to share with you below — if you click the links, will probably shock you and make you question whether the issue is really your personal medical issue. At the very least, you have probably never seen it before. First of all, no one is saying that it’s “all in your head” or you can snap yourself out of it. Any more than diabetes is in people’s heads. What I’ve been saying is that you are downstream of a fixable problem, that most of society doesn’t realize — or even have the desire to fix - with its current priorities. I certainly understand how you feel you have a genetic disorder or clinical disease that can only be “managed” by medical intervention. It’s not your fault. You are an individual who has been told by your country’s system that things are the way they are, because it is always easier to externalize the cost to the individual and make them believe a story than to fix the problems of industry. Here is just a sample list that goes well beyond ADHD or obesity, and into factory farms, plastic pollution, and more… it is always the same pattern: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362 https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=362 When there is a huge disparity between the USA and other countries (eg on prevalencd ADHD, or on obesity and diabetes) or USA now and before, it is a sign that the problem is upstream — often having to do with corporations, diet, and societal changes. But I will go even further. Even effective cures to major diseases that are not approved by the bureaucracy, are shut down by the USA. All the way up to and including cures for diseases that you would think you’d know about. You as an individual probably NEVER heard of this: https://youtu.be/rmxUsAI29fw https://youtu.be/rmxUsAI29fw This is a video showing actual footage from all the congressional hearings, the actual results of multiple scientific inquiries at the highest level — the text of the actual letters from the CDC, and actual medical journal reportings that you have never heard about. It is like “progress and poverty” by Henri George, a bestselling economic book totally forgotten today… similarly this kind of stuff has been systematically buried by your government. I know I got really deep with this comment but who on HN has seen for example the video I linked to above, and how deep the rabbithole goes?

adhd1110101 4y ago
> When there is a huge disparity between the USA and other countries (eg on prevalencd ADHD, or on obesity and diabetes) or USA now and before, it is a sign that the problem is upstream — often having to do with corporations, diet, and societal changes. That is only one possible explanation. For example an underdeveloped country might appear to have lower prevalence of dementia than a more developed country. Perhaps because the former lacks effective nationwide medical diagnostic abilities, or perhaps because fewer in their population make it to old age where the disease shows up, or perhaps because they have a religious belief that conflates it with devilry so it goes unreported. In all of those situations the ground truth prevalence could be exactly the same in both countries, yet the developed country would report higher rates of the disease than the underdeveloped country. If your society has you working on a small farm as a child instead of going to school and doing knowledge work, of course ADHD will be underreported. That doesn't mean it's not present. There may be some causation from ADHD to obesity, I can't say, but otherwise they are categorically different issues.
- EGreg 4y ago
  Well, there can be various explanations, but France is not an underdeveloped country, neither is Finland. Their medical systems do report ADHD, although they might not so zealously overdiagnose it. French parents are more involved with their children, have far lower divorce rates, and work shorter hours than USA. Having "no time" is a point of national pride in the USA and there are even crass commercials that dial up the capitalism memes to an 11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8 Here are possible reasons why kids have ADHD: 1) The world is far more fast-paced. ADULTS haven't fared much better, and you'd hardly argue that everyone is genetically predisposed to having the attention span of a goldfish... it's clearly a societal thing: https://www.wyzowl.com/human-attention-span https://www.wyzowl.com/human-attention-span 2) Technology affects society. Corporations are incentivized to put ever more ads in front of you, and now we all have cell phones in our pocket, connected to the internet at all times. Being distracted at dinner, notifications you have to check to make sure it's not important, etc. 3) Now that people can be reached anytime by their phone, any SMS or email causes anxiety that maybe it's from your boss, etc. 4) Even the tools that HN loves so much are often detrimental. Real-time is a gimmick, and studies show that Slack, etc. is actually worse for mental well-being and productivity overall. Here is a recent NYTimes article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/23/magazine/cal-newport-interview.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/23/magazine/cal-... Again, ALL THESE THINGS are related to how capitalism and technology affects society and all of us. The very things that we are Hacker News are involved in, and we can do something to make a better world. Instead of saying that people deserve to be medicated. 1 in 4 middle aged women is on antidepressants ... what's more compassionate -- finding out the underlying reasons and building a better dating site for instance, or just assuming that's the new norm and selling as many pills as they will buy?

by EGreg 4y ago

adhd1110101 4y ago

> When there is a huge disparity between the USA and other countries (eg on prevalencd ADHD, or on obesity and diabetes) or USA now and before, it is a sign that the problem is upstream — often having to do with corporations, diet, and societal changes. That is only one possible explanation. For example an underdeveloped country might appear to have lower prevalence of dementia than a more developed country. Perhaps because the former lacks effective nationwide medical diagnostic abilities, or perhaps because fewer in their population make it to old age where the disease shows up, or perhaps because they have a religious belief that conflates it with devilry so it goes unreported. In all of those situations the ground truth prevalence could be exactly the same in both countries, yet the developed country would report higher rates of the disease than the underdeveloped country. If your society has you working on a small farm as a child instead of going to school and doing knowledge work, of course ADHD will be underreported. That doesn't mean it's not present. There may be some causation from ADHD to obesity, I can't say, but otherwise they are categorically different issues.

EGreg 4y ago
Well, there can be various explanations, but France is not an underdeveloped country, neither is Finland. Their medical systems do report ADHD, although they might not so zealously overdiagnose it. French parents are more involved with their children, have far lower divorce rates, and work shorter hours than USA. Having "no time" is a point of national pride in the USA and there are even crass commercials that dial up the capitalism memes to an 11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8 Here are possible reasons why kids have ADHD: 1) The world is far more fast-paced. ADULTS haven't fared much better, and you'd hardly argue that everyone is genetically predisposed to having the attention span of a goldfish... it's clearly a societal thing: https://www.wyzowl.com/human-attention-span https://www.wyzowl.com/human-attention-span 2) Technology affects society. Corporations are incentivized to put ever more ads in front of you, and now we all have cell phones in our pocket, connected to the internet at all times. Being distracted at dinner, notifications you have to check to make sure it's not important, etc. 3) Now that people can be reached anytime by their phone, any SMS or email causes anxiety that maybe it's from your boss, etc. 4) Even the tools that HN loves so much are often detrimental. Real-time is a gimmick, and studies show that Slack, etc. is actually worse for mental well-being and productivity overall. Here is a recent NYTimes article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/23/magazine/cal-newport-interview.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/01/23/magazine/cal-... Again, ALL THESE THINGS are related to how capitalism and technology affects society and all of us. The very things that we are Hacker News are involved in, and we can do something to make a better world. Instead of saying that people deserve to be medicated. 1 in 4 middle aged women is on antidepressants ... what's more compassionate -- finding out the underlying reasons and building a better dating site for instance, or just assuming that's the new norm and selling as many pills as they will buy?