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> my cousin had been taken so young? He wasn't taken. He took himself. Exercise: Everytime you remove agency, reintroduce it. "I am depressed". No, you are de

> my cousin had been taken so young? He wasn't taken. He took himself. Exercise: Everytime you remove agency, reintroduce it. "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you. I know this is harsh. I know the societal memes and phrases are the warm place. A sigh, the Soma of "Nothing can be done" or "Somebody needs to do something!!" is not a solution but paralysis. You can read it in the article: The parents did everything for the addict, he did nothing himself. It didn't work out now, did it? Never does. (Not absolving the Sacklers of their guilt, that is a separate issue)

dang 5y ago
Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. If you want to make a nuanced point about personal responsibility, ok, but turning it into a big binary polarity and then blaring condemnatory, dismissive rhetoric at the pole you disapprove of is no way to do this. You say you know it is harsh—that's already a reason not to do it here. Maybe "harsh" can do some good when there's already a strong relational connection with the other person. (Emphasis on maybe, because people who take harsh stances generally are paying more attention to their own ideas than to the person they're commenting on—but no doubt it does happen sometimes.) Here, however, you're broadcasting to thousands of people over the internet, with zero relational connection. In such a context, it's merely provocative and destructive, and one could even say selfish. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- hedberg10 5y ago
  > A good critical comment teaches us something. I feel as if I did that. Maybe my writing comes across way differently, maybe my comments are not as direct as they could be - but if that is already too upsetting for this crowd, you will never get any actual critical comments. You will never arrive at any traction, at any truth. Too bad, I expected more here. My error. Case in point: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says Nobody replying to me did that. Amazing.
  - Igelau 5y ago
    > > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says > Nobody replying to me did that. Amazing. You worded everything in absolutes. If you ask people to take the strongest interpretation of that, you're asking them to just concede that you're right. I think you actually seem to get it that there's something dangerous about identifying with the problem (e.g. I am depressed) but you're jumping to conclusions about agency from there. No one who replied wanted to make that leap, nor did you offer any compelling reason to do so.
  - dang 5y ago
    > I feel as if I did that. I'm sorry - I don't mean to pile on! - but I don't think you did that. The comment didn't include interesting specific information; it was a moral hectoring. Those do not come across well on the internet. > Nobody replying to me did that. Amazing. Not amazing—quite predictable, given the provocation. In cases like this, the root comment bears the most responsibility. Here are some further explanations of what I mean by this, in case you or anyone want more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28953253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28953253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28932445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28932445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27162386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27162386 (<-- long discussion with a user about a similar thing) https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22expected%20value%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
_qn3k 5y ago
I started writing out a much longer response to this, but it just got very ranty so I'll cut it short. If you insist on such a reevaluation as to why people aren't in their best state, a one word answer "lazy", "attention seeking" (okay thats two words, you get the idea), "weak" isn't going to cut it. You need to continue to ask yourself why that is the case, why are these people so apparently lazy, that they would allow it to work negatively upon them? I obviously don't buy your argument, I think the expectation of complete agency in a society run on hundreds of thousands of people is a bit of a fantasy, but you could have a point. You just don't have anything yet. Another argument against it, why not turn the mirror on yourself. Why are you not richer, stronger, more popular, happier? Maybe you are somewhat of all those things already, but a wild guess is that your not the strongest, richest, most famous and happiest person in the world. So why not, are you weak, lazy and shallow? Or, perhaps is the truth a bit more complicated?
- sasaf5 5y ago
  I am not entirely in agreement with parent comment, but I need to call false dichotomy on your second argument. There's a whole range of acceptable states between depressed and happiest.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- hedberg10 5y ago
  I have seen the homeless as people to be pitied and helped. Just weak people, down on their luck. So you help them, right? I let a homeless man sleep in the hallway of my building. He took a shit in front of my door. Now if I had seen the homeless as what they actually are, maybe weak, maybe helpless, but still people with agency who can be absolute assholes, that wouldn't have happened. And I hate that this is overlooked. Maybe if the parents in the article wouldn't have fallen into this trap, their son would still be alive. The assumption everyone downvoting seems to make is that I don't have compassion or as you do, I see them as "weak", "lazy" or "attention seeking" (notice how you are seeing them as that, not me). I can have compassion and ask them to do their part. That actually solves the problem.
wruza 5y ago
What exactly does that restatement change? Also, what is your background?
- hedberg10 5y ago
  It removes the victim mindset. My background is a recovering asshole, partially failing, aka the son in the article.
  - wruza 5y ago
    I see. I had a hard (physically manifested) depression episode recently and had to pull myself by hair and stubborness out of it, so your viewpoint seems valid for the ones who do. But it’s not what society feels. Your anger towards “yourselfness” does a good job, but I guess you’ve been helped, at least instructed on some details. That kid may not have had such privilege, spiralling down on his own (you can’t be strong if you don’t realize that you’re vulnerable, if it doesn’t click as “I allow it to happen”). And one can OD by chance while not being anywhere near the end of that slippery slope.
tsukurimashou 5y ago
fuck off
Fnoord 5y ago
This post is victim blaming 101.
louissm_it 5y ago
While advice like this might have been alright if it was in a self-help book where the OP was looking for ways to approach the situation, it is completely uncalled for and inappropriate in this situation.
ddorian43 5y ago
> "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. What about Bipolar and Schizophrenia, do you think about them same as depression?
Igelau 5y ago
You need to lay off on the Jordan Peterson. It's more complicated than "clean your room". > "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. You're assuming a brain that's in good working order. It's difficult to imagine a different one. Consider that not everyone's window into consciousness works like yours does.
bserge 5y ago
Yeah, depression is imaginary. The kids killed in Syria and Afghanistan should've helped themselves. Lol at bullying being more controversial. But yeah life is harsh and the world is shit. And death is inevitable.
- hedberg10 5y ago
  > depression is imaginary Nice strawman > The kids killed in Syria and Afghanistan should've helped themselves Never mentioned kids in warzones > But yeah life is harsh and the world is shit. And death is inevitable. Make an effort, coward.
  - Biganon 5y ago
    Would you go to someone who has Crohn's disease and tell them "you're doing that to yourself"? No? So why do it with depression?
    - hedberg10 5y ago
      Never mentioned Crohn's. Why are you bringing that up? Same with the comment above above: Ask yourself, why are you deflecting, why are you removing agency? Let's say depression is a purely biological problem, the chemical imbalance (it isn't), take a pill and be be healed! Right? Now who sells that pill? Who lobbied to have depression seen as a disease? Who invented the CO2 footprint? BP.
      - krageon 5y ago
        > Why are you bringing that up? Are you asking why would they bring up a disease in a talk about what is commonly thought of as diseases, or are you asking something else? > why are you deflecting This is funny, because you are deflecting in your comment as well. If you feel like folks should not deflect, you should engage with what they say and then tell them to not deflect. Then it becomes more relatable, because it is not hypocritical :) > chemical imbalance (it isn't) Depression is a catchall term for many different problems. Some are well understood to be purely chemical (depression unrelated to thoughts, circumstances or environmental factors such as season or food), some are well understood to be environmental: That means "just stop removing agency" could be a way to tackle it, although it famously does not work for most people. Why do you suppose your answer does not suffice for most? Do you feel this is evidence of yet more weakness? It seems to me you do not enjoy one-dimensional answers to your own thoughts, so why do you insist on having them about other people? > who sells that pill You might say the same thing about the smallpox vaccine: Someone sells it. Following your implied point: Perhaps this means that it is not a problem, clearly money changes hands so perhaps there is a profit motive (and potentially this means it is the only motive and potentially that means the requirements are fabricated. That is quite a leap!). While it is reasonable to follow such a thought process, perhaps in this case it does not suffice to follow it, recognise a potential problem and dismiss the original solution entirely. Mostly because if you talked to even-handed professionals (many of whom have similar concerns as yours, if a bit more nuanced by practical experience and what I would hesitantly call empathy), you might find that folks have considered these questions (and do every single day) and to this date they have not been answered in a way that provides a solution for every single case.
baq 5y ago
> "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you. most people are social animals. it's easy to be an individualist if you have the trait and nigh impossible if you don't.
- hedberg10 5y ago
  Fair point. My own character traits certainly color my viewpoints.
OneTimePetes 5y ago
That sounds like a warm place for a anti-social person.

dang 5y ago

Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. If you want to make a nuanced point about personal responsibility, ok, but turning it into a big binary polarity and then blaring condemnatory, dismissive rhetoric at the pole you disapprove of is no way to do this. You say you know it is harsh—that's already a reason not to do it here. Maybe "harsh" can do some good when there's already a strong relational connection with the other person. (Emphasis on maybe, because people who take harsh stances generally are paying more attention to their own ideas than to the person they're commenting on—but no doubt it does happen sometimes.) Here, however, you're broadcasting to thousands of people over the internet, with zero relational connection. In such a context, it's merely provocative and destructive, and one could even say selfish. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

hedberg10 5y ago
> A good critical comment teaches us something. I feel as if I did that. Maybe my writing comes across way differently, maybe my comments are not as direct as they could be - but if that is already too upsetting for this crowd, you will never get any actual critical comments. You will never arrive at any traction, at any truth. Too bad, I expected more here. My error. Case in point: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says Nobody replying to me did that. Amazing.
- Igelau 5y ago
  > > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says > Nobody replying to me did that. Amazing. You worded everything in absolutes. If you ask people to take the strongest interpretation of that, you're asking them to just concede that you're right. I think you actually seem to get it that there's something dangerous about identifying with the problem (e.g. I am depressed) but you're jumping to conclusions about agency from there. No one who replied wanted to make that leap, nor did you offer any compelling reason to do so.
- dang 5y ago
  > I feel as if I did that. I'm sorry - I don't mean to pile on! - but I don't think you did that. The comment didn't include interesting specific information; it was a moral hectoring. Those do not come across well on the internet. > Nobody replying to me did that. Amazing. Not amazing—quite predictable, given the provocation. In cases like this, the root comment bears the most responsibility. Here are some further explanations of what I mean by this, in case you or anyone want more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28953253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28953253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28932445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28932445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27162386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27162386 (<-- long discussion with a user about a similar thing) https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22expected%20value%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

_qn3k 5y ago

I started writing out a much longer response to this, but it just got very ranty so I'll cut it short. If you insist on such a reevaluation as to why people aren't in their best state, a one word answer "lazy", "attention seeking" (okay thats two words, you get the idea), "weak" isn't going to cut it. You need to continue to ask yourself why that is the case, why are these people so apparently lazy, that they would allow it to work negatively upon them? I obviously don't buy your argument, I think the expectation of complete agency in a society run on hundreds of thousands of people is a bit of a fantasy, but you could have a point. You just don't have anything yet. Another argument against it, why not turn the mirror on yourself. Why are you not richer, stronger, more popular, happier? Maybe you are somewhat of all those things already, but a wild guess is that your not the strongest, richest, most famous and happiest person in the world. So why not, are you weak, lazy and shallow? Or, perhaps is the truth a bit more complicated?

sasaf5 5y ago
I am not entirely in agreement with parent comment, but I need to call false dichotomy on your second argument. There's a whole range of acceptable states between depressed and happiest.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
hedberg10 5y ago
I have seen the homeless as people to be pitied and helped. Just weak people, down on their luck. So you help them, right? I let a homeless man sleep in the hallway of my building. He took a shit in front of my door. Now if I had seen the homeless as what they actually are, maybe weak, maybe helpless, but still people with agency who can be absolute assholes, that wouldn't have happened. And I hate that this is overlooked. Maybe if the parents in the article wouldn't have fallen into this trap, their son would still be alive. The assumption everyone downvoting seems to make is that I don't have compassion or as you do, I see them as "weak", "lazy" or "attention seeking" (notice how you are seeing them as that, not me). I can have compassion and ask them to do their part. That actually solves the problem.

wruza 5y ago

What exactly does that restatement change? Also, what is your background?

hedberg10 5y ago
It removes the victim mindset. My background is a recovering asshole, partially failing, aka the son in the article.
- wruza 5y ago
  I see. I had a hard (physically manifested) depression episode recently and had to pull myself by hair and stubborness out of it, so your viewpoint seems valid for the ones who do. But it’s not what society feels. Your anger towards “yourselfness” does a good job, but I guess you’ve been helped, at least instructed on some details. That kid may not have had such privilege, spiralling down on his own (you can’t be strong if you don’t realize that you’re vulnerable, if it doesn’t click as “I allow it to happen”). And one can OD by chance while not being anywhere near the end of that slippery slope.

tsukurimashou 5y ago

fuck off

Fnoord 5y ago

This post is victim blaming 101.

louissm_it 5y ago

While advice like this might have been alright if it was in a self-help book where the OP was looking for ways to approach the situation, it is completely uncalled for and inappropriate in this situation.

ddorian43 5y ago

> "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. What about Bipolar and Schizophrenia, do you think about them same as depression?

Igelau 5y ago

You need to lay off on the Jordan Peterson. It's more complicated than "clean your room". > "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. You're assuming a brain that's in good working order. It's difficult to imagine a different one. Consider that not everyone's window into consciousness works like yours does.

bserge 5y ago

Yeah, depression is imaginary. The kids killed in Syria and Afghanistan should've helped themselves. Lol at bullying being more controversial. But yeah life is harsh and the world is shit. And death is inevitable.

hedberg10 5y ago
> depression is imaginary Nice strawman > The kids killed in Syria and Afghanistan should've helped themselves Never mentioned kids in warzones > But yeah life is harsh and the world is shit. And death is inevitable. Make an effort, coward.
- Biganon 5y ago
  Would you go to someone who has Crohn's disease and tell them "you're doing that to yourself"? No? So why do it with depression?
  - hedberg10 5y ago
    Never mentioned Crohn's. Why are you bringing that up? Same with the comment above above: Ask yourself, why are you deflecting, why are you removing agency? Let's say depression is a purely biological problem, the chemical imbalance (it isn't), take a pill and be be healed! Right? Now who sells that pill? Who lobbied to have depression seen as a disease? Who invented the CO2 footprint? BP.
    - krageon 5y ago
      > Why are you bringing that up? Are you asking why would they bring up a disease in a talk about what is commonly thought of as diseases, or are you asking something else? > why are you deflecting This is funny, because you are deflecting in your comment as well. If you feel like folks should not deflect, you should engage with what they say and then tell them to not deflect. Then it becomes more relatable, because it is not hypocritical :) > chemical imbalance (it isn't) Depression is a catchall term for many different problems. Some are well understood to be purely chemical (depression unrelated to thoughts, circumstances or environmental factors such as season or food), some are well understood to be environmental: That means "just stop removing agency" could be a way to tackle it, although it famously does not work for most people. Why do you suppose your answer does not suffice for most? Do you feel this is evidence of yet more weakness? It seems to me you do not enjoy one-dimensional answers to your own thoughts, so why do you insist on having them about other people? > who sells that pill You might say the same thing about the smallpox vaccine: Someone sells it. Following your implied point: Perhaps this means that it is not a problem, clearly money changes hands so perhaps there is a profit motive (and potentially this means it is the only motive and potentially that means the requirements are fabricated. That is quite a leap!). While it is reasonable to follow such a thought process, perhaps in this case it does not suffice to follow it, recognise a potential problem and dismiss the original solution entirely. Mostly because if you talked to even-handed professionals (many of whom have similar concerns as yours, if a bit more nuanced by practical experience and what I would hesitantly call empathy), you might find that folks have considered these questions (and do every single day) and to this date they have not been answered in a way that provides a solution for every single case.

baq 5y ago

> "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you. most people are social animals. it's easy to be an individualist if you have the trait and nigh impossible if you don't.

hedberg10 5y ago
Fair point. My own character traits certainly color my viewpoints.

OneTimePetes 5y ago

That sounds like a warm place for a anti-social person.