Historical Language Records Reveal a Surge of Cognitive Distortions in Recent Decades (pnas.org) 103
From a paper on PNAS [PDF]: Can entire societies become more or less depressed over time? Here, we look for the historical traces of cognitive distortions, thinking patterns that are strongly associated with internalizing disorders such as depression and anxiety, in millions of books published over the course of the last two centuries in English, Spanish, and German. We find a pronounced "hockey stick" pattern: Over the past two decades the textual analogs of cognitive distortions surged well above historical levels, including those of World War I and II, after declining or stabilizing for most of the 20th century. Our results point to the possibility that recent socioeconomic changes, new technology, and social media are associated with a surge of cognitive distortions.
Individuals with depression are prone to maladaptive patterns of thinking, known as cognitive distortions, whereby they think about themselves, the world, and the future in overly negative and inaccurate ways. These distortions are associated with marked changes in an individual's mood, behavior, and language. We hypothesize that societies can undergo similar changes in their collective psychology that are reflected in historical records of language use. Here, we investigate the prevalence of textual markers of cognitive distortions in over 14 million books for the past 125 y and observe a surge of their prevalence since the 1980s, to levels exceeding those of the Great Depression and both World Wars. This pattern does not seem to be driven by changes in word meaning, publishing and writing standards, or the Google Books sample. Our results suggest a recent societal shift toward language associated with cognitive distortions and internalizing disorders.
Individuals with depression are prone to maladaptive patterns of thinking, known as cognitive distortions, whereby they think about themselves, the world, and the future in overly negative and inaccurate ways. These distortions are associated with marked changes in an individual's mood, behavior, and language. We hypothesize that societies can undergo similar changes in their collective psychology that are reflected in historical records of language use. Here, we investigate the prevalence of textual markers of cognitive distortions in over 14 million books for the past 125 y and observe a surge of their prevalence since the 1980s, to levels exceeding those of the Great Depression and both World Wars. This pattern does not seem to be driven by changes in word meaning, publishing and writing standards, or the Google Books sample. Our results suggest a recent societal shift toward language associated with cognitive distortions and internalizing disorders.
Sadly, this is not surprising... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not surprised at this. The years preceding 2000 had a lot of hope. A man on the moon, space travel, the Concorde. Come this century, there isn't really much hope and much to look forward to, especially the past ten years, where not really much has changed. (2000-2010 brought us smartphones and tablets in common use, while the only major things from 2010-2020 have been dockless scooter rentals.) Now add politicians who have completely lost the "hope" message, but are about "we suck, but at least we are not like the other guy who will do worse to you", and it is no wonder why the future is viewed as so bleak for many people. Especially with COVID making round after round, even with vaccinations.
Re:Sadly, this is not surprising... (Score:5, Interesting)
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The pessimism and snark is entirely because my generation has always had kind of a shitty attitude. Social media algorithms are holding up a mirror to what is already there (perhaps a curved mirror).
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I think the root cause is social media and the facebook/google algorithms that appear to rank pessimism and snark above other sentiments.
BTW, I've noticed some new tricks up their sleeve. I'm forced to be on FB, but my feed keeps showing up with interesting page/group recommendations, that depending on whether I click on them or tell them to fuck off and never see them again, is sending FB weaponizable information.
That place is digital cyanide.
Re:Sadly, this is not surprising... (Score:5, Informative)
I think the root cause is social media and the facebook/google algorithms that appear to rank pessimism and snark above other sentiments.
This is what we're left with on social media now that humor has been 'canceled'.
Re: Sadly, this is not surprising... (Score:2)
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Being exposed to fear-mongering for hours a day does bad things to people's heads.
Re:Sadly, this is not surprising... (Score:5, Interesting)
Climate change, unaffordable housing, the gig economy, decades of trying to fix structural racism and sexism...
It may also be in part because more people have a voice now. It used to be that only people in privileged positions got published for the most part, so the body of material available to study reflects their experiences. With more equality now the voices of people who are not to lucky may be getting heard more often.
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Bingo, strongly agree. I would add, we are being frog-marched back to similar economic conditions that Charles Dickens wrote about. Eventually the wrong people will start to feel the pinch, and then light off another revolution.
Re:Sadly, this is not surprising... (Score:4, Insightful)
Climate change, unaffordable housing, the gig economy, decades of trying to fix structural racism and sexism...
Obviously racism and sexism are less a problem than they have ever been. Nor is it an economic issue [gallup.com].
What is worth noting is *why* someone would say that. It's an outgrowth of critical theories, which are concerned with finding and recognizing racism etc. in every aspect of society. Critical theorist essays are written explicitly with the purpose of deconstructing and problematizing topics and institutions. The ideology is activist and views popular contentment ("complacency") as a obstacle to their desired revolution. They want you to believe that things are awful so that you have the necessary incentive to enact change.
Even if it were true (it isn't), does anyone think it is cognitively helpful to *believe* that the whole of society is structurally designed to deny you any chance of success? Or conversely that you are born into racial guilt for a collection of terrible prejudices and acts of oppression?
Our mental health is waning because it's in the interest of various groups to erode and exploit it. You won't do what they want if you already have meaning and feel good about yourself.
Re:Sadly, this is not surprising... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's because we fixed a lot of the overt racism, most people understand that it's not okay to use the n word or do blackface now. Those things were very immediate problems with fairly simple solutions, but now we are down to the much more difficult structural stuff.
It's not just that these problems have existed for a long time, e.g. the discrimination around the GI Bill, redlining and so forth, but that there is great resistance to changing them. People can see that blackface is wrong and they have little to lose by not doing it, but for example trying to address the fact that since the 1940s the GI Bill helped white people gain over $200k in wealth while black people largely did not is very contentious.
Personally I find the lack of belief quite mentally taxing. In the UK a lot of people are convinced that there isn't much racism in the UK, that it's not xenophobic and that the government is both serious and trying to do the best for the people. My lived experiences tell me otherwise, but it's understandably hard for them to accept that the country they love and they people they admire and respect could really be the way they are. It's a kind of cognitive dissonance, they believe me personally when I say things happened, but can't accept that it's systemic or widespread, like I must have just been really unlucky.
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Obviously racism and sexism are less a problem than they have ever been.
Well maybe just less obvious. We don't lynch black folks from the nearest tree any more, but there's plenty of oppression still going on. It's not made up stories.
Positively negative. (Score:3)
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We're turning the oceans into plasticized chowder and the forests into ash. The rate of change will outpace adaptation. It's over for every living thing on this planet.
Sure Chicken Little. And what else must you go tell the king?
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We're turning the oceans into plasticized chowder and the forests into ash. The rate of change will outpace adaptation. It's over for every living thing on this planet.
Sure Chicken Little. And what else must you go tell the king?
The King has left the building.
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Hehe. Subtle, but dark. One way or another, it's bound to be true.
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Well, no. What they are saying, if you are seeing bad in the world, it is your problem, you need to think right and only see good in the world. Kind of doublespeak stuff, "There is only bad stuff in the world because you see it there, be a better citizen see only the good." Soon not only face mask, but ones with compulsory smiles on them.
For the elite, the world is great place for everyone else, well, they just need to accept their place and be happy to serve, it is negative thinking to not be thankful for
This just in (Score:2)
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The disappearance of "should" statements in recent times corresponds with other research that found moral language use in decline. (Dangit, cannot find that link now.)
And this research found similar results to the OP article:
https://phys.org/news/2016-11-... [phys.org]
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Simply observer bias. (Score:4, Insightful)
When you complain about the plague, drought, famine, war, being a slave, being a serf/commoner, no one says you have psychological issues.
When you complain about nothing, they call you depressed.
Nothing really changed, except your life got better, allowing us to see that the real reason for your unhappiness.
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But things have objectively gotten worse in many parts of the world in the last 50 years. Just saying that things have gotten better and that lets people see their own depression is ignoring almost all we know about psychology and human nature. Mentally healthy humans who get all their social and physical needs met are not unhappy, by nature.
Moreover, it is a cop out and a cope: Sad? Must be your own fault! Can't be the climate, or the economy, or the world-wide rise of right wing nationalism, or wealth ine
Re:Simply observer bias. (Score:5, Informative)
But things have objectively gotten worse in many parts of the world in the last 50 years.
Really? Almost everywhere things are better than they were 50 years ago. Life expectancy has gone up almost everywhere during that time, and that's even if one takes only life expectancy of people who survive childhood (so reduced neonatal care is not the only driving factor). https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy [ourworldindata.org]. The major exception for a few years as parts of Africa, where HIV did result in a reduction of overall life expectancy, but that stopped years ago, and the life expectancy in most African countries is now higher than it was 50 years ago. Nigeria is a good example of this https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/NGA/nigeria/life-expectancy [macrotrends.net].
Other metrics also suggest things have objectively gotten better. Literacy rates have gone up https://ourworldindata.org/literacy [ourworldindata.org]. Extreme poverty rates have gone down https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty [ourworldindata.org] (some people have argued that the extreme poverty definition used there is not a good one, but almost all other suggested definitions have the rate declining or staying at about the same rate so it still doesn't lead to any notion of things getting worse). People have access around the world to the internet, and the percentage there is continuing to increase. https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/ [statista.com]. People 50 years ago didn't even have an internet except for some very early precursors.
Whatever is going on here, it really doesn't look like it is because things have objectively gotten worse.
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So those things are all nice, but what we had 50 years ago was a solid middle class. A single wage earner in an entry level job could afford a home. State college was free. Private college was affordable. We had the threat of global thermonuclear annihilation, sure, but it wasn't the kind of doom that climate change is today.
Yes, many parts of the world have gotten objectively better. But the parts of the world that were the best at the time have gotten worse.
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The article says they examined texts in English, German and Spanish. That would exclude depressing places like the USSR.
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So those things are all nice, but what we had 50 years ago was a solid middle class.
Were you part of this study perhaps? Because you are showing cognitive distortion at a pretty high level.
If your old days were better outlook makes you happy, then have at it. I was born and raised during those good old days, and I never want to go back to that time.
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Well now I'm curious, what made (oh say) the 50s through the 70s bad? I mean, besides the rampant racism and sexism. Was anything I said false? There was free college up until Nixon nixed that. A factory worker could afford to buy a home and raise a family on a single salary. Economically, we were doing much, much better. Yes, we've made some progress on social issues since then, is that what made your life better? I mean, if I were a minority, or openly gay, or a woman, I'd sure not want to go back to thos
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Well now I'm curious, what made (oh say) the 50s through the 70s bad?
1950's - Polio was a constant issue until the mid 50's when the Salk Vaccine came out - took a while to get all the children vaccinated. Children were regularly quarantined.Treatment? One of these bad boys.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_lung All it takes is to see children in one of these, and you kinda lose the anti vaxx sentiment. https://gizmodo.com/the-last-o... [gizmodo.com] Although polion will return with the rise of the anti-vaxxer movement.
Nuclear war. I remember drilling, heading to the basement when th
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Young people? I was born in 1970 so thanks, I guess. Why in the world would you assume my generation, and ignore where I actually posted my age? It's as though you really can't fathom actual empathy. You assume I am only complaining about my own life, when in fact, I have it very good.
Good on you for overcoming your challenges. Shame you can't spare some empathy and in fact dismiss the very real struggles young people face today. I mean I get it, it's easier to pretend everything is fine that to admit that
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It's as though you really can't fathom actual empathy.
Here's the question - do you want to fix a problem, or do you want commiseration?
Do you want a path forward, or do you want to stay where you are? That's kind of important - some people just want to garner sympathy.
Good on you for overcoming your challenges. Shame you can't spare some empathy and in fact dismiss the very real struggles young people face today.
Every generation has very real struggles. Despite you thinking that boomers had it cushy.
What is different is that it appears to many such as you, that this generation's troubles are impossible to get around. You might think I'm an asshole - but if people think that it is impossible to get ah
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Good question, is the person pointing out the problems the one who wants to fix them, or is it the person who says things are just fine? Wow, I wonder. After all, if I'm pointing out problems, it must mean I think they are impossible to get around. Oops, I think my eyes rolled so hard, my retinas detached.
Just like a boomer, you are trying to make this all about boomers. I've been providing examples of how someone born in the fifties had it cushier. Free or cheap college. Insanely low home prices. High wage
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Just like a boomer, you are trying to make this all about boomers. I've been providing examples of how someone born in the fifties had it cushier.
Funny how I asked you for a solution, and you cannot do anything but blame them Boomers again and again and again. Your new name is Victim Victor. Ordinarily, that would be an insult, but you seem to like that.
And your fixation on material things is telling, Victim Victor.
What a joke, you have offered no "alternatives." You just want people to stop criticizing your generation. But guess what bud? Your generation screwed up the environment, fucked over unions, deregulated everything, gave the middle class' life saving to Wall Street, and then turned around and demanded everyone thank you for it.
Hah - criticize all you want, Victim Victor. If you've followed rather than embrace the cognitive distortion that demands that you must have an enemy - the dreaded Boomers, I've offered several solutions - like playing the long game, sa
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I do not have problems. I am not complaining about my life. I am complaining about the lack of opportunities for young people these days. Your only "answer" seems to be to shame me for what you imagine my problems are, and to offer outdated advice.
Let me make it very clear since you seem to suffer from some sort of cognitive deficit: I am not a victim. I am not talking about myself. I know this is hard for a boomer to grasp, but the world does not revolve around me. I am literally fifty years old, no kids,
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Nobody is mired. We're ANGRY. At you and your generation. We're working to make things better, but given our experiences, we fully expect your generation to fight us every step of the way.
So thanks for that. At least you'll all die soon.
You, like others of every generation who have ever lived, have found that it is easier to be a victim be a perfect individual who is kept from their destiny, by everyone else but them. Why? Because it's easier to be a victim than to work hard and be successful. You don't have the ability to actually do anything
I feel sorry for you, kinda. You are a loser, and will always be a loser, because you cannot look within yourself to find solutions. You are pathetic and weak - you cannot rise above your situat
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Missed the mark by a mile, again. As I mentioned before, I'm fifty, no kids, married, two incomes, good job, no debt. I'm not complaining about my life. I find it absolutely telling that you simply can't even conceive of someone who is living a fine life but wants to fix things for other people who are less fortunate. Typical boomer.
And you are furious too. Just absolutely raging, that I DARE to question how your generation has handled things.
It's kinda funny, really. You're like a stereotype of the selfish
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Really? Almost everywhere things are better than they were 50 years ago.
You are arguing with the very people who are displaying severe cognitive distortion.
I would suggest instead of them doing their usual ""Things have never been worse!" to study some 20th century history.
If they want a high level introduction, just google "Dorothea Lange photographs" to see how much better life used to be, where people were happier because life was better. Then come back and complain about modern life.
Re:Simply observer bias. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, the dust bowl and great depression were worse, but then times got better. Now they're heading the wrong way again.
Conditions that existed before a person was born don't have much effect on their perception of things.
Also don't discount stability as a significant factor in good mental health. An OK job with some prospects of advancement that you will almost certainly be able to keep until retirement may contribute more to well being than an objectively better job that you will probably get laid off from or have to leave in order to keep up with inflation.
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Yes, the dust bowl and great depression were worse, but then times got better. Now they're heading the wrong way again.
Conditions that existed before a person was born don't have much effect on their perception of things.
True, except that if you cry about how terrible awful things are now, and especially diminish the input of people who lived through much more difficult times, that does not make you right - it just makes a person look like they believe that they are the center of the universe.
There is a certain value to learning about history. I listened to my parents and grandparents stories with interest. Parents grew up during the depression. Grandparents dealt with dead children, which is they they had so many. The
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You will get an OK boomer. Especially since in one breath you scold for not taking conditions before we were born into account and then spend the rest not taking into account that you represent the last generation that got an opportunity to have 3 retirement accounts and find that long term stable job regardless of frugality.
The common experience these days is to start out in a deep hole that must be crawled out of before retirement savings can even be considered.
Consider, in the '50s and '60s a company "do
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You will get an OK boomer.
And you shall get an Okay permanent victim. Don't assume that your poor choices are what all young people have chosen.
My son is in his early 30's has two retirement accounts and is rising in management, He's also saving money for a house, living in an apartment until that time.
He's paid off his debt, is now debt free.
And many of his fellow workers are in similar situations, although as always, some aren't that good with money. The meme that all young people are debt ridden and permanently poor and ca
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Anyhow - maybe it's just you that can't get ahead. In that case, I apologize for making your sad situation worse by giving ill advised motivation messages. You might just not be capable.
You have no idea what generation I am in, no idea if I have or have not had a healthcare mis-adventure (or if I am or am not still having one), the level of my education, how much my parents could or could not help with that, etc but you seem quite willing to pronounce judgement. You don't even know if I personally am having a problem or if I simply empathize with those who are. You are living in a tiny little bubble, unable to see even that others of your generation have seen a different circumstance or ev
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But things have objectively gotten worse in many parts of the world in the last 50 years.
Really? Almost everywhere things are better than they were 50 years ago.
Whatever is going on here, it really doesn't look like it is because things have objectively gotten worse.
I agree, it's not because things have gotten worse.
I would hypothesise that it's because people are now much more aware of how much better it could be.
(Un)Happiness is rarely about what you have, more often it's about what you don't have that 'everyone else' does. i.e. it's not about stuff per se, it's about inequality, or rather the perception of inequality. I'd say the rise of 'greed is good' neoliberal capitalism in the 80's, the internet in the 90's, and social media in the 00's have combined to create
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Almost everywhere things are better than they were 50 years ago.
On various material measures, this is true. But for some reason, all that stuff does not make people any happier. I have said on several occasions that people work too hard, and this makes them miserable. This is particularly true of people striving for more material possessions. You have to knacker yourself out, just to keep up with modern life. This is completely silly, in my opinion. With all this modern technology, we should be living comfortably based on much less work time than used to be the case. Id
Re: Simply observer bias. (Score:2)
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Have they gotten worse?
In '71, all of the social issues were as bad or worse than today. Racism was rife, sexism was a huge problem, gay rights didn't exist. The "family car" was singular, most kids shared their rooms with a brother, electronics were crap, etc. Vietnam was so hot that we lost more troops there in '71 than we did in the entire Afghan War. I respectfully submit that it is not objectively true that things have gotten worse in the US since '71. It is, in fact, objectively true that the US is a
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When you complain about the plague, drought, famine, war, being a slave, being a serf/commoner, no one says you have psychological issues.
The interesting thing, though, is that back in the olden days, plagues, droughts, famines... were parts of life. They were expected. Everyone was religious back then, and everyone expected their lives to somehow be shittier than their afterlife. A thousand years ago, misfortune was just your fate and you just ha to grit your teeth and get through it.
Today, your fate is in your own hands. We're all equal, so everyone is supposedly holding the keys to wealth and power. Everyone, supposedly, could become rich
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More precisely, the whole rich beautiful thing is largely luck, but the story is told by the ones who did get lucky and they would have us believe it was nothing but their own merit (which the rest of you slobs clearly lack).
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When you complain about the plague, drought, famine, war, being a slave, being a serf/commoner, no one says you have psychological issues.
Actually, they do. At the extremes are the old Soviet Union's "sluggish schizophrenia" that caused people to "irrationally" reject the propaganda of the day and pre Civil War, we had "drapetomania", a slave's "irrational" urge to run away and slack off working.
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No, it's different. Suicide rates are higher in more advanced societies.
Anecdotically, I grew up in the '80s in a very oppressive regime, endured many hardships and shortages of all kinds. But people weren't depressed. It's difficult to explain, but we were finding joy in the smallest things.
Re:Simply observer bias. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's difficult to explain, but we were finding joy in the smallest things.
Actually, that is a very useful observation. People can suffer hardship, e.g. from incurable illness, but still be happy, if they are realistic in their expectations.
Conversely, some people can never be happy, no matter how good their material well-being, because they aspire to impossible aims.
So I'm pretty freaking depressed (Score:2)
Things are worse than they were 20, 30 years ago for practically everyone. The LGBTQ community is doing better, which is not nothing, but they pretty much had nowhere to go but up (read up on the Stonewall Riots).
I always find it weird how all these academics dance around how the middle class is getting hollowed out and how upward mobili
Re:So I'm pretty freaking depressed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So I'm pretty freaking depressed (Score:4, Informative)
The modern meritocracy is a resentment-generating machine. But even leaving that aside, as a sorting device, it is batshit crazy. The ability to perform academic tasks during adolescence is nice to have, but organizing your society around it is absurd. That ability is not as important as the ability to work in teams; to sacrifice for the common good; to be honest, kind, and trustworthy; to be creative and self-motivated. A sensible society would reward such traits by conferring status on them. A sensible society would not celebrate the skills of a corporate consultant while slighting the skills of a home nurse.
I would have modded you up, but sadly I have no points. So allow me to quote one of the final paragraphs that really hit the nail on the head for me.
At some point, we need to admit that the system is failing the people hard. And a bunch of people with nothing to lose and no real connection with society is the last thing anyone with good will wants to see in the world.
Ronald Regan (Score:2)
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oh really, I did very well in Reagan years. Reagan just had good ol' fashioned values. Who is having "worth" problem, lazy people who don't work and want handouts?
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oh really, I did very well in Reagan years. Reagan just had good ol' fashioned values. Who is having "worth" problem, lazy people who don't work and want handouts?
I did well under Reagan, Bush 1 and 2, Clinton, O'Blama and even Trump.
Play your cards right, and it don't matter who's livin in that mansion.
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was rough when flood of H1B let into country in early 2000s. Dang, I had to take up consulting and make 2 times salary to be about the same. Oh well, that's prez + congress
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And you just proved the point. Never mind that a single medical misadventure can easily wipe out someone in the middle class, if they aren't flush with cash and can't pay their bills, according to you they're just lazy.
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Insurance baby, works wonders.
Despite whatever sob story narrative you're trying to manufacture, the fact is that people who take responsibility for their lives, get themselves trained and get a good job, aren't in the whatever dire straights you're imagining. And yes the majority of the time it is laziness.
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There are many stories of people who responsibly paid every month for medical insurance and then got wiped out by co-pays, deductibles, and balance billing from out-of-network providers. If they are left with some sort of disability, they're screwed.
And no matter how responsible they are, unless you consider being born to rich parents part of responsibility, they're still unlikely to get out of school free of debt and then buy a house on their single income so they can start a family. At best they'll need 2
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"there are many stories"... how many? I can make up sob stories that will be found to be true in some amount of cases.
What makes buying a house (taking mortgage from bank and being in debt for decades) on your list? If someone can't afford, rent. No big deal.
Rich parents? Nah, I'm solidly middle class but saved over the years for two kids' college of which I will pay nearly $150K. Amazing what staying out of debt, not wasting money and saving can do.
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Because buying a house confers a stability you don't get from rent, and often a mortgage payment that is substantially lower than rent. Also, some of that mortgage payment accrues to you as equity.
Funny how it was a yardstick for success until it moved out of reach for so many.
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Nonsense. Down payment, monthly payments and property taxes are more than renting. Claiming some imagined "stability" is meaningless, you don't own your home until the very end, if you can pay, and you'll be tossed on the street if you can't.
Percent of renters has returned to exact level it was in 1965, you must be young, we're back to normal.
Home ownership totally optional.
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You fail finance 101. If your rent won't cover the property tax, down payment, monthly payment, maintenance, and profit, the landlord will raise the rent or stop renting entirely and sell the building.
It takes a lot longer to get tossed on the street for missed mortgage payments than for missed rent payments. Even if you pay the rent on time every time, perhaps it goes up next month or the landlord just doesn't feel like renting anymore once the lease is up.
your parents, they fuck you up (Score:1)
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Those are fighting words (Score:2)
What if it isn't us? (Score:5, Insightful)
Individuals with depression are prone to maladaptive patterns of thinking, known as cognitive distortions, whereby they think about themselves, the world, and the future in overly negative and inaccurate ways.
I will give you "overly negative" thinking, but are we sure it is inaccurate? What if it the world is really going to sh*t? That is not depression. That's realistic thinking.
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Re:What if it isn't us? (Score:5, Insightful)
Individuals with depression are prone to maladaptive patterns of thinking, known as cognitive distortions, whereby they think about themselves, the world, and the future in overly negative and inaccurate ways.
I will give you "overly negative" thinking, but are we sure it is inaccurate? What if it the world is really going to sh*t? That is not depression. That's realistic thinking.
No, it's not accurate. Just taking the 20th century for example We had WW1 and 2, the Great Depression, The Cold War - The Spanish flu pandemic. Children living out their shortened lives in Iron lungs.
I wonder how the people who believe that these are the worst times ever could handle even a little of those times.
Re: What if it isn't us? (Score:2)
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We are talking about outlook for the future. Doesn't matter how good we have it compared to medieval times. It is about how do we are our future and the future of our kids. How good is our outlook? How much can we advance compared to where we started?
What do you thin the outlook for the future was in say, 1950'. People often had an exact future for their children of life in an iron lung, unable to breathe outside it, or the very real threat of death in a nuclear war. And yet, they slogged through and managed to be happier than present day people
Actually, I hate to say this, but I think the cure for the utter melancholy of so many people is true hard times. Society is crumbling because of a pandemic. So the signs aren't good they can handle things lik
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I wonder how the people who believe that these are the worst times ever could handle even a little of those times.
I don't think they are saying that these are the worst times ever. Perhaps it is just that certain mental problems have become more evident recently. Such problems are now more widely recognised and reported than they used to be, which would actually be a good thing. When it comes to improving society, much has been done, but there is always plenty more to do.
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I wonder how the people who believe that these are the worst times ever could handle even a little of those times.
I don't think they are saying that these are the worst times ever. Perhaps it is just that certain mental problems have become more evident recently. Such problems are now more widely recognised and reported than they used to be, which would actually be a good thing. When it comes to improving society, much has been done, but there is always plenty more to do.
Yes - there is a bad case of malaise going on. It isn't the young people's fault either. They've just been fed a line of bullshit by well meaning but stupid parents, teachers, and colleges.
When you are taught that you are the center of the universe, and life is going to be easy, and you're going to go to college, graduate, be instantly wealthy and "make a difference" - when reality hits, the results are what we see.
The problem is that there are a couple choices. Either slog on and do something with yo
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Optimism is now a personality flaw.
If you are going to be guided by beliefs without adequate evidence, optimism for sure beats just giving up and blaming your misfortunes on other people, or a spiteful deity for that matter.
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You mean I really am a loser?
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You mean I really am a loser?
I believe in you!
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Thanks, Mom! And, how do you like Slashdot so far?
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Thanks, Mom! And, how do you like Slashdot so far?
You hungry? I made chili and cornbread! It's no country for old men though!
Alternative hypothesis: (Score:2)
It's the growing inequality in society that has an economic system that's rigged against them that has lead to people being more unhappy. Increases in unhappiness, stress (working more), and finally hopelessness (as politicians ignore their plights) has resulted in people internalizing problems they are incapable of resolving. Internalizing these issues results in cognitive distortions.
Honestly, I don't think what is happening should be a surprise to anyone.
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It's the growing inequality in society that has an economic system that's rigged against them that has lead to people being more unhappy. Increases in unhappiness, stress (working more), and finally hopelessness (as politicians ignore their plights) has resulted in people internalizing problems they are incapable of resolving. Internalizing these issues results in cognitive distortions.
Honestly, I don't think what is happening should be a surprise to anyone.
You needed to be living in a happy time, when no one had troubles - how about the entire 20th century. Pick a decade. 8^/
Sarcasm aside, there are other things going on other than present conditions. Become a student of history, and you'll find out every one of your reasons for people to be terribly unhappy have existed... forever!
And that's the thing. I can't think of a time that was even remotely picture perfect or even average. The times so many people in here point out as a relative utopia definitel
Dim wits + poor education = low adaptability (Score:2)
If you're smart thank your luck, and if you had a life where your intelligence wasn't misdirected by your crazy society you really hit the lottery.
Simple people, which are most of them, cannot cope with change or much of anything else. They need simple lives directed ethically by their betters, but what they get instead is exploited, ripped off, and "manipulation by affirmation" which comforts them by doubling down on the stupid. This will not be fixed so unless some few highly intelligent humans escape Ter
Yikes! (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyhow, my own interests in general happiness of people and depression was formed by my efforts i attempting to get young ladies interested in STEM careers, and noticing it's failure, despite actually making it easier for women than men - we bent all manner of policies to get women on board.
This experience has piqued my interest in gender based issues in General. I was very surprised that the article paid no attention to sex or gender, other than comparing Spanish and German N-grams to English N-grams.
Yes, depression is increasing in two groups, the young, and women https://www.verywellmind.com/w... [verywellmind.com] While I believe in the young, it as based on them being sold a bill of goods about life by well meaning misguided parents and teachers, that's a different topic.
Considering the conditions in general of women compared to many years ago - they should be in a golden age. At this time they are better educated, able to support themselves without having to depend on a male, and are filling more and more top level careers. They have largely achieved many of the goals set out for them. It's not a fluke that most of the big retail store managers in my area are now women.
But that doesn't seem to be the case. https://www.theguardian.com/li... [theguardian.com] depressant meds have been supplemented with two antidepressants, and now atypical antipsychotics are being mainstreamed, and it's no fluke that the commercials are all geared toward women. Yikes indeed! if antipsychotics are being regularly prescribed for the group that is moving into ruling, the future is getting kinda shaky.
Society and media blame men for all women's problems - but men have been leaning out, and what is forming is a sort of sexual apartheid, where male and female have become socially estranged. If men in general avoid bothering women - how can that bother women? Men on the other hand are reporting an increase in happiness
I have my own thoughts on this issue - women don't want left alone by men. Most women are heterosexual, the reproductive drive is very strong, especially if childbearing is delayed until fertility is falling to the point that treatments are needed. But they've been trained to actively hate men, so find themselves in a conflicting situation. Basic drives in conflict are a real recipe for depression and cognitive distortion.
What is more disturbing is that questioning the present situation usually is followed by a slew of insults, especially the overused and now useless "incel" pejorative. Which by the way, is inherently sexist and bigoted. But the fact remains that for all their ascendency, and looking to assume a position of superiority, women's happiness is diminishing, many are drugged, and if the universal answer to any problem is "It's the fault of men!", perhaps some soul searching is in order. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Attributed to Einstein, but probably not.
Back to the article in question - I get it, if they dared do compare relative levels of cognitive distortion by sex, they'd be set on like crocodiles on a wildebeest.
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You've nailed something there. Most of people's happiness comes from family/friends/significant others, and it's our most intimate relationships that have suffered due to the sexual revolution, divorce, etc. You now have no ability to count on your most significant relationship continuing even into next week. They can just up and leave at any moment and you can't do anything about it. That kind of instability at the core of life makes a satisfying life extremely difficult to find.
But enjoy your internet
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You've nailed something there. Most of people's happiness comes from family/friends/significant others, and it's our most intimate relationships that have suffered due to the sexual revolution, divorce, etc. You now have no ability to count on your most significant relationship continuing even into next week. They can just up and leave at any moment and you can't do anything about it. That kind of instability at the core of life makes a satisfying life extremely difficult to find.
Yes - it's unfortunate. The training that younger people have been inculcated with is horrifying, men have been taught that all problems are because of them, women have been taught that despite being strong and independent and that they need a man like a fish needs a bicycle, that they are always the victims of any slight, and what constitutes a slight is rapidly become the existence of men. I exaggerate - it's just that women have been fed two mutually exclusive approaches to the opposite sex. It's difficu
Slash-negative. (Score:2)
Individuals with depression are prone to maladaptive patterns of thinking, known as cognitive distortions, whereby they think about themselves, the world, and the future in overly negative and inaccurate ways.
Apparently someone has been reading Slashdot.
[Sigh] (Score:3)
Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to read Slashdot summaries. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cos I don't.
How to make someone depressed ... (Score:2)
Keep asking them "how depressed are you?".
The data of this study is probably useless. (Score:2)
In recent decades, especially trough the intarweb, more and more people have attained the ability to write for a broader audience. This gives village idiots a voice equal to that of the POTUS, which in turn enables a village idiot to become POTUS (no implications here *cough*). Likewise, because more people have time and muse to write and the body of people writing and the body of resulting prose has become larger, we are likely to see more and more thoughts and troubles in the everyday life of regular peop
Credential check? (Score:3)
Most of the authors are affiliated with Computer science, Engineering, Mathematics, and Environmental sciences. One is affiliated with Psychology and Brain science.
None are associated with Anthropology, Political science, Linguistics, or other social sciences.
Their thesis is appealing - but so is the model of atoms as being like little planetary systems.
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sciencey words (Score:1)
Has anyone considered our diet? (Score:1)