Comment by 2OEH8eoCRo0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 2OEH8eoCRo0 | Hacker News Reader

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> improve mental health

I think that this is a poor target. How do you set out directly targeting mental health? What are the biggest causes of mental health issues?

https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/learn/index.htm

CDC lists causes such as childhood trauma, trauma from medical issues, biological factors, alcohol or drugs, and loneliness or isolation.

How do you set out to tackle loneliness or isolation? How do you help prevent alcohol or drug addiction? What are the reasons that people become addicted to drugs or alcohol?

> Use and misuse of alcohol, nicotine, and illicit drugs, and misuse of prescription drugs cost Americans more than $700 billion a year in increased health care costs, crime, and lost productivity.

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior...

> Some must cope with the early loss of a parent, violence, or sexual abuse. While not everyone who faces these stresses develops a mood disorder — in fact, most do not — stress plays an important role in depression.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/what-causes-dep...

This is a big interconnected problem. My point is that just giving directly to mental health resources rings hollow. A tougher holistic approach needs to examine why American society just plain sucks for so many people. Why do people want to kill themselves or others? Why does life suck so much for so many? We have a rotten system and drug addiction/gun violence/suicide are symptoms and not causes.

My 2 rambling cents.

>How do you set out to tackle loneliness or isolation?

Not having your media contributing to hyper-polarization of your populace through algorithm enforced bubbling, or riling them up through fear mongering helps. Lack of public works may also be a contributing factor. One thing I will say for the Great Depression/New Deal generation: they didn't have anywhere near the isolation issues our generation seems to grapple with.

> How do you help prevent alcohol or drug addiction? What are the reasons that people become addicted to drugs or alcohol?

Inability to escape or alter their situation except by altered mental state. Get people something they can constructively do (and fairly pay then for their time) and it's amazing how positive coping skills materialize.

For those with non-economic contributing factors, a big part of it seems to be social enablement, removing them from the stressor, etc... Which a robust framework of social services may help more with as long as you don't start trying to turn reaching out into a life tainting thing (no publically available by default records for info brokers to suck up that would adversely effect future prospects).

Also, unironically, a better justice system, post-release process.

These aren't hard. Just not terribly popular, due to the fact you have to pay people to help other people improve their lot. Or literally just inspect to make sure people are effectively using resources available to get their stuff straight.

A very simple step in the right direction would be to create more places where the exchange of money for goods and services is not a requirement for attendance. It sucks to be too poor to go to the library 8 miles away because you can't afford the bus pass.

Have you tried doing more than nothing?

On many occasions in the past, I’ve found that doing anything often works better than doing nothing, like the US usually advocates.

Turns out that there are no perfect solutions, but there are a lot of partial solutions that in aggregate add up to the mental health the rest of the developed world has.

Doing nothing is OFTEN the best solution to problems!

Politicians generally don't understand this. Average people don't understand this. But it's still true.

In particular, by the time a problem becomes prominent enough to be noticed by politicians, it has often already been solved and the ensuing legislation is nothing but a deadweight loss.

For example, before 9/11 the assumption was that hijackers would try to ransom the passengers for money, so it was better not to resist so they didn't hurt anybody. After 9/11, the assumption had to be that they were planning to crash the plane, at which point all the passengers resist and a hundred passengers can easily take on half a dozen hijackers and it's well worth the risk of one or two getting hurt in the process.

So by 9/12, another 9/11 was no longer possible. It was already solved. None of the government action that followed was actually necessary and the TSA is completely pointless.

Thank you for making an account to attack a point that I did not make.

I did not say to do nothing. I said it will probably take a holistic approach. Holistic means look at the issue as a whole rather than trying to attack one symptom. A holistic approach would likely implement plenty of small partial solutions.

It seems like free therapy would help with all of this? Therapy is part of free health care in other countries if I recall. Also free health care would help prevent people from ending up in dire straits.

This reminds me of the "This is fine" cartoon by KC Green[1]. Therapy treats the symptoms and not the cause of societal problems.

I do agree that therapy and free healthcare would help and are needed, but alone they are not a solution.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/5/11592622/this-is-fine-meme...

So we both agree therapy and healthcare would help. I did not say they are the only thing we need to do.

> just giving directly to mental health resources rings hollow. A tougher holistic approach needs to examine why American society just plain sucks for so many people

I don't think they are mutually exclusive, mental health can incorporate a systems approach. It seems patently foolish to ignore lifestyle factors like diet, exercise, sleep or social factors like friends, family, religion & other communal institutions.

> A tougher holistic approach needs to examine why American society just plain sucks for so many people.

Ship 'em to North Korea. A little perspective will work wonders.

Or be in their shoes, and a little perspective will work wonders to show you why they feel that way?

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