Comment by _qn3k | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _qn3k | Hacker News Reader

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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?

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.

You don't seem to have much interest in answering the crux of my point, which is the continual asking of why until you get to the true reasons why things are the case. Instead, you've just given another high level example.

To be honest I'm not even sure how this new example relates at all. You're simply saying that people can do bad things, which I guess is true, though I don't see how that supports your argument. I don't think anyone was suggesting people have no agency, and can't possibly make any changes in their life, the suggestion is they don't have complete agency, and their life will always be governed by factors beyond their control. Taking your point, yeh, people can be assholes, but why? "Just because" isn't a proper answer, and if it is the same can be used to dispel your argument just as easily.

> notice how you are seeing them as that, not me

Hmmmm, not quite. Your whole argument rests on people refusing to make changes in their life for no apparent reason, and these are typically the words used. You didn't use them yourself, no, but I think it can be quite easily inferred, not least by the fact you called another commenter a coward. Again, following my argument, ask yourself why I thought you would think of them in those terms.

> That actually solves the problem.

Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. I suspect you're right in part, but things tend to be more complicated. Either way, thats not my point. My point is asking why they don't do their part, for example.

They don't do their part because they are not expected to. That is my problem with the "disease" label. That is my problem when talking about homelessness. That is my problem when talking about addiction.

And there are people who make a good living keeping it exactly this way, making bank in the wake of the moral outrage of the "helpers".

> I can have compassion and ask them to do their part. That actually solves the problem.

Have you actually done this, and did it solve the problem?

>I have seen the homeless as people to be pitied and helped. Just weak people, down on their luck.

They are. They also tend to have high rates of mental illness, which often is what leads them to live transient lives. Leaving them in your hallway unsupervised, though well intentioned, isn't the way to help them. It didn't backfire because people are assholes, it backfired because you operated on a faulty understanding of the situation

I don't think it's fair of you to use quotation marks when the person you are responding to didn't use that language.

Not is it productive to misinterpret his comment as perpetuating a tired trope and then launch into an emotional rant against something that literally nobody here is supporting.

GP did make a fair point - learned helplessness does nothing but exacerbate your suffering, and taking agency and responsibility for your own mental state is the most effective way to improve things.

Whether the solution comes through lifestyle changes (leaving toxic environment), a simple change in viewpoint or SSRIs, labelling yourself as depressed or burned out and then succumbing to your new fate is never productive. I know this because I've experienced both.

> I don't think it's fair of you to use quotation marks when the person you are responding to didn't use that language.

Which everyone who reads it can clearly see, and understand that I saw that kind of language as a possible response to my question of "why?". I wouldn't say thats any kind of trickery on my part.

> Not is it productive to misinterpret his comment as perpetuating a tired trope and then launch into an emotional rant against something that literally nobody here is supporting.

Theres an irony to saying I "misinterpreted his comment" and then immediately doing the same to mine. It wasn't an "emotional rant", maybe a bit of a rant, but I'm not going to apologise for that. I'm not sure which tired trope I'm perpetuating.

> and the rest...

I think you're missing my point. Perhaps, to use your own words, I could even go further and saying your misinterpretting it and launching into an emotional rant.

My point isn't that people can't change their circumstances, or that self improvement is pointless. Its that so many factors govern these things that its a fantasy to believe anyone is in complete control.

You're not depressed because you just are and theres nothing more to be done, nor are you depressed because you make yourself depressed. Hence why I argued to keep asking why, if you truly believe that your depression is caused by yourself, ask why you would do that to yourself, and keep doing so until you find the true reason.

Just for what it's worth, I wasn't attacking the content of your argument - mainly just defending GP while attacking the tone of yours. What you said wasn't wrong, but it was in response to an argument nobody was making.

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.

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