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Comment by lcuff | Hacker News Reader

> I can't help but feel the recent societal interest in meditation and psychedelics is wrongheaded in that it's treating a symptom rather than a cause.

I agree, but the question emerges "what is treatable?" Many of the thousands of causes of stress in modern life can't be changed by an individual: I can't unelect politicians I disagree with, clean up the air where I live, or make the roads I travel significantly less clogged with traffic. But I can change my reactions to these. Thich Nhat Hanh taught people 'to consider every red traffic light a Bodhisattva, teaching us to "stop and be here now"'. An individual can treat SOME causes: Disconnect from Twitter and nightly TV news, and if that's what you mean, I agree with you even more strongly. But for larger realities, "the social structures that cause so much of the stress", no immediate solutions are available to the individual. Stress reduction is a good way to go.

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> Many of the thousands of causes of stress in modern life can't be changed by an individual

The counterpoint is essentially that if people engaged in social outward-looking collective action, as opposed to solitary inward-looking meditation, then you can change the world -- as has been demonstrated countless times.

You certainly can unelect politicians in the next election. Environmental movements have made gigantic progress towards cleaning up the air. And congestion pricing is starting to spread as the solution for cities to reduce traffic, and it works.

As an individual you probably won't be the single tipping point. But collective action happens because lots of individuals work together, and it requires all of those individuals. But it requires more than changing your reactions, it requires collective action.

Where do people get the energy to take outward collective action if they are bogged down by stress and frivolous thoughts? I see meditation and/or psychedelics as the only way to get people to do pro-societal things, above individualistic things that are not thoughtful uses of time.

Well, experience with political organization makes clear that it's motivated by anger at injustice. Which is why consciousness-raising has historically been such a part of starting movements, to make people aware of the injustices, to stimulate the anger that motivates political action.

If you're angry and want to change the world, stress and frivolous thoughts aren't going to interfere. If anything, your focus on the cause isn't going to leave room for as many frivolous thoughts.

Angry people might get the change they want, but probably not thoughtful change that makes things better. Politicians and the media are expert at redirecting anger in a way that doesn't upset the balance of power.

> The counterpoint is essentially that if people engaged in social outward-looking collective action, as opposed to solitary inward-looking meditation, then you can change the world -- as has been demonstrated countless times.

Yes, it has been demonstrated, and yes it requires collective action, but no that doesn't mean I (necessarily) have the time, energy or skill to act effectively to change any one, let alone dozens or thousands of these stressors, even if they're enormously stressful to me currently. The 'bang for the buck' in my world is to address the stressors at the personal level, and hope/intend to contribute to some worthy cause as well.

Interesting that this replies to a comment quoting Thich Nhat Hanh, who practiced "engaged Buddhism" and whose name means "one action" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_H%E1%B...).

Why do these two actions contradict each other? People can do both. Gandhi was not only a community organizer who affected broad, collective action but also practiced meditation.

> You certainly can unelect politicians in the next election.

Unfortunately this is not literally true in that an election puts a different politician in the place of the former one. This is how most democracies are inconsistent and don’t allow people to choose anarchy.

> Stress reduction is a good way to go

I totally agree, I think the thing I find discomforting is the apparent conflict between the systems that exacerbate the "problem" and the fact that a meditation app, medicalized psychedelic trip, or scientific research into either seems somehow part of that system. It feels like instead of becoming tools for liberation from daily suffering or for deepening the understanding of one's consciousness, these tools are being subsumed and defanged by the same system that makes us need them.

It's some of the same feeling as seeing businesses embrace social justice culture - without even getting into the whole "woke" debate, I'll just say it often feels weird to see these big machines of capitalism embrace these causes. It feels cynical - rather than "this is a good cause, we will support it" it feels like "people are into social justice, this is good marketing".

But again, maybe that's OK. If Disney embraces LGBT causes for cynical reasons to sell movies, but instrumentally advances rights or attitudes in doing so - or if Headspace makes a ton of money, but genuinely improves someone's internal experience - or if Joe Rogan convinces someone to try psychedelic therapy, and that person is able to work through some issues and be better for their family - it's hard to find an argument that these are bad things.

But they still make me feel weird.

I agree. It makes me feel weird, too. Google famously says "Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." I can cynically add "So they can monetize it." However idealistically a company's mission might be framed, in the end survival via being profitable is a core unstated goal. A company dedicated to bringing stress relief to the world participates in the same dynamic. It's a bit like hearing how psychopaths can emulate empathy because they know it will get them what they want. Eek/shiver.

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