Comment by diego | Hacker News Reader

Comment by diego | Hacker News Reader

" We now have strong evidence that a reliable and effective way to reduce the incidence of depression (and concomitant medical spending) in the U.S. is to reduce poverty and increase income levels generally."

No, we don't. We don't know if low income causes depression, if depression causes low income, or if something else causes both. All three may be true for different cases. You cannot make a statement like "money buys freedom from depression" willly-nilly. Think of all the possible ways in which depression could cause low income: you lose your job because you can't get out of bed, you're not motivated to work and you get fired, etc. Think of all the things that could cause both: e.g. a crippling accident that leaves you unable to do your job, and of course makes you depressed.

[The examples above are not hypothetical, I know those people in real life]

All we know is that depression and low income are correlated, but OP's conclusion is downright irresponsible.

This is one of my biggest problems with social sciences. In my opinion it is just pure dishonesty, if not outright lying to make such simple, causational claims on complex phenomenons.

The sad part is, that non-critical media and people are eating this up and using exactly these kinds of "scientific facts" to advance their ideological agenda.

Social sciences aren't all bad, and can be used properly. Experimental economics is an example of a field with very interesting, solid scientific insights.

Unfortunately, far too much of the social sciences are funded by extrmely politically motivated and/or sensitive organizations. A big bias I've seen in social sciences, which is present in this particular case, is an acute and completely non-scientific aversion to "blaming the victim." There is clear, and obvious to the layman push to always blame external factors, despite the obvious and persistent presence of possible internal factors.

Poverty isn't rape. Victims can often times be at least partially to blame for their state. However, these studies are often funded by sympathetic groups who are seeking to ascribe external causes whenever possible.

If you have ever known a severely depressed person, I can assure you that they will find a way to make themselves poor very quickly. I could insert my many, many family members and friends who have struggled with depression into this, but it would all be anecdotal. Instead, I'll stay abstract:

1) Depression lowers energy levels 2) Depression drastically inhibits motivation 3) Depression destroys relationships 4) Depression causes self-destructive behavior

All of these things, by themselves, will serve to decrease a person's income. Put them all together and you have a poor person in the making.

Couldn't resist 1 anecdote: My mother was given a very, very generous alimony (house, car, shitloads of money) by my father. She was depressed. She blew through it all. Never got off her ass. Self-destructive behavior meant she drank away her medication's effectivesss. She's been broke (homeless half the time) for the last 25 years. Poverty didn't cause her depression. Depression (and lots of bad decisions) causer her poverty.

I just finished "Antifragile" by Taleb and would definitely recommend it. He talks a lot about this, e.g. epiphenomena, illusions of causation, especially in the social sciences.

In a highly materialistic society like the US, where people measure their own and each other's worth by the kind of car they drive, the neighborhood and house they live in, whether they're still living with their parents past college age, whether they even own a car at all, what kind of clothes they wear, etc, I don't think you'd be going out on a limb to suggest that poverty causes depression.

Of course, the reverse no doubt holds true as well: depression can make holding (or even wanting to hold) a job much more difficult, if not impossible.

compared to other modern societies the US is at best mil-level materialistic. (probably calling the entire US a 'society' is a misnomer)

I'd be interested to see a graph of materialism to happiness (though both are fuzzy and difficult to measure) I'd guess there is a negative correlation, but I don't have the data!

This is really interesting to me. How do you compare societies in terms of their materialism? Which are the most/least materialistic?

Correlation and Causeality strikes again.

I have a family member, who suffers from depression, they are on the dole (UK state benefits) and hasn't ever had a full time paid job.

This is because of the illness, not a cause of the illness, in fact from what I've seen depression can be so all consuming the thoughts of money never enter the head. In some ways their drepression would prevent them from ever being concerned about their lack of money, or motivated enough to do anything productive.

This. It is well documented that high level functioning is compromised when you suffer from depression.

Bingo. Mental illnesses, even mild ones, can and often do impede a person's ability to function even when nothing is visibly amiss to others. It doesn't take much.

Not only that, even if depression is caused by income, perhaps it's caused by relative income. That means increasing income across the board might have no effect.

Correct, but remember that, if income across most of the population were to be increased, keeping the amount of total income constant, then average relative income would increase. For example, a typical redistribution tax in the typical, modern capitalist society, would have this effect.

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