Fear And Loathing OF Silicon Valley

OK. I know it's the usual fluff-quest, the usual navel-gazing. TechCrunch raised to the power of TechCrunch. Gotta write your 500 words. I get it. You wake up and think:

"Lots of people are discussing X, Y and Z and I can't think of anything to write today. I guess I'll write about how people are writing about X, Y and Z and slap a thick sauce of world-weary ennui on top to hide that the fish has turned."

But I must regretfully derail the entire conversation, because I am unable to let this one aside pass without comment:

> But they also let people numb emotional pain rather than face it, quiet their children rather than teach them.

Let's just leave the psychiatry to the psychiatrists, shall we? And admit to ourselves that perhaps watching Garden State isn't a substitute for earning a medical degree and a psychology degree and doing research and taking supervised placements.

Looking down on pharmaceutical treatments for depression and ADHD because it's fashionable to hate Big Pharma is more than annoying. It is harmful because it perpetuates inaccurate stereotypes about the treatability of difficult, potentially life-threatening illnesses.

Please, all holders of poetic license. Stop doing taking this rhetorical shortcut. You are hurting people.