Pretty sure it's both in my case. I don't want to do it anymore.

I find it a lot better then reddit, and exponentially better that Facebook or Twitter (refuse to call it stupid ass X).

I mean you still get a lot of the echo chamber opinions and such, but I think that's more of a reflection of the current state of society and not Lemmy.

I've had chronic pain for 10 years now and every doctor I see tells me it's anxiety and I want to slap them.

Not even close to as bad as Reddit. Have you opened that recently...? I can't scroll more than 4 or 5 posts before I have to nope out of there because I can feel the ragebait radiating from my phone.

I researched all the Technical Service Bulletins for my car and have been doing all the related fixes. This car is so low mileage that the original owner never encountered these problems, and the dealership doesn't have the parts available anymore, so I go to various junkyards, find cars that have been fixed, and steal their parts.

I am sorry, but this is nonsense. Even if the world sucks, the logical, smart response would not be dispair and depression, because that fixes nothing.

Also things like looking down on other or defensiveness are symptoms of low self esteem, not a high one. If you really are confident in yourself, you don't need to feel better than others, because you feel good about yourself.

You can understand the world and still try to enjoy your life. The world always sucked and people found ways to cope with it. But that is a skill, that doesn't always come naturally, but you should always strife towards that.

I am sorry, you are going through this, but don't try to rationalize it. It is nearly rational, nor is it an inevitable outcome of high intelligence (this is not a judgement of you personally by the way).

I partially agree. Depression has nothing to do with logic and Depression is kind a Symptom of messed up brain or hormones i think. People dont decide to be depressed.

And i would like to throw in the theory that high and low selfesteem does not really exist, but rather stabile and fragile ego. People with high or low self esteem tend to struggle with critic and be defensive or tend to feel bad about themselves. But that is gross generalisation and fragile/stable ego makes a lot more sense to me

you can have depression from outside causes. some of it will be internal. I have major depressive and general anxiety. I don't think current events created it but they did push it to where it is not manageable by me with things like walks and breathing excersises.

I have the opposite reaction. I feel like reddit is easier to curate for good things.

I still look at communities like DIY, personalfinance, Timberborn, etc over there. Some of these are topics where Lemmy doesn't have much coverage.

*Well, this prompted me to search, and I found a couple of equivalents here. Lower traffic, though.

There are a few conflicting frameworks, plus what I describe is normative behavior rather than people with diagnosable conditions (depression in abnormal psychology tends to be more a dysfunction of the brain). I teach social psychology to undergraduates, so I'm familiar with the other frameworks at a fairly broad level-- the one the person you responded to is a bit of an older perspective, but the direction you're taking I've heard discussed.

Still, it's difficult to get into the details in a Lemmy comment on a shower thoughts thread.

None the less, I mostly don't like the fragile/secure ego approach because it's harder to measure something like that, meaning there's less evidence that's what's going on.

I will say more generally though, our brains seek out acceptance and avoid rejection, much like we do physical pain (fMRI confirms it's the same part of the brain). That includes good things, like behaving cooperatively, and bad things, like confirmation bias. Self-esteem, similarly, cuts both ways-- it makes us feel better without needing external sources of esteem, but it also rejects external threats to that self esteem.

I simply worry that excess of anything leads to bad outcomes, like certain politicians we're dealing with now. But now we're getting more into my opinion and less about the research.

If you're curious, the textbook I use is open source. https://opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/

It's not perfect, though. I find it covers the topic well enough not to need to force my students to buy a text.

Facebook or the status update bar from facebook. When Twitter launched i was like no fucking way anyone uses this.

One feature that Reddit has that Lemmy still hasn't managed to replicate is that it's feed will weight your subscribed subs higher but still include non-subscribed posts. On Lemmy, I can only choose between local/subscribed/all, where local/all ignores the comms I've subscribed to (they still show up but in their default sort location), and subscribed only shows the comms I've subscribed to.

I miss that hybrid sorting.. it meant that I could sub to stuff that makes me happy, and still get posts from other places mixed in.

I often think about how if I was financially secure for the future it would not change the state of my country or the world. I would be happier day to day to some degree but it would not change whats going on.

This is both my biggest love of, and gripe with, Slavs.

"Why smile? Everything is shit? Look around!"

But also, the world is amazing AF if you look around. There's joy and love in anything and everything of you choose to look for joy and love.

But also, everything is fucked, so let's drink rakja until we don't feel feelings.

But also, flowers and sunsets.

Even if the world sucks, the logical, smart response would not be despair and depression, because that fixes nothing.

How logically do most people act, in your estimation? How logically would they act, if an unbearable depression descended upon them through looking at the shape of the world today? How many active genocides are taking place? How quickly will climate change destroy our way of life, and is there anything you, as an individual, can do to stop it? What about food and water insecurity being faced by millions of people? Millions of Americans, even? Lack of healthcare, the widening income gap between the 1% and everyone else? What can you logically do to address these global, ever worsening issues?

Perhaps the fact that you can't do anything about these very real issues can also be a source of depression? Especially when you're struggling just to keep your head above the metaphorical water?

One of the last vestiges of hope is a belief in karma. That the evil people perpetuating these evil things will one day face justice. But that's not true, is it? kissinger never faced consequences. Somehow I doubt trump or netenyahoo will either.

I imagine your answer is probably something along the lines of "focus on your immediate needs and community." Which boils down to, ignore these problems, because there's nothing you can do. Kinda like telling an employee aboard a star ship to tidy their working area as the main computer counts down the self-destruction sequence.

I, for one, cannot imagine that Sisyphus is happy.

So, there's a dark joke about why ECT (Electro Convulsive Therapy) is (mostly temporarily) effective in treatment of depression.

First, you should know, ECT has a strong side effect of amnesia, mostly temporary amnesia.

So, you get ECT, you forget why (you think) your life sucks and your outlook on everything improves, depressive symptoms fade - until your memory comes back.

People in all walks of life get serious depression, including high rates of suicide.

Ragebait is everywhere, if you choose to take it.

You also have the choice to look past / through it and see non-rage inducing aspects of life both closely related to and entirely different from the ragebait.

That's not to say that the ragebait is false, just that how you engage with it - or not - is more important to improving outcomes in your life and the lives of those you impact than directly addressing the particular spin the baiters put on their hooks.

My brain to me: Sounds like you need a drink buddy.

Me: I dunno, liver, what's your take?

Liver: Fuck it man, take that drink.

Lemmy is filled with terminally online shut-ins that barely interact with the real world, yet talk like they've travelled the world and are an expert in anything.

Lemmite try not to talk like a 13 tumblr user when their parents won't buy them a £2000 streaming PC challenge.

Bitch I’m 37

I was in my 40s when I realized that the thing that gave me severe depression for over 25 years was capitalism. Even as a teenager I could not comprehend why anyone would go to school so they could get a job so they could hopefully pay the bank the rest of their lives so they can mow grass.

Ignorance is bliss, and that's why I refrain from explaining myself to other people 😅

Ok here's a counterpoint, sure the world sucks in that all the things you mentioned are happening, but also - compared to the conditions we were genetically programmed to endure, modern life is amazing. For the vast majority of people, our base biological needs are met effortlessly. The majority of human existence has historically been a struggle for calories. Like, thats it. That's 99% of your life: either hunting, foraging, farming, or directly supporting the people in your family who do. Also, the strong dominating the weak wasn't even questioned it was just a fact of life.

Transport one of those people from the hunter-gatherer/bronze age/iron age/midevial era and they would be ecstatic in the modern day. Try to tell them about Netanyahu or Trump and they would probably say "wow they sound like an asshole but not as bad as the guys I had to deal with".

There are no objectively good or bad human conditions. Things can always be better or worse. People's emotions and perception of human conditions, therefore, are all about whether they perceive things are getting better or worse. The good part about that is it gives you agency. All most people have to do to be happy is improve their quality of life, or adjust how they perceive the world in order to give themselves a more positive outlook.

Tldr get tf off of Lemmy and the rest of social media

My senior year quote was from Doctor Who Matt Smith era, I think its a Christmas special or something. It goes "Why do you make them happy when they're going to be sad later?" Rory or River asks, the Doctor replies, "Because they going to be sad later ". I'm probably forgetting the exact wording the episode aired 13 or 14 years ago.

Just one depression please.

That should just be the bare minimum for everyone and whatever other issues can be handled by therapy, but instead we live in a world of constant, easily preventable trauma and the ones who have it the worst have the least access to therapy. Great system!

I read the Wikipedia page, it seems to be focused on specifically their assessment of themselves and their impact on the world, not the state of the world as a whole.

True on the measurability but to me its a concept that explains a lot of social behaviour. The following is my current understanding of it. It of cause has a lot of root causes playing together, like internalized / toxic shame, fears, self doubt, socialization etc.

Depending on the framework, it can be Interpreten differently i think:
Overcompensation (big ego) or surrender (small ego) are modes we slip into and both are part of a fragile ego which means low selfesteem. And also low confidense.

Being and accepting myself is high selfesteem and means a stable ego and high/realsitic confidense. Or also realistic self image.

I thing understanding and recognising those behaviours in oneself is helfpul to reach a stable ego but they are a very generalized view and can habe many causes. So it only helps a bit to recognize ones own patterns but its not possible to improve the selfesteem etc by working on selfesteem, as its just a symptom.

I think to improve selfesteem we have to gain proficiency and confidense in multiple fields by repetition and training which will spread to other areas. We habe to overcome our shame and fear by facing them and being open about it. And learn that people are different and that is beautiful becsuse everyone will find their tribe.

But you do understand that money makes other people grow your food, right?

Getting on the eightfold path has changed my worldview and mood for the better. True story.

Edit to add: But even before that, just going anti-consumerist gave my mood a healthy boost. When I stopped buying shit, I stopped wanting shit. Felt good.

People grew food for eachother before capitalism. A book that opened my eyes to the various systems that people organized themselves under before capitalism monopolized world is The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow.

As someone who's an active union member; everything sucks. You gotta have your head reeeaaaal deep in that sand not to notice. Or live a really priviliged life.

Could you, though? Do you realize the level of knowledge, work, and risk that entailed?

Unless you've actually done it and survived without external inputs like fertilizer, pesticides, emergency food, tools.... what do you know about growing your own food?

You're living in a fantasy world.

Add: “The Way We Never Were” by Stephanie Coontz.

While she deals more specifically with society in the US she also covers things like how people didn’t really have or use money in society. Money was what rich people used, the rest of everyone traded and bartered work and goods for what they needed.

Well, most people came here from Reddit, so that checks out.

When I was a tween my family moved from Connecticut to Florida.

For a long time I was really depressed to the point where they thought I had Mononucleosis or I might need antidepressants.

Turns out I was just hot. It's fucking hot in Florida. I was hot. I just didn't understand why I felt so shitty, because I had never really experienced oppressive Florida heat and humidity.

Sometimes there are actual reasons and feeling depressed isn't coming from inside you.

Said the Internet shut-in terminally online tough guy

"I sure told them." He said smarmily.

"Don't they know I'm the expert?" He quietly reflected, repressing his self doubt before posting some other inane and trifling bullshit.

People where mostly growing food for themselves and their family, not for each other.
This changed when the first basic forms of capitalism where invented, things like markets, guilds, and skyrocketed with industrialization.

No other system that we tried ever worked as good and produced so much peace and prosperity like capitalism.
Is it perfect? Fuck no! Nothing that involves humans could ever be. But it is the best we have from a bunch of broken and fucked up systems.

I definitely have both. Before 2016, my anti-depressive medication did an amazing job.

But then there was an election in the US, and that one day made me realize just how fucked we all were in a profound, unmitigatable way. I never looked at the people in my country the same way again, I never looked at the political system the same way again, and my perpetual-hopefulness for the world was completed crushed.

I know some people will say that's overly-dramatic, but those people clearly hadn't been paying attention or connecting the dots. I knew immediately when that election was called that there would be no peaceful way back. All this fascism and violence was written on the wall that day. To be able to recognize the patterns forming, but lacking the ability to stop it (and even being called "alarmist" for pointing it out), meant being stuck in a perpetual feeling of helplessness. It's been 10 years, shit's played out just as I feared it would, and the only sliver of hope I've seen ever since was the rise of Mamdani in NYC. However, awesome as that is, it's just not enough to lift me up anymore.

I also know I'm not alone. We are collectively traumatized, there's no other way to put it. It's going to take a long time for us to heal (if we're able to at all.) The worst part is, this was all done on purpose. Those in charge of the Republican party absolutely, 100% wanted us to feel this way - Project 2025 proved it.

Then there's the non-political stuff that I didn't predict, adding insult to injury. Like a network of cameras being installed everywhere, and gen AI furthering the confusion between reality and fantasy. Oh, and that whole year where the world shut down due to a disease, which was more bizarre than anything I could've expected on that first election day.

Anyway, you're right, there's no amount of nature walks or breathing exercises that can resolve the perpetual stress so many of us are under. I don't want to be a "doomer" but how the fuck am I supposed to not feel doomed? Even if I didn't look around and try to understand the world, there's my own empty wallet, grocery stores full of disease-infected food, all the clothing available is shit quality that starts to unravel before being worn (so it has to be purchased more frequently), and the never-ending bills that get higher even when our wages stay the same. It's not like we're working hard in order to eventually get relief; we're just working hard today in order to survive to work harder tomorrow. There's no end in sight.

Everything truly sucks and now I daily contemplate things that I never thought I would have before, even with my anti-depressants.

I'm just saying there are more ways to form a society than exclusively through the complete control and exploitation of people and the environment like we've been doing for the last 100 years.

Just because capitalism is the only way you know to live , doesn't mean it's the only way to live.

What are you trying to say? People only grow food because of a financial incentive? We know that isnt true because agriculture is older than any monetary economic system. Money simply acts as a means of smoothing out larger trade volumes, you don't even need it for basic local trade.

Capitalism isn't even the only market system, so that doesn't really work either.

Capitalism is definitially a cancerous socioeconomic system. Prioritizing infinite growth in a finite system above all else inevitably causes systemic collapse on a long enough timeframe. Not to mention capitalism cannot hand the Matthew principle, aka power/money attracts power/money. Again, on a long enough timeframe inevitable leads to wealth disparities that collapse the system and society trying them.

The logic is plainly right there, staring us in the face that this cannot go on forever.

Money makes the world go round, the world go round, the world go round. Of that we both are sure.

First, everybody should have financial security - it's better not to have justifiably pissed off desperate members of society.

Next, everybody should have decent healthcare, physical and mental - society is not stronger having weak / broken members.

Then: people are still going to be depressed. People who have all the financial security, access to all the best therapy, no "real" problems in their lives still get depressed - like: Carrie Fischer suicidally depressed. She's not an isolated case. Some of it's genetic (runs in families), some of it's environmental, some of it's just mental. Most of it's based in feelings of hopelessness / helplessness. The AA serenity prayer is very applicable:

...grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

Genuinely internally actualizing those three things alleviates a lot of depressive feelings. Not everybody can do it on their own, even with support many people still struggle. It's likely underreported, but globally 1/100 deaths are ruled as suicides. Among ages 15-29 it is the third leading cause of death.

Yup and patriarchy. My father is low functioning and constantly has temper tantrums/outbursts, and it baffled me why the family was run by him. If he was a woman he wouldn’t be the head of anything.

Re capitalism, I never understood why people wanted to have a house and car. It also doesn’t make sense to have most of your assets sitting in real estate and not diversified.

that’s rage bait.

Celebrities, multi-millionaires, all kinds of people with what look like imaginary problems to outsiders - but those problems leave them with the same helpless feelings, unable to change the "unacceptable" things in their lives. Depression is "all in your head" no matter what your circumstances are. Suicide is a pretty undeniable indicator that it was real / serious. Suicide rates are higher in people with financial stress, but they're far from zero all the way up the economic pyramid.

Above the $150K threshold (was $70K when they first widely published the idea, but inflation...) it really depends on what you are doing for that $150K, what kind of responsibilities you have taken on, stressors you have, and zero responsibilities or stressors is not a great place to be on the curve, people with no reasons to live aren't in a great spot.

I'll agree with the S, but there's also probably a bit of a bump up at the low end when you get into "nothing left to lose" territory.

They say misery loves company, you have a lot of that today...