How economic inequality harms societies

[btdt]

  

I knew intuitively there would be a difference but never imagined it would be this large ... Oddly enough the best place to live if you have a mental health issue or don't want to have one is Japan I wonder if they would take me... Denmark is out as they have very strident immigration rules  

[InvisibleUnless]

very suspect data that is pre-biased and then presented without proper context.  but, then, ive already expressed my disdain for tedtalks.

 

though, i think it is meaningful and supported to say that comparative income disparities cause more problems for everyone (because though resource acquisition is not a zero sum game per se, there is always exclusory competition for the proverbial 'low hanging fruit').

 

one of the most important overlooked aspects here, both in the presentation and your response, is the cultural influence on definitions and reporting.  "mental illness" and "child-reported trust levels" and stuff like that are NON-standardizable statements to measure.  we cannot transcend cultural boundaries and gaps through uniformly worded statements and understandings of social behavior.

 

 

so, for example, to conclude from that presentation that japan is a good place to live if you have mental illness would be understandable but quite erroneous.  mental illness in japan is still a taboo subject in most venues, and even the accusation or suggestion of mental illness can have a devastating social and economic effect on a person or their business ventures.

 

this means many things for their cultural treatment of mental illness.  for one thing, they clearly conceptualize mental illness (its experience, effects, and treatment outlook) much differently than the western scientific world.  and, secondly, with such a high risk being associated with the idea of mental illness, there is bound to be massive under-reporting of symptoms, and recategorization of symptoms aimed at minimizing the perception of impairment or loss of social status (the notion of 'saving face').  thirdly, empathetic and effective support and treatment for mental disorders within japan will be far more limited than places more accepting of their ubiquity and scientific nature.  and, another big aspect to categorization of mental health is that it is culture-specific.  diagnostic criteria essentially just measure how different you are from your surrounding population (be that in terms of physical proximity or social)...there are no absolutes for these values places on social experience (and even measuring particular aspects/biological components of stress, as he finished off with, is ignoring the wider systemic picture, both biologically and socially).

 

another important thing to remember is that studies that he gathers data from for this presentation are created through the same methods and purposefully biased financial and social filters as the studies on psych meds.  'social science' is considered a 'soft science' due to the essential untestability of theories beyond more-or-less anecdotal collections of data from populations and histories, but even 'hard sciences' rely on the integral human component to support their ideas---we are measuring our experience of interacting with things we perceive as external, as opposed to those external things themselves, or even interactions occurring externally that our measuring and perceiving have no effect on.  all human knowledge is pushed through a ton of different inherently biasing filtration methods before we get output that can be employed in a medium, like a study or news report or even just a smalltalk dialogue.

 

human beings are created with the biological predisposition to see patterns, regardless of what they are or where they are or what we imagine them to mean---this is a huge benefit for survival, but also means we are essentially operating in a mode of religiousness 100% of the time, about all things.  so you can have positive change from presentations like that video you embedded, but it doesnt mean the information is accurate or socially reliable.  to varying degrees, its all pretty arbitrary, but i felt it was meaningful to put out that these come from the same processes as the accepted literature on psychotropics.  the presentation quite clearly had agendas beyond giving a straight talk about relative income disparity.

[btdt]

" essentially just measure how different you are from your surrounding population"

 

How different I am now since drug?  or before I had any drugs...that needs to be the real question doesn't it and would welcome a culture without all this crap about mental illness where there were less supports and a more = economic fairness.   

Don't worry I am not moving could not afford the plane ticket I am one of the crazy poor thanks to drugs.

 

I am sure some of your ideas are fine just as his are. I like it and I think there are more poor kids and people drugged than rich for maybe other reasons...but more drugged.  It makes complete sense more stressed more drug poor kids working parents less support due to less time more apt to be targeted by a helping agency as in need of drugs...or a teacher.

[btdt]

Still I am glad you watched it as lots of people are not interested in the things I am... this interests me. wrong or not he gave it shot and some of it I think is likely right maybe all what do I know.

[InvisibleUnless]

my response was not related to his conclusions, but rather his methodology---his idea of what constitutes evidential data, and how reliably we can draw conclusions from that information.

 

i think the most significant aspect behind class disparity (racism, sexism, religious fighting, etc) is economic disparity.  what do you have to complain about if you have roughly equal supplies and support?  so the notion that economic inequalities, most especially contextual inequalities, promote all sorts of bad social trends is not an idea i would argue against.  but his methods of reasoning, which you also echoed in your personal conclusions from his presentation (regarding japan), were not valid, and invalid methods of reasoning are more dangerous than invalid conclusions.

 

i think its great you have an interest in this stuff.  most people do not have such broad a perspective on the quality of life for other people groups, and choose not to significantly invest towards the greater welfare of them.

[btdt]

They also use birth control in Japan at 1% the rate of other countries... and have less depression perhaps as bc is a supposed cause of depression.. I just learned that today... lol and that is my laughable conclusion... I am not seeking scientific fact always.. but a broader knowledge of the world and an escape from my life... to things I am a bit curious about. 

 

There were no computers when I was a growing up so this is a new thing... and I like it tho I do tend to get carried away... science where did it get us... think about that... from there I may choose to look at art next time... 

peace

[btdt]

"i think its great you have an interest in this stuff.  most people do not have such broad a perspective on the quality of life for other people groups, and choose not to significantly invest towards the greater welfare of them."

 

Your probably right but I hope your wrong. 

[InvisibleUnless]

chemical birth control can be a big factor in some health issues, but, as i said before, japan will define and report 'depression' differently than areas where it is more socially accepted or capable of being treated in a safe and non-compromising setting.  i think that the experience of illness, especially mental illness, is more about how individuals cope within their own cultures, as opposed to some universalizable set of factors or traits.  we all have our evolutionary coping strategies, and they can be more or less appropriate for our situation depending on our culture, and how that culture influences us to express our own personal techniques.

 

now that i think of it, even barrier birth control can contribute to lessened health...physical touch, fluid exchange, etc are all very complicated chemical processes that have driven and supported humanity since before we were humans.  as a young adult, i did a lot of reading into sexology, and considered becoming a psychosexual therapist.  also thought to mention that birth control use will be defined by method and by reporting status, and theres no good way to get an accurate representation in a culture that considers it much differently than the culture doing the studying.

 

 

in some ways, i think i might be considered anti-utopian...i dont think you can change the fundamentals of human nature and interaction, however i think some environments are more constructive or beneficial if we are to average stuff out.  disease and dysfunction seems to have rapidly grown post-agricultural social formats.  anarchistic hunter/gatherer tribes most likely had their own set of stressors and social problems, so its really difficult to judge, but quality of life is always a pretty subjective thing anyway.  we are blessed in that we are animals that can thrive in any environment whatsoever, so long as we discover just how to adapt, and accept that sometimes we take losses and damage in the process.

 

 

art is much more truthful than science, definitely.  science is all about revising the earlier decades theories, eventually reaching the point where everything we once believed is totally wrong.  however, the same humanistic principles that were observed in ancient art still hold meaning and influence in the modern world.  the odyssey is as valid as shakespeare is as valid as monet is as valid as the matrix...theres always someone to relate to these forms.  people relate to science, too, of course, and feel fulfilled in seeking and furthering scientific principles, but science is a failed representation whereas art is a subjective reflection that calls us to make our own judgements about the life we personally experience.

 

in saying that people have a much more limited view, oftentimes, its not necessarily to imply that those people are 'bad' or 'less caring', though it might gross that way in the big picture.  it just means that their techniques for group survival are more constricted in focus...perhaps less applicable in some global schemes, but we are still tribal animals, and a tribe needs a lot of tribe-first thinkers for the few global-thinkers so there is a maintained balance and social cohesion.  uniformity of belief or action is the death of a species.  (and, on the other hand, more global thinkers are not ignoring tribal categorization, but rather have expanded their ideas of what a tribe really means.)