You want to talk about statistics, but include anecdotal statements from anonymous sources, and end with an appeal to emotion.
You want to state that psychiatric medicine is mostly placebo, but don't have any good criticisms to levy against double blind studies of antidepressants with placebos.
Given the point of the article was encouraging/helping individuals who have depression to seek medical help, I'm not sure what the purpose of your comments are. It sounds like you had a bad experience with the mental health community.
Just like people who have a bad experience with any public service, I feel for you. I might even look at whether there are systemic issues in the provision of the service, in this case mental health.
But if your intention is to make people question the efficacy and usefulness of mental health treatment for depressed people, then I feel that you are attacking something that many people have fought hard to get, get attention for and get funded, mental health treatment.
Mental health treatment still has a stigma attached to it, that of some inherent deficiency that contributes to mental issues. Adding the unrealistic idea that depressed individuals are going to be locked up and treated like animals isn't helpful in my opinion.
I'm not saying that your experience, or the experiences you are familiar with, was/were invalid. However, hundreds of thousands of individuals who find psychological or pharmacological treatment for mental illness of benefit, and many more could benefit but go undiagnosed/untreated.
"You want to state that psychiatric medicine is mostly placebo, but don't have any good criticisms to levy against double blind studies of antidepressants with placebos."
Because maybe he assumes you aren't too stupid to do a simple Google search. Both Emperor's New Drugs and Anatomy of an Epidemic are extraordinarily well written, it's well worth reading both, and there are all sorts of other good books on mental illness as well.
This is exactly why HN has become like idiocracy, where anyone who takes the time to become well educated about something before speaking is basically called a faggot for reading books.
Read the section of text that I quoted. Someone who said something that's fundamentally correct is being criticized by a variety of other people who are too lazy to actually do the research themselves. That's the very premise of the movie Idiocracy.
"Of course you can disagree with, or be upset by other comments, but dialing up the language significantly doesn't do anything useful."
While I respect your opinion, personally I think it's much better to have a community where people are occasionally assholes than to have a community where people are giving false and dangerous health advice.
> "it's much better to have a community where people are occasionally assholes"
The guidelines [0] disagree with you. "Be civil" is followed by a period, not by a list of exceptions for when it's OK to be an asshole. Likewise, "please respond to the argument instead of calling names" is followed by an example, not by exceptions.
When people give wrong advice, counter it, but do so without the name-calling.
"When people give wrong advice, counter it, but do so without the name-calling."
I have been. For several years. You're right of course. From my perspective though it's just extremely frustrating because I try my best to help people stay safe, but day after day people keep thoughtlessly posting the same crap based on what they see on TV commercials or whatever.
Don't think of "people" as a static entity; that's the problem. HN does have something of an "eternal September" effect that everyone has to deal with, permanently.
There's a constant influx of new people, many of whom will learn to contribute more valuable commentary, but haven't learned yet.
It's discouraging, but easier to deal with if you recognize it for what it is.
You want to state that psychiatric medicine is mostly placebo, but don't have any good criticisms to levy against double blind studies of antidepressants with placebos.
Given the point of the article was encouraging/helping individuals who have depression to seek medical help, I'm not sure what the purpose of your comments are. It sounds like you had a bad experience with the mental health community.
Just like people who have a bad experience with any public service, I feel for you. I might even look at whether there are systemic issues in the provision of the service, in this case mental health.
But if your intention is to make people question the efficacy and usefulness of mental health treatment for depressed people, then I feel that you are attacking something that many people have fought hard to get, get attention for and get funded, mental health treatment.
Mental health treatment still has a stigma attached to it, that of some inherent deficiency that contributes to mental issues. Adding the unrealistic idea that depressed individuals are going to be locked up and treated like animals isn't helpful in my opinion.
I'm not saying that your experience, or the experiences you are familiar with, was/were invalid. However, hundreds of thousands of individuals who find psychological or pharmacological treatment for mental illness of benefit, and many more could benefit but go undiagnosed/untreated.