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Clay Shirky On Hackers and Depression: Where's the Love?
giminy writes "Clay Shirky has a thought-provoking piece on depression in the hacker community. While hackers tend to be great at internet collaboration on software projects, we often fall short when it comes to helping each other with personal problems. The evidence is only anecdotal, but there seems to be a higher than average incidence of mental health issues among hackers and internet freedom fighters. It would be great to see this addressed by our community through some outreach and awareness programs."
It would be great to see this addressed by our community through some outreach and awareness programs.
I assume these programs would be released under the GPL, or some other open-source license?
Take these SmaxoGlythKlein brand pills so you are more normal. You want to be normal, right?
Who is this guy, and why does his opinion matter?
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
So cute when people get full of themselves and take on a title like that. Sometimes the depression is when that lofty self-perception is a kite that gets snagged in one of the trees of reality.
I suspect it's also that a lot of us became computer types after neglecting human ties to some degree, and once we get old enough we either come back and learn to deal with people, or we become increasingly lonely and unbalanced as we age. Sometimes both.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Most activist communities have a higher than normal incidence of mental health issues. Personality disorders, paranoia, anger management issues, I've seen a lot of them in various political activist groups.
Why can't I mod "-1 Idiot"?
Post anything regarding how you feel on almost anyplace on the internet, and all you'll get in return is mocking and derision.
>> It would be great to see this addressed by our community through some outreach and awareness programs.
OK, who let the social worker on Slashdot? Seriously, when has "outreach" or "awareness" ever solved anything? (Urban violence? Drug use? What?)
I wonder if we get so focused on the technology side of our world that we forget that this work (programming, architecting systens, etc) has a significant creative side and as such the problems that often plague other creative groups. The anguish and troubles of writers, painters, etc are well documented and seemingly (to me anyway) an accepted part of embracing their work. I know that in my own case letting on that I am anything less than 'normal' has been a scary proposition because of the threat of not only being seen as less than capable but also a direct threat to my livelyhood. After all, software people are nearly interchangeable, right?
And Clay's advice near the end (you did read that far, right?) is dead on. We're a group who likes to fix things. We are not trained to fix this. The best we can do is aim someone we are concerned about in the right direction.
dt
While the evidence he discusses may be only anecdotal, the conclusion he reaches is logical.
There are certain lifestyle and behavioural patterns common among hackers which do leave us prone to depression and other mental health issues. We do tend to spend much of our time alone, engaged in solitary and sedentary pursuits of the mind which - while we may find incredibly rewarding and cool - those around us in meat-space just don't understand.
Now add in the consideration that we tend to find ourselves on the metaphorical wild frontier of the technological world we inhabit. In a place where we are carving out the basis for the new and interesting but always having to look over our shoulders in fear that some technologically inept idiot with a bunch of lawyers with come along and either crush what we have built or steal it from us.
Added to this we, due to our lifestyles, often lack the aspects of life which are typically used to de-stress and prevent depression: good diet to provide the required thinking fuel (no, caffeine and sugar aren't enough), exercise for endorphins to let us forget the shit of the world for a bit and physically present people for company so we can put things in perspective.
Finally, consider that we have both good reason to be down about things and due to our lifestyles tend to lack the things which help prevent depression... yeah, it's not a surprising conclusion.
So, what can we all do about it?
Critical thinking is part of the problem. If you've trained your mind to see the world as it actually is, then you're less likely to have comfortable illusions to fall back on. And because other people don't like having their illusions questioned, you don't have much of a social network to fall back on either.
And then when you look for help, you find that psychiatry is bullshit just like everything else. SSRI's don't actually work except for the most severely depressed. And therapy... well when your problem is that you see the world accurately, what exactly is therapy going to do?
Even if you could stop thinking critically, is that an ethical thing to do? Most of the world's problems are due to not enough critical thinking, so if you have that skill and don't use it, you're deliberately becoming part of the problem.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
When I first read this post I thought " yes, but what can be done?". I've been a programmer for 13 years. Socially maladjusted people are all over the industry. You can't force people to take a look at themselves and go get help.
However, there is the power of the example. Look how many IT types went from being obese to slim with John Walkers "The Hacker's Diet".
What is needed for high profile ubergeeks to publish their own accounts cleaning up their mental health and perhaps providing a geeky way, a "Hacker's Diet" for mental health and social skills ( beyond the ground covered by the PUA community ).
I'm sure there are at least a few ubergeeks who had mental health issues, social adjustment issues and who overcame them. It is time to publish.
One of the things I've noticed in the 'professional developer' community is that there is a bit of Jock Culture going on.
First of all, you have a business environment that tends to favor younger, fresher talent and puts a LOT of pressure on aging developers to keep up with their younger peers, many of whom are capable of (in the very, very short run) unhealthy work practices. 80 hour work weeks and back-to-back all-nighters are doable when you're 22 years old. They're fucking painful at 30, and ruinous by 35.
And it's hard to say 'No' to them because we've just come out of a nasty recession when upper management is all too eager to lay you off in favor of younger developers eager to prove themselves.
That shit WILL give you depression, anxiety, and insomnia, and all of those kill.
Second, again with the Jock Culture, developer culture tends to be dominated by hot-headed males, many of whom are eager to replicate locker-room style pecking orders in the cube farms... and that crap just doesn't work when you're developing software.
(Ex-military guys? I'm looking at you here. I've seen you do this shit. Stop it.)
Sadly, those pecking orders are often directly related to pay. The guy who manages to wedge his way into the 'Project Lead' or 'Senior Developer' slot tends to have a few more dollars attached to them. Again, the pressure results in depression, anxiety, and insomnia which are proven killers.
Shirkey's piece spends a lot of time talking about Aaron Swartz, but Aaron was a unique case of being uniquely and unfairly persecuted by multiple 800 pound gorillas. His depression and suicide *should* have been as fucking obvious to anyone who knew him as an 18 wheeler rolling the wrong way down the freeway.
The answer to these issues is, perhaps a shade ironically, the same answer we should be looking at in regards to our sudden flareup of chronic school shooting disease:
Mental Healthcare needs to be made a priority in this nation. We need to destigmatize ADMITTING mental health issues and seeking treatment for them. Also, we need to completely ditch the notion that drugs used for treatment of mental health problems cause more harm that good.
Seriously, guys, when you're having daily panic attacks, when sleep won't come for days at a time, when the world starts showing up in black and white and more black than white... it's time to talk to a doctor. And if your doctor won't help, ditch him and find a doctor who will.
Apropos captcha: Biopsy
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Kleptomania is reduced to an illness in mental health, with no particular understanding of its origins. Obviously, we as a species would not exist were it not for the many evolutionary behaviors, including this one, that allowed us to survive. In a supreme gesture of arrogance, an overstatement of an evolutionary imperative becomes a sickness. We do not understand who we are.
Alternately: What was once an evolutionary benefit is now an evolutionary impediment because the social environment itself has evolved.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
More practical advice.
If you are considering taking medical advice from /. don't.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It's just no covered by the mental health systems in most place, predominantly due to mandatory treatment being outlawed as a violation of civil rights.
When you hold someone involuntarily, it's limited to a 72 hour hold, and it take an extreme act by the person for that yo last beyond 72 hours - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5150_(Involuntary_psychiatric_hold) . The typical reaction is treat-and-turf (get them back on their medication in the 72 hour window, then throw them out), or worst case, extended to a 5250: a 14 day hold, with the same results, or a T-Con (Temporary Conservatorship or 5270, which is a 30 day hold), also with the same results. If that doesn't work out for the worst cases, a so-caled permanent conservatorship can be initiate, so called because it constitutes a 1 year hold. Most psychiatric treatment personnel won't ever go that far for fear of a lawsuit.
This originated with a cost reduction measure under Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, signed in 1967 and phasing into full effect in 1972: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterman–Petris–Short_Act .This successful cost reduction measure was adopted by other states, modeled on the California law, and quickly gained adoption in most Blue states, particularly where there was a high homeless population of mentally ill persons self-medicating with alcohol, marijuana, and other substances, rather than getting real treatment.
In any case, it typically means no treatment for psychiatric disorders.
My mother was a psychiatric social worker in a red state (Weber County Mental Health in Ogden, Utah). It took them a long time to adopt these measures, and they continued to treat patients (they were euphemistically referred to as clients), but they finally did so in the late 1980's and phasing in through the early 1990's. The reason they adopted them was also cost cutting, but it was mostly driven by Colorado convincing their mentally ill persons to accept a one way bus ticket to Utah - which was Colorado addressed the problem.
Ironically, you could call Weber County Mental health, and report a person who was off their medication -- those on Lithium for Schizophrenia frequently decompensated on their medications when diet drinks came out, since Aspartame bonds to N-Dopamine receptors making the treatment less effective, and mentally ill persons frequently have accompanying body image issues which drives them to diet drinks -- and their case worker would show up and talk them in.
I tried this same things with Santa Clara County Mental Health in the last couple of years, and they were totally uninterested in a man outside a subway who was arguing with his voices. No dice. My options, according to the social worker, was to call the cops on the guy -- the last thing someone in that state needs -- and run them through police system to get him a 5150 to get his medication. Santa Clara County absolutely does not care about their mentally ill the way Weber County does.
Although Obama's Affordable Care Act gives better access to treatment options for mentally ill persons: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/06/29/what-the-affordable-care-act-means-to-mental-health/ in actual practice, it's probably not going to matter if these people do not choose to avail themselves of treatment, and without reform of the laws governing mental illness treatment practices, it's most likely to remain a 72 hour hold, stabilization, and throwing them out after they have been on their medication long enough to ave their symptoms temporarily alleviated.
The end result is that it will likely not address the issue, and certainly without forced medication, it won't stop criminal gun violence or suicides, since as soon as they feel better, they're going off their medication again.
"Although Obama's Affordable Care Act gives better access to treatment options for mentally ill persons: ..."
Things like nutrition, positive psychology, physical infrastructure, life opportunities, community and so on can make a huge difference in mental health. But they are not generally covered as treatments by insurance. Similarly, health insurance may pay $100K for a heart operation, but it won't pay a penny towards the healthy food needed to stay physically and mentally well.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/natural_depression.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx
Worse -- junk food is heavily subsidized:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
And for decades bad nutritional advice like "the four food groups" has been enshrined in public education by regulatory capture and clever marketing by agribusiness.
Contrast with a model like "Blue Zones":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone
Or what Dr. Andrew Weil writes about in his book "Why Our Health Matters".
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.