So, why is "mor on" a trigger word? Why not fuck, bag of shit, etc.?

Evidence should definitely direct policy writing and decision making. All that is necessary is for us to decide to do that. What on earth would interfere with such a sensible approach?

Take for instance policy about CO2 emissions. Evidence supports a policy of drastically reducing CO2 emissions as soon as possible. The details are laid out in clearly written statements and published. The public will read the policy and comply immediately. They will immediately start car pooling, bussing, walking, or bicycling to work, or take mass transit if they can find it. They will turn down their thermostats in the winter and will forego air conditioning in the summer. The public will voluntarily switch to a vegetarian diet. They will stop buying things that are not absolutely necessary.

Meanwhile, the economy collapses (as evidence predicted it would) before a new economy not based on fossil fuels can be organized. Much of the population no longer has to worry about getting to work, because their jobs and incomes have disappeared. Riots, looting, cannibalism, bestiality, and more result.

There is considerable evidence that it is difficult to get people to make sensible changes in their behavior.

I have some science fiction ideas about humanity experiencing a revolution in our nature via AI. I don't think any civilization can survive with violent tendencies. If we can overcome that, then half of our troubles with our survival as a species, would look more fortunate. — Posty McPostface

Science fiction, as you say. Remember, it's more fiction than science.

What do you mean, "any civilization can [not] survive with violent tendencies"? The Roman Empire was not run by Quakers, the last time I checked, and they lasted for 1400 years as a going concern, and a few centuries more in the East. The Romans cast a 2000 year-long shadow.

when AI arrives on stage — Posty McPostface

There is nothing inevitable about artificial intelligence. If it ever exists, it will be a product of some large company, or consortium. It will be designed to suit the interests of the class which owns it. It will not exist on its own, "out there", growing like kudzu, burrowing into human civilization and undermining its foundations.

There is probably not time to develop fusion power (it's been just around the corner, almost ready, all-but working, etc. for decades. That goes for a lot of technological innovations: as global warming becomes a larger and larger threat to existence, fewer and fewer resources will be applied to long term projects which do not address survival.

We won't be going to mars to escape from earth. There actually isn't any reason to go to mars in person.

It isn't with any delight that I shall rain on your parade into the bright future.

I'd give humanity three hundred years tops. — iolo

That's a reasonably good estimate.

It will not be evil, stupid, or short-sighted actions that we will undertake in the future that forecloses our future. What forecloses a human future are actions we took in the past--beginning 200 or 300 years ago into the present. We didn't know in 1780, 1840, 1910, or 1950 what the long term consequences of the industrial revolution would be.

Some people discovered the existence of mortal danger in CO2 emissions around 30 years ago. They happened to be scientists working for very large energy companies. Revealing what they discovered was unthinkable to corporate leaders.

An Inconvenient Truth was released 12 years ago. The Paris Climate Accord was finished 3 years ago. It has become increasingly apparent that levels of CO2, Methane, and other greenhouse gases are continuing to rise, and with each part per million (PPM) increase, catastrophic global warming becomes more likely. In 1959 the CO2 level was 316.98 PPM (well above pre-industrial levels). 60 years later, we are now regularly above 400 PPM.

We could, of course, stop emitting CO2 and methane. Simple: Cease burning coal, oil, and gas immediately. No cars, no trucks, no planes, no trains, no tractors, no barges, no heat, no electricity. We would have to abruptly depend on existing wind, solar, nuclear, and hydroelectric generation, which is far, far short of current usage. Life as we know it would come to a screeching halt all over the world.

We are not going to stop using all the energy we need.

What is the upshot of this state of affairs?

The upshot is that we are doomed. Not this week, not next month, not by 2020, not by 2050. If we are lucky, not by 2100. But the climate has already begun to change inconveniently and erratically, and the trends will continue, grow stronger, and become more disruptive. We have likely passed the tipping point where the measures which are FEASIBLE can have a significant effect on the future.

The world won't come to an end. 300 years from now it will still be spinning and will still be orbiting the sun. The moon will wax and wane. The tides will rise and fall. Most likely we will not be here any more, and many other creatures will be absent as well.

I think part of the problem is that we are just so god damn advanced! — jm0

True, and another part of our problem is that we can't seem to tell the difference between being "advanced" and just consuming (literally and figuratively) a hellishly huge amount of 'stuff'. Houses (in the US, at least) built before 1920 had very few closets. Why? Well, one reason was that most people didn't have a lot of clothes. A small cabinet of drawers and a small closet would be sufficient. People didn't used to have refrigerators, so they bought food much more frequently, prepared it right away. Most people did not have a car, and most people used public transit. (Even in the days of horse and buggy, a lot of people didn't have horses because they were expensive to keep; there were, naturally horses for rent. Or you walked, took a train, or borrow a ride.)

People used to have pianos, banjos, mandolins, violins, and horns. If you wanted to hear music, you played it or listened to someone else play it--always live and in person. No radio, TV, fiber optic, modem, router, speakers, amps, receivers, iPods, iPads, Macs, PCs, game consoles, etc. If you wanted to write, you took pen in hand and wrote on paper.

The air was dirtier back then because people burned wood or coal for heat, and oil for light (before electric light). When I was a young boy, the snow in the winter would become gray from coal smoke, and this was in a very small town.

Maybe some of the late 19th century inventions actually advanced us. Bicycles. Electric light. Telephone. Recorded sound may have been an advance; it's less obvious that broadcast sound was an advance. Just like switching from vinyl to cd to mp3 to streaming doesn't represent an advance. It just marks different ways of selling culture.

IF we were to go back to the late 19th century, we would still be civilized, but would be consuming far less of the stuff that nature provided.

By 1900 public sanitation, nitrogen fertilizer production, germ theory, some vaccines, and so on were in place, or could be. Going back to 1900 would not be going back to the dark ages. Yes, one would have to learn how to read music and play it -- but all sorts of people did that. Yes, one would have to read the newspaper to find out what was going on. (Emerson thought that once a month for reading the news was sufficient.) Yes, one would have to use a train, a bicycle, a street car, or walk. Yes, one would have maybe two pairs of leather shoes, one set of work clothes, one set of going-to-church clothes, and a few pair of underwear. One would be smellier than one is supposed to be now. No one ever died of body odor.

Yes, life would be harder -- but then, one wouldn't have to go to the gym every day to avoid being a blob of muscle-less protoplasm.

My apologies for misreading you.

No guarantees, just the ability to obtain them. The problems begin to arise whenever we enter the realm of human civilisation, where nobody has equal access and odds of obtaining these sought after necessities. — jm0

Squirrels don't have equal access to all of the acorns. Some squirrels are bigger, smarter, and more aggressive than others. If the top gestapo squirrels happen to control the tree, the unfortunate Slavic squirrels will just have to do without. (Gray squirrels imported from North America are the conquering Prussians in comparison to the peaceable European ginger squirrels.)

North American grey squirrels stalk humans carrying paper bags. They can tell the difference between merchandise bags and food bags. Squirrels on university campuses, for instance observe, assess, follow, and then aggressively confront likely food bearers. "Hand it over or I'll just climb up your pant legs to take it away from you." and then proceed to leap.

If the early birds get all the worms, the late risers will just have to go on worm-free diets.

How is that different from human civilization? (Well, one way it is different -- unpleasantly different -- is that it is no longer birds and squirrels, but us minor divinities that have to put up with nature's arrangements for distributing what there is.

jorndoe Hello there :D Not only a small country, but a small world as well. — jm0

Oh, oh... now there's a Danish faction to contend with.

Is it the case that 'respect must be earned, then kept or lost' while 'tolerance can be legislated and can be permanent'? Is 'respect' more interpersonal, while tolerance is more collective? Tolerance can be more clearly defined than respect.

Does it make more sense for societies to aim for "tolerance" rather than "respect" of specified persons or groups?

As nature originally intended. — jm0

Nature intended for our basic needs to be met? Nonsense. 1) nature has no intentions 2) nature seems to be content that animals starve, freeze, don't find mates, etc. 3) our survival has never been guaranteed by nature or anyone/anything else.

I didn't express myself clearly. Here's the do-over: "Industrialized systems produce agricultural surpluses and are generally rich enough that governments, NGOs, and individuals feel they can afford to donate food, clothing, and shelter to unfortunate people who, for various reasons, are food insecure, not adequately clothed, and unhoused."

The problem, of course, is that this sort of good generosity is a short-term fix that does nothing to change the structural problems that produce foodless, shoeless, and homeless people in the first place.

I mentioned above this book by Sugrue about Detroit. Detroit is pretty much a hopeless case at this point, but the thing that really made me sit up and take notice was Sugrue's description of how early and how fast the events that destroyed Detroit took place. "Peak Detroit" was in 1950, and 10 years later Detroit was well on its way to immiseration.

It isn't the case that nobody noticed what was happening. Economists working for the United Auto Workers Union in the early '50s recognized structural changes early on that pointed toward Detroit getting the royal shaft. Detroit's Wayne State University demographers analyzed data from the 1950s and in 1962 concluded that Detroit was doomed. The early estimations of disaster turned out to be spot on.

The problem with charity is that places like Detroit or the south side of Chicago or parts of England or Paris or thousands of places elsewhere in the world are beyond being helped by charitable donations of personal surplus. IF there is any solution that can or will happen (or won't), it would involve extensive structural changes, and then were talking about revolution.

Detroit is a pit of poverty, and it seems like a mystery. Once the auto industry got going (in the first decade of the 20th century) it boomed. It boomed even more during WWII. It boomed for just a little while after the Second World War, then the tide turned, rather suddenly. Why?

According to Sugrue's The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, a key reason was that Ford and General Motors wanted to diversify geographically, relocate in rural areas of the midwest and south, and automate. They wanted to do all this largely as a bitter reaction to organized labor's successes before and during WWII. The unions (like the UAW) became cocky and intrusive in management issues, and the execs found this emotionally and economically intolerable.

So they moved many of their operations, taking with them hundreds of allied businesses (like spark plug plants, crankshaft grinders, ball bearing plants, etc.) and many, many jobs. Workers with seniority, good skills, and personal mobility moved, the rest were just screwed, left high and dry, The tax base started to wither away, social needs snowballed, the gap between municipal spending and income widened, and by the 1970s, Detroit was going down the drain.

Before I started reading about MoTown, I thought all this started in the 70s or 80s. But the destruction of Detroit started in the late 50s. GM and Ford didn't give a rat's ass about the destruction they caused by seeking to weaken the leverage of organized labor.

Have you read George Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier or Down and Out in Paris and London? Both are about Orwell's experience of British and French poverty in the 1930s. Excellent.

Not only is it expensive to be poor, but because the poor have no money in the bank, every small disaster (flat tire, need new shoes, Fortune Magazine sub expired) every minor problem gets magnified. For want of a tire, the car can't run, one can't get to work... and so on.

All true. People work long hours because that is part of the business plan of the capitalist-- we work extra time to produce their profit. If we were not working for profit, or to perpetuate markets (like the market for SUVs, jumbo Airbus and Boeing passenger planes, etc.) then we all wouldn't have to work nearly as long.

CEOs get paid way too much is a truism -- like the sky is blue. The rich are a parasite class.

'We're doomed': Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mention...

The 86-year-old social scientist says accepting the impending end of most life on Earth might be the very thing needed to help us prolong it.

We’re doomed,” says Mayer Hillman with such a beaming smile that it takes a moment for the words to sink in. “The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so.”

Hillman, an 86-year-old social scientist and senior fellow emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute, does say so. His bleak forecast of the consequence of runaway climate change, he says without fanfare, is his “last will and testament”. His last intervention in public life. “I’m not going to write anymore because there’s nothing more that can be said,” he says when I first hear him speak to a stunned audience at the University of East Anglia late last year.

If one can face the situation without holding on to the unlikelihood that everything will turn out just fine in the end, it seems obvious that we are doomed -- not tonight, not next week, not in a few years. But also not thousands of years into the future. Doom will arrive for many in this century, and more (maybe most) in the century after.

The combination of excess heat, erratic and previously unseen weather patterns, rising oceans, and much more will kill off hundreds of millions--and billions--through starvation, heat stroke, dehydration, illnesses, and such like.

What is the point of having children as we approach the cliff off of which we will collectively fall?

I think Meyer Hillman is right. We are doomed, and no one wants to acknowledge our eminent demise as a species with a future, never mind a bright one. We will take a lot of other species with us. Our legacy will be unvisited cultural shrines, unread books, unheard music, undiscussed philosophical questions, like, "Was this wretched conclusion to our history worth the glory we achieved by burning all the coal and oil?"

It wasn't, and now it's too late to do much about it.

Capitalism relies heavily on the sales of necessities, so making necessities free could damage the economy. — GreenPhilosophy

It isn't just the "sale" of necessities; capitalism is all about making a profit on all of those necessities that people... need. Eliminating profit from capitalism wouldn't just "damage" the capitalist economy, it would destroy it. That's OK by me, but be aware -- replacing one economic system for a completely different type of economy is very difficult (because the profit makers in the old economy usually don't want to just give up making money.)

So, I watched the video on the concrete house. Quite interesting. These can be built on site where the house is wanted, right? And I suppose they fill the gap between the inner layer and outer layer with some kind of binding insulation to retain heat (or resist heat from outside) and strengthen the walls.

Instant houses can also be made by inflating a heavy balloon, anchoring it, and then spraying foam on it, followed by a layer of concrete stucco. After the stucco has hardened, openings for windows and doors can be cut into the structure.

There is an additional problem, and it's a big one. However unequal the distribution of wealth may be, and however unfair the uneven distribution of wealth may be, there are too many people in the world to provide everyone with a nice house, decent clothing, adequate food, good medical care, and so forth. Why not?

There are not enough resources available to do that for the current 7.3 billion - expected to be 9 billion before 2050. It isn't just that there isn't enough money -- there is not enough raw material, energy, unused good crop land, clean water, sewage treatment systems, hospitals, etc. to do it.

Not to throw too much ice water on your good intentions, but by the time your humane plan was put into effect (let's say it took 80 years), the world will be in very dire straits from global warming. Many coastal cities will have been ruined (that's where most people live -- along the coasts), crop production will be severely diminished, it will be too hot in much of the world to work outside all day, the weather will be far more erratic than it is now, there will not be enough petroleum left to power all this equipment, provide raw feed stock material, and power factories and farms. Fresh water will be in short supply and god only knows what old and new diseases we'll be dealing with.

In a nutshell, by the end of this century, we are going to be totally screwed.

Your heart is in the right place, but the times are going to be very, very cruel.

Is there a way around the global warming problem? Maybe. If we all stopped flying, stopped driving cars, reduced heating and lighting to a minimum, stop making, using, and disposing of any unnecessary material of any kind, all become vegans, learned to live without air conditioning and 72 degree heat in winter, and so on, we might be able to prevent the worst of the disaster. Everyone not driving, not flying, and becoming vegan is about as likely as the Blessed Virgin Mary showing up tomorrow morning to serve you breakfast in bed.

I've read that probiotics can/may be helpful, but if you feel better already, it could be coincidental or a placebo effect (placebo effects are nothing to sneeze at). Please do report back and let us know how it worked after a couple of weeks.

I don't think anyone has perceived the mechanism for HOW the biome affects mood, except that how food is digested and absorbed is largely due to the efforts of all those various organisms. There is a slightly more understood relationship between the biome and the immune system -- the biome helps train the immune system in self/not self.

It's a very intriguing area. Were I a young biologist, I might dive into it, figuratively.

It's a wonder that we aren't crazier than they are. — praxis

We're pretty crazy!

I don't know whether it was bad food that led to all this crazy behavior, or not. I wouldn't be surprised. Something is causing a lot of problems. The problem of diagnosis our social ills is that there are multiple causations going on all the time. Everyone (OK -- 99.4%) have grown up with extensive media exposure: radio, television, film, recorded sound, print, internet. Up until the mid 50s at the latest, a lot of people ate much more "organic" food because the smorgasbord of pesticides and herbicides didn't become iniquitous (not a spelling error) until a bit later. Since the mid 60s (at least) more and more chemicals have been distributed as fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, medications, cosmetics, cleaning agents, and so on. A lot of these chemicals are "endocrine disruptors" -- their molecules are quite similar in effect to hormones and screw things up in our bodies.

Then there is the absurd diet that many people are eating -- too much protein, carbohydrate, salt, fat, etc. and way too little fiber, too few micronutrients, and too many calories. That just can't be good.

Then there are antibiotics and the microbiome -- we know that ordinary antibiotics taken appropriately to quell bacterial infections often cause diarrhea--loose stools, because the normal host of bacteria are greatly reduced. Food just isn't getting processed normally. If the antibiotic regimen is long and strong enough, one may suddenly have a totally different colony of flora and fauna in one's gut. "Gastro-psychologists" (just invented new specialty) think that bacteria may have quite a bit of effect on our emotions. Hasn't been proven, but... again, I wouldn't be surprised.

People with OCD do experience a lot of anxiety, I gather.

Of course! Good diet, reasonable exercise, and practical stress reduction are good things and help people. So does getting 8 hours of quality sleep. So does having supportive friends. It isn't reasonable to expect good habits to cure everything (and you weren't saying it would).

Medication isn't appropriate for mild conditions, because people can deal with them on their own -- or with brief professional guidance. Where medication comes in is for conditions that are severe, where people's lives are seriously impaired by OCD, depression, anxiety, or whatever. Bi-polar people, for instance, generally have to use medication to maintain enough equilibrium to remain employed and/or out of the hospital.

In some cases, conditions don't have to be treated at all. Mild phobias, mild obsessive-compulsive trains, a little anxiety, a bad temper, etc. are tolerable. People who like to count steps, for instance, can get away with doing that. People who are afraid of snakes can usually avoid them, almost all the time, especially if they live in northern cities. I haven't seen a snake in years.

The basic necessities of life need to be produced. The current mode of production is capitalistic, a system which requires that people pay cash for those products. — jkg20

True, but capitalist systems regularly produce a surplus from which the poorest can be taken care of, if the society sees fit to provide such care.

There are millions of "excess deaths" from lack of food, clean water, shelter, and medical care. (Excess deaths are above and beyond those that occur from old age, for instance, and long established stats for baseline mortality from childbirth, childhood diseases, and accidents.)

The picture is mixed. It would appear that in a world of 7 billions of people, some of whom live in the developed world, a small fraction would be allowed to die for lack of access to the basic necessities of life. Most of the time, most of the world's population can tolerate that fact.

In practice most people receive the minimum necessities of life, but it isn't quite a "right", nor is the provision of basic necessities undertaken by the state itself, in many cases. Food, clothing, and shelter are usually provided by someone. There are, however people who live without shelter. They live outside on the street. If it is too cold they will freeze to death; if it is too hot they will die of heat stroke. They can also die of dehydration and starvation. Disease, of course may be fatal.

Some countries do a good job of providing the basic necessities, even exceeding the basics. At least so I have heard.

In a number of countries it is quite possible to die from lack of food or water, (adequate) clothing and shelter. In many countries people needing essential medical care find insurmountable barriers between themselves and an adequate hospital. In many countries people die from preventable disease (preventable by vaccination or medication).

You are aware that receiving the basic requirements of life (enough food, shelter, water, protection from the elements, minimal health care, etc. so that one does not die in the street or in a shelter) is a miserable and precarious existence.

Repeated and/or graduated exposure and flooding seem to work for phobias. I don't see how they would be appropriate for OCD.

I don't know. I have a fear of spiders and spider webs. Not all spiders, not all webs. I could elaborate, but you get the idea. I don't seem to have any OCD behaviors that have ever been related to this long standing phobia.

I sometimes feel fear when I find myself in a dark, unfamiliar street. It isn't a phobia, it's just "what kind of dangers lurk around here" kind of thing. I respond with an effort to find a more familiar, more brightly lit up area.

My conception of OCD is that is a disease in itself, not a way of dealing with fear, not sourced in some disabling childhood trauma, etc. The disease causes the discomfort and the repetitive ritual temporarily relieves the discomfort.

I have a small OCD tick: when I pick up a clean glass in my own kitchen, or in someone else's kitchen, I always rinse it before I drink from it. I don't have to rinse it, but I generally do. I'm happiest if the outside of the glass is wet, as well as the inside. If I am at a restaurant or someone's dining room, I feel no need to rinse the glass.

Wild animals in captivity and domestic animals (i.e., dogs) also develop OCD behaviors: They lick, for example: their paws, your feet, the couch, the floor... there is always something available. If you interrupt the behavior, they will generally stop, maybe for hours, before they resume.

Many animals will pace along a barrier fence, even if they have quite a lot of room to roam in.

Habit or OCD? Don't know. Some drugs help suppress severe OCD, which seems to be more than a habit.

The fact that the ultimate objective is regional control and that the form of local government more or less is a matter of contingency, accidental. That's why the USA was never consistent to the forms of regimes it supported. — Πετροκότσυφας

You are right about regional control being the ultimate objective. The post WWII position of the US is that control over Middle-Eastern oil is of prime importance. It isn't just that we want all the oil, we want to have control over who else does, or does not buy oil there.

It seems like that policy worked reasonably well up to the invasion of Iraq, shock and awe, and all that. We badly mismanaged our occupation of Iraq, which has had bad consequences for Iraqis and Syrians. Wrecking the old regime's control over Iraq was a mistake. We weren't prepared to really take over, and so a vacuum existed... and then followed much disorder. Messy, inconvenient, expensive -- but at least nobody else is charge there. Yet, anyway.

The point of creative destruction is the destruction of existing wealth and markets so that new ones may be created. — Πετροκότσυφας

Hmmm, I don't think creative destruction is what was going on. The term "creative destruction" applies more to things like dropping vinyl 33rpm technology and switching to CDs. Switching from CDs to mp3s and streaming was a further refinement.

True, a war does destroy a lot of the "installed base" of life support, and when or if the fucked over economy recovers, then a lot of stuff can be sold to them. Or they can become a low wage factory zone, or maybe just a burnt-over disaster zone. Whatever, just as long as they stay out of our way.

In places like Greece the opposite worked quite well. — Πετροκότσυφας

S`ay more about that...```

So based on this perspective it seems to me that mental pain including mental illnesses could be a symptom something is wrong either with society and culture or our life style and the presence of it should stimulate action or prevention. — Andrew4Handel

At least sometimes mental illness is caused by living in a crazy society. A crazy society seems to affect some people more than others, but in general it makes life difficult for millions.

I think I live in a society that is at least somewhat crazy, and some of the time it is stark raving mad.

Not to absolve Obama for anything, but your emphasis on Obama is misplaced. How about the Assads--Hafez and his son Bashar? Between 1946 and 71 there was a coup in Syria at the rate of about 1 a year. What does that tell us about the stability of Syria's "political culture"? Hafez and his son Bashar have both been brutal dictators. Presidents from Nixon to Trump have tried to negotiate with the Assads, either Sr. or Jr., and none of them has been able to ever arrive at an agreement with them.

I don't know whether the disintegration of Syria is/was inevitable, but it has always been difficult to intervene in another country's affairs and achieve what one wishes to achieve. It's very, very difficult unless one is willing to march in and take over the country and run it the way one wants it to run, and even then things don't always work out well.

Sisyphus Not Satisfied.

I believe we are not in control of our actions is our dreams. — tiffany

This statement gets at a contradiction in your thinking: Who is directing the dream you are having if it is not you? Aliens? It has to be you.

The thing is, (in my supremely humble opinion) we mistake our conscious mind for our "being". Our conscious mind (the you that thinks she is reading this) is obviously only one part of our being, and the WHAT and HOW of the critical things that happen in our heads is not made available to the conscious mind--mostly it's just the results of the mind's operations. You don't know how, for instance, your brain went about concocting the post your wrote. I don't know how my brain is concocting this one, but, at least several parts of my brain are telling my ten little fingers what to do, without my conscious attention. I'm reading it for the first time. Literally.

So it seems like we aren't in charge, but only because we have limited "who we are" to too small a piece of the action.

Now, it is also true that genes and experience have a lot to do with what we think, and how, and that we had no control over the language group we were born into, who our parents were, who their ancestors were, what socio-economic status our parents had, and a bunch of other stuff. That part is determined.

But as you grow up, you start taking on more responsibility for who you are and what you do, and at some point society says, "OK: that's it. From now on you are 100% responsible for what you do. No more of that 'oh, dear, she was just a minor' business. It's about age 18-21, in most places. From now on, if you shoot a cop, you'll probably hang or spend a long time in prison. The court won't accept any arguments about how the stars, your diet, television, or bad school made you do it. The Judge will say, "it was YOU Tiffany; so guards! Take her away."

Oh right. On The Road, The Road, easy to get confused. I recently read Kerouac's ON the Road. I might have liked it better than when I was 21 than I did at 71. Not a bad book, by any means, I didn't dislike it -- it just wasn't liberatory. But at this point, I don't know what would be liberatory.

Poor Nazgul has been left to suffer alone, while the helpful philosophers have left his bedside to got into some side issue.

I would suggest a better approach to depression is Social Psychology--studying ideas that place us troubled individuals (males and females alike) in a broader social context. Authors like Erich Fromm do this.

Fromm places individual problems in a social context (thinking of The Sane Society by Fromm). It isn't just you. We live in a society that drives people crazy, because it is, basically, a crazy society. Yes, YOU feel depressed and that's a big issue to you because, well, you feel what you feel, and it's hard to put that into the larger context.

To Nazgul, It is quite likely that you feel depressed, not out of any personal flaw, but because you live in, interact with, and are immersed in a lot of craziness not of your choosing. What kind of craziness? Well, the incessant messaging to buy stuff, the many messages that we get that we are inadequate and only XYZ PRODUCT will fix our deficiencies. Because a good share of society (school, work, the media, the government, the corporation--all that every day stuff) really doesn't care about us. If we aren't a means of making money for somebody, then we are of no use whatsoever. All that crap.

I suggested to Nazgul that he check out Escape From Freedom and The Sane Society. If you like those, there are a lot of other books by Fromm.

Fromm says, "Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence."

The whole "Games People Play" approach is not one I've ever felt was very helpful — T Clark

Some of us, like me and thee, are old enough to remember when Transactional Analysis was the latest fad to make the rounds. As old Sister Gloria put it, "It's another lingo to learn. Every few years another fad comes along and there's another whole new batch of lingo."

On The Road? Cormac McCarthy's book? Are you out of your mind?

Nazgul, there is a reading approach I would suggest: Social Psychology, authors like Erich Fromm. Fromm places individuals in a social context (thinking of The Sane Society by Fromm). It isn't just you. We live in a society that drives people crazy, because it is, basically, a crazy society. Yes, YOU feel depressed and that's a big issue to you because, well, you feel what you feel, and it's hard to put that into the larger context.

It is quite likely that you feel depressed, not out of any personal flaw, but because you live in, interact with, and are immersed in a lot of craziness not of your choosing. What kind of craziness? Well, the incessant messaging to buy stuff, the many messages that we get that we are inadequate and only XYZ PRODUCT will fix our deficiencies. Because a good share of society (factory production, office work--all that every day stuff) really doesn't care about us. If we aren't a means of making money for somebody, then we are of no use whatsoever. All that crap.

Check out Escape From Freedom and The Sane Society. If you like those, there are a lot of other books by Fromm.

Fromm says, "Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence."

I'd recommend 'Games People Play' by Edward Berne. — fdrake

Games People Play
Joe South

Oh the games people play now
Every night and every day now
Never meaning what they say now
Never saying what they mean

And they wile away the hours
In their ivory towers
Till they're covered up with flowers
In the back of a black limousine

La-da da da da da da da
La-da da da da da de
Talking 'bout you and me
And the games people play

Oh we make one another cry
Break a heart then we say goodbye
Cross our hearts and we hope to die
That the other was to blame

Neither one will give in
So we gaze at our eight by ten
Thinking 'bout the things that might have been
It's a dirty rotten shame

People walking up to you
Singing glory hallelulia
And they're tryin to sock it to you
In the name of the Lord

They're gonna teach you how to meditate
Read your horoscope, cheat your fate
And further more to hell with hate
Come on and get on board

Look around tell me what you see
What's happening to you and me
God grant me the serenity
To remember who I am

'Cause you've given up your sanity
For your pride and your vanity
Turns your back on humanity
And you don't give a da da da da da

all good advice

Read books that you really, really enjoy reading rather than reading books that you think might offer a cure. Books do not cure depression, but depressing books can make it worse. Avoid nihilism, for instance.

Antidepressants don't make depression worse and they sometimes help a great deal. See a psychiatrist.

Therapy means change. Is your life depressing? If it is, what can you change to make it better? Exercise regularly. Eat well. Sleep well -- you might have to work at that. Not getting enough sleep can make things worse. Do positive things. Think positive thoughts (such good advice, so easy to give.) Be as active as possible. Engage with other people: don't isolate yourself -- depressed people are very bad company for themselves.

I know you're trolling, but I also know that you can do better :hearts: — Buxtebuddha

Obviously I don't practice enough.

Did you know that police and property managers have found that certain kinds of 1950s easy listening elevator (Musak) music (like Montovani and his orchestra) are an effective repellant to loitering teenagers? Baroque music works well for the same purpose.

They run, screaming, from the premises, holding their hands over their ears while they try at the same time to hold their pants up. It's very traumatic for them.

Also, I dunno why you wrote "genres" as if they don't exist or aren't real music. — Buxtebuddha

Oh dear, the poor boy does have some sensitivities left to be offended about ("") after all the head-banging heavy death thrash metal noise...

unfun — Buxtebuddha

Unfun? Teasing you is the most amusing fun, like aggravating the cat or annoying the French (see 1000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke).