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googaaryesterday at 11:43 PM5 repliesview on HN

I can’t believe we’ve normalized anti depressants as a society.

I’m about to get downvoted into oblivion for this take though.

I’m not trying to discount mental health, I just think there are better solutions than drugs to fix your state of mind.

Also think that some people are dealt a tougher hand than most, and that for a small subset of humans, anti depressants are the most fitting cure.


Replies

cameronh90today at 12:24 AM

Clothes too. If you're cold, why not just move to a tropical country where you can be naked, as nature intended?

BeetleBtoday at 12:13 AM

> I’m not trying to discount mental health, I just think there are better solutions than drugs to fix your state of mind.

Find one that's as effective on the general population.

I mean, sure, perhaps lifestyle changes are better. Can you get a higher percentage to change them and improve people's lives than we currently can with drugs?

As a top performer in school, I definitely think (and still point out), that you can get fantastically high results in SAT/GRE without paying any test prep service. I and many of my peers did it. There are better solutions than paying those services. But how many who don't pay do as well as those who do? I can tell them how to study as much as I can, but the reality is that statistically, people who attend will do better than if they don't.

From a medical standpoint, telling people to change how they live and think has a fairly low success rate. The best options usually don't work on the masses.

D-Machineyesterday at 11:46 PM

Agreed. They have to be significantly helping at least some, but we can't say who these people are for certain yet, or how many there really are.

And yes, in some cases, no other options are possible, so even if the evidence is pretty dismal for their effectiveness, they are still broadly safe enough to definitely be worth a try. They probably just shouldn't be the first-line approach.

wat10000today at 12:02 AM

I don’t get why people are so negative about drugs. They’re just a medical treatment, with pluses and minuses. If they help and they’re not too costly then what’s the big deal? Half the population is addicted to caffeine and nobody cares. A huge number of people need medical intervention for other things and we don’t get this quasi moralistic opposition to them.

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SV_BubbleTimeyesterday at 11:54 PM

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