On HN, a lot of people react badly to this thesis, that there may be additional causes to depression and that they may be addressable, to prevent or mitigate it.

Look, maybe a chemical imbalance is the main factor in some or much of depression cases but that still leave a lot of cases when it isn’t, and something else is the main factor.

We should be able to freely talk about what it is, and investigate it, without being squaelched, downvoted and shamed into stopping. The same when it comes to systemic racism being the main factor for PoC in various statistics or systemic sexism being the main factor for women in tech. There are other, very serious, perspectives that should be allowed to be discussed and explored, like this one for instance: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=286

Personally, I think that much of actual depression comes from external forces. In the north it has to do with lack of sunlight and warmth causing Seasonal Affective Disorder, through a variety of mechanisms. But in the USA, there has been a huge uptick in depression and its treatment over the last 20-30 years.

A major problem is that the anglophone world as a society are too medication-happy instead of looking at the underlying cause. One in four middle-aged women is on antisepressants! An epidemic of kids getting prescribed amphetamines for ADD and ADHD! Now surely, the hormonal imbalances haven’t reached such epidemic proportions… could it be our attitude towards pills and medical interventions rather than social?

The book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam came out circa 2000 to describe the already-rapid decline of American social life. We live alone, then both parents work, stick their kids in a glorified daycare center and their parents in a nursing home (which medicates them too). Meanwhile traditional societies have less but are happier. They live together, have less depression, etc.

Look, in Finland the school day is far shorter and the kids can climb trees. Their prevalence of ADHD is an order of magnitude less than in the USA, isn’t it? How is that possible? Because a lot of the things we try to throw pills at, are things we created with our society. One that has the government put high fructose corn syrup into everything, overuses antibiotics on factory farms, produces massive amounts of obesity and diabetes (even in kids!) and btw those are risk factors for serious coronavirus cases. That is the reL epidemic.

Telling everyone to “lean in” and work corporate jobs robs them of their time to spend with each other and raising their kids. Rather than give everyone universal health insurance like other countries (and maybe a UBI) we tie it to employment and tell them to come to work as soon as they can after they have kids. And so on. Things are STARTING to change, but still the culture (including on HN) is to discourage serious discussion of societal change because it will distract from medical interventions. The pendulum has swung too far and we should consider societal structure. And that is also true for the autism spectrum and other things for which there is also an uptick.

(If you are about to downvote this and not even respond with any substance, consider that you’re doing exactly what I described. You’re “part of the problem”, making your diagnoses of a problem win not by argument or data but simply by burying any attempts at conversation, respectful or not, that propose other major factors and solutions.)