People really should try to not have depression. Depression is bad for your productivity. Being depressed for eg a year means you lose a year of time, AND it might be bad for your IQ too.
A lot of EAs get depressed or have gotten depressed. This is bad. We should intervene early to stop it.
I think that there should be someone EAs reach out to when they’re depressed (maybe this is Julia Wise?), and then they get told the ways they’re probably right and wrong so their brain can update a bit, and a reasonable action plan to get them on therapy or meds or whatever.
I think this is probably good to just 80⁄20 with like a weekend of work? So that there’s a basic default action plan for what to do when someone goes “hi designated community person, I’m depressed.”
I don’t disagree, but I don’t think it’s limited to EA or Rationalist community members, and I wouldn’t expect that designated group helper contacts will reach most of the people who need it. It’s been my experience (for myself and for a number of friends) that when someone can use this kind of help, they tend not to “reach out” for it.
Your framing of “we should intervene” may have more promise. Having specific advice on HOW lay-people can intervene would go a long way toward shifting our norms of discourse from “you seem depressed, maybe you should seek help” to “this framing may indicate a depressive episode or negative emotional feedback loop—please take a look at <this page/thread> to help figure out who you can talk with about it”.
People really should try to not have depression. Depression is bad for your productivity. Being depressed for eg a year means you lose a year of time, AND it might be bad for your IQ too.
A lot of EAs get depressed or have gotten depressed. This is bad. We should intervene early to stop it.
I think that there should be someone EAs reach out to when they’re depressed (maybe this is Julia Wise?), and then they get told the ways they’re probably right and wrong so their brain can update a bit, and a reasonable action plan to get them on therapy or meds or whatever.
I think this is probably good to just 80⁄20 with like a weekend of work? So that there’s a basic default action plan for what to do when someone goes “hi designated community person, I’m depressed.”
I don’t disagree, but I don’t think it’s limited to EA or Rationalist community members, and I wouldn’t expect that designated group helper contacts will reach most of the people who need it. It’s been my experience (for myself and for a number of friends) that when someone can use this kind of help, they tend not to “reach out” for it.
Your framing of “we should intervene” may have more promise. Having specific advice on HOW lay-people can intervene would go a long way toward shifting our norms of discourse from “you seem depressed, maybe you should seek help” to “this framing may indicate a depressive episode or negative emotional feedback loop—please take a look at <this page/thread> to help figure out who you can talk with about it”.