思考与写作slatestarcodex.com编辑精选
事情到底有多糟？
How bad are things?
2015 — 2019，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
Scott Alexander 从精神科医生的日常出发，追问现代人的痛苦究竟有多普遍：即使在富裕、看似优越的社区，也有大量被隐藏的抑郁、自杀尝试与不幸。文章反驳“某群体已经过得够好，不该抱怨”的态度，并讨论为什么物质条件并不能自动带来幸福，以及我们对他人的生活其实知之甚少。
为什么经久不衰：它用临床观察和冷静论证拆穿“富裕就等于幸福”的直觉，提醒人们对他人看不见的痛苦保持谦卑，因此多年后仍值得读。
HN 评论精选
康复中的成瘾者发现，所谓正常人同样痛苦，却更会隐藏、且不认为不快乐可解，也不愿靠改变自我而非获取外物来获得幸福。
我是一名长期康复中的成瘾者，周围也有很多正在戒毒或保持清醒的成瘾者。这个群体显然问题很多。但有趣的是，当我结识非成瘾者朋友后，发现他们的问题和康复群体一样糟糕。区别主要有两点：“正常人”更努力隐藏自己的问题（我往往是因为他们觉得我不会评判才得知），而且他们不认为自己的不快乐是一个可解决的问题。此外，他们大多不愿采用那些解决办法：放下自我与骄傲、保持谦卑、减少欲望与执念、为比自己更大的东西而活。成瘾者则别无选择——要么学会足够快乐以保持清醒，要么继续沉沦，常常早逝。令人难过的是，我不知道如何说服正常人：改变自己，而不是获取物品、关系或其他外部东西，才能更快乐。我觉得 erikpukinskis 关于资本主义的评论是问题的重要部分，但不知道怎么用这点帮助更多人快乐。
onetwotree查看英文原文
I'm an addict in long term recovery, and I hang out with lots of addicts trying to get or stay clean. Obviously this crowd has problems! But what's interesting is that as I've been making friends who aren't addicts, they have problems that are every bit as messed up as the recovery crowd. There are two main differences, though: "normal" people are much more committed to hiding their problems (I feel as though I only learn about them because people assume I won't judge them), and normal people don't recognize that their unhappiness is a solvable problem. Furthermore, most of them aren't really into the solutions: a leveling of ego and pride, humility, rejection of desire and attachment, and living for something greater than themselves. Addicts, of course, have no choice -- we either develop the skills and tools needed to be happy enough to stay clean, or wallow on in the misery of drug addiction, often to an untimely death. It's kind of sad, but I have no idea how to convince normal people that they can be happier by changing themselves instead of acquiring things or relationships or any other external thing they think will finally make them happy. I feel as though erikpukinskis' comment about capitalism is a big part of the problem, but I'm not sure how to use that observation to help more people be happy. Edit: C'mon HN, we're smart -- ideas on solutions to these problems are better than upvotes :-)
资本主义会通过制造问题并售卖解决方案来获利，消费文化反而让人更脆弱、更难获得幸福。
我认为这是资本主义的一个基本特征：快乐且被照顾好的人不需要花钱，对经济不利；只要能给别人制造问题，就能向他们兜售解决方案。可口可乐等畅销品本身就在制造它声称要解决的问题。过去一个世纪，企业推动的文化变化——公共社交空间私有化、核心家庭取代大家庭和邻里、收窄审美标准、鼓吹异国度假等——促进了经济增长，却让我们普遍更脆弱。正如文章所说，即使你有足够的钱满足基本需求，离幸福仍有很长的路。技术领域也很常见，我会把 PowerPoint 和大多数 3A 游戏归入此类。我们越早摆脱“市场完美所以金钱能代理一切”的胡说越好。
erikpukinskis查看英文原文
I think this is a fundamental property of capitalism. People who are happy and taken care of don't need to spend money and are terrible for the economy. If you can create problems for someone, you can market solutions to them. Some of the best selling products in the world, like Coca-Cola, are themselves creating the the problem they purport to solve. For a century, companies have been pushing cultural changes that make it harder for us to take car of ourselves, privatizing public spaces for socialization, promoting nuclear families over extended families and neighborhoods, narrowing beauty standards, promoting exotic vacations and recreational activities, etc. This has fueled economic growth while making us generally more vulnerable. As the article describes, even if you have enough money to take care of your basic needs, you have a long distance to go to happiness. On the tech side this is quite common too. I would put PowerPoint in this category, too. And most AAA video games. The sooner we can get out of this "money is a proxy for everything because markets are perfect" nonsense the better.
精神科医生指出，富裕和优势群体同样会自杀，不能用群体标签轻视个体的真实痛苦。
这是很精彩的一段：……每当 Tumblr 上有人说“X 群体的人该意识到自己过得很好”，或“你是 X 群体，别再装得自己有真问题”，我就会愤怒。我做精神科医生的城市以白人和富裕人群为主，但富裕并不能拯救这里。每当网上某篇观点文章嘲笑 X 群体过得多好、他们抱怨生活多可笑时，我常常刚治疗完一个试图自杀的 X 群体成员回家。
lkrubner查看英文原文
This is a great excerpt: -------------------------- This is part of why I get enraged whenever somebody on Tumblr says “People in Group X need to realize they have it really good”, or “You’re a Group X member, so stop pretending like you have real problems.” The town where I practice psychiatry is mostly white and mostly wealthy. That doesn’t save it. And whenever some online thinkpiece writer laughs about how good people in Group X have it and how hilarious it is that they sometimes complain about their lives, it never fails that I have just gotten home from treating a member of Group X who attempted suicide.
我们对身边人生活的了解远比以为的少，许多痛苦只是没被看见，而非不存在。
第三点：也可能我认识的很多人确实就这么不快乐，只是除了精神科医生，他们从不把拼出自己人生故事所需的所有片段告诉别人。离婚后我搬回家和亲戚住，才看到以前探访、打电话时完全不知道的各种事情；搬回一两个街区外的公寓后，我又只看到他们生活的粉饰版本。我不觉得他们刻意隐瞒，只是那些事没机会被提起；不住在一起，就不可能把生活琐事全部传达给我。你对周围人的了解通常远比你以为的有限：你并不知道邻居在做什么、同事和老板整天在做什么。想想那些新闻里，邻居震惊地发现隔壁住着黑帮毒贩或连环杀手——我们往往远没有自己以为的那样了解别人。
DoreenMichele查看英文原文
3. Or maybe many of the people I know are in fact this unhappy, but they never tell anyone except their psychiatrist all of the pieces necessary to put their life story together. When I moved back home during my divorce and lived with relatives, I got to see all kinds of stuff going on that I had no knowledge of when I used to visit, keep in touch by phone, etc. I moved out, to an apartment a mile or two away, and went back to getting the whitewashed view of their lives. I don't think they were even trying to particularly hide things from me. It just didn't come up. It just wasn't possible to convey every bit of minutiae about their lives to me all the time when I wasn't there seeing it firsthand. You typically have far more limited information about the lives of people around you than you imagine. You don't really know what your neighbors are doing. You don't really know what your coworkers and boss do all day. Etc. Think of the endless news stories where the neighbors are simply shocked that their next door neighbor was a drug dealer for the Mafia, a serial killer, etc. We often know people a lot less well than we imagine we do.
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