Why are young liberals so depressed?

https://www.slowboring.com/p/why-are-young-liberals-so-depressed

by nradov • 3 years ago

15 15 3 years ago

Low conscientiousness yields greater levels of depression, higher levels of drug consumption, and high inclinations towards criminal behavior. People high in conscientiousness tend to be more conservatism. These things are all measured in various psychological studies, but really none of it should be surprising because its been measured to death. Measured to the point of extreme precise prediction.

Conscientiousness, one of the big 5, is concerned with rule oriented behavior, restraint, self-discipline, presence, and so forth. People who are more self-aware and rule oriented tend to be more physically fit, goal oriented, and are more likely to excel in their careers. They are also more likely to build strong lasting relationships as their speech and behaviors are more restrained.

None of this has anything to do with intelligence. Of the big 5 the one most correlated with intelligence is "openness". Counter-intuitively, at least to me, conscientiousness is the less correlated with intelligence by as much as -0.27. That means there are many people who are extremely intelligent yet are sloppy drug using creeps not worth the time of day and cannot manage their personal finances to save their lives. Depressing and statically more likely to self identify as "liberal".

This has a nice tie-in to development. Have you ever heard of developers wanting things to be "easy" and then their code looks like sloppy shit? But, but but... they seemed so smart in the interview and their resume is stellar, so what went wrong? Even more to the point are developers who need things to be easy, cannot build actual software without configuring tools to do it for them, and then using that experience (that quest for easy or fear of original explicitness) to gauge competence in others.

lovich• 3 years ago

Self evident so no need for source material, right? I might believe that conservative leaning people were more conscientious for their chosen in group at the expense of the out groups, but that’s not something I’d believe as a general rule with some studies backing it

hotpotamus• 3 years ago

Would you say that Donald Trump, noted Conservative, is a good example of conscientiousness?

suddenclarity• 3 years ago

Citation needed. Trump has changed his party affiliation five times. I doubt you can put him in any corner which highlights how useless those labels are. Especially when the opinions required for getting a label change from year to year.

hindsightbias• 3 years ago

TIL all my conscientious opoid addicted redneck neckbeard bubba neighbors who weigh 250# are liberals…

Dark Brandon is unbeatable.

TapWaterBandit2• 3 years ago

I don't want to blame it all on 9/11 but it certainly didn't help.

samuria• 3 years ago

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? How would an event that happened 22 years ago have any effect on mental stability of young people? Especially since the article puts heavy emphasis on teenagers - who were not even born when 9/11 happened.

TapWaterBandit2• 3 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCtfoqhMqhk

alexfromapex• 3 years ago

Aren’t most young people depressed?

naikrovek3• 3 years ago

smarter/more aware people are usually a bit more melancholy, because they see a lot of injustice and unfairness that others don't, I think.

I don't think it has anything to do with being a liberal; that is said to trigger "engagement."

so here comes some engagement:

as an adult liberal I am saddened by all of the rights that conservatives have been taking away from people, lately. conservatives seem hell-bent on making any ideas newer than Puritanism illegal, such as books which tell unpleasant truths, or the fact that women have rights as human beings.

this seems to be very quickly becoming a country where if you are not very conservative, you are simply not welcome, and this matches the attitudes of every true believer conservative that I've ever known in my life. every one of them wanted all diversity eliminated or expelled, though none would openly admit that, and they all experienced joy and satisfaction when they were able to tell someone "if you don't like it, get the f*** out!"

the freedom they (the conservatives I have known well in my life) want is the freedom to tell others what to do, and the freedom from being told what to do.

and yeah, that makes me sad.

nradov• 3 years ago

That's an interesting perspective. As an adult moderate I am saddened by all of the rights that liberals have been taking away from people, lately. Liberals seem hell-bent on imposing safetyism on people whether they want it or not. Like by locking students out of public schools and restricting the First Amendment right of free assembly during the pandemic. Or banning certain firearms. Or controlling speech under the guise of preventing harm.

The freedom they (the liberals I have known well in my life) want is the freedom to tell others what to do "for their own good". That makes me sad.

And I agree with you that many conservatives are as bad or worse when it comes to authoritarianism. But this is equally a problem on both sides of the left/right political spectrum.

haunter• 3 years ago

conservatives seem hell-bent on making any ideas newer than Puritanism illegal

Interesting that you bring up the Puritans in this context when the emerging New Puritanism is strictly associated with the left

rdtsc• 3 years ago

And the question you then ask yourself is whether becoming angry made things better? [...] The point isn’t that nobody should ever feel anger or that anger is never an appropriate reaction to a situation.

I think certain interests are using young people as their minions. They understand that young people are impressionable, and to a large extent are easy to manipulate. With little effort it's very easy whip up anger, frustration, anxiety, whatever you want.

On the surface it seems to work: anger = action. "Look, we mobilized a large crowd! we're fighting $causedujour". However the excitement eventually wears off, with now lots of angry and upset people, and a cause that they can't really fix easily. Feeling manipulated is pretty hard to accept, especially for someone who considers themselves an educated and progressive person.

I remember the Oberlin College Bakery incident. The administrators were very aware about having rigid control over the students as if they were some mind controlled zombies. (quote from [1]: Raimondo reacted to Copeland's statement in a private text message: "Fuck him. I'd say unleash the students"). I always wondered how students felt afterwards, did some realize, perhaps years later, they were used? Can't imagine that being a great feeling...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson%27s_Bakery_v._Oberlin_C...

Why are young liberals so depressed?

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