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you exist in the real world where rent is due and bills need to be paid. when you continually can barely or not sufficiently pay for these things, you will be depressed.

they are too ill from chronic stress to simply will themselves out of a depressed state of mind. they have control over their thoughts but they know they’re poor. they’re worried about affording rent or what if their kid needs to go to the doctor? how do they oay fir it. what if their car breaks, how will they afford to fix it? can they afford to pay the water bill? etc. etc. legitimate worries. chronic stress. depression.

we’re not just brains in vats.

Guy Swann 9mo ago

I still think you are equating two things that are not the same, imo. Being depressed is being helpless and believing nothing will go right and there’s no reason to do anything at all.

Simply being overwhelmed with thinking about what you need to do to get through the day is not depression.

Related: optimism is explicitly not situation dependent, like by definition it isn’t, because all problems are only relative. It’s very much like value. An example might be aboriginal tribes who are deeply poor and don’t even understand the type of wealth available in the world, but does this make them all horribly depressed?

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hello 🪺 9mo ago

with real depression caused by poverty, you’re not “simply overwhelmed.”

yes, they are depressed because they ~are~ helpless from being poor. they have chronically, for a long time, not been able to get out of being poor. so they are depressed, chronically stressed.

not being poor will fix it for the vast majority of depressed people.

yes, an aboriginal ~would~ ~definitely~ be considered poor against even a poor american. but they’re not worried about paying rent! they also don’t have a data plan for their cell phone bill to worry about! 🤣

hello 🪺 9mo ago

but you would be right, concerning a non-poor demographic, depression is largely easily fixable.