Jaded goodnight, Oppo

[CB]

Courtesy of this magic rock.

Hashtags and talking about mental health are great and all, but they distract from the fact that our mental health system is overloaded and broken. I think we're past awareness at this point and actually need to be putting resources to where they really matter instead of trendy lip service.

[Snuze]

@CB said in Jaded goodnight, Oppo:

Courtesy of this magic rock.

Hashtags and talking about mental health are great and all, but they distract from the fact that our mental health system is overloaded and broken. I think we're past awareness at this point and actually need to be putting resources to where they really matter instead of trendy lip service.

But hashtags are free! Actually doing something about problems takes time and money, and nobody wants to commit to that.

[іди на хуй Влад - formerly known as Distraxi]

@Snuze Well we could always create some more legislation. Because that fixes everything.

[Snuze]

@іди-на-хуй-Влад-formerly-known-as-Distraxi Perfect!

[SilentbutnotreallyDeadly]

@іди-на-хуй-Влад-formerly-known-as-Distraxi
We could legislate to ban mental illness...though I can't help thinking even that we could make that go horribly wrong.

So yes... significant public investment in mental health support would always get my vote.

[Roadkilled]

@CB

There are many things governments can do to improve mental health care. The problem is that they are too challenging to enact politically. Proper mental health care will save money in the long run. The economy benefits from people who can actually do their jobs well, and therefor pay more in taxes back into the system. Mental health care is helpful to keeping families together and reduces costs for other social services. The benefits are myriad. However, those benefits are extremely hard to quantify, and they often come years after the initial investment. Politicians can't easily say "I'm going to spend x amount of money on mental health to reduce our budget by 3x ten years from now." It's hard to show voters the connection between the investment and the savings. It's easier for politicians to present themselves as stewards of the public purse by cutting spending, even if that makes budget issues worse in the future.

I'm not sure I can blame politicians for the situation. Voters want simple answer. Voters aren't going to spend hours each week delving into the details of issues so they can understand the nuances. Many voters want the simple sound bite to tell them what to do. It's more important to be seen as virtuous by your own group than to be willing to go out on your own for decisions.

[Old Busted Hotness]

If we ignore the problem hard enough, it'll go away! You know, like homelessness, income inequality, discrimination....

[atfsgeoff]

@SilentbutnotreallyDeadly said in Jaded goodnight, Oppo:

We could legislate to ban mental illness...though I can't help thinking even that we could make that go horribly wrong.

Yeah that was a popular notion at the turn of the 20th century. Forced sterilization and/or euthanizing of the mentally ill. Then the more "humane" method of pacifying troublesome patients came in the form of lobotomy, or literally scrambling the patient's frontal lobe with an ice pick until they stopped fidgeting.