Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

So it’s a 1 or a 0? The kid is either full autistic or just a socially maladjusted asshole? No room for a middle ground with you then?

It’s a 1 if it goes above 0.6

That’t not it, what many disorders are describing isn’t just the obvious symptoms.

ICE engines heat up because they burn fuel, but if it’s overheating in normal operation that’s from something else breaking down.

Not that people are so simple, but that transition point to disorder often represents a meaningful transition.

Much like addiction, a key facet of a "diagnosed" disorder tends to be whether or not it (negatively) affects your life.

As the guy said, if you think you hear voices but they tell you to go to sleep on time and do a good job at work, you probably don't need treatment.

An engine is an assembly of parts. When an engine breaks down it does so because it broke down. An engine does not exist without its cylinders, fuel system, gaskets, lubricants, etc.

I believe your analogy is flawed. Can you restate your first statement in any other way?

You just invented 0,1 again but gave a weird label to the 1.

Someone who is clinically depressed isn’t just sad, they are unable to return to normal. Things that help normal people feel better simply fail, it’s a meaningfully different situation. Similarly treatments for depression like electroconvulsive therapy shouldn’t be applied to normal people.

OCD, clinical addiction, etc are all more involved than just feeling the desire to do something. The lack of control is the issue not just the momentary impulse.

Intrusive thoughts are fine, acting on them isn’t.

Are there people who don’t have clinical diagnoses of depression being subjected to electro convulsive therapies?

Addendum: I believe I’m close to figuring out what you are communicating but for me it’s not working.

I’m reasonably sure we’d agree that neurological conditions are complex and that labels only tell part of the story.

I’m sure ECT is being misused occasionally, but what I’m referring to is the underlying condition such treatments are addressing as well as the research associated with finding what treatments are useful in which situations.

Seasonal affective disorder and bereavement-related depression may have similar symptoms on the surface, but there’s different treatments due to differences in underlying causes.

Some conditions may be a continuum with the same underlying cause taken to different extremes, but that continuum need not be continuous down to normal human behavior.

What is normal human behavior though? Is it some combination of things that's gonna end up being so rare that only so many people fall under it, and is it normal if it's so rare? Is it gonna be "what most/average people are", and if so, well then, isn't everybody gonna have something going on, and isn't that just normal then?

With how widespread it is, labeling, self-diagnosing, inquiring about yourself, is kind of normal human behavior. It is everywhere, and has been historically. Putting it like it's just 'labels for significant things' and then 'normal', and that these things would stand far enough apart to actually make a clear distinction without dismissing people in between is pretty much just wishful thinking. There's way too many things and even more combinations of then. It's gotten so complicated and convoluted only because it is that way. Wishing for a binary clarity in a complex world.

Normal is the full range of function not some specific set of behaviors.

Deciding not to get a drivers license is fine, being unable to get one because you can’t leave your home is an issue.

Full range is a specific set. What does that range consist of? Also, seems odd to go from going on about "stretching a label past the point of meaning", but then put normal as some range that's just about vaguely everything. Can normal not be defined? Is it somehow more deserving of being afforded to be a vague spectrum or being under less specific definitions? Where is the point of meaning with "normal"?

By specific set I mean the behaviors actually exhibited, someone either grows a beard or doesn’t you can’t be doing both. Meanwhile either choice is normal.

The “full range” is anything that doesn’t cause you or another significant distress, major impairment, or prevent functioning in society. Eating hot sauce is uncomfortable, amputating a limb is several steps beyond uncomfortable.

> Can normal not be defined?

It’s defined by what it isn’t. There’s ~8 billion people in the world and the majority of them are functioning as should be obvious by our societies continuing to function.

> a key facet of a "diagnosed" disorder tends to be whether or not it (negatively) affects your life.

Which also brings us to an important point that is totally missed in the article and most of the discussion imo: maybe one of the (many) things that have changed is that lives are more negatively affected by stuff nowadays (or more reported to be so). We live in increasingly complex societies, we have to socialise with more and more people and navigate more demanding and fluid social dynamics. Traits that can be advantageous in a certain context can be disadvantageous in another (and affect one's life negatively).