There are all sorts of ways to keep depression at arm's length. Participating in dangerous hobbies, taking drugs (prescribed or otherwise), working all the time, psychotherapy/good friends, creating disturbing art, etc.

I don't think these issues are ever pretty to the ones who experience them, but perhaps coping in any way is better than death.

I sure hope science comes up with a way to fix psychiatric illnesses.

> I sure hope science comes up with a way to fix psychiatric illnesses.

I actually don't think it will happen. If it ever does, that would not necessarily be a good thing. Many forms of creativity are strongly correlated with "abnormal" brain wiring. If you are bipolar, for example, your lows are below average, but your highs are also above average. One day you might be absolutely useless, but another you're capable of thinking things literally impossible for those who don't share your condition.

I think that at least some bipolar people would gladly trade the increased creativity during the highs for greater stability, and I think it would be a good thing if they had the ability to do so.

I thought this was interesting from several angles, but don't really have anything to add. Apparently, I'm not the only one.

What's your complaint, that people don't comment enough or that this got voted up too much? You never say, so how can we answer "what is wrong"?

Not every thread has to be about starting a software business. Also, weekends tend to be kind of slow, so they're a good chance to look at other interesting stuff.

I just haven't noticed it before, I thought maybe HN was trying some other algorithms and something odd was going on (I didn't think it was interesting or relevant to HN - a small step away from digg like "top 10 things you can do with ...").

But thanks for the down votes, will make the digg and reddit refugees feel more at home.

I would add that if a submission has a high score but very few comments, that is a decent indicator of a good story. As PG said, much discussion begins with disagreement, so if a story is liked but not discussed much, it has probably covered its bases rather well.