You get to live a happy life and don’t care about all the horrible things happening all across the world. You wouldn’t feel terrible for children getting killed in a genocide half the globe away, every day. Blissful ignorance.
My response would be no. And I suppose most responses are gonna be no, but I also don’t think anyone who already doesn’t care would take a pill to start caring. That’s an interesting concept to me.
I’m sure that what me caring does to my mental state is far worse than however good is anything it does to anyone else. But by that logic, if everyone stopped caring, how would the world look like?
EDIT: It’s permanent. It doesn’t take away your emotions, it just stops you from caring about things like wars as long as they don’t directly affect you. Just like many people already have it.
And there it is. This is a not so thinly veiled post being highly judgemental about people on anti-depressants and the like.
As you’ve identified:
So… if it’s not helping anything, and arguably harming yourself, what is the point?
I promise you that it is possible to be aware of these horrible things going on, accepting that you cannot do anything about them, minimizing of the negative impact on your own emotions and mental state… and to be able to move on with your own life and enjoy what there is to enjoy around you. All at once.
That isn’t a “lack of caring”, it sure as hell isn’t fucking ignorance. I honestly take quite a bit of offense at that.
It’s basic acceptance of what you can and cannot change. The relatively recent idea that if you aren’t emotionally distraught about world events then you don’t care is one of the most toxic and damaging to mental health things in recent time.
Some people will call it stoicism, but it’s not even going that far.
This whole idea of “I have to stay aware of all the suffering in the world, and I have to have strong feelings about all of it!” is just “thoughts and prayers” with a whole bunch of extra steps that people often use as justification to look down upon others who don’t stay as up to date, or who don’t get as emotionally invested.
So to answer your question, no. I wouldn’t take pills that work as you describe.
Thankfully, that’s not how anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication fucking work! (Unless you’re on far too high a dose or perhaps on anti-psychotics instead)
I didn’t get the sense they were talking about antidepressants, mainly because that’s not how anti depressants work.
I think they were referring more toto “magically becoming a conservative MAGAT.” They are famous for not caring about issues unless they’re directly affected and being quite callous up until that point.
They do care about things that don’t affect them, though. They care about repressing and punishing people who are marginalized. The premise of the question lacks that bit of nuance.
I don’t know the stats, but I would think people who take antidepressants are more likely to be left leaning (concerning themselves with issues that don’t effect them, in a caring way) than right leaning (concerning themselves with issues that don’t effect them, in a punishing way) because it is a common belief in the latter group that caring for your mental health is some kind of liberal conspiracy.
I know plenty of people on antidepressants and anti anxiety medications that are activists. And plenty of people who would benefit from them but think it’s for “libruhls.”
I just want to back up I_Fart_Glitter here and say I absolutely read this as they said:
“I think they were referring more to “magically becoming a conservative MAGAT.” They are famous for not caring about issues unless they’re directly affected and being quite callous up until that point.”
I didn’t read this as any kind of attack on people who take antidepressants, their statement about “how some people already have it” matches my experience with the MAGA people in my life. They couldn’t possibly care any less about people suffering unless it affects them directly. They even enjoy the suffering of those they see as political enemies.