commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 3:54 pm
Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:43 am
I think that many of those who act out extreme have to be understood without bias to their perspectives.
I agree, but we must remember that the perspective of the mentally impaired may be the result of altered decision making capabilities. We must take into account the situation where the disease literally affects judgment. If depression is in remission, the desire to end life in order to be free of mental pain would be diminished if not absent.
Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:43 am
If you've ever read any of the 'manifestos' of some of these people there are often rational hints of the evolution of their thoughts valid FROM anyone who might be in their shoes.
True, but again we must realize that while the manifesto may be consistent—even coherent within itself—the individual may yet believe the platitudes you’ve cited below. In other words, an individual whose decision making process is not rooted in reality may make sense within a warped sense of the world and his place in it.
Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:43 am
We need to stop using 'positive' suggestions that lack sincere truths about reality. For instance, it is not true that "there is someone for everyone"; It is not true that "anyone can become succeed if they tried hard enough." Although well intentioned (by some/most?), often these are just societal comforters that lack reality and only set up those with specific weaknesses in triggering areas to interpret themselves as being the only one at fault.
Yes, phrases like “you can cure your depression by thinking positive thoughts” can lead the individual to lay blame on himself and push him even deeper into his depression, making the desire to end his life even stronger.
Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:43 am
Society, including even genetics, can bias real favor FOR some while be AGAINST others in absolute ways that is no one's particular 'fault'. Evolution tends to make all animals biased in real ways.
I don’t understand your point here. Please expand on it.
I kept the whole above because I see that your interpretation is that what is defined as 'depression' or 'mental illness' is interpreted to you as objective rather than as a relative interpretation in light of our present understandings. I don't interpret ALL mental illnesses as necessarily
real in an objective sense but as a relative MISFIT (Darwinian non-match within the environment). For instance, a pet dog may seem relatively retarded by contrast to our 'sensibilities'. But a simple non-biased interpretation may be that because the metabolism of the animal and its lack of special communication mechanisms, the dog's actual apparent diminished capacity to reason is only coincidental. You can have a short term memory issue, for instance, that hinders your ability to communicate effectively. You could have a sleeping sickness that hinders your ability to pay attention. But these can be interpreted as
mental illnesses when they have nothing to do with one's literal inability to reason. A mental illness does not necessarily impair ones ACTUAL ability to reason logically. They just do not 'fit' in with the present expectations that have practical means for surviving normally relative to expectations. It is 'practical' to label these as
mental illness because they affect one's ability to APPEAR as well as BE functional; but the apparent insanity of some extremes may actually be MORE 'sane' than what is presumed to be of the average.
For example, often an apparent 'nutcase' who stalks an ex obsessively is considered insane when they might argue that they had not satisfactorily had
closure of their prior relationship. [Actual common case example]. The problem can be completely rational: if someone you loved strongly one day abandoned you without explanation, the social (and real) laws may assert you as VIOLATING the rights of someone's right to silence regardless of their reasons. Yet, while this kind of behavior can be interpreted as 'crazy', we hypocritically don't question why a parent could be victimized for
lacking closure on the whereabouts of a murdered loved one when the perpetrator refuses to divulge where they buried the body. These are similar but we treat the latter as 'normal' rights to demand closure while the former is treated 'abnormally' obsessed.
We treat some things as 'insane' when they don't FIT in with average expected SOCIAL NORMS. But some of these 'norms' are just as nuts if not moreso when stepping out of such environments and seeing it from another. An example: high heeled shoes for women! In ancient China, a similar kind of cultural norm was to bind women's feet. If someone today were to bind their feet, we'd think them as either insane or victims of others who might force them to do so. But go back in time to a place before high heels.
Can you imagine how it might appear if hunters on the battle field wore high heels? Context of one's environment can DEFINE one as 'sane' or not based merely on social constructs that don't require being 'rational'.
Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:43 am
Then, as for the concept of
mental illnesses, it would help if society would understand that what some apparent 'illness' may seem to be for us here and now, it isn't necessarily an evolutionary disadvantage in some alternative environment/world. That is, in some environments, it CAN be the real case that the 'mentally ill' are 'normal' and vice versa in another possible world.
That would have to be a possible world where the norm, as judged by the median or the greatest consensus, would be what our world deems as insane. While MAID may take on an entirely different perspective in that possible world, that perspective obviously doesn’t pertain to ours.
Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:43 am
I saw that the article mentioned concern about the possibility of authorities to abuse this idea. It happens and steps should be made to assure the person is not merely crying out for help.
Agree, but how can you tell the difference between a pseudo suicide attempt made for the purpose of attracting attention and a genuine attempt to kill oneself?
Appropriate question. But this has led many to notice patterns of behavior that the social environment of these people justly give evidence for but that people ignore. I gave the above example of 'closure' that some might excuse for stalking, as a kind of deviant behavior. Such persons are common and happen to have stages of evolution that ARE often noticeable but intentionally ignored for something as simple as the "bystander effect". We might notice a couple we know in which the
to-be stalked future victim may have behaved in ways that rationally demonstrate indirect abuses that we trivialize. Where society can learn to recognize these cues, we may eventually adapt to speaking out against the apparently 'trivial' behaviors that contribute to counteractive ones that the soon-to-be predator might adopt. For instance, today we are more conscious of the "Gaslighting' that some use against another. This is a kind of 'silent' abuse when done cleverly. They can't be considered 'illegal' often because indirect forms of such behavior lack the same APPARENT degree of harm. As society becomes more socially conscious, while it can often come across as petty to be concerned about at first, we eventually adopt means to change in ways that don't directly APPEAR as though we are helping but do.
Take the social warrier extremes that demand 'no' means 'no' without compromise. We STILL find this trivial in most cases and get annoyed at the means of onus it places on all of us to stop this behavior even though the perpetrators who abuse certain direct cues as 'playful' when not could be in the minority. But while it can be counter to our conventional attention to be concerned too seriously about it, drawing attention to HOW we pick up on such contexts that MAY get misinterpreted enables us to evolve to nip it in the bud early and turn off the potential of one to have become abusive prior to noticing the cues.
We today tend to think even subtle behaviors 'abusive' relative to another. I don't approve of this 'snow flaking' but it DOES tell us that we might look back on this time one day and wonder how we could have ever NOT noticed the degree of harm that a prior generation of people used to behave as. I often wonder, for instance, if the "Black Lives Matter" movement might have labeled it "Black Lives Matter TOO" instead. The very trivial differences matter. Had the name initially included the term, "TOO" in it, that alone may have reduced the numbers of some to have created reactionary harm rationally interpreted as a form of 'Black Supremacist' movement when not necessarily intended this way. Is the one assuming the group to be counter-prejudiced and inversely discriminatory as 'real' mentally defective as many think?
We cannot fix most of these problems over simple solutions. But what is the option other than to wait UNTIL something bad enough happens BEFORE we care to do anything? A starving animal WILL act out and actually be 'normal' for doing so if ignored for its means of trying to get what it is missing. We just need to respectfully LOOK and pay attention. The 'bad' dog who nibbles at your guests feet may actually be hungary and not so 'bad' as it first appears. If each member of the family ignores the dog's apparent odd behavior presuming it is merely some character flaw without noticing that no one is feeding him, then the seemingly trivial nudges that make the dog eventually eat the baby as a madness is as much the fault of the collective members of the family.
Mental illnesses have to NOT be interpreted assuredly as LOGICAL flaws but rather at worst, PHYSIOLOGICAL and possibly due to real ENVIRONMENTALLY coderived factors, as I hope it IS understood by the professionals.
Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:43 am
The guy in the article defending it, changed his mind about suicide but still felt more comfortable knowing that he HAD the potential right to opt for it freely.
I may have misread what you wrote here, however if-we’re both thinking of the journalist named John Scully, I should point out that he failed twice at suicide, but didn’t change his mind about the act of suicide, only that his comfort level while not subscribing to suicide increased due to the thought that he could legally die with dignity and without shocking his family and friends.
I'm not sure if I see the distinction unless you are presuming suicide itself to be an actual 'logical' flaw of thinking in general. It is NOT necessarily, though it may be for some of the many cases (in my opinion, of course). Medication isn't sufficient but is almost always the ONLY money society will sacrifice to help other than locking them up and throwing away the key. The dog in the family example above CAN in the end be LITERALLY MAD; but the physiological factors CAN degrade due to environmental ones in time that may be irreversible.
It doesn’t take a genius to commit suicide, however ignorance is bliss, and on the other hand thinking breeds insanity. Depression, more frequently than not occurring among deep thinkers, can lead to insanity and insanity can lead to suicide.
You got that backwards, I believe. I think deeper thinkers evolve BECAUSE they are environmentally deprived in some way (like that dog). This actually demonstrates WHY the association to geniusness is inappropriately assumed to be due to some genetic component prematurely. While one's genetic components play a major factor, many are just a Darwinian mismatch that leads those who do not 'fit' into the social mold into questioning WHY this is so.
Your assumption here reminded me of a girl online once who asserted that she thought that the reason for many 'nerds' to tend to be more likely to wear glasses is due to their CHOICE to do activities like reading books and computer screens which she thought led them to become more nearsighted. While this can co-contribute to some of this in time, the reality is more the opposite: One who has relatively bad eyesight gets more isolated by their environment and this leads them to do activities that are more productive in isolated environments, like reading or sitting in front of a computer screen. [I think many of us here relate to this if you think about it.]
