MSC

Single "white" father here, to a 3 year old girl who will one day have expenses related to her biological sex that I as a man will never have. Even if I exclude feminine hygiene products, she will pay more for haircuts, clothes, shampoos, she will be expected by society to purchase and wear make-up, she will need a gynecologist and the list goes on. So to be clear, guy's don't have the same bills that women do. Fact. If anything, women ought to be paid more than men because the cost of living for them is way higher. Just my 0.007 cents.

Just got called a racist for supporting Black lives matter and Anti-fascism... In what world or on what planet does this make sense? What sort of mental gymnastics does a person need to do to think this way while living in a democratic society that allegedly values equality? Really grinds my gears.

Egg, the egg came first. Every time I hear this problem it never specifies chicken egg, it just says egg. Which leads to a very simple solution; do chickens predate dinosaurs? No. Did dinosaurs come from eggs? Yes. Therefore the egg not only came first but came countless times before the chicken. Hopefully my answer eggceeds eggspectations.

That's a fair point to make, so long as the response is proportional. That said; even in the exact same proportions I feel there are limits. If someone tortured my child, should I torture theirs? If someone murders my child should I also murder their child? Absolutely there needs to be consequences for morally abhorrent acts, but what seperates the reactor from the instigator is, which consequences/reactions are appropriate and what you want the consequences to achieve. I do lay some of the blame for what happened on Japanese military culture at the time definitely and I do see the arguments to be made where you can point to Japans complete 180 into turning into a far more peaceful society than they were before the end of the war. What will it take for the world to do that 180? Does it really have to be losing a whole country or continents worth of people? I know neither of us want that, but it does scare me a touch to think that based on what we have seen from history, that might be the catalyst. I just hope we can learn some other way before that ever happens. Also you are correct, I'd never just randomly punch you and I respect you a lot more than you know. Any differences we've had or will have would always be resolved with words.

Wikipedia is being cited far too much in this thread.

In fairness to him, he had a minor stroke around 2013 or 2014. Nothing that affects his ability to function but we did notice some personality changes. I think for me the frustration comes from knowing that his views now are completely different to the values he instilled in me and my siblings growing up. For example, now he frequently makes quite xenophobic comments, but when I was 3 or 4 years old, my older cousins taught me a very racist song and me not knowing any better, I went and sang the song to my dad and he slapped me pretty hard across the face. To this day I feel like that was the best thing he could have done as it cemented very early for me that racism is not acceptable. So his views today are a bit of a slap across the face too.

Fair enough, some of them definitely are but then imbeciles tend to defy demographics and you find them under every rock trying to squeeze water from it. I'm a pragmatic centrist who sees each issue of political policy as having it's own requirements for dealing with it effectively. If an issue requires a conservative approach it requires that, if it requires a liberal or a more middle ground approach, I'll support that. It really for me depends on what the scientific consensus is; however since I'm not the type to throw the baby out with the bathwater and the fact that I consider myself to be a true agnostic, I'm not ashamed to say that my views on politics are influenced a lot by one particular story from the abrahamic religions, of which i prefer the islamic version, which is the story of the prophet Joseph. Egypt conserved during a time of plenty and then supported it's peoples through a time of famine.

I wonder then what influences a person if they didn't attend higher education at all? Topic for another day I guess.

Japan was actually in the process of brokering a conditional surrender mediated by the Russians, the Russian entry into the war in the Pacific was a much more crucial factor in the japanese decision to surrender than the dropping of the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The A-Bombs just provided a less shameful reason to surrender by pointing to an enemy super weapon capable of levelling any of their cities, than being afraid of another front of conventional warfare with Russia. Except it is known that it didn't, because he was already trying to convince his ministers to end the war as early as June of 1945. The bombs weren't dropped until August. He was going to capitulate, bomb or no bomb. A lot of people think that Japan Rejected the Potsdam Declaration, they did not. What they did was a little more nuanced. They publicly addressed their answer (to their own people) with Mokusatsu, which the press mistranslated into English as rejected, when it actually meant, in that context, to kill with silent contempt. Basically they ignored the demand for an unconditional surrender from the Allies because the preservation of the Emperors position wasn't immediately on the table, even though it was something the allies were discussing behind closed doors. There was also a disconnect between the Japanese Ambassador Sato, who was the ambassador to the Soviet union, and leadership back in Japan. Japans military leadership had it in their heads that if they caused more massive allied casualties during the expected allied land invasion of Japan, they'd be able to keep some of the land they conquered in a peace agreement, wanting something closer to a stalemate than a surrender. Sato believed his superiors had honestly lost their grip on reality there, as some of the land they wanted to keep, had already been liberated by allied forces. As I said above, Mokusatsu means to kill with silent contempt. As in kill the ultimatum by ignoring it, meaning no formal answer, Suzukis announcement was directed at the people of Japan and the Americans heard about it due to mistranslation in the press. It doesn't mean rejected. Kyozetsu or Kyohi suru means rejection or refuse. If it helps, imagine you asked to borrow a hammer, if I directly say no to you, that is Kyozetsu. If I sneer, turn around and walk away, that is Mokusatsu. What Suzuki was effectively saying, was that the Potsdam conference and what they were demanding of Japan, wasn't even worth the dignity of a direct response. If the bombs had not been dropped, I seriously doubt the war would have lasted much more than a few months. Especially once the decision fell to the Emperor. Why are you surprised when she was Japanese and resident of Hiroshima? Might as well ask British people why they found the blitz offensive. Morality in my opinion is all about point of view because we all have a different perspective on the context of our existence. Yes the japanese were absolutely brutal to those they conquered, civilian or combatant. A lot of it was absolutely evil and morally repugnant. Especially civilian casualties. However, there is an argument to be made in not sinking to someone elses level. 19 billion civilians, or a couple of hundred civilians, I don't think it's the numbers that are the morally significant factors but the fact that they were civilians. The majority of those civilians had little to no control over what their militaries and governments decided to do, especially in Japan which was not by any stretch of the imagination a functional democracy at the time. It was more like Tsarist imperialism if anything. As far as I'm concerned, most extreme military actions that are taken, are symptomatic of diplomatic failures, not the only options remaining. This was definitely true of the A-Bombs. Yes we can't change the past but that doesn't mean we have to like it either. Honestly I'm surprised that you're surprised. Really for all we know her great grandparents or some other recent ancestor was killed in those blasts. Oh good, someone that actually is aware of this. +1 Have you also noticed that most of the historical sources that credit the bombings ending the war come from the USA?

I personally find the title to line up well literally and metaphorically. Trump has literally raped people (and tbh I think we all suspect there is more than one victim of his on that front) and on the metaphorical front he raped the USA, is raping the wallets and pockets of his imbecilic followers, is raping the legal system and I bet @dimreepr would agree that now he's metaphorically raping the bible. This comment is in no way meant to trivialize the real act of rape; I'd never describe a garden variety bad experience as metaphorical rape, but when I think about all the things TFG has done, how many he has done it to and the malignant effect his public presence has on both the USA and political discourse everywhere in the past and to this day, can you blame me for describing it as a rape? On a personal level too I have watched as my own fathers political views have been warped and changed from someone who was very much a working class liberal, into someone who wants to shoot "wokeists" and calls the majority of Palestinians terrorists. I'd also argue that cult leaders especially could be thought of as mind rapists. Just my two cents really.

Assumptions. I do have some understanding of what formal logic is, I am not good at using it to be fair to you, but I know what it is and most of the time when I've seen others use the term "pure logic" they aren't referring to formal logic but their own intuitions. I agree with you. Which is why they should read Cohens preface to logic, as a start. Since you mentioned intuition though, I'd be interested to hear your viewpoint on the phenomenology of intuition. What is intuition to you? Avoid the magical thinking type definitions or explanations, obviously.

Thank you! Nobodies making an ass of you and me today. This is why I think Cohen's preface to logic should be required reading. Sick of the magical thinking types of logic and everyone thinking they are Vulcan. I don't even know what is supposed to be meant by "pure logic". To me it's like saying you need a pure hammer or a pure screwdriver. "State of pure logic" is a pet peeve too, sounds like saying you're a complete tool. Well obviously, if you can put a name to it, then it can't be noumena can it? How do you define duration with no objects moving around to measure time with? Why is this an assumption? I thought the beginning was 14-15billion years ago? Lets say I could actually time travel and I start going back, my plan is to travel infinitely back, so I never stop time travelling backwards. It's never time to start travelling infinitely forwards again because from my perspective I've not yet reached infinite.

Definitely plausible, I can see however how some forms of stimming could be distracting for a driver. You do hit upon a good point, there is a kind of general blanket behaviour people adopt towards individuals with any psychiactric condition that is reminiscent of behaviour a person takes when they believe a person is psychotic, no matter what the diagnosis actually is or to what degree it affects them. They get guarded, wary, frightened, standoffish and even aggressive. Because when they hear disorder, they can only conceptualize that as "crazy and dangerous". Where autism is concerned there is a small minority of individuals who recieve the diagnosis and engage in criminal acts. Of those, some don't know what they are doing or fully understand right and wrong, while others clearly are using an incorrect diagnosis as a potentia shield from consequences or accepting responsibility. This is an area of overlap that I was talking about earlier via motivational spectrums. An example is that narcissism and some forms of autism share symptomatic overlap to some degree but motivationally and cognitively they are different behaviours. Dunnings krueger effect hits narcissists hard and they fool themselves into thinking they are great at things they actually suck at, so they then obnoxiously brag about it and how good they are at something or how awesome they are and if they fail there is always an excuse and a deflection of why it wasn't their fault. I know of an individual who is classicly autistic, who knows a lot about buses and bus routes in Edinburgh and he's very proud of that and sees it as a hobby. He can sound obnoxious when talking about it and praising himself for it, but for him it's not an attempt to get attention that's just how he socialises and believes people are meant to have conversations. With conditions like aspergers and ADHD the motivational and social differences are more subtle than that in terms of narcissistic behaviour. Sometimes you can't tell without spending enough time with a person to see how they talk about not only things they are good at, but how they react when they perform badly or make a mistake. If it's not crystallized narcissism and they are just overzealous about their strengths and values, they'll be capable of acknowledging mistakes and poor performance and will have a shame or defeat response that is very different to someone suffering with a Narcissistic personality. You're also correct about the term "disorder" in the cases where capabilities are differing and context dependent. Take the friend I mentioned earlier, he'll never be able to give consistently good social advice but anyone lost in Edinburgh and doesn't know which bus to get, is currently experiencing more disorder than he is. Then you have the pandemic and the lockdowns and again you can clearly see that a lot of the people with social "disorders" handled it better than most who weren't considered disordered. Hell, I consider anyone who isn't capable of walking for over an hour while having two capable legs and isn't morbidly obese, disordered. When I say capable, I mean that if given the time to make either choice, walking/saving money/using less fuel loses to I'll just take the car for an 5m drive for something 30 minutes away on foot. I am curious though; when do you feel like the use of the word disorder is justified? For example let's imagine I'm a person diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and I believe my life is disordered because of my condition, maybe I can't keep friends or a job or give up some vice. If I self identify myself as having a disorder, and am not pointing to anyone else and saying "They have a disorder" and I'm only saying "I have a disorder." How would you respond to that? What I will say to this is that this issue has many problems in it, a few of the problems are with the labels and how we label. The linguistic composition of a diagnosis is something we are both highlighting in different ways.

Hello all, Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this. Everything I'm going to discuss here got started in what can only be described as a bit of a dumpster fire thread, which I feel led to an interesting discussion about autism and psychiatry, in the responses... which were thankfully absent the OP. To be clear, the OP seemed to believe that autism is a blood born condition that can be cured with bloodletting and hemodialysis. The OP was essentially a snakeoil salesman. So rather than really engage with this person, there was a pretty fruitful and calm discussion amongst myself and others (Whom I'll take the time to tag in the comments) about Autism as a concept and what is really meant when people say autism spectrum and what autism is exactly. - MSC (from the aforementioned thread) So there is a lot to unpack and discuss from this; but I'm going to start by making a claim, giving my arguments for that claim and then talk a little bit about what led me to this line of thought (because it's been something I've thought about long before being on this forum.) and be clear on my skin in the game. Claim The way we label and categorise different conditions, oftentimes does not work consistently well enough towards outcomes that are positive for patient or care provider, harms a fair amount of patients more than it helps them in numerous ways and the broader ramifications of all of this leads to the field of psychiatry and it's practitioners oftentimes being negatively stereotyped in the public eye, in ways other medical professionals are not, discouraging more people from entering the field itself. I have the utmost respect for psychiatrists and psychiactric nusing staff etc. This is in no way meant to disparage or further stereotype anyone. I've known many psychiatrists and only three of them in a clinical setting, I lived with one for a few months also in an airbnb and he's a friend for life. Not to mention a lot of the obstacles that contribute towards mental healthcare inefficiencies are put there by policy makers, lack of investment, pop culture, patients themselves or their families and the general public... general public on many counts, we kind of suck. Below I'm going to share a publication from The Leonard Davis institute of Health Economics. It's worth a read, touches on a lot of what I won't get into here yet but will in the responses. - https://ldi.upenn.edu/our-work/research-updates/worsening-faster-than-its-improving-the-us-mental-health-care-delivery-system/ Now I don't think what I have to say applies to just autism, but I am going to focus on autism as I think the claim most strongly applies to that. As I mentioned earlier; - MSC Does the word Autism or the phrase Autism spectrum disorder really capture the depth and complexity of what is going on, in a way that gives us a clear picture on how to treat a patient? If I ask what is autism spectrum disorder? The honest answer, is many different conditions and they don't all have the same causes. For example when I was 23 I was diagnosed with Aspergers in Scotland, now I live in the USA and it's autism spectrum disorder. My psychiatrist here however doesn't believe I have autism, he doesn't believe I have a personality disorder or ADHD, he just feels I was brought up in a chaotic and inconsistent environment around family members with mental health issues where I was parentified from a young age. (This isn't invitation to make my mental health the subject of this discussion, it's my skin in the game as it were and what prompted me to think about this stuff. Me sharing this is explanation of why the subject, not the subject itself.) Here is why labelling a bunch of different conditions with an umbrella term, in the case of autism, is really just over-generalising. It's not just a spectrum, it's a spectrum of spectrums and few pick up on just how many we are talking about. Hypo-hyper sensitivity scales, for all 8 (maybe 9, cerebroceptive hypothesis is speculation for another thread) senses. Symptom and behaviour spectrums and within behaviour, motivational spectrums. When I say behaviour I don't just mean what you can see but cognitive behaviour too. Now some could respond to all this and say making it more complicated and adding more diagnoses and psychiactric labels will invite more public misunderstanding, not less, sure, that's true. Although I'd ask which is the more harmful misunderstanding? Not expecting a regular person to understand what autism is or to not expect them to understand what classic autism, PDD, Aspergers etc is? How much does that even matter, can you tell the difference and guarantee that the person reading their file can tell the difference and can you explain it to the patients family/employer/school in a precise and clear way? If I was to try and put this all into a too long, didn't read. I'd just say very simply, some of psychiatries word tools suck. Autism is one area, PTSD is another as are personality disorders. Switching out complex terminology in a complex situation for something simple, is like removing pieces from a beautifully engineered piano, and expecting it to still give out a crisp clear note. An engineer will tell you that the simplest most efficient design to get the job done, is the correct one, what that doesn't mean is a simple design always works. It's always as complex as it needs to be to do the job it needs to do. A piano isn't just a hammer hitting a string. Psychiatry shouldn't use hammers to hit patients either... literally and figuratively. Probably haven't said everything I could have said and I could always say some of it better, but I will see how people respond and where folk want to go with this discussion. Be excellent to each other and party on dudes. Btw I'm discussing mental healthcare in the USA and the UK as my frames of reference but if the boot fits your nations mental healthcare then by all means share.

Not really. Them = used as the object of a verb or preposition to refer to two or more people or things previously mentioned or easily identified. "I watched the kids and read them stories" "I picked up some rocks and threw them in the river" Except there I was not talking about people I was talking about concepts. Also you literally weren't able to make your point, without using the word "them" in the same way except you were referring to people. I also didn't call anyone an asshole that was just an example to try to illustrate to you that your language policing just does not make sense here. Them is not a dirty word and my usage of it in no way speaks to any hidden ill will I have towards anyone.

Them = autism spectrum conditions like aspergers or PDD. I'm not referring to people but to diagnoses, so them is appropriate. It's not my intent to other anyone or refer to them as being anything less than human. Even if I was still talking about a group of people, I still don't see why you'd be annoyed at me using the word "them" in discussion. "I call them a bunch of assholes" "I call them awesome". "them" isn't the problematic part, how you talk about "them" is. It's even worse than a numbers game, since nobody actually knows what the numbers are. The assumption is that the majority of people who have never entered into the psychiactric diagnostic process and have not had their brains scanned, make up the group that is known as neurotypicals/normal people. When all that can really be known about this group, is that their neurological and psychological states are as yet undetermined.

No need, you entered the room. Trust me, I'm turned off already..

Just wanted to include with this a comparison between the USA and the UK, I was diagnosed with aspergers in the UK where it is or was still a diagnosis, but I live in the USA where no such diagnosis exists as it is under the umbrella term of AS conditions. This is why I call them autism spectrum conditions instead of disorders and don't like the term disabled. A person without arms cannot arm wrestle but can run, a person without legs can arm wrestle but cannot run. I know I sound like a broken record when talking about contextualism, but context really is one of the most important factors in discussing everything. If I were to ask how long will it take a 20kg weight to fall 20 metres when dropped; most will rush to start calculating the answer, but very few will ask something like "are you dropping it on planet earth or somewhere else?". Just so you're aware, OP made a similar post in the psychiatry and psychology section but I posted a link there to the only known experiment where a round of hemodialysis was administered to an infantile girl with autism which had no effect or significant change in symptoms. Since there was no significant change and the procedure would be difficult to administer to a larger group of autistic individuals due to behavioural or cognitive issues they opted not to look any further, thankfully. It's not something in our blood. It does suck that we have to suffer these charlatans but all we can do is respond with facts and truth. This guy will probably get himself banned soon and his posts rightly put in the trash can section.

Possibly, there is a belief that neurodivergence is a lot more common than we realise and since people have a tendency to only see it when there is a lot of contrast; as in we see and acknowledge neurodivergence only when an individual is really struggling with some aspect or aspects of life and is considered disabled or on the other end we only see and acknowledge it when the person is something of a savant. That tendency makes us miss the more subtle signs of it. That said, who decides what neurotypical is? Where is the baseline or control group of humanity that we can point to as having "normal" brains? Heretic blood - Avenged Sevenfold The line from this song always makes me think about this stuff. Historically it speaks to the fact that those who led, orchestrated and took part in witch hunts suffered from paranoid delusions about witches being real, and more contemporary meanings around the nature of mental healthcare and how many of the workers and professionals in the field of mental healthcare, have mental health issues of their own. From the psychiatrists to the psychiactric nurses.

Nor me, only yesterday I found out some random idea I had about nuclear propulsion was dreamed up in 1941. It's either a case of collective consciousness or just the reality that intelligent people looking at reality intelligently will come up with similar ideas. The earliest examples being pyramids. It doesn't take much to understand that a low entropy stucture like a pyramid will withstand the test of time far longer than an obelisk will. Thank you! Knew it was a German name. The consensus in the end was that they'd both developed calculus independently, although I do find the timing curious, which is why I mentioned Jungs collective consciousness in my response to swansont. Anyway sorry for making the joke thread less about jokes. I can't find my off switch.

Glad you said this; for example not a lot of people understand that I do not have a very strong material drive at all and I have a hatred of money. Which personally I don't see as that disabling really. It can certainly make things difficult in some respects but in others it's better. For example if I was on SCOTUS, all the crap that corrupted Thomas Clarence wouldn't motivate me to be as much of a corrupt asshole as he is. Feel free to go up and read my earlier comment by the way.

Actually, Astronaughts on the ISS going on Spacewalks do. Sorry, was the joke section so couldn't resist. Didn't someone else independently invent calculus around the same time that Isaac Newton did? I forget his name, German guy. Him and Newton hated each other. It wouldn't be that crazy for two people with a similar sense of humour to look at memorial benches and come up with this though. How tf can someone own putting bittersweet messages on memorial benches? Or what if that bench isn't a joke at all but serious?

I'd like a cure for social anxiety and I'd like to have the ability to regulate my emotions without having to take medication everyday. It is a hard question you ask, besides the individuals who are with it enough to say yes or no, I really couldn't say. Parents/Guardians maybe? Whomever pays for their care? It's not very clear cut. I could argue that absent a declaration of wilfully being against cures for certain symptoms or disorders, how would we know either way? They could be living in a mental hell and if these hypothetical cures enable more people to live independently and free up care and medical resources for others who still need it, why shouldn't we when adhering to all other legal and ethical considerations? Like I said, I don't really know. It was a good question though. I think what Dim is referring to are the cases of low cognitive functioning or such extreme sensory hypersensitivity, where an individual would not understand or could not make sense of, nor respond to, the usual "Do you give permission to have this medical treatment performed on you?". Hopefully my response to Dim satiafies him somewhat.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6927743/ Hemodialysis treatment + Autistic patient = still autistic patient.... who might have gotten injured during the procedure due to behavioural issues or cognitive limitations, for no significant improvement of symptoms.

Ahhh perfect timing, I needed a new snake oil supplier. How much ya got? Yup. I'm all for hijacking this weird af thread for as long as it lasts to talk about autism. Just so people are aware of what is meant by spectrum, it is a collection of symptoms and behaviours of which many conditions, neurological and psychological states share a lot of overlap. Because of this, many react to words like "cure" or "low functioning" negatively due to a misconception amongst autistic individuals and their advocates to be expert authorities on the "condition" because they or someone they know doesn't fit into certain boxes. The two divergent models of disability also plays a significant role in this. Those who's issues lie within the medical model of disability absolutely need effective treatments and cures. Those who's issues lie within the social model of disability require their environments to be treated or cured. To make this more confusing, most of the conditions still have overlap. Hypersensitivity to light is an example often associated with AS conditions. The medical fix may be via optometry and the social fix is accomodating lighting installations. I do get what Dim is getting at though and agree with the sentiment. The generalised psychiactric labelling of what is clearly many different conditions, for the purpose of simplified medical signposting is confusing enough for medical experts and downright dangerous in it's invitation to invite public misunderstanding and stereotyping of austism spectrum conditions to the degree where even the sufferers and their advocates just don't get it. It's similar to but obviously not as bad as if they decided that instead of specific cancer diagnoses, all medical signposting would say is "Cancer spectrum disorder" and just hope the person on the treatment end knows what to do. Because cancer spectrum disorder could be anything from a small mole to stage 4 stomach cancer or an inoperable brain tumour. What many psychiatrists fail to grasp is that the act and implications of psychiactric labelling have broader ramifications than just how they as individual doctors treat them, but how everything outside of the doctors control is going to treat them. Just so we are clear, cancer most certainly is a disease and I don't believe autism is anywhere near cancer nor do I believe people with autism are a disease. My criticisms revolve around medical signposting and careless, thoughtless, lazy labels. A cry for more precise terminology is a standard that most scientific fields adhere to. Exhibit A, pluto is no longer thought of as a planet.