Oh jebus. Lucas Werner is gloating about winning millions of dollars in a lawsuit against Starbucks, because they wrongfully banned him when all he’d done is pass a “nice note” to a young barista he found attractive.
Unfortunately for him, a “nice note” of the kind he passes to people has been revealed.
There’s this chemical in my body Telomerase. All men past 35 automatically become ideal fathers and husbands. It lends offspring strong DNA. It’s been a year. It’s been 5 years since I’ve had sex. Why do I feel this need to be inside you?
“Nice” is not the adjective I’d apply to that: “creepy” is more accurate. As a biologist, I’d say “WRONG” would also be good, although I think the barista is more reasonably going to feel that the former is the right word to use.
This is not the note he left the barista.
This is a note he left a bartender back in July.
However, I would not be surprised if the note he left the barista was very similar.
9 out of 10 doctors recommend a hot shower after reading.
“Wrongfully banned”? Do you not have the general principle in American stores that “The management retains the right to refuse admission”?
@#2 Chancellor, I made the mistake of looking at his Facebook profile. It made me want to send my brain out for steam cleaning.
A ‘nice note’ might be something like “Thank you for being kind to me, have a wonderful day”. And just leave it at that, because, dude.
Oh this is wrong. In every possible meaning of the word.
It’s completely irrelevant how the note was worded. A 37 year old asking a 16 year old out is creepy as fuck in all world’s except Lucas Werner’s.
+++
But don’t you have empathy with poor Lucas here? Imagine how hard it must be living in a world where you get the cultural message that creepy white misogynist dudebros are a protected class and then finding out that de jure they aren’t!
The girl, on the other hand, she gets all the cultural messages that she’s an object of male pursuit anyway and that her own person isn’t worth crap beyond being a boner pleaser, so don’t waste your time on her, she’s used to it.
+++
May contain snark
From the context I assume what he actually meant was ‘ideal mate’. Based on what little I know of the guy – which is arguably too much – I would not expect him to be much of a family man.
I guess this note demonstrates why you haven’t had sex in five years Lucas.
Yeah, it doesn’t matter how he worded it. It’s perfectly fine for a 16-year old girl to feel uncomfortable when a 37-year old man comes to her place of work and asks her out, and it’s perfectly fine for her employer to ban the dude from visiting the store again.
I’m pretty sure a lot of dudes will be get busy JAQing off about this with “good intentions”, pondering where exactly the boundaries lie and just how close was he to them and whether Starbucks is being a big meanie.
It’s not really appropriate for customers to hit on staff, regardless of the age gap. They’re being paid to be nice to you, and you shouldn’t take unfair advantage of that.
THIS, as well.
Of course your waitstaff will laugh at your jokes. I remember once spending an entire evening with a friend who was also a waiter at the time complaining about how customers thought they were funny and original and how you just couldn’t tell them hat no, it wasn’t even funny the first 25 times someone made that joke.
We just elected an orange no-nothing fascist who actually bragged about committing sexual assault. But he was famous! And his claim to fame? Just fame. Fame based on nothing but being on TV all the time. Fame begetting fame. So, how much would you like to bet that this clearly mentally disturbed creep will now find plenty of opportunities to spread his Telomerase? He’s now famous. He’ll find plenty of willing fools to be his receptacles. Fame and celebrity, whether based on notoriety or accomplishment, is the only meaningful currency in these fucked-up times — next thing you know Simon and Schuster will shower this creep with money to write a book. I hate this reality.
@6 and @9: Did I not say that it was likely that the note he left the barista was very similar to this one? If so, how did you glean the conclusion that I think the wording of the note was important, or that I empathize with Lucas Werner?
I was making a factual correction so that the falsehood would not be perpetrated further. If anything, it’s even more damning that this is an entirely separate note he left someone else, because it means he has a pattern of doing this shit, and he’s been rightfully banned from multiple establishments because of it.
Lucas Werner is a creep, and it’s a sure bet that the content of his note to the barista us skin crawling like this one is. The facts are bad enough without us accidentally spreading incorrect details.
thelastholdout
(BTW, it’s considered a curtsy to reply by nym, not number)
There’s probably a misunderstanding here. PZ didn’t claim that it was the note but a note, so you bringing up that it wasn’t the note makes it look like you’re suggesting something you probably don’t want to.
No, I edited the post to make it more accurate.
Giliel:
1) I don’t comment often. In the last comment section I looked at, people appeared to reoly using comment numbers. I apologise for violating that convention.
2) I misread the original post. I thought PZ was claiming that this was *the* note in question. Others had been making the same mistake, particularly on Tumblr, and I didn’t read this post carefully, so that is an error on my part. I apologize again.
I had think for a while about the first thread with this guy, and the people motivated to appeal to mental illness to explain L Werner’s expression about suicide. I’m still a little clumsy when it comes to shaming certain behavior and when one practices one finds ways of improving and mistakes.
Let me make my assertion clear, anyone appealing mental illness when confronted with disturbing human behavior or expression better be ready to explain some things because they implicitly allow others to do the same to them. I get to find out what they are calling mentally ill and why. I get look for people who can’t deal with how shitty normal human behavior can be, or can’t deal with the social aspects of how we alter one another’s behavior. Remember the Isla Vista killings? Lots of people want that, need that to be mental illness. To a necessary extent, fuck thier feelings.
If you are a person that wants to casually appeal to mental illness in explaining why L Werner mentioned suicide you have the following problems:
1) Mentally I’ll does not mean “broken”(implied~can’t be held responsable for one’s behavior). Many things we call mental illnesses are things brains and minds do that are natural and rational responses to the world one lives in. PTSD, and depression are natural human responses, and mental illnesses. We (in a meta sense) need to better define what mental illnesses are to use that term casually.
2) Reciprocity requires that you give me permission to dismiss your future expressions related to you and suicide as mental illness at your current level of evidence. Don’t do this casually. L Werner feels a lot of stress related to society. We want to know why that is because being a person with shitty behavior should feel bad. I bet there are racists who might get some suicidal ideation over the social attention. Do we put racism in the mental illness box? (Fuck no, that was rhetorical). People do mention suicide as a means of manipulating people. It requires knowing the difference between a victim’s suffering, an abusers suffering, and the suffering of people using the social tools of abuse in how they interact with people. (Allies of victims will suffer too but this comment is focusing on looking for the behavior of social predators. However there will be overlap in places like use of force in affecting society.)
3) To deal with 1&2 one must be able to describe the mental illness objectively, explain why the person did the phenomena in that person’s words, and explain why you think that justifies diluting the discussion of the negative social effects of their behavior. Social vibe is a thing.
People who victimize others are going to feel bad when society turns the focus onto them. Make sure you are not aiding in the loud exclamations that bullies use when they want the attention somewhere else.
Ah! PZ edited the post. I am partially vindicated!
Argh, PZ, I wished you indicated that in the post.
But glad we could clear that up.
thelastholdout
It’s somewhat fallen into disuse, but it’s much better than using numbers as people usually don’t know what number their comment was and sometimes things get stuck in moderation which then changes numbers and so on.
Giliell
curtsy is Knicks
I’m not sure you mean that?
Did he really win a lawsuit against Starbucks? Or is that just what his attorney Clarence Darrow told him on the bus?
Delusions would be a new wrinkle for this guy.
soogeeoh #20
I read “curtsy” as a typo for “courtesy”.
What chigau said.
thelastholdout,
Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound like that was your position. I was just addressing the notion that since we don’t know what the Starbucks note said, it may not be bad.
To those rushing to dismiss this as mentally illness, please note that this kind of toxic masculinity and entitlement is a regular, everyday ordinary experience for many of the women you know. If this behaviour makes him mentally ill, then to some degree every man is mentally ill, and the term loses all meaning.
Misogyny. Learn to recognise it.
Not trying to diagnose, but this reads less like a specific mental illness, and more like someone going down something similar to a conspiracy theory rabbit hole.
I genuinely don’t believe that Lucas Werner won shit. This wouldn’t be the first time he’s “gloated” about getting something he didn’t.
I first heard about this creep on r/creepypms, days before the Starbucks story become public. Someone had posted a private message they got from him (though they edited out his username, most people connected the content of the message to Lucas Werner’s stuff, and the person who posted the message later confirmed it), and it was actually worse than this. He went into rather gross detail about telomerase.
After the Starbucks story hit the news, I did a little digging on the guy, and… yeah, he’s bragged about shit before that turned out not to be true. So… without evidence, I don’t think he’s won a damn thing.
I find this guy’s messages creepy regardless of the age, gender, job, or location of the recipient.
@25, CaitieCat, Harridan of Social Justice
What you wrote here implies that the terms misogyny, toxic masculinity, and entitlement lose all meaning as well :/
Is he really getting Millions ?.
I would think the question of wether to not he has mental problems would be immaterial to wether or not his conduct was appropriate. He could be a performance artist who thinks he’s harshly deconstructing toxic masculinity and his behavior would still be totally out of line. Nobody’s attempting to legitimize what he did, and I think pity is also out of the question.
It might have some moral bearing, but at the end of the day this is a stranger on the Internet we’re talking about. What he did is all that matters, the intentions are beside the point.
I’m not a psychologist, but I’m pretty sure having strange ideas isn’t itself considered mental illness, it only become illness if they make it difficult for you to function– like, for example, you start having run-ins with the police. Guys who are merely toxically masculine know how not to get caught and how to modulate their behavior so it fits into some socially acceptable trope, that’s the difference. That’s the difference between a nut and an asshole, an asshole is just a nut who knows just enough to keep from getting fired.
Brian Pansky, #29
Calling misogynistic ideas misogyny makes misogyny lose meaning?
What.
I guess the whole problem of misogyny is exactly when it’s considered acceptable. The fact that this guy or that is a misogynist to some extent isn’t a problem as much as that fact that society tolerates this behavior. Society doesn’t tolerate Spokane Crackpot, therefore he’s not the problem. Obvs this guy has issues with women but this doesn’t really represent a systemic or institutional problem. It’s the happy, well-adjusted and successful creeps that pose the real challenge to progress, not this guy.
That’s if you wanna see misogyny as a social problem, something that should be fixed but doesn’t pass moral judgements on anybody in particular; or it can be a personal vice, where we ARE passing moral judgements on people. They aren’t either or either.
@32, Saad
No, calling misogynistic ideas misogyny does not make misogyny lose meaning.
But, as I said, CatieCat’s written logic implicitly claims that it does.
Highly doubtful. Lucas Werner is not good looking or rich or powerful or intelligent or funny or in possession of an interesting talent. Sleeping with him will not confer any sort of prestige (just the opposite, actually). Sleeping with him won’t help anyone’s showbiz career. It would just make a person an object of ridicule. The only women likely to have sex with him would be at his own level, and he wouldn’t want them anyway.
re @25:
CatieCat, please correct me when I interpret you incorrectly. [I mean that sincerely]
I see @25 as saying misogyny is essentially ubiquitous among males, that most females experience daily and work to cope with it. That to call out one instance of it and label it “mental illness” is the incorrect reaction to it. The slymer under discussion is just showing excessive amounts of it, not out of illness, just exhibiting it with zero moderation that most “normal” men exhibit.
Catie’s logic is not turning ‘misogyny’ into a meaningless term, just identifying it as a more universal issue than just a case of toxic mental illness.
———-
that’s my interpretation, please correct it to your full meaning. I am sorry for trying to speak for you. Just sharing my interpretation looking to get corrected.
One way to know that the shithead is flat out lying about winning millions from Starbucks is that the US legal system just doesn’t move that fast.
@9, Saad:
I sure hope he had good intentions. The road to Hell has some serious potholes.
@12, john rockoford:
The electoral college elected him. We had no say in the matter.
@31, sigaba:
Getting caught doesn’t make you mentally ill.
Can people please stop using mental illness as a tool for othering people who do bad things? How do you think people with actual mental illnesses feel when the reaction to every creep, criminal, and bigot is to say: “Those are bad people who are not like us. They must be mentally ill.”
Feral children have shown far greater social skills and general sociability than that man has shown.
Ladies, gentlemen and others, I present to you the personification of why we removed mercury from thermometers.
Hey, look, the next attempt at not discussing misogyny.
@38 Jessie Harban
this right here I find very confusing and possibly irrational.
is this implying that people who suffer from mental illness do not do things that “society” deem are bad?
that does not seem very likely, or is it only actual mental illness sufferers do not do bad things and all others who do bad things are not actually suffering from mental illnesses (undefined).
Can it not be true that someone who is suffering from mental illness can also do things that society judges as being bad?
It sounds like it is some kind of either or situation that if you do things that are bad then you can not be mentally ill you must be guilty instead.
Or is it implied that what is meant by the term mental illness is that all sufferers of mental illness do bad things?
I am not sure that mental illness is so black and white either or. Looks like most things we find in nature it is a matter of degrees or variations . I think that to some degree we are all fit on the scale somewhere and very few are at either the extreme ends most fitting some where toward the middle and further our mental state fluctuates over time as well.
I am pretty sure that I did not get locked up in the houses for the insane because I kept my thoughts to myself more often than I spoke them out loud. So I have a hard time judging people good or bad because of their state of mental health and do not believe in evil at all seeing it as a judgement I am not capable of making.
uncle frogy
Fuck it, I no longer believe unclefrogy is responding in good faith, given the number of times they’ve had it explained.
Assuming mental illness any time someone does a bad thing is the norm in society. It’s factually incorrect, but it’s still the most common reaction any time some sort of tragedy or creep breaks in the news. Assuming mental illness just because someone did a bad thing hurts mentally ill people because it feeds into the idea that being mentally ill makes you a bad person.
I do not give any weight to the ” norm in society” as having any actual meaning I should take without question.
It was the norm in society to take the age of the earth to be at best a few thousand years and in some quarters it’s still viewed as true. Does that mean I should not bring up the subject ever cause it might hurt the feelings of believers?
there are any number of things that are or were the “norm in society” that could be used as examples.
Why take that question as being out of bounds or more generally why should any question be out of bounds.
What seems to be the problem has more to do with “the norms of society” than it does with me. Unless you think I am responsible for enforcing the norms of society?
uncle frogy
@35 — Hey Lindsay. Haven’t seen a post of yours since Amanda Marcotte left Pandagon for Salon. Agreed, there’s an I Don’t Want What I Can’t Get Syndrome among these guys. I have a childhood friend (a bit of a jerk) who was driving me home a couple of Springs ago. It was the first warm day of the year, late March or early April, and in Boston that means you see minis and tanktops for the first time since the previous September. I have no problem with a man driving in a car with me saying “oh my…..my oh my….”, or something along those lines. Holy cow. Ay caramba. The message is conveyed. A vision of loveliness is passing by. One is allowed to notice. But that’s not what he said. Nope. He said, referring to two young women crossing at the red light, “check out Tuna and Herps.” I realized right then and there that he would never so much as receive a kiss for the remainder of his life.
@38 – “Getting caught doesn’t make you mentally ill.”
I disagree. I agree that’s not what people aspire to, but in practice the poor, black cocaine addict with delusions is sent to prison psych ward, while the rich white one is made the President of the US.
Bankers are never fired for going bankrupt as long as they go bankrupt in a conventional way, and just so, a lot of mentally ill people are never considered ill, because their mental illness is correlated with conventional social markers for success: wealth, satisfaction, abuse of the “right” kinds of drugs, and abuse of the “right” kinds of people. This is why the US in particular is known for its crazy billionaires — Emperor Norton had delusions of grandeur and megalomania; Steve Jobs was “ambitious,” “restless,” and “driven.”
I mean is there anything in Lucas Werner’s oevre, on a biology level, nuttier than anything Linus Pauling ever suggested? And people still buy his vitamin C books. Of course Werner’s sexual attitudes are appalling but his beliefs about mating and biological essentialism aren’t any worse than anything than, say, Winston Churchill ever said when he was in his eugenics phase. And he’s the greatest Briton in history.
The whole point being people like Pauling and Churchill are the real problem, but the temptation exists to take the piss out of people like Werner instead, exactly because people like him are powerless and irrelevant. Thus:
@ Giliell- “Hey, look, the next attempt at not discussing misogyny.”
Hey look, another attempt to not talk about Milo Yiannopolous or Donald Trump. Because lets face it, they’re powerful, well funded and adroit at using the media to normalize hate. This guy isn’t though, he’s easy pickings. A scapegoat.
@Unclefrogy, lots of mentally ill people live scrupulously ethical lives. You can be perfectly sane and just be an awful person. For instance a mentally fit person might have internalized misogyny or racism, to name two accepted norms. Saying that mental illness is responsible for bad behavior isolates mentally ill people at the same time it gives everyone else a free pass they don’t deserve.
@unclefrogy
Good for you. Unfortunately, it’s a common belief that has real world effects regardless of whether you think it has “real meaning”.
This isn’t a matter of “hurt feelings”, it’s a matter of the mentally ill being discriminated against and abused because people think that mental illness is a synonym for “violent and dangerous”
Because it has negative real-world affects and adds nothing to the conversation in exchange.
As a member of society, yeah, you’re responsible for what ideas you support or proliferate.
@unclefrogy
It has to do with how average social interaction changes or is maintained in some form. Norms are a species neutral and it’s individual examples that matter. Norms just are in a general sense because we use norms in our social interactions. A primary social context here is social justice and to do that requires individual action meant to role-model and influence larger change.
The problem with the casual use of mental illness is the non-literal and dishonest uses are often the same. This does not mean that society does not take mental illness seriously, there should still be a social response to the damage that mental illness does. But I don’t have to pretend that someone referencing delusions in “delusional” isn’t applying a set of characteristics they have an obligation to outline. And I get mock someone that insists Elliot Rodger did it because of “mental illness” when they can’t define it and I can read about how armies treat the defeated or prisoners at various times in our history.
In my own way I think of it as “explanation instead of excuses”. Because it is natural society owes me the opportunity to make it a part of our interactions. Because it can cause a problem I am obligated to understand how it shapes me and make an effort to prevent excesses and deficiencies from becoming flaws (and removing flaws). I’m a socially predatory arrogant ass that gets personal in the right context. That set of instincts is illness when I do not have them under my control.
@sigaba
A scapegoat is a thing. How is excusing displacing blame occurring here? When everyone has some of the problem everyone can be criticized. I at least try to be prepared to have parts of all the big bigotries affecting me somewhere and I try to turn my critical lens on myself as harshly as I do other people.
But we don’t have to pretend that case studies and examples don’t come from elites and “regular people”. That’s part of the point of the problem being systemic. Individual blog posts such as this one are their own social contexts that attempt to push into the social flow. I act like I actually have an effect on social evolution. How is this post scapegoating anything?
I do not get how we should not allow the subject of mental illness to inter into the conservation because it has real world effects. What makes mental illness any different than other aspects or reality which have or still have very similar effects in the real world.
If it is OK to bring up racism or homophobia why is it not OK to bring up this subject.
Up until recently the common view the norms of society were very different on race and sexuality in general and homosexuality specifically and laws were very restrictive.
I do not know how I may have conveyed that I am in some way attempting to other anyone but that is not my intent far from it.
I see myself in different circumstances and a different experience. It is an identification with the common humanity we share and I see the judgmental reaction of people as othering. It is easy to write off those who have crossed some arbitrary line as some how less than.
uncle frogy
@unclefrogy
The subject of mental illness is allowed in a general sense. A problem is the diversity of things in general social spaces that get connected to mental illness. To me it’s bad strategy to bring up mental illness if I was not specifically sure about a case with broad social importance. It results in de facto othering (consider that the rates of mental illness are increasing, we are defining normal).
It does not seem relevant to this situation with the evidence we have right now. Any social reference to mental illness without a comparison to diagnostic criteria can be treated as a non-literalism. If someone feels intensely about the connection they can reasonably demand some features and be annoyed. The rest is just statistics and bumping into society.
@unclefrogy
Because the mentally ill are not more often violent than the rest of us. In fact, they are more likely than the rest of us to be victims of violence. They are more likely to be exploited – and blamed! Scapegoated. Bringing up mental illness when pervasive, destructive social norms are at fault does other the mentally ill, regardless of your intentions. You’re getting all this push back because many people will do anything, blame any
onegroup, rather than pull the social norms under the lens.I mean, it’s only been explained to you about a dozen times now, but again – the ideas you propagate and repeat have real world effects. Propagating ideas that support the assumption that “mentally ill people are violent and dangerous” lends more credence to that assumption.
Because mental illness doesn’t necessarily make one violent or take socially unacceptable actions, and playing internet psychiatrist adds nothing to the conversation. Unlike homophobia or racism, mental illness is an actual clinical concept that requires a good deal of specialized knowledge to correctly diagnose.
Saying “this person did a violent thing and is therefore probably mentally ill” is about the same kind of cringeworthy problematic assumption as “this person robbed a liquor store so they’re probably black” would be.
Talking about race isn’t bad, but that specific narrative is often made with no actual evidence and reinforces harmful stereotypes.
Re: Mental Illness
If there is clear evidence that someone is has a mental illness AND it is identified that that mental illness has some impact on their behavior THEN we can talk about it without it really being an issue.
The problem shows up when people presume that because someone has done something bad they must be mentally ill. This happens in the media, in conversation with people round the water cooler, and in online forums like this one.
But here is the thing: Diagnosing people is hard. I know people who have been trying to get a proper diagnosis for mental health issues out of health professionals for years and they STILL don’t have a final and clear answer to what it is that they’re dealing with on a daily basis. What makes you think that you can diagnose someone on the basis of their facebook posts?
I sometimes use “nice” to describe things like this. Excessive quantities of sarcasm may be involved.
*WHICH “mental illness”*
*WHICH “mental illness”*
*WHICH “mental illness”*
—
sorry
trying to *conjure* a diagnosis.
Mental illness can include things like severe phobias. Equating mental illness to bad behavior is basically saying agarophobics are also rapists.
Assholery is not in the DSM.
@rietpluim #58, I would say narcissistic personality disorder comes close. That said, one must of course appreciate that people affected by it are torn and conflicted and suffering, as well… which, I assume, everybody is to some extent. Even that asshole in the OP. I could be wrong. It doesn’t have any bearing on whether his conduct was appropriate or should be tolerated.
In fact, I was wondering if writing creepy notes like that in itself should have some form of justiciable implication.
Oh, look, another thread where we keep talking about “but I wanna call bad people mentally ill, stop talking about misogyny”.
Maybe this one time “don’t feed the troll” might be a good idea and we just agree to ignore unclefroggy, the Rosa Parks of all people who want to blame all bad things on mental illness*
*Yes, that’s his comparison. He’s not going to sit in the back of the bus and be quiet. What a martyr.
oh ffs, you people are so far off the farm with this mental health discussion it makes me wonder why I usually find the commentary here so insightful and valuable. You lot usually get things right, but in this case, and on mental health in general I find, you are blinded.
First of all, pointing out the guy’s obvious mental health issues is not “armchair psychiatry” any more than noticing that my coworker has slumped over at their desk unconscious and taking action, including the possible administering of CPR, makes me an armchair physician. There are clear markers that anyone with an ounce of sense can notice in the words and behavior of any given individual that could justify the safe assumption that the person needs help.
If you can’t look at the incoherent rantings of a homeless man and recognize that he is mentally ill, then you are probably mentally ill yourself. His behavior is destructive to himself and to those around him, a clear indication that he needs to be in the care of professionals.
Furthermore, refusing to acknowledge that he is clearly not well, and insisting that he is just a misogynist and represents all that is wrong with society makes you look like an idiot. The fact that you lot insist on taking his rantings seriously is embarrassing for you and makes it look like you have only one singular concern in the world and all others be damned.
*I don’t mean he should be laughed off or ignored, he certainly needs to be taken seriously as a threat to himself and those around him, I mean taking him seriously as a big bad misogynist or bothering to try and scientifically address his whacked out rants about telomeres or whatever. He is first and foremost mentally ill. Whatever else he is may or may not follow from that, but it really doesn’t matter.
It is quite possible that a person like this, once they receive the help they need, get proper treatment, be it meds, therapy, whatever, could recover from their illness and look back at their behavior and be just as horrified by it as you all are now.
And finally, mental illness can and does cause destructive behavior that is and can be traumatic to both the person with the illness and those that come into contact with them, but it’s a huge leap to think that acknowledging that paints everyone with mental health issues as destructive and caustic people. I don’t understand why you would think it does.
It goes without saying that there are plenty of good hearted and wonderful people who also happen to suffer from any broad range of mental health issues, myself included. However, even my own behavior due to mental health issues in the past has been incredibly destructive and traumatic to me and those around me. I’m not proud of it and I take ownership of it, but today I am able to look back at it and know that during the throws of it, during the worst of it, I had no ability to control it myself. It took help, a lot of help and years of it, from everybody close to me including my doctors.
I’m not excusing the guy’s behavior, it is creepy and he should be shunned and reprimanded for it, but he should also be being told to get help. His mental health issues should be recognized for what they are.
The fact that he clearly is not well should be enough to make anyone with an ounce of empathy and experience with mental health issues know that this vitriolic witch hunt is useless and makes you look silly. You look like bullies picking on the weak. I won’t say harmless, clearly he’s not harmless and his potential to do more harm should not be ignored, but berating and publicly shaming him isn’t going to change it. Mocking him isn’t going to change it. The only thing that will change it is therapy, and lots of it, possibly with medication.
He may be a lost cause who needs to be permanently institutionalized, but he definitely shouldn’t be painted as your typical run of the mill misogynist that we all can agree needs to be confronted at every turn and opportunity.
tl;dr Recognizing this guy isn’t in complete control of his own incoherent thinking does not mean we approve of everyday misogyny, nor does it say anything at all about mental health in general or those that suffer from it.
Da fuck is wrong with you people? Pull your heads out.
@erikthebassist – Some major twentieth-century ideologies thought some people’s mental health issues were obvious.
Now go fuck yourself.
@erikthebassist, did you even bother to read the comments under this and the previous topic about this creep? Because you 1) are partly opposing to strawmen that nobody actually stated the way you present them 2) subsequently fail to refute many arguments that were postulated, some of them multiple times, by different people, using different angles of approach.
The same goes for unclefrogy. Read and try understand what is said, not what you think people think.
For the last time (from me) – whether this guy is or is not mentally ill is irrelevant to the issue at hand and it does not explain his behaviour in full. It could at the most explain some little part of it, and that little part can be exlained by his mysoginy and assholism as well, so bar more evidence mental illness needs not be brought into the discussion, because it is superfluous. To say that he is “obviously ill” is just falling prey to the old trope that extreme behavour equates mental illness. This is demonstrably false, perfectly healhty people …. I refuse to repeat what has already been said x-times over just lat few days, do your homework and READ what people actually WROTE.
____________________
I have a friend from childhood who is just like this guy in many regards, only less extreme – he finds all kinds of pseudoscientific and new age rationalizations for his creepy and predatory behaviour towards women. Like for his being unfaithfull to his wife and sleeping around (“men evolved to have harems”, “he needs to charge his chakras with positive energy”)*, for his hitting on women to whom he is in a position of power despite knowing that doing so is morally wrong (“he has needs and cannot help it”). He even expressed a very peculiar homophobic, mysoginistic and idiotic idea at the same time – he said he would be sorry if his son would turn out to be gay, because then he could not teach him how to pick up women.* And PUA is the only thing he is good at.*
As far as I can tell, he might be attractive and charming when dealing with women, so he succeeds a lot. Although it might be just a statistical fluke and it might just be a result of the sheer amounts of women he tries to seduce. Sometimes I get the feeling that his recipe for success is to essentially harasss hunderd women a year in order to get five of them into bed and he thinks this is some incredible skill he has and I should try it too.* And he refuses to acknowledge that I might feel lonely, but I do not have and never have had the slightest desire to harass every woman who smiles on me in order to try and stick my dick in her.* I want a partner, not a fucktoy.
Is he mentally ill too just to a lesser degree? What illness does he suffer from? How do you diagnose it? There are a lot of men who actually envy him and idolize him as a great achiever – and maybe many women too, because women whom he wronged** are unlikely to speak up and women who were attracted to him from the start of course will not complain about his advances.
* I told him he is an idiot and an asshole at that, in no uncertain terms. I did not see him since our last meeting, when I told this to him multiple times because I got fed up with trying to reason with him. I do not miss him either tbh.
** As in slept with without being clear about it being only for the fun and not as a partnership obligation. I do not have a reason to suspect any worse wrongdoing, at least. But if some woman accused him of rape, I would have no qualms about believing her over him.
erikthebassist, #61
Wow, it’s not even “he probably has a mental illness” anymore.
Also, go fuck yourself.
ericthebassist
Sometimes it takes years to build up respect, but only one sentence to tear it all down.
+++
It’S funny how the proponents of “it’s mental illness talking” (pay no attention to the misogyny behind the curtain) never even consider the idea that if he’s mentally ill* it may actually be his misogyny that is bad for his mental health and not the other way around.
Believe it or not, many (not all) mental health issues can be directly influenced by our own behaviour.
*which is actually very rarely co-dependent on assholery but quite often independent.
*Being mentally unwell and mentally ill are two different pairs of shoes as well, of course.
I’ve go more questions!
1. We know that Werner’s been around with that crap for a while, getting more extreme over time. Was it always a mental illness and if not, when did it become one?
2. What about all the people back then who weren’t bothered about it? Were they, too, too mentally ill to see it?
3. He’s getting lots of support now, even sympathetic news articles. Are all those people mentally ill as well?
erikthebassist @ 61
You’re operating on the assumption that behavior, thought processes, and manners of speech colloquially associated with mental illness are automatically signs someone needs help. You’re operating on the assumption that odd behavior automatically equals the need for medical intervention. You’re operating on the assumption that because an ableist society has associated “odd” behavior with mental illness that “odd” behavior is actually mental illness.
Yes, reading the notes from this fellow did remind me of the letters my paranoid schizophrenic father wrote. Odd turns of phrase and strange logic do show up in the writings of people suffering from certain mental illnesses. But you know what the actual content reminded me of? The writing of a whole lot of straight, cis white men entrenched in toxic masculinity. Of which Lucas Werner is one. And, gosh, there are a shit ton more of those than paranoid schizophrenics. And it’s much easier to identify a straight, cis white man entrenched in toxic masculinity than it is a paranoid schizophrenic I’ve never met. I don’t even need a degree in psychology to spot them, nor does it take years of effort and fighting for a diagnosis to be certain that this is what someone is.
One of my psychology professors once told me this fantastic story about how, when she was in graduate school, she began hallucinating voices. She could hear them in the ceiling above her and would catch sight of movement out of the corner of her eyes. This was deeply upsetting to her, but as someone actually educated in the field, she realized what was going on and took care of herself. Do you know what the problem was? She was sleep-deprived. Incoherent rantings, hallucinations, irrational beliefs, antisocial behavior, and more can all be signs of mental illness… or they can be signs of a physical health problem or stress or internalized societal beliefs. She was adamant that all other potential causes be ruled out first, because people would not be helped by having the treatment for a mental illness when what was really wrong was a brain tumor or a patriarchal belief system.
Myself, I suffer from several mental illnesses. PTSD, OCD, anxiety, occasional depressive episodes. I have also been an asshole and will likely be an asshole in the future. I’ve internalized shitty biases, just like everyone else in society. Even assuming Lucas Werner has a mental illness–which is a huge fucking assumption–it’s irrelevant. We should be called out when we perpetuate bad stuff. Any illnesses we may or may not suffer from have jack shit to do with the actual belief systems we’ve grown up with.
Somehow, being told when I’m wrong here on Pharyngula allowed me to reflect and learn, but I’m not a straight white cis man so I guess I don’t need all that sympathy and coddling our society has decided any straight white cis man who does something terrible and is thus declared “crazy” needs. Gosh.
@Brony @49
“A scapegoat is a thing. How is excusing displacing blame occurring here?”
Let me put it this way — I don’t think people talking about “mental illness” here are trying to take attention away from misogyny, or that writing of Werner is a way of whitewashing toxic masculinity as a social problem. That was the point @Giliel’s was trying to make. However some people could see it that way.
By the same turn some people could say that heaping scorn on such a marginal person as this guy, who’s clearly run afoul of the police and who even the douchiest Republican asshole wouldn’t defend, is cruel and unnecessary. And on top of that, it doesn’t actually do anything to understand, let alone stop misogyny. It’s just a Two Minutes Hate. Some people could see it that way.
I don’t see it as displacing, but I do think it’s counterproductive and it might paint social activism as petty and inhumane to an impressionable reader, and that all for nothing. The lone nuts who the cops are keeping an eye on aren’t the people we need to deal with, we could take every one of them on Earth and put them on a rocket to Mars and it wouldn’t do a thing for the cause of feminism or social justice.
(For the record I take no position on his mental condition. On social media, “mental illness,” “poor communication skills” and “performance art” all basically look the same.)
“Obvious signs of mental illness” is generally an oxymoron. There’s a reason why it requires specialized education and training to correctly diagnose a mental illness – many of the current diagnoses cannot be applied based off of surface-level factors and many clinical diagnoses include actions that society considers normal.
Playing armchair diagnosis and guessing off of surface level actions is no less ableist and poorly-founded an assumption than seeing the headline “Young man robs liquor store” and assuming that the young man must be black.
Unless you are A. A trained mental health professional and B. Have engaged in formal analysis with the person in question, you lack the necessary qualifications to make a diagnosis and are, at best, guessing.
TIt’s actually a pretty common experience for people to be surprised with their diagnosis, because while they did have a pattern of cognition that was causing duress, it manifested in ways that were not incredibly out of the norm.
A lot of people with attention deficit problems, depression, or anxiety problems don’t generally ping as being mentally ill even to themselves because a lot of the symptoms are easy to rationalize as normal behavior.
To be honest, a lot of this reminds me of the tendency for psych undergrads to try and play armchair therapist to their friends and online, except in this case, you’re probably less qualified than they are.
To everyone that disagreed with me, except reitplum who can likewise go fuck themself, don’t accuse me of failing to read and then turn around and ignore everything I wrote.
You can not hide the OBVIOUS fact that this guy is not well behind some bullshit claim that a proper diagnosis is required before we can acknowledge that the guy is sick in the head.
Again, if you are at work and your co-worker suddenly slumps over at their desk and loses consciousness, are you going to go about your business and assume everything is ok because you aren’t a doctor and therefor have no ability to assess that there is a problem? Don’t be a fucking idiot.
I’ve watched Vivec keep saying the same stupid fucking thing over and over and getting mad that neither myself or froggy or some others in this forum are going to accept his bullshit proposition that absent a PHD in psychology we have no business commenting on LW’s obvious lack of ability to act in any sort of normal or socially acceptable way.
The guy OBSESSIVELY blogs about completely incoherent claims of telomeres and other seriously whacked ideas. He makes no sense, he rambles. There is no continuity, he has no ability to asses or see his own words or actions through another person’s eyes, he is completely unaware that his behavior is abhorrent. He can’t manage being a customer in a restaurant much less hold a job and you still have doubts about his mental stability?
You don’t need a degree in clinical psychology to recognize that anymore than you need to be a neurologist to know something is wrong when someone drops to the ground and starts convulsing.
You don’t get to point to a crazy homeless guy as evidence of ubiquitous misogyny in our culture, especially when there are so many real examples of it perpetrated by seemingly otherwise ‘normal’ people.
Just because you want to be angry at someone and play this weird variation on the conservative “personal responsibility” meme because this guy violates your particular bugaboo doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t allowed to state the obvious.
PZ and the rest of you look like moronic bullies for railing against this guy. It’s exactly this kind of denialism that leads to mental health stigmas and makes it more difficult for those who need help to get it. You can keep insisting until you are blue in the face that his obvious mental illness and his abhorrent views of women aren’t connected, and I’m going to keep replying that it doesn’t matter because until the guy gets help, he’s going to continue to be socially disconnected from reality and is going to continue to spout pure nonsense to anyone who will listen. Ironically, you’re feeding the fire by blogging and commenting about him.
So go ahead Vivec and continue to insist that most mentally ill people don’t exhibit outward signs they are sick, I know that you fucking tool. No one knew I was about to try and off myself when I did, but what does that have to do with a situation where someone IS CLEARLY exhibiting outward signs that they are in need of professional mental health?
Oh that’s right, the only possible sources of evil in the world in your limited imagination have to be either religion or toxic masculinity, mental health is never part of the picture unless a clinical diagnosis is delivered by a competent and credentialed professional right? Fuck off with BS.
Because there’s no possible way that “I know it when I see it” could possibly go wrong as a diagnosis standard, especially in a state run by a proto-fascist. Super choice.
I’ve said it all of, what, twice ever? Dramatic much?
Regardless, if you’d like to practice unlicensed psychiatry, be my guest, but don’t expect anyone to take your armchair diagnoses with anything but scorn and mockery.
No one is making a diagnosis CatieCat, I’m using basic logic and reason to make an assumption, for good reasons. I didn’t say EXACTLY what his diagnosis is. I don’t know if it’s BPD or Schizophrenia or any number of other possibilities, all I know is that he is clearly and obviously not well, and everything he says and does confirms this simple observable fact, and should be viewed in light of it. Talk about straw men, I never once claimed to be offering a diagnosis, no more than I would diagnose the person having convulsions in front of me, because I’m not a doctor, but I can still easily tell something is wrong. The fact that many here can not is flabbergasting.
If he makes threats against himself or others he should be placed in a hospital for observation for as long as is legally allowable. Until then, the only reasonable response to him should be “You need help, please see a professional as soon as possible. If you need help finding resources I can give you some places to go”.
“You’re a vile fucker” doesn’t do any good and makes you lot look like a bunch of heartless douchebags who like to pick on the easy prey.
erikthebassist, #73
Why have you assumed it’s a lack of ability?
And why does him acting in a way that isn’t socially acceptable mean he is mentally ill?
@77
Because people loathe losing a weapon to punish anyone who varies from social norms, as well as a tool to divert discussion away from actually talking about toxic masculinity.
Vivec, you want to talk about toxic masculinity? I’ll talk about it all day. I loathe it as well. I have no interest in covering it up or denying it’s existence. It’s very prevalent and I call guys that I know out on it often.
That’s got nothing to do with my problem with the general gist of this post or many of the comments below it.
Saad, He’s homeless and can’t even have a meal without getting bounced out of the restaurant, all because of is whacked views and inability to keep them to himself. He is classically dysfunctional. By definition he is suffering from some sort of disorder, otherwise he would learn to keep his repugnant views to himself as to avoid being homeless and unwelcome at local businesses. Wouldn’t you classify that as a disability?
So you’ll call a spade a spade, except for this specific spade that is just a little too rusty for your liking? Baller.
If we’re going to call every bigot or misogynist that suffers socially because of their bigotry mentally ill, the term is useless and the definition needs refining. Doing socially unacceptable actions to the point of having a negative impact on your life is not blatant evidence of mental illness. Stupid bigots exist.
Vivec – his mental illness is not an excuse for his repulsive views or comments. He’s still an asshole and a douchebag, and yes, exhibits toxic masculinity which yes, is a problem in our culture. My problem isn’t the fact that people are calling him out for that. My problem is that he is one of millions of men with similar views about women, in some respects, and the fact that he is unable to keep his views to himself even to his own detriment is due to his mental illness, and so he doesn’t deserve the over hyped scorn he’s getting, as compared to all those Nice Guys™ out there who fly under the radar.
It’s sad he has these views, these views make him a terrible person, picking someone like him as your effigy to burn for the sake of all women oppressed by that type of masculinity just doesn’t look very good for PZ or this website.
Let’s talk about Trump and his cronies and their toxic masculinity, not some sad sack homeless guy with obvious mental issues. This loser should be left alone and out of the discussion. His own community can deal with him and keep him at arms length and hopefully get him in treatment before he hurts somebody in a rage.
Beside the fact that I’m very averse to internet vigilantism. Very rarely do I think it’s a good idea for the internet to gang up on someone or ridicule people, unless they are people in positions of power or notoriety to begin with. Some exceptions might be the football players there in PZ’s home town or similarly vile criminals, but this guy isn’t a criminal yet that we know of. There’s got to be a line somewhere.
Repeatedly calling them “obvious mental issues” does not make them so, and even if he did have a metnal illness, you’re not qualified to make that determination.
If there’s a line, “creepy misogynist guy who can’t stop himself from hitting on underage girls” is well on the acceptable target side of it.
Vivec, whatever hangup you have with recognizing the obvious is yours. I don’t share it. It couldn’t be more obvious from a visit to his facebook page and blog that he’s not thinking coherently and has lost touch with reality. You sound like a broken record, which forces me to be one, which I hate.
So again, I ask the question: Your co-worker is experiencing the obvious signs of some sort of major medical malady, are you going to stand there and say “Well I don’t know, I’m no doctor so maybe he’s fine?” or are you going to call fucking 911?
Analogy dismissed, false equivalency. That medical symptoms can be easy to tell from sight doesn’t mean that mental illnesses can be.
i find it utterly bizarre how men (and it is always men) need to explain everyday misogyny as everything but everyday misogyny. Mental illness! Poor lad has absorbed so many toxic messages he can’t help acting out. :( Internet vigilantes!!
I also have a few conditions that qualify as mental illnesses, yet I somehow manage not to fixate on abusing teenage boys sexually, or spend my days stalking them and then discussing it on FB. If I did that, I would probably be arrested for harassment and trespassing buy the second incident.
This dude gets complete strangers (men) defending his mental health, minimizing his predatory behavior, and claiming he can’t help himself. What about the stalky, rapey menz!!
I say they should get jailed, and then maybe there would be fewer stalky, rapey men going around making the world a rapey place for women.
The line is over there, trompled underneath a cheeto who can grab anyone he wants by the pussy, so please spare me the poor menz routine for a godsdamned serial sexual harasser of teenage girls, whatever his mental state may be.
Personally, I like the assertion that acknowledging him being mentally ill doesn’t make him free from criticism, while simultaneously asserting that we should stop picking on him.
I thought I’d come back in since this discussion is still going.
Dude’s mentally ill. Sure. However, I’ve known plenty of mentally ill people, including schizophrenics like Lucas supposedly is.
Guess what? Mental illness doesn’t make you have odious views. Odious views come separately.
For instance, three schizophrenics I know come to mind.
The first was a lady who insisted that she could cast out demons.
The second was an older man who thought that the government had implanted a listening device in his cheek that also doubled as a torture device.
The third was a middle aged white guy who was insistent that he was being stalked by “the hate group known as Black Lives Matter.”
I’ve also seen people claim he’s autistic, therefore his behavior.
I had two autistic co-workers at the same time once.
One had anxiety issues but was completely harmless. He was a nice guy, married, etc.
The other was a total creepazoid who followed a 14 year old girl and asked her to stand on his toes so he could look at her teeth.
He also had a foot fetish and obsessed over the female co-workers’ feet.
Autism and mental illness aren’t what makes Lucas Werner a creep. They may compound the issue, but they are not the cause. Lucas Werner is a terrible individual, and treatment of his mental illness won’t make his disgusting behavior and attitudes toward women go away.
Let me see if I can dumb this down for you then…
When PZ uses the power of his blog to go after a clearly (to anyone with a brain in their head regardless of training in psychology) mentally ill, homeless loser because he’s creepy and fixated on young women, it does not look good for PZ, or the contributors in the comments here. It makes it look like you enjoy going after the weak and the helpless, like you enjoy punching down.
There are plenty of valid targets for your well justified anger. I’m angry too god damn it! I’m fucking tired of the bullshit racism and sexism from the alt right, aka around these parts as the national wing of the slymepit. But your anger is blinding you to the fact that not every case of misogynistic and abusive behavior is necessarily within the control of the abuser, and that sometimes, even when someone is a shitstain, the morally correct position is to feel bad for them instead of be angry at them.
That’s called taking the high road and turning the other cheek. Sometimes, doing that wins you more friends in the long run and puts more empathetic eyes and ears on your cause.
At the end of the day, I don’t give a fuck what ya ‘all do. I can walk away and keep my mouth shut and just try and stick to the worthwhile stuff on the blog. PZ absolutely gets me excited and riled up in a good way when he talks about politics. When he posts about religion I’ve heard most of it before, and some of the deeper biology stuff loses me, but I appreciate that he takes the time to write it, I’m sure many find it fascinating, but when he starts publishing emails from people with the obvious intent of laughing at their ignorance or loose grasp of reality or goes after some sad sack like this guy who’s own existence is probably a living hell because he’s rejected at every turn and probably has been his whole life, then yeah, I just shake my head and wonder why.
Lucas Werner is not helpless.
Lucas Werner is not a victim.
He is a predator and the women he harasses are the victims.
Even if he was mentally ill, which no body is currently qualified to discern, he is still a valid target for being a disgusting creep and his supposed illness would not make him any less of a valid target for scorn or criticism.
If taking the high road means being tolerant of bigots and misogynists, fuck the high road.
thelastholdout – I absolutely agree with everything you just said.
I knew a keyboardist years ago here in my home town. He was brilliant. If he’d ever heard the song in his life he could instantly play it note for note, every time, without fail. I played a few gigs with him, but the problem he had was that he was also extremely autistic and would go around groping women if you didn’t keep an eye on him, so if you really needed a keyboard player and felt like babysitting him all night long to keep him in line, you couldn’t go wrong because you could call any popular song and know that he was going to know it and play it flawlessly.
Needless to say, he didn’t get much work. I have no idea what happened to him. The point is, that the guy had a gift like I’ve never seen, while simultaneously being the worst kind of creep.
What do you do with that? Do we dismiss his humanity because he had no impulse control? Do we ignore the gift, or at least not wonder about the human mind and the way it works as a result? Do we not have empathy for those who aren’t able to function or process information the same way we do, but who may just be forging new pathways in the brain leading to even greater future discovery and understanding? (That’s a bit of a non sequitor at first glance I know, but I believe almost religiously that music and art do open up pathways to discovery and a deeper understanding, but that could be a whole other big discussion I won’t start here)
There is a part of the brain that handles impulse control. It can be damaged or be cut off from other parts of the brain. It applies both to motor function and verbal function. You can see it at it’s worst with tourettes. How well it functions probably has a lot to do with every aspect of our lives from addiction to relationships to everyday decision making.
For the vast majority of people, it functions well enough to keep them out of major trouble, but for many many others it’s a deficit, in a big way. This guy clearly has no impulse control, so compulsions are pretty much impossible to resist. He probably knows damn well that leaving the note for the 16 year old waitress was wrong and was not going to be received well, in between the threads of thought going through his brain anyways.
But a moment later he’s probably justified his action in some leap of mental gymnastics that would leave Carrie Strugg amazed, and he fucking does it anyways.
If any one is wondering, that’s me every time I light up a cigarette or go play poker at the casino. I’ve managed to channel my compulsions in to things that are least only damaging to me directly. That’s how I live with myself.
Sometimes, shitty people are just that shitty people, but not always. Sometimes there is something very redeeming or at least interesting about them aside from their vileness.
oh shit, rereading and leaving it the way I did makes it sound like lucas warner has any redeeming qualtities, he doesn’t, not that I can see.
I agree he’s not a victim and that he is a predator, but I don’t understand why no one here seems to be able to direct pity and scorn at the same object, at the same time.
I guess that’s the disconnect. I don’t give a fuck how autistic someone is if they sexually harass a woman. If I’m there I’m shutting that shit down. I think he should be picked up and held on observation immediately, and from there I don’t think it would be a stretch to have him institutionalized. I think he should be removed from society for now, he’s earned a time out.
But I can still feel sorry for him. There’s still a part of me that doesn’t find glee in his humiliation.
Funny, but my questions remain unanswered:
I even got more!
Trump himself claims that he cannot help himself grabbing women by their genitals. He also displays very poor self-evaluation and acts completely out of social norms. Should we just assume he’s mentally ill and stop picking on him?
+++
Funny how “is a serial sexual assaulter and a danger to each and any woman in his vicinity” is still somewhat OK when he’s also a brilliant keyboard player and how we also need to pity him because reasons while not spending any single second on the many women he assaulted and terrified.
No, you’s lecture the person who does. You’ve amply demonstrated that you’re no ally to women but to sexual harassers and assaulters.
“I know it when I see it” oh my, why the hell do we bother with all that difficult diagonstic stuff that psychologists and psychiatrists use trying to to determine whether this or that guy who killed/raped/stalked/cripled with acid women is mentally ill and after that spend evern more time trying to discern whether he is responsible for his actions if he is. We have ericthebassist who can just look at what any such individual did and he sees the guy is obviously is mentally ill, and a the same time obviously responsible (or not), because this one guy reminds him of that other guy he met over there. The professionals should still find diagnosis, but obviously there is one to be found, ericthebassist knows!
Never mind all those healthy people who do extremely bad things, sometimes en masse. Never mind all those mentally ill people who never harm anyone or gradually learn how not to harm anyone. Never mind that those mentally ill people who really do something bad because they cannot help it are extremely difficult to discertaing even for professionals due to the existence of previous two groups.
Saying “I am not diagnosing” and “he is obviously mentally ill” subsequently is, frankly, insolence in the face of logic.
I would agree the guy is not mentally well. But not being mentally well does not equal mentally ill. Using those two phrases interchangeably is commiting equivocation. I would also agree that he needs help, but the kind of help he needs is not easy to discern. And his victims (actual and potential), need help more.
_________________________
On multiple occasions people brought material to my lab for analysis due to suspicion on it being damaged or improperly manufactured. In one case a rather arrogant coworker insisted that the material is obviously deficient and reacted with derision when my analysis showed nothing. I later learned that subsequently it was found he set one of the parameters on the press wrong and that is why the process did not work. But he was so invested in being right all the time, and so invested in hating that pesky lab foreman, that he refused to first check his own work before trying to pin the blame on someone/something else. Somethimes people do that, they fall in love so strongly with their pet theories that they refuse to budge even when faced with empirical evidence to the contrary.
Anyone who thinks mental illness maps well to actual medical comparisons really, really doesn’t get how it works.
Plenty of normal behaviors can be symptomatic of a mental illness depending on the frequency/context of when they happen.
Plenty of abnormal behaviors can fail to qualify as a symptom if they do not occur in certain ways or are not deleterious to the person’s health.
Diagnoses of mental illness are complex and necessarily demand in-depth investigation and analysis. While, sure, there are some mental illnesses that are more blatant as others, it’s not as easy as looking at a person having a seizure and going “they’re probably sick”
It’s funny how this “no impulse control” only ever manifests in access to women’s bodies. Did he go around and simply take food off people ‘s plates? Did he just use your phone because you’d placed it on the table? Yell loudly during a performance? Throw his rubbish on the floor? Spit on the table? Sneeze into people’s faces? Push people violently out of his way?
Apparently that guy had plenty of impulse control. He just chose not to exercise it when it allowed him to assault women and then get excused by a million concerned dudes.
If the man walked around with a duck on his head whilst mumbling “buggerit, milleniumhandanshrimp, I told them so, them spying on me with those rays!”, we could at best be saying that he might be mentally ill with higher probability than some random person. But someone expressing absurd pseudoscientific views in an self-reinforcing loop of a bias-confirming circle-jerk? Not enough for even that. Definitively not enough to say he is “obviously mentally ill”.
Or are skinheads also mentally ill? They too use pseudo science to reinforce their ideas that Roma people are genetcially inferior and therefore violence towards them is justified… etc.etc. ad infinitum.
________________
To expand why “not mentally well” and “mentally ill” are not interchangeable terms:
When our closed ones die, we are sad and not mentally well. When we get tired or suffer from sleep deprivation to the point we cannot think straigth and talk coherently, we are not menally well. When we get angry and unnecessarily explode towards an inocent person due to a long pile up of little frustrations over the course of several days, we are not mentally well. When we get uneasy and anxious because we think we screwed up,we are not mentally well.
But that does not mean we are mentally ill. And at the same time, all those things can be symptoms of mental ilness – depression, incoherence, angry outbursts, self doubt, anxiety.
Charly
…I’d breathe through my mouth and ask if we could take a selfie together.
Of course, next to a fantasy con that might not be necessary at all, which demonstrates again that those “out f the norm” behaviours absolutely depend on context.
Giliell, I don’t respond to your questions because you’re an idiot who’s only goal is to set up strawmen, when you aren’t putting words in someone’s mouth or making assumptions. so you’re not worth my time.
As an example:
Who the fuck ever said that was the only thing he did was grope women? You never knew what crazy or offensive thing he was going to do next. I never really saw him do any of that because on the few gigs I did with him (I didn’t hire him nor was I wasn’t responsible for him) he was kept in a back room away from the patrons of the establishment until it was time to go on stage.
No one excused his groping, they prevented him from doing it. And again, he didn’t get much work, for those very reasons.
You see Giliell, you’re the type of idiot that reads in to what people say what ever it is you wish to be true, you assume the worst and are looking for reasons that everyone you talk to is a big bad meany misogynist, so I’m not going to engage with you because again, you’re an idiot.
Vivec and Charly,
Broken records again, and again, I’m going to repeat myself because your steel traps for brains are going to force me to:
When someone is homeless, can’t hold a job, hell can’t even be allowed in a restaurant because of his offensive behavior, that behavior is so deleterious to his well being that he can’t function in society, he is by definition, mentally ill.
You can keep stating that no one ever can make a statement about the state of someone’s sanity unless they are a doctor, and I’ll keep telling you you’re wrong. There are miles between recognizing that someone has obvious issues and making a diagnosis.
Vivec, I’m having a hard time understanding why you can’t comprehend the use of analogy. It’s a common thing, to use analogies. They almost never map perfectly, but they are often used in normal conversation to illustrate a point. I could have said I don’t need to be a mechanic to know there is something wrong with my car when it won’t start. I might have some theories about why it won’t start, but it would take a mechanic to know for sure and fix it, but I still know there is something wrong with the fucking car.
I can observe someone’s words or actions and know there is something off about them. You can’t, oh well. I feel sorry for you. You must get bogged down in some awful situations because you don’t seem to be able to recognize when you are dealing with someone who is mentally ill.
I have been mentally ill and gotten better. I have dealt with others in my life who have been ill and gotten better. I know when they aren’t well, because I can tell by their words and actions. I have personally driven my best friend to the hospital and convinced him to get help because I could tell he was not well, off his meds. I also watched another very close friend descend in to madness. What started out as eccentric and quirky behavior become more and more deleterious to her social life, over a period of years, until she was no longer able to function and had to be permanently institutionalized.
I watched another best friend go from completely normal to a raging bi-polar episode that ended in his suicide when I was in my 20’s. We tried to get him help but it was too late, but everyone close to him knew something was seriously wrong. So don’t fucking tell me that normal, non-experts can not look at and ascertain to some level of certainty that someone is mentally ill.
You’re fucking wrong.
You are not looking at this man from up close, you are looking at one tiny snipet of his behaviour. Behaviour he shares with many other men, many of whom are even married, with children, with jobs. We do not know why he is homeless (at least I do not remember seeing anywhere that it is causaly connected with his creepiness). The only deletrious thing that we know for sure is connected with his creepines is his ban from restaurant.
Guess what – in many cultures that ban would not have happened. It is not an objective diagnostic criterium for mental illness. It is a cultural response to arbitrary line in the sand he crossed.
You see broken record in me, I see broken record in you. No matter how many anecdotes you thow at me, your anecdotes are not data and do not make you qualified to make diagnosis over the internet. Your anecdotes would be only pertinent, if the underlined data.
Do you have data showing that creeps are overwhelmingly mentally ill?
Charly, did I say creeps are overwhelmingly mentally ill? No, not once. Many, probably most creeps, I have no idea really, are probably not mentally ill. If I had to guess, I wouldn’t be surprised if among the “creep” population, the numbers are about the same as in the “non-creep” population.
Again, his mental illness is not an excuse for his creepiness. I never said it was. His predilection for pseudo-science is not what makes me believe he’s sick, or his misogyny. What leads me to believe he’s sick is his obvious obsession and compulsive behavior. Obsessive, compulsive behavior… Look at his website, do you think those rants are coming from someone who is in any way in touch with reality? His youtube channel, video after video of incoherent rants. He rambles, he can’t stay on a train of thought. He constantly comes back to this telomere / ageist idea that doesn’t make any sense.
I have OCD, I know the signs. It’s plain as day that this guy is at least OC, probably paranoid, certainly delusional.
The bottom line is that you lot can not possibly concede the fact that he’s clearly off his rocker, because if you do, it makes you look silly to be up in arms about a homeless crazy guy.
Whatever else he is, misogynist, creep, he’s also nuts, so you taking him seriously and streisanding him makes you look nuts too.
They can’t, you’re wrong, and repeatedly asserting your bullshit analogies doesn’t make them valid.
That you can guess and sometimes hit the mark doesn’t make you qualified to suppose who is or isn’t mentally ill. Unless you have the specialized training and have engaged in formal analysis with him, you are unqualified.
I’m sorry that your armchair psychology doesn’t have any weight, but don’t blame the functioning of reality on me.
So now you are inclined to name a specific diagnosis. Do you even realize that you are shifting goalposts?
I wrote a longer answer and deleted it.
Just yesterday my colleague said about Nazis that they are “sick in the head” and I am exhausted explaining basic principles of ableism and jumping to conclusions for today.
Also, even if he is a “crazy homeless guy”, he’s a crazy homeless guy that actively harasses women, and that alone makes him worthy of scorn and criticism. Sparing him from criticism because he’s mentally ill and is facing the consequences of his disgusting behavior and beliefs is a dumb reason to stop criticizing someone.
Vivec see #105. While the rest of the world worries about the real threats out there, creepy misogynist men in positions of power, namely our fucking president elect and his cronies, you can continue to obsess over some crazy homeless git if you wish. I think you are wasting your time and energy, as am I at this point so this is the last I have to say on the subject.
Citation mother fucking needed. You have a problem, not us.
As to your alleged diagnosis, please show me your credentials to make that conclusion, and the interview notes used to make you used to reach your conclusion. Otherwise, what you have is uniformed and probably wrong opinion versus expert opinion required for me to accept the diagnosis of mental illness. You are no expert. Quit pretending your are. You don’t even play one on TV. It isn’t anywhere near as obvious as you pretend.
I know I can’t make such a diagnosis, so I don’t even try. That makes me either smarter, or more humble, or both, than you.
Because posting comments on a blog takes so much energy, right? I’m just exhausted, taking like thirty seconds out of my life to write posts. God knows, I can’t do anything else while doing this.
Not to mention that by this point my criticizing Trump and his cronies is like throwing ice cubes in the ocean. It doesn’t add much.
ericthebassist, nobody here is obsessing about the guy. If people like you did not bring unfounded diagnoses of mental illness into the discussions, we would be pretty much done with him very quickly.
@Vivec #111, internet discussions can be exhausting. You do not know the whole life context in which the other person replies to you. I think this one remark of yours is wrong.
@113
I know for a certain that I’m not exhausted by it, and was responding to a comment specifically targeted by me. So I don’t see how your objection is really relevant?
Vivec@88-
“Personally, I like the assertion that acknowledging him being mentally ill doesn’t make him free from criticism, while simultaneously asserting that we should stop picking on him.”
You should like it, it’s completely reasonable! You’re totally feel free to call this guy a bad person, just know that this probably won’t change anything, he can’t hear you and wouldn’t care about your opinion besides, and your act of ridicule is little more than a form of entertainment for yourself.
@Vivec #114 I reread the conversation. I misunderstood what was being said.
@115
That’s not the argument being made.
They’re arguing that it’s immoral to “pick on” said creepy misogynist, and that it would somehow be more constructive to pick on Trump and his cronies, who are equally in the “won’t hear me and wouldn’t care” group.
I did say earlier in the thread, or implied at least this was a moral failing on your part, I’ll cop to that, but that’s not correct. It’s not a moral failing. The guy deserves whatever ridicule he gets. I’m not concerned for his well being, even if some of the things I said made it appear that way.
However, as someone who has experienced extreme OCD in the past, to the point of hospitalization because of it, there is a part of me that is sympathetic to him, only in the sense that I have an idea of the living hell he surely endures. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
I think it’s possible to despise him and feel sorry for him at the same time. I certainly despise him, but I also think it’s possible for him to get help, and transform in to a better person and productive member of society.
The reason I spoke up to begin with was to refute this ridiculous notion that you folks seem to have here that mental health issues are off the table when talking about abhorrent conduct. By failing to recognize that any particular perpetrator of immoral, illegal or nefarious acts may be doing so as the result, or at least concurrently with a serious mental illness, you contribute to the stigmas surrounding mental health, ultimately making it harder for people to get help, or especially to be forced in to treatment.
It a twisted form of the “personal responsibility” doctrine of conservatives. Don’t let him off the hook! He’s responsible for it! You can’t know if he’s mentally ill! That’s Impossible! You aren’t a doctor!
You are in denial about the fact that mental illness exists, that it causes problems in society, and that at least in the eyes of the law, it can be exculpating.
So you can all fuck off with your denialism and personal responsibility doctrine. You aren’t doing the mentally ill any favors while you look for your next enemy.
We have a problem with mental health here in the US. Being mentally ill is considered by many to be a moral failing in and of its self. We don’t take proactive action to force the mentally ill into treatment because of this twisted logic. We’d rather wait until they do something illegal so we can take them off the streets. This is because we are in denial about the impact of mental health, collectively, but I’m not.
1 in 5 people will experience a mental illness of some sort during any given year. Many recover, many don’t, but being reticent to recognize the signs of it, as you all are, and refusing to believe it plays a roll in abhorrent behavior, as you all are, is what stands between us and a society that acknowledges and responds to the harm done because of it.
No one is denying that it’s possible that he’s doing this as a consequence of or concurrently with a mental illness, we’re questioning your ability to diagnose him as mentally ill over garden variety misogyny that he can’t shut up about to save his life. Sometimes an odious bigot with no filter is an odious bigot with no filter, not a tragic mentally ill person we need to coddle and never talk bad about.
-Eyerolls so hard my eyes pop out-
I’m not a mental illness denier, especially given that I am mentally ill – clinically diagnosed by a professional through a series of person-to-person consultations that allowed them to take in the full breadth of my experiences, not diagnosed through some random layman reading my blog.
Mental illness can cause problems in society, but that does not therefore make the assumption that any specific problem can be attributed to mental illness without evidence and a proper diagnosis valid.
I’m not a judge and I’m not trying to convict our titular misogynist creep, so the law’s relation to mental illness is irrelevant. He’s a creep and a worthy target of scorn and criticism due to his creepy misognyist actions, regardless of whether or not he’s mentally ill.
Nah fam I’m good.
I acknowledge that mental illness can lead people to do harm.
That has fuck all to do with cosigning some armchair psychologist’s belief that specialized knowledge and face-to-face consultations are just window dressing and that it’s valid for a layman to diagnose people over blog posts.
Erikthebassist, it has already been explained to you that there is plenty of normal and mentally healthy people who do abhorrent things. There is no simple causal link between mental illness and bad behaviour that can be untangled by laymen over the internet. Doing abhorrent things is not a diagnostic criterium in itself. By labeling any person who engages in abhorrent behaviour automatically “mentally ill” – which is the cultural thing to which I am objecting in these topics – you are not doing any service to mentally ill people either. I even adressed this specific issue previous topic, so now I only have to decide whether you are being dishonest or just obtuse.
That man shows all the red flags of dangerous sexual predator. He should be put under societal scrutiny and offered help. But whether he became that way due to mental illness or just by internalizing certain not-rare-at-all ideas too strongly and literally is not for us to decide.
Do you not understand the difference between “He appears to be suffering from mental issues and definitely needs to get help.” and “I have diagnosed this guy with OCD therefor he’s not responsible for his actions”?
I’m saying the former, not the latter. I don’t know how to make that any more clear for you. I jumped in this conversation because several other people said the former, which led to you lot ascribing the latter to their statements so you could knock that strawman down with your denialism.
If you look at that guy’s long screed on his website, his multiple youtube postings and his behavior and can not acknowledge that their is a high probability that he has one or more mental health issues going on, which yes would require an official diagnoses from a professional so he could get proper treatment, then you are in denial and are part of the problem with not enough mentally ill people getting the treatment they need.
@erikthebassist – I’ve worked with mentally ill for years and I’ve seen them suffer, literally suffer, from the kind of crap you’re making up here despite of repeatedly being explained how wrong you are.
So seriously go fuck yourself. I don’t owe you any respect, courtesy or consideration.
To all others: I admire your patience.
It’s a difference of degrees, not of kind. Either way, you’re claiming to be able to diagnose him with certain traits belonging to some non-specific mental illness, which is no more valid than diagnosing him with a particular mental illness wholesale.
If you think you have the ability to give a valid diagnosis with neither the expertise nor the experience with him, you’re nothing but a layman LARPing as a psychologist and I have no reason to respect your beliefs on the matter.
I’m not labelling just any person. I never said abhorrent behavior = mental illness or that mental illness is even a predictor of abhorrent behavior.
In this particular case, with this particular individual, given that he is (or was) homeless (50% of the homeless are diagnosable) and that he is so socially inept that he can’t understand why his behavior is creepy, given that he is banned from multiple restaurants, on top of his “manifesto” of who knows how many thousands of words that is rambling and incoherent, given his multiple youtube video postings that are equally incoherent, demonstrating an obvious detachment from reality, I don’t see how there can be any doubt, in this case, that he needs to be in the care of professionals, especially since he is exhibiting predatory behavior.
Should he get help and is cleared by professionals of mental health issues, then sure, he is just your ordinary average every day creepy misogynist, I stand corrected and the fucking internet should come crashing down on him like the fires of hell, but you know as well as I do that if he were to be evaluated, he would almost certainly be diagnosed. You just can’t admit that because it makes your vitriolic anger towards him look bad.
In the mean time, in my opinion, you all are likely ganging up on and persecuting a crazy homeless guy, which makes you look like douchebags.
rietplum I told you earlier to go fuck yourself right back and I meant it. If you don’t have something intelligent to offer other than to insult, then you are no more worthy of my respect or consideration than I am yours, and I really could care less, so either contribute or fuck off.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That’s a consequence I’m willing to live with.
I don’t know why you keep asserting that we’re attempting to deny his mental illness to make him more of a valid target. Even if he did get clinically diagnosed with a mental illness, he’d still be a creepy misogynist worthy of scorn and “persecution.” His being mentally ill or not isn’t a factor in that regard.
@117
Well Vivec I don’t think anybody should be gratuitious or patently mean to anybody, Trump OR Werner. Nobody said anything about morality as far as I can tell, my concerns are at best about style and tact.
Though I accept that some people write as if they were born tactless, gratuitous and mean, with an unquenchable list of grudges and enemies. They should at least be honest that that’s where they’re coming from and they don’t give a fuck, and would happily burn the village down as long as their neighbors’ least favorite goat died in the process.
Hey, “he’s mentally ill” guys. Tell me, real quick, what EXACTLY leads you to believe he’s mentally ill in any way? I’m going to insist on specifics here, please. Dates and times of behaviours indicating mental illness symptoms?
What I mean is be very, very specific in listing the symptoms, please.
Here’s a question for you all:
Should we just hope that mentally ill people who are also potentially dangerous magically happen to cross paths with a mental health professional that can officially diagnose them or should we notice when someone is in trouble and do our best to get them the help they obviously need?
Dear Muslima…
I love it when men tell women whom they’re allowed to fear, be concerned about, worry about. Of course us women are the bad ones, just because we don’t want to be told by some dude that we really need his dick inside us.
Signed, an idiot (aka woman with actual experience of those creeps)
@128
From Erik’s post @90 (emphasis mine)
Glad we can come to some form of an understanding, then.
@131
We should penalize people who act like creeps and break the law, and part of that penalization should require actual clinical consultation to see if mental illness plays a role. Internet laypeople are not a substitute for actual trained professionals, nor are assumptions based off of blog posts a substitute for actual ongoing consultations.
@Vivec Yeah Erik is out of line.
Erik WHY do you insist that it is “obvious” that the guy is mentally ill? What exactly, and please be specific, is your criteria for declaring someone “mentally ill”?
I get the feeling that all these debates sooner or later end up by someone – in this case erikthebassist – making a spectacular performance of circulus in demonstrando.
“He is obviously mentally ill because he does abhorrent things and those abhorrent things make him obviously mentally ill.”
erikthebassist, point me to anyone who suggested the guy should NOT seek professional help. I dare ya, I double dare ya. I am shifting my opinion towards labeling you as being obtuse AND dishonest.
@Erik the Bassist, #131:
Well, if
means “diagnose people I read about on the internet, even if I’ve never met them, even if I’ve never taken a single course on differential diagnosis using the ICD or the DSM, and even if I have no professionally acquired expertise whatsoever and then try to get them the help they need by announcing to the world that they are mentally ill and hope that translates into treatment for the disorders I have divined” …
…I’ll take “hoping for potentially dangerous people to magically cross paths with a mental health professional that can
officiallycorrectly diagnose them”.This isn’t hard people, nor is this the silencing-bullshit implied in the much earlier comment #50 by unclefrogy:
You want to fight homophobia, fine. But you don’t fight homophobia by looking at every masculine creep on the internet and, if said creep lisps, declare the creep to be a gay man. That’s inscribing homophobia, not fighting it. Using nothing more than stereotypes and random, blurry snapshots of a human being’s character to “diagnose” (but not officially!) every single dangerous person as mentally ill merely because the person is dangerous is not doing any favors for anyone. It does not in any way increase access to treatment for those who need it. And it sure as hell doesn’t lead to fighting oppression.
You are correct that on Pharyngula we don’t value telling people not to bring up homophobia (or heterosexism, to use a more precise term) or racism.
What we do do value here is reading the content of those folks who write about queerness or race, and then criticizing those comments which encourage, support, or perpetuate racism or heterosexism. To ask that we approach issues of ableism in the same manner is not hypocrisy, is not inconsistency, is not morally suspect.
Fighting ableism is good and is consistent with the generally held values of Pharyngula’s culture and commentariat *** not merely even if, but especially if*** it results in asking people who don’t understand the problem to shut up and listen until they have a better understanding.
Every single thread like this should link to the pharyngula-wiki page on crazy blaming.
From there you can get at least 20 good links for further reading. Probably 30, I didn’t count.
@erikthebassist – Oh yeah, please complain about how rude it is for me to insult you, and ignore the part where you are hurting people. Insults are the only argument I’ve got left since you are dismissing all of the others, even the intelligent ones.
So go fuck yourself again, you heartless piece of shit.
Which is obviously best achieved by scolding women who are upset about men feeling entitled to their bodies.
Gen Uppity, I already did so in #125 but I’ll elaborate for your benefit:
1. He specifically seems obsessed with his own telomere theory and with dating young women. Every time he opens his mouth or posts something to social media, it’s about that. So, obsession, one of the two pillars of OCD.
2. He exhibits compulsive behavior. He can’t stop posting about this, even as he is gaining national, international attention as a genuine creep. Compulsion, the second pillar.
3. He is not able to understand why his behavior is creepy and repugnant. He’s completely out of touch with the reality of his situation. Delusional.
4. His thoughts and expressions are incoherent. His screed on his website is rambling, at times it seems to be written as an open letter to all young women in Spokane, at other times he ranting about trump or bigotry, before moving on to god knows what else. He’s all over the map. Detachment from reality, incoherent thinking, both symptoms of schizophrenia. He exhibits this in his youtube videos as well, jumping from subject to subject with no apparent connection.
5. He’s homeless, or was for a year, so statistically he’s in a high risk group. 50% of homeless people suffer from some sort of mental illness and often go untreated. This obviously is not a sign that he’s mentally ill, but it can and should be considered here, as it makes it more likely that he is.
6. Social dysfunction – He can’t manage a meal in peace at a restaurant without causing a row. Antisocial personality disorder, possibly. He misunderstands social cues, to the point that he thinks a 16 year old barista is flirting with him, a 37 year old homeless man. He doesn’t comprehend social norms, so he’s probably on the autism spectrum.
7. When he was confronted by the restaurant manager, and later the police, he was belligerent and insisted that the manager was threatening to rape him, called everyone there bigots and still believes that he will be successful in suing them for ageism. More delusional and anti-social behavior, also detached from reality.
These are just the obvious signs. There are likely more if you were to interact with him IRL, but who knows. It’s certainly enough though to safely assume he needs help.
Again, it’s possible he is just simply a creep, but given the above, I don’t find that likely. He is a creep, but he probably has no ability to control his creepiness, again, probably. It’s possible that with proper help and treatment, once properly diagnosed, and providing he could be convinced to accept such help, that he could return to being somewhat normal.
Maybe the creepiness goes away and he regains his grip on reality and understands why it was wrong, maybe not? I don’t know. All I know for now is that his behavior is disturbing and alarming and that because we aren’t allowed to talk about the fact that he is probably mentally ill, that any talk of forcing him in to treatment is also thus off the table, so all we can do is wait until he does something illegal that gets him thrown in jail, because, you know, none of us are doctors and therefor should just shut up and let the internet bury him because misogyny.
But going back to my objection to the conversation in this thread, it’s not my place or job or responsibility to diagnose him, even if I could. These are just the things I see that lead me to believe that he is likely mentally ill. It couldn’t be more apparent.
But to some in this thread, simply mentioning that the guy needs help is somehow ableism, or playing armchair psychiatrist, or is some attempt to minimize, or normalize his behavior, which is all bullshit. It’s none of these things, it’s simply acknowledging reality.
These people may be fine with relentlessly attacking a guy who’s already probably on edge. They may be fine with ridiculing him until he snaps because of his mental health issues and either kills someone else or himself. They may be fine with poking a wounded animal with a stick. I am not.
I hope he gets help, either voluntarily or not, or at the very least I hope that whatever legal line he finally crosses that gets him out of contact with the general public is the least damaging thing he could do.
Either way, his story is not likely to end well at this point, which again, I could give a fuck about, for him, but I do worry about how it ends for others.
I wish I was capable of the leaps of logic required to think that “Well his behaviors remind me of the behaviors that would be symptomatic of a mental illness, therefore he is likely to have a mental illness” isn’t playing armchair psychologist, but hey to each their own.
Also, nah, not really worried about random internet misogynist reading the comments buried on a pro-SJ atheist blog and getting sad.
These are problems related to attributing mental illness to a behavior that one is disturbed by. I’m unsurprising that the “demon possessed” one is having to explain this. These must be satisfied to actually explain anything. I’m unsurprised that I’m seeing accounts that amount to “because I looked at it” and contain very little substance.
*The category contains both natural and beneficial to our species, and the random breakages from mutation or developmental assault from chemicals. You can not treat those the same morally.
*The nature of the mental illness determines the ways that it can impact on behavior. You have to know what that looks like to be able to give rational relationships for what you see.
*The nature of the social interactions that the illness effects.
*The relationship of the behavior that disturbs you to the above, and how that is contributing or responsible for the objectionable behavior.
Nothing else matters. It’s a term that society has to learn to define properly when they use it and that is not hard because we can see versions of the behaviors and features in our own lives in unobjectionable form. There is a reason I am reading about sacred clowns in anthropology right now.
@sigaba
That answer does not satisfy me with respect to changing my behavior, nor address the most important part of what I want. That is not good enough.
Who are we drawing attention from? Specifically? You referenced Trump earlier but the whole point of the big examples is to help us see what the smaller examples look like in real time. You deal with misogyny as the socially significant (that would be what societies attention span is actually focused on right now) events occur in front of you. You also address the ones you encounter right in front of you (the rules change for each area too). This one is interesting and you are filling the social space with contradictory things when it comes to how a random reader would view this comment section.
I get to know why at a basic human level. What you specifically want a community to look at instead of this. That is a person who is actively adding misogynist elements into our culture and trying to change the culture as well. Why is this a scapegoat?
That should be “It’s unsurprising…” in the second sentence.
gileil you have a rock for a brain, if you ever decide to stop putting words in my mouth I might bother with a substantive response to you, until then you can fuck off with reitpluim.
One other thing. There ethical ways to do this. You avoid the diagnostic label and look at the individual diagnostic signs and elements as human behaviors with both good and bad use. You don’t whine about psychopaths when you are defensive, you read about instrumental aggression.
The lists are not even that long, but that would be just plain lazy and I’m basically being an ass at this point because I get to.
Is it going to be complicated? Fuck yeah. I think of bigoted thought as a literally damaged reasoning problem. The difference is that it’s a problem that is fixable through our typical social interactions while talking about biases, fears and motivations. It’s not something that needs to be added to a diagnostic list.
What does need to be on that list are things that hurt society and hurt the patients themselves, that they say hurt them when they are not pressured into saying something false. Those things get individual attention and consideration. Not the emotionally lazy casual use of “mental illness”. Ablism is some of the most irrational lazy shit, I swear…
If I have a rock for a brain, what do you have if you cannot even spell people’s nyms?
Also, don’t think a “substantive response” from you is anything I’m waiting for any more than I’m waiting for my next bowel movement. You’re not that interesting, cupcake. Really, who do you think you are?
A personality disorder is not a mental illness.
Do you know how personality is defined in psychology?
But look, even if you were actually competent to diagnose people with specific mental illnesses, you would be restrained by professional ethics from publicly diagnosing people with specific mental illnesses – this is true whether or not you’ve actually had a chance to perform a clinical interview!
So… either you’re an unethical but competent professional, in which case this person deserves your quiet restraint OR you are violating no binding professional ethics because you’ve never established yourself as competent.
And then we’re back to the issue of you making public statements that support the othering of people with mental illnesses. Not to mention the fact that you’re doing all this in service of what end I don’t know, but Giliell perceptively notes has a lot of similarities to an argument that persistent sexism is, in fact, mental illness and therefore more the realm of professional intervention than activist outrage.
Fuck that. Our outrage is appropriate, and your public efforts at diagnosis are unethical, incompetent, or both. Why not set your shovel aside for the time being?
I’m not a psychologist, but it looks like no one in this thread is, so I guess I’ll wade in. It seems like the main bit of evidence that Werner is mentally ill is that he is homeless, was kicked out of Starbucks and is therefore unable to function in society, which = mentally ill. I would agree that Werner’s homelessness probably makes him more likely to suffer from mental illness due to the correlation between those two groups (I even read a bit about the stats here: http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pdf). But, and I can’t believe it needs to be said, not all homeless people are mentally ill. You can be unable to funtion in society without being mentally ill. According to the link above, about a quarter of homeless people are mentally ill. I’ve also heard 1/3 cited a lot in these kinds of discussions. In other words, absolutely not 100%. I even have anecdata! My aunt married a guy who used to hit her. She eventually left him, and he got a DUI because he was pissed off over the divorce. Between the domestic violence and the DUI, he lost his wife, his job, his house, and he spent about 6 months in a homeless shelter. He went to AA and got sober, but he hasn’t had a stable job since then. He’s also not mentally ill. For what it’s worth, my aunt’s life has never been the same either, in case you got distracted pitying his sad life.
The other point here seems to be that if Werner is mentally ill, he should not be blogged about because he really just needs help. Women shouldn’t be sharing his picture around, even if it’s to help them protect themselves because it makes us look like bullies. Another anecdata coming up! When my friend was in her first year of college, she had her first kiss. She was pinned to a wall by a homeless man, and he forced a kiss on her mouth. Now, this man had a reputation at the college. He was always on the same corner, and many male students really liked him and his stories. Many women had already been sexually assaulted, but it was always brushed under the rug because he was just a poor homeless man. My friend decided to report him, and he was forced to leave the immediate area around the college. Many people thought this was very unfair because his life was already so hard, and he was so nice. THIS is the kind of attitude toward homeless people that is propagated when we say “just ignore the mentally ill, homeless man and focus on Trump.” The truth is that we can talk about both, and both can affect the lives of women in profound ways.
And a final point, mental illness does not conjure misogyny in people. It can be expressed in different ways because of mental illness, but the misogyny comes from society. So the mentally ill person who yells “sl*t” at every woman he sees in public? His behavior still points to rampant misogyny in our culture. Even if he needs help. Even if he doesn’t do that when he’s properly treated by doctors and mental health professionals. So it’s fair to critique Werner’s ideas as a product of misogyny in our culture even if he is mentally ill. And again, the evidence that he is mentally ill is basically that he also belongs to another marginalized population that has a higher proportion of mental illness than society at large.
BTW, I suggest everybody having a look at the latest “Interesting Stuff” thread to get an idea why erikthebassist has a very personal interest in defending abusive dudes and blaming mental illness for men’s actions…
@Crip Dyke
Good point. Conditions, syndromes, illnesses, disorders and some other ones are not synonymous. They need a new one for the sensible instinctual ones that still feel like crap, so we call them illnesses. This fight is unsurprising. As the numbers of diagnoses go up people will become increasingly sensitive to the label and do something else. I hope they do something this time the George Carlin bit about “shell shock” is funny but the reality is bullshit.
Make that “…do something sensible this time…” in my last sentence. My writing has gotten more “random” while I’ve been recovering from an accident. It’s an odd phenomena.
It’s because of the way you are using the term “armchair psychologist”, it’s a bullshit usage. I know what you mean by it, but I don’t acknowledge it as a concept.
To illustrate, consider where the term came from, American football. The classic “armchair quarterback” sits in his recliner and yells at the TV that the QB should have done this or that thing. Meanwhile this person likely has never been a quarterback, especially at that level, so has no idea what he’s talking about. He is second guessing a professional elite. It’s the height of hubris.
Now, if, and that’s a big if, I were here refuting the claims of a doctor or other mental health professional, claiming that their diagnoses was inaccurate, I could be considered guilty of “Armchair Psychology”, but I’m not doing that, and I would never, because that would be hubris.
That does not mean that I am incapable or recognizing the obvious signs of mental illness. It runs in my family, I have close friends who struggle with it. I am mentally ill, officially, diagnosed, all wrapped up in a bun. I’m at least well read on the subject. I never claimed this was an adequate substitution for an actual diagnoses from an actual expert.
I’m challenging the fact that this group of commenters seems to think that we should never ask the question, is this morally repugnant behavior possibly the result of or concurrent with mental illness?
I think we should, collectively as a society, consider mental health as a causal or contributing factor for a lot of pain and suffering that happens in the world, including but limited to this type of ubiquitous misogyny, mass shootings, or being a member of the Tea Party, because it is.
Of course mental illness is not always accompanied by repugnant or illegal behavior, and of course not all repugnant or illegal behavior is caused by mental illness, but there is a definite overlap, and where there is, we have an opportunity as a society to reduce pain and suffering by acknowledging that overlap and taking steps to address / reduce it.
Nope, sorry, I am physically incapable of taking you seriously when you’re going to start pointing to mental illness as a causal factor in joining a political movement you don’t like
If you can’t realize why that’s laughable, stupid, and fucked up all at the same time, there’s no reaching you, and the best response is to point and laugh.
Let’s see here, preoccupation with a single person or subject, alienation of peers. I think you’re obsessive, Erik!
I mean, that would be the case if blog comments were legitimate personal interactions and nyms were people. But they’re not, so we try to avoid making even the barest assumptions.
I agree with your initial instincts on this and I do think PZs coverage is a little on the exploitive/freaskshow/nutpicking side but you gotta reserve your compassion for people you actually have knowledge of and interaction with.
This is why I think you have a rock for a brain. You have no reading comprehension skills. If you think I’m defending abusive behavior, or defending my own past because of mental illness, then you can’t read.
I have said it at least 5 times, mental health is not an excuse, it is not even the likely cause, it’s an acknowledgement of reality.
I want the guy removed from society, as quickly as possible, before he does any more harm than he has already done. I could not be more clear about that. I do question the strategy of public ridicule as I fear the unintended consequences, and I definitely take issue with the idea that wondering about his mental stability is not allowed. I’ve yet to hear a reason why that should be so, a valid one anyway.
I do maintain that at some level I empathize with the guy because I have some idea what it must be like to be him, and it’s a hellish existence, but that does not mean I find his behavior acceptable, or that people shouldn’t be outraged by it.
I also fully acknowledge the pervasive and pernicious nature of misogyny in all of it’s forms, and do what ever I can, whenever I can to support those who fight it, along with racism, homophobia, transphobia and the like. I blame these things on our culture, and on the actions and words of the individuals who perpetuate it, not on mental illness.
I am not blaming this guy’s misogyny on his mental illness, if he indeed has one. I am making the case that it’s unwise to publicly ridicule him given the fact that he is likely unstable. It’s setting the match to a powder keg and hoping nothing goes wrong.
I’m also making the case that it reads to an outsider as decidedly un-empathetic to not at least acknowledge that the guy needs help, and makes you lot look like a mob of pitchfork wielding villagers.
Now, if you want to talk about my post in the something interesting thread, which I’m assuming you do since you brought it up, ask away. I’ll be as forthcoming as I am able in replying to any questions you may have.
I take responsibility for my actions. I own them, mentally ill or not, I’m ashamed of what happened, and have dedicated myself to making sure that nothing like it ever happens again. If you want details, you are welcome to them.
I assure you that nothing about the story qualifies me as a serial abuser or misogynist or someone who has any desire to defend such.
That part was meant as a joke Vivec.
Not joking, I absolutely am, certified, diagnosed obsessive. Today I have the tools to know how to mitigate and manage it, but it’s still with me, and always will be.
Aww, look at the backpedal!
How so Vivec?
“I said something stupid and completely in character with my normal bullshit, but upon being called out, backpedal and play it off as a joke”
Toska @ 149 – The only part I think you have wrong is that his homelessness and inability to function socially are not really what I consider to be the main bits of evidence. That’s ancillary and on it’s own, no, would not imply he’s mentally ill. I’m basing my assumption on his entire social profile online, his blog, his facebook, his youtube videos. They do not paint the picture of someone who is in anyway in control of his faculties.
Otherwise, I don’t disagree with anything else you said.
Vivec, you don’t honestly think I would seriously say that being a member of the tea party means you are mentally ill do you? It’s ridiculous on it’s face, which is why I thought you might be able to parse it as a joke. Apparently I over estimated you.
Giliell @150: Christ, you’re a loathsome flaming arsehole.
It’s no less ridiculous or stupid than the rest of your screeds.
erikthebassist
The failure of your Tea Party should give you a clue that you are not always communicating effectively.
chigau, I freely admit that I generally should give a second or third read through many times before posting and usually only take one or two, and that’s not a good thing, especially in a format like this, but the comments are coming fast and furious, plus I’m at work and doing this between calls, among other things. I’m happy to provide clarifications as we go along though.
I have avoided commenting in this thread again, because I find any comments that plead for pity and understanding for the criminal sexual behavior of random dude because of “reasons” triggering. Gilielle (and several others) have also expressed that sentiment repeatedly in the last few threads about this latest creep with a Lolita fetish. (not a mental illness. IME common as dirt creepy male behavior)
Erikthebassist needs to knock it the fuck off, and stop projecting.
As women it is fucking disgusting to be lectured that we need to be understanding of the abusive fucks of the world.. WE understand him perfectly. He is dangerous. Period. Isn’t it lovely that YOUR personal safety is a non-issue, so you can afford to tell us all what a truly lovely person that rapist may be when he isn’t sexually harassing teenagers at work, or posting hateful screeds about sexually harassing women on FB.
@erik
As someone who is diagnosed as being socially impulsive I suggest putting big (as in you feel very strongly about) responses into a document file and look again in the morning. It’s a habit most of the internet should use and serves me well.
erikthebassist
There is no actual requirement that you respond to everycomment, everytime.
You could just close the tab and delete the bookmark.
@chigau 170
It was good advice when you gave it to me a long time ago.
Brony #171
Thank you.
Sorry Tethys, I’m not going to cow tow to your straw man argument.
I never said he was “lovely”. I did not plead for “understanding”. I did say, and stand behind the fact that I pity him in some sense, but only because I can imagine what his head must be like, and it’s hell, but I’ve stated many times that I agree he is dangerous and want him removed from the general population, as quickly as possible.
I am not lecturing you about how you should feel about him, that is you projecting on to me. I already retracted and acknowledged that my earlier assertion that being angry at him was a moral failing was wrong and I apologize for it. I’m angry at him too, for you, for every woman out there that has to deal with people like him. It pains me that you do and I wish I could do more to stop it.
So for the last time:
The reason I spoke up was not to defend the creep. I spoke up because of the silencing tactics used against anyone on this thread who dares to suggest that mental illness plays a role here. I find that kind of silencing tactic dangerous as it contributes to a culture that denies the role mental illness plays in our society.
We do not take mental health seriously in this country. Help is hard to find and often prohibitively expensive. When it’s not, it’s a traumatic and demeaning experience to get in to the system. You generally have to hit rock bottom to get help. It takes a crime or the threat of harm to yourself or others before anybody notices.
That needs to change, just as cultural misogyny, racism and other forms of bigotry need to change.
Squashing attempts to bring mental health in to the discussion makes that change harder to achieve writ large. That is my concern.
I also have concerns for his victims, and how this has become front page news. You are rightly angry with him, I understand that, and I also understand why you and others here would bristle at the thought of tempering your anger, but I’m asking you to consider the consequences of not doing so, I’m asking you to consider the consequences of internet justice that is prescribed with out pause or thought or care, not for him, but for his victims past present and future.
The last thing I want to see is this guy going out and murdering some 20 year old girl because this is the event that finally pushes him over the edge.
I’m all for advocacy and fighting the good fight, I’m 100% behind feminism and it’s causes, but I’m looking at this particular situation and thinking there is a powder keg brewing here, and it concerns me. Denying the fact that he’s got mental health issues means that we give carte blanche to those that would heckle and cajole him.
He is, in my eyes, the classic wounded animal and when he strikes back at those poking him with the stick, it’s not going to be pretty. People will get hurt. I don’t want to see that happen.
If I ruled the world this is what would have happened:
Creepy dude passes creepy note to a teenaged waitress, she brings it to the attention of her manager. He attempts to bounce the creep, so far so good, that’s what happened.
The next step is where the failure happened. A police officer is called to the scene because creepy dude is now being belligerent, accusing the manager of threatening to rape him, and the police officer forcibly removes him from the premises, and that’s it. He’s let go.
Despite the fact that he is obviously mentally ill, he is told to just never go in that restaurant again.
What should have happened: The police officer, with some basic training in mental health issues realizes the guy is not well and has him arrested as a genuine threat, because he is. He is referred to the care of professionals who look in to his social media activity and discover cause to hold him for 72 hours while they can figure out what kind of threat he really is. Mental health professionals determine he is a threat to himself or others, which is easy to do since he threatens suicide on his blog several times, and he is institutionalized until he is deemed fit for society once again, if ever.
That didn’t happen, so now we have the situation we do, which is that the douchebag is revelling in his new found internet stardom and blogs like this one are feeding it. Whether your anger is justified or not is beside the point I’m trying to make. You have every right to be angry and to express that anger, but don’t persecute me because I’m the lone wolf over here asking you to stop and think about this for a second.
And almost all of us responding to you made the totally correct point you cannot be the one to declare mental illness is in any way involved in this case. It is your asshole diagnosis and inability to show the humility that you aren’t even close to diagnosing the situation that makes us respond negatively to your remarks.
Try this. Stop with trying to hide him behind mental illness. Don’t mention mental illness again in this thread. Discuss him like he is a normal person, who may have taken a bad idea too far. That is where I’ve been all along, and from what read, most of those responding to you are there too.
erikthebassist
close the tab
delete the bookmark
@ 175 and 176 – I’m complaining mainly that you lot are unjustifiably trying to squash the role mental illness plays in this case, so you turn around and tell me to shut up. That makes sense.
Please read my 174, tell me how I’m wrong? What purpose does it serve to deny that he has obvious mental health issues? Why do you think that this means I’m making excuses for him or trying to cover up his behavior? Honestly, make the connection, because all I’m hearing is “You’re wrong, shut up”, but not one legitimate reason why I’m wrong.
Show me where such an approach is legal. Proving a genuine threat would be difficult, if not impossible.
Step away from the thread for, say 24 hours. It will be a big help to your own mental health.
And that’s exactly the rub Red. (By the way thank you for actually saying something relevant and not going to in to CVITATIONS NEEDED!!! bot mode. I like this Red much more than the bot, the bot should go away, but enough on that tangent.)
I shouldn’t have to be the “one” Red, that’s my point. It should be obvious to everyone here, especially because I know most of you have direct experience in either dealing with or being yourself mentally ill.
I’m not nuts, but you are starting to make me feel like I am. I just can’t fathom why the idea that this guy is exhibiting obvious outward signs of severe mental illness is so fucking controversial.
Red, I appreciate your concern but at the moment I’m fairly certain that my own mental health is intact.
I don’t know about where you live, but where I live, it is absolutely legal for law enforcement to hold any one for observation who makes any sort of threat of harm against themselves or others, or otherwise exhibits signs that they are a threat to themselves or others. I know, because I’ve had it done to me.
Who is “Red”?
If
then so is the President-elect of the USoA.
Nerd of Redhead, sorry, after years of reading this blog and the commentary, that’s what I have condensed his name down to in my head.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO. STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD AND CEASE TRYING TO GET THE LAST WORD. THAT IS TROLL TERRITORY.
Law enforcement officers, with nobody hurt, not having to be backed up with court order after a preliminary interview? SCOTUS would frown on that.
Step away from the keyboard. You are now bullying by trying to get the last word.
@ chigau #183, true. I think he’s a classic NPD. It’s scares the shit out of me that he’s in control of our military and nukes.
See, shit like that is why I don’t think your tea party “quip” was a joke.
Bullshit. You have just exhibited extreme ignorance. Otherwise I might have a juicy civil rights lawsuit on my hands.
like what vivec?
Casually armchair diagnosing the PEOTUS with a mental illness, which even if you had the expertise, would be ludicrously unethical.
preemptively clarifying my 188, I would have a law suit because I was forcibly hospitalized for having gone for a walk against the wishes of my parents, who were at the time caring for me after my hospitalization for a very serious attempted suicide.
On nothing more than the word of my mother and her husband who claimed that I was a threat to myself, I was handcuffed, placed in an ambulance, drugged and kept for 48 hours under observation. I literally went for a walk and they were afraid I was going to try something to kill myself again.
It was perfectly legal, and understandable. While I was angry about it at the time, I now think it was the right thing to do. It gave me a chance to cool my jets and sleep it off. It was the last such incident, and was 3 years ago now.
Vivec, The guy is a menace. You know that. Be real. Don’t hoist yourself on your own petard by defending the cheeto in charge, come on.
erik
just delete this tab
Him being a menace doesn’t justify being unethical, any more than a person of color being awful justifies being racist to them.
If you were one of those shameful professionals they had on CNN who seemed comfortable diagnosing him over the internet, I’d push for you to lose your license.
Would I be justified in calling Ben Carson the n-word because he’s a terrible person? Can I call Milo Yiannopoulos a homophobic slur because he’s the spokesperson for a bunch of neonazis?
If yes, why is bigotry okay if the target is sufficiently bad.
If no, why is violating medical ethics allowable when these are not?
Vivec, but I’m not a licensed professional and I’m completely entitled to my informed opinion, he’s a narcissistic abusive asshole who has no business being in public office.
Fuck you and your attempt to wall off mental health as the domain of nothing but the most agreeable experts you can imagine. I’m really losing respect for you. When you start defending DJT to make a point, you are off the fucking trail my friend.
Those professionals had a point, and the hutzpah to express it, I applaud them. I’m sure any professional would agree with them behind closed doors.
Those professionals have no business seeing patients if they’re willing to flippantly disregard medical ethics, and should have lost their licenses. There’s a fucking reason the APA has consistently held that speculating on the conditions of non-patients is a violation of medical ethics.
Thankfully, most psychologists consider those “professionals” cranks, and many within their own community have called for that to be an offense comparable to malpractice. I just hope people like you stay the fuck away from the profession, for the sake of your potential patients.
When you start making allowances for people to violate medical ethics just because the target is a bad person, you jettison any respect I had for you.
To be fair, I didn’t actually have any respect for you anyways, so I guess that loses some of its punch.
WTF are you on about? I can’t even make sense of this. NO, you can’t do either of those things, clearly. Bigotry is never ok.
The second part of your if/then statement makes no sense. How is noticing that someone is not mentally healthy “violating medical ethics”?
Jesus fucking christ on a stick I’m starting to lose my patience and / or interest in engaging you morons. Friend or foe this website has lost it’s center.
ITS LITERALLY A FUCKING VIOLATION OF APA ETHICAL GUIDELINES TO DIAGNOSE PEOPLE WHO AREN’T YOUR CLIENT YOU FUCKING TWIT!
you too
wait
I know
me, too
Lmao sure whatever it’s just a violation of that same code all those “professionals” swear to uphold and risk losing their licenses for. But hey, literally violating ethical guidelines is great if the target is sufficiently bad!
I mean, fuck it, let’s just violate them all. Is your client a bad person? Give them false a false diagnosis and then leak their secrets into the media. Why get caught up in that inconvenient “ethics” nonsense, the greater good is what matters!
Hell, lets hold doctors to the same standards. If you’re a doctor to someone awful, just go and tell all their embarassing secrets to the media. Because, you know, fuck ethics.
Vivec, we have more film and history on DJT than almost anybody in the history of mankind. I think it’s perfectly ethical for a professional to offer a diagnosis based on that.
Now you are just making shit up. In no fucking way is speculating on the condition of a non-patient a defacto violation of medical ethics. It happens all the fucking time. Doctors confer with colleagues all fucking day long about their patients. Where the fuck do you get this shit from? Seriously? Fuck, because there weren’t enough fucks in that reply to express my true frustration.
ok I’m doing my best Nerd of Redhead impersonation here: “Citation needed you fucking miserable piece of human excrement!”
Then you are unfamiliar with the APA code of ethics, because it fucking explicitly says so. The APA has said FOR FUCKING DECADES that it is a violation of ethics.
@204
Easy
Here
Here’s the fucking wording of the Goldawater Rule
Fucking QED
In 202 you are talking about HIPPA violations. I know HIPPA like the back of my fucking hand because it’s my job to know it, at least from an IT perspective. You are entering dangerous territory there pal.
It’s not a HIPPA violation to speculate publicly unless THEY ARE YOUR CLIENT. HIPPA specifically bans the sharing of information about your own patients, it says nothing about offering medical advice to the public or speculating about the medical conditions of public figures, you twit.
With that said, of course medical professionals should be cautious when offering such speculation. Sanjay Gupta makes a living off of such speculation however, and he’s highly regarded in medical circles for doing so.
In the case of DJT and the professionals who speculated, they did so fully aware of HIPPA regulations and ethics violations, and they did it anyways. None of them have been stripped of their right to practice medicine, so keep making shit up.
Citation on me saying any of them has lost their license for it? I said that many professionals have pushed for them to lose their licenses over it.
Either way I now have both the APA president and the APA Medical Guidelines both saying it’s unethical to speculate on the mental health of non-clients so either concede or be ignored.
You’re going to cite a statement of opinion by someone as a matter of law? ffs. This is like a nightmare, it just keeps getting worse and worse.
The law is the fucking law, and there is no law banning medical professionals from speculating about the health of public figures. There is no document that is legally binding that prevents them from doing so. You have cited the opinion of one person, and a further statement of opinion from the Goldwater “rule”, part of ethics guidelines for medical professionals. Acknowledged, and dismissed as immaterial.
Show me a law regarding such, or show me an instance of someone being stripped of their license for ethics violations surrounding such a case, or stfu.
Meanwhile you are now engaged in apologetics for this menace to society because of your sacred cow of never talking about someone else’s mental state of mind. Oh how the tables have turned.
Meanwhile I’ll point out that one of our favorite sons, Stephen Novella, while being careful to state that it was a third party opinion and lacking in needed information, had no qualms with chiming in on the issue of Hillary’s health. As a neuroscientist, he was qualified and felt compelled to set the record straight that nothing in her behavior suggested anything close to what various other “news” outlets were proclaiming as fact. In doing so, he specifically crossed the ethical line that you are claiming should never be crossed, that of offering an opinion about the health of someone who is not his client.
No, I’m going to cite it as a matter of ethics on the part of a licensing organization, you fucking moron. Cite me claiming it’s a law, you goalpost-moving idiot.
Just for posterity:
You @203
@206 and @207 both demonstrated that the APA considers it a breach of Ethics to do so. QED, moron.
Ethics are ethics are ethics. I don’t care if it’s Trump or if it’s Hitler, it’s a violation of ethics and shouldn’t be done. It doesn’t become okay to violate psychological ethics just because the person is sufficiently bad. If you think so, I hope you never get a license.
211 is an example that there are exceptions to every rule. There is no conceivable way that you can have a problem with what SN did in that situation, “ethics” be damned.
If the AMA ethical guidelines have a similar rule to the APA ones, then yes, he is in violation of medical ethics and should either be reprimanded or have his license suspended.
I don’t know why you think he’s a “favored son” of mine. Doctors who violate medical ethics are scum.
You missed or intentionally ignored the keyword, “defacto”. It certainly CAN be, but is not automatically. As I stated, there can be a compelling reason to go against the ethics guidelines of the AMA and it’s president. Trying to keep a madman away from nukes is just such a reason.
If a guideline says to not do a thing, and you do the thing, you are violating that guideline.
And I deny that it is ever permissible to violate medical ethics, up to and including the case of Trump.
*APA sorry, typo.
Dunning Kruger personified. Utterly ignorant of the nature of metal illness, and utterly convinced they are right despite the total inability to describe any relevant patterns of mental illness. Something awfully strong is driving this. It’s just like the ones that needed the focus to be on mental illness with the murderous misogynist in Isla Vista. So very concerned and very unable talk straight about the diagnosis they see.
Then you are a confirmed moron, and I have no further use for you.
Wahhh, why won’t you support my weird subjective morality! Don’t you understand that it’s okay to be unethical if your opponent is too!!!1!
Brony I doubt you could coherently state what it is that I’m advocating for, much less how I am wrong.
I described relevant patterns of mental illness, several times. The fact that you ignored them or can’t read is not my problem.
Being utterly convinced you are right is not evidence ipsofacto that you are wrong. Try and make some sense.
I don’t know shit about the isla vista incident and have no opinion about it. I am not “just like” anybody you may have encountered in threads about it, but nice try. Let me try and bring you back to the ranch. We’re talking about Lucas Werner. We’re talking about whether it’s acceptable to quash speculation that he might have mental health issues, and what that type of denialism might reap.
*over here boy, ignore that squirrel*
Gotta say, pretty fucking rich that you were the one talking all that “take the high road” bullcrap earlier when it came to being mean to the poor misogynist creep, but suddenly when the target is someone you dislike, fuck the high road!
oh that’s right vivec, I forgot that putting a “1” between exclamation points totally validates anything you have to say and invalidates the person you are
quoting, noparaphrasing, no, that’s not it either, oh yeah misrepresenting and poisoning the well against, that’s what you are doing. Mea culpa for forgetting the rules, you win.Of all the things I said in this thread over the past 16 hours or so, you are going to try and use the one thing I said that I have now THREE FUCKING TIMES acknowledged was wrong, and in error, and apologized for as your only cudgel? Good show man, good show.
Hey if you think it’s acceptable to do bad things to bad people go ahead, hopefully society is structured in a way that a person with your fucked up system of morality can’t do too much harm.
Yeah? Because it was an idiotic statement, and idiotic statements deserve mockery.
@erik
Really? You identified a set of behaviors that met the diagnostic criteria from the DSM of one of its international equivalents? And showed how it was a relevant contributing factor to his misogynistic behavior? The specific behavior that people in here are complaining about?
I seem to have missed it. Maybe you can help me out.
I missed it in your exchanges
It was idiotic. I regret it. My moral compass does not have to be your moral compass. I still feel bad for the guy in some ways, but I fully acknowledge your right, and everyone else here’s right to slam him, and it was idiotic of me to imply that you were lacking in moral stature for doing so.
You won that battle, I have retreated from that position. That doesn’t mean I concede the war, which is essentially over the idea that considering the mental health of various actors in the national headlines should be off the table or not, or what the consequences of internet delivered justice are.
I maintain, rightfully so, because you have done nothing to prove me wrong, that mental health should be a part of the national discussion, especially when it comes to fundamental issues of human rights, leadership and morality.
You want to sweep mental health under the rug. Can’t talk about it, can’t discuss it, can’t consider it’s implications, because of esoteric “guidelines” and your idea of ethics.
I want it out there and I want people to discuss it honestly. Fuck me right?
Agreed.
Brony, #141, all 7 of my points can be found in the DSM. I never said it was a cause of his misogynistic views, only that he was unable to hide his repulsive views because of his apparent lack of impulse control.
ha ha Vivec, you wish, and that was a joke, in case you can’t tell. I don’t honestly think you want to fuck me, just so we’re clear.
Drats, beguiled again by your dastardly japes. Truly, I am rather chuffed!
get a room
And so you shall remain, because for tonight, I am off to drown my sorrows in a bout of beer, weed and video games.
Part of my mental health regimen is not denying the fact that I am an escapist loaner who has no business being in an adult relationship, and enjoying the benefits of such. Those benefits include doing what the fuck I want, when the fuck I want, with out having to ask anybody’s permission or worry about their feelings, within reason of course.
I officially apologize to anybody who may have interpreted anything I have said tonight as a defense of the kind of misogyny that Lucas Werner is an ambassador of, and I would sooner lay down my life in defense of his victims and take him with me than be caught trying to defend him.
That was never my point and I apologize for my failure to make that clear.
I’m not deleting the bookmark Chigau but I am finally signing off for the night on that note.
@erik
I want your points lined up with the specific diagnostic criteria. Name a diagnosis, link to the whole criteria and show me how it makes him unable to hide his misogyny.
I don’t see it anywhere up there and as a person who studies his Tourette’s Syndrome I know something about this. You look like you are full of shit. I’ll copy-paste the one for me or ODD of you need an example.
I literally do not see where you posted the minimal set of necessary information to make the claims that you are.
not tonight Brony. See 234.
I look forward to your reply. You act like you are so concerned about us poor socially impulsive people erik, but I can’t see a single thing that you are doing up there that is in any way helpful to someone like me. If I missed it it would be nice to know. My hopes are not high but I will see what you have. Let me know if you want an example of such diagnostic. Criteria.
Don’t get your hopes up Brony, because I can see that your question is loaded, even in my bleary eyed current state. I’m guessing that by tomorrow I’ll be willing to more directly dismiss such buffoonery. Not for nothing, your passive aggressive swipe insinuating that I am ODD didn’t go unnoticed. You might want to try a rebalance between passive and aggressive there, sport.
@erik
My questions are this one certainly passive aggressive, now active aggressive. Unfortunately for you they are the right questions and they refer to relavent conditions of social impulsivity. Tone complaints won’t get you anywhere with me. You implicitly brought me into this with your claims, you can deal with the consequences as long as I address the content you present.
You know that having one specific condition can make having another specific condition more likely? For Tourette’s Syndrome ODD is more likely. Get over yourself. Such insecurity matches well with your need to have the last word. You reek of empty dominance displays and I want to see if you are full of it via things I am familiar with. Go to bed.
Project much? I’ve been trying to go to bed or at least ignore this thread for 2 hours now. Keep pecking though, that’ll get my attention, if that’s what you want.
I didn’t complain about your tone, I called you out for being a dick.
You wear smug so well.
I’m sorry, did I miss the meeting where you get to set the fucking rules? I didn’t even know who you fucking were prior to tonight, so I didn’t implicitly do shit when it comes to you.
And for the record, can you even state my supposed claims back to me in a way that shows that you understand what they are? Your line of questioning leads me to believe that you have no fucking clue what I’m arguing for, which doesn’t surprise me. That’s common around here.
ok, I exaggerated, just about 80 minutes, not quite 2 hours. Either way I acknowledge my role in responding when I shouldn’t have, so the fact that I’m not lost in my game right now is entirely my fault.
Let’s all just “go to bed”. Anything said to me from here on out is on the backburner until tomorrow some time.
@al, may I suggest a time out for a bit.
First and foremost, I did have a few days of severe cold, *really* bad days of barometric changes, inducing severe to agonizing pain and overall, a shitty “weekend”.
While that is in thought consideration of me and it isn’t, it’s myself and my wife of 35+ years, who I explicitly trust.
As she trusts me in a similar fashion, I’m forced to obey that trust.
First point, we’re dealing with a couple with problems, one, with significant (and recently revealed, how significant) substance abuse problems on one half of the couple.
They’re helping us out, as my wife is disabled.
I’m also recently disabled, courtesy of protecting my wife from post-surgical harm by falling.
The couple are learning to deal with their differences, rather than depart and meet years later.
The man, being the larger part of the problem (being a man, I strongly suggest testosterone *and* societal issues creating the *entirety* of issues in the US male/female issue), is slowly learning, despite an opoioid dependence issue and ethanol issue.
Short point thick, he refrained from slugging an old man down, when he addressed him as a Private, at Brigade loudness conditions.
Even my own wife quailed at that thunder.
I was hoarse for a couple of days, it was a “weekend”, which is my start of week by desire.
He’s since been hovering around a ground point, gravitating upon our drug free point and seeking effective treatment, rather than symptom free point treatment.
Education is indeed tiring.
Oh. My.
Erik, you are not only playing armchair psychiatrists, you also seem suffering from SIWOTI. I do not think this debate is going anywhere and it would be probably best if you take a pause, think hard and maybe come back in next topic with this thematic that pops up.
You are hijacking this topic.
And here we have it: classical gaslighting and victim blaming. Talking about someone being an abusive misogynist is like setting fir to explosives.
And here we have erikthebassist telling an actual psychologist that they’re wrong. You can’t make it up…
Yeah, telling the victims we’re having their back is the thing that hurts them. It’s neither the dudes who publicly cheer them on, nor the dudes who talk about pity and empathy for the perpetrator, it’s the people saying “this is wrong, this behaviour is wrong”, who are creating a public that can actually warn potential potential future victims who are hurting the victims. More gaslighting, more victim blaming, more silencing of women.
If you were, you’d listen to the women here telling you how wrong you are instead of lecturing them about what they should to do.
I’m really wondering what you’re talking about. Is this another incidence we’re not aware of? Because it has only fleeting similarity with the Starbucks incidence.
I thought it was obvious that he has one and that you can reliably diagnose that via the internet.
Rob Grigjanis
Yeah, me talking about someone having a self admitted history of being an abuser makes me an asshole. Being an abuser and stalker, not so much.
You people are the worst. You play “ally” but we all know that when push comes to shove, you side with the dudes.
Giliell, Rob is right, you are a loathsome asshole. There is so much wrong with your reply, some flat out lies, using buzzwords as silencing tactics, it’s just not worthy my time to reply, and as others have stated, this debate isn’t going anywhere and the thread has been hijacked, so you can continue lying about me and distorting everything I say to fit your narrative, but I’m not going to acknowledge it. In fact, I’m real close to loading a script to just block everything you say.
@erik
When will we see a list of behaviors affected by mental illness? The ones that I can tie to diagnostic criteria. Despite your earlier paranoia I was dead serious about ODD and diagnostic criteria. I copied and pasted that part of the DSM-V years ago for an argument with someone that thought that social psychology was bullshit. Here is a link.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vDw6oGEAT9nCEA2tVl8sezCgRNop35nFFGmNAnynRq4
That is the sort of information that I will need. I also own a DSM-V just for funzies so you can request other information. Should I list a table of contents?
You are talking about an area of human behavior that I independently study so I should have something to say about anything you might bring up.
My hobby is applying the findings of the brain sciences to my psychology based on what I learn from studying Tourette’s Syndrome and ADHD research. That specifically involves human sensory perception at about the level of 1 second (+/- half a second depending on specific research). For example.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20189281
You want to talk impulse control. I am trying to understand the functional significance of reductions of inhibitory cholinergic and parvalbumin interneurons in my “disorder of inhibitory control”. The same one that lets me dissect aggressive and insulting text into functional components that I can assemble and reassemble mentally.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17493643
I know things about OCD as well as Tourette’s Syndrome comes with its own set of perceptual/instinctual sensitivities and habitual behaviors.
Show me what you got. I care about the things the people here talk about and share about and I have let them change my behavior. You have the same opportunity.
Brony,
I’m very interested in such a discussion, I’m sure I could learn some things about my own anxiety and OCD, but I don’t think this thread is the place for it, and I’m trying to avoid further hijacking this thread. I’ve made my point here, mainly that mental health should be part of the discussion and that the silencing tactics used here are dangerous, and I stand by that claim, so, the horse is dead and I shan’t beat it further. If you want to suggest an alternate thread that is open for these types of discussions I am happy to meet you there.
@erik
This thread is about a misogynist that people here are concerned about. That person’s actions, attitudes, dispositions and communications are what this thread is about. The stuff about the lawsuit is just current affairs. What that person represents is what people here care about.
I’m asking you for information about what his behavior represents. I would love to hear what other people here say but I think that is quite on topic. I’m just a little more intimate with this stuff than most people.
Brony,
Fine, well first of all, please note that I have said several times that I am not interested in offering an actual diagnosis, because I can’t, I’m not a doctor and it would be hubris, ridiculous on it’s face.
That does not mean that as a well read layperson, I am not able to recognize the many red flags that are indicative of mental illness, and all of these things in combination lead me to believe that it is highly likely that should he receive an evaluation from a trained professional, it would very likely end up in a diagnoses of one or more acute mental disorders.
Also as previously stated, my lament is that the police officer involved in the incident was not empowered to have him held for observation where he could receive such and evaluation from trained professionals, and furthermore held until he is no longer deemed a threat to himself or others, which at this point, I’m fairly confident, he is.
I have been accused several times in this thread of playing “armchair psychologist”, which is something I reject because I am not second guessing the diagnosis of a trained professional, only suggesting that there is plenty of probable cause here to assume he is need of such an evaluation.
So listing off DSM criteria is not something I’m going to engage in, because THAT WOULD BE playing armchair psychologist. I gave 7 reasons earlier in the thread that to me, showed behavior that fit several different profiles of mental illness, along with possible profiles those behaviors fit in to, but I’m not going to entertain your demand to get more specific than that, because I recognize the limits of my knowledge in the field, which isn’t much.
The 7 examples I gave all fit specific disorders, and I named those disorders in that comment. So maybe you want sources for that? I did research each as a listed them but I did not copy and paste the links to sources, so if I’m understanding you correctly, you are asking for those sources? That I can and will provide but it will take me a little while as I have some other things going on today.
You may think there’s value in two non-credentialled laypeople trying to pin down this guy’s specific diagnoses via the DSM on the internet, I do not.
If you can not make a diagnosis why did you use the term “mental illness”?
What is a “red flag”? I just guaranteed that I would take specific things from you seriously.
I’m not saying you can’t talk about human behavior. No one has said that. I explicitly outlined a way to carefully consider diagnostic criteria in a more universally human context up there (not specifically directed at you, but you were part of the inspiration).
“Armchair psychologist” is a non-literalism. I can decide for myself if you look like you are diagnosing people. I agree with others that you do look like you are acting like they have a diagnosis though.
Why are you talking about the police? People here are talking about stuff that biases the police, the surrounding culture. They are in there, but only by category.
None of your seven reasons cited any literature that I could use to see if your feelings were correct. Give me the Diagnostic Criteria, and in the proper noun form. The items under the diagnosis. You can find and example on the internet that references medical definitions of the disorder and give me the thing that OCD (for example) indirectly references.
The diagnosis (what you mentioned) is associated with the criteria, it is not the criteria itself. Once you have a specific diagnostic criteria then you can provide a specific example of this persons behavior. I can guide you through this.
I see though your trick Brony. By continuing to attempt to get me to engage in “proving” why I think the guy is mentally ill, you are hoping that I will predictably fail to make a strong medical case, thus “proving” in your mind that I have no business speculating.
Regardless of how many times I tell you I’m not a doctor and am not able to make a diagnosis, (but that this doesn’t mean that I can’t and shouldn’t be able to recognize the many red flags that would lead a reasonable person to believe that he at least needs to be in professional care or needs to receive a professional evaluation), you are going to continue to make demands for information that I am not willing to provide, because doing so would just play in to your rouse.
I talked about the police because a police officer was involved in the starbucks incident, and said police officer did not recognize that he might be dealing with a mentally ill individual and thus did not have him held for observation.
Which gets back to the entire reason I spoke up, and the argument I’m actually advocating for, which you don’t seem to understand. I predicted earlier that you don’t have a clue about my actual position here and you’re proving me right.
If you want to talk about why I think LW’s mental health is a fair topic for discussion or why I have reservations about unbridled internet justice, we can talk about that. If you want to expound on your knowledge or use your knowledge to demonstrate why I’m mistaken, go right ahead, but you can stop telling me what you will find it acceptable for me to say. I’m not your monkey, and I’m not going to dance for you.
Ya know what, fuck it, I’m out. This group isn’t interested in any sort of honest discussion, and it’s causing me stress, stress that I’m not willing to endure. I expressed an opinion, you all know what it is. You disagree, fine, done, over with.
Brony you can stop trolling me, because I’m no longer taking the bait, unsubbed and bookmark deleted.
erik from way up there
There are multiple possible explanations for his homelessness. He might just be a crackhead. He might be a loathsome hateful maladroit. He might have a complicating mental illness, which might also be a side effect of being a meth addict. It is unfortunate that there is not a strong social safety net that can effectively address all these issues, but we can only speculate as to why he is in need of it.
The part you continually fail to grasp is that predatory sexual behavior by men is neither rare, out of the ordinary, or a symptom of mental illness. I am confident that every female barista, bartender, hostess, and waitstaff in the country has met a creep just like this. Common as dirt. Unless you are claiming that a huge proportion of the male population is mentally ill, the root cause of the predatory behavior is internalized misogyny. You already acknowledged that no amount of professional therapy can fix him because it isn’t his mental health that causes him to despise and violate the young woman of Seattle.
The fastest way I know to show that someone is full of shit is to take them seriously.
@erik
Looking at the reality that best matches you perceptions is taking mental illness seriously. If the distance between your feelings and the real thing is so disturbing to you you probably should have said nothing. I get to assess your accuracy. You brought up mental illness.
You brought up mental illness for the wrong reasons. No one said it could not be possible, they were talking about information more directly accessible to us. They were talking about misogyny. You shoved it in here because you did not like us talking about what we were talking about. That behavior will not be missed.
Tethys#254
Exactly, thank you. There’s nothing very unusual about this Lucas Werner, I think every woman I know who has had a customer service job has at least one story of dealing with men like him. This is why armchair speculation about his mental health is such a waste of time, since there’s no way anyone here can verify it one way or another, and mental illness is not exactly a plausible reason for why a vast number of other men behave in much the same way as him.
Tethys,
Your post reminded me of one of my previous jobs where a man told one of my co-workers he wanted to kidnap her. And would ask for another co-worker for hugs even though they didn’t know each other.
Lucas got mentioned on this week’s WTFIWWY! They didn’t mention him by name because he wasn’t charged with a crime, but I could tell who they were talking about right away.
We are, over real facts. Not someone’s presuppositional thinking, which is all you provided. You were short on third party support for your ideas.
I my experience, those who most cite “honest discussion” are those most likely to be trying to impose their ideology, and “honest discussion” requires them to win.
Hey, look, there’s someone taking Werner’s side. Quick somebody diagnose some mental illness before we can have a discussion about the rampant misogyny.
Giliell @ 260, sure thing.
My diagnosis of the poor, afflicted soul is, he suffers from an advanced case of creepy assholism.
As the initial case of assholism causes further social isolation and loss of contact with any female of the same species and many other species, the individual advances into creeperism. After that stage is flaming creeper assholism, which has a 50% mortality rate due to the Samson effect.
Someone rips his jawbone off and beats him to death with it (see the legend of Samson against the Philistines).
This, all out of disgust as well. I’ve been lurking, but feeling quite miserable with an extremely annoying cold. Reading the excuses, the deflection out of fear of the asshole acting out if he read the words here, etc.
“Oh, we should be sensitive, he might explode”, giving him an affirmative defense and a fucking idea, should he ever lose his way on the intertubes and find his way here.
Which is about as likely as me turning into Adonis right this very minute. Or Mickey Mouse, for that matter.
The chances of those are one out of three precise chances, slim, fat and none.
But, there is such a thing as negative reinforcement, where negative attention still is attention. Self-worth is reinforced, as serious punitive measures aren’t taken, either community driven or government driven.
I don’t speak against vigilantism for a reason, I’ve lived in areas where the local police force was useless (in one case, 20 years and change in an area where police were assigned who were about to be fired for cause, taking a bit longer because of the union protecting their jobs (you’ll rarely hear me argue against a union), which impacted the area of Philadelphia, the 12th district, quite badly).
There, I was forced into such a position. Drug dealers were found bound in the park, their weapons and drugs bagged with them.
That was because, my house front wasn’t bullet resistant, the park at the head of the street and my wife was disabled.
In that instance, field expediency was in order.
So, I don’t condemn absolutely vigilantism, I do discourage it, save in very horrific, absence of rule of law situations.
Save for Trtump, I do avoid tar and feathering. Riding out of town on a rail is usually more than sufficient, should you study that.
In the SW Philly instance, shortly after moving into the neighborhood (it was what we could afford and deployment was soon to occur), an armed robber poked me in the back with his pistol, while I was heading across the park at the end of our street to go go the small bar there to pick up a quart of beer.
Feeling that and knowing how many handguns operate, I leaned into the barrel, heard a click, which meant that the disconnector engaged. That meant that he’d have to release the trigger, which was partially depressed, would reengage.
So, I played stupider than a rock, turned around and said, “Huh”, while drawing on his blind side, my own firearm.
Aimed directly at his genitals. With the trigger held back (it was an M1911A1), with my finger holding the trigger firmly back.
That means, lose muscle control, such as being killed, I likely lose thumb web control and it goes off, emasculating the armed robber.
Needless to say, he felt quite generous. His shoes appeared to “fit my cousin” and he removed them, once he placed his firearm on the ground.
Another cousin seemed to fit his pants and shirt…
Long and short, I called 911 on my pocketed cell phone to report the robbery attempt, when describing the suspect, I described a naked male, quite precisely, running down the middle of a major highway and highly likely to confess.
The jail turnkey, a personal friend from my reserve unit asked me about it, suspecting it was me, “****, did you actually rob an armed robber?”.
“I can’t say that I didn’t, but I won’t say that I didn’t, who are you speaking of?”, to which he collapsed into paroxysms of mirth.
That is *not* a recommend course of action. Ever.
I had highly specific military training and experience, the average reader does not. I also was in a rather poor mood at that point and also extremely cash strapped enough that that single beer would nearly bankrupt us.
If you’re considering doing such a thing, do ask me first. I’ll likely, to six sigma, tell you no.
I was a lot younger, stupider and just damned lucky enough to leave a disabled wife with small children without a source of income.
The probability of replication is around that of Trump actually being registered as a democrat in his home state. The probability of that is that of Sol going supernova yesterday, lacking sufficient mass or age.
But, all, a very, very true story.
That young numbnuts, he’d get hit with my cane, if I saw that note (and I read faster than an auctioneer can babble).
Yes, recently, I’ve been forced to use a cane to walk, lest I be unceremoniously be dumped onto the ground.
But, there is one thing worst than growing older. Not living long enough to grow older.
I’m just thankful that he’s even farther away than our grandchildren. Absolutely zero temptation to visit his area, as our grandkids are far closer.*
*Precisely zero chance of me visiting him in preference of seeing our children and grandchildren. Ever.
As in, he could have raped the Virgin Mary and I’d still not visit him.
If he lived next door, he’d get to know my cane intimately.
Then, maybe my hyperthyrtoid dosage is low. I have had a few episodes, which I never physically expressed, of Hulk type anger, which was previously hyperthyroid driven.
I’ll get a followup on that, just to be sure. I’d prefer my aorta to blow out than to harm someone out of a rage incident.
And I’ve come damned close to the latter.**
**IRL, yeah, i can do that.l I loathe that. Nearly every time I had to use violence, I found it to be a failure to communicate.
I’ve negotiated peace far more often than things turned violent.
I like that, I loathe the violent side.
@wzrd1
What the fuck did I just read?
I’m classifying it as inebriated stream of consciousness rambling from a veteran with a bad knee. He means well AFAICT, but the military training seems to have reinforced some odd ideas about violence, and protecting the vulnerable.