OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
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User ID: 359
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1d ago
How did you get started? I mean, the grandparent comment sounded like he wouldn't mind availing himself of this, if it is the One Weird Trick. How would he be able to access the therapy that you were able to receive?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2d ago
Have you written more about this?
To round out His Broken Body I would recommend the works of James Likoudis, a convert from EO to Catholicism. Eastern Orthodoxy and the See of Peter: A Journey Towards Full Communion is the most like His Broken Body in scope.
His Broken Body is also old. At least, a lot of developments in the dialogue have happened since then. There's this moment where Cleenewerck says something like, "No Catholic apologetics ever addresses eccelestiology before talking about the Petrine Doctrine," and I had to check the publication date, because Joe Heshmeyer's book on Peter did exactly that. I also find it fascinating that he explicitly states that he's not going to engage with scholarship on the Petrine Doctrine, only popular apologetic work.
He also exhibits the common misconceptions surrounding Papal Bulls and what is considered infallible. For example, he considers Exsurge Domine to be infallible (which I won't argue) and then takes that to mean that all the things it condemns are considered infallible heresy. But that is not what Exsurge Domine says. The text is they are "either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds." There is a huge difference between capital-H Heretical and "seductive of simple minds." This point goes over Cleenewerck's head. He makes the same mistake with Unigenitus.
There are many parts where he confidently states that "Catholics believe X" and I'm like, "What?" For example, he takes as authoritative something that was actually a well-known swindle. It was common in the 19th century for publishers to claim that certain prayers carried indulgences or promises from apparitions with no actual authority.
His Broken Body is certainty an ambitious project but Cleenewerck doesn't do a great job of expressing actual Catholic thought. I think he did his best and tried to be charitable, but I would consider it as really good arguments for the Orthodox side and mediocre arguments for the Catholic side.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4d ago
To some extent - like if someone starts a prayer life they might receive signal graces and start to have the "proof" they need to believe for real. But if those signal graces don't come, or if they do but they do not lead to a deeper intellectual understanding, then doubt and distrust will quickly set in.
I honestly, earnestly, really believe in God and Jesus Christ and the Sacraments. It's not much deeper than that. To me, your question is almost, "Why should we enter into a relationship with the Creator who has a plan for us all to live in happiness and perfect fulfillment, instead of trying to find a connection with Him through less certain methods or worshiping demons instead?"
I don't know why anyone would convert to Christianity except for the reason that they think it's true. Yes, society will suffer the further we get away from God. Pretty much every successful society had some sort of ritualistic belief in God, a higher order, and some kind of cosmic punishment for wrongs committed. This is a relevant statement:
Pro-religion people (like me) will suggest that decreasing religious commitment is reducing trust. That’s obviously true. At the heart of our society (and especially our legal system) is the expectation that virtually everyone will tell the truth under oath, that they will keep their promises, and that they will do what they “ought” to do even when doing so is to their own personal disadvantage, and even if they are confident no one will ever find out. This norm simply works better if everyone believes that God will send them to Hell for breaking it.
I’m not saying the norm completely fails if you don’t believe in God; there are plenty of moral atheists and doesn’t-matterists who would never compromise their own integrity. There are articulate cases for things like “secular humanism” and “the categorical imperative” and just “don’t be a dick.” Moreover, there are lots of psychological reasons why humans enjoy acting with integrity, even without God looking over their shoulder.
I am only saying that our society was built on the assumption that something like 99% of people will act with integrity 99% of the time it is tested. If just a little less fear-of-God means that number drops to something like 90% of people acting with integrity 90% of the time it is tested, that sets off a cascade, the incentives to do the right thing shift, and our society collapses into Escape From New York.
But committing to a religious belief that you don't actually respect is not going to magically create that integrity either. Much the opposite, if I had to guess.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4d ago
People who can't read are more easily taken advantage of. In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the narrator's grandmother saved up enough money over decades to purchase a plot of land to build a home. Once she thinks she's saved up enough, she hands over the money and signs a piece of paper that she thinks is the deed to the land. It wasn't.
It's difficult to overstate just how shitty the general atmosphere can get when you have a huge percent of the population that can be easily exploited like that. Increase the number of easily exploitable people and you increase the number of people exploiting them. Actually, I think anyone who's against low-skilled immigration can grok what I'm saying here. There will always be an underclass, but not every underclass is the same. I would prefer the kind that work hard and live in a high-trust way. Someone who can tally up money when the register is broken. Someone who can read through the terms of a lease. Someone who views smiles positively instead as a warning sign.
Geniuses are doing just fine. In many states, if you have a genius IQ you can actually qualify for an Gifted IEP and get a bus to another school district if they have a gifted program that your local school lacks. There are AP classes in most high schools, there are community college options, anyone can skip ahead an elementary year at any school in the country.
The ones who aren't doing just fine are the 120 IQ people who are too smart to need to learn how to study, not smart enough to seek out additional learning opportunities. They end up being bored in school and never develop the skills needed to get ahead.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
8d ago
Could it be Public Square? I don't know, I'm too square to be in the know.
I think it's referring to credit cards coming down against porn purchases on Steam. But needs more details.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
8d ago
"I'm in this photo and I don't like it."
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
9d ago
Yesterday, it was surreptitiously edited to remove all reference to Israel.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
14d ago
One of them is a sort of deontological one, under which to be a meritocrat is to hold that it is morally right that boons go to the most meritorious
This is interesting! I do think I disagree with the deontological case for boons going to the most "meritorious." It's usually sheer luck and good external factors (genetics, environment) that puts people on the top. It's not always the "most diligent" person who gets the best compensation. And if we did sort society based on something that is within people's control, (like "works hardest") instead of things outside people's control (like "is smartest") then it would overall be a worse society.
People didn't actually do anything worthy of merit to be the smartest, best looking, most talented, etc. At best they worked hard to improve on something that was already there, but that doesn't mean they worked harder than someone who is disabled and works twice as hard to do half as much.
But if you want to incentivize the best to do their best, you need to give them the best rewards. And it is one of the jobs of society to incentivize the best to do their best, partly because a rising tide lifts all boats. In this regard I follow the utilitarian model it seems.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
14d ago
Have you changed the types of books you read? Sometimes I feel reading is a sloge compared to my youth, but then I remember that I have traded Animorphs for Wuthering Heights and while there are fewer cliffhangersthat keep me reading past bedtime I do get more out of it.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
14d ago
I think Vance is using a straw man here.
I think the rhetorical device is called a "reductio ad absurdum."
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
14d ago
(this didn't ping me but fortunately I saw it while scrolling.)
See, here the analogy deepens further! Citizenship in certain countries has a huge material impact, but so also with families! I hit the jackpot by being born into a family where they didn't beat me, prioritized my education, didn't molest me, etc. I did not earn this. It was not my reward to be born into a good family or a good country. How can someone earn such a thing? To describe it in such terms cheapens it.
There are two reasons why I think family membership is special
I'd like you to elaborate on what you mean a family membership is special compared to. Compared to Rousseau liberalism where everyone is born as individuals with no prior obligations who only relate to each other through contracts? Special compared to something else?
There are more than a few other traits that make a family and a nation special. For one, I would die for my children and I would die for my country. This makes absolutely zero sense if you view a country as a community of like-minded individuals who can be swapped around if their opinions shift. If your country has no relation to you after you are dead, buried, and opinion-less then there is no reason to die for it. But if your country will also be the country of your nieces and nephews, second and third cousins, dearest friends and their children, then perhaps it is possible to die for it.
And countries need people to die for them lest they will be ruled by those willing to die for theirs.
That's just one thing, perhaps the biggest. But there are so many ways in which a nation is different than a free market meritocracy - common goods like roads and utilities and schools and on and on. And these items are paid for collectively, sometimes financed on the futures of generations to come. Which implies, for these goods to exist, that these generations do come and have a pre-existing duty to the land of their birth to pay for the good things that were given to them and their forefathers.
Would you like an anarchy instead? Because only in an anarchy is there any kind of liberalism to the extent that a country could be just like a "large voluntary organization."
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
15d ago
It was my understanding that Republicans wanted any legal immigrants to be super woohoo about America, so it feels weird to see Vance say effectively the opposite.
He says, "And I happen to think that it’s absurd, and the modern left seems dedicated to doing this, to saying, you don’t belong in America unless you agree with progressive liberalism in 2025."
My understanding is that people who agree with progressive liberalism are not people who are "Woohoo" about America. One of Progressive Liberalism's main points is that America was conceived with the original sin of racism and needs to be born again.
It is my understanding that Conservatives would prefer that every immigrant be the kind who loves America, 4th of July, the Federalist Papers, George Washington, Apple Pie, Hamburgers, and basically be a Weeaboo but for America. Basically support the prior civil religion. Immigrants who support the current civil religion are disfavored which seems to be exactly what JD Vance is saying here.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
15d ago
I disagree with your definition of Individualism, the word is usually meant to describe something more like "every man for himself." I do agree with the statement that "every man should be judged for his own capabilities and qualities." I also agree on the Meritocracy front - we should have the best people in the toughest jobs getting the biggest compensation.
I suspect JD Vance would agree with these two statements as well.
Where I disagree with you is the idea that this would apply to membership in a nation. It's really odd to me that you see the two as connected so I will try to make analogies and you tell me where you think things are dissimilar.
Membership in a family is not based on meritocracy. There aren't game shows where kids compete against each other to have the best parents. There aren't quarterly reviews of a child's grammar school progress lest it turns out a child is not good enough for their current last name and have to move down the road to join the Johnson's.
For most people, membership in their family is based on happy accidents of their parent's geographical proximity and how well they got along.
People can join a family without without genetics, too. There's adoption of young kids. There's adoption of older kids. There are people who declare themselves brothers as adults because they enjoy similar interests and look out for each other. There is marriage.
Within a family there is a hierarchy and meritocracy to an extent. Parents are usually the most competent members of the family and are rewarded with the majority of decision-making. But being a member of a family is not a measure of merit. For most people it's something that just happens to them and even if they are disabled and need extra help they usually don't run the risk of getting disowned.
A nation is like a family in this way. Membership in a nation is generally an accident of geography and family tree. There are ways of getting adopted in, but this requires agreeing to conform into the nation's culture/mindset and should be a very limited, personal, and slow process. A child can't just crawl in through your window and declare they are your child now. Adopting a child is deliberate, adopting a new citizen is also deliberate.
Within a nation, there should be merit. The best people should be governing, doctoring, etc. But I strongly disagree with any conception of American citizenship that perceives it as a reward.
It's utterly ridiculous if you take it to the logical conclusion. Every year, let's send our bottom 20th percentile to Mexico and let in their top 20th percentile! No, there just isn't a hierarchy among nations like that.
American citizenship is not a prize, is not fungible, is not tradable. American citizenship is an identity. American citizens are the group of people who elect American leaders who in turn make decisions to prioritize the well-being of American citizens over everyone else. There are smart Americans, stupid Americans, lazy Americans, hard working Americans. Our leaders represent us all. Or at least, they should.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
15d ago
If the first post was filtered, it's likely the responses have been filtered as well. An annoying artifact from rDrama. Try to upvote them even if you disagree with their post until they break free.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
16d ago
Don't people generally have a "Support the Troops" mentality even if you disagree with what the leadership is doing with the troops?
I imagine that it gets even more so when everyone and their brother spent time in the IDF when they were young.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
17d ago
- 20 minutes
- 2 hours
- 5 minutes, corn.
- 20 minutes
- 15 minutes
- Local airport has "international" in the name but doesn't go to any other countries. Doesn't even go to a majority of US states. So I guess 40 minutes, but really 2.5 hours.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
18d ago
For the demand thing, it's not like the first time I tell her to do something causes a melt down. If it was that clear-cut, it would probably be easier to figure out. I can tell her to put on her shoes 10 days in a row and on the 11th day she panics, keeps taking off and putting her socks on, runs away, something weird.
And it can be asking her to do something she wants to do. There are lots of times where I plan something nice for her, something she's familiar with and knows she likes, and then when the time comes to do it she starts to act scared without being able to articulate why. "Something bad is going to happen." No, why would you think that!
Now that I have PDA in mind, it has been helping to understand some things. In Bluey, there is an episode where there's a "Magic Stuffed Animal" who makes the Dad do whatever the kids say. Kind of like Simon Says. My 6 year old and my 7 year old started playing that game together. My 7 year old was really into it for a few minutes, and then suddenly reacted violently to the stuffed animal. Before it would have been exhibit #100 of what a weird child she is. Now I'm like, "Maybe A shouldn't play that game."
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
18d ago
I do talk with her about philosophical things, but her mind is pretty limited from being 7 years old. I emphasize quite a bit that she doesn't have to do something just because she wants to do something and she doesn't believe me yet.
She has watched My Little Pony and also a show called Philo and Sophie which is a lot more... explicit on the philosophical underpinnings of a happy life.
I've always been pretty self aware and consious of the good people are trying to seek when they do things. I spent hours as a young kid asking talking to my mom:
"Why did so and so do that?"
"Because she thought it made her look cool."
"Did it?"
"Maybe to someone she wanted to impress."
"Why does she want to look cool?"
"Because she thinks people like her more when she's cool?"
"Why do people want to be liked?"
And so on for ever. My 7 year old isn't that curious right now.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
19d ago
Honestly, therapist is a last resort for us, we fear it as much as drugs. But it was what the Neuropsychologist prescribed for her when she was diagnosed with ADHD, and we are really at a loss. We are giving it six months just so we can say we tried it and see what else the Neuropsychologist tells us to do.
Stuffy closet is also just the only way to keep her and her siblings safe when she's like this. She will thrash and yell in there for 10+ minutes until she calms down.
Sorry if I was snippy, it's a hazard about talking about parenting on the Internet. But yeah, I get the feeling that kids like her were part of the 50% childhood mortality rate a thousand years ago.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
19d ago
Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful reply!
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
19d ago
I have four kids. All my other kids so far are perfectly normal and well-behaved. We are not permissive parents. We are not an "everything goes" family.
I physically pick up my daughter and carry her to the car. We leave when she starts freaking out and she misses out on a lot of stuff. We left the fourth of July party early and she missed fireworks. She misses a lot. We don't go places usually because I just have to pick her up and leave. Leave the library before we check out books. Leave the grocery store with a shopping cart half full. Leave the park. Leave leave leave. That has been my life. Babysitters have quit. I can't go anywhere with her and I can't go anywhere without her and I can't go anywhere.
And she's getting heavier and heavier. And when I pick her up she fights with everything she has. She is STRONG, crazy strong, frightened animal strong, and it's getting more and more difficult. If I don't figure this out soon, I will NO LONGER be able to carry her safely to her closet to calm down. And then if she's attacking her siblings, I have to attack her? If I can't carry her safely, it's just getting rougher and rougher to her.
And yes, I take away her toys. Yes, she is consigned to her closet often. We are stricter than most people we know. Our kids know they need to say please and thank you or they aren't getting fed. You really have the wrong idea if you think we just don't try to change her behavior at all through normal parenting means.
We even tried spanking for a few months when she was four. She kept doing this one behavior where she would get water out of the bathroom sink, fill containers, and then leave them places. The water would spill and make a mess and we were worried about rot. So we had a rule - when we saw her do this, she would be spanked immediately. The consequence would be immediate, and it was only for this one specific behavior. Well... nothing changed. Nothing at all. Except we felt like jerks, because it really seemed like, if she could stop herself, she would have. She didn't like getting spanked.
The word "Pathological" means that it prevents you from living normal life. I think our experience with her qualifies.
That's why it's so weird that I can actually go places with her taking L-Theanine.
She ran straight into a moving car. This isn't something a normal seven year old does. She is going to die if I just treat her like my other three kids.
Are you sure that when someone demands too much of you, you have an adrenaline rush? Start attacking people? Run away like a lion's after you? Freeze like a gun is pointed at your heart? Several times a day? That is what PDA is supposedly. And my kid acts like it.
And the fact that I can give her a supplement that completely changes her behavior, so she becomes perfectly behaved, when if I give the same supplement to another kid it doesn't change anything at all... doesn't that hint at something?
The Rabbit Hole
How it started:
I am homeschooling my 7 year old daughter, A, this year. I do not want to homeschool her forever - I have concerns about her socialiszation. But her behavior at school last year in the first grade grew to be atrocious and counter to learning anything.
She was sent to the office almost every day for running away from her teacher and hiding in the art cabinets or alternatively chasing and grabbing at her teacher (if the teacher took something from her.) There weren't any clear triggering events, but a oftentimes it would be that there was an assignment shift, the teacher would tell her to put away the old work and focus on the lesson or some new work, and then it would set my daughter off. We had her evaluated with a neuropsychologist and have a formal diagnosis of ADHD, for which the accommodations are to give her less work or more time to do some work. This didn't really help.
Close to the end of the year, the principle, vice principle, teacher, school psychologist, and like five other people had a meeting with us where they discussed A's behavior. My husband and I were seriously worried they were going to expel her or at the very least hold her back a year. (She had been suspended twice from school already.) Instead, after going down the litany of behaviors that was causing disruption to her learning, they just looked at my husband and I and asked us what they should do. It was a shocking moment to me - these were the experts! Had they never seen a kid like ours before? If they had told us, "You need to do x at home, get her evaluated for this other behavioral disorder" etc, we'd have done it! We're demonstrably involved middle class parents who can afford to take her to therapy every other week and see whatever doctors are needed.
I'm focusing on A's behavior at school largely because that was what caused us to pull her out of school. Her behavior at home has also been laughably bad. I've had moments where I considered she might just be what was once called an Imbecile. For example, a little while ago we went for a family walk. She ran into the side of a car backing out of its driveway. She was running ahead of us against our wishes, as normal, and we saw the car backing out so we yelled at her to stop. So of course she ran faster and... Bonk! No injuries fortunately. Stupidest car crash ever.
The thing I need to get across is that A is the sweetest child ever when she's not upset. She is upset at her own behavior and is often praying and wishing she wasn't such a "Bad Kid." She asks to do more chores, she looks out for her younger siblings, she minds her Ps and Qs. But once or twice a day, she will get into a "stuck" mode where she will keep trying to do the same insane thing over and over again and needs to be carried to her closet (full of stuffed animals, we don't even bother putting clothes in there, it's a safe soft place.)
Anyways, we pulled her out of school and I've been hanging around Homeschooling forums. I perk up whenever I see a topic around ADHD, because that at least is one diagnosis she officially has. A couple weeks ago, I saw someone mention that their kid has something called "PDA" and that they have to accommodate that in their homeschooling methods. For the first time in my life, I saw someone else describe a child who acts like A.
What is PDA?
First a disclaimer. PDA seems to be recognized as an expression of Autism in the UK, but it doesn't seem to be recognized anywhere else. I do not wish to make a stand one way or another on if it exists. All I know, is that my kid acts the same as the other kids who are said to have it (and she doesn't really act like any other kid otherwise.)
PDA stands for Pathological Demand Avoidance. The theory is that, when someone with this disorder has a demand placed on them (explicit or implicit) they perceive it as a threat and over time it actually activates their fight/flight/freeze response. This actually explains my daughter's behavior so well it's entirely shocking to me. I've seen her shaking in fear as she struggles to put shoes on her feet for five minutes because I told her, "hurry up, we're going to be late." I already suspected anxiety was involved, but she doesn't act like someone with generalized anxiety. This is the first thing that really makes sense.
What did I do?
First, I looked up supplements to calm a kid down. If most of her misbehavior is caused by improperly triggering her fear response, lets turn the dial down on that. I found L-Theanine and thought it looked interesting. Lots of people who take it say they don't notice anything - it's not a relaxant or a downer. But other people who take it say it makes them more resilient to downward spirals, which is what I'm looking for. It's pretty safe - you can take grams of it without ill effect. Doesn't build up in the system either.
It immediately changed her behavior. When the supplement arrived she was in the middle of a bit of mania, talking about selling crafts nonstop all day and making enough money to buy a diamond (we read A Little Princess recently.) I wasn't able to get her to do anything - eat, practice math or reading, go outside, anything else. She was staying up well past her bedtime. I gave her about 50mg in her water and in thirty minutes she was happy (different from mania, trust me), cuddly, and soon, sleepy.
Since then, I've been giving her some in her water at bedtime and she's only had one of her "stuck" episodes once. On days where I have an outing planned, I give her some in the morning as well and.. it's incredible. Makes me want to cry. We have good days. I can take her places without her running into the road. I can tell her it's time to go back and she doesn't fall to pieces. She acts polite and conscientious and everything that I know her to be. It has been years since I could take her anywhere without having to accept that it will involve a tantrum or two.
The only downside is, when I give her a morning dose, she often reports a headache a few hours later (as it's wearing off?). No big deal, she has had headaches before. I give her ibuprofen and she is fine.
But it doesn't sit right with me
As magical as this all is, it's not like it's in her genes. A Western European did not evolve the need for an extract from an Asian plant in order to avoid running off the nearest cliff.
And the headache bothers me. What if I'm depleting something in her body to give her these good days now, but it will come back to bite us later?
So I kept looking. Most PDA parents talk about changing their entire lifestyle to "accommodate" their PDA kid - just never demand anything from them and set up their lives so that no one else ever demands anything from them. I think this is ridiculous. It's basically consigning the kid to being institutionalized later on. No one can grow into an adult this way. But when A is overloaded with demands, she's not learning either.
I kept looking for keywords surrounding diet and supplements. Finally, I saw someone state, "We resolved pda entirely with a nutrient based approach" and brought up William Walsh. Walsh is a quack without a background in medicine who has diagnosed many ill-behaved children with "Pyroluria" and cured them with large doses of Zinc and vitamin B6. And like, it does actually seem to cure them in the course of a few weeks. Walsh has his own reasons for why he thinks these supplements cure "Pyroluria" and they all seem to be medically wrong. But if it works, it works?
Enter the MTHFR
Googling Walsh's name around, I stumbled upon a Reddit community of people troubleshooting their Vitamin B problems with genetic tests and high doses of supplements. They all have a genetic mutation that makes their bodies less able to process the folate in food into the active form, L-5-MTHF. If they have more folate in their system than they can process, they have a build up of homocystine that causes lots of other bodily functions to gum up. They also aren't making enough L-5-MTHF, which prevents other bodily functions from doing what they should.
There seems to be a correlation between MTHFR mutations and ADHD, Autism, and other disorders.
There are other genetic mutations that can cause issues with B vitamins and the Reddit community is constantly over/undershooting and making themselves over-methylated and under-methylated and it seems very messy. They don't just supplement L-5-MTHF, they also need to reduce folate (which is in most cereals and breads in the United States), supplement B2, B6, B12, zinc, and magnesium, pay attention to if they're supplementing the methylated vs unmethylated versions of these vitamins, and try to keep things in balance.
Those who achieve this balance claim they have found a nirvana free of skin issues, pains, and mental issues that have followed them from childhood. Those who mess up end up with copper deficiency and bouts of schizophrenia.
I have found a Psychiatrist in my state with an actual MD who claims to treat "Nutrient Imbalances, Including Methylation Imbalances" as well as "Abnormalities in Stress Hormone Pathways and Other Hormone Related Root Causes." She is not in my insurance network so it would all be out of pocket but a consultation with her would be within my budget. But I only found her after three layers of quack-searching. This is the medical equivalent of vibe-coding and I realize that.
Is this worth pursuing? Has anyone else fallen down the MTHFR rabbithole?
Huh, I always heard that Courage was just nofap for Catholics who were Gay.
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