Throwaway05
15d ago
Tough situation. It's good that you noticed this* - people like this (in terms of mental health AND criminality) are all over the place all the time. This is both scary and should be heartening - in many environments it's national news if something goes wrong.
It may also be helpful to know that their isn't too much you can do here, guy is unlikely to want help and is unlikely to meet the criteria in the US for involuntary help. Family resources if well applied and other things like that can convince someone to be help seeking, but that ain't going to be your bag.
The gradual burning off of these resources is generally just a part of how this disease goes.
That said - some of the story is certainly concerning but the guy seems to not have caused problems (otherwise the police would be picking him up more often) and made it into middle age which is a good sign, and he is also seemingly not anti-social which is a huge source of violence.
Even people with broken brains tend to have a predisposition to not do violence, in a big city you'll see people running around screaming and attacking trash cans and saying threatening shit but they won't actually hurt other people most of the time.
Incidentally this is what concerns me about recent political violence, it is teaching people with poor judgment that said stuff is a good idea. Not wise.
This guy would likely struggle to get a gun anyway - if it's obvious to you its obvious to someone selling a gun who sniffs crazy every day.
*Our system in the U.S. is very rights focused. That can be good, that can be mad. People who are pro-2a need to experience these people in order to be taking an informed stance.
Throwaway05
15d ago
I mean it depends on the where. Usually you can get someone to a psych ED through a wellness check, the police, etc (at least in a blue state). But then if it's a city this guy is absolutely going to get cut loose. So you need non-urban (save for the real acuity) or non-rural (not enough resources) for their to be any chance of really catching this guy and sending him to inpatient - which is what you'd have to do since he won't meet the criteria for involuntary outpatient and doesn't likely want treatment himself. Inpatient is not really appropriate either.
This is the system we have unfortunately (or fortunately - it's very rights forward which can be a good thing, but is pretty American).
Throwaway05
15d ago
Psychiatric medication having side effects was mentioned below and is true, although less of an impact for patients like this who may not be "with it" enough to notice the problems.
"Anosognosia" can also be a core symptom of some disease - if you realize you are delusional....well you aren't really delusional, now?
Additionally many regular people struggle to take their medication for seemingly "benign" things (like high blood pressure or diabetes) and up to really bad stuff like "my anti-rejection medications for my transplant."
Throwaway05
16d ago
Kirk wore a lot of hats, Erika is planning on taking over only one of them.
Throwaway05
16d ago
who claimed that she had a low opinion of Italy because when she went there on vacation, she didn't like the food.
If I can rant for a second I'm going to say this person has utterly terrible taste, or more likely it is a skill issue - it's easy to end up at terrible tourist only places and order American Italian dishes instead of actual Italian food.
Throwaway05
22d ago
Tylenol is weird. It absurdly safe for a drug (with the exception of someone with gross liver failure). Lots of continuous risk no matter how small for say ibuprofen, risks ramps up swiftly with pertinent comorbidity, chronic use, and high doses. Very much a "no dose is "safe"......but the benefits outweigh the risks" situation. In contrast Tylenol is usually just...safe.
Unless you have too much. Then rapidly you switch to one of the worst deaths imaginable. It goes from Safe to Dead faster than most drugs and with more sharp of a delineation. Stay on the right side of that line and you are good. Advil is more like alcohol - increasing risk that varies with the person the whole way.
This is an oversimplification but still.
For this reason dosage isn't usually a problem. But we don't know how Tylenol works, and maybe it works more like a regular drug for pregnancy and less is safer.
Throwaway05
23d ago
This was telegraphed a few weeks ago, the impression I got from Meddit at the time is that their is some inconsistent evidence for RFK's claims but that more likely than not he's wrong - however complicating matters is the fact that the medical community will instantly go blindly anti-Trump obscuring the issue.
Discussion today has seemingly forgotten the (mild) controversy in evidence and mainstream media coverage is repeating "trust the science" lies.
Sigh.
Some relevant facts: -Other analgesics have been slowly contraindicated in pregnancy over time, leaving Tylenol as the primary option. Does this mean a resulting increase in Tylenol is the cause of increased autism? Maybe not, but it is a thought and has been investigated previously.
-We don't actually really know how Tylenol works.* That makes it something of a boogie man.
*Please don't tell me this is one of the times that some important medical fact has changed since the last time I've researched it.
Throwaway05
25d ago
I recall it being mostly non-American doctors - which means radically different professional standards (and standards of professionalism) as well as totally different life background. This may be my brain flattering my biases however.
Throwaway05
25d ago
If I recall correctly we've had several instances of doctors caught lying about just this kinda thing specifically, no?
Throwaway05
27d ago
I mean check out the graphs of growing divide between women and men.
They are starting to be separate circles with little overlap, many women on dating websites make clear their political affiliation, and most high quality men pay lip service only to progressive politics if they acknowledge it at all. Anyone who still wants to date has to lie a bit.
Historically women have been willing to take on or ignore the politics of their partner a bit more, we'll see if that stays true....if it doesn't......
Throwaway05
28d ago
A lot of the wealthy right leaning people who run things woke up last week and realized that the left wasn't kidding about murdering people, that the United CEO wasn't going to be a one off and that in addition to that element of self-interest that wokeism isn't really making them money.
Expect a lot of rapid correction to more representative behavior.
Throwaway05
28d ago
I'm not magicalkittycat.
Yes I know, over the last few days I've become suspicious that MKC is a sock puppet for someone I would prefer not to discuss with and wanted to assess.
I can tell you that in my Pre-COVID clinical practice I occasionally ran into a vaccines cause Autism soccer-mom/hippie/"natural" nut. They'd be impossible to convince.
More often (likely because of my location) I'd run into blacks who were skeptical of the government and so on -if you were kind and patient you could usually convince these.
I'll note the specific poll in your link "how important is it that parents get their children vaccinated" won't really capture this well because "meh" and "fuck off whitey" end up being the same answer.
Throwaway05
29d ago
I had the same thought.
Throwaway05
29d ago
This is not mental illness by definition. Soldiers are not mentally ill. Most people who work for cartels aren't mentally ill. Most islamic terrorists aren't mentally ill. Mental illness involves culturally dystonic behavior. Like it or not a large part of America thinks this kind of behavior is justified and his milieu is almost certainly part of that.
The rest of them might be talking a big game, and he might feel guilty afterwards, but this was water to him.
Throwaway05
29d ago
Exhibit 1: we are posting on a site where holocaust revisionists speak freely (and incessantly).
Literally the point. The Motte was chased off of /r/SSC and then reddit in general because of no-no thoughts.
You can tell me the marketplace of ideas is recovering when I can reveal my political affiliation at work without severe professional consequences.
Throwaway05
29d ago
I asked because I find that more partisan types struggle to admit that both the left and the right have issues with vaccines (both COVID and otherwise) with it being historically focused on hippy types and inner city blacks but now having more red tribers.
It's a situation where if you can't admit it's an issue with bipartisan elements I'm not not sure we have much to talk about.
Throwaway05
29d ago
That isn't what I asked.
Throwaway05
29d ago
I don't do it anymore but for some of the earlier parts of this insanity I would speak up. At a party, at family dinner.
I'm large and I'm calm and I'm reasonably well spoken, and because I spend time here I'd seen the arguments for both sides.
Every time I'd try, every time! The leftist would storm out - no matter how calm I was, no matter how well I dodged some of the common pitfalls. When challenged and they realized they couldn't bully me into shutting up...they fled. And we are talking doctors, lawyers, and so on.
Eventually I decided that the risk to my social life and professional life was too much and stopped.
And that was over five years ago, the extremism has only been getting worse since.
I'm sure the militant right would do the same? But I have no access to them.
Throwaway05
29d ago
Again - the marketplace of ideas and free speech are already dead. CPR does not have a good success rate but we do it because you can't get worse than dead. CPR is ugly. You feel the mangled flesh of their chest and feel like you are going cut your hand on their fractured ribs. Doesn't mean you give up.
Especially important because the people who killed it have oppressed me for the last ten+ years (or at least, I identify that way), some of them appear to be publicly stating they want me dead (see: polling, public statements by left leaning influencers), and we've seen what happens when you put these people in charge (marxist and socialist thought in China, Russia, etc).
You mention the cultural revolution - Trump has zero percent chance of making that happen. None of what that is or the environment that brings it is represented by Trump. Meanwhile the left has already started their cultural revolution.
You want the cultural revolution that has zero chance to happen or the one that is already picking up steam?
Throwaway05
29d ago
Let's try this.
We are in the midst of a "real world" political moment.
The literal shooting war started at least a year ago and now a good chunk of America has woken up, realized that this is real and many are trying to abort the war before it gets worse.
The world of political ideals is wonderful but not usually compatible with enemy action and real life - those who are inflexible and sclerotic get wiped out by history.
I kinda like America, and while I'd like to be implementing political action with sensitivity and specificity of 100%....those things don't exist in the real world. In medicine we still do screening tests even though we know they aren't perfect, because the benefits outweigh the harms.
We know the police will be wrong some of the time, but we accept them because society falls apart without them (and the left has been demonstrating this for us!).
The hate we are seeing, violence, and authoritarian anti-americanism isn't the disease. It's the symptom. The disease is the death of the marketplace of ideas, killed by the left. They knocked of the stalls and kicked the right out of the market and for a long time the right had increasingly minimal place in our institutions including critical ones like school, universities, social media, and popular entertainment.
This radicalized an entire generation on the left who grew up hearing insane ideas with no consistency and never any pushback and it radicalized some on the right who thought that shit was crazy and got isolated as a result.
Now the federal government is going to come in and try and bus in right leaning stuff into the marketplace of ideas at gunpoint. Some stalls are going to get kicked over but the result is going to be me more free speech.
The left already killed free speech in America, it's stupid to get mad at the right for forcibly reinstating it, would you rather it stay dead?
Monopolies are bad.
Additionally this needs to happen absolutely fucking NOW Jesus Christ. People in their 40s and older, maybe some people in their 30s. They'll come back once political winds change. They remember a before time. People in their 20s and younger spent most of their critical developmental periods in milieu of insane political obscenity and a good chunk of those are at high risk of staying there.
Communist revolutions provided a blue print for what happens when cynical elders teach words words words knowing not to take them literally, but those taught do take them literally - chaos and destruction result.
Lastly, categorically the left is more of a threat than the right because of the prior victories. The extremities of the left have gone functionally unchallenged for over a decade. Yeah you can slice out segments that have been speaking out, but overall they captured most of it. The right has been roundly criticized for any moment of failure or excess, by the media, by the courts, by the universities, by popular entertainment. It would be a decade long project to change that if it is even possible. The right will continue to be under a microscope that prevents things from getting bad, the left will continue to be a slavering rabid dog whose owner thinks is just precious and can do no wrong.
I think one of those is significantly safer to steward a realignment.
Throwaway05
29d ago
"The twin towers fell as they lived, a monument to capitalist excess and oppression of the Muslim people" would get you pilloried by both left and the right in the weeks following 9/11. The average American understands that in the wake of tragedy you have to either being showing a tremendous lapse in some combination of judgement, insight, and impulse control or you have to be defending what happened using plausible deniability. In a few months it may be a different story but for now you have widespread bipartisan figures going "the republic is going to fall if you don't stop saying "neiner, neiner" and supporting terrorism and plenty of people went "bet."
Cancel culture was mostly firing and oppressing people for mainstream opinions, stuff they did years ago and stuff they straight up didn't even do.
Dancing on the burning corpse of democracy is not one of the above.
Is the right likely to take it too far? Will they be justified in doing so? Different but important questions.
You want to talk about those talk about those but stop pretending this is in the same category.
Throwaway05
29d ago
Is vaccine hesitancy a right or left wing conspiracy theory? Has that changed recently?
I think that's a good sniff test here.
Throwaway05
29d ago
And you can easily add a more conspiratorial angle that goes something like "this guy is clearly mentally ill but if you frame his defense in a way that is politically advantageous to us we'll help him out."
I would not usually pretend that is the slightest bit likely but given the time and jurisdiction who knows.
In any case the guy is clearly mentally ill adjacent with unclear etiology (maybe just drug brain rot?) which is relevant in the same way that the recent stabbing is, but doesn't seem to be a clear eyed assassination as the Kirk murder seemingly is.
Throwaway05
29d ago
As I said in one of my earlier comments, we can all (well mostly) agree that some things are unacceptable to say publicly associated with your identity. A teacher advocating for child sexual abuse publicly is not something you are going to see support from all but the most ardent gadflies.
You have to pick where to draw the line. Critiques and complaints about cancel culture were often about this - the line was drawn in an unacceptable location and critically was politically unipolar.
I think you'd find that most on the right, even the ones who are like "bahahaha taste your own medicine bahaha" would be wiling to say - yes people on both sides should be fired for supporting domestic terrorism. You'd probably even find some people who might say something like "yeah you wanna advocate for terrorism in another country like Gaza? Sure! Just keep it out of the U.S."
Might it eventually get taken too far? Sure.
But for now the gap in equivalency is comically vast.
If you spend years complaining about people getting fired for cat calling on the street and then you start saying that rapists should be fired...that isn't inconsistent, even if one side tries to claim that cat calling is rape.
I mean I'm aware it exists but I've never actually seen it which says something unfortunate.
Some places have "ACT/PACT/Whatever" teams that follow people in the community so they don't need to go to appointments but that requires sufficient patient engagement.
Usually that means lots of commitments and you get them with "you wanna stay out of the hospital bro?"
But we let a lot of people wander who dont want treatment and stay out of trouble.
Usually drugs is what gets people involved because it makes them erratic enough for the police to get involved.
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