Throwaway05
13hr ago
Thankfully the people interested in doing this kind of stuff are generally idiots but that doesn't save us from sufficiently motivated state actors should that become relevant.
I've clocked at least one smart person engaged in domestic terrorism in the U.S. in an intelligent way, and I suspect there are more they just don't get noticed, caught, or publicly emphasized. I'm sure the TLAs are aware, however.
Throwaway05
13hr ago
I don't think it is a significant leap to mention the importance of keeping our head of state safe while we are in a shooting war with a nation whose head of state we killed and that has espoused direct desire to kill our head of state.
Throwaway05
16hr ago
We are at literally kinetic war with an adversary that spends a lot of time and money on assassinations and terrorism..........
Throwaway05
16hr ago
I mean you have credible people making comments. Mark Halperin (who is usually very calm and measured) complaining is why I made this post.
Usually people with knowledge don't publicly comment because you don't want to create -ideas- but this time a lot of people were close by and in the splash zone and are pissed.
Throwaway05
16hr ago
Much as I'd love to blame it on that I don't think so. This wasn't individual agents being unfit or stupid, this was top down problems.
Throwaway05
16hr ago
To add to this, if you are young and have unconventional opinions it can be very easy to not have anyone to share them with, especially these days.
This makes them not very battle tested.
Throwaway05
1d ago
From what I can tell the Hotel was essentially allowed to go about its business and the security cordon was in the building close to the event. You could get very close to the event itself with a generic hotel keyboard. Minimal access control. Someone could easily have preplanted a surprise or walked close with one and rendered the primary security buffer irrelevant, and then had others follow.
People who have been to similar events before said that the security was rather lacking in comparison to other events.
I certainly have been to places that have been more aggressive in searching my bag or person multiple times further out.
Throwaway05
1d ago
Obvious in hindsight, but still.
Making sure the guests at a 1000 person hotel aren't armed or smuggling in materials is obvious in foresight, not hindsight.
...at least I hope so.
Throwaway05
1d ago
So best I can tell security at the recent dinner was somehow even worse than at the campaign event that nearly cost Trump his life. This sounds incredibly stupid but mainstream media reports of the security indicate it is so. And this is in a...storied location no less.
This is also not a situation where things have been calm for a while, we are at war and several attempts have been made, and people have died (ex: Kirk).
Some of this is probably due to security theater elements - security was never good, so it remains not good. You'd think we could make a bit of a change though?
Are all of our institutions really so rotten?
And perhaps more importantly - how many times can we get lucky and how will our civic norms survive when that luck runs out?
Throwaway05
1d ago
I mean you had violent Leftists, see the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground.
The explanation I've always seen is that they took to the Academy, took it over, and then piped the violent ideation into young people long enough that it became accepted.
See: "Long march through the institutions" etc.
Throwaway05
2d ago
I laughed a long time at this.
Throwaway05
2d ago
How about Paddington?
Throwaway05
2d ago
Come on now.
I can call for the assassination of Hitler during WWII and refuse the call for my neighbor Fred and be entirely moral and consistent.
The gap between Democratically elected Trump and a bunch of Authoritarian monsters who just finished killing tens of thousands of their own population and we are effectively at war with.....it's not quite as bad as Fred and Hitler but it is still significant.
Throwaway05
4d ago
Also missing is William Neil McCasland, a retired Air Force major general, who hasn’t been seen since he walked out of his Albuquerque, New Mexico, home on February 27, leaving behind his phone, prescription glasses and wearable devices […] McCasland was at the center of some of the Pentagon’s most advanced aerospace research and once commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Months after the 68-year-old went missing, officials still can’t say where he went, why he left or whether someone else was involved.
If this is the guy I am thinking of then the rumor is that the situation is completely understood it is just being withheld for family privacy reasons. Aka the guy wandered off and died from early dementia, killed himself or something similar.
Throwaway05
4d ago
Amadan's reply said most of what I was going to say far better than I would say it, but I want to emphasize this.
It makes sense to me that reading these words, knowing that people have these thoughts would upset you. I get it. Rage in the existence of such a thing is not a productive emotion and at the same time it is an understandable one. That rage lies to you though. It might tell you that such and such belief is widespread, or "real" - I imagine the most of the sayers are keyboard warriors who would wilt at the thought of actual implementation for instance.
Channel that pain somewhere productive - know that every time someone says something brutal and mean about Republicans or Whites or Men (and even about Democrats and Women!) that a similar pain is produced.
Don't contribute to that pain in others, yell at people who generate that pain - do unto others etc.
Throwaway05
5d ago
Though I would be lying if I said there wasn't a tiny part of me that is sad that I'm not as "normal" as I once believed.
I wrote something long and deleted it.
Your instinct to avoid fad diagnosis is in all likelihood spot on. People have an intense variety, you may have some things that you enjoy and are good at it and some that you do not.
Putting a label on it and embracing a diagnosis that may not be appropriate is poison. Enjoy your life and don't do that!
Throwaway05
5d ago
Like many diseases states BPD is thought to essentially be a "two hit" problem - genetics loads the gun by giving you a predisposition to emotional lability in response to stresses and some life event fires it. Usually this is little t trauma or big T trauma. For more complications on this, see the discussion about C-PTSD.
Anti-Social PD and true sociopathy seem to be somewhat similar,* and for a hilarious and more medical example you can see "cigarette smoking pulmonologist" phenomena (lung cancer is a genetic phenomena and you can't fire the gun if it's not loaded).
Childhood sexual trauma is about as big T Trauma as you can get.
Once impacted by the disorder BPD individuals are more likely to continue to receive and deliver IPV for all the usual reasons including poor choices in partners, ongoing poor coping skills, the presence of mental illness (often with morbidity) and substance use.
With respect to Human's comment on DBT - in many ways BPD is one of the better diseases to have. With appropriate life course and engagement in therapy you can smother the disease state and it goes away. Period (compare with say Bipolar). Historically the more maverick individuals would prescribe a dick (with appropriate male partner) and if the dick puts up with the BPD long enough it dies on its own. This is....old fashioned, but a kernel of the wisdom remains, the natural progression of cluster-b personality disorders (aka persistent teenage brain) is to eventually develop an adult brain, you just need enough of your life to be remaining by the time you get there.
Modern social trends have....presented some problems, but the increase in prevalence in therapy is a counter balance.
Individuals in medicine usually think BPD is worse than it is in aggregate because we spot it media/celebrities when it's quite severe, and when it's noticeable in patient populations its usually severe (especially if your only major experience is IP and you only see the worst of the worst).
If you work enough non-psychiatry outpatient clinic and look closely you'll see a variety of personality disorders with a variety level of function just going about their business getting general medical care and living their lives.
Not every patient is belligerent, suicidal, and homicidal.
*Bad outcomes in development is a problem for all sorts of shit. TBH I'm very annoyed at your preceptors not talking ACE and the impact on development at some point in Psychiatry or Pediatrics.
Throwaway05
6d ago
That is 100% a problem - female doctors are increasingly more common, work shorter careers, and work less hours during them. Many of them do switch to pure teaching or admin roles for lower hours, more consistency, and safety.
That said it is an oddity because a doctor with 20 years experience and one fresh out of residency make mostly the same in most situations.
With respect to specialty choice (which is responsible for most of the variation in pay) women are more likely to go into more mission focused fields that pay less (like pediatrics and infectious disease) and men are more likely to go into money machine go brrr fields like radiology and ortho.
Throwaway05
6d ago
Well shit. My B.
I need a vacation.
Throwaway05
6d ago
In brief - Cluster-B personality disorders are ones in which basic human defense mechanism (immature ones) run roughshod over function. People may effectively end up acting permanently as a teenager. Everyone has these defense mechanism however, and sufficiently bad circumstances can bring them out. And not everyone who has the disorder acts like a total crazy bitch. Plenty of politicians are functional narcissists, anti-socials work in Wall Street. If you know where to look you'll see more, or if your bubble gets stressed in some way you'll see more.
Ideally these people do well enough that most of the people around don't know that involved a ton of therapy or whatever to get there.
Modern woke feminism etc provides a good scaffolding for these peoples worst impulses to explode everywhere and cause a horrendous mess and for it to be called a good thing - which may explain certain over representations.
Throwaway05
6d ago
Furthermore, if you don't want to live in a HCOL then being a doctor is an amazing deal.
In the US this is not true, doctors get paid less in HCOL areas (not universally because California is a bit different). Want to live in NY? Boston? Chicago? Take a 25-35% pay cut.
I mean that's not unfair. Mark is a serious person who has been to many, many of these types of events. On the other hand he's a journalist not a security expert, and security experts usually decline to aggressively comment on these types of events.
I'd say on the face of it it doesn't seem well secured, especially with some of the semi-public details (security started inside the building, movement was restricted to the presence of a generic hotel key sleeve, etc.).
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