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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026

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As before I will emphasize that I am a physician so my speaking is more to the medical model than the psychological one.

Physicians are often asked to "predict the future" we usually can't do this. People will ask "what will happen with my cancer" or other physicians will ask "is this patient medically cleared for surgery."

Usually we are only able to risk stratify. In the case of homicidal/violent ideation and suicidal ideation this is usually further bucketed into acute or chronic risk. Owning a gun ticks the needle substantially towards murder and completed suicide.

These are actuarial judgements more than practical ones. Is this person safe for discharge? At this time they have a low acute risk of harming themselves or others. Maybe 1/100 of people discharged in this way shoves someone onto the subway tracks. Maybe it is 1/1000. We cannot say definitively what an individual person would be, just as I can't tell someone asking about their malignancy what it is going to do. I can also speak of ratios and other such things.

As a matter of public policy you have to choose which things are sufficiently discriminatory to violate individual rights for the safety of the community. Having committed a felony? Yeah pretty convincing you shouldn't own guns anymore. I think most if not all states add an involuntary commitment to the list. If something increases your risk of doing bad shit 1,000 fold, maybe 10,000 fold? Pretty good argument that it's bad.

To the person here, when I speak about what this person reminds me of it's because I have not spoken to this patient or read his records. I can tell you that he pattern matches to other similar people who do meet criteria for something bad or I've treated in a forensic setting for having done bad shit who just need routine care because people get sick in jail. If interviewed as an adult a reasonable physician would likely be comfortable with a diagnosis like ASPD or NPD if the pattern of behavior holds.

Someone with those diagnosis are the central example of someone who should proactively have their rights taken away due to a tendency to violate the rights of others being a core part of the pathology.

I see some additional things in here like "Politicians justify releasing violent criminals from prison on the grounds that their problems are psychological, and thus implicitly treatable." I don't think that's what they are arguing, personality disorders are in general hard to treat and there is a reasonable stance that ASPD cannot be treated at all.

The actual discussion on this is complex although I imagine politicians are for the most part doing it wrong.

This was batched out at work quickly, apologies for typos etc.