domain:astralcodexten.com
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
53m ago
A lot of the wild cosmological speculations of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are really really interesting, really unique, really cool. It just is slightly frustrating when the things that are so distinctive about Mormonism are downplayed.
I think the problem here is that the list of things about distinctive about Mormonism that are interesting, unique, and cool are very tightly connected to the list of things that are distinctive about Mormonism that are obviously false. Joseph Smith taught that the Book of Mormon came from a pre-Colombian civilisation of ethnically Middle Eastern Christians in America which had access to Eurasian crops, livestock, and metallurgical knowledge. No archaeological evidence for such a civilisation exists, and someone who has received a secular education would know that. And Mormonism doesn't have the political power to put docents in the Egyptian gallery at the Met to point out the drawings of enslaved Jews and similar historical fudges.
It is still just about possible for an intelligent person to believe the historical claims made by mainstream Judaism or Christianity without rejecting their secular education wholesale - particularly if you treat 1 Genesis as allegorical, as e.g. the Catholic hierarchy does. The hardest part is the Passover Narrative. (Hyksos=Jews is consistent with the Genesis story from Abraham to Joseph and the migration from Canaan to Egypt, and with the wandering in the desert under Moses and eventual return to Canaan, but the Hyksos were not enslaved and were violently expelled rather than fleeing in the night). Historical Nephites and Lamanites and the Book of Mormon as an inspired translation of ancient Nephite scripture is harder to reconcile with secular scholarship than a historical Exodus, and far harder to reconcile than historical Jesus and the New Testament as inspired accounts of his teachings by his contemporaries.
If the Book of Mormon is what it appears to be to secular scholars (a mediocre King James Bible fanfic by a man steeped in but apostate from 19th century American Protestantism, with a side order of Freemasonry) then Mormonism is nothing.
Blueberry
1hr ago
No insight and likely a strong aversion to receiving treatment. Untreated schizophrenia tends to worsen. He's quite young, we don't know how bad it'll eventually
What can be done here?
professorgerm
found a needlessly pedantic hill to die on
1hr ago
simple reason that they were carried out against minority groups
Petty nitpick, curious if there's other reporting that suggests it was targeted for some reason: North Carolina shooter was motivated against a minority group (in a schizo way) but carried out the attack against what was, afaict, a generic normie waterfront bar. Newsweek quotes the police saying it was targeted but that just seems to be the kind of thing they say in almost every case.
When I first heard about it I half expected it was some local that snapped and decided to target tourists and increasing prices.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1hr ago
Is this whole topic a can of worms best left unopened?
If you hold the lash, yes. If you are being lashed, no.
I saw North Carolina had a bail reform bill in response to Iryna's murder. The demographics of which representatives voted for it or against it are horribly depressing. You'd think such a display of the obvious failures of just instantly putting repeated violent offenders back on the streets has been made obvious to everyone, and yet the non-White legislators felt no impetus to change anything. Luckily they were outvoted, and so the pogrom hits a speed bump in NC.
In theory, I'm not against some sort of mental health red flag laws. But I also know my enemies consider my moral beliefs fundamentally insane. I know if they wanted to declare church attendance a risk factor to owning a gun, they could launder that premise through academia and friendly mid level bureaucrats in HHS or CDC, and suddenly I'm checking off a box on my back ground check asking me if I've ever attended church, under penalty of perjury if I lie about it.
Maybe the non-whites in North Carolina feel the same way about bail reform.
I don't expect the bodies to stop piling up as long as we're forced to live with each other.
Corvos
1hr ago
she promptly stops taking her meds, "because she doesn't need them,"
I know this is a big problem, but why does it happen? Is it that the meds don't really work, so patients are drugged and docile but still basically irrational? Is it that they work too well, so that patients think they're cured and therefore that they don't need the pills anymore? Or are the patients 'cured' but still basically too low-competency or erratic for their newfound sanity to make much difference?
I would have thought that after the first couple of rounds of 'didn't take my meds, got arrested', I would (being sober/sane because of the meds) spot the pattern and be very careful about taking the meds even when I'm feeling better.
HereAndGone
1hr ago
It seems like bad choices all the way down when it comes to the question of when should these individuals lose their rights.
Exactly. To treat them, you have to drag them in against their will, medicate them against their will, and keep them locked up until they start responding to the medication. That's a horrible thing to do, but you might have to do it.
Then you let them out, and hope to God they maintain the medication regime instead of dropping it the second they're released and ending up back in the same rinse and repeat cycle.
HereAndGone
1hr ago
I mean, yeah. Back when I worked in social housing, we had a client the same way (and same kind of delusions about the government spying on her). On her meds, she was perfectly functional. Off her meds, she gradually slid all the way down to 'can't hold down a job, is delusional, is talking a mile a minute in that stream of consciousness way'.
It's sad. Luckily she never got into any physical harm, but turn the delusions about the neighbours up a notch, add a gun into the mix... and the outcome probably wouldn't be great.
And it is exactly at that intersection of "should there be intervention or should this person be left alone?" Because intervention would probably mean - for Hassan as well - involuntary commitment and being made to take the meds. And Hassan does not sound like he'd take well to people trying to force him to take drugs. But without the meds he's dangerous - or is he?
That's the big, troubling question here. He's functional enough to be able to look after himself, and he hasn't gotten into trouble yet. The problem is the "yet". So long as talk about getting a gun is only talk, it's not at the point of "yeah he needs to be taken in". The problem is, how do you judge when he hits that point?
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
1hr ago
Untreated schizophrenia tends to worsen. He's quite young, we don't know how bad it'll eventually get.
He's in his late 30's, if that changes things. The "young Denzel" line might have given a different impression, but there's a high degree of "black don't crack" going on. He has excellent skin condition.
If only there was a way to bring him in for a few weeks to an impatient clinic and starting him on some antipsychotics.
I don't have any clues from things he's told me, but as we've covered his is pretty functional. Is it possible he's already on medication? I don't have a good sense of what modern anti-psychotics do. Would you expect a notable improvement on the delusions?
zeke5123a
1hr ago
To me, this reads in part like a plea for the Latin mass
Edit: more flippant than I meant. It’s a good post. Just was thinking about the language part
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
1hr ago
Although I'm IT, I happen to work in the mental health field, and we see a lot of Hassans on a semi-regular basis. I get the feeling that working with them would be extremely difficult, just because it'd be so fucking heartbreaking. I mean, I'd want to do everything I could for him, and I'd feel terrible that bare bones basics like medication management and linking him to help and encouraging him to use it would be the best that I could do for him, and that he probably wouldn't take advantage of any of the help because of the paranoia. It seems like bad choices all the way down when it comes to the question of when should these individuals lose their rights. I'm firmly on record as saying that the SC has erred on the side of turning the mental health problem into a law enforcement problem with the current doctrine of imminent danger of harm to self or others or chronic inability to care for self, but I also have no illusions that widespread institutionalization was worse. The reality of the law being a blunt instrument here really hits home with frequent flyer clients like the lady who is consistently hospitalized for abducting children off the streets which in her mind is for their own safety, treated with medication, then released, whereupon she promptly stops taking her meds, "because she doesn't need them," then goes back to her delusions and tries to protect another kid and starts the cycle all over again.
And the big kicker in all of this is that your example of Hassan is a great one in the sense that he seems to code to the classic, "would probably never even hurt a fly unless he is triggered in a highly specific fashion," sort of situation, which is, of course, the vast majority of schizophrenics. I know, I know, it's very trope-y to be busting out the, "less violent than normies," meme here but the other piece of this for me is that from what I've seen, the violent mentally ill throw many more red flags than just trying to protect themselves. Threats of violence and violent or even homicidal ideation are common and even then, the biggest single red flag is that they've been violent in the past, not that they threaten violence or fantasize about it. I'm sure this, in part, is why having a plan to harm someone or oneself is a prerequisite for involuntary commitment, lest we start locking folks up left and right for wanting to hurt or kill an antagonist or themselves.
Anyway, I really appreciate this post because it brings home the reality that absent a major breakthrough, schizophrenia in particular will remain a particularly poor fit for the lens of the culture wars. Even if we go with the metaphor of the spectrum for mental illness, there's a clear-cut difference between the Jared Loughners and the Lee Harvey Oswalds.
That sounds like, ‘I don’t see Mormons as an outgroup’ rather than ‘I find it offensive to distinguish the outgroup’ though. The defining lines seem to be still be there for you (must love god, must treat sex as a lifetime commitment in principle) and indeed the latter potentially excludes not a few of the Christians I know who are broadly pro pre-marital sex as an inherently good thing.
If you are not personally interested in arcana about lines of apostolic succession then fair enough. I’m pretty lax about most theology - probably too much so. But clearly to many people it does matter.
I made a post on this not too long ago about gun rights being civilization rights. If we don't trust Hassan to have a gun we don't really trust him to exist and live in our civilization.
I suspect this equivalence is true for most people:
(Number of people you trust to own a gun around you) < (Number of people you trust to live in society around you)
This doesn't compute for me. It's true that I trust fewer people to own guns around me than live in society around me. That means that gun rights are not the same as civilization rights. Many crazies are harmless when they do not own tools that can kill at a twitch of a finger and steeped in the culture of using them against perceived threats.
And on a larger scale, do you trust the state to determine whether or not you're crazy enough to take your rights away more or less than you trust the presumably small portion of crazies in society to not kill you?
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Syria, Libya, Kurdistan. The taliban might be the official government of Afghanistan but they do not have full territorial control.
Sudan is in a civil war, but it didn’t have full control of its territory before that.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
1hr ago
So where do you work where you can get away with talking to Hassan for 45 minutes?
Really not trying to be that specific on my spicy political opinions pseudonym. Let's just say that workloads are spikey, and I have never figured out a graceful way to disengage from conversation with Hassan. He will just natter away at me without pause until I am working with someone else, and even then it takes a minute or so for him to realize I am otherwise occupied and make his farewells. 45 minutes is a length I know from experience he is capable of, when he catches me during a slump, but the average is more like 10.
cjet79
1hr ago
I made a post on this not too long ago about gun rights being civilization rights. If we don't trust Hassan to have a gun we don't really trust him to exist and live in our civilization.
I suspect this equivalence is true for most people:
(Number of people you trust to own a gun around you) < (Number of people you trust to live in society around you) < (Number of people actually in society around you)
The gaps in those numbers pose very thorny problems, and I think most people would prefer to sweep those problems under the rug.
I think someone like Hassan should be imprisoned and removed from society. We currently keep a bunch of criminals in prisons, and thus prisons are very terrible places to be. I would not want to condemn Hassan to such a place. Mental institutions used to be the kind of prison that would house people like Hassan. I don't think they were pleasant enough either. Either the nicest prison possible, or he remains a ward of his parents/the state.
Ah, a topic made for me. I needed a break after going through study material that uses vorbeireden to illustrate vorbeireden. I suppose this example helps me shore up my understanding of the differences between delusional perception, delusional memory, and delusional misinterpretation. It seems to be the last one in this case, the patient has a pre-existing delusion which causes him to interpret "neutral" stimuli in a negative context. I think. I am not sure if being accosted by three cops is strictly neutral, even for the neurotypical.
Let us stick to facts and base rates for a moment.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2787197
There was an increase in risk of violence perpetration in men with schizophrenia and other psychoses (pooled odds ratio [OR], 4.5; 95% CI, 3.6-5.6) with substantial heterogeneity (I2 = 85%; 95% CI, 77-91).
The authors note that this seemed relatively stable between countries, so it is fair to assume it holds in the States. This means that, statistically speaking, a man with schizophrenia is about 4.5 times more likely to perpetrate violence than a man without it. This is a significant number. It is not 450 times, but it is also not zero.
The same study notes that the relative risk also depends on the presence or absence of substance abuse:
The pooled odds of violence perpetration in individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders without substance misuse comorbidity (n = 11 079) was 3.5 (95% CI, 2.6-4.6; I2 = 81%; 95% CI, 68-89) (eFigure 5 in the Supplement), and in individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders with substance misuse comorbidity (n = 3586), it was 9.9 (95% CI, 7.2-13.5; I2 = 82%; 95% CI, 69-89) (eFigure 6 in the Supplement).
Taking your testimony to Hassan's clean living standards at face value, he should be at the lower end. We can assume he is probably around 350% more dangerous than the average person, with wide error bars. The conclusion that he is, in fact, more dangerous than average seems almost certain from a statistical perspective.
(The more cynical would invoke FBI crime stats at this point)
But this is the classic base rate problem. We are not just interested in the average person with schizophrenia, we are also interested in Hassan. So I'll go ahead build a quick and dirty risk profile based on your account:
What works in his favor:
- No history of violence or criminality. This is a huge point. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.
- Pro-social paranoia. His delusions seem to compel him toward scrupulous honesty and rule-following, likely to avoid giving "them" any leverage. I've given myself enough of a headache studying psychopathology today that I won't go into details, but it's a good thing.
- High-functioning. He manages his own life, a feat he is justifiably proud of. This suggests a degree of executive function that is often impaired in more severe cases. Look, the man is cooking regularly, eating healthy, and avoiding people who do lots of coke. He's got me beat on all those fronts.
- No evidence of substance abuse. Per the data, this is a massive protective factor.
What works against him:
- The diagnosis itself. The base rate is what it is.
- Persecutory delusions. Believing a nebulous "they" is actively trying to harm you is a classic risk factor. So far his response has been to flee, but a gun changes the strategic calculus from "flight" to "fight." If he does choose to fight, a gun makes it far more likely to end in tears.
- The specific phrasing. "Be a man" and "take care of business" are freighted with meaning. They are active, not passive. They suggest a desire to resolve perceived threats, not just endure them.
- The "broken IFF." A fair way to phrase it. His Identify Friend or Foe system is malfunctioning. He misinterprets wellness checks and offers of water as hostile acts. Giving a weapon to someone whose IFF system flags friendlies as hostiles is a concerning proposition.
- No insight and likely a strong aversion to receiving treatment. Untreated schizophrenia tends to worsen. He's quite young, we don't know how bad it'll eventually get.
Human men have a wide variance in their propensity towards violence. I would personally class Hassan as moderate risk, but take my opinion with a massive dose of salt since I have never met the guy, I'm hearing the story secondhand, and I clearly lack the opportunity to run reasonably validated scoring systems across the gentleman. It's far from ideal. Good thing that nobody listens to me.
In the UK, where social services and the cops have more power in such matters, Hassan would likely have regular welfare checks from a social worker. If he demonstrated severe self-neglect, they'd have the right to bring him in for treatment, which would be given if he was deemed to lack capacity. Whether or not he meets that bar is unclear to me. I presume he'd react better to an unarmed social worker, but that's a luxury in the States, where gun violence is much more of a risk. Here, they'd probably try and shank you first, or hit you with a beer bottle. The matter would be expedited if he resorted to violence or criminality, but he's not there yet.
You mention the man who attacked the FBI office believing in an "LGBTQ white supremacist pedophile" cabal. His thought process seems totally divorced from reality. We can comfortably call that "broken hardware." But where is the line? As you note, is believing the police kill 10,000 unarmed black men a year (the actual number is closer to a dozen) a delusion, or just a political perspective fed by bad information? Is believing Obama is a gay Kenyan married to a man a delusion, or just a conspiracy theory?
(If I was in an OSCE setting, this is where I'd mutter something about the distinction between over-valued thoughts and delusions, and also the fact that delusions need to be carefully interpreted in terms of their commonality in the patient's socio-cultural milieu. If we could commit Evangelicals who spoke in tongues or spoke to Jesus, we'd be filling a lot of psych wards very quickly. The erroneous beliefs mentioned above have millions of adherents, so from a pragmatic point of view we can't treat them all)
I suppose after all that hedging, I should say something mildly actionable. If I were you, I'd refrain from asking for another wellness check unless you note clear and obvious deterioration on his condition. If you could gently nudge him towards a checkup, well, that might help. He seems to trust you, as he should, since you're clearly looking out for him.
At the end of the day, the US's approach to psychiatric services for the insane (who need it the most, I'd say) is rather suboptimal. This is probably the best way of avoiding suicide by cop or homelessness, while also balancing violating his rights. If only there was a way to bring him in for a few weeks to an impatient clinic and starting him on some antipsychotics. That would probably be best, but it's not on the cards at the moment. @Throwaway05 correct me if I'm wrong here.
FarmReadyElephants
1hr ago
My understanding is that Mormons also believe in an always-existing material universe which predates the existence of any sort of God figure. It's much more of a Hindu/Samsara model of the cosmos than anything Christian. For Christians and Jews (and maybe Muslims?), God is the source of being, eternal and preexisting. It's a very different metaphysics.
comfortable
1hr ago
I suppose you would fully condemn the many wives God gave to David, too?
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob also all had multiple wives/concubines. Not as many as David, but David isn't really a great example in my opinion (because he was condemned for wickedness in the end).
roystgnr
1hr ago
Inability to perceive 4D spaces just kills me. It turns out that "imaginary" numbers are actually at the root of reality, and most functions we're interested in are rooted in analytic multivalued functions, visualizable in ℂ×ℂ. That's a 2-complex-dimension space, so it's 4-(real)-dimensional, so we're screwed. Best you can usually do is to switch back and forth between plots of output magnitude and phase (or between real and imaginary components of output), or plot magnitude as height along with phase as color. Fortunately we don't have to be able to visualize something to describe and compute with it, but I feel like it could have helped a lot.
The "bag of holding" trick is clever, it gets you the topology of a 3D manifold that can't be embedded in less than ℝ⁴, but to me it "feels" like a very fixed geometry - two parallel 3D spaces, with the "hole" of the bag's opening connecting them.
TVTropes is shockingly empty of 5-D spaces in fiction. There's a Greg Egan book that takes that seriously, there's a Douglas Adams joke, there's a corny Superman villain, and it's sparse and downhill from there.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
1hr ago
Ah, thanks, makes sense. My bad, that was just me being non-anglo.
So where do you work where you can get away with talking to Hassan for 45 minutes?
comfortable
1hr ago
Creating the Earth out of materials existing in the universe doesn't mean that God didn't create the universe itself.
Corvos
1hr ago
RSS doesn’t solve the right problem. The problem with the internet is with recommendations, not subscriptions.
It’s finding the stuff that I would like to know about but haven’t heard of yet.
Finding the latest episode/post of Thing I Already Like by Person I Already Like is easy.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
1hr ago
Where do you work that employs someone like Hassan?
I guess I was being a little vague, but Hassan is a regular customer, not an employee.
I think it's more likely that Zahi Hawass is throwing his weight around until he gets some credit for the find.
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