"And yes, institutionalization adds a whole lot of extra suffering to the mix. But even here, I find Matthews’ narrative overly simplistic. He talks of a world where random doctors swoop in and trick parents into sending their children to institutions out of pure prejudice and stigma. Anyone who’s ever worked with these families has seen something very different. These parents aren’t poor deluded rubes who have been tricked by stigmatizing doctors. They’re well-educated, deeply committed to their children – and desperate. They’ve spent years trying to raise kids who were violent, self-injurious, locked in a sensory hell without the ability to explain their problems verbally, and maybe having seizures all the time to boot. Their decision to institutionalize is a reluctant concession to this reality. I do not feel the slightest bit of qualification to pass judgment upon these parents and I invite anybody who does to spend a few moments talking to them. Unless you can give these parents a better option – and trust me, they’ve looked – institutionalization isn’t a moralistic tale of prejudice and stigma in the medical system. It’s just a few more drops of misery added to the vast morass of suffering that is severe autism."
Also: religion. Suicide bombers still blow themselves up, even though this has an extremely obvious effect of death. More often, people refuse medical treatments for senseless reasons.
I'm still Libertarian because society is totally wrong about what to do about these things, and bio"ethicists" are more likely to ban curing my autism than cure it. Also, although I'm getting some disability payments, I would still be much better off it I was allowed to leave the hellish school system for a job back when my symptoms were less advanced, and I'm having a hard time supporting myself with a job mainly because regulation is an insurmountable morass for me; otherwise I would support myself with my own projects. But still, Caplan's argument that the mentally ill can be threatened with bodily harm into not having their conditions doesn't apply, because for a while really was considering suicide.
I did some "Scientology tourism" when I spent a few days in Clearwater, Florida, which is one of their headquarters. The church basically bought up all the commercial real estate in the downtown, and now it's a ghost town (the local businesses hate it). But there are scientilogy information centers and "business centers" all over the place that you can just walk into, where there will just be one staff member sitting at the front desk. So I just went building-to-building and chatted with them.
Like you, I disliked their psychaiatry museum. It seemed like BS and there was no easy way to verify the claims. But the guy at the front desk was probably the coolest of all of the scientologists I met and was very game to engage with my questions.
The funniest moment was at one of the business centers, where they are supposedly the YCombinator of Scientology, and helping church members with entrepreneurship. The guy asked me to watch a video, and I said sure. He turned it on and it was a video of him! So I sat down next to him and together, we watched a video where he explained L Ron Hubbard's business acumen.
By the end of my visit, the scientology folks were totally sick of me and everything became less fun. I think they must have thought I was a reporter or a dangerous weirdo or something, because I started getting mean looks whenever I walked by the FLAG building and the security people would be like "what are you doing? Why are you here? Move along!"
One more tidbit. On a separate trip, I visited the scientology center on Hollywood boulevard and had a wonderful conversation with the lady there. Interestingly, she joined the church because she said she struggled with reading, and her school used a dyslexia teaching method that changed her life. It turned out that it was L. Ron Hubbard's technique and that brought her into the church. Not sure if any of that is true, but that's what she said.
I was disappointed that there was no link to a post or article expounding Bryan's basic account. I’ve seen posts of his that criticize others (e.g. Scott Alexander), but somehow I missed the one where he maps out his basic position. I suppose I should just read Szasz, as I always intended.
The 'reject the philosophy of mind that underlies modern psychology' is just a link that goes to a search on econlib.org for Caplan's posts referencing Szasz. You can easily duplicate that search on econlib.org, but I prefer using Google. Here is a link, though I'm not sure how well it works as a url: https://www.google.com/search?q=bryan+caplan+szasz+site:econlib.org
I like this quote from rationality and society: "Indeed, one of the lessons of literature is that characters superficially inexplicable behaviour becomes intelligible once you see it from their perspective"
It would be interesting to know, if people who indulge in literature/movies with controversial characters, like Raskolnikov or maybe the Joker, are more tolerant and less prejudice about others behaviour.
I have always tried to keep this in mind. That has been important because I've held unpopular views on many topics. (Libertarianism being one.) When I argue for life extension, I always keep in mind that the standard, traditional view is that we cannot do anything about aging and it would be bad to do anything. While I think that's crazy, I have to fully acknowledge the popularity of that view.
Many “insane” persons are perfectly logical, but their logic depends on premises that were hallucinated.
Some presumably “sane” persons advocate incompatible variants of logic such as paraconsistent logic and dialetheism. They “reject” conventional logic in favor of an amended version.
Persons who are really out there will not be making claims that accept or reject logic.
The link for "reject the philosophy of mind that underlies modern psychiatry" is a 404
Most mental illnesses don't respond to incentives though: For example, autistic people. Consider Scott Alexander's discussion on autism: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/10/12/against-against-autism-cures/
"And yes, institutionalization adds a whole lot of extra suffering to the mix. But even here, I find Matthews’ narrative overly simplistic. He talks of a world where random doctors swoop in and trick parents into sending their children to institutions out of pure prejudice and stigma. Anyone who’s ever worked with these families has seen something very different. These parents aren’t poor deluded rubes who have been tricked by stigmatizing doctors. They’re well-educated, deeply committed to their children – and desperate. They’ve spent years trying to raise kids who were violent, self-injurious, locked in a sensory hell without the ability to explain their problems verbally, and maybe having seizures all the time to boot. Their decision to institutionalize is a reluctant concession to this reality. I do not feel the slightest bit of qualification to pass judgment upon these parents and I invite anybody who does to spend a few moments talking to them. Unless you can give these parents a better option – and trust me, they’ve looked – institutionalization isn’t a moralistic tale of prejudice and stigma in the medical system. It’s just a few more drops of misery added to the vast morass of suffering that is severe autism."
Also: religion. Suicide bombers still blow themselves up, even though this has an extremely obvious effect of death. More often, people refuse medical treatments for senseless reasons.
I'm still Libertarian because society is totally wrong about what to do about these things, and bio"ethicists" are more likely to ban curing my autism than cure it. Also, although I'm getting some disability payments, I would still be much better off it I was allowed to leave the hellish school system for a job back when my symptoms were less advanced, and I'm having a hard time supporting myself with a job mainly because regulation is an insurmountable morass for me; otherwise I would support myself with my own projects. But still, Caplan's argument that the mentally ill can be threatened with bodily harm into not having their conditions doesn't apply, because for a while really was considering suicide.
I did some "Scientology tourism" when I spent a few days in Clearwater, Florida, which is one of their headquarters. The church basically bought up all the commercial real estate in the downtown, and now it's a ghost town (the local businesses hate it). But there are scientilogy information centers and "business centers" all over the place that you can just walk into, where there will just be one staff member sitting at the front desk. So I just went building-to-building and chatted with them.
Like you, I disliked their psychaiatry museum. It seemed like BS and there was no easy way to verify the claims. But the guy at the front desk was probably the coolest of all of the scientologists I met and was very game to engage with my questions.
The funniest moment was at one of the business centers, where they are supposedly the YCombinator of Scientology, and helping church members with entrepreneurship. The guy asked me to watch a video, and I said sure. He turned it on and it was a video of him! So I sat down next to him and together, we watched a video where he explained L Ron Hubbard's business acumen.
By the end of my visit, the scientology folks were totally sick of me and everything became less fun. I think they must have thought I was a reporter or a dangerous weirdo or something, because I started getting mean looks whenever I walked by the FLAG building and the security people would be like "what are you doing? Why are you here? Move along!"
One more tidbit. On a separate trip, I visited the scientology center on Hollywood boulevard and had a wonderful conversation with the lady there. Interestingly, she joined the church because she said she struggled with reading, and her school used a dyslexia teaching method that changed her life. It turned out that it was L. Ron Hubbard's technique and that brought her into the church. Not sure if any of that is true, but that's what she said.
I was disappointed that there was no link to a post or article expounding Bryan's basic account. I’ve seen posts of his that criticize others (e.g. Scott Alexander), but somehow I missed the one where he maps out his basic position. I suppose I should just read Szasz, as I always intended.
Here's the corrected link to past Szasz award winners: https://www.centerforindependentthought.org/past-szasz-award-winners. They misspelled Bryan's name!
Do you know what article he's linking to in the other link also?
The 'reject the philosophy of mind that underlies modern psychology' is just a link that goes to a search on econlib.org for Caplan's posts referencing Szasz. You can easily duplicate that search on econlib.org, but I prefer using Google. Here is a link, though I'm not sure how well it works as a url: https://www.google.com/search?q=bryan+caplan+szasz+site:econlib.org
I like this quote from rationality and society: "Indeed, one of the lessons of literature is that characters superficially inexplicable behaviour becomes intelligible once you see it from their perspective"
It would be interesting to know, if people who indulge in literature/movies with controversial characters, like Raskolnikov or maybe the Joker, are more tolerant and less prejudice about others behaviour.
I have always tried to keep this in mind. That has been important because I've held unpopular views on many topics. (Libertarianism being one.) When I argue for life extension, I always keep in mind that the standard, traditional view is that we cannot do anything about aging and it would be bad to do anything. While I think that's crazy, I have to fully acknowledge the popularity of that view.
I’m not weird. YOU are.
Surely the test of insanity is a rejection of logic?
Many “insane” persons are perfectly logical, but their logic depends on premises that were hallucinated.
Some presumably “sane” persons advocate incompatible variants of logic such as paraconsistent logic and dialetheism. They “reject” conventional logic in favor of an amended version.
Persons who are really out there will not be making claims that accept or reject logic.