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Mental health/illness
Oct. 4th, 2017 05:57 pmOnce again they are talking about "mental illness" as a reason for mass attacks.
The sad truth is that in many cases the only difference from a "normal" person is that they think doing that sort of thing is a good idea.
And the current case looks to be going that way to a greater extent than other caases I recall.
We *do* need to restore the funding for mental health that has been getting chopped away over the past few decades.
But it's *not* going to have much of an effect on atrocities like this one. But trumpeting this sort of thing *will* further demonize folks with mental health problems. Even though they are not any more likely than anyone else to commit such crimes. Heck, most are *less* likely.
The sad truth is that it's not "insanity" involved. These people usually have prefectly reasonable and logical *to them* for doing these crimes.
Either they have problems with logically reasoning (including adhering to beliefs that are not logically justifiable) or they used "proper" logical reasoning, but started from premises that are different from those of most folks.
*Neither* of those constitutes mental illness. The first describes a lot of religions, though most don't lead to this.
The second is again similar to some features of some religions. But since their "premises" (axioms if you want to get technical) are things that *by definition* are not subject to logical proof (rather they are thing things you start with as "givens" *to* prove things) they also are not a mental illness.
Sometimes they may be things that can be checked out *scientifically* to prove or disprove. Other times they cannot be determined to be fact or not.
So we have two problems. One is that people don't know how to use logic and evaluate arguments and evidence (and politicians and advertisers would really rather that they *can't*). That *can* be solved by education, but it'd upset a *lot* of groups.
The second one? Alas, it amounts to telling people what they should/shouldn't believe. and is fraught with all sorts of problems.
and, of course, there are a lot of social factors as well, but those are an even bigger can of worms.
The sad truth is that in many cases the only difference from a "normal" person is that they think doing that sort of thing is a good idea.
And the current case looks to be going that way to a greater extent than other caases I recall.
We *do* need to restore the funding for mental health that has been getting chopped away over the past few decades.
But it's *not* going to have much of an effect on atrocities like this one. But trumpeting this sort of thing *will* further demonize folks with mental health problems. Even though they are not any more likely than anyone else to commit such crimes. Heck, most are *less* likely.
The sad truth is that it's not "insanity" involved. These people usually have prefectly reasonable and logical *to them* for doing these crimes.
Either they have problems with logically reasoning (including adhering to beliefs that are not logically justifiable) or they used "proper" logical reasoning, but started from premises that are different from those of most folks.
*Neither* of those constitutes mental illness. The first describes a lot of religions, though most don't lead to this.
The second is again similar to some features of some religions. But since their "premises" (axioms if you want to get technical) are things that *by definition* are not subject to logical proof (rather they are thing things you start with as "givens" *to* prove things) they also are not a mental illness.
Sometimes they may be things that can be checked out *scientifically* to prove or disprove. Other times they cannot be determined to be fact or not.
So we have two problems. One is that people don't know how to use logic and evaluate arguments and evidence (and politicians and advertisers would really rather that they *can't*). That *can* be solved by education, but it'd upset a *lot* of groups.
The second one? Alas, it amounts to telling people what they should/shouldn't believe. and is fraught with all sorts of problems.
and, of course, there are a lot of social factors as well, but those are an even bigger can of worms.
