The coffers are empty, the well is dry, we cannot handle the sheer number regardless of costs. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

That's a big piece of the problem: No locality (city, county, state) can afford to absorb and assist millions of immigrants, asylum seekers, opportunists, and so forth. And what comes across the southern border is not the total of in-coming people. There are the effects that large numbers of non-English speaking immigrants without high-industrial skills have on wages, especially in the low-pay sector. The desperate people may not be criminals, but human smugglers are. Since they are illegal (and outside of the taxation and social welfare systems) they place a greater burden on schools, housing, emergency rooms and public clinics, and so on.

The other thing is social consent: if we didn't agree your coming here, why should we accept and assist you? Of course, the people coming here didn't agree to drug gangs, fascist execution squads, or deep poverty, either.

It's a conundrum to which I don't have an answer that satisfies my own ethical system.

As this discussion has developed, I can see it is unrealistic for me to have limited it to such a narrow focus. — T Clark

The fault is not yours; the problem arises from the term itself, one which has been in regular use for a long time: It's loaded with meaning.

Thinking about "values" can produce a turbid mess, opaque with suspended solids.

But still, we know we value some features of life more than others, and there are some differences between Chinese culture and American culture, or between the values of Athabaskan Amerindians and Zulus in South Africans. Probably, though, Americans, Chinese, Athabaskans, and Zulus will all value similar features of life. Everybody values their children, and everyone prefers healthy happy children. Everybody likes a comfortable home, whatever that means locally. If one contented family has a thatched mud/stick house and another contented family lives in a high rise apartment, how much difference in values are there between the two?

One of the values that people value is living among people with convergent values. People who eat beef and live in high rises will probably not be happy with cows wandering around in the crowded streets. We can tolerate some divergence, but too much divergence causes friction, and people generally don't like too much social friction.

I value:
Awareness, interconnection and love (as actualising potentiality)
Integrity, self control and patience
Kindness, generosity and kindness
Peace, joy and hope — Possibility

That's nice, but aren't these all limited? (Just reacting to your qualifications in the part that preceded the quoted section.)

Children who are not aided in building a value set may miss the boat on developing useful, socially desirable values. At best they will have a stunted, deformed, barely functioning value system -- something like an incompetent immune system.

obedient ... reverent ... capitalism — T Clark

An objection with something in the section that you placed out of bounds: (I've never been big on obedience). Fuck reverence and capitalism.

obscures the extent to which human value directs our thoughts, feelings, and decisions. — T Clark

Do "values" direct our thoughts, feelings, and decisions, or are values the result of our thoughts, feelings, and decisions? It may be the case that personal values, at least, are a consequence of emotion first, thoughts second, and decisions third. I submit this more as a question than a fact. Which comes first--emotion or value--is a distinction that makes a difference. How do we raise children with the kind of personal values (e.g. Boy Scout model) that we want them to manifest in their lives?

Values don't just appear, we know that for sure. Drilling them into children's head gives them the form ("I can not tell a lie", "I will not abuse the cat" ...) but it doesn't give them any motivation to be truthful, or to be nice to the cat.

It seems to me that the key to teaching children good values is first establishing loving relationships in the family. (No love? Just forget the rest of this.). The loving relationship between the parents and between parent and child is where the motivation comes from to please the parent by emulating their behavior. We don't teach children values (initially, anyway) by drilling theory into their heads. Children acquire the parents' values by emulation, then thinking, then by making decisions.

Later on, we add formality to the values instruction, building on the bonds of affection that motivate the wish to be good in the way the parent desires. We tell the child to be honest, play fair, and don't cheat. We tell them to follow the law. No stealing. Be loyal to your country; respect the police, congressmen and women, the Supreme Court, and the President (even if you have to hold your nose and keep a barf bag handy).

No time to wallow in the mire;
Come on, baby, light my fire,
Try to set the night on fire.

Songwriters: James Morrison / John Dens

as I wrote it appears my hand got the better of me and this is what came out — I like sushi

There does seem to be a short-cut between our fingers and that part of the non-conscious minds that actually composes our texts. Then there is the auto-correct software feature which seems to be getting more aggressive in its determination to correct what it thinks is the wrong word.

It is not clear to me what you are trying to get at, though I liked the paradox you incorporated into some of your sentences, like ...

What I am is what I most want to become, not my, or anyone’s, perception of what I’ve done and where I am now. — I like sushi

Perhaps you are saying that life seems like a paradox right now? Is that a happy paradox or an unhappy one?

While I am not wildly enthusiastic about millions of people migrating across our borders for jobs or asylum, there are certainly reasons why this is happening. First, the US has a long history of fucking over Central American and other countries south of the Rio Grande. We've interfered on behalf of United Fruit and other corporations, as well as various banana republic fascists and their friends. So it is not at all surprising that these countries are in bad shape in ever so many ways.

Secondly, we are singularly an economic and civil beacon on a hill. Where else are dissatisfied people going to go--Venezuela?

Third, this is our Dress Rehearsal for far larger future population movements owing to global warming. The closer one is to the equator, the sooner and the worse it will be for heat, weather, crop failures, diseases, etc. Europe has had its dress rehearsal, as have a bunch of other places. Bangladesh is so pleased with the Rohingya flood, that they are thinking of moving them to a large sand bar in the Bay of Bengal where conditions will be even worse than where they are now.

NOBODY LIKES MASS POPULATION MOVEMENT!!! Certainly not the people who are forced by fascism, war, heat, drought, and starvation, and certainly not the relatively poor people a thousand miles up the highway who aren't that much better off.

they just call everything they don't like the term religion — James Statter

Why don't they just call it paganism, heathenism, satanism, or whatever the fuck they dislike?

I still don't get what your thread is about. I like threads about religion, but I can't make out where this one is supposed to be going.

"religion" in its most elevated meaning includes pretty much everything the church does, EXCEPT building management, secular concert sponsorship, and the like. In my opinion a lot of churches come closer to being real estate operations than religions, because they are stuck with these old big bldgs. that take so much maintenance. I mean, on whom could we unload some of these barns?

I am a Lutheran church member by convenience and preference (this one is close and does nice liturgy), even though I have descended (or ascended, depending on how you look at it) to disbelief in the creedal aspects of the church. Virgin birth? Come now. Really!

The church does well when its members feed the hungry, care for the sick, bind up the wounds of the beaten, give water to the thirsty, and house the homeless, etc. But most churches are pretty unenthusiastic about that part. A local disreputable church sent visitors to the sex offender facility in outstate. That is the sort of thing reputable churches should notice and follow suite.

The church I attend thinks it is performing heroically by preparing a meal for a homeless shelter 6 times a year, but they'd be horrified if a bunch of these homeless riff raff showed up in church on Sunday! l'horreur! l'horreur!

'The Conversation No One Knows How To Have' — xraymike79

Why would we be skilled at discussing our demise as a species? Talking about our own individual dying and death is hard enough, and there has never been any doubt about it happening, eventually. Extinctions happen to other species, certainly not us!

In short, no, I do not think it is possible to transition to a net-zero carbon emission civilization within a decade. The idea itself is simply absurd because it would require basically returning to a pre-industrial society with none of the benefits which came from building the society provided by fossil fuels.

Well yes, it's absurd. Major social-industrial changes just can't be executed that fast. We should abandon individual auto transportation for mass transit. Building the mass transit systems required to replace personal cars (buses, light rail, trollies, trains, etc.) would take 30 to 40 years in a crash-building drive (Never mind how long it will take to convince the population that it was a do-or-die proposition.)

Then there is the carbon produced in the process of conversion: melting down 125 million cars and building a national transit system is a heavy-industry project. The end result might be clean and green, but getting there would be pretty dirty.

Then there is the pre-industrial angle. We can't have the benefits of industrialization without the industry. Really low carbon transportation means walking, and maybe bicycling. But bicycles require at least some heavy industry. Get a horse? Horses are more ecological than automobiles, but back in their hay day (so to speak) of horse power, at least 20% of agriculture was devoted to feeding horses hay and oats, and that was for a MUCH smaller population (31 million in 1860).

Pre-industrial means pre-oil, pre-plastic, pre-natural gas, pre-wood/coal powered steam engines, pre-nuclear, pre-solar cells, pre lots of things. A remnant of the species might be forced back into pre-industrial conditions, but nobody is going to willingly buy admission.

In short, we are screwed. I don't think we will go extinct, but I don't see the world sustaining 7.5 billion people in 100 years, either. Somewhere along the line, Mother Nature is going to cull the herd. Yes, it's hard to think about being part of the culled population, dying by the millions.

I've never heard a pastor say such a thing. Can you provide more context for this?

Christianity is a religion. Has "religion" become such a bad term that some pastors don't like it? Weird. What do they think they are doing?

Elon Musk has actually started to do it. — Chris Liu

How about NASA, ESA, the Russian space agency, Chinese space Agency, etc?

Musk? Elon Musk and 50¢ won't get you a cup of coffee.

too much generalizing? — Wallows

Human behavior is loaded with neuroticism. It just goes with the territory [of being human].

There is nothing inherently bad about spending hours at the gym sculpting one's physique. What might make it neurotic is the motivation. For instance, a man might be attempting to compensate for a low estimation of his personal worth by trying to make himself buff. Kind of neurotic. Someone else might engage in the same sculpting activity because he is a model and will get more jobs if he has the right physique.

Men who are jealous of other men who have gym-dandy physiques are neurotic.

I spent quite a bit of time on a nude beach one summer getting an all over tan. The act of undressing in public resolved all sorts of neurotic body issues. For somebody else, undressing in public might cause neuroses.

People are at least a little crazy. It's called the psychopathology of everyday life. People who eat compulsively. People who don't bathe, floss, shampoo, trim, etc. People who shoplift for excitement. People who engage in sex they don't want. People who won't have the sex they do want. Road rage. It's all crazy. Neurotic.

which just poke the hives nest — Judaka

I just love stirring up bee hives. Poke, poke. :naughty:

women are more reluctant than men to engage in promiscuous activity — Wallows

Women are at greater risk of adverse consequences than are men as a result of promiscuity. Pregnancy and childbearing have been one of the leading causes of women's deaths up until ... 1920, in the industrialized world. In the 3rd world it cans till be quite dangerous. Pregnancy and childbearing carry a greater social stigma when pregnancy results from promiscuous activity. At the very least, getting pregnant and bearing an unwanted child is highly inconvenient.

"Purity" has always been a bigger deal for women than for men -- an emphasis coming from men more than women (maybe). (I want to screw around for a few years then I want to marry a virgin. Well, there's a famous contradiction. This may be less true now than in the past.)

women are less likely to engage in dangerous behavior — Wallows

So what? Risk aversion or risk tolerance has nothing to do with morality or goodness. It's probably a gene-influenced trait much more than a choice. Missionaries tend to be tolerant of risk; so do stock brokers. So do farmers. So do lots of people, male and female.

Trying to make women out to be inherently better than men on the basis of common traits is, to use the technical term, stupid.

Men and women both engage in behaviors which are morally salutary and morally corrosive.

How many kind, decent, moral men have you known? Maybe you just haven't known enough of them.

Marmite and Unilever... let us hope they don't bring out a Ben & Jerry Marmite combo.

Observing the operations of individual neurons gets us one step closer to the goal of understanding nerves and brains. You've heard of C. elegans? It's a nematode with about 900 cells, in total. It has been subject to exhaustive study. '6/.tr,4]3dx~ome of its cells are neurons. These can be mapped, and observed individually. But nematodes don't do a lot of thinking, so... But it is a start.

If consciousness and self-awareness are emergent properties, then we won't find either of those properties in a few neurons.

Bee brains are a better bet. Bee brains are small but do complicated things, so they have to be very efficient. Individual neurons are probably singly responsible for some bee behaviors. We'll learn more by investigating bee brains than poking around in our brains and wondering, "What is it thinking right now?"

:100:

:100:

Your ex-wife must be quite the deal.

that was called....? — NKBJ

Life as men and women knew it.

I'm not lauding the lack of women's suffrage, or women's lack of control over wealth (that condition was not universal), or husbands beating wives (that wasn't universal either), and so on. The relationship between men and women varied over time and place. The favored ancient society we know most about (and we don't know all that much) -- Athens -- appears to be pretty repressive toward women. On the other hand, Aristophanes' Lysistrata (performed in the same Athens) depicts women as persons with executive agency. (The wives went on a sex strike to stop a war.)

Some clay tablet records from trading cultures in the Levant show women running their own independent businesses. Rome was a mixed bag, as were the various barbarian tribes.

What is objectionable about the term "patriarchy" is that it is a retro-projection of current dissatisfactions, applied to most of history. People: men women, adults, children, slave, free, rich, poor, able, hobbled, etc. have always both accepted the world as they have found it and lived within the existing paradigm. It doesn't mean that there was an active patriarchal regime making sure that women were kept in their place.

We know that some people were definitely concerned about women's place in the world. The Apostle Paul was quite concerned that women should stay in their place, at least in church. Paul, of course, was quite influential on one particular western institution. I doubt very much that his view of things was unopposed in his own time.

Never was. Patriarchy and matriarchy are projectiles developed for gender warfare. The historical use of these terms is not ancient. In the Google Ngram below, the two terms had virtually no use in print prior to 1900. Patriarchy started taking of around 1970, and rose like the hockey stick curve.

How old is NKBJ Jr.?

It's the story-telling about how specific traits result from specific evolutionary effects that bothers me. — T Clark

Traits are derived from evolution. Look at 100 dogs: they all exhibit very similar traits. Why do they all have the same traits (like the ability to follow the human gaze)? Because they all carry the same traits established by evolution. These aren't all inflexible behaviors, of course. They can be quite plastic.

Story telling, as you put it, is just a shorthand method of describing evolution. A process which has been going on for a billion years is too slow to point out events. We can describe how an animal is changed by breeding (silver fox experiment, development of better milk cows, the fast growing chicken fryer, etc.) because those events have been under human control for a relatively short interval of time

So, do take the story telling with a grain of salt. Throw out explanations that run along the lines of "evolution was working toward an ape that could run fast." No. Evolution doesn't have destinations, it only has vague tendencies.

Kapesh?

Okay, yes, I agree with all that. What is your point? — NKBJ

Sigh. I was merely amplifying the point that working class women, one of whom I observed at close hand for years, didn't have much opportunity to pursue literary careers. That was Tillie Olsen's complaint -- without independent wealth from some source (husband, inheritance, good luck, etc.) it was very hard to have a literary career. Poor women just had to work too hard.

No it's not patriarchy. You read the post too quickly. Journals written by men are usually not literature either. Journals have real value, just not "literary" value because they are, after all, written for a very small audience. I wrote a very candid summary of my life, for my eyes only. It had zero literary merit. It was for private purposes. It might have made juicy reading for my siblings, but hardly for anybody else.

I don't believe there is such a thing as "patriarchy", but if there is such a thing the proof wouldn't be in the lack of recognition anybody -- male or female -- gets for their journaling. Most people who do believe in patriarchy think that there are few women composers, famous authors, great painters, and so on because they have been suppressed, oppressed, and repressed. Fanny Mendelssohn is probably a better example of "patriarchy". Fanny, Felix Mendelssohn's sister, wrote between 400 and 500 compositions, and is largely unknown. Clara Schumann, wife of Robert Schumann, was a recognized composer and performer on her own merits. She doesn't get a lot of air time either.

My mother was contemporary with Tillie Olson and was also a working class wife and mother (of 7). She didn't have literary aspirations, as far as I know, but if she had other aspirations, they had to be set aside.

Monday was devoted to laundry. She had a wringer washing machine, but no water heater. All the water had to be heated on a stove, carried to the washing machine, and then carried outside. All o the clothes were hung outside to dry. She prepared noon dinner for self, children and husband - the main meal of the day. Then house cleaning.

Tuesday was ironing. Wednesday - no major chores. Maybe small laundry on Thursday; Friday ironing. Saturday, bread baking. Sunday, major dinner preparation for family.

9 people to support, no car, minimal plumbing, minimal conveniences, coal burning space heater (they're dirty), oil stove in kitchen, extensive canning in the summer, and so on.

Women of her time (and even more so before her time) and her station in life could not pursue non-essential work. There was simply no time and energy to do more.

My two parents both worked very hard to provide a steady solid home environment. They were successful. But neither of them had much time for anything else.

The people who occupied the New York literary scene, people like Dorothy Parker or Mary McCarthy, were not burdened in the same way. Parker's publisher asked her why she hadn't produced anything during the last several months. Her excuse was "somebody was using the pencil." She wasn't swamped with housework and sick children.

journaling — NKBJ

Journaling!

Journals, diaries, and the like are usually NOT of interest as "literature". Pepys journal is valuable as an intimate view of everyday history. Some journals, whether written by men or women, also are interesting in that way. Some are interesting as religious material, or psychological material, and so forth. I love Pepys's journals, but they aren't literary in the usual sense of the word. But let's face it: they are also a lot more interesting than a lot of formal literary product.

You might want to investigate the American author, Tillie Olsen (1912 -2007).

Olsen was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in Wahoo, Nebraska and moved to Omaha while a young child.

Over the years Olsen worked as a waitress, domestic worker, and meat trimmer. She was also a union organizer and political activist in the Socialist community.[3] In 1932, Olsen began to write her first novel Yonnondio, the same year she gave birth to Karla, the first of four daughters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillie_Olsen

Olsen introduced themes that would become central to a generation of women readers and writers: she brought the subject of motherhood into focus as a valid topic for literary representation, even as she showed how it, along with economic “circumstances” and the restrictions imposed by race, class and sex, presented a major obstacle to women’s artistic creativity. http://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/tillie-olsen/

Back in the good old days when the University of Minnesota's radio station, KUOM, was part of University Extension, (now it just plays whatever current music students want to hear) I heard Tillie Olson read some of her own work. From one angle it was a long whine about how children, children getting sick, children having inconvenient needs, money problems, house work, and so on got in the way of her literary career. More charitably, her report is entirely reasonable.

A married working class woman with children had and still has chances of literary success just a little better than a snow ball's chance in hell--not for lack of talent, but for lack of uninterrupted time and freely available resources.

I haven't read any of her books; here is a piece you can sample immediately. As I stand ironing...

Fun fact, one of the reasons poetry has been populated by so many females for so long is that it is one of the few arts that can be written "on the go" while having little ones playing and nagging and interrupting all day long. — NKBJ

Camille Paglia is a good author to read on the subject. Very saucy. 200 proof.

Emily Dickinson wrote her poetry on the go and she didn't have any children to worry about. Not taking care of children is probably necessary for artistic success -- or most other kinds of success.

Michelangelo to his children in the studio: "Allontanati da quella statua finita, schifoso moccioso!" ... "Get away from that finished statue, you fucking brats!"

Why do you suppose Karl Marx spent so much time in the British Museum Reading Room? "Don't you dare mess up that manuscript, you fucking brats!"

In his novel, Seven Eves Neal Stephenson used parthenogenesis. In this really quite good SciFi story, something caused the moon to break up into a lot of pieces. Male astronomers calculated how the pieces would rub together, making more pieces, and would eventually bombard the earth and heat it up to a very high temperature killing all life on earth. Fortunately, lots of people were launched into space abroad various life boats.

Things didn't go well. The earth was bombarded, and life on earth was destroyed. Most of the life boats failed. It took a tremendously valiant, heroic effort to survive. By the time the last life boat found refuge on a big piece of the moon, all of the men had died saving the remnant of the species. Fortunately, a lot of genetic lab equipment had been included, and the remaining 7 women cloned themselves, hence Seven Eves. Eventually the geneticist eve figured out how to build a Y chromosome. 5000 years later, earth had been reseeded, the atmosphere was blue sky again, and everything worked out fine. Never mind how, this is science fiction after all.

By the way, two of the 7 women were exceptional devious destructive bitches.

Kinda hard for women to get prizes and be leaders historically when they were actively banned from participating in activities that lead to such things. — NKBJ

Women have never been banned from art; they have been taking drawing and painting classes for many, many years. Yet, how many great woman painters can you name? It isn't that they can't paint well; it's just that a small number of men have been on the cutting edge. Women, for the most part, haven't. (The men are the top. Most women painters are de trop, to paraphrase Cole Porter, a superior male lyricist composer.) Yes, there are people like Clara Schumann, Lise Meitner, Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Georgia O'Keeffe, Coco Chanel, Leni Riefenstahl, Jane Austin, Angela Merkel, Margaret Thatcher, and of course, the great Ivanna Trump. Exceptional exceptions.

But isn't it bad if these traits lead to more violence and harm in the world? — NKBJ

It depends where, when, why, etc. these violent behaviors show up.

If one bunch of violent bad guys is on the loose (bad) a bunch of violent good guys need to suppress them (beneficial). ISIS, al qaeda, or Boko Haram isn't going to be eliminated by a bunch of pacifists. If you want to seize a continent or two from the natives, something more vigorous than a tea party will have to be executed.

We generally want our side to come out on top, and in a world where there is never enough to satisfy everyone, somebody is going to be oppressed and somebody else is going to be on top. It takes a certain amount of violence (sad to say) to stay on top.

Sensible Imperialistic Powers carefully sort out worthwhile fights from pointless fights. Reckless Imperialists don't and get bogged down in unwinnable fights.

drawing conclusions of superiority based on inverse proportion to prison population is likely to offend — Txastopher

And then he could end up in prison, too.

I thought I just did.

Men are more likely to engage in state-prohibited behavior than women are, and society tends to be more concerned about the kind of violations that men engage in than what women engage in.

There are class and race issues here too. Poor black men are at the bottom of the opportunity pool, more often than not. The easiest way for poor black men to find opportunity is through crime. In poor white societies, poor white men also resort to crime to find opportunity.

Poor women engage in crime too, but are less likely to engage in crime that is intensively policed.

Therefore, for the sake of talking about society or culturally, does that fact that prison populations are predominantly male mean or imply that females are socially superior to males? — Wallows

Wallows -- are you trying to start a fight?

The prisons also have a lot more black men than white men. Does that imply that white men are socially superior to to black men? Prison populations tend to come from poverty. Does that mean that poor people are inferior to wealthy people? Etc. Etc. Etc.

I sense a connection with your current "Unconditional Love" thread. — T Clark

An apt observation.

@Wallows: Males and females are at least somewhat differently endowed and then they are socialized to be more divergent. Nature and Nurture are both responsible. Bear in mind, though, that the divergence is partial. Males and females overlap quite a bit.

I'm glad that you and your mother are getting along well, but it would be intellectually unsound to suppose that most women are like your mother.

In the much wider world outside your home men and women display a wide variety of traits, some appalling, some angelic, some good, some bad, some overtly aggressive, some passively aggressive, some moral, some crooked, etc. Sexual divergence is common in the animal kingdom. That male and female humans are divergent should not come as a shock.

There are biological, sociological, historical, psychological, etc. reasons why men end up in prison more often than females.

One (maybe recent) theory is that men are more variable than women. We tend to be dull and stupid more often than females, but we also tend to be brilliant geniuses more often than females. (That's why there are so many men in this esteemed philosophical forum, and so few women. The cream of the male crop has risen to the top of this particular milk pail.) Consequently, men end up in prison more often and win more Nobel Prizes than women. In the middle there's not much difference.

So, it follows that there should be more men in prison and more men in professorships and high priesthoods. In the middle, most men and women live lives of quiet, middling, desperation.

I can't tell how much of a compliment it is being a cut above what you are used to. I'll just go ahead and assume that you are used to the very good.

We are the leading forum on the Internet with the name The Philosophy Forum. Nothing comes close, even.

Hang around and we'll get to know each other.

Oh yes, getting help was suggested. He would have benefitted from the help of an able psychotherapist. He did, apparently, overcome his problems enough to stay employed till his illness, a few years ago.

But this is now many years ago. He has since died (pancreatic cancer).

there are no mental illnesses that can be diagnosed on any basis other than an assessment of behaviour. There is no bug, no gene, no chemical deficiency, no physical property at all that unequivocally marks out any psychological illness. — unenlightened

True, and I don't think that genetics is anywhere close to parsing out all the genetic factors that control the behavior of the brain for learning 2 + 2 = 4, let alone somebody who thinks they are Jesus.

I knew a guy who claimed to be Jesus. (This was not in a psychiatric setting,) He was educated, charming, intelligent, funny, apparently grounded in reality, and so forth. There are three possibilities. A) he was pulling my leg. 2) Perhaps he was Jesus. Why not? 3) Perhaps he was a perfectly functional lunatic.

Why should there be some other method of diagnosing a mental illness other than observing behavior? If this guy thought he was Jesus, what more would you want to see in a blood test or MRI? A guy who thinks he is Jesus but is also witty, urbane, intelligent, educated, and an effective employee raises questions that behavior answers, it seems to me: He may be deluded, but he is otherwise behaving normally. So who cares if he thinks he is Jesus? It's more interesting than being a run of the mill bat shit white supremacist, don't you think?

If a patient is delivered to the emergency room of a hospital after being found on the street naked, screaming incoherently, displaying intense agitation, displaying inability to interact with the staff, what more than behavior observation do you need? Severe mania and psychosis produce this kind of behavior. The pt's blood can be checked for hallucinogens. No drugs? It's probably mania.

How long does the mania last? Does the pt. respond to major/minor tranquilizers or anti-seizure drugs? How long does the pt. stay awake in this condition? Doesn't respond to drugs? periodically and suddenly falls asleep wherever he happens to be? Better do a neurological work up.

Medicine -- including psychiatry -- has a very strong element of "practice". After seeing 500 pts. in mania, a pattern probably becomes pretty clear. How many moles does a dermatologist have to look at before than can say at a glance, "malignant" or "nothing to worry about". After a while they know the drill. Untextured red spot on skin? Probably cancer. Textured red spot on skin? Probably benign. Patient is counting the ceiling tiles in the waiting room. Probably OCD. Your friend has to check to make sure the stove is turned off, the refrigerator is closed, and the door is locked 5 times before than can leave. Definitely OCD. No need to see a psychiatrist.

But those are the easy kinds of cases.

we should expect that the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States would have declined over the past 50 years. — Chisholm

The statistics might be misleading.

50 years ago, give or take a few, the rate of "mental illness" per se was thought to be around 10%. Several factors could be raising the figure:

Maybe more people feel more comfortable about claiming to be mentally unwell? During the recession which began 12 years ago, people who were unable to find work (and were getting a bit old to change careers) tried salvaging the situation by going on disability related to mental illness. (It's hard to manufacture paralysis; it's much easier to manufacture mental illness.) Maybe there are more ways now than 50 years ago to be diagnosed as mentally ill? Maybe people believe that antidepressants actually work wonders, and were willing to give it a try?

And how do we know how many people actually are mentally ill? There's no registry of certified lunatics, as far as I know. Mental disorders are not reportable illnesses, like syphilis. Who is counting and how?

Why are so many Americans today, while they may not be disabled by mental illness, nevertheless plagued by chronic mental problems — by recurrent depression and crippling anxiety? — Chisholm

One possible reason is that so many Americans are living in a crazy society, and are going mad, in the colloquial sense of the word.