Why do you see a matter of choice as oppression and abuse? — Metaphysician Undercover

Why then don't I have that choice? Why does she have the choice to say I want a child with these genes, and I don't? And moreover she gets to put her genes in there, and I don't get to put mine. So she'll raise HER child, I will raise a different one. That's outrageous beyond belief - if only Aristotle for example was around here to listen to such debauchery! Really this is so oppressive and abusive it's so evident! It's so evident that in this relationship the woman is king and the man is slave. How can you not see that BASIC fact?

Yeah, you go ahead and force your genes upon your wife in a non-consensual way — Metaphysician Undercover

And where have I said non-consensual? I said if she doesn't accept me for who I am, she should find another man. I'm not a slave, and neither should you be one, regardless of the pressures of the world. Fuck the world, your integrity matters more! The world can be taken away from you, it's perishable and thus worth nothing, however, your own will, your own integrity, nothing can take it unless you give it. So don't give it.

If such genetic manipulation was the norm in our society — Metaphysician Undercover

What difference does it make - as Hillary Clinton would ask you - if such is the norm or not?

I don't see why the issue of your spouse wanting to choose genetic material, rather than having to accept what is forced upon her from you, or even from her own family, is something which should be insulting to you. — Metaphysician Undercover

>:O Okay, you go do that with your wife then. I think I prefer not to.

The whole idea of her having a child holding her genes, and me not having the option to have a child with my genes - because my genes are crooked and inferior - that whole ideology speaks of oppression and abuse. Moreover, it screams of rampant feminism of a kind I haven't yet seen - as in why would anyone create the asymmetry? Might as well get other people to give birth to the child, both of whom have great genes, and we just raise the child...

And I might as well add that if she wants to be my wife, then she better accept what is forced upon her from me (referring to the genes) - otherwise she can find another man. I don't see why I should bow down before anyone if they don't like me for who I am. What you think I'm a masochist? You think I will go around like that torturing myself on purpose? Like for real now... I actually thought you were joking >:O

But some folks I noticed, are willing to do anything for something of this world. Many do anything for sex for example. Humiliate themselves in the worst ways - you're never gonna see that from me. My life is for one thing only - never to humiliate myself before any of the powers and principalities of this world, but rather, against all the odds, to stand tall for what is true, just and righteous.

If the fault is hereditary then so be it, a fact is a fact. Face up to the facts instead of being insulted. You might be a good lay, and good at other things, but your lacking in genetic material. So she's going to get that somewhere else. So what? — Metaphysician Undercover

>:O You ask some very strange questions my friend. I'd find it very peculiar indeed if your wife said that to you and you had no problem with it.

The issue is obviously that I presumably also want to reproduce and have a child which is my own, and so her doing that frustrates my natural desire, and this frustration of natural desire based on the motivation that my genes are "not good enough" is evil.

It's very clear to me, if I was a woman and I loved a man, then I would never say "Oh I'm not going to have a child with you because you have a penchant for laziness (say) and I don't want the child to have such genes"

I think that's exactly what she'd be saying to you. How do you understand otherwise? — Metaphysician Undercover

If she's saying she won't have a child with me because of a character defect I have, then that is insulting. It's one thing that I have a character defect, and another to think that because I have a character fault, my child will inevitably have it, and furthermore she'd rather have someone else's child than mine for this reason. That smells of extreme pettiness to me and should be morally condemnable.

So the desire for redeeming the world (charity, scientific advancement, enlightenment) is really instrumental in getting what seems to be the underlying case, the pure desire for more existence. — schopenhauer1

I remember the joke (which proves this point) of the blind man who goes begging to Jesus to give him his sight back. So Jesus performs the miracle. The man thanks Him, promises to devote his life to the Ministry, but soon after Jesus sees him running and chasing after women. So Jesus stops him in his tracks and asks him "What are you doing? I performed a miracle for you and gave you back your lost vision. Why do you behave like you did before having lost your vision in the first place?"... and the man answers "Yes I greatly appreciate what you have done for me, that's why I am doing the best thing there is to do with it!" >:O

The reason we desire some traits in our sexual partner has something to do with the likelihood that the traits in our offspring will be beneficial to them at some level — Nils Loc

I doubt this honestly speaking. If you look at who most folks choose as their partners, it's people who are convenient for them - not for their kids.

Brothers Karamazov — csalisbury

Possibly my favorite novel.

I don't see this point. When your wife points out a fault which you have, which is truly, in her eyes a fault, in other words she truly believes that you have this characteristic, and that it is a fault, why should you be insulted by this? You need to face the reality of your deficiencies, and don't ignore them under the assumption that it is a deficiency of the one who discloses them to you. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure but what does that have to do with my response? She certainly isn't telling me that I have a character fault and therefore she won't have a child with me and we need to engage in artificial insemination or adoption instead, is she?

The only real cure for humanity's affliction is for it to die. — Heister Eggcart

What's stopping you then? :s If you really believe that, you can always start with yourself. I don't understand this position at all. If you really believe that the solution to man's problems is death, then you should stop advising others, and implement the solution yourself!

Not an attitude of "I don't want to be with you because you are genetically inferior" but one of "I love you and want to be with you but I'm afraid we'll have to adopt or use IVF/artificial insemination". — Ovaloid

That's unreal. I want my child to be mine, out of my own flesh and blood if possible, not out of another's. To have a wife who says she loves me, and yet feels that I'm not sufficient to make for a good child is insulting.

Any totalitarian means or system which treats people as animals with no ability to choose for themselves is wrong. Eugenics is such a system, and thus it is wrong.

Now I do agree that some people are better than others. So what? That's just the nature of life. I wouldn't want only great people to exist... Just imagine a society formed of Alexander the Greats. That would result in chaos, as none of them would accept to be ruled. Not everyone can be Alexander, and there can only ever be one sun in the sky. Alexander is indeed great, but morally he is the equal of everyone else. There is only one equality in this world, and that is our moral equality.

The thing I hate about modern day progressives is precisely that they try to force people to be a certain way - and they seek to level everyone to the same standard. We should all be equal - and equally bad as well. No Alexanders. In your eugenics driven world, we should still all be equal - only that equally superior. I have distaste for both.

If the former, why? — Ovaloid

I don't have an answer to that (and I doubt the answers others provided). It's like asking me why I believe there's other minds. It's self-evident to me. This world doesn't have to fit to the whimsical nature of man, rather man must fit to the world.

is obsessed with our lives, what we eat, how we dress, our sexual preferences, whether we keep holy certain days, whether we act in certain ways rather than others, whether we believe God to be this or that, etc. — Ciceronianus the White

But if anything, all this would mean is that God is obsessed with human well-being - because what you eat, how you dress, your sexual preferences, and so forth they all affect your well-being, that's their common denominator.

That kind of conception of God results in conflict as a matter of course, because we tend to differ in our opinions in various respects and as we think God prefers us we think those not like us are not preferred by God, but are in fact disliked by God. So, we act accordingly. — Ciceronianus the White

I don't think this is true. The reason for conflict is that some folks want their women to dress decently (according to whatever they set that standard to be, whether it's wearing hijabs, or skirts longer than knee length and so forth) - a rightful desire in its own right - and others don't, and think that's abuse (and other seemingly minor differences like that, with regards to food, sexual preference, and so forth). Therefore the two of them cannot get along, and will never get along. They cannot coexist without quarelling either, because what one does, will affect the other. There is only one sun in the sky and only one image of how it's "cool" to be in the world. If the progressive controls that image, conservatives cannot get their way. Their kids will be tempted to join in the way of life of progressives, because that's the cool thing to do. Their husbands, their wives, they will all be broken apart, slowly but surely, by an ideology which is the opposite of theirs. And the opposite also holds true. There is no solution, each must play their part in history and bat for their team. What Noble Dust suggests - that kind of forgiveness, that's basically giving the world over to progressives, and even he admits as such, for he doesn't oppose progressive ideology - only their manner of enforcing it - he does admit that's it's the "right" way.

Someone like me on the other hand, unashamedly bats for his team :D - does their duty.

So I guess my whole point is this. This "acceptance" doctrines, which include New Age, and all that nonsense - that's nothing but the progressive using a subterfuge - setting the terrain so that he may win. That's all Noble Dust is doing here. Figuring out how it's best to set the terrain, how it's best to blackmail man's moral goodness in order to get his way, and thus make a certain position - conservatism - unacceptable. Nothing more, and nothing less than the pure pursuit of a political agenda, and what upsets me isn't that he's pursuing it - it's that he's pretending to do otherwise. I'm not pretending - I fully acknowledge that I have a political agenda, and I do - I want the world to be a certain way.

I’m politically independent and avoid politics most of the time (this thread isn't really about politics, although that's initially what I have to talk about to get to my concept), but with all of these issues involving the DAPL, Trump's election, systemic racism, Syria, other problems in other countries like Brexit, and the sheer depth of ideological division in the US right now, it has my mind churning with thoughts about oppression, suffering, and division. — Noble Dust

You're politically independent and yet when the Right wins there is a problem (seemingly) and yet, when the Left was winning, no problem. When Obama was there, no problem. Having the Supreme Court enforce the progressive agenda, that to you, while a little bit oppressive, was good. It certainly wasn't enough to motivate a post, or motivate outrage. But Donald Trump and the conservatives around him like Mike Pence winning - oh that's outrageous! That definitely deserves a post >:O

In broad strokes, the courtroom-language of Protestantism, which provides the backdrop for how the Conservative right thinks about the world, is one of possibly many seeds that has given birth to current forms of oppression — Noble Dust

It seems you view conflict as oppressive. Not all of us equate oppression with conflict. The world is conflictual - that doesn't necessarily mean it is oppressive.

What I mean by that is the Protestant metaphor of "God as judge", mankind as "on trial”, depraved by nature and deserving eternal conscious torment. — Noble Dust

You mean the CHRISTIAN metaphor of God as a judge, and of mankind as depraved and deserving of punishment.

"A jealous and avenging God is the LORD; The LORD is avenging and wrathful. The LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries, And He reserves wrath for His enemies" Nahum 1:2

The view begins with humanity as depraved, rather than sacred. — Noble Dust

That's because maybe we are depraved, and should thus at least admit to it. A disease cannot be cured without recognition.

God throws us a bone. — Noble Dust

And how else should it be? Should God reward people regardless of what they do, and regardless of how they behave and act?

Conservatives are the last stragglers who haven’t climbed the last rock face to the plateau of equality — Noble Dust

Again, you assume later in your post that we should live in equality. I disagree.

So the progressive left, the champions of many forms of equality - racial, sexual, socioeconomic - don't succeed in freeing themselves from the bondage of Otherness. While striving to champion the oppressed, they vilify the oppressor. — Noble Dust

Yes many forms of equality - equality which puts EVIL and GOOD on the same footing. Of course, any religious person would oppose such equality. Such equality is evil, and should be opposed on all accounts. Evil is not to be trifled with, but must be dealt with with strength.

But the call for equality is still something felt deeply by many people — Noble Dust

Nope. I don't feel it. I don't want an equal world. An equal world would be hell as far as I'm concerned. That would indeed be an oppressive world. It seems to me you need to learn about this:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” C. S. Lewis

True equality means the abolition of all punishment of the oppressor by way of forgiveness; equality is possible only through forgiveness. — Noble Dust

Nope. This is not Christian, nor Biblical.

This is forgiveness: Otherness is dissolved and the divide between oppressor and oppressed is destroyed, and this transfigures the spiritual identity of both. — Noble Dust

How is it possible? How can God forgive Satan, while Satan remains Satan? That would be madness! Forgiveness is the response to repentance - to a change of heart. God forgives the thief next to Jesus on the Cross who repents. Who feels sorry for what he has done, who feels and acknowledges that he fully deserves punishment, and who, somehow, even desires the punishment.

One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, "Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!" But the other answered, and rebuking him said, "Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? "And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!" And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise." — Luke 23:32-43

That's who will be forgiven. That's who is deserving of forgiveness. You list Nietzsche as one of your favourite philosophers, and yet you preach equality and forgiveness in the wrong sense. Nietzsche would have found that despicable - equivalent to slave morality.

You say you are from NYC in your profile. Literarily one of the most progressive cities on the planet. It seems no wonder that your sense of morality has taken such a turn given that fact. Many people these days take religion in vain - they don't even know what their Holy Book, depending on which religion they are, teaches. Christianity is clear - only righteousness will go to Heaven, while evil and immorality is going to the fire to burn.

The question for me is how forgiveness can be brought about in the real world — Noble Dust

Only when the progressives and those on the right drop their immoralities. Only then can it be realised. When they stop the debauchery, when they surrender their lives to God and to goodness, righteousness and justice. This means they stop breaking his law.

Yes but you'll get arrested. Business is very different around here than in Western countries. It's much harder to scale up it seems, takes much longer. The law and bureaucracy isn't on your side either - it's too stuffy. The problem here in Eastern Europe (and this is across the border) isn't what to do - but rather how to do it and be within the law... Because the law isn't made well, it's a struggle. I'm working as a single person (and even I'm not sure if I'm actually on the right side of the law lol) and unless you really like the independence of working for yourself, no one would do it. It's strange that I both like my work, and I find it very stressful at one and the same time - but stressful in the way that something is stressful when you can't stop thinking about it, and your mind always goes back to it again and again. Interesting subject for a thread actually.

The Art of the Deal by Donald J. Trump >:O

And who says we don't have a God? As per that definition of God, all that is required is an intelligence - doesn't have to be personal necessarily. It may be Spinoza's God. The laws of physics are the intelligent constraints governing the game we call life. They are real in the same sense that the program governing the game is real - the game can't do anything but follow it.

Like how I'm tall and have a big nose? How does that matter to who I am really? Is being 6'2'' part and parcel of my character as an individual? — Heister Eggcart

Sorry to tell you mate... But yes, it does matter to who you are >:O (joking)

The engineer creates something in his thought which doesn't exist in reality and then he later constructs it in reality. Does your mind create sense data which doesn't exist in experience and then constructs it in your experience?! If so then sorry to tell you, but you're hallucinating.

And I never said the mind doesn't create anything - just that it doesn't create sense perception.

Is your body YOU? — Bitter Crank

No

Or, is your body a package which is discardable without loss of “YOU”? — Bitter Crank

Neither this

Is a kind of intellectual disembodiment a sin against others? — Bitter Crank

Nor this

Are you your body, or are you something apart from your body? — Bitter Crank

No you are not your body, nor are you (in the only sense of existence we can understand [which we equate with the possibility of experience as illustrated by Berkeley]) something apart from your body. You stand in the same relationship to your body that the sub-program operating the actions, doings and will of a video-game character stands to the pixelated body of the said character that appears on-screen and relates with other pixelated bodies. If the game is the equivalent of life, then when the pixelated body disappears from the screen, the sub-program operating it ceases to function. But the sub-program is never deleted by the death of the body, it merely terminates. God - the machine running the game - still has access to the sub-program, and could re-enact it by necessarily giving it stewardship over another pixelated body. And thus bodily death is the termination of you (in the world), but not your eradication. And what lies on the other side of experience, experience itself cannot tell us, and therefore silence is our final resort.

Funny how the crooked system (cause the system is always crooked) hasn't informed me of your agreement, nor of the any other replies I received in this thread >:O

I don't see how that follows, I said that external things affect the experience which is created by my internal being. — Metaphysician Undercover

Except that it's the other way around. The mind merely structures the data received from outside - it doesn't CREATE anything.

Human beings create all kinds of things, buildings, cars, trains, planes, computers etc.. All of these things came from within the minds of human beings, they had absolutely no existence prior to being created by human minds. Would you argue that these things are not real because they were created by the minds of human beings? Why do you insist that the human experience could not be real if it's created by the human mind? That is what is nonsense. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a wrong analogy. The buildings created by human beings don't stand in the same relationship to human minds as their perception does.

>:O

You better be, I can be rather liberal at times... — Heister Eggcart

At times? You mean all the time, apart from sex. In that you're not liberal >:O In fact, you're more conservative than me, who would've thought...

You're a character, Agustino. After I realized you're not trolling, now you're just befuddling. I have no idea how you've not said the wrong thing to the wrong person and gotten shot, yet. — Heister Eggcart

Oh yeeees, I'm very scared, especially of you Feister >:O - you're the Cowboy! Find something better to do than making threatening remarks over the internet kiddie. Any loser can do that ;)

So, let's sum this up... it's a fact that psychiatrists are greedy, immoral and corrupt to the bone, not to mention at the same time hilariously stupid, and of course also a bunch of faggot cuckoos consulting lying books who want people to be sick and suffer and will stop at nothing to destroy all signs of greatness and mostly just want to enslave you to society? — zookeeper

Learn to write shorter sentences.

And that psychiatrists (probably pretty regularly) sending Alexander the Great, Jesus, Mohammed, Napoleon and Julius Caesar to the asylum is actually a really bad thing? — zookeeper

Well yeah, that's actually terrible. These people have written history, not the others. They have driven the progress of the human race, almost single-handedly. Sending them to the asylum is sending the best of the human race away. These people, and others like them, they are great, and should be respected for it. However, the human race does have a tendency to kill the best of its members or otherwise destroy them. It's called jealousy and ressentiment and I think you might just be suffering from it - you and Heister Feister actually, both of you.

And you realized all this, plus the fact that progressives are actually Nazis trying to control your thoughts, after you quit seeing psychiatrists and taking your medication? — zookeeper

And here he goes again. Here he goes again kids. The same strategy. Discredit your opponent, not by countering his arguments, but by personal attacks and insinuation. "No, he can't be right, he realised it only after stopping his medicine and after he quit seeing psychiatrists, and therefore what he says is wrong because he's mentally ill". That's what you're saying, nothing more, nothing less. So, because someone stops going to the psychiatrist, according to your picayune brain, they are mentally ill. And don't give me some horse manure that this isn't what you're saying, because we both know what your question aims to insinuate. Whereas it is quite clear to anyone with an ounce of human intelligence that the mentally ill are those who DO go to the psychiatrist, and to leave the psychiatrist is actually the first sign of mental well-being, when one no longer needs or requires a crutch, and has willingly and out of his own initiative dropped it. That is in fact a sign of great mental strength, not of weakness. Weakness exists so long as you require a crutch. My life achievements ever since I left the psychiatrist, professionally especially, but also immediately after leaving the psychiatrist, while in University, are proof that I am not, and I was not a mentally ill man. Mental illness - according to my definition, not the crooked psychiatrist definition - is any psychological trouble which stops you from achieving goals. Someone who achieves their goals - that person cannot be mentally ill. They may be evil - like Hitler - or good - like Socrates - but definitely NOT mentally ill.

Kids, take heed. Take your meds and don't skip sessions. — zookeeper

I suggest you go back to caring for your zoo, it seems that your intelligence is only sufficient to deal with the animals.

Your sentiments on mental health are revolting to me, so I'm not going to tickle your fancy and indulge in fruitless conversation. — Heister Eggcart

Heister Feister the man who put my name as his favorite philosopher and has had it there for quite some time! The man who always posts in the threads I post, with some snarky comment and an unwillingness to engage in discussion. Does this guy have a crush on me? >:O There's other people in the forums Heister ;)

You shouldn't do immoral things because they are harmful, first of all FOR YOU, and secondly for others. Organisms who seek for their own well-being in a community will avoid lose-lose situations. If an organism doesn't seek for its own well-being, then it is deranged, and it requires treatment.

Some psychiatric practices deal with major mental illness involving psychoses, schizophrenia, bi-polar disease, OCD, criminal sexual behavior, and the like. I have quite a bit of respect for these doctors. — Bitter Crank

Anything that involves hallucinations is something that these doctors, or pretty much anyone else, can do little about. I'm not talking about those conditions, many of which are biological (OR THE RESULT OF THERAPY ITSELF). OCD though isn't among them. I was at one time officially diagnosed with OCD. By the big brain of these psychiatrists I should still have it today. I have absolutely zero symptoms of it today. I was given antipsychotics (those that are for things like schizophrenia), antidepressants, and benzodiazepines. It wasn't until I got off them - BY MYSELF (please note that, because if it was after the big brain of psychiatrists I wouldn't have gotten off the pills) - that my symptoms started to disappear.

Perhaps your experience with psychiatrists has been unusually bad. — Bitter Crank

It's not just my experience. It's a fact. It's only the lying books which say otherwise. They don't want you to know the truth. Experience speaks clearly for all those who have it. One of my friends was destroyed by psychiatry - they have actually made him sick. These folks are corrupt to the bone, and they will stop at nothing to destroy all signs of greatness and superiority. Their normal person is mediocrity personified. Bowing the head everywhere. That's "normal" for them. That's the "goal". Can you imagine... Alexander the Great going to a psychiatrist... "My goal in life is to conquer Persia and be the greatest conqueror that history will ever know!" My days, the psychiatrist would likely not even allow him to leave - straight to the special ward with him! How dare he have such a goal?? How dare he think of himself as GREAT and superior to others?? A person should have goals like - get a job as an accountant, have lots of sex, etc. Anything else is not permitted, and is a sign of disease. The psychiatrists are just as Nietzsche predicted, the weak, who because they are good for nothing and cannot do anything themselves, want to stop everyone else from doing. They want everyone else to be mediocre and sit down - not dance - because they themselves cannot dance.

Can you imagine Newton going to a psychiatrist? "Oh you stayed locked in your basement working on physics for years on end? You're sick, you're deformed, you need to socialise, you're wasting your life, you won't discover anything, you will destroy your mind, you need to do more productive things" and on it goes. These serpents will stop at nothing in order to destroy ALL greatness. Everything great about a person - for example, that one can sit without socialising for years on end - that great trait of genius, that is noticed in all men of note - Arthur Schopenhauer, Diogenes, etc. - they want to destroy it. They want to make man a slave to society - they want him to be dependent.

As an aside:
In fact, @Heister Eggcart- I have a suggestion for you. Get thee to a psychiatric ward and talk with them for a little. They'll tell you that you are SICK, that you need treatment, that you are on your way to insanity... and why? Because you believe that sex should be avoided. That alone - can you imagine it - that alone is sufficient to qualify you as deranged and in need of therapy.


Can you imagine - literarily ANY great historical figure - going to the psychiatrist and being told they are, well, great? If Socrates went in there, he would've been put on meds and locked up instantly! He is too dangerous to leave outside. As is Jesus. As was Mohammed. As was any great historical figure. Arthur Schopenhauer if he went in there - disaster! Napoleon! Julius Caesar! Beethoven! All of them! They would be relegated to the asylum!

What they consider insanity is part and parcel of greatness. You cannot be great if you are normal. If you are normal, you are mediocre. And so they use normality in order to keep people mediocre. They keep them in check, every time they aim to do something great, they're told they are sick, they require treatment, there's something wrong with them. And every time they do something small and petty, they are told they are great, they are told they are very smart, they are told all the good adjectives one can imagine.

I lacked self-esteem, and needed to do more social things. — Wosret

Yes if you don't do social things, you're sick, you're deformed, there's something wrong with you, according to these bastards. Psychotherapy is a lie.

Even that aside psychology is like an attempted formalization of morality, or religion. — Wosret

No. It's morality inverted. Morality has some sense for greatness. Psychiatry has none.

It's how we continue to see demons, and never stopped. — Wosret

Yes - the mechanism to keep man in check.

Y'know, Agustino, you are the precise sort of person that keeps me from throwing my computer out the window and going to a monastery, because I fear if I meet someone like you outside my cell, and had the displeasure of having a conversation, I'd as quickly throw myself out the window in a final retreat. — Heister Eggcart

Heister Feister perhaps you ought to actually contribute something to the discussion apart from actual insults. You like to sit on the side and throw snarky remarks at those who fight the good fight. With an attitude like yours I don't know what you'd do at a monastery - perhaps just eat the bread and consume the resources of the monks.

Yes absolute values matter but trends also do. The image you create sets the trend. The Russian state creates an image where religion is respected. Hence if you look at the stats, the importance of religion and the number of believers is growing. Compare this to Hollywood led US, where religion is mocked, sex is put on a pedestal, and so forth. What do young people think about religion in the US? They think it's oppressive and they have nothing but distaste and disgust for it. They prefer to revel in immorality. That's why religion is losing in the West - losing followers, losing ground, while it is winning in Russia.

But isn't this true of many areas of professional work -- including several areas of medicine? — Bitter Crank

Perhaps. But there are many cases in medicine for example, when there's not much that a doctor can do. In that case their knowledge and expertise is limited and that's that. They're not really at fault for that. But I actually think that a large majority of mental illness sufferers could be helped and even cured, and they are not. And that is the fault of the therapists - it doesn't help that they have no skin in the game either.

After all, physicians treating problems related to obesity can't follow their patients around and intervene in their dietary choices (they might, but then they could treat only 1 patient at a time) — Bitter Crank

Yes but they wouldn't have to. It's sufficient for them to prepare a diet for their patient, discuss whether the patient has any particular objections/desires, and then ask them to keep to it, maybe get them to keep a journal and see how it goes. It's the patient's responsibility to follow the advice in that case. But the same cannot be said about mental illness - the thing with mental illness is precisely that the patient struggles to follow the advice or to apply it to particular situations. I don't know if you've ever gone through something similar yourself, but for example, hypochondria of which I suffered, the thought you're ill or will become ill and die can manifest in hundreds and millions of ways. Literarily every kind of symptom I can make myself actually feel. And the question always is how do you distinguish? Say I get a strong chest pain... Is that a heart attack? If you ask a doctor they tell you "if you have persistent chest pains, with other symptoms like shortness of breath, etc. you have to go to the hospital IMMEDIATELY" If you tell the psychiatrist you get chest pains, etc. they'll be like "ahh that's just your anxiety, you have to do something different, it's not real" but the whole question is how do you distinguish real from unreal, not in theory, but in practice?

So the psychiatrist can't help with that. If you ask the question they avoid it. They don't take it seriously. They think "ah must be just another avoidance symptom, just the continuance of the anxiety" - they don't say it, but you can see that that's what they think. You can see they don't give a fuck for real. Just makes you feel worse about yourself. Really someone like Aristotle could have helped. They teach you how to think in practice. Everywhere you look for example you see information about your health that is scary. Even the doctors scare you! It took me a long time until I made friends amongst doctors to understand that what doctors tell the public is very different from what doctors actually believe. For example they tell the public they need to go to the ER IMMEDIATELY in case of chest pain. They don't really believe that, but because the public is full of idiots who would otherwise be killed by their stupidity they prefer to scare them - better that they make more trips to the ER than they die and the doctor gets accused he hasn't done his job. It's the more intelligent folk out there who actually start researching and take these things for granted because it's all they can find.

And I mean most people's understanding of medicine is nonexistant. How can you not worry about your health if you don't even have a basic understanding of disease and how the body functions? So learning all these things took me a lot of time. But now I don't worry because I understand practically what could go wrong, how the body works, what OBJECTIVE signs to check for and so forth. I understand generally - so if there's a problem I would know, just that I would quite possibly not know what it is for sure or what to do. For example one time I got this disease called pilonidal cyst. i diagnosed myself with it, went to the doctor, and he wanted to do surgery on my ass - literarily! So I told him Im not going to do that, i went and researched, read a few medical research papers on it, and then went back and told him what antibiotic to prescribe me. He said ahh but antibiotic doesn't generally work, blah blah. So i told him i don't care, I want him to do it. So he did it, and I got cured. If I had listened to him, I would have been in bed changing bandages for 1-2months... Never trust doctors 100%. Always opt for conservative treatment first, only if it fails go to more extensive one. That's number one principle they teach in med school, only that doctors, by the time they get to practice, get lazy and want to get rid of patients quickly so they choose most certain treatment instead of most conservative.

It's really about learning to use your judgement in practice and trusting it. But you need some knowledge. That useless psychiatrist should teach you medicine instead of telling you that anxious person shouldn't learn medicine. It needs to be an over-arching approach that makes the patient POWERFUL - in the real sense of the term. The purpose of therapy isn't that you emerge out of there the same as you were before your illness - but rather that you emerge a stronger and greater man. That should be the aim.

Really if you ask me, the priest is actually better than the psychiatrist for mental illness. So are great philosophers. Hypochondria for me really was rational. If you don't know shit about the body, how can you not worry? That would be like being in the jungle with no survival skills and not being worried. If you can't distinguish mind-created feelings from actual, real feelings, how the hell can you know what to do? Goodluck finding real answers with those money hungry, greedy and immoral psychiatrists

Perhaps it's fitting that it's Pravda, the follower of the Soviet era iconic Pravda, which publishes articles like this one, Russia has become the only defender of Christian value — ssu

Well that just quite possibly happens to be true, to the West's great shame. The West isn't Christian anymore, and has little knowledge or respect for Christianity - hence the anti-Christian pro-greed, lust and sexual immorality propaganda that screams out from literarily every Hollywood movie. You almost can't watch a movie without seeing sex. If that's not obsessive I don't know what is.

These things affect my experience, they don't create it, or cause it. That I interpret my surroundings as a lion approaching me, is something created from within me. — Metaphysician Undercover

If they are created from within you, then it follows precisely that your experience bears no relationship at all with reality, which is nonsense. Your experience necessarily is intertwined with the rest of reality. You cannot be eaten by a lion while experiencing something completely different, that is just ignoring everything we know about how the human organism works.

Why does the "outside world" have a history? Why are there fossils? — tom

That's like asking why we experience the world in time. I'd answer because it's a necessary precondition of any experience at all.

Yes the Three Stooges have identified your poetry as dangerous, and therefore have stomped down on it. That's what always happens to the wise >:O Don't be upset at the moderators, they just received the orders from the Pentagon in the mail. What could they have done?

We have a saying in the Netherlands: "As the innkeeper is, does he trust his guests". Meaning people who expect the worst from others usually aren't very nice themselves. — Benkei

That is quite possibly true, however -

I think, as I've explained before, that the very framework in which psychiatrists work makes them unable to help their patients in any way. They are broken off from the reality of mental trouble, and therefore the help they give, when push comes to shove, is worth nothing. My beef with them is that they accept to work as psychiatrists in these circumstances - that knowing that they can't do much for their patients, they accept to go to their jobs and do a half-hearted job. That's my moral problem with them.

Yes yes it's the thought police that is behind this!! The global capitalist interests have orchestrated this! >:O

HILARIOUS!!! >:O

We will take care of the mentally ill, by distrusting psychologists and psychiatrists, therapists and doctors - makes perfect sense to me! Weeee! — Heister Eggcart

Yeah, if these faggots were so good at treating patients, we'd have less mentally ill folk than we do today. As far as I'm concerned, these experts are part of the problem, not the solution. It's in their interest that people are sick and continue to suffer so that they keep coming for their expensive services, and pay them more and more dough.

Would that we were so kind. We have come close to letting people die in the streets--literally, not figuratively. There are mentally ill homeless people who are (slowly, granted) dying in the streets. It took a long time for the northern city I live in (Minneapolis) to recognize that "public inebriates" need caring alochol-tolerant shelter, especially in the winter. (Most shelters here are rigidly alcohol-intolerant.) We finally have it, and it is a good thing.

In San Francisco there are thousands of homeless living on the streets. I've seen them there years past. They won't freeze, they're mostly not insane (crazy maybe, but that's a different story). They aren't cared for. — Bitter Crank

Yes that unfortunately is true, even in the civilised world, and it's a big shame, that people are left to die in the streets.

Outside world simply refers to that part of your experience you don't control. You don't control that you'll meet the lion on your way to work. That part of your experience is outside of your control

I don't see how my experience could be something other than something I create. I'm an active, living being, my experience is a property of myself. Where else could it come from but myself? — Metaphysician Undercover

From the outside world? The fact you go out to work for example, and you meet a lion on the road to work. Is that your creation too? Meeting the lion? Of course not. That's something that you didn't cause, and yet it is part of your experience.

No one with a mental condition should be pitied and helped unless either (a) they want help because they don't like the way they are, or (b) they're unable to function/take care of themselves re simple daily tasks--maintaining shelter, acquiring and ingesting food, etc. — Terrapin Station

I agree with this.

AND they (at least seem to) want to be able to achieve those daily tasks. — Terrapin Station

I disagree with this. If they don't want to eat, etc. then they are suffering psychologically, and require help until they get into more stable waters where they can manage for themselves. We're not going to let people die in the street because they are depressed and no one cares for them. Nobody will be dying in the streets. We will take care of them.

That doesn't make sense, because they create their experience. — Metaphysician Undercover

No you don't create your experience. You don't have that much power. Part of your experience comes upon you whether you want it to or not. But you participate in the creation of your experience.