61–70 of 94 posts
Sorry to point that out (I know a lot of HN folks are gamers), but I think it's a valid approach.
I really doubt if Guido has been harrassed or physically threatened because of something in Python 3, for example.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
First about violence: You're wrong. Mental illness does not predict violent behaviour. Someone with a mental illness is not more likely to hurt you than someone without a mental illness. This is very clear from all the statistics we have. You not knowing this is a concrete example of your ignorance of mental illness. The fact that you don't care that vulnerable people are frequently the victims of violent crime (and…
> First about violence: You're wrong Wrong about what? What claim did I make that's wrong? Oh, wait, you're just assuming that I disagree with you, so that you can be mad. You assume that I assume that mental illness predicts mental behaviour, but I said nothing of the kind. I think? Right? > Mental illness does not predict violent behaviour. That's an interesting claim (interesting in the sense that I am interested,…
Here's one example of a well run meta analysis that includes self harm in the list of "violent behaviour": https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ioppn/depts/hspr/research/ciemh/mhn/pr...
(Note that the UK part of that paper is not talking about mental illness in the general population, but is restricting itself to a tiny subset of that population. Not just inpatients (about 8% of the people under specialist care) but people in a forensic unit. Those people are there because of a criminal justice involvement in their care. Even in this group of violent people we see a small group of people are responsible for most violent events.
This narrowing of focus - not all people with mental illness, but smaller and smaller sub-groups is why saying "crazy people are dangerous" is just dumb. You have to (using the link you provided) say "crazy people, with this particular diagnosis, when they're not getting treatment, are a little bit more dangerous than the general population, but less dangerous than parents, and less dangerous than poor men, and less dangerous than people with a substance addiction."
And even then you've failed to distinguish between "people who are violent because they have mental illness", and "people who are violent and co-incidentally have mental illness".
The group at most risk of homicide is children under one, and the people doing the killing are parents or step-parents. Why aren't you calling all parents dangerous?
http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandj...
Focussing on mental illness and violence is sub-optimal because it focuses on a very small risk and it focuses on something which provides no predictive value. When you have someone in front of you and you want to know whether they're going to be violent or not knowing that they have a mental illness, even a severe and enduring illness, doesn't help you. Knowing that they are (various combinations of) male; poor; addicted; a (step)parent or (ex)partner; are all more useful to you.
But this ignorance about the minimal risks of violence from people with mental illness causes actual measurable harm. About half the people shot and killed by US police each year have a mental illness. (Although it's hard to get accurate numbers because the US doesn't collect this data).
http://www.bbmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centreforsuic...
Sorry for the long and complex report, but it's best quality evidence that the UK has about homicide by people with mental illness. Page 30 is homicide in England. Most homicide is committed by people without mental illness; most people with mental illness have no connection with violence. People with mental illness are not over-represented in the group of people convicted of homicide.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandj...
> I'm not at all convinced that that's true. I think it promotes stigma against the behaviour characterized as "crazy". And I think it's pretty clear that that's what is happening in TFA's title: online harassment is being implicitly characterized as so inappropriate that it brings into question the health of the brain that committed it. I'm in favour of that implicit characterization.
Well, this feels like a contradiction. You start by saying it's not promoting stigma; you end by saying crazy people do hateful things. Why use the word "crazy", why not use the word "asshole"? There are so many other words you could use it seems a shame to marginalise an already marginalised group.
(Also, it's against HN rules to call other people assholes. Your ignorant first post is you being an asshole, but I didn't call you an asshole. You should probably stop doing that.)
This is a part of why I'm quite selective about what I post online. The major part is that I value my privacy and don't really want random people knowing everything about me. I don't want to be a public figure. I avoid Facebook and Twitter, too, so that really reduces my surface area for this type of attack.
From the op:
So complaining about harassment isn't just whining by sheltered nerds. The more visible and outspoken you are online, the higher the chance that a whirlwind will land on the heads of you and those you love. There is no chance of this changing in the foreseeable future. This is serious business. I am scared. Everything I do online is weighed against the risk of harassment.
So the nerds won against the schoolyard bullies. But as a result we created another kind of public space which has bullying mobs. Unthinking bullying mobs that are in denial of their own bullying and label their activities as something noble or socially/intellectually worthy.
Just about every thoughtful person I know feels effectively censored. There are certain group-minds online you can't risk angering, for fear of the consequences. These often exist as binary pairs in opposition which feed off of one another, gaining more members by mutual creation of outrage.
These phenomena need to be recognized by society. An intellectually vibrant society should shun such stultifying phenomena. However, our culturally dominant means of communication are precisely where such phenomena live, and are the places they effectively police. This ability makes them much more insidious than "hate groups" of the civil rights era.
The nerds created the new bullies, and the new bullies now shape and control the new discourse.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry for the double post, I just wanted to comment on your last point. Holy shit. Just because someone has a mental health issue doesn't mean they're violent. Everyone I know who has mental health issues are the friendliest people I know. This is the exact sort of attitude that makes issues with HR incredibly difficult. And trust me, it is unbearably difficult . I can't explain how many times and how frustrating it…
I don't mind the double-post, but I'll reply to both of them at once. I have mental health issues. Nearly everyone I care about has mental health issues. Some of those issues are moderately serious problems, some are minor annoyances. It sucks having problems. I'm sad you have problems. I'm sad I have problems. I hope your problems resolve themselves, and/or you learn better coping strategies, and that life is as nic…
If you are writing a piece to be published then more appropriate terminology should be used, or you get judged on more professional level along with personal level.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have bipolar II and definitely see it as a slur. See, I go into hypomanic states and do things that are what you'd typically see from a "crazy" person. Buzzing my head, getting into bad financial situations, intense obsession, etc. When I do those things, I'm usually aware that what I'm doing isn't 'normal', but since the rationalizations flow pretty thick, the corrections are nearly impossible to act on. Medicatio…
I have bipolar II and definitely see it as a slur. So what do you suggest we call people that behave far outside society's bounds and are impervious to reason?
Maybe don't work in the games industry, where the crazy users tend to end up? Sorry to point that out (I know a lot of HN folks are gamers), but I think it's a valid approach. I really doubt if Guido has been harrassed or physically threatened because of something in Python 3, for example.
Maybe it's simply not good business to be a dev who's both acting as the face of a product and writing divisive op-eds. This practice seems unique to the games industry.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people are terrible at OPSEC. If your online persona is used long enough and garners enough attention your real identity will almost certainly become known (extreme example: Ross Ubricht). This is compounded by the fact that people tend to say things they wouldn't otherwise say if they knew they weren't anonymous. The other issue is it's harder to capitalize on the reputation of online personas in the real world…
> Ross Ubricht He initially used his real name for a StackExchange account, which was later linked to DPR and SR. But you're right about downsides. If you want online personas and real world identity to be unlinked, you can't capitalize in ways that link them. But you can still capitalize in parallel. In the real world, I have no interest in privacy etc. Here, I don't draw on my real world reputation. It is sad, thou…
Like I said, terrible at OPSEC :)
This is a part of why I'm quite selective about what I post online. The major part is that I value my privacy and don't really want random people knowing everything about me. I don't want to be a public figure. I avoid Facebook and Twitter, too, so that really reduces my surface area for this type of attack.
Facebook is honestly not that bad on this because your "friends" circle makes it harder for a post to go completely viral. Twitter on the other hand is really dangerous because you can just make a tweet which pisses off some random celebrity and face a huge backlash, this is really scary.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook is honestly not that bad on this because your "friends" circle makes it harder for a post to go completely viral. Twitter on the other hand is really dangerous because you can just make a tweet which pisses off some random celebrity and face a huge backlash, this is really scary.
That's exactly why I'm afraid to tweet. If I tweeted every stupid thought that flit across my mind, then ever became famous or in the public eye, people could dig up every dumb thing I've ever said and broadcast it out of context. No thanks.