This claim is tautological; by definition """bad behavior""" is """mental illness""" and vice versa
Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues
191–200 of 233 posts
Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would agree; "homophobes" are not afraid of homosexuality.
And hydrophobic substances do not express the emotion of fear against water.
Hydrophobic dogs do fear water though.
(Hydrophobia is another name for rabies. Rabies often induces a fear of water.)
Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
This whole trope of recasting "anti-X" as "X-phobic" is something that really irks me. Maybe there's a group of closeted X who doth protest too much, but there's generally a much larger group of people who are just assholes to X, and trying to spin it as "they're just afraid of you" smacks too much of the old "the bullies are just jealous ". No, often it's not jealousy, it's just people being assholes to targets they…
Phobic doesn't just mean afraid. Hydrophobic molecules for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_phobia
> Specific phobia is an anxiety disorder, characterized by an extreme, unreasonable, and irrational fear associated with a specific object or situation.[1][2] Specific phobia can lead to avoidance of the object or situation, persistence of the fear, and significant distress or problems functioning associated with the fear. A phobia can be the fear of anything.
Whatever the term originally meant to the greeks, it does seem to be knit with the concept of fear today.
Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
Phobic literally means fear, from the ancient Greek 'phobos', meaning... fear. It's used for things (like hydrophobic molecules) that avoid other things (in this case water) as if they fear them . Unless we're doing one of those "literally literally means figuratively" things here in which case... meh? Just to be crystal clear here, I'm not saying we don't have groups who are anti-X for whatever value of X. I'm sayin…
That's the etymological fallacy. Phobic literally means having an intolerance or aversion for.[1] [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phobic
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Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Phobic literally means fear, from the ancient Greek 'phobos', meaning... fear. It's used for things (like hydrophobic molecules) that avoid other things (in this case water) as if they fear them . Unless we're doing one of those "literally literally means figuratively" things here in which case... meh? Just to be crystal clear here, I'm not saying we don't have groups who are anti-X for whatever value of X. I'm sayin…
That's the etymological fallacy. Phobic literally means having an intolerance or aversion for.[1] [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phobic
There's still a chasm between "having an intolerance of or aversion for" and "being mean to".
Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ben Sixsmith is neither a leader or founder of UnHerd, so even if he’s a Christian Right voice whose writing they’ve carried, that hardly cobtradicts the claim that they are diverse and that they don’t focus on Christian Right content, carrying much from sides opposing thst viewpoint. Also, as Christian but pro-secular-politics left-leaning person, I think the statement you quote as an example of far right Christian…
A current tactic of the Christian-right is to enter into alliances with people they would otherwise despise (radical feminists, "scienceologists" like Dawkins) on certain shared causes which are even more important to them - the bonding cause currently is opposing transgenderism. Dawkins happens to be transphobic - he even lost awards over it.
> A current tactic of the Christian-right is to enter into alliances with people they would otherwise despise (radical feminists, "scienceologists" like Dawkins) on certain shared causes which are even more important to them
Maybe this is just a story you've concocted to explain away evidence that contradicts your predetermined conclusions about who believes what?
Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well that's certainly one take. I strongly disagree with your notion that the book defines abuse so broadly that anybody could meet the criteria. As I read it, the book doesn't apply to most people; I'd say it only matches a handful of people I've met in my life. I think the rest of your characterizations are also basically incorrect and unfair, and in ways that I don't see it as worth my time to dispute in detail. I…
I certainly did, it's the top result searching for pdf. You can interpret the book as to deeming virtually anybody you think as either meeting or not meeting the criteria similar to a horoscope. The star signs being "Mr. Right" or "Mr. Sensitive" and "Drill Sargent" etc etc. I could very trivially make the case that the author very clearly meets his own "Mr. Right" stereotype and thus is an abuser. He considers himse…
I agree that somebody who wants to misinterpret something can certainly manage if they try. But I disagree that's what most people do with it. I've talked with literally dozens of people about the book. You're the only one so far who has been unable to apply it carefully and usefully.
Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you may not realize is, some people literally don't know how to do that, or that it's even something anyone would ever do. If you dropped into an alien culture, you'd need to learn a new raft of different signals all over again.
A lot of the bad in the world comes from leaving people unequipped of certain basic "soft skills". It's not the same thing as mental illness, but it has similar effects. And, for some reason, people become seemingly completely unwilling to learn-by-example any new-to-them soft skills, once they reach adulthood. Or perhaps "lifelong learning of soft skills" is itself a soft skill that people aren't being taught. -----…
You've piqued my interest. Do you mind sharing a few of the things you have observed and/or learned in this process?
Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, there's a feedback loop, same as with alcoholism. It's nice and good to consider alcoholism a disease, but there's a point where the not yet completely dependent person should say "It's not even 4 o'clock yet and there's no social reason, what am I doing with this can of beer?"
> but there's a point where the not yet completely dependent person should say "It's not even 4 o'clock yet and there's no social reason, what am I doing with this can of beer?" Alcoholism is a mental illness and can have comorbidity with other mental issues. For many the answer to your "why am I holding this beer" is "I don't want to feel". But the alcoholic (not in any sort of recovery) never gets to the self refle…
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Re: Disproportionate amount of bad online behaviour stems from psychological issues
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your four points are all absolutely true. However, I cannot plausibly think of a reason why we _wouldn't_ have a disproportionate amount of online bad behavior from the mentally ill. There's really almost nothing in the online environment to prevent it, and quite a lot of mental conditions result in manic phases of some sort that would cause them to spew a lot of it online.
I can think of a reason, in two parts: lots of people are motivated by things other than mental health to behave negatively online; most people with mental illness are already afraid of being blamed and targeted.
>>most people with mental illness are already afraid of being blamed and targeted.
On what evidence do you base this on?