It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#271

Post by ryanbrunner » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #191

bognition wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not sinister in the slightest, but people should understand the larger picture. Where do those preferences come from? I've seen first hand the impact that media, advertising, and social pressures at school have had on my children's preferences.

> Where do those preferences come from? I've seen first hand the impact that media, advertising, and social pressures at school have had on my children's preferences. Sure, but why is that a problem? Our preferences are of course sculpted by our environment, and that's not a problem as long the people who fall outside of those norms aren't punished for it. Assuming those norms aren't harmful of course, eg. not good t…

It's basically inevitable that children are going to exposed to some normative behaviour, particularly around gender. I think the important part is that we're not so quick to denounce and suppress any messaging that exposes children to the existence of behaviour outside of those gender norms, that's when it goes from just existing in a society where gender norms exist to maintaining and enforcing those gender norms.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#272

Post by hrnnnnnn » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

indigochill wrote: post #72

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #34

From my reading of the article (which is hard to parse not being an expert) it seems there is a German YouTuber with Tourette's who also on his YouTube shows displays non-tourette's tics. And these tics are being copied by other young people watching his shows, and being presented as Tourette's until they arrive at the clinic where these experts go "hang on this kid does not have Tourette's but does have tics similar…

There may be a relation to military conditioning. I spent just a single week at a military academy introductory program in high school and when I returned home I was "uncontrollably" (if I thought about it I could avoid doing it, but if I was on autopilot it happened by itself) squaring my corners and calling my family "sir" and "ma'am". The thing was, those patterns were my entire life for that week, and they were v…

I love "deinforce" as an antonym to "reinforce". The standard way to say it would maybe be "deemphasised", but it lacks the symmetry of "deinforced".

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#273

Post by ryanbrunner » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

red_admiral wrote: post #258

dahfizz wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a case that gender norms have changed over time, not that there were no gender norms in the past.

Indeed. But my argument is specifically that the norms around acceptable behaviour for a straight male have significantly narrowed from roughly the end of the 19th century to the 1960s.

I'd argue that the trend continued past the 1960s. While yes, there is certainly more acceptance of homosexual men, there is also a continuing trend towards an exaggerated extreme masculinity that would have felt out of place in the 1960s.

Maybe it's more accurate to say Western (and in particular American) culture has fragmented, and one of those cultures has increasingly put stricter and stricter norms around acceptable heterosexual male behaviour to the point where it's nearly parody.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#274

Post by maxbond » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:28 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #266

maxbond wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With these pressures lessening more and more people are feeling empowered to explore their sexuality. Emphasis mine. The comment is not, in fact, about letting children explore their sexuality, but people . (When you consider the parent of that comment, that still does not add context implying that we're talking about kids.) The only part of the comment which discusses children is this: > For the last several decad…

You chopped the one statement into different "parts". Here is the comment in question: > For the last several decades society put massive pressure on kids to conform to heteronormativity. With these pressures lessening more and more people are feeling empowered to explore their sexuality. In a maximally generous interpretation, you could say that the "kids" in the first half and the "people" in the second half of the…

They are different subjects, or if you prefer, the same subject at different times in their life. They're asserting that societal pressure experienced during childhood has an effect on how sexuality is expressed during adulthood. I chopped it into different parts in order to dissect and analyze it; I ultimately included the entire comment (except a sentence neither of us found relevant and you yourself didn't include), and I was not hiding anything; the entire comment was always available to be inspected, the structure and content of the comment was not in dispute, only it's interpretation.

Consider that, in the example sentence you came up with, you are referring to the same subject, at different times.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#275

Post by maxbond » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:28 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #246

jasonlotito wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heteronormativity isn’t sexualizing anything. The only person talking about sexualizing children is you. The voting on your comment is crazy because your ignorance on the topic is showing and it’s dangerous and insulting. Educate yourself.

Read bognition's comment. They literally say that kids are "empowered to explore their sexuality".

This is incorrect, as you and I discuss here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33879888

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#276

Post by simplotek » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:30 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #244

simplotek wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is probably going to get downvoted to oblivion, because nobody wants to confront the idea that we can _learn_ to want to be another gender. But I think there's some interesting parallels to be observed here, and discounting that based on "moral virtue" or "denying hate speech" or whatever i'll be attacked with is just moving the target. I feel you're grossly misrepresenting the issue. It means nothing if you b…

> It means nothing if you believe people can be re-educated to cease to identify as a specific gender or repress their sexuality throughout their whole lives. That's completely irrelevant. You can also argue that you can re-educated men to be ok with being impotent or be bald or not need glasses, but somehow the conservative side of society is perfectly ok with having whole industries devoted to pumping out erectile…

> I don't understand this. The core problem with gender dysphoria is that you feel significant discomfort with your biological sex.

Indeed, and that's why you see people undergoing medical treatments to address that problem.

Why anyone in their right mind would be against people seeking medical treatments to address their health issues is beyond me.

> If it were possible to legitimately "re-educate" oneself to not feel this discomfort, that would be considerably cheaper, less invasive and less problematic overall than trying to change one's sex.

You're desperately trying to avoid the point.

I repeat. You can reeducate an impotent man to stop worrying about his erectile dysfunction. You can reeducate a man to stop bothering with being bald.

Why is that somehow not targeted by this authoritarian belief that you're entitled to force upon others to undergo reeducation camps to accept an outcome they don't want nor feel comfortable with?

Why is that only minorities vilified by certain religious conservative pressure groups should have no say in what they can and cannot do regarding their health and personal well-being?

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#277

Post by somedude895 » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:30 PM UTC

azangru wrote: post #45

This passage from the abstract: > Moreover, they can be viewed as the 21st century expression of a culture-bound stress reaction of our post-modern society emphasizing the uniqueness of individuals and valuing their alleged exceptionality, thus promoting attention-seeking behaviours and aggravating the permanent identity crisis of modern man. is rather peculiar. I didn't expect that this is how neurologists and neuro…

I agree. It is a bit weird to see such subjective takes and cultural pessimism in an article like this. Hadn't noticed it the first time around, probably due to my own biases. So thanks for pointing it out.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#278

Post by ryanbrunner » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

4gotunameagain wrote: post #63

ccity88 wrote: post #33

What's interesting to me is that if we're able to accept the idea that mass social media-induced illness can be developed just by virtue of video watching TikTok or YouTube, then this opens new doors to examining the behaviour of other illnesses such as gender dysphoria that are statistically over represented. This is probably going to get downvoted to oblivion, because nobody wants to confront the idea that we can _…

This is the direct outcome of "political correctness", and of silencing people that disagree with you. Even suggesting the fact that mass sociogenic illnesses (formerly called mass hysteria) primarily affect girls [1] goes against the new religion and is vilified immediately. [1] https://adc.bmj.com/content/archdischild/106/5/420.full.pdf

Most objections of claims about mass sociogenic illnesses that I've seen have to do with people using it to dismiss behaviour they don't like, often without any real evidence that this is "mass sociogenic illness".

Even this article doesn't really make any attempt to disprove a null hypothesis and we basically are required to take these people at their word that a) the behaviour expressed is not consistent with Tourette's and the patients don't actually have it, and b) the source of this is due to the YouTuber mentioned. There's no control group or anything to prove these two facts beyond the author's opinion.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#279

Post by denton-scratch » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

reilly3000 wrote: post #203

This is alarmist BS. Facebook group fodder. “Humans have working mirror neurons” could have been the headline. All of you futurists who have slipped down the slope are worried about media spreading “sociogenic illness”. Of course media is powerful. It always has been. There has been about 75 years of fears and schemes about using TV to mass hypnotize its watchers. The same with radio before it. What is happening is m…

> these lifelong genetic differences

I'm not aware of convincing evidence that bipolar and schizophrenia are of genetic origin (other than that schizophrenia sometimes runs in families). There are serious people that insist that they originate in childhood trauma. And since childhood trauma also sometimes runs in families, family histories of schizophrenia aren't that convincing either.

Re: It’s not Tourette’s but a new type of mass sociogenic illness

#280

Post by ryanbrunner » Tue, Dec 06, 2022, 2:39 PM UTC

causi wrote: post #122

ccity88 wrote: post #33

What's interesting to me is that if we're able to accept the idea that mass social media-induced illness can be developed just by virtue of video watching TikTok or YouTube, then this opens new doors to examining the behaviour of other illnesses such as gender dysphoria that are statistically over represented. This is probably going to get downvoted to oblivion, because nobody wants to confront the idea that we can _…

The way we have leapt from one societal belief to the other end of the spectrum is, I believe, interfering with objective healthcare. We started at "people who believe and behave outside of gender norms are perverted freaks" and we jumped straight to "you are whatever you think you are." Between those two paradigms there are questions it has become very difficult to research. Questions like "is it possible we are cat…

> "you are whatever you think you are."

You should do some reading on how gender affirming therapy and treatment works, because it is absolutely not standard to pursue treatment immediately without any process or consultation.

Whether transition is the right option is absolutely explored, it's just explored in a way that allows the patient to come to a decision rather than a doctor making the gatekeeping whether this person is "really transgendered".