Philosophical Vegan Forum

RedAppleGP wrote: however do you mean chep

It was considered the only way to repair their dishonor. It wasn't the coward's solution, but the only one.

To be or not to be?
(We started reading Hamlet in English)

brimstoneSalad wrote:People don't have to be ashamed of themselves in entirety (this is probably not that helpful), but for some people it may be helpful to be ashamed of the negative aspect they want to correct to motivate that. If you were proud of being fat, you probably wouldn't have the state of mind necessary to seek to lose weight, for example.

You don't need to be proud of something to not be ashamed of it.

Ok, though, perhaps .0001% of the mentally ill population will seek treatment because of shaming, but the opposite effect will result in the overwhelming majority.
By saying it's their fault, you're basically saying they deserve their problems. That's not an encouraging message.

And it doesn't really if they are ashamed of themselves in entirety if they feel bad about themselves all of the time (since people with mental health issues struggle constantly). It's still going to have an overwhelmingly negative impact.
It's just going to dishearten them and/or make them deny that they even have any problem.

People with depression in particular (which is associated with anxiety) struggle with self-blame, creating a cycle of self-blame -> depression -> self-blame -> depression and so on.

brimstoneSalad wrote:If it becomes part of your identity, or stems from a personal weakness that is part of your identity, then it is. Not everybody gets depression from bullying. Not everybody necessarily even gets (or suffers from long term) PTSD.

Are you serious?
You're actually condemning soldiers who get PTSD?
I don't even think Donald Trump would go that far.

Actually, maybe:

He's a 'war hero' because he got PTSD. I like people who don't get PTSD!

These things don't always cause those mental health problems, but they greatly increase the chances. It's a clear causation.
And with depression specifically, I don't understand how you can condemn a person for that at all. It's a feeling, like anxiety.
You can't legitimately condemn people for any mental illness alone.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Blaming other things for your problems rather than admitting them to be personal failings (that just need to be improved) may not be the most healthy approach (even if it would seem reasonable to blame outside factors). But then again, as I said, for most people it may be a more functional approach to blame outside factors so they aren't demoralized. It's different for different people.

Again, you're saying that mental illness isn't real, and that these things really are faults by saying it's an admission to consider them personal problems. It's subtle, but you've done it multiple times now.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Equally true, or accurate representations of reality? Perhaps.
Equally useful to treating the condition, probably not. But again, it depends on the person, and the specific case at hand.

I don't think so.
I did some more research, and there is a genetic correlation with mental illness (runs in families), and often issues with chemicals in the brain.
How do you explain those, while simultaneously saying that mental illness doesn't even really exist from a perspective you deem as valid as the one saying it does?

Most of the articles about mental illness not being real are from an organization affiliated with the Church of Scientology.

They're definitely not equally useful to treating the conditions. According to all the articles I can find about mental illness and stigma, stigma is overwhelmingly negative. I linked one in this post.
Therefore, it is wrong to promote stigmas against mentally ill people, and it's right to condemn John for being a dick and essentially inadvertently promoting mental illness.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Very likely. But again, it depends on the situation.
Maybe if you want to advocate medicine (for something better treated through medication) you should advocate the "otherness" of the condition. if you want to advocate personal action and confronting the problem, you might advocate the personal character flaw representation, to encourage that approach.

No, because that doesn't encourage that approach.

You're not helping mentally ill people by stigmatizing them for being mentally ill. Stigma is likely the main reason why people don't seek help.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/br ... -us-sicker

I doubt you can find one legitimate article that can justify the idea that stigma is some how a good thing on mentally ill people.

brimstoneSalad wrote:My point was mainly that it's easier to measure morality of actions because of the objective effects of actions on the world. Cowardice doesn't necessarily have objectively bad or good effects, so it's hard to measure it.

But something is objectively brave or cowardly. You can measure based on how brave/cowardly certain things are.

brimstoneSalad wrote:What if somebody isn't afraid of spiders, but is afraid of butterflies? How is that more or less cowardly? Both could be equally irrational fears, assuming the spider is not venomous.

Maybe they are equally justifiable, but there's an objective answer there, even if we can't pinpoint it.
I think the butterflies are less justifiable because spiders are considered scary in our culture, though.

brimstoneSalad wrote:That things are almost never perfectly balanced, because we're not dealing in low number integers here.

You could go from 0.0000000001349759 bravery to -0.000000009827366 very easily. 0 is a razor's edge. In reality, nobody is really neutral, always very slightly positive or negative.

Neutrality is more of an approximation, or a matter of error bars due to uncertainty that overlaps zero.

Ah, probably. I don't really find this relevant, though.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Actions tend to follow from strong feelings like that, so it's a safe assumption with fewer sample points.

No it isn't. People who understand they have anxiety could easily be fighting it.

It's not right, factually and morally, to call people cowards just because they have anxiety, like you did in some of your statements.
You can say some actions that may result from the anxiety are cowardly, but you can't call them cowards.
There's a difference between doing some cowardly things and being a coward.

brimstoneSalad wrote:No, only science is a field focused on controlling bias.

Teaching is first about conveying truth to students as far as the teacher knows. Teachers who believe their religions or political beliefs are true will convey those -- they don't think they're biased, or understand what that means, That's the problem (although they'd accuse a teacher of teaching the opposite to their beliefs to be biased).

Teaching is not a field of bias control; that's a very new concept to education, and not one most teachers put into practice. It's also not one teachers are even equipped to put into practice, because they don't know what biases are or how to control for them.

Science took hundreds of years to advance to the point of doing that reasonably well, and that was because this was the primary goal, and the scientific method is all about that. There's nothing in the core of teaching methodology that's designed inherently to control teachers' biases.

It's supposed to be free of bias. Public education is apart of the government, and the government isn't supposed to take positions on religious matters, for example.

Of course, that doesn't mean it is.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Maybe according to some, but the very notion is inconsistently applied. Preachers aren't supposed to convey anything political in their sermons. This isn't reality. Teachers don't have the tools - cognitively - to understand what bias means, or recognize and control for their biases. If none of them understand what bias is, or what this means, then they don't even have to be "bad teachers" to be incapable of it.

As a field, academics is the furthest thing from unbiased.

It's not really according to 'some'... That's how our public education system is supposed to work.
We have separation of church and state.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Is it a net harm, though, when you factor in benefits to development, and learning how to handle conflict?
To kids a shot seems harmful at that moment, but in the long term they acquire immunity.

This is something we need empirical evidence on -- not just biased studies on the harm, but comparing to benefit too.
You can make anything look harmful if you do one-sided studies on it.

Assuming you just mean it teaches people to deal with other people being pricks, sure, to an extent.
But it also can cause a lot of harm if it's severe, and I think that we should trust the victims and witnesses on how severe it is once the fact that bullying is taking place has been established (by witnesses), and that schools should interfere in those cases.

brimstoneSalad wrote:It consumes these resources, which are expensive. Do you know how much money your district gets per student from taxes per day of attendance?
Convert that into an hourly cost per student. Multiply this by the number of students in attendance. This is the expenditure of tax resources involved in this endeavor. Those resources go to paying teacher salary (you'll note the teachers aren't volunteers; they are paid to supervise the students, and in assemblies too), and the costs of the school itself.

The opportunity cost is what else could have been done with that time. A presentation on dieting and weight loss may have done a lot more good with the same resource investment.

I don't see why it would cost any more money to do the presentation than to do regular class activities.
Why do the numbers change all of a sudden when more students are in the same room? It's not like there would be no school the day of the assembly if there wasn't an assembly.

I don't think so. I think that teaching against bullying is very important.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Did they present evidence in the form of peer reviewed studies in respected psychology journals? Why would you believe them?

I trust it for the same reason why I trust my science teacher when she doesn't show me peer reviewed studies supporting every claim made in her lessons.

brimstoneSalad wrote:The same reason the media and politicians do. Your local school board is a political institution. If you look into it, you may lose respect for education. There is nothing approaching bias control or objective scientific standards in modern education. It's all politics and corner cutting.

They do this because it's lazier than using real data, and it's what people think anyway. It's easier, sometimes, to pretend to do something about a problem rather than investigate and deal with the actual causes (which would cost even more). If you can appease parents with a few thousand dollars wasted time on a lazy school power point presentation, you get re-elected and you didn't have to actually do anything difficult.

It's why people will sign petitions to end animal cruelty and then go eat a hamburger.

Source?

brimstoneSalad wrote:Psychology itself is a pretty soft science, but they used mostly self reporting and surveys, which isn't very helpful. It's hard to do proper science on these things.

How else are you supposed to do it, besides self reporting?

brimstoneSalad wrote:Can you tell the difference? Remember the ambiguity.
And, really -- what is the difference? Why is that relevant?

What's an example where you wouldn't be able to?
It's when you make things personal, not detached issues of actions, that it becomes an issue.

The difference is that one is about actions and the other is a personal attack.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Not really. There has to be less demand for animal foods to do that, otherwise they'll just clear more land to grow more veggies too.
Wasting veggies is not helpful to reducing animal cruelty.

But wouldn't it cause more people to invest in producing vegan food than animal food?
Like this:

Meat demand= 1000 units.
Plant demand= 900 units.

Plant demand is increased to 1100 units, so more people invest in that industry.

brimstoneSalad wrote:I understand you don't feel like this is fair, but I'm concerned with efficacy, not justice.
If it fixes the problem, I don't really care who came away feeling like he or she was right.
I didn't say the bullies were morally in the right, if they take that away from policy change there's not much we can do about it, but it doesn't matter as long as things are made better.

No, I read the topic, and I don't think that fair necessarily means best.

The issue I see is, that encourages bullies by validating their bullying, and makes bully victims feel like they deserved to be bullied.
Bullies probably aren't going to stop bullying if their victims 'fix' the 'issues' that they were bullied for. They're just going to look for something else- maybe even that the victims tried to fix the problems.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Because the important issue is efficacy, not justice.

So you're saying that, even though the reason for fat shaming is aesthetics, that it's justified because it causes people to want to lose weight?

Maybe you should note those statistics I posted here associated with teenagers (we're talking about schools) and unhealthy methods of trying to lose weight that stem from the kind of ideas you're promoting.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Doesn't matter, though. They could be shaming kids for wearing green shirts. If the kids stop wearing green shirts (maybe we provide them with red shirts) it's an easy way to stop the problem. As a bonus, you solve two problems at once, since obesity (unlike green shirts) is objectively a health problem.

Ok, but what about the consequences of the bullying based on appearance like that? Like the unhealthy ways of losing weight, for example:
http://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/infor ... cs-studies

50% of teenage girls and 30% of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives to control their weight.[15]
25% of college-aged women engage in bingeing and purging as a method of managing their weight.

I wouldn't have even thought it was that bad.

These are the harmful consequences of stigma and bullying over body size, and our shaming of people for their weights. It clearly causes a significant amount of harm.

brimstoneSalad wrote:The process of addressing obesity is talking about weight loss and diet, and that addresses those actions.

Alright, I think that information should be in that process. But you can't say that being obese is unethical, and you can't shame the students for it.

brimstoneSalad wrote:It may not have a chilling effect for you, because you don't want to say anything that's not permitted. For those who do, it does.
Chilling effect isn't like weather; it's relative to your opinions being those that are chilled.

Alright, but I don't see that as necessarily being an issue.

brimstoneSalad wrote:I doubt this claim. Particularly since they're teaching it incorrectly. Also, just informing people of what's going on isn't necessarily going to stop it.

You doubt that education about bullying is important?

Education about the harmful impacts of bullying stops it, because it motivates bystanders to speak up about bullying they see, and creates the general idea that bullying is bad (which leads to less bullying).

brimstoneSalad wrote:Then why call it bigotry?

Because that's what prejudice and discrimination towards Muslims is.

I find it really bizarre that you seem to think that it isn't. o_O

brimstoneSalad wrote:I should be allowed to dislike homophobes and not hire them into my employment, for example. I don't think it's fair to call me a bigot because I want to discriminate against people who choose to hold beliefs I see as harmful.

You're equating all Muslims to homophobes?

If you're not, I don't see the purpose of this comparison.

brimstoneSalad wrote: I don't see any of those as indicating he's racist. He's seems nationalist inclined, and possibly culturally xenophobic, but he may also just be pandering. Fabricating political rhetoric against Obama doesn't make you racist; he may be appealing to the racism of others, though, for political gain (doesn't make him one).
The last comment looked like a joke. I'd need to see the context.

I'm very disinclined to judge people like that.

I'm addressing this in the Bernie topic.
https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... &start=320

brimstoneSalad wrote:Less than you'd think, once they leave the nest. The only people who can stay indoctrinated are those who form isolated communities.

Source?

brimstoneSalad wrote:Please, tell me about some of the religions Christians persecuted within the domain of Christendom.
We rarely know more than the names of them, and the most we know of them usually comes from Christian apologia against them (records of Christian writings arguing against these beliefs).

That's different; the Christians murdered the people who disagreed with them.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Why? I'm more concerned with efficacy than meaningless concepts of justice. Why is free speech important if its consequences are bad?

I don't see how you can ban the bad ideas without banning the good ones as well, and I think it will lead to corruption (as it has historically).

EquALLity wrote:Ok, though, perhaps .0001% of the mentally ill population will seek treatment because of shaming, but the opposite effect will result in the overwhelming majority.

Only if you stigmatize treatment. Having treated and overcome a mental illness is something to be proud of.

EquALLity wrote:By saying it's their fault, you're basically saying they deserve their problems.

Not at all. Why do you think anybody deserves anything? Where does cosmic entitlement come from?

EquALLity wrote:It's just going to dishearten them and/or make them deny that they even have any problem.

Denial is something to be ashamed of, it's cowardly.
It's a tough situation, they have to be brave to face the problems, but denying they're problems doesn't help.

EquALLity wrote:People with depression in particular (which is associated with anxiety) struggle with self-blame, creating a cycle of self-blame -> depression -> self-blame -> depression and so on.

I don't believe that is accurate.
People with depression may blame themselves for things they have done, or the consequences of their depression, there is feedback in terms of consequence, but nobody or virtually nobody is depressed because they're depressed (that would be an insanity that goes beyond depression).

EquALLity wrote:Are you serious?

Some people cope with their problems and overcome them. This is a virtue. Others wallow in them or avoid confronting them.
PTSD can be treated, and involves changing the way you think about the trauma itself, accepting that it happened and talking about it, and moving on.
http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/tc/p ... t-overview

EquALLity wrote:You're actually condemning soldiers who get PTSD?

That's not what I said.
Some people have more of a tendency than others to fixate on things rather than letting them go. This is a deeper character flaw that may be responsible for the onset of PTSD in some where others are able to cope with the same experiences with few side effects.

There's ongoing research into the risk factors that affect development of the condition: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4368749/

A total of 18 significant predictors of PTSD among military personnel and veterans were found. Risk factors stemming from before the trauma include female gender, ethnic minority status, low education, non-officer ranks, army service, combat specialization, high numbers of deployments, longer cumulative length of deployments, more adverse life events, prior trauma exposure, and prior psychological problems.

Many of these have nothing to do with even the service.

People who develop PTSD tend to have a history of psychological problems, and a history of coping poorly with adverse life events/trauma. There are a lot of reporting biases that affect these studies.

Some things are purely environment. If you're exposed to something that would cause anybody to fail similarly -- like, say, being blown up -- there's no amount of personal endurance or fault that would make a difference there.
Beyond that, though, a significant amount of what affects us stems from flaws of personal character that need to be addressed to overcome those effects.
Look into false memory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory
That's a good starting point.

EquALLity wrote:And with depression specifically, I don't understand how you can condemn a person for that at all. It's a feeling, like anxiety.
You can't legitimately condemn people for any mental illness alone.

I'm not condemning people with depression, it's one among many potential character flaws. Plenty of people without depression have other character flaws. People who have or had depression and have overcome it should be congratulated.
If somebody chooses to wallow in it rather than deal with it, that's his or her fault. Did I say those people were bad people?

EquALLity wrote:Again, you're saying that mental illness isn't real,

What is "real" in psychological context? I didn't say some people are not depressed, but these conditions can be expressed simply in terms of perception and personality. These are existential issues.

We already covered the concept of what disease is, right?

EquALLity wrote:and that these things really are faults by saying it's an admission to consider them personal problems.

It's very likely both healthier and more effective to do that, since it's more useful in identifying the source and correcting the problem.

Isolate what's causing the depression: if it's something you can change in your environment, then change it. Did that work? Yes = great. No = it's not just environmental. You should look at how you are responding to and thinking about your environment; this could be more of a personal problem that you can solve by changing your mindset and approach to the world around you.

EquALLity wrote:I did some more research, and there is a genetic correlation with mental illness (runs in families), and often issues with chemicals in the brain.

There's a strong genetic correlation to intelligence, too. Is low IQ a disease? Are chimpanzees, and dogs, and insects, just suffering from varying levels of a genetic disease that causes low intelligence?

Personality is also correlated to genetics. Actually, most things about you are linked to genetics. And if they aren't linked to genetics, then it's environment.

If you disown environment, and you disown genetics, then from where exactly is the self derived? What are you? Where do you draw the line between what you are, and what made you?

EquALLity wrote:How do you explain those, while simultaneously saying that mental illness doesn't even really exist from a perspective you deem as valid as the one saying it does?

I'm saying it's a question of existential identity. See the questions above.
What YOU are is pretty much the most subjective thing about you.

EquALLity wrote:Most of the articles about mental illness not being real are from an organization affiliated with the Church of Scientology.

They think Body Thetans (BT) cause them, so they're actually in the "mental illness is a real thing apart from the self" category, they just disagree about what kind of real thing it is -- they ultimately subscribe to the idea that mental illness is other from the self, it's just explained as magical parasitic alien souls instead of a chemical imbalance.

Both of these ways of going about treatment have the same potential harms (although credible psychologists will generally try to get at the root of the problem too rather than only medicating it away).

EquALLity wrote:According to all the articles I can find about mental illness and stigma, stigma is overwhelmingly negative. I linked one in this post.

It's about the specific type of stigma. Only untreated mental illness may need to be stigmatized, people struggling with mental illness and treating it need to be congratulated. A stick without a carrot is not very useful, and getting the stick even when you're working on doing the right thing is even worse.

EquALLity wrote:You're not helping mentally ill people by stigmatizing them for being mentally ill. Stigma is likely the main reason why people don't seek help.

Are you looking at controlled studies where they were congratulated as brave and heroic by peers for seeking help?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/br ... -us-sicker

In 1999 the U.S. Surgeon General labeled stigma as perhaps the biggest barrier to mental health care; this stigma manifests particularly in a phenomenon known as social distancing, whereby people with mental issues are more isolated from others. Eradicating the stigma and social distancing of people with mental illness must be a top public health priority in order to improve worldwide mental health and reduce economic burden.

Come on, there's an obvious confounding variable here which isn't just minor: it's pointed at as the primary symptom.

In order for the carrot or stick to work, people have to have social relationships.
I don't recommend totally alienating carnists either, but that's different from stigmatizing carnism.

EquALLity wrote:I doubt you can find one legitimate article that can justify the idea that stigma is some how a good thing on mentally ill people.

I don't need to. The evidence you're providing doesn't correspond to what I'm talking about. I'm also not saying we should make it a goal of activism to stigmatize (that would require evidence for efficacy on my part). I'm saying it's not fair or necessarily useful to call somebody out on saying suicide is cowardly.

The evidence on stigma is limited to a very particular kind and effect.

EquALLity wrote:But something is objectively brave or cowardly. You can measure based on how brave/cowardly certain things are.

Based on what outcomes or metric?

EquALLity wrote:Maybe they are equally justifiable, but there's an objective answer there, even if we can't pinpoint it.

How do you know that?

EquALLity wrote:

brimstoneSalad wrote:Actions tend to follow from strong feelings like that, so it's a safe assumption with fewer sample points.

No it isn't. People who understand they have anxiety could easily be fighting it.

How is that relevant if the effort they put into fighting it is much less than the anxiety itself?

EquALLity wrote:There's a difference between doing some cowardly things and being a coward.

Maybe if it's made up for by a lot more brave things. That's much less likely than moral balance (which I can get into later if you answer the questions about the metric), but it depends on what system you're using to quantify the cowardliness and braveness.

EquALLity wrote:It's supposed to be free of bias. Public education is apart of the government, and the government isn't supposed to take positions on religious matters, for example.

Of course, that doesn't mean it is.

This is very new, and there's no system in place to ensure that. There are only random law suits. In practice, as would be expected, the education system is filled with bias (remember how problematic random enforcement is).

EquALLity wrote:It's not really according to 'some'... That's how our public education system is supposed to work.
We have separation of church and state.

Separation of church and state by whose interpretation? The teacher, the principal? The local PTA?

EquALLity wrote:Assuming you just mean it teaches people to deal with other people being pricks, sure, to an extent.

Which is an important life lesson.

EquALLity wrote:But it also can cause a lot of harm if it's severe

Where's the evidence comparing this harm against the benefits?

EquALLity wrote:and I think that we should trust the victims and witnesses on how severe it is once the fact that bullying is taking place has been established (by witnesses), and that schools should interfere in those cases.

Why? Witness testimony is unreliable, and memory is subjective. People with victim complexes will always play up the harm in their minds. Also, it's extremely likely that the so called victims will lie, and may even be the bullies, to take advantage of the system to harm a rival.

We went over all of this already. Just as in the criminal justice system, you can't just trust the supposed victim.

If there's a legitimate issue, it's more likely the victims need counseling, or the rivals need to be separated (or receive counseling together to overcome the problem and make up).

EquALLity wrote:I don't see why it would cost any more money to do the presentation than to do regular class activities.

If you're doing the presentation, you aren't doing regular class activities.

Do you think the school day or school year is too long, and that students are receiving too much education, so we need to waste time and money on other things to prevent them getting as much education?

If there's too much school, the district should have just made it a day off, and saved money for more valuable and evidence based social programs or educational techniques.

EquALLity wrote:I don't think so. I think that teaching against bullying is very important.

Why do you think this?
Is this based on evidence?

EquALLity wrote:I trust it for the same reason why I trust my science teacher when she doesn't show me peer reviewed studies supporting every claim made in her lessons.

You shouldn't have. There's a big difference between politicized issues like bullying, and actual science which uses scientific methodology.

EquALLity wrote: Source?

For what, that school boards are political?

That's common knowledge.
A few random links:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20343441?se ... b_contents
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/201 ... chievement
http://www.amazon.com/School-Board-Batt ... 1589010019

EquALLity wrote: How else are you supposed to do it, besides self reporting?

Unfortunately, there aren't many other ways, which is why you should take everything out of the social sciences with a grain of salt.
Read the studies, and see how they controlled for variables, and if they used a controlled environment with objective metrics.

You could start a thread on this if you want. It's important to understand the differences between the natural sciences and the "social sciences", and what makes something a legitimate science, and what makes it softer, and what that should mean to our credulity.

EquALLity wrote: What's an example where you wouldn't be able to?

Any case that doesn't use objective metrics. Science is not science without good methodology, and subjective qualitative analysis is not one.

EquALLity wrote:It's when you make things personal, not detached issues of actions, that it becomes an issue.
The difference is that one is about actions and the other is a personal attack.

It really isn't. It's perfectly possible to bully somebody without making any personal attacks. You should take a look at some forums where personal attacks are not allowed, and how mean they are.

These things are very hard to objectively evaluate, thus the trouble in presenting data on this. It's a field worthy of research, but not something we should be acting on without said research.

EquALLity wrote: But wouldn't it cause more people to invest in producing vegan food than animal food?
Like this:

Meat demand= 1000 units.
Plant demand= 900 units.

Plant demand is increased to 1100 units, so more people invest in that industry.

Slightly, sure, but it also involves a lot of resource waste. That wouldn't be effective altruism, and I don't even think it would be good.
Demanding plant foods instead of meat foods is great, but buying and wasting them isn't very helpful.

EquALLity wrote: The issue I see is, that encourages bullies by validating their bullying, and makes bully victims feel like they deserved to be bullied.

I'm not saying we should advertise this to the kids either. Just maybe leave things alone since there's no real evidence that it's a problem, and no evidence based solution (aside from changing the kid through diet if overweight, or plastic surgery for severe deformities, or counseling for being assertive and dealing with bullies if there's no deformity/physical problem that can be fixed).

EquALLity wrote: Bullies probably aren't going to stop bullying if their victims 'fix' the 'issues' that they were bullied for. They're just going to look for something else- maybe even that the victims tried to fix the problems.

When one victim is an outlier -- e.g. particularly dorky -- that person will receive a disproportionate amount of bullying. More than his or her equal share. When an issue is fixed, the bullying doesn't stop entirely, but is reduced to a more tolerable level. The total bullying being done doesn't necessarily go down (it may or may not, this is not clear), but it is at least more distributed.

It's really great to be average in a class with somebody really dorky or ugly -- a bully magnet who attracts all of the negative attention -- because you get left alone.
When the victim actually changes, the bullying subsides.

Unfortunately, again, this kind of stuff is very hard to study.

EquALLity wrote: So you're saying that, even though the reason for fat shaming is aesthetics, that it's justified because it causes people to want to lose weight?

It needs to be seen negatively, yes. There are obviously issues to how it might be approached, though.

EquALLity wrote:Maybe you should note those statistics I posted here associated with teenagers (we're talking about schools) and unhealthy methods of trying to lose weight that stem from the kind of ideas you're promoting.

This is an issue of education about weight loss. We need to be teaching people about health, nutrition, and how to actually lose weight, and instilling a sense of critical skepticism in miracle cures and crash diets. NOT teaching fat acceptance.

Teaching people to be OK with being obese is not how to combat bulimia and anorexia, or laxative abuse.
We do need to deal with the issue of calling people fat who are not fat, though.
You don't promote one harmful extreme to fix another.

This is an issue better solved through legislation, by e.g. banning models who are either under weight or overweight, and banning diet products and information promoting these unhealthy practices (FDA needs to crack down more on health claims).

EquALLity wrote:These are the harmful consequences of stigma and bullying over body size, and our shaming of people for their weights. It clearly causes a significant amount of harm.

These are harmful consequences for shaming non-overweight people as fat, based on distorted body images. NOT of shaming actually overweight and obese people to lose weight. They're also consequences of ignorance about how to lose weight.

EquALLity wrote:But you can't say that being obese is unethical, and you can't shame the students for it.

Why not? I'm not promoting saying those things during outreach, because we'd need to see evidence of efficacy to include those arguments, but it's wrong to tell people not to say those things on their own time.

EquALLity wrote:You doubt that education about bullying is important?

Yes.

EquALLity wrote:Education about the harmful impacts of bullying stops it, because it motivates bystanders to speak up about bullying they see, and creates the general idea that bullying is bad (which leads to less bullying).

Or it just makes more bullies, by encouraging bystanders to bully anybody they think is bullying (who may be totally innocent).
You're promoting a witch hunt.

EquALLity wrote: Because that's what prejudice and discrimination towards Muslims is.

It only is if it's unjustified. Believing in an ideology is a choice, and if that ideology has been demonstrated to be harmful, it's quite fair to discriminate against it in certain situations where that harm is likely to be relevant.

EquALLity wrote:You're equating all Muslims to homophobes?

As with Christians, the extent to which a person actually believes in their scripture usually maps to unpleasant social attitudes.
Of course, a liberal "Muslim" who is actually a deist and doesn't believe anything out of scripture is a very different creature.

But now we get into the question of what a "Muslim" is. Am I a Muslim if I call myself one?

EquALLity wrote:

brimstoneSalad wrote:Less than you'd think, once they leave the nest. The only people who can stay indoctrinated are those who form isolated communities.

Source?

Another case of common knowledge, in the sense of how cults work. We can see this pretty clearly with Christianity on the internet (aside from the most liberal, who's beliefs are not challenged because they don't actually believe their scripture).

Cultwatch is a Christian organization which obviously has some serious blinders on with regard to their own beliefs, but has some good information on how cults work (since they probably put in more work on dismantling them to get people to be proper Christians again): http://www.cultwatch.com/

As another area of social science, cults and indoctrination are notoriously difficult to study, and "religions" and "cults" use a lot of the same practices so the distinction is typically one of degree which maps very well to how liberal they are (more liberal = less culty), but also depends on cultural isolation.

EquALLity wrote: That's different; the Christians murdered the people who disagreed with them.

Are you saying ideas can only be destroyed by killing enough people?
Maybe you should start a thread on this. It's interesting, historically, to examine extinction of ideas.

EquALLity wrote: I don't see how you can ban the bad ideas without banning the good ones as well, and I think it will lead to corruption (as it has historically).

It's like the issue with making something illegal vs. decriminalizing it. You don't have to totally crush something in order to inhibit it enough to stop its spread and encourage it to slowly die off on its own.

For example, banning open proselytism (and imposing heavy fines on it) would stop Christians from spreading as effectively, then all that has to happen is for their children to slowly become more liberal and give up on the faith.

This discussion could make an interesting thread though.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Only if you stigmatize treatment. Having treated and overcome a mental illness is something to be proud of.

So now you're saying it's ok to stigmatize mental illness?

No, not only if you stigmatize treatment. Stigmatizing mental illness leads to people denying they have a problem or to become disheartened.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Not at all. Why do you think anybody deserves anything? Where does cosmic entitlement come from?

By deserve, I don't mean you're saying it's morally acceptable for them to struggle, but you're saying that they are the cause of their problems.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Denial is something to be ashamed of, it's cowardly.
It's a tough situation, they have to be brave to face the problems, but denying they're problems doesn't help.

I'm glad someone finally took the mentally ill down a notch.

I'm not saying denial is good; I'm saying that stigmatizing mental illness leads to denial.

And it's not always cowardly; it could be a misguided attempt at coping.
Some people might think that not thinking about their emotional issues will make them go away eventually, like a 'fake it till you make it' strategy, except they're denying they're faking it to themselves so it doesn't work.

brimstoneSalad wrote:I don't believe that is accurate.
People with depression may blame themselves for things they have done, or the consequences of their depression, there is feedback in terms of consequence, but nobody or virtually nobody is depressed because they're depressed (that would be an insanity that goes beyond depression).

It's called an 'emotional loop'.

The idea that persons can be so ashamed that they keep their shame secret suggests the the origin of a shame loop, being ashamed that one is ashamed. Or, to continue with the topic of road rage, a shame/anger loop, being angry that one is ashamed, and ashamed that one is angry, and so on. One driver may experience the behavior of another driver as insulting. This driver is likely to shout "Idiot, you cut me off!" rather than say to himself and/or to the other driver: "I feel disrespected and ashamed." Rather than acknowledging, and therefore feeling shame, he hides it behind anger. Acknowledgment is usually the first step toward resolving intense emotions.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/le ... pression-0

This is what you're promoting, and it leads to denial. Why do you think people deny having depression, if not this?

brimstoneSalad wrote:Some people cope with their problems and overcome them. This is a virtue. Others wallow in them or avoid confronting them.
PTSD can be treated, and involves changing the way you think about the trauma itself, accepting that it happened and talking about it, and moving on.

This isn't what we were talking about.

brimstoneSalad wrote:That's not what I said.
Some people have more of a tendency than others to fixate on things rather than letting them go. This is a deeper character flaw that may be responsible for the onset of PTSD in some where others are able to cope with the same experiences with few side effects.

Yes, that is what you said.

I said, "For some mental health issues, when I think about them more, I just don't see how they could possibly be personal problems.
What about PTSD from war? And depression from bullying?"

You replied: "If it becomes part of your identity, or stems from a personal weakness that is part of your identity, then it is. Not everybody gets depression from bullying. Not everybody necessarily even gets (or suffers from long term) PTSD."
Not everybody gets depression, and not everybody gets PTSD. You weren't talking about coping, you were explicitly talking about acquiring the mental illness to begin with, and saying it was their fault.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Many of these have nothing to do with even the service.

There a number of explanations there. For example, sexual assault is a huge problem in the military, which could explain that women are more likely to get PTSD. Minority women in particular are more likely to be raped than white women, which could explain the ethnic thing.

brimstoneSalad wrote:People who develop PTSD tend to have a history of psychological problems, and a history of coping poorly with adverse life events/trauma. There are a lot of reporting biases that affect these studies.

It doesn't say that.

Reporting biases?

brimstoneSalad wrote:I'm not condemning people with depression, it's one among many potential character flaws.

"I'm not condemning people with depression; I'm just saying it's a character flaw. There are other character flaws too."

brimstoneSalad wrote:If somebody chooses to wallow in it rather than deal with it, that's his or her fault. Did I say those people were bad people?

'Wallowing' in it could also be a misguided attempt at coping.
Or it could be the natural consequence of very strong negative emotions, and understandable, to an extent.

brimstoneSalad wrote:What is "real" in psychological context? I didn't say some people are not depressed, but these conditions can be expressed simply in terms of perception and personality. These are existential issues.

We already covered the concept of what disease is, right?

We did cover it, but I'm starting to disagree with you about it again to a certain extent.
Perhaps some of it can be explained by personality, but I think it's more than that in addition.

brimstoneSalad wrote:It's very likely both healthier and more effective to do that, since it's more useful in identifying the source and correcting the problem.

Isolate what's causing the depression: if it's something you can change in your environment, then change it. Did that work? Yes = great. No = it's not just environmental. You should look at how you are responding to and thinking about your environment; this could be more of a personal problem that you can solve by changing your mindset and approach to the world around you.

If you framed it like that, it wouldn't be an issue. Isn't that what therapy is about, basically?
The issue is that you're saying it's their fault for being mentally ill.

brimstoneSalad wrote:There's a strong genetic correlation to intelligence, too. Is low IQ a disease? Are chimpanzees, and dogs, and insects, just suffering from varying levels of a genetic disease that causes low intelligence?

Personality is also correlated to genetics. Actually, most things about you are linked to genetics. And if they aren't linked to genetics, then it's environment.

If you disown environment, and you disown genetics, then from where exactly is the self derived? What are you? Where do you draw the line between what you are, and what made you?

Low IQ is not the fault of the person with low IQ. You don't have control over your situation of birth.
It's not harmful enough to be considered a disease.

Depression is objectively very harmful, regardless of what depressed people say about how they're just seeing the world how it is, because it makes them unhappy.

I'm not sure how to define the self, but you can't condemn people for things that are literally not in their control (as the genetic component of depression is).

brimstoneSalad wrote:I'm saying it's a question of existential identity. See the questions above.
What YOU are is pretty much the most subjective thing about you.

What if I think I'm a green crayon?

brimstoneSalad wrote:It's about the specific type of stigma. Only untreated mental illness may need to be stigmatized, people struggling with mental illness and treating it need to be congratulated. A stick without a carrot is not very useful, and getting the stick even when you're working on doing the right thing is even worse.

No mental illnesses should be stigmatized. It's overwhelmingly harmful to stigmatize mental illness.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Are you looking at controlled studies where they were congratulated as brave and heroic by peers for seeking help?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/br ... -us-sicker

Of course that's a good thing. I'm not sure what your point is.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Come on, there's an obvious confounding variable here which isn't just minor: it's pointed at as the primary symptom.

In order for the carrot or stick to work, people have to have social relationships.
I don't recommend totally alienating carnists either, but that's different from stigmatizing carnism.

So you're saying there should be a stigma, but no social distancing?
So what stigma, exactly? What is the stigma?

brimstoneSalad wrote:I don't need to. The evidence you're providing doesn't correspond to what I'm talking about. I'm also not saying we should make it a goal of activism to stigmatize (that would require evidence for efficacy on my part). I'm saying it's not fair or necessarily useful to call somebody out on saying suicide is cowardly.

The evidence on stigma is limited to a very particular kind and effect.

Then what are you talking about?

I think I agree now that we shouldn't necessarily call people out for saying that, but we should call them out for saying bad things about people with mental health issues in general.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Based on what outcomes or metric?

Based on how reasonable it is to be afraid of what you're trying to escape or avoid, and maybe other context too (like previous dangerous experiences with things that aren't typically dangerous that resulted in an anxiety disorder).

brimstoneSalad wrote:How do you know that?

Do you think it's subjective whether or not it's more cowardly to run away from a butterfly than it is to run away from a hungry tiger?

brimstoneSalad wrote: How is that relevant if the effort they put into fighting it is much less than the anxiety itself?

How is that question relevant when it's not necessarily the situation?

brimstoneSalad wrote:Maybe if it's made up for by a lot more brave things. That's much less likely than moral balance (which I can get into later if you answer the questions about the metric), but it depends on what system you're using to quantify the cowardliness and braveness.

It depends on how severe the actions of your anxiety are. I don't agree that having a fear of and avoiding elevators automatically makes you a coward unless you save ten people from a burning building or something.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Separation of church and state by whose interpretation? The teacher, the principal? The local PTA?

True, but the point of having separation of church and state in schools is to make education unbiased. It's supposed to be free of bias.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Where's the evidence comparing this harm against the benefits?

Severe bullying isn't unclear in how net negative it is like very slight bullying is. It has clear correlations with mental health issues.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Why? Witness testimony is unreliable, and memory is subjective. People with victim complexes will always play up the harm in their minds. Also, it's extremely likely that the so called victims will lie, and may even be the bullies, to take advantage of the system to harm a rival.

We went over all of this already. Just as in the criminal justice system, you can't just trust the supposed victim.

If there's a legitimate issue, it's more likely the victims need counseling, or the rivals need to be separated (or receive counseling together to overcome the problem and make up).

If you have multiple witnesses and the victim saying bullying took place, it's very likely that it did.

brimstoneSalad wrote:If you're doing the presentation, you aren't doing regular class activities.

Do you think the school day or school year is too long, and that students are receiving too much education, so we need to waste time and money on other things to prevent them getting as much education?

If there's too much school, the district should have just made it a day off, and saved money for more valuable and evidence based social programs or educational techniques.

What?
No, I think that bullying is very important to teach about.

So what if classes are cut fifteen minutes short one day?

brimstoneSalad wrote:Why do you think this?
Is this based on evidence?

I think it's important because education about bullying will lead to reduction of bullying.

brimstoneSalad wrote:You shouldn't have. There's a big difference between politicized issues like bullying, and actual science which uses scientific methodology.

How is bullying a 'politicized issue'?

brimstoneSalad wrote:For what, that school boards are political?

That's common knowledge.
A few random links:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20343441?se ... b_contents
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/201 ... chievement
http://www.amazon.com/School-Board-Batt ... 1589010019

I see, but I still think bullying is a legitimate issue based on those studies.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Unfortunately, there aren't many other ways, which is why you should take everything out of the social sciences with a grain of salt.
Read the studies, and see how they controlled for variables, and if they used a controlled environment with objective metrics.

You could start a thread on this if you want. It's important to understand the differences between the natural sciences and the "social sciences", and what makes something a legitimate science, and what makes it softer, and what that should mean to our credulity.

The study I linked seems to be a pretty good one.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Any case that doesn't use objective metrics. Science is not science without good methodology, and subjective qualitative analysis is not one.

Can you give me a specific example where it's not clear if the attack is personal?

brimstoneSalad wrote:It really isn't. It's perfectly possible to bully somebody without making any personal attacks. You should take a look at some forums where personal attacks are not allowed, and how mean they are.

These things are very hard to objectively evaluate, thus the trouble in presenting data on this. It's a field worthy of research, but not something we should be acting on without said research.

Of course you can bully people without making personal attacks, just like you can kill animals in other ways besides slitting their throats. So don't worry about their throats being slit?

brimstoneSalad wrote:Slightly, sure, but it also involves a lot of resource waste. That wouldn't be effective altruism, and I don't even think it would be good.
Demanding plant foods instead of meat foods is great, but buying and wasting them isn't very helpful.

Alright, that's fair.

brimstoneSalad wrote:I'm not saying we should advertise this to the kids either. Just maybe leave things alone since there's no real evidence that it's a problem, and no evidence based solution (aside from changing the kid through diet if overweight, or plastic surgery for severe deformities, or counseling for being assertive and dealing with bullies if there's no deformity/physical problem that can be fixed).

Of course there's evidence bullying is a problem (ie correlation with mental illness).

If you don't want to advertise that solution, then how do you expect it to happen?

I think the evidenced based solution is education/anti-bullying programs, based on that study I linked before.
It uses self-reporting, but that's all we can use. It's not like there's any incentive for students not to be honest about their reporting. Sure, self-reporting has issues, but it's our best option. Also, it's not even just self-reporting, and in addition it's self-reporting that seems more accurate than it might be expected to be.

https://www.bullyfree.com/school-progra ... eness-data
It says that certain bullying behaviors were decreased. That's not subjective.

increased attendance by 7%
decreased the number of students who saw bullying in their school by 35.7%
decreased the number of students who were bullied by 24.6%
increased the number of students who said they reported bullying & it was handled appropriately by 54%
improved End of Grade (EOG) Test Scores by 10%
decreased the number of aggressive occurrence by 29%
decreased suspensions as a result of aggressive behavior by 16%
improved the dynamics of interpersonal relationships that exists in each school’s community (student to student, student to teacher, teacher to teacher, parent to teacher, parent to parent, and school to community)
improved lines of communication between all stakeholders
decreased incidences of aggressive and violent behavior
increased positive interactions between teachers and students during non-class times
increased awareness of the need for and importance of adults modeling positive interactions
increased consciousness of adults regarding their behavior
increased understanding of students of their role in preventing and stopping bullying
increased personnel’s comfort level and confidence in their ability to deal with bullying
dramatically decreased boy’s fighting
changed how discipline was administered
increased a sense of security
increased attendance and involvement of students at after-school events
decreased vandalism

brimstoneSalad wrote:When one victim is an outlier -- e.g. particularly dorky -- that person will receive a disproportionate amount of bullying. More than his or her equal share. When an issue is fixed, the bullying doesn't stop entirely, but is reduced to a more tolerable level. The total bullying being done doesn't necessarily go down (it may or may not, this is not clear), but it is at least more distributed.

It's really great to be average in a class with somebody really dorky or ugly -- a bully magnet who attracts all of the negative attention -- because you get left alone.
When the victim actually changes, the bullying subsides.

Unfortunately, again, this kind of stuff is very hard to study.

But the issue won't always be fixed.

It's not great to be 'average' in a class with someone who's a 'bully magnet' just because you don't get bullied. Bullying is harmful towards bystanders. Not to mention the person who is being bullied.

brimstoneSalad wrote:It needs to be seen negatively, yes. There are obviously issues to how it might be approached, though.

It needs to be seen as unhealthy, but that's not why people condemn overweight people.

brimstoneSalad wrote:This is an issue of education about weight loss. We need to be teaching people about health, nutrition, and how to actually lose weight, and instilling a sense of critical skepticism in miracle cures and crash diets. NOT teaching fat acceptance.

Teaching people to be OK with being obese is not how to combat bulimia and anorexia, or laxative abuse.
We do need to deal with the issue of calling people fat who are not fat, though.
You don't promote one harmful extreme to fix another.

This is an issue better solved through legislation, by e.g. banning models who are either under weight or overweight, and banning diet products and information promoting these unhealthy practices (FDA needs to crack down more on health claims).

We need to teach:
1) It's unhealthy to be significantly overweight.
2) It's not 'ugly' to be overweight, and people who are overweight don't deserve to be treated as lesser.

Models relate to number two, because they're about appearance. Overweight models not only shouldn't be banned; they shouldn't even have a special label as 'plus-size'; they should just be models, because that's what they are. Underweight models shouldn't be banned for the same reason, unless they have an eating disorder (because that's an ethical issue of the models being exploited and abused).
I also think that photoshopped images in magazines should be labeled as being edited.

brimstoneSalad wrote:These are harmful consequences for shaming non-overweight people as fat, based on distorted body images. NOT of shaming actually overweight and obese people to lose weight. They're also consequences of ignorance about how to lose weight.

Why are you assuming these people aren't overweight? They're more likely to be overweight, because overweight people deal more with body shaming.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Why not? I'm not promoting saying those things during outreach, because we'd need to see evidence of efficacy to include those arguments, but it's wrong to tell people not to say those things on their own time.

It's right to tell people that it's wrong to shame people who are overweight because of the significant amount of harm body shaming causes in our society, particularly with youth.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Yes.

I addressed why it's important throughout this post.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Or it just makes more bullies, by encouraging bystanders to bully anybody they think is bullying (who may be totally innocent).
You're promoting a witch hunt.

I've never heard of that happening, and it seems highly unlikely it would.

Anti-bullying programs aren't advising students to bully bullies, by the way. I have no idea where you got that from.

brimstoneSalad wrote:It only is if it's unjustified. Believing in an ideology is a choice, and if that ideology has been demonstrated to be harmful, it's quite fair to discriminate against it in certain situations where that harm is likely to be relevant.

Sure, but in practice, with Muslims, it's almost always bigotry.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Another case of common knowledge, in the sense of how cults work. We can see this pretty clearly with Christianity on the internet (aside from the most liberal, who's beliefs are not challenged because they don't actually believe their scripture).

Cultwatch is a Christian organization which obviously has some serious blinders on with regard to their own beliefs, but has some good information on how cults work (since they probably put in more work on dismantling them to get people to be proper Christians again): http://www.cultwatch.com/

As another area of social science, cults and indoctrination are notoriously difficult to study, and "religions" and "cults" use a lot of the same practices so the distinction is typically one of degree which maps very well to how liberal they are (more liberal = less culty), but also depends on cultural isolation.

Where do they say anything about how only cult members in isolated communities stay cult members?

Also, Christians aren't an isolated community; they're the majority of the country.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Are you saying ideas can only be destroyed by killing enough people?
Maybe you should start a thread on this. It's interesting, historically, to examine extinction of ideas.

Of course not.

I don't think ideas can be destroyed at all, but in practice it's basically the same to destroy an idea as it is to make it very uncommon.

I think the way we should make them uncommon is through promoting critical thinking and education, which will truly convince people and benefit humanity long term, while you apparently think we should outlaw certain ideas. Your reasoning for why the persecution of ideas will work is that Christians used to persecute ideas that are basically extinct, but you left out that they murdered people with the ideas.

brimstoneSalad wrote:It's like the issue with making something illegal vs. decriminalizing it. You don't have to totally crush something in order to inhibit it enough to stop its spread and encourage it to slowly die off on its own.

For example, banning open proselytism (and imposing heavy fines on it) would stop Christians from spreading as effectively, then all that has to happen is for their children to slowly become more liberal and give up on the faith.

This discussion could make an interesting thread though.

I don't see how you can do things like that to Christians and just assume it won't happen to atheists.

Even if that were true, what about the unintended consequences? Obviously that's going to build significant resentment towards government, because it's literally religious persecution.

EquALLity wrote: So now you're saying it's ok to stigmatize mental illness?

Only that which people choose not to treat.

EquALLity wrote:No, not only if you stigmatize treatment.

Stigmatizing people despite being treated is the problem.

EquALLity wrote:Stigmatizing mental illness leads to people denying they have a problem or to become disheartened.

Holding people up as heroes who have treated their mental illness -- doing the opposite of stigmatizing them -- encourages people to get treatment. It might even encourage people to pretend to have mental illness and get treatment for something they don't have, but that's another point aside from the fact that it's important for those with mental illness.

We can see important parallels in drug use, and having overcome that.
It's reasonable to stigmatize the unapologetic drug use, and it's reasonable to consider heroic the conquering of that problem.

EquALLity wrote:By deserve, I don't mean you're saying it's morally acceptable for them to struggle, but you're saying that they are the cause of their problems.

That's not what deserve means, it means it's morally preferable for that to occur.
The concept of "deserving" fallaciously links causality to rightness/appropriateness in a moral sense.

EquALLity wrote: I'm not saying denial is good; I'm saying that stigmatizing mental illness leads to denial.

Can you prove that stigmatizing the choice not to treat mental illness while holding up those who are treating it as heroes leads to denial?

EquALLity wrote: And it's not always cowardly; it could be a misguided attempt at coping.
Some people might think that not thinking about their emotional issues will make them go away eventually, like a 'fake it till you make it' strategy, except they're denying they're faking it to themselves so it doesn't work.

Hiding from truth is cowardly, and harmful.

Acknowledgment is usually the first step toward resolving intense emotions.

This part is true, and it is cowardly to not do so.
If they see others being upheld as heroes for overcoming mental illness through treatment (despite the fact they they will always struggle with it), that creates a role model that they can be less afraid of identifying with.

The key is allowing people to picture themselves in the position of having and struggling (through treatment) with mental illness; without any visible heroes in this area, it's very difficult to do.

EquALLity wrote: Why do you think people deny having depression, if not this?

Because they're cowards. Most people are cowards, so we need to remind them how brave it is to admit these things.

A lot of people have also been exposed to the "toughen up" mantra, and they think they shouldn't cry and should just deal with it -- however, this only works if they will address the problems, which is part of dealing with it (this needs to be made better known). This is another issue beyond stigmatizing mental illness.

Depression is pretty common, though, more at issue are things like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

EquALLity wrote: Yes, that is what you said.

Either you misunderstood, or I phrased it poorly.

EquALLity wrote: [...]Not everybody necessarily even gets (or suffers from long term) PTSD."
Not everybody gets depression, and not everybody gets PTSD. You weren't talking about coping, you were explicitly talking about acquiring the mental illness to begin with, and saying it was their fault.

I think I phrased it fine, you misunderstood.
PTSD is a chronic condition, which is why I also added "(or suffers from long term)"

Yes, it is your fault if you suffer from PTSD when another person, with a different psychology, overcomes it. It is a fault that is yours, in your psychology. That does not mean you deserve it -- that it is morally good for you to have to suffer through that.
This probably means you need help to start thinking about your situation differently, and processing your memories in a less traumatic way. After which, you will no longer have the fault, and you will no longer suffer from PTSD (AND, you'll be better suited to cope with it in the future, so probably won't get PTSD to begin with next time something otherwise traumatic happens to you).

Now, if you want to trace the origin of the fault, it probably comes from upbringing and environment, or it may come from genetics or epigenetics (less likely, since it can be fixed with therapy). From an existential perspective you can try to claim that nothing is anybody's fault, and the fault always belongs to something outside of that person's control because we don't have free will and we don't have control over our childhood or genetics or even actions in the now -- however, that mindset is incredibly counterproductive to admitting problems, identifying their practical sources, and fixing them. We may be able to fix problems despite that, but mindset can pose a serious barrier.

EquALLity wrote: There a number of explanations there. For example, sexual assault is a huge problem in the military, which could explain that women are more likely to get PTSD. Minority women in particular are more likely to be raped than white women, which could explain the ethnic thing.

Possibly. It's a matter of ongoing research.

EquALLity wrote: "I'm not condemning people with depression; I'm just saying it's a character flaw. There are other character flaws too."

I wouldn't condemn somebody with missing legs either, despite it being an anatomical flaw.

There's a big difference between identifying one thing about a person that is inferior, inadequate, or faulty, and calling that person as a whole being inferior, inadequate, or faulty -- and there's an equally large distance from that to calling that person as a whole being immoral, bad, or wrong.

We all have flaws and faults in our characters; some of them easier to fix than others, and some functionally impossible to fix.

EquALLity wrote: 'Wallowing' in it could also be a misguided attempt at coping.

They key word here being misguided. It's not something to be encouraged.

EquALLity wrote: Or it could be the natural consequence of very strong negative emotions, and understandable, to an extent.

I understand it, but it's not an inevitable consequence because many people with these conditions do something about them.

EquALLity wrote: Perhaps some of it can be explained by personality, but I think it's more than that in addition.

In order to claim that, you're going to need to clearly define what personality is -- in a rational and objective way -- and explain why these things can't be included.

You'll have the same problem doing that as Christians and Muslims run into when trying to disprove other people's religions without debunking their own through the same mechanisms.

We're talking about something highly personal and subjective here, and the only one who can really say what is a disease and what is part of his or her personality is the person subject to these conditions.
(Not to be confused with "intersectionalist" dogma that holds that only the oppressed can understand oppression -- I'm talking about self identity only.)

EquALLity wrote: If you framed it like that, it wouldn't be an issue. Isn't that what therapy is about, basically?

Basically, yes.

EquALLity wrote: The issue is that you're saying it's their fault for being mentally ill.

I'm not saying we should tell them that.

There's a potentially large difference between what IS and what we should TELL people because it's effective.

Read my earlier posts: I said clearly that the model of "this disease is other than you and not your fault" may be more effective for most people, because it saves their egos (although probably not ideal, we don't live in an ideal world).
When either model is applied to treatment, however, we need actual evidence of efficacy.

Take a thousand people, and use one model with half, and another model with the other half: which respond better?
I don't know. I don't think you know either.

To make a claim that one method is better than another for treatment would require evidence.
To make a claim that they equally represent reality as models, however, only requires logical consistency.

EquALLity wrote: Low IQ is not the fault of the person with low IQ. You don't have control over your situation of birth.
It's not harmful enough to be considered a disease.

Seems like a fault to me, and it can be a lot more harmful than depression. Look at what's correlated with Low IQ (do some research on the harms). We're talking low educational achievement, low wages, more criminality, higher risk of death (and earlier death) from pretty much everything.

EquALLity wrote:Depression is objectively very harmful, regardless of what depressed people say about how they're just seeing the world how it is, because it makes them unhappy.

Not objectively, but statistically is is associated with some objective harms: just as is low IQ.

EquALLity wrote:I'm not sure how to define the self, but you can't condemn people for things that are literally not in their control (as the genetic component of depression is).

Again, I'm not condemning people based on one thing.

EquALLity wrote:What if I think I'm a green crayon?

Then you are a crazy person.

Identity is more of the line between what is YOU and what is OTHER about you; like what you attribute to bad luck or environment or conditions (disease), and what you consider your core self. Determining your core self is about labeling qualities you actually have, and nowhere in your qualities is "green crayon".

For example: In practice, somebody may be a meat eater, but consider his or her core self to be vegan and that the meat eating is an addiction (a component that is other).
For this reason, we MUST judge somebody who takes no steps against disease or addiction.

EquALLity wrote:No mental illnesses should be stigmatized. It's overwhelmingly harmful to stigmatize mental illness.

Not all kinds of stigma are equal. Again, you'd need to present evidence that stigmatizing only mental illness people have chosen not to treat while considering heroes those who are treating mental illness is harmful.
This is an empirical claim you just can't make.

EquALLity wrote:Of course that's a good thing. I'm not sure what your point is.

The point is that all stick without carrot is not useful. You can't compare a nuanced combination of carrot and stick with mindless application of stick.

EquALLity wrote:So you're saying there should be a stigma, but no social distancing?
So what stigma, exactly? What is the stigma?

Stigma is very general and is associated with attitudes.

stig·ma
ˈstiɡmə/
noun
1.
a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.

We can regard something negatively, and consider it disgraceful, without stigmatizing the entire person.

EquALLity wrote:Then what are you talking about?

Carrot and stick, used appropriately, and without cutting people off entirely from social interaction.
"Hate the sin, love the sinner." as some Christians say.

EquALLity wrote:I think I agree now that we shouldn't necessarily call people out for saying that, but we should call them out for saying bad things about people with mental health issues in general.

Saying bad things about people who are treating their mental health problems, specifically. If somebody comments negatively about somebody being on anti-depressants, then have at them. It's a pretty safe bet that's harmful, since we should be congratulating these people for seeking treatment.

EquALLity wrote:Based on how reasonable it is to be afraid of what you're trying to escape or avoid, and maybe other context too (like previous dangerous experiences with things that aren't typically dangerous that resulted in an anxiety disorder).

I need something objective here. What does "reasonable" mean?

EquALLity wrote:

brimstoneSalad wrote:How do you know that?

Do you think it's subjective whether or not it's more cowardly to run away from a butterfly than it is to run away from a hungry tiger?

So, then it is cowardly to commit suicide, because that is an act of fleeing/being afraid of life, which is not a hungry tiger. There's no rational reason to be afraid of living and flee it through suicide (much like fleeing a butterfly). If they just don't want to be sad, they have to take a pill. Killing themselves because they don't want to take a pill isn't terribly reasonable (again, on the order of a butterfly). Or how about killing yourself because you're afraid of people maybe finding out you're taking a pill and making fun of you? Not reasonable.

There are cases of suicides that are not cowardly, like killing yourself to protect others by keeping information secret when you're captured by the enemy, or killing yourself to save your impoverished family from wasting money on medication or hospitalization because you have a terminal disease. I'm fairly sure if you asked the kid in your class, he'd admit that these cases of suicide are brave or compassionate

EquALLity wrote:

brimstoneSalad wrote: How is that relevant if the effort they put into fighting it is much less than the anxiety itself?

How is that question relevant when it's not necessarily the situation?

It is necessarily the situation. If the force fighting the anxiety were greater than the anxiety, the anxiety would be overcome.

EquALLity wrote:It depends on how severe the actions of your anxiety are. I don't agree that having a fear of and avoiding elevators automatically makes you a coward unless you save ten people from a burning building or something.

Well, then how do you quantify and compare the two?
We can compare harm and moral value pretty easily, but quantifying bravery and cowardice is not as straight forward.
Are you brave if you don't run away from a tiger, despite it being reasonable to do so? Or are you just stupid?

EquALLity wrote:True, but the point of having separation of church and state in schools is to make education unbiased. It's supposed to be free of bias.

That's great in principle, but it's not the reality, and there's no mechanism to make it a reality right now... so I don't see the relevance.
It's like saying the point of courts is to prevent innocent people from ever being convicted of a crime. In principle, that's a nice idea, but we know that's not the reality since it is unreliable, so it's kind of irrelevant.

EquALLity wrote:Severe bullying isn't unclear in how net negative it is like very slight bullying is. It has clear correlations with mental health issues.

Even if true, that still does nothing to compare the net harm against the benefits for ALL children. Even if one in a hundred children were brutally murdered by bullies, that wouldn't mean bullying was bad, maybe the benefit of bullies is to prevent 99 children from being brutally murdered as adults because they've learned how to manage in an unkind society.

To be meaningful, we need comparison of harm against benefit, not blind assessment of harm (without controls) and the dogmatic assertion there is no benefit.

EquALLity wrote:If you have multiple witnesses and the victim saying bullying took place, it's very likely that it did.

No it isn't. Bullying frequently occurs from gangs of bullies who attack lone kids. The word of five bullies against one innocent kid would condemn that child, and teach the child that there is no justice to be had in this world -- maybe the same child will later return to school with an assault riffle and kill the bullies. This is the kind of environment you're likely to foster with "believe the victim/majority" mentality; victims very frequently are not victims at all, and this would become even more prevalent by just believing anybody who claims to be one.

EquALLity wrote:No, I think that bullying is very important to teach about.

This requires evidence; both of its importance, and that the methods used are effective in achieving evidence based goals.

EquALLity wrote:I think it's important because education about bullying will lead to reduction of bullying.

Or it may lead to increased bullying, or a witch hunt in which suspected bullies are bullied, or more harmful bullying (it's said that bullies get ideas from the bullying education on how to better bully kids), or it may succeed in decreasing "bullying" and make kids less well adjusted in life and result in more net harm.

EquALLity wrote:How is bullying a 'politicized issue'?

http://www.districtadministration.com/a ... n-bullying

There are a lot of articles on this. Any issue is politicized when politicians are using it as a platform, which happens at the local level too.

The fundamentalists are morally wrong on these issues regarding accepting homosexuality, but may accidentally be right with respect to freedom of speech.
You have to look into the consequences of teaching children they are allowed to censor what other children say. Look at what's going on in universities now with the Social Justice Warriors censoring "microaggressions".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_4-BqSIUD8

EquALLity wrote:I see, but I still think bullying is a legitimate issue based on those studies.

There may be cases where there is too much bullying, or a more harmful form -- I'm not taking the opposite extreme and saying all bullying is good --, but we will only know that when we study the cons AND the pros of bullying to child development. There is probably an ideal level of exposure to bullying, but until we know what that level is and what that looks like, it's irresponsible to blindly act against bullying based on political rhetoric.

We also need to look very carefully into the consequences of HOW we are addressing bullying. Free speech is kind of a big deal, and impositions on speech need to be carefully considered.

EquALLity wrote:The study I linked seems to be a pretty good one.

It didn't seem so to me.
You can not rely on reporting, because that's subject to bias. And as I said, we have to look at the benefits to bullying too.

EquALLity wrote:Can you give me a specific example where it's not clear if the attack is personal?

I thought we went over this.
Students can easily hurt each other by making general impersonal comments, or implicit criticisms, or veiled attacks (which may or may not be sincere attempts to be helpful or constructive).

Like sharing the idea that, "Homosexuals are evil people who should be killed: we should change the law to make it legal to kill them in public."
That's not talking about anybody in particular, it's not calling Bob a fag, and yet it's potentially even more hurtful than a clumsy personal insult.

The idea that it's just transparent "personal attacks" that hurt people, or that those attacks are more effective at hurting, is not founded upon evidence: those attacks are just lazier and easier, and so more common. Ban them, and you very likely see much more subtle and nefarious effort at harming others emotionally (this has been my experience, and it's something that deserves study before dismissing it).

EquALLity wrote:Of course you can bully people without making personal attacks, just like you can kill animals in other ways besides slitting their throats. So don't worry about their throats being slit?

If you ban slitting throats (a quick, easy, and less painful method of killing an animal), then those who are killing animals will use other methods, like drowning or bludgeoning the head, which is slower and more unpleasant for the animal.

You need to have a mind toward the consequences of these policies. Cutting off one method will not stop the root behavior, but encourage alternatives which may be worse.

EquALLity wrote:Of course there's evidence bullying is a problem (ie correlation with mental illness).

Correlation is not causation. And again, I need to see the evidence of net consequences, and evidence of the ultimate effects of means of addressing the problem (once its identified as such). Sometimes the cure is worse than the poison.

EquALLity wrote:If you don't want to advertise that solution, then how do you expect it to happen?

First we need to determine it's an actual net problem, and doesn't provide net benefit. Then we need to find how much of it, and in what contexts, it's really a problem (rather than generalizing). Then we need to examine ALL potential solutions, and their cost and efficacy, and their consequences.

None of these have been done. Politicians jump straight for naive anti-bullying policies that look nice in a campaign advertisement, but don't necessarily do more good than harm.

EquALLity wrote:I think the evidenced based solution is education/anti-bullying programs, based on that study I linked before.

This really hasn't been demonstrated, though.
It only shows you can reduce how much bullying is reported by these methods -- not how much bullying actually occurs, and it doesn't demonstrate that this is a good thing.

increased attendance by 7%
improved End of Grade (EOG) Test Scores by 10%

These two, and these two alone, and probably objective and meaningful. Test scores are probably a consequence of attendance, though. If you want to increase attendance (and the scores of the lowest scoring), then this policy may be more effective than doing nothing, or it might be useless (it may also be a coincidence; we'd have to look at the normal variance from year to year). There was no statistical analysis done on these results, so we don't even know how likely it is to be coincidence. There were also no other controls.

EquALLity wrote:It says that certain bullying behaviors were decreased. That's not subjective.

It is subjective, because it relies on their qualitative observations. They expected bullying to be decreased, and they saw what they expected. There are no controls or blinds in this study. And there's no indication of statistical significance.

This is very far from scientifically valid. It's also clearly biased, in that they assume bullying is a bad thing and should be eliminated; this is not clear either.
This kind of research doesn't resemble science, except superficially.

EquALLity wrote: But the issue won't always be fixed.

If it can't be fixed economically, we probably need to separate them. I don't believe that's the case, though. Behavior can be corrected, as can be deformities.

EquALLity wrote:Bullying is harmful towards bystanders. Not to mention the person who is being bullied.

There's just not any good evidence of that.

EquALLity wrote:It needs to be seen as unhealthy, but that's not why people condemn overweight people.

The reasons for negative perception aren't that important.
Being obese has been seen as attractive or beautiful in the past; it's not innately seen as ugly. The reason it's seen as ugly today is because it's unhealthy and has come to signify poverty and laziness rather than wealth and competence (it's no longer a mark of status to be obese).

EquALLity wrote:We need to teach:
1) It's unhealthy to be significantly overweight.
2) It's not 'ugly' to be overweight, and people who are overweight don't deserve to be treated as lesser.

First, we need to distinguish between being slightly overweight, and being obese.

If people think it's ugly, then it's ugly; that's subjective, and it's a social attitude that formed for particular reasons due to correlation with obesity. It fell out of style for a reason -- largely due to bad health.
In a substantial sense, it's ugly because it's unhealthy.

This is where we need to address the media to change the norm.

EquALLity wrote:Overweight models not only shouldn't be banned;

Non-obese but slightly overweight models may not need to be banned. But Obese models should be.
Why shouldn't they be banned?

EquALLity wrote:Underweight models shouldn't be banned for the same reason,

Why? What reason? If they're underweight, they're almost certainly anorexic. And if they aren't, that's a rare case that's still distorting body image for people.
People need to be seeing models only in the normal weight range to address body image issues.

EquALLity wrote:I also think that photoshopped images in magazines should be labeled as being edited.

All images are edited, so that's unhelpful. Rather, the images should not be allowed to be edited outside the normal weight range.

EquALLity wrote:Why are you assuming these people aren't overweight? They're more likely to be overweight, because overweight people deal more with body shaming.

That's not the case. Look into studies on anorexia and bulimia on BMI.

Anorexics are by definition underweight, Bulimics are usually normal to a little overweight (not obese)

Individuals with bulimia nervosa typically are within the normal weight or overweight range (body mass index [BMI] ≥ 18.5 and < 30 in adults).

http://psychcentral.com/disorders/bulim ... -symptoms/



The heavier people are, the more they may deal with body shaming; but also the less likely they'll do anything about it at that point, in terms of clinical eating disorders. There's a general psychology of, "well I'm fucked so why bother?"



This is from Brazil, but it's a pretty good diagram which demonstrates the problem.

Satisfaction should be highest for the normal group, but it's highest in underweight instead. 20% of normal people are dissatisfied. And, chances are the dissatisfaction in the underweight group are from those who still think they're too fat.
Overweight on this probably includes obese; it's not clear what their metrics is, but the high satisfaction in that group could be troubling too (depending on the BMI range they're representing).

EquALLity wrote:It's right to tell people that it's wrong to shame people who are overweight because of the significant amount of harm body shaming causes in our society, particularly with youth.

The problem is shaming people in the normal range. You don't have any evidence that it's harmful to shame obesity without shaming the normal range. The problem is they come hand in hand (similar to the problem of stigmatizing mental illness being a general stigma that doesn't care if somebody is treating it). When you can never achieve thin without being unhealthy, that's all stick and no carrot. Unfortunately, people have distorted images of what normal and healthy are -- this is the real issue.

EquALLity wrote:I've never heard of that happening, and it seems highly unlikely it would.

How do you know it won't? That's why these things need evidence. Just guessing it's unlikely here is like when you guessed population density was probably irrelevant in the arrest ratios of minorities -- you can't make those assumptions.

EquALLity wrote:Anti-bullying programs aren't advising students to bully bullies, by the way. I have no idea where you got that from.

You don't have to advise them to do that in order to have the effect. This is a very plausible outcome; one among many potentially harmful outcomes from these programs.

EquALLity wrote:Sure, but in practice, with Muslims, it's almost always bigotry.

How do you know it's almost always bigotry, and not based on real statistics of harmful belief?

And I thought you were against judging people based on probability? Aren't you being bigoted against people who are discriminating against Muslims by assuming that those discriminators are bigots instead of looking into the reasoning? They may not be bigots after all.

I think you're falling into the trap of expressing bigotry against people you assume are bigots, when there's no good evidence for this. It could be that the vast majority who discriminate against Muslims today are concerned about the ideology those Muslims choose to believe in -- like Sharia law -- and not over the fact that they come from Islamic lineages or merely believe in a different religion.

EquALLity wrote:Where do they say anything about how only cult members in isolated communities stay cult members?

This is the first step in deprogramming; you have to get them out of the isolated environment.

EquALLity wrote:Also, Christians aren't an isolated community; they're the majority of the country.

Which means they're pretty much stuck in that. This seems to be how a cult becomes a religion: it takes over, and now it looks normal.
Get them onto a college campus where they're surrounded by diversity and free thought, though, and you see religiosity plummet.
This is also why it's plummeting online, and now in society in general (at least in cities).

EquALLity wrote:I think the way we should make them uncommon is through promoting critical thinking and education, which will truly convince people and benefit humanity long term, while you apparently think we should outlaw certain ideas.

You can't functionally outlaw ideas, but you can outlaw public spreading of those ideas, and certain methods of spreading.

I support laws as they Exist in Turkey and somewhat as they existed in Greece, against religion in politics and religious proselytism in public respectively. Particularly, proselytism employing dishonesty or deception should be actionable. I also support actual enforcement of existing laws in the U.S. against political speech in churches.

EquALLity wrote:Your reasoning for why the persecution of ideas will work is that Christians used to persecute ideas that are basically extinct, but you left out that they murdered people with the ideas.

They made them illegal, and killed those who violated the law (mainly priests, I think), and tore down temples. Imprisonment would seem to be just as functional, though. I don't think it's necessary to go that far, though.
We lock up priests who violate the law today (like those who evade taxes and pocket millions for themselves they think is a reward from god).

EquALLity wrote: I don't see how you can do things like that to Christians and just assume it won't happen to atheists.

They're already trying to do it to atheists. Doing it to Christians doesn't make it more likely to happen to atheists. We're on a progressive track, and we're winning. If at any point we were losing, they'd do it to us in a heart beat whether or not we ever did it to them.

Is there really any reason to treat our enemies with the courtesy they would never give us?

EquALLity wrote: Even if that were true, what about the unintended consequences? Obviously that's going to build significant resentment towards government, because it's literally religious persecution.

They already think they're being persecuted.
I wouldn't tear down their churches or tell them they can't worship and proselytize in their own homes and worship places.
I would require them to stop using false and deceptive advertising in public (as any real company is held accountable for by the FTC), I would require them to stop using emotional terrorism and making billboards to tell people they're going to hell unless or making unsubstantiated offers of eternal paradise (no company could advertise a product like that), and I would require them to stop meddling in politics as is already illegal (but they do anyway with impunity).

I wouldn't even go so far as to take away their tax exempt status by default.

One has to overcome the life drive. Suicide isn't for cowards. Cowards among other things keep on clinging to life no matter what the future prospects are. One gets bored, then what? Fundamentally, suicide rates in most industrialised nations increase with age, the highest rates of all occurring in elderly men.

This is one of my favorite bits of standup comedy by Doug Stanhope on topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3ZA-_kWGGc

I don't think its helpful for people to say that someone who is struggling with their emotions (highly depressed, anxious, anything) is just being "cowardly". Or any time someone blames someone for the emotions they are feeling. I get the feeling that being blamed is like being told "you just want to hurt yourself". Its using shame to fight something undesirable. (Ultimately ineffective and almost never worth is, imo).

Yes, they probably are thinking in a way that is perpetuating depression. Or they might be repressing emotions or being hard on themselves, all of which can contribute to feelings of depression in my experience. But its not intentional. Its an attempt to protect oneself, however ineffective. My belief is that people always act to support their well being.

I've tried to explain this to people, with very little success.

I'm kind of curious to ask someone next time I'm on the topic, "Aren't you always doing the best you are capable of in this moment with the abilities and understanding you currently have?", to see if putting it that way is more effective.