Autumn Asphodel

I fail to see your point.

I’m saying the same applies to you. transgenderism = mental illness is not a good comparison unless you’re willing to accept it’s only a subjective opinion.

Your comparison of redheads was ridiculous, that’s what my comment saying no comparison was about. For me there is no sexual confusion of biological identity that transgenderism asserts, you’re either born a man or a woman. There is no confusion of biological determination.

Transgenderism seems to be psychologically reactionary not something that is biologically determined or innate. The confusion they often express is a psychological reaction to a social environment that often enough in our present the sexes are assaulted everyday by various corruptible socio-political institutions.

So confusion of sexual/biological determination is what qualifies for a mental disorder?

It’s Hillary’s fault!

Transgenderism and all other deviations from normal human psychology and behavior are just the result of the biological diversity that emerges when a population becomes large enough. You get freaks. Most of the time, in the current environment in which they evolve, life is exceedingly difficult for these people, and on this basis you could consider it a “disorder”, but change the environment to suit their needs and propensities, and they become the new “fit”.

If nature didn’t intend so called transgendered men to be males instead of females it wouldn’t of born them into this world with dicks. No, I’m by all no means an expert in that I don’t have a college degree on transgenderism, whiteness studies, or under water lesbian basket weaving but I think that what I’m saying is somewhat more closer to the reality of things. Hillary’s fault? That was random even for a Canadian leaf.

It’s good that your aware of this, but it behooves one to take stock of what this means. It means that when we speak of things like the reasons one might want to switch genders, or what one’s motives are in living a chosen lifestyle, we’re talking about things of which there is an external truth. If this were hard science, I’d say you were speaking of things about which you could be proven wrong (with transgenderism and other deviant mental dispositions, it’s much harder to verify scientifically, but there is a truth of the matter that should not be confused with one’s opinion). In other words, this isn’t just a matter of hashing out the philosophical logic of our opinions. There are facts on the matter about which a bit of armchair philosophy won’t suffice to determine.

Oh, I doubt that. If you had elaborated your point with a few extra sentences, I’ll bet you would have brought in “liberals” and the name “Clinton” probably would have made an appearance… that’s usually the way these diatribes go (in my experience)… but you may be different.

This comes to nature versus nurture in debate or biological determinism versus free will, while I certainly lean more towards biological determinism[nature] I will acknowledge that not everything is pre-determined. [Although many things do seem to be.]My views on that are somewhat in the middle leaning more towards biological determinism. Still, I don’t think there is any strong argument against biological determinism when it concerns the sexes or gender on a subject basis.

While I don’t like political neo-liberalism I am no fan of conservatism either as it is also problematic. I see myself as more of a centrist moderate socialist that is disparagingly critical of democracy. In some ways I view feudal monarchy [a more socialized] variety as the natural tribal nature of human beings in social hierarchy. My ideal is the world led by a very rational philosopher king. Interpret that as you wish.

Biological determinism makes sense to me. But when it comes to mental disorders, you will find plenty of examples on either side of the debate–nature or nurture.

In many ways, I think the leaders we have are philosopher kings. I don’t mean an academic straight out of university, I mean that most leaders bring with them an ideology for which they are prepared to argument in a philosophical spirit. I think most leaders would have to have the ability to be a philosopher at the very least in order to be effective. If they were smart (which they’d have to be) I doubt they’d act like your stereotypical philosopher–that probably wouldn’t go over very well.

These days, I’ve been feeling more left leaning. I was a little right leaning for a while and then I got fed up with how much conservatives just seem like major assholes. Still don’t have any faith in government though, but since when does anyone care for that definition anymore.

Well, modern society is a breeding ground of mental illnesses where a majority of the population can be classified as being mentally ill in one form or another being the whole entirety of today’s civilization is mentally unstable.

Today’s leaders are not philosopher kings, they’re the direct opposite. They’re a bunch of weak cowardly and sniveling group of oligarchic schemers that go out of their way destroying all that is natural or wholesome out of life for a majority of people. When a real philosopher king comes into existence his first priority will be to execute and purge these people out of existence for they do not deserve the very air of breath into their lungs. They all need to be executed with their heads displayed publicly on pikes by that of decapitation. There cannot be any mercy or forgiveness shown to these people whatsoever, they deserve only death.

Exactly! And this is why I think the term “mental illness” is somewhat of a silly term. If everyone in modern society has a disorder of one form or another, then what’s a “disorder”? ← Starts to seem more like normal human behavior.

^ And it takes a philosopher to do this, huh? This is why I don’t get into politics.

Normal behavior, or a sick society that has infected people?

Action versus apathy and indifference, seems like you’re choosing the later.

Rationality distinguishes mental illness (unless of course, you are one of the mentally ill).

Is the glass half full? Or is it half empty?

All I know is, the more populous a species becomes, the more diversity you’ll find therein. There are between 7 and 8 billion people on this planet (last I counted). That’s a lot of diversity.

The latter, you mean? Well, if you look at it from a Buddhist perspective, then yes.

All I know is that overcrowding creates a sort of behavioral sink, look it up.

If Buddha was alive today he would probably shoot his own face off with a pistol.

Yeah… yeah probably.

No thoughts on the behavioral sink?

My thoughts on behavioral sink are that it sounds like the breakdown of the population. This in turn reminds me of the cycles of growth and decline that all species go through as they continue to survive across several years. When a species’ population grows significantly dense, the continued rise in the population begins to slow and eventually decline. After a significant amount of decline, it begins to grow again–sort of nature’s way of maintaining population density.

Also note there’s a difference between population size and population density. I would suspect behavioral sink to occur with higher population density but not necessarily size.

If you want to a call high mortality rate or cannibalism “disorders”, be my guest, but it doesn’t really negate my previous point that this is the expected behavior of species whose population density has grown too high.

Beyond cannibalism there were other behavioral dispositions of the experiment that was more notable and illustrative. Well, for a single planet like ours density is everywhere.

I’m sure there were. My point isn’t that these dispositions don’t or shouldn’t count as mental disorders, just that even in these cases their standing as mental disorders is still based on social constructs. We label it a “disorder” because we don’t like it (or we think it needs to be fixed, or we think it’s the equivalent of being sick, etc.). It’s not intrinsic–there’s no “mental disorder” virus running through their system.

Behavioral sink is an extreme example and makes one feel silly saying that it doesn’t count as a set of mental disorders, so I’ll concede that those probably ought to be labeled as mental disorders, but even in saying this, I still recognize my acceptance of this label as coming from a social function (that of signaling a condition that’s undesirable or should be fixed/avoided).

Cannibalism in particular is an interesting case. For the most part, I’d agree that it probably counts as a symptom of things gone awry, and usually signals something wrong with society or the environment, but in other examples, it could count as normal behavior or even an evolutionary advantage. For example, many tribal societies partake in cannibalism. In those societies, cannibalism is looked upon as just a custom, a part of their culture, not a disorder. Or take the example of extreme food shortages. In those cases, a willingness to resort to cannibalism can be seen as an advantage. Those who are predisposed to resort to cannibalism could be seen as the “healthy” ones, those who do what’s required to survive, whereas those who aren’t are seen as the “weaker” ones, those who lack what’s required to survive.

None of this is to say that cannibalism isn’t a disorder. It isn’t to say that it is a disorder either–rather, it is to say that what counts as a disorder and what doesn’t depends on whether we see it as a good thing or a bad thing, a healthy thing or a sick thing, something needing to be fixed or something that can be left on its own.

^ That’s my only point.

I think humans are so spiritually inactive that they atrophy.
Some of them are overcome by new things that aren’t all that powerful really.
So, some are lucky enough to spawn altars that are friendly.

Thanks to Zero_Sum i have now heard about Behavioral sink.