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I don't want to get the word out. The alerts are stupid. 90% of the time it's one of the kids parents withholding the child from the other. The kid isn't in any danger.

The child is in danger. Even if the kidnapping parent isn't acting erratically enough to directly endanger their lives, child abduction is itself harmful. We don't need to create more fucked up people, there is no shortage of them already.

But again, I don't need to be woken up at 3 am to be notified that someone might have a child on the freeway. I'm not on the freeway. What year is it? They should be able to send alerts only to active phones, in a case like that; ones which are moving!

Sociopath

Psychiatry. 1. a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. Compare psychopath. Origin of sociopath.

psyÂchoÂpath
        a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior.
                  informal
                an unstable and aggressive person.

https://www.healthyplace.com/p...
"
There are sociopaths in our midst. Some of them are high-functioning sociopaths. High-functioning or not, all lack empathy. All are antisocial; they ignore the rules and laws of society so they can live by their own norms. ... They all have the same clinical diagnosis: antisocial personality disorder. ....
A low-functioning sociopath will try to charm because doing so helps him manipulate others. He can cause physical, emotional, and financial damage to his victims. Unlike the high-functioning sociopath, he lacks long-term planning skills, patience, and drive. He can, for example, swindle people out of hundreds of dollars, but he either is caught or becomes bored before moving on.

In contrast, a high-functioning sociopath is great at what he does. He also can cause physical, emotional, and financial damage to anyone he so chooses. He's more deliberate about it, though. Whereas a low-functioning sociopath can con someone out of hundreds of dollars, the high-functioning sociopath predator can manipulate, lie, cheat, his way into a fortune.

All sociopaths are dangerous whether labled high-functioning, low-functioning or narcissistic sociopaths. A high-functioning sociopath can dream bigger and manipulate better than other sociopaths. They can cause a great deal of damage.
"

At the least, lack of empathy is strongly associated with sociopathy.

Sigh. I hate slashdot sometimes...

This version should be better formatted and more legible.

Millions of puerto ricans would not be suffering in darkness if Clinton were president.
She would have been prepared.

Mrs Clinton is a methodist who wanted to make the world a better place since she was 18.

President Trump shows many of the classic signs of a narcissistic sociopath*.

I'm not sure if it is genetic or just the way he was raised. Mr Trump literally can not talk to disaster victims without making it about how great he is and having his ego stoked. Mr. Trump utterly lacks empathy- even insulting the military families who have lost children serving the country. That's a huge problem.

But we could deal with that if he was even remotely competent. But he's not. He hasn't even staffed hundreds (even thousands) of positions after 8 months needed to run the government during wars and disasters. Every other recent president- republicans and democrats had them staffed within 90 days or less. Mr. Trump isn't the worst president ever.

James Buchanan still holds that title for now. But Mr. Trump has only had 8 months in office. Give him time. Mr. Trump is on track to replace James Buchanan as the worst president ever. Even James Buchanan didn't collude with enemy nations. ---

*
Antisocial personality disorder is "a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years"

Narcissistic personality disorder is "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning in early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts.

https://www.healthyplace.com/p... [healthyplace.com]

How do you spot a sociopathic narcissist?

Watch for certain traits:

A driven quest for power. (check)

If a narcissistic sociopath cares about anything other than himself, it is destructive power and control over people. (check)

Behaviors that seek love and admiration. To be sure, this isn't needy love. It's not even emotional love. It's superficial. A narcissistic sociopath sees love and admiration as power tools to manipulate and dominate (Do Sociopaths Even Have Feelings?). (check)

No apologies, no guilt, no remorse under any circumstance. (check- his lack of ability to apologize is staggering at times)

A sociopathic narcissist believes that she is a gift to the world who makes it richer and more colorful. Therefore, her calculated, even cruel actions are always justified. (check)

Invincibility. The narcissistic variety of sociopath believes he is indomitable. Even punishment and prison can't stop him. They're merely part of the game. (check- part of his appeal to authoritarian voters)

Wholly self-serving. The needs and wants of others are insignificant and undeserving of consideration. (check)

Acts as the producer, director, and only actor of his own show. The narcissistic sociopath casts people in roles that increase his power and sense of importance and when bored, casts them aside. (crooked hillary, lyin Ted, etc. How many people did he cast aside so far? check. Why do people even believe he WON'T cast them aside at this point?)

  --- Sound familiar?

Which of these has Mr. Trump displayed since in office? All of them. Literally all of them.

Mr. Trump has displayed every trait on this list just in the 8 months since taking office.

Again- it's bad that he's a sociopathic narcissist but the real problem is that feeds into is complete lack of ability to recognize when he's wrong, clueless, uninformed, or a living breathing example of the dunning krueger effect. Because those are terrible traits for a national leader. Being both that grossly incompetent AND that overconfident is terrible for the country.

Millions of puerto ricans would not be suffering in darkness if Clinton were president. She would have been prepared. Mrs Clinton is a methodist who wanted to make the world a better place since she was 18. President Trump shows many of the classic signs of a narcissistic sociopath*. I'm not sure if it is genetic or just the way he was raised. Mr Trump literally can not talk to disaster victims without making it about how great he is and having his ego stoked. Mr. Trump utterly lacks empathy- even insulting the military families who have lost children serving the country. That's a huge problem. But we could deal with that if he was even remotely competent. But he's not. He hasn't even staffed hundreds (even thousands) of positions after 8 months needed to run the government during wars and disasters. Every other recent president- republicans and democrats had them staffed within 90 days or less. Mr. Trump isn't the worst president ever. James Buchanan still holds that title for now. But Mr. Trump has only had 8 months in office. Give him time. Mr. Trump is on track to replace James Buchanan as the worst president ever. Even James Buchanan didn't collude with enemy nations. --- * Antisocial personality disorder is "a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years" Narcissistic personality disorder is "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning in early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts. https://www.healthyplace.com/p... How do you spot a sociopathic narcissist? Watch for certain traits: A driven quest for power. If a narcissistic sociopath cares about anything other than himself, it is destructive power and control over people. Behaviors that seek love and admiration. To be sure, this isn't needy love. It's not even emotional love. It's superficial. A narcissistic sociopath sees love and admiration as power tools to manipulate and dominate (Do Sociopaths Even Have Feelings?). No apologies, no guilt, no remorse under any circumstance. A sociopathic narcissist believes that she is a gift to the world who makes it richer and more colorful. Therefore, her calculated, even cruel actions are always justified. Invincibility. The narcissistic variety of sociopath believes he is indomitable. Even punishment and prison can't stop him. They're merely part of the game. Wholly self-serving. The needs and wants of others are insignificant and undeserving of consideration. Act as the producer, director, and only actor of his own show. The narcissistic sociopath casts people in roles that increase his power and sense of importance and when bored, casts them aside. --- Sound familiar? Which of these has Mr. Trump done since in office? All of them. Mr. Trump has displayed every trait on this list just in the 8 months since taking office.

Fail, fail, fail.

Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure. Where you got your definition from, I don't know.

Fail, fail, fail.

Narcissism is a personality trait. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a psychological condition. The person who took the last coke out of the fridge would be narcissistic - to a degree. There is an element of narcissism in all of us. The OPs use of the term indicates he thought that there is an excess of narcissism in our society, not that he thought everyone was pathologically narcissistic.

This idea that we somehow have more sex now then in the past is the biggest load of bullcrap. guess what? people fuck, your grandma had he same urges in the 1920's as you have now. the biological drive is exactly the same, it's just socially we are less afraid to express it, so you hear about it more.

Yeah, it just used to be that people married early, and their impulses tended to be directed more towards a single person (not exclusively, of course, but more so than today). Monogomy tends to retard the spread of STD. It's no coincidence that the rapid spread of STDs coincided with the sexual revolution (and with rapid, affordable intercontinental travel).

Isn't there a constitution in the US which just summarily forbids censorship? Doesn't it occur to your professor that undermining the foundations of democracy could have a certain risk associated with it?

Lastly: women are not all into vanilla sex, and women do not all have vanilla sexual fantasies. The idea that you could establish censorship in order to shield women from all these evil men, and at the same time not trample on *their* right to pursue happiness - is misguided to say the least. Fantasizing about rape is one of the top female fantasies, and age play or student/teacher fantasies are pretty common, too. Here is one article I found, but there are plenty all over the place, stating the same thing: http://www.healthyplace.com/sex/psychology-of-sex/womens-top-ten-sexual-fantasies/menu-id-66/page-2/

"School refusal is a term originally used in Great Britain to describe refusal to attend school, due to emotional distress."
How do you get from "term originally used in Great Britain" to "a British phenomena"?

"School refusal is not a formal psychiatric diagnosis." - http://www.healthyplace.com/parenting/anxiety/understanding-school-refusal/menu-id-61/

I have to disagree with you. I am not a psychologist, but there is a lot of research out there that indicates not all suicidal people are the same. This wasn't my original source but it contains what I know: http://www.healthyplace.com/communities/depression/related/suicide_8.asp

Women are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than men, HOWEVER Men are 4 times more likely to die in a suicide attempt. Is this just because men are better at killing themselves than women? Or perhaps there is a gender difference in the reasoning behind why people choose to attempt suicide.

I am not surprised by your callous view of people with suicidal tendencies as it coincides with the general public's view that these people are just irrational and stupid. I will say that in some ways suicide is the ultimate form of narcissism, that people convince themselves to believe that their problems are tremendously great and in turn don't care about how their actions will affect their loved ones around them.

But there are plenty of suicide support forums on the internet that will argue with your statement that "people will continue to think suicide is their best option"... most suicidal people are just people who feel overwhelmed and don't feel they have any options for support. Sometimes they just need someone to pay them some attention. Which is the theory most psychologists attribute to the male-female suicide statistic I gave earlier.. Women typically attempt suicide as an attempt to garner attention.. and it generally works (would you ignore someone in your family that tried to kill themself?). So while it may be a flawed assumption that getting this attention will solve their problems.. logically it is pretty sound that suicide attempt -> attention. So for you to dispute the authors claim that suicidal people are influenced by incentives.. I believe is caused by a great lack of understanding of suicidal people.

Posting here because I'm late. The idea that gender is completely cultural is a scam, perpetuated by Dr. John Money to make his theories about gender identity appear legitimate. He theorized that gender was completely learned. His central case involved an identical twin male who was surgically reassigned as a female after a botched circumcision. He was raised as female, while the other twin was raised as male.

The "female" twin acted like a boy, and was miserable with her treatment as a girl. Dr. Money however covered this up and continued to publish reports on how well the "female" twin was doing in her life, and how successful the sexual reassignment was. His "groundbreaking" work was widely publicized and accepted as true at the time, tragically leading to many other cases of sexual reassignments at young ages. The fraud finally came to light when the "female" twin went public so others wouldn't have to go through what he went through. Dr. Money's work has been discredited, and it is now widely accepted that there are strong genetic influences for gender-stereotyped behaviors.

Here's another story on the technology. . .

TMS induces an electromagnetic current in the underlying cortical neurons, which may explain its therapeutic effects. Repetitive TMS, using varying frequencies and intensities, can increase or decrease excitability in the cortical area directly targeted by the stimulation. Recent studies combining TMS and neuroimaging techniques, such as magnetic resonance imaging, demonstrate that the effects of TMS are not limited to the cortex but spread to functionally related subcortical structures. This finding provides a basis for using TMS to treat the pathologic neural activity that may underlie neuropsychiatric illness.

But you must come to your own conclusions. Keep in mind, however, that choosing ignorance these days leads to a buzzy kind of bliss.

-FL

It took me two seconds to find information on google. I probably should just taunt you for being a lame nerd and not give you the link. But, meh.

You can't prove one way or another what someone else has perceived.

It is possible to use context (such as conflict of interest), interrogation and corroborating evidence to build or destroy confidence in a witness's statements. But overall, you're right: testimony is not a great basis to build strong beliefs upon.

Our society has condemned men to death on the eyewitness testimony of only a handful of witnesses; yet those who claim contact with God throughout history are innumerable. If our justice system believes eyewitness testimony is good enough for life-and-death decisions, why isn't it good enough for the atheist?

A criminal case (in the US anyways) deals with a very small scope: proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is indeed guilty of committing the crime and deserves the punishment prescribed by law. For such a scope, the testimony of a (non-accomplice) eyewitness can be enough to support the death penalty (AFAIK, IANAL), although it's hardly ideal.

The question of religion (and interpretation thereof) has a much larger scope. It makes claims not just about a single event in a single place concerning the fate of a single person, but for all events (is there a plan for everything? how strict is it?) all places, all times (long before there were any witnesses, and for historical periods we don't have objective records of), and for all people. The methods in a criminal trial for proving an event and guilt are not sufficient here. For this, we need a theory that can generalize to a much larger scale. Such a theory needs 1. consistent, understandable and comprehensive enough content to be able to make such overarching religious claims and predictions concisely, and 2. a great deal of data to back it up. In collecting data, a testimonial is just an anecdote. No amount of anecdotes can substitute for data.

People have a lot of biases that prevent them from judging things rationally:
People are rationalizing creatures: if they take on a belief, they'd much rather defend that belief than question it seriously, particularly if it's one that they feel defines them, or is comforting, or otherwise makes things easier (properties which I think are involved in a lot of people's religious beliefs). This leads to confirmation bias, which causes them to tend to accentuate the events and interpretations that reinforce those beliefs and discard those that don't. Applied here, once someone becomes religious, their credibility as a witness decreases when it comes to offering their opinion on evaluating their own religion. These things are better evaluated by someone who doesn't have an emotional stake in the matter.
Memes are ideas that spread from person to person on their own momentum, i.e. without the need to be independently verified. Memes represent a lot of people's beliefs and can result in very strong beliefs, including ones that aren't true. This is a huge confounding factor in trying to extrapolate truth from popular beliefs or beliefs of other people. Beliefs based on other people's beliefs run a big risk in becoming an extension to a baseless meme.
The human brain is not a precise, logical, systematic computer like the one you're reading this post on. The brain is subject to many factors that can cause anomalous behavior. Subconscious states can manifest as artifacts that the conscious mind cannot control, or oftentimes interpret correctly. For example, severe depression can manifest even as hallucinations. In the same way, people who believe deeply enough in something may actually hallucinate in support of their belief.
My point is that in an unstructured collection of people's beliefs can never be good enough to support major religious belief rat

Great point. Depression itself behaves like a drug. Much like one cannot perform any refined tasks while stone drunk, it's impossible to think or feel differently when depressed. Your very hardware for thinking is distorted, so the output is screwed up at a level below any type of control. There are some types of things that counseling can address, mainly techniques for evaluating your thoughts. The utility of therapy lies in the input of thoughts (words from your therapist) generated by a brain other than your own. If your own brain can't form productive thoughts, you can benefit from one that does. It doesn't work for everyone, though. If your brain is beyond the ability to incorporate such help, you need something lower level (drugs, ECT).

Let's look at this from the reverse. Let's imagine that the article, after bringing up the link to breast cancer to abortion, then spent the next 451 paragraphs discussing every, possible health risk of NOT having an abortion. Whould you be in favor of that article? In case you are curious: a legal abortion is much safer than a full term pregnancy. Don't get me started on the risks to all life on this planet from overpopulation. ;-)

Contrary to popular belief, Fischer didn't emerge from the womb a full-blown grand master. While he was learning the game, as a child in Brooklyn, he was essentially a hotshot club player--a prodigy, to be sure, but not obviously world-championship material. But at age thirteen, in 1956, Fischer made a colossal leap. That year he became the youngest player ever to win the U.S. Junior Championship. He also dominated the U.S. tournament circuit. What was astounding wasn't simply that a gawky thirteen-year-old kid in blue jeans was suddenly winning chess tournaments. It was the way he was winning. He didn't just beat people--he humiliated them.

Maybe the onset of puberty "turned on" his mental illness. This article and others seem to suggest that puberty can trigger an underlying mental condition. In fact, this article says:

Social phobia is the irrational fear and avoidance of being in a situation in which a person's activities can be watched by others. In a sense, it is a form of "performance anxiety," but a social phobia causes symptomsthat go well beyond the normal nervousness before an on-stage appearance. People suffering social phobias intensely fear being watched or humiliated while doing something--such as signing a personal check, drinking a cup of coffee, buttoning a coat or eating a meal--in front of others. Many patients suffer a generalized form of social phobia, in which they fear and avoid most interactions with other people. This makes it difficult for them to go to work or school, or to socialize at all. Social phobias occur equally among men and women, generally developing after puberty and peaking after age 30. A person can suffer from one or a cluster of social phobias.

Sounds like Mr. Fischer to me!

Apparently, the only reading you did was of the title of the links. In particular, the "healthyplace.com" site talks about the problems with ECT that you mention! They cite the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association. Read here.

Of course, you're going to say something again along the lines of "No organization in their right mind would publish anything bad about themselves." which leads me to wonder if any objective evidence will persuade you either way.

I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. When a person undergoes ECT (ElectroConvulsive Therapy) they are sedated, given a muscle relaxant, and NOT shocked like a frog in a high-school biology lab. Please inform yourself about the process. There are people who will argue about the benefits of the process, and the potential side-effects of temporary memory problems. But many people find it to be a good treatment for depression.

• The NEJM site does indeed has free registration but, as of this morning, claims that the entire text is only available to subscribers.
• I will address some of the beginning comments first, then question 2, and then question 1.

So, does ECT work or not? If you are worried about rhetoric, I suggest you give evidence to backup your statements since you seem to be lacking in that area.

So far, I have made no statements as to the effectiveness of ECT. I am suspect of ECT's proponents. (further addressed below)

You don't seem to have any argument other than ECT should not be used because the pioneers of psychotherapy were actually trying to find ways to help severely mentally ill patients through desperate measures? I am telling you the facts. ECT is the MOST effective treatment for serious depression. You can go and refute every article I present but try finding one that disagrees with my statement, the statements from the psychiatrists referenced in the Atlantic article, and the NEJM article.

The studies that favorably show ECT's effectiveness have an interesting thing in common. They typically had one or more of the following people involved: Sackeim, Abrams, Fink, Weiner, Swartz, and Krystal. Abrams and Swartz co-founded Somatics, one of only two companies that manufacture and sell ECT devices. Fink, who wrote one of the few books on ECT is a consultant to Somatics and appears in their training videos. Sackeim, Weiner, and Krystal all have consulted for either or both Somatics and MECTA (the only other manufacturer of ECT machines), and had equipment donated to their studies by Somatics and/or MECTA. Weiner received grants from one or both of the companies.

Selected references for the above:

• http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Depression /ect/resources/jama/disnews.asp(I don't care for the tone of the commentary in this article, but their informational statements seem abave board.)
• http://www.omh.state.ny.us/omhweb/ect/(This lists the studies that were used to form NY's policies on ECT, note the names)
• http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/sci-news/2001/snr 0314.htm(the donation of equipment is mentioned in the editors note)

This leads to my answer to question 2.

Who is an independent source of information on ECT?...[let me also address a related point from Q1:]...You seems to have found yourself in a contradiction. You choose not to believe the psychiatrists because they use and advocate ECT. At the same time you would presumably believe psychiatrists that do not use ECT? If they do not use ECT wouldn't the natural presumption be that they are already biased against it? Whose testimony on this topic would you believe?

I don't believe I quoted any psychiatrists in my earlier responses, just sections of Daniel Smith's commentary. But, I admit that it amounts to the same thing. I'll clarify and narrow my position on practioners of psychiatry. Not all current psychiatrists practice their profession in the manner their predecessors did. I also don't think that ECT is a litmus test for a "trustworthy" psychiatrist. Especially considering updated techniques such as use of muscle relaxants and anesthesia during the procedure. Also, the guidelines for ensuring patient consent for using the treatment seem positive. These positive changes could only come about with the acknowledgment of past abuses and a commitment to not allowing such things to happen again. In light of this, all studies involving past abused techniques and the indviduals conducting the studies should be held to a higher standard. As shown above it seems that the main proponents of ECT have a vested

Do you think stories could use fewer links so readers can just focus on the specific article instead of having to sort through every link under the sun? Most stories should have just one link (additional cool pictures excepted, of course).

Shit, slashdotted already. Hmm, try here.

They could have merged the Hello Kitty Laptop story, and the Aibo sex toy story, and come up with the Hello Kitty Vibrator.

Here's one model that I'd like to find a remote for!


(It's not a goatse link, honest!)