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You are not addressing my concerns and are mostly creating straw men to avoid that I am pointing out the historical, real, already evidenced harms of the propos

You are not addressing my concerns and are mostly creating straw men to avoid that I am pointing out the historical, real, already evidenced harms of the proposed solution.

imgabe 3y ago
You are the one creating strawmen by harping on abuses from 60 years ago when I'm specifically saying don't do that. Are you just completely against the idea of human progress? Do you think we're incapable of fixing things that were bad in the past? Both my parents were nurses who worked in psych hospitals. I can promise you people exist who need to be in there. People who are incapable of caring for themselves. People who in some cases already committed violent crimes. We need places to care for people like this. Yes, abuses happened. So stop abusing people, don't stop caring for people who need care. Prisons are sometimes abusive. People are sometimes put in prison for unjust reasons. People sometimes try to make bad laws to put people in prison for shitty reasons. So should get rid of prisons altogether and just let thieves and murderers do whatever they want? That doesn't seem to be working out so well in California. At no point did I say there were never problems with institutions. I'm saying fix the problems instead of getting rid of institutions altogether. Now, are you saying it's not possible to fix or what?
- creata 3y ago
  If something goes really badly, and someone wants to try it again, the natural questions to ask that person are: * What do you think are the reasons why it went badly last time? * What are you proposing we do differently? * Are you sure that they weren't already doing that last time? * How do you think that this change would avoid things going badly again? Could you explicitly answer those questions? Maybe I'm just bad at reading, but so far, all I can get out of your comments is that we should "make reasonable rules and follow them", but I assume that's what people thought they were doing last time, too...
  - imgabe 3y ago
    I think coming up with a comprehensive mental health policy is a little beyond the scope of a HN comment, and certainly far beyond my expertise. I merely posit that such a policy could exist, and could be developed. I don't see why not. I mean, the comments here are like "b-b-but homosexuality used to be considered a mental illness!". Right, it was, but now it's not. So it seems pretty clear that to prevent people from being institutionalized for being gay, we could simply continue to not consider it a mental illness. You know, like we're already doing. That doesn't seem very difficult. Maybe there are other things that are considered mental illnesses that shouldn't be. If there are, we already have an example in homosexuality of how we can stop considering them mental illnesses. It's clearly a thing that's possible to do, so if necessary, let's do that.
    - creata 3y ago
      > I think coming up with a comprehensive mental health policy is a little beyond the scope of a HN comment True, but that's clearly not what I asked for. > If there are, we already have an example in homosexuality of how we can stop considering them mental illnesses. It's clearly a thing that's possible to do, so if necessary, let's do that. Also true, but (1) our understanding of what should be treated as a mental illness can regress, and (2) that's not much solace for all the people harmed between now and when we as a society agree that they shouldn't be considered mentally ill.
      - imgabe 3y ago
        A few years ago a woman was murdered on the block where I worked. She was out jogging in the evening and was stabbed by a schizophrenic homeless man. The murderer had been arrested several times, they knew he was ill, but he couldn't be forced to receive treatment. What's the solace you offer for her family? "Hey sorry your daughter got killed, but maybe people won't be unjustly institutionalized in this hypothetical scenario I dreamed up where US civil rights suddenly regresses 60 years for no reason"? Sorry, I don't find that very compelling. I'm pretty sure we can regulate institutions better, knowing what mistakes were made in the past. People are human, they make mistakes. Sometimes they're wrong or even malicious. Yes, some people might be harmed in institutions. But, people are also being harmed right now. There's no scenario in which there is zero harm. You try to reduce harm as much you can and evaluate and adjust along the way. That's how you make progress. If you paralyze society by demanding perfect solutions, the result is stagnation and death.

You are not addressing my concerns and are mostly creating straw men to avoid that I am pointing out the historical, real, already evidenced harms of the proposed solution.

imgabe 3y ago

You are the one creating strawmen by harping on abuses from 60 years ago when I'm specifically saying don't do that. Are you just completely against the idea of human progress? Do you think we're incapable of fixing things that were bad in the past? Both my parents were nurses who worked in psych hospitals. I can promise you people exist who need to be in there. People who are incapable of caring for themselves. People who in some cases already committed violent crimes. We need places to care for people like this. Yes, abuses happened. So stop abusing people, don't stop caring for people who need care. Prisons are sometimes abusive. People are sometimes put in prison for unjust reasons. People sometimes try to make bad laws to put people in prison for shitty reasons. So should get rid of prisons altogether and just let thieves and murderers do whatever they want? That doesn't seem to be working out so well in California. At no point did I say there were never problems with institutions. I'm saying fix the problems instead of getting rid of institutions altogether. Now, are you saying it's not possible to fix or what?

creata 3y ago
If something goes really badly, and someone wants to try it again, the natural questions to ask that person are: * What do you think are the reasons why it went badly last time? * What are you proposing we do differently? * Are you sure that they weren't already doing that last time? * How do you think that this change would avoid things going badly again? Could you explicitly answer those questions? Maybe I'm just bad at reading, but so far, all I can get out of your comments is that we should "make reasonable rules and follow them", but I assume that's what people thought they were doing last time, too...
- imgabe 3y ago
  I think coming up with a comprehensive mental health policy is a little beyond the scope of a HN comment, and certainly far beyond my expertise. I merely posit that such a policy could exist, and could be developed. I don't see why not. I mean, the comments here are like "b-b-but homosexuality used to be considered a mental illness!". Right, it was, but now it's not. So it seems pretty clear that to prevent people from being institutionalized for being gay, we could simply continue to not consider it a mental illness. You know, like we're already doing. That doesn't seem very difficult. Maybe there are other things that are considered mental illnesses that shouldn't be. If there are, we already have an example in homosexuality of how we can stop considering them mental illnesses. It's clearly a thing that's possible to do, so if necessary, let's do that.
  - creata 3y ago
    > I think coming up with a comprehensive mental health policy is a little beyond the scope of a HN comment True, but that's clearly not what I asked for. > If there are, we already have an example in homosexuality of how we can stop considering them mental illnesses. It's clearly a thing that's possible to do, so if necessary, let's do that. Also true, but (1) our understanding of what should be treated as a mental illness can regress, and (2) that's not much solace for all the people harmed between now and when we as a society agree that they shouldn't be considered mentally ill.
    - imgabe 3y ago
      A few years ago a woman was murdered on the block where I worked. She was out jogging in the evening and was stabbed by a schizophrenic homeless man. The murderer had been arrested several times, they knew he was ill, but he couldn't be forced to receive treatment. What's the solace you offer for her family? "Hey sorry your daughter got killed, but maybe people won't be unjustly institutionalized in this hypothetical scenario I dreamed up where US civil rights suddenly regresses 60 years for no reason"? Sorry, I don't find that very compelling. I'm pretty sure we can regulate institutions better, knowing what mistakes were made in the past. People are human, they make mistakes. Sometimes they're wrong or even malicious. Yes, some people might be harmed in institutions. But, people are also being harmed right now. There's no scenario in which there is zero harm. You try to reduce harm as much you can and evaluate and adjust along the way. That's how you make progress. If you paralyze society by demanding perfect solutions, the result is stagnation and death.