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Every time his story comes up, there are people who respond with answers along the lines of "what can we do for him? can we find him assisted employment? can we

Every time his story comes up, there are people who respond with answers along the lines of "what can we do for him? can we find him assisted employment? can we raise money for him?" etc. While these comments are surely well intentioned, they end up being mostly condescending and out of place, as if talking about a completely helpless being. He is openly racist. He can't find a job on his own, unless it's among other extreme racists. I'm extrapolating based on his online behavior. If his real-life behavior is completely different, then that's one thing, but that seems unlikely. And his online behavior is so racist that there's just no chance of him fitting into any average social situation. His racism probably isn't his fault. It's probably a factor of his condition. But isn't that the definition of "needs help"? So shouldn't we try to ask whether he wants our help, and if so, find an open-minded employer who might listen to the situation and be willing to give Terry a shot?

kstenerud 12y ago
He's alive and enjoys what he does on a day-to-day basis. Who are you to decide what life he should live? What exactly is the "help" he so desperately needs?
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  If you will actually read my comment, I said "ask him whether he wants help."
  - kstenerud 12y ago
    Or, you know, just leave him the fuck alone. He's done alright with his life by his own measure and doesn't need the condescension of "hello you poor soul, do you need help?" (which, I'm sure, he's already heard a million times by now)
    - sillysaurus3 12y ago
      No, I don't think we should leave the mentally ill alone. That's not how society works, nor how it should work. I think we should respect their wishes, when appropriate, but leaving them alone isn't a good decision.
      - kstenerud 12y ago
        I'm barely able to contain my rage at this moment, so I'll make it short. The ONLY time you're allowed to intervene is when someone's life and self image is visibly deteriorating. If it's stable, leave it the fuck alone. I've gotten into the habit of hiding what I've got because of people like you, and judging by the downvotes I'm getting, you're not alone in perpetuating the stigma and condescension. Every single "oh but you've done so WELL for yourself!" and "if you ever need anything..." is well intentioned, I know, but also incredibly hurtful. We all have our shit in life and each of us deals with it AS WE SEE FIT. Yeah, I do things that may seem weird to you, and sometimes it gets me into trouble, but that's my prerogative. LEAVE. IT. ALONE.
        sillysaurus3 12y ago
        That's all you have to say. "No, thank you. Please leave me alone." And then you're left alone. We live in a world where we help each other. Offering help isn't a bad thing. Some people aren't as strong as you.
        kstenerud 12y ago
        I wish I could impart upon you the disempowering effect of condescension. When you "offer help" to someone who is happy with where they're at, and not in distress, you're basically telling them that they probably can't make it without you stepping in to support them. You're telling them that they, the wretched ones, are dependent upon the real people, who come down from on high to help them sort their obviously broken lives out. That HURTS. More than you could ever know.
        sillysaurus3 12y ago
    - phkahler 12y ago
      >> Or, you know, just leave him the fuck alone. Do you hold the door for a guy in a wheelchair, or let it close behind you because you fear he's gonna resent any effort to help him?
      - jonah 12y ago
        I generally try to and it is received well. Recently though I offered to help a guy with crutches get into his car he gruffly declined with "I've been doing this long enough." So, ya never know. Probably generally better to offer than not.
    - notahacker 12y ago
      I don't think that we're really capable of judging the stability of someone's existence based on their creative output and a biographical sketch written by an apparently sympathetic blogger. That goes for assumptions that intervention by people with a much better understanding of a person's current situation can't improve it as much as the assumption that they could or should.
- kazinator 12y ago
  > What exactly is the "help" he so desperately needs? People to write programs for the OS, thereby doing QA and submitting bug reports, I would think. :)
seivan 12y ago
He is not racist. As you said it His racism probably isn't his fault. It's probably a factor of his condition. Does not make him a racist.
- 67726e 12y ago
  My parents raised me to be a racist. It's not my fault, it's my upbringing. Any attempts to otherwise convince me are just a conspiracy brought on both those pesky inferior races. Wanna play have a philosophical debate? Or can we agree that someone who espouses racist ideology is, in fact, a racist.
  - lomnakkus 12y ago
    Wrong. People may say racist things without necessarily being racist. The difference between "being X-ist" and "saying X-ist thing" is basically predicated on having a "persistent belief that X" or having a "momentary belief that X". (I'm using "belief" in the philosophical sense.)
    - 67726e 12y ago
      When you consistently espouse racist ideology, you're a racist. Or maybe a performance artist disguised as a Kazakh journalist, but most probably a racist. It could be that he just says these things all the time for the hell of it, or it could be that he believes what he says. I'll leave determining which is more likely as an exercise to the reader.
      - lomnakkus 12y ago
        I was mostly talking about a person who cannot actually realize that they're saying racist things (through impairment of their faculties), but I guess I kind of formulated that badly. I certainly didn't mean to be some sort of apologist. FWIW, I was thinking of this with my original comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbdxeFcQtaU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbdxeFcQtaU (... but I see that it doesn't necessarily apply in this context.)
      - 12y ago
pfortuny 12y ago
I think you may be mixing two problems, one ideological (he is a racist), which has little to do with medicine and the other behavioural (he is "aggressive", or whatever). The latter may be a medical condition, the former I am inclined to see as a (wrong, if you let me) set of values.
- EdwardDiego 12y ago
  > the former I am inclined to see as a (wrong, if you let me) set of values. Yeah because mental illness allows one to think rationally about value sets.
- vidarh 12y ago
  It is very hard to disassociate his apparent views from his mental illness. If you've followed his past posts, you'll have seen the level of coherence change dramatically over the years, and so has the level of slurs and offensive language. So it's not at all clear to me whether or not the apparent racism is ideological in any meaningful way vs. being largely a product of his illness.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
"And his online behavior is so racist that there's just no chance of him fitting into any average social situation." Observational evidence suggests otherwise.
dec0dedab0de 12y ago
The help that he wants is for people to use his software. Perhaps someone could sponsor a hackathon to develop games, or other software for TempleOS.
- vlaube 12y ago
  This sounds like a really nice idea.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
unclebucknasty 12y ago
>what can we do for him? can we find him assisted employment? What's really funny is that, from their perspective, "helping" him involves better integrating him into the world we all accept. But, there's nothing particularly "sane" or even healthy about that world.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- eivarv 12y ago
  There is a key difference between the worlds in question, though. As Philip K. Dick said: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” Should the mentally ill not be offered ways to participate in reality, simply because we find fault with the world?
  - unclebucknasty 12y ago
    Interesting question. Is there a third option? Should there be? Are there other ways for them to "participate in reality" other than by getting a job and contributing to the economy? Look at the insanity in how we allocate resources and which activities we incent. People literally die as a result of our priorities. So, should we assume that he is better off by "joining us" and contributing to that reality? I don't know. But, I don't think it's a foregone conclusion and it seems at least as important to examine that reality first.
    - eivarv 12y ago
      Sorry; I think I mistook your comment for some sort of reality-relativistic sentiment by managing to ignore the context. I agree that the most important factor here is not whether the person in question is able to work a traditional job and contribute to the economy. The way I see it, treatment and quality of life is what's important here. Rather, I meant that he would likely be better off the closer to reality he got (i.e. the less his delusions impacted him), and that the delusional should not be patronized by allowing them their "eccentricities" and to remain in their own bubble (which now seems a moot point).
anigbrowl 12y ago
That's a problem in the same way that Tourette's Syndrome often creates employment problems (some people with TS have an uncontrollable urge to swear a lot, a problem known as coprolalia - this can make it hard to get served as a customer in a store, never mind hold down a job). You gotta treat God as entertainment, mostly. He's not prophetic in this. I caution against latching onto any particular thing He says. If I am not doing offerings, He says nonsense.
- jcromartie 12y ago
  Coprolalia: Latin for "poop talk"
  - jkaunisv1 12y ago
    I hadn't heard that term but was delighted when I paused to break it down to its roots. Shit tongues!
  - rantanplan 12y ago
    It's Greek, not Latin.
- robin_reala 12y ago
  The verbal tics in Tourettes are impossible to hold back when they come, but commenting online is not the same as verbalising. You can choose to post, and you can choose to edit your post.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    You could say that about any obsessive-compulsive behavior. Why do gambling addicts go into casinos or spend their entire paycheck on lottery tickets? Why do some people repeatedly engage in high-risk sexual behavior or make hundreds of telephone calls in a day? Couldn't they 'choose to' do otherwise, or to stop their problematic activity? Well, no they can't. If you're in the grip of compulsion you can dislike what you're doing, know it's a terrible idea, be fully aware of the negative consequences, but nonetheless be unable to help yourself, in the same way that it's hard for a passenger in a car to exert much control over a dangerous driver. If volition were such a reliable mechanistic thing then we'd have little need for psychiatric hospitals - psychiatrists could just tell mentally ill people what they were doing wrong and call them cured.
king_jester 12y ago
> His racism probably isn't his fault. It's probably a factor of his condition. I don't know if his racism is the result of or related to his condition. However, even if it is, so what? Why exactly does that behavior get to be overlooked as though it doesn't have a real effect on people who suffer from it? Why does he get assistance to find a job while non-white people struggle to find work in tech?
- qb45 12y ago
  He apparently knows a thing or two and gets stuff done. I'd hire him.
  - djur 12y ago
    What would you do when your black employees object to what he would say to them? The words "hostile work environment" come to mind.
    - firebones 12y ago
      I worked with an administrative assistant with Tourette's syndrome who would routinely blurt out observations about the sexual/physical characteristics of female co-workers, provoking "managers" passing by to take the opportunity to assert their inclination to be the strong gentleman and challenge this poor fellow to a fight for m'lady's honor. It only took a moment of explanation and de-escalation to clue them in to what was going on, and the situation was defused, no matter how many more "nice tits" the administrator busted out in public.
- hueving 12y ago
  "while non-white people struggle to find work in tech?", said nobody who has ever been in Silicon Valley.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    What happens if you send two identical resumes to a gajillion different jobs - the resumes are identical except one has the name "James Smith" and the other has the name "Jamal Jackson". Luckily, other people have done this for us: http://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/discrimination-job-market-united-states http://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/discrimination-jo...
netstag 12y ago
> find an open-minded employer who might listen to the situation and be willing to give Terry a shot? When you strip away the notion, or often the facade, that jobs are not a form of enslavement then you might be asking yourself the question I'm asking: Why would you want to do that to him? It's not like he hasn't been able to find a purpose in life to keep himself happy. Or do you really know anything about him or what his needs are to suggest a 'job' would be of any help?
- firebones 12y ago
  That's an incredibly interesting take. Flipping the script, is it useful or ethical to find a way to help him monetize his purpose in life to his benefit?
  - netstag 12y ago
    Sure, but probably not in the form of a traditional job with an employer where he would likely endure mental trauma over mistakes being made at a job that he depends on for money. The sad part that most people do not understand is that if he's on 'assisted living' and gets a job he may no longer be eligible for it ever again, even if it doesn't work out. So the idea to push a job on him could actually be the death of him and what's worse: chances are good that he might even do it to his own detriment. Edit: reduced unintended tone. ;)
DanielBMarkham 12y ago
Racism is not a disease that requires or even invites our help. Sure, we're open to engage in civil discussion with racist people -- even try to gently persuade them of the error of their ways. But that's about it. We live in a society where we're supposed to cherish and celebrate the fact that we're all unique (and broken) to a great degree. Not increasingly intervene to make us all the same. So bring on the eccentric, racist, barely-functioning people. Bring on the people with poor and lavish backgrounds. Bring on the mean-spirited, the generous, the completely strange. The more true diversity -- diversity in outlook, worldview, and experience -- the better we all are. Rough edges and outliers are fine. We need 'em. As far as finding a job, that's another discussion. As long as he is able to feed and house himself, through whatever means? Why do I care whether he has a job or not?

kstenerud 12y ago

He's alive and enjoys what he does on a day-to-day basis. Who are you to decide what life he should live? What exactly is the "help" he so desperately needs?

sillysaurus3 12y ago
If you will actually read my comment, I said "ask him whether he wants help."
- kstenerud 12y ago
  Or, you know, just leave him the fuck alone. He's done alright with his life by his own measure and doesn't need the condescension of "hello you poor soul, do you need help?" (which, I'm sure, he's already heard a million times by now)
  - sillysaurus3 12y ago
    No, I don't think we should leave the mentally ill alone. That's not how society works, nor how it should work. I think we should respect their wishes, when appropriate, but leaving them alone isn't a good decision.
    - kstenerud 12y ago
      I'm barely able to contain my rage at this moment, so I'll make it short. The ONLY time you're allowed to intervene is when someone's life and self image is visibly deteriorating. If it's stable, leave it the fuck alone. I've gotten into the habit of hiding what I've got because of people like you, and judging by the downvotes I'm getting, you're not alone in perpetuating the stigma and condescension. Every single "oh but you've done so WELL for yourself!" and "if you ever need anything..." is well intentioned, I know, but also incredibly hurtful. We all have our shit in life and each of us deals with it AS WE SEE FIT. Yeah, I do things that may seem weird to you, and sometimes it gets me into trouble, but that's my prerogative. LEAVE. IT. ALONE.
      - sillysaurus3 12y ago
        That's all you have to say. "No, thank you. Please leave me alone." And then you're left alone. We live in a world where we help each other. Offering help isn't a bad thing. Some people aren't as strong as you.
        kstenerud 12y ago
        I wish I could impart upon you the disempowering effect of condescension. When you "offer help" to someone who is happy with where they're at, and not in distress, you're basically telling them that they probably can't make it without you stepping in to support them. You're telling them that they, the wretched ones, are dependent upon the real people, who come down from on high to help them sort their obviously broken lives out. That HURTS. More than you could ever know.
        sillysaurus3 12y ago
  - phkahler 12y ago
    >> Or, you know, just leave him the fuck alone. Do you hold the door for a guy in a wheelchair, or let it close behind you because you fear he's gonna resent any effort to help him?
    - jonah 12y ago
      I generally try to and it is received well. Recently though I offered to help a guy with crutches get into his car he gruffly declined with "I've been doing this long enough." So, ya never know. Probably generally better to offer than not.
  - notahacker 12y ago
    I don't think that we're really capable of judging the stability of someone's existence based on their creative output and a biographical sketch written by an apparently sympathetic blogger. That goes for assumptions that intervention by people with a much better understanding of a person's current situation can't improve it as much as the assumption that they could or should.
kazinator 12y ago
> What exactly is the "help" he so desperately needs? People to write programs for the OS, thereby doing QA and submitting bug reports, I would think. :)

seivan 12y ago

He is not racist. As you said it His racism probably isn't his fault. It's probably a factor of his condition. Does not make him a racist.

67726e 12y ago
My parents raised me to be a racist. It's not my fault, it's my upbringing. Any attempts to otherwise convince me are just a conspiracy brought on both those pesky inferior races. Wanna play have a philosophical debate? Or can we agree that someone who espouses racist ideology is, in fact, a racist.
- lomnakkus 12y ago
  Wrong. People may say racist things without necessarily being racist. The difference between "being X-ist" and "saying X-ist thing" is basically predicated on having a "persistent belief that X" or having a "momentary belief that X". (I'm using "belief" in the philosophical sense.)
  - 67726e 12y ago
    When you consistently espouse racist ideology, you're a racist. Or maybe a performance artist disguised as a Kazakh journalist, but most probably a racist. It could be that he just says these things all the time for the hell of it, or it could be that he believes what he says. I'll leave determining which is more likely as an exercise to the reader.
    - lomnakkus 12y ago
      I was mostly talking about a person who cannot actually realize that they're saying racist things (through impairment of their faculties), but I guess I kind of formulated that badly. I certainly didn't mean to be some sort of apologist. FWIW, I was thinking of this with my original comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbdxeFcQtaU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbdxeFcQtaU (... but I see that it doesn't necessarily apply in this context.)
    - 12y ago

pfortuny 12y ago

I think you may be mixing two problems, one ideological (he is a racist), which has little to do with medicine and the other behavioural (he is "aggressive", or whatever). The latter may be a medical condition, the former I am inclined to see as a (wrong, if you let me) set of values.

EdwardDiego 12y ago
> the former I am inclined to see as a (wrong, if you let me) set of values. Yeah because mental illness allows one to think rationally about value sets.
vidarh 12y ago
It is very hard to disassociate his apparent views from his mental illness. If you've followed his past posts, you'll have seen the level of coherence change dramatically over the years, and so has the level of slurs and offensive language. So it's not at all clear to me whether or not the apparent racism is ideological in any meaningful way vs. being largely a product of his illness.

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

"And his online behavior is so racist that there's just no chance of him fitting into any average social situation." Observational evidence suggests otherwise.

dec0dedab0de 12y ago

The help that he wants is for people to use his software. Perhaps someone could sponsor a hackathon to develop games, or other software for TempleOS.

vlaube 12y ago
This sounds like a really nice idea.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

unclebucknasty 12y ago

>what can we do for him? can we find him assisted employment? What's really funny is that, from their perspective, "helping" him involves better integrating him into the world we all accept. But, there's nothing particularly "sane" or even healthy about that world.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
eivarv 12y ago
There is a key difference between the worlds in question, though. As Philip K. Dick said: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” Should the mentally ill not be offered ways to participate in reality, simply because we find fault with the world?
- unclebucknasty 12y ago
  Interesting question. Is there a third option? Should there be? Are there other ways for them to "participate in reality" other than by getting a job and contributing to the economy? Look at the insanity in how we allocate resources and which activities we incent. People literally die as a result of our priorities. So, should we assume that he is better off by "joining us" and contributing to that reality? I don't know. But, I don't think it's a foregone conclusion and it seems at least as important to examine that reality first.
  - eivarv 12y ago
    Sorry; I think I mistook your comment for some sort of reality-relativistic sentiment by managing to ignore the context. I agree that the most important factor here is not whether the person in question is able to work a traditional job and contribute to the economy. The way I see it, treatment and quality of life is what's important here. Rather, I meant that he would likely be better off the closer to reality he got (i.e. the less his delusions impacted him), and that the delusional should not be patronized by allowing them their "eccentricities" and to remain in their own bubble (which now seems a moot point).

anigbrowl 12y ago

That's a problem in the same way that Tourette's Syndrome often creates employment problems (some people with TS have an uncontrollable urge to swear a lot, a problem known as coprolalia - this can make it hard to get served as a customer in a store, never mind hold down a job). You gotta treat God as entertainment, mostly. He's not prophetic in this. I caution against latching onto any particular thing He says. If I am not doing offerings, He says nonsense.

jcromartie 12y ago
Coprolalia: Latin for "poop talk"
- jkaunisv1 12y ago
  I hadn't heard that term but was delighted when I paused to break it down to its roots. Shit tongues!
- rantanplan 12y ago
  It's Greek, not Latin.
robin_reala 12y ago
The verbal tics in Tourettes are impossible to hold back when they come, but commenting online is not the same as verbalising. You can choose to post, and you can choose to edit your post.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  You could say that about any obsessive-compulsive behavior. Why do gambling addicts go into casinos or spend their entire paycheck on lottery tickets? Why do some people repeatedly engage in high-risk sexual behavior or make hundreds of telephone calls in a day? Couldn't they 'choose to' do otherwise, or to stop their problematic activity? Well, no they can't. If you're in the grip of compulsion you can dislike what you're doing, know it's a terrible idea, be fully aware of the negative consequences, but nonetheless be unable to help yourself, in the same way that it's hard for a passenger in a car to exert much control over a dangerous driver. If volition were such a reliable mechanistic thing then we'd have little need for psychiatric hospitals - psychiatrists could just tell mentally ill people what they were doing wrong and call them cured.

king_jester 12y ago

> His racism probably isn't his fault. It's probably a factor of his condition. I don't know if his racism is the result of or related to his condition. However, even if it is, so what? Why exactly does that behavior get to be overlooked as though it doesn't have a real effect on people who suffer from it? Why does he get assistance to find a job while non-white people struggle to find work in tech?

qb45 12y ago
He apparently knows a thing or two and gets stuff done. I'd hire him.
- djur 12y ago
  What would you do when your black employees object to what he would say to them? The words "hostile work environment" come to mind.
  - firebones 12y ago
    I worked with an administrative assistant with Tourette's syndrome who would routinely blurt out observations about the sexual/physical characteristics of female co-workers, provoking "managers" passing by to take the opportunity to assert their inclination to be the strong gentleman and challenge this poor fellow to a fight for m'lady's honor. It only took a moment of explanation and de-escalation to clue them in to what was going on, and the situation was defused, no matter how many more "nice tits" the administrator busted out in public.
hueving 12y ago
"while non-white people struggle to find work in tech?", said nobody who has ever been in Silicon Valley.
- DanBC 12y ago
  What happens if you send two identical resumes to a gajillion different jobs - the resumes are identical except one has the name "James Smith" and the other has the name "Jamal Jackson". Luckily, other people have done this for us: http://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/discrimination-job-market-united-states http://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/discrimination-jo...

netstag 12y ago

> find an open-minded employer who might listen to the situation and be willing to give Terry a shot? When you strip away the notion, or often the facade, that jobs are not a form of enslavement then you might be asking yourself the question I'm asking: Why would you want to do that to him? It's not like he hasn't been able to find a purpose in life to keep himself happy. Or do you really know anything about him or what his needs are to suggest a 'job' would be of any help?

firebones 12y ago
That's an incredibly interesting take. Flipping the script, is it useful or ethical to find a way to help him monetize his purpose in life to his benefit?
- netstag 12y ago
  Sure, but probably not in the form of a traditional job with an employer where he would likely endure mental trauma over mistakes being made at a job that he depends on for money. The sad part that most people do not understand is that if he's on 'assisted living' and gets a job he may no longer be eligible for it ever again, even if it doesn't work out. So the idea to push a job on him could actually be the death of him and what's worse: chances are good that he might even do it to his own detriment. Edit: reduced unintended tone. ;)

DanielBMarkham 12y ago

Racism is not a disease that requires or even invites our help. Sure, we're open to engage in civil discussion with racist people -- even try to gently persuade them of the error of their ways. But that's about it. We live in a society where we're supposed to cherish and celebrate the fact that we're all unique (and broken) to a great degree. Not increasingly intervene to make us all the same. So bring on the eccentric, racist, barely-functioning people. Bring on the people with poor and lavish backgrounds. Bring on the mean-spirited, the generous, the completely strange. The more true diversity -- diversity in outlook, worldview, and experience -- the better we all are. Rough edges and outliers are fine. We need 'em. As far as finding a job, that's another discussion. As long as he is able to feed and house himself, through whatever means? Why do I care whether he has a job or not?