Bitcoin Forum

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88958.0

the joint, cbeast, your sophomoric interpretations of human pain and suffering are so disconnected from what people with mental illness actually experience, that it's enraging if not totally isolating.

I, myself, live many of my days in agony and its not because I am so totally belligerent and stubborn that I can't do any better but because of biological and environmental factors that I have yet to quantify. Factors, that you gentlemen have yet to quantify.

Now, I have no way to prove anything to you because I am only my own perception.

You are only your own perception. No brain digging and psycho-analysis can change that. Get that through your institutionalized, college-educated skulls.

Your "education" you call a degree won't change this.

No amount of hugs and free shit is going to solve my problem or anybody elses. The human condition sometimes sucks for people and it will likely remain that way and its a beautiful thing: It encourages evolution and experimentation in our affairs.

Now, what I suffer through is quite minor. Sure things look like living hell a good amount of the time but I have met people who see and hear demons day and night. Who feel like crying themselves to death a good amount of the time. I've heard and seen people experience visions that no one should suffer through.

Now, I am talking about a close person in my life. She doesn't suffer because people have failed her or that she is failing herself: Her condition just sucks.

I fortunately came to her as a person that didn't try to fix her and control her. I accepted her as she is.

You should try the same with people.

In essence, I'm sick of your authoritarian position on my affairs and the affairs of others. I'm sick of you saying you knows whats best and that you know how to live my life.

I only know what I feel and how I live.

You are entitled to take care of your own damn self. Do that first and then try to treat others.

You're not god. You're not special. You're not a messiah. You're just another man.

You're not virtuous enough nor wise enough to control me or anybody else.

That is all.

welcome back from the dead, Atlas.

Cbeast:

I love the term mental illness. It sells a lot of books. Personally, I don't believe it exists. What we perceive as depression, delusion, ADD (bullshit), schizophrenia (most diagnoses are inconclusive), etc. is nothing but our inability to cope with our own weaknesses in helping each other.

Smoke you, you blind bigot.

The suffering I've seen from delusions and hallucinations can not be simply faked. To deny its existence is to admit you have no regard for these people, which I will not question.

he did not say faking. only that your delusions happen because you can't cope. he just rejects the term "mental illness", and replaces it with "inability to cope".

now please fuck off this forum, you are useless, and nobody likes you here. if what you have postulated in a lot of other threads(that you are a grate guy IRL), you don't need this forum to like you either.

People cope with their delusions everyday. That does not make them disappear.

Anyways, I reject your latter opinion in its entirety.

fine then, stay on the forum if you like. im going to ignore you. please continue on living your sad useless life. have a nice day.

You misunderstand me. When I say "mental illness...is nothing but our inability to cope with our own weaknesses in helping each other" I mean that we are all culpable in not recognizing the needs of people failing to cope with this insane society.

I did not dismiss real organic problems, but these should not be lumped into the industry of mental illness. They are medical issues.

As far as delusions go, hey what ever gets you through the day. Just don't impose them on me by force and in return I will help you see through them to clarity.

I love you too.

Genuinely, you bring me pleasure as well. I value you. I admire you for who you are

Any contradiction is mere emotion.

Don't knock emotion. It is the neurochemical weather cycle of our brain and nervous system.

DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS  

Atlas, for the record I was diagnosed with OCD, GAD, and I easily met the criteria for clinical depression when I was in my late-teens/early-20s.

It is by the method I outlined in my thread that I have overcome all of them.

I look for 3 things in a therapeutic approach:
1)  Is it logical?  Does it make sense?
2)  Is there scientific evidence to support the model?  Can it be tested and can the results be replicated?
3)  Do I have experiential evidence of its effectiveness?  Has it worked for me or have I seen it work for others?

This is the golden trio.  I fully believe that my model prescribed in my thread fits all 3 of these. 

Listening to Atlas is the root cause of mental illness.

You're mentally ill, Atlas?

No shit, Sherlock!...

What about what is self-evident?  I think it's self-evident that I observe and that I observe things that are not me.

Let's break down your sentence:

You (subject) are (2nd person 'to be') only your own perception (object).  

Identity implies stability over time.  If you "are only your perception," and if your perception changes, then accordingly your identity changes.  So, if your perception changes, how can you be the same you?

You just contradicted yourself.

I will spare us both the anquish of deconstructing these statements of yours:

I have never met an individual so stuck in his own mind, with such a lack of empathy for the experience and perception of others.

I am led to believe you think all men perceive in the same way. The concept of the individual is totally alien to you.

If not, its a concept that you reduce to a unwanted animal.

Lastly, it is irrelevant if a man's perception is not consistent. It is assumed he remains one viewpoint. One being. Whether he is a different being or not is of mere opinion.

As for your "science", it remains as consistent as the academia and individuals that behold it. It is not god. It is not objective.

Reality is all that is in the mind of the individual: It is not consistent. Those who attempt to make it so will inevitably fall to self-destruction along with the death of many.

It's obvious from this post that you didn't really read anything I said in my thread.

Oh but I did, sir, and all I found was that you interpret the individuals you mold as a universal testament to your success.

That, my friend, does not sway me.

If anything, this post of yours is only testament to a lack of comprehension of my post and its point.

You are so blinded to the concepts I evoke that it's astonishing.

I promote agency in human affairs. You espouse some frankenstein of a commutative hivemind.  

All I am is an enemy to your cause of quantifying all human subjects into one book that is your subjective viewpoint.

Your cause is to control and mold all beings to your liking. You call this fixing.

I call for individuals to represent their personal causes and desires in their own way through their own methods.

I promote freedom through the agent. You promote conformity through your subjective ideals.

No,  I once held your viewpoints and I found out the hard way that they suck.  Is it more important to you that I understand your sadness or that you understand happiness?  

The slippery slope:  when people with mental health issues give advice and support to others with mental health issues.  If you're fat, do you want to sit in a group with other fat people talking about what it's like to be fat and how nobody understands what it's like to be fat, or would you rather go to a personal trainer who knows what the hell he's doing?  You understand mental illness.  Great.  But if you do, don't talk as though you know what works to treat mental illnesses unless you've done it yourself.  I've done that, Atlas.  I'm better now.  I fixed me.  Have you?

I've seen my model work for me and I've seen it work for others.  After 10+ years of intense study and philosophical masturbation, I've found that my model is reasonable.  I've seen overwhelming scientific evidence to support it.  It works.

Your notion that I "quantify all human subjects into one book" is completely off-base and that is why I believe you didn't really read anything I said in my thread.  You forget the parts where I mentioned that it is important to consider individual circumstance.  But, you would have to be a fool to believe that each individual is utterly independent of every other and that no common ground exists between us.  You're butchering logic and you butchered the message of my thread.  You're in denial when you say that you're not stubborn.

You've admitted before you promote chaos.  And then you wonder why I can't agree with what you're saying.  Damn dude.  Listen up, you could learn something.

I embrace my suffering as if it were art. I have no desire for it to be gone.

I will contemplate your statements. I will "listen" at this time.

At another time and at another thread, we will debate this thoroughly.

It is always a pleasure to speak with you, my friend. You're valuable and certainly one-of-a-kind.

No, I'll prefer if you debate it here. No need for another thread. This one is unlocked now.
Let's not spread the Atlas cancer any further. Let's contain it in this thread only ;D
You made a RE: thread to his thread, so now you better debate the matter with him. No thread locking allowed.

At this time, I wish to state that man is a constantly evolving species:

Mutations will arrive, so will new ideas, new individuals and new moralities.

These game changers, these blasphemers, heretics will be considered threats; terrorists.

I, myself, see them as a necessary part of any system that will sustain. I am here to represent them and give them a good name. They will bring our reality a step forward to a new tomorrow, something that a "common ground" and "unity" cannot stand above.

This personal cause of mine is what defines my point:

When we begin to see some traits of others as universal problems, we begin to deny the natural sources of our very evolution. Successfully eliminating what some deem unwanted will create an inbred organism only of the subjective whims of a few tyrants.

If this end be inevitable, so be it. However, I shall remain the greatest enemy of it! I shall remain the greatest enemy of every higher power that opposes my cause.

My cause is simple: It is for every individual to pursue their causes (or lack of one) as they wish.

This may require many nations and great decentralization but I find it preferable to an inbred state of affairs in politics, culture and genetics through a globalized and centralized world.

This centralized world may need to form and collapse in order to prove my point. So be it! However, again, I will be the greatest enemy to its existence!

Interesting.

Dare I clarify the irony/hypocrisy?

Atlas, let me just say this. I actually like you and your posts, you seem like someone who is interested in learning/growing/expanding horizons with a big mouth. If that is true you will realize in 1 year that you didn't know shit the year before, then the same thing will happen again 1 year later, etc until you die. As long as you aren't stubborn and can learn from mistakes you'll be fine, just don't burn bridges in pursuit of whatever your current ideals happen to be. That is how people who like to make things happen ("doers") get fucked over.

I agree that pretty much noone knows wtf they are talking about most of the time. This is the human condition, everyone is making it up as they go along, no matter how confident they act they fall asleep at night despite uncertainty.

On 'the inability to cope.'  If one believes that the most serious mental illnesses are a fabrication of the highest levels of the executive center or consciousness then you need to spend some time in the psych ward of the local hospital.  Those are mostly people with real problems.  Serious problems of structure and/or signaling of the brain. 

Now, for non acute mental illness the inability to cope due to perception and expectations may be a factor.  But to give a blanket explanation for mental illness is truly asinine.

Reading up on the workings of the brain begins to give one an idea of how easily the highest levels of consciousness can be persuaded and corrupted by various phenomenon that are not at all or not entirely under the control of consciousness.

What makes you think that 'problems of structure and/or signaling of the brain' are not caused by environmental factors? Sure there may be infections, tumors, and various other organic pathological vectors, but a lot of damage comes from the stresses of living in the modern age. Our brains have lots of functions. It seems to be the social functions that frighten 'normal' people the most. Man is a social animal and civilization needs to allow our socialization to evolve along with our economic and technological expectations. Wouldn't it be great if we addressed the actual cause rather just treat the symptoms? This one thing that I really commend FaceBook for attempting.

It is clearly not environmental or "organic" factors... it is the interaction between the two that causes behaviour (beneficial or not). Which you go on to assume for the rest of your post so I dunno maybe I am just nitpicking. Are you proposing that it is easier to change the environment than genetics/hormone levels/etc, therefore we should focus on that?

Atlas , do us and yourself a favor and finish off what you didn't do last time w/ the little stunt you pulled. Off yourself  but find a deep dark cave to do it in so you'll never be found.

Mel's hole?

It's more than changing meds. It's about how we map our neuro-pathways. We can adapt them somewhat. Our brain has evolved to model others to at least survive, but beyond that our brains develop in ways we are only beginning to understand. Our culture is missing out by not valuing people over merit. If we all, I mean everyone, learned to see themselves in what they perceive as others, we would develop a social order based on commonality rather than otherness. We do that by allowing ourselves and our children to cultivate curiosity rather than force-feed knowledge. Everyone has tremendous capacity for skill if they are allowed to develop it, but the greatest potential we have evolved is to care about our family, tribe, and community. This is so simple, any sane person knows this. So why do we bog ourselves down with the trappings of social systems? It's because we bury our self-image that doesn't match what someone erroneously says we should conform to. They say that keen awareness of surroundings is not as valuable as memorizing the names of abstractions. We value left over right brain dominance, when they are equally powerful and we handicap the person forced to learn against his predisposition. We should teach both ways and value them equally.

We need to rebuild society from the ground up and we will, someday. It won't happen in my lifetime, so I write about ways that someday we will. Maybe our progeny will someday see a world that faces problems together rather than create problems for each other.

Well I'd like to read one of your books where you examine this further. Designing a robust system is hard to say the least.

If you want, I'll pm you about a book I wrote a few years ago. It serves as a template for my philosophy and writing themes. I have several books in the works, but have had little time lately for writing. I plan to someday soon take a long sabbatical to finish them and write some more books. Meanwhile, the list of topics grows. Now that my kids are grown and I am getting caught up financially, I can enjoy life a little and let my demons out on paper.

That wasn't my argument.  I have no idea how you got that out of my post.  Save the flames for someone else.

Send me a pdf and I'll get it made into a pro looking book, then mail copy to an address of your choosing. It'll probably cost about 15-50 bucks depending on what type of quality (binding, etc).

That makes it sound like you jerk off to the "liberation of others".

It's worse than that-- he thinks his jerking off is what is liberating others.

you made 11 posts, then you made a user account more. sick bastard! please leave us alone, or at least use the same fucking account so we can ignore you.

I was wrong. Thank you.

You seriously don't see the irony in what you said?  Really?

Edit:  I'll give you a hint.  It involves something that you accused me of and condemned me for.

I want people to be their highest power. That's all I meant, joint.

Now, state your point. I am intrigued.

Creating account to thwart a ban...



RE-BAN HIM!!

I'm pretty sure I understood what you are saying. It was not a personal flame. You may believe that what psych wards do is good. I'll be praying for you if that helps.

Or you can buy it on Amazon. If you pm me I'll give you the link for the hardcopy or Kindle version. I also have a copy to loan on Kindle.

While a lot of diagnosed people can deal with mental illness on their own, I think there's a range and the more extreme cases are largely physical, not environmental or social.

I've read a little bit about drugs like lithium and other antipsychotics, and they measure brain mass or how dense the dendrites are, and generally, if someone is having psychotic episodes, and they take these drugs, it seems to reduce the loss of neurons.  (By psychotic episode, I mean hallucinations or times when people lose control of themselves.)

That seems logical to me.  We're always losing neurons, and our brains adapt by reinforcing things we wish to remember.  As we age, our thinking slows down -- as a middle aged person, I can attest to this -- but we remain intelligent and functional largely because we simply ignore a lot more stuff that we think doesn't matter.

So, my point here - some mental health is a physical, degenerative disease.  Let's not get all mystical about it.  It's just the brain losing matter.  I suspect it's analogous older people losing muscle mass, or bone mass, or hair, or other cells.  That's why old people suffer dementia more often than young people.

I don't know why so many teens get morose and into moody, dark music, like I did, but my inclination is to think it's something related to brain development.  Maybe it's a combination of physical, social, and environmental factors.

As you wish.


Every individual includes me, by the way.

Compared with...


Though, to some extent, this is besides the point because the whole intended message of my mental illness thread is that people do, in fact, wield an incredible amount of power and that they have control over their lives.

Guess what I voted for in your poll?

I've had severe mental illness and I managed to get better and no longer take any medication.  Anyone interested in how I did it can read my short essay if you cut and paste this link in your browser and press enter. Thanks
Link:
http://yoism.reality-movement.org/pdf/CakeTheory.pdf