[HN Gopher] I would like closure, but I'll take honesty
___________________________________________________________________
I would like closure, but I'll take honesty
Author : paulpauper
Score : 106 points
Date : 2021-11-18 19:01 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (freddiedeboer.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (freddiedeboer.substack.com)
| kingTug wrote:
| All these intellectual dark web people always expect a kind of
| empathy they themselves don't extend to others.
| tehjoker wrote:
| DeBoer doesn't actually state what criticism he's responding to,
| implying that all of it is attacking him for his previous shitty
| behavior (with mitigating circumstances, but ironic given his
| position against cancel culture) and just hating success.
| However, the only reason the NYT published him is because they're
| anti-communist and his piece is basically "here's why socialism
| is unpopular with americans" posing as being on the side of the
| left without offering any useful adjustments or acknowledging the
| popularity of numerous issues such as medicare for all in opinion
| polling.
| eBombzor wrote:
| Context:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9kt9dj/fred...
|
| Background for people who don't know what this is about like me:
|
| > DeBoer is a blogger of what I would call the "dissident Left."
| I would describe him as a committed socialist who is also a
| committed civil libertarian and has often had sharp critiques of
| the Left as well as the Right. He's on the SlateStarCodex blog
| roll and he often pops up as a point of discussion (or even as a
| commenter in the replies) on SSC.
|
| > About a year ago (after the accusations) he announced he was
| leaving writing for a while, as we discussed on this subreddit.
|
| > Finally, Malcom Harris, the man he falsely accused, has
| responded here.
| RangerScience wrote:
| FYI, search on the page for Malcom Harris to the get the
| comment that eBombzor is quoting (so you can get the links).
| pezzana wrote:
| > But in fact I had not intended to cancel Harris; I hadn't
| intended anything at all. I would have attacked him, physically,
| had he been present, over a pure delusion, which I say with shame
| I can't put into words. But I was not thinking that I would hurt
| his reputation. I was not thinking of cause and effect in any
| conventional way. I was not in a mental state where I was capable
| of understanding long-term consequences. Once again, I will be
| accused of saying that I bear no responsibility for what
| happened, but that's not what I'm saying or have ever said. I am
| saying that it is a lie to say that I had a particular outcome in
| mind because I was operating under the antilogic of psychosis. I
| know because I'm me and I was there. I'm sorry if this is
| inconvenient for your efforts to develop simplistic moral
| readings about what happened, but I assure you my psychotic
| disorder is harder on me than it is on you. Forgive me if I'm
| angry, but it is incredible the number of people who believe that
| their understanding of neurology and psychiatry and psychology is
| so complete that they can decide unilaterally for the human race
| that "mental illness doesn't do that." You can make whatever
| moral judgments about me you like. You have no idea what was
| happening in my brain and no right to speak as if you do.
|
| Social media are clearly magnifying the negative consequences of
| mental health issues. The problems the author describes are
| compounded by the fact that many other people know what happened.
|
| What I'm curious about, though, is the opposite. To what extent
| are social media increasing the severity of mental health issues
| themselves? I can imagine a kind of positive feedback loop, with
| social media triggering aspects of an illness, and acting out
| through social media amplifying the damage caused.
| joedavison wrote:
| I think it's clear that social media (or more broadly, "the
| internet"), is exacerbating mental health issues. At the very
| same time, the ability to connect with people around the world
| is undoubtedly also _reducing_ mental health issues (for some)
| by building bridges to friendships and social connections they
| otherwise would not have.
|
| It is a double edged sword. The internet serves to amplify the
| extremes. At least that is the conclusion I draw.
| podgaj wrote:
| We have two be careful (I have Schiozoaffective Bipolar
| Disorder) when going on to social media. I cannot use
| Facebook at all. For some reason it is always a huge trigger
| for me. On Twitter I go back and forth. Even Hacker News
| frustrates me when they keep telling me I am "posting too
| fast". Most times nothing is too fast for me. :)
|
| But in total, I would say some social media platforms are
| worse than others. I long for the calmness and organization
| of the old MyBB forums.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> To what extent are social media increasing the severity of
| mental health issues themselves?_
|
| As an analogy, I consider photosensitive epilepsy. It is
| unlikely that the genetic cause of epilepsy is somehow a recent
| mutation; we can assume that an average human a thousand years
| ago would have been approximately as susceptible as a human
| today. But for nearly the full history of humanity it would
| have been relatively rare for someone to suffer an episode of
| photosensitive epilepsy, because of the lack of environmental
| triggers. It's not impossible for a flame from a fire or a
| candle to trigger an episode, but the irregular frequency of
| the flickering flame means the risk is much lower. It wasn't
| until electric lighting, and later television, that the
| environment was suddenly primed to interact with a condition
| that had quietly existed in humanity for untold ages. To some
| degree, the modern prevalence of photosensitive epilepsy was a
| direct result of technology.
|
| So it may be with social media. I wonder if there was some
| predisposition to madness that had lain dormant in human brains
| for thousands of years, and is only now coming to the fore as a
| direct result of the environment that we have created with our
| technological advancements.
| watwut wrote:
| There is nothing to suggest that the sort of disorder DeBoer
| has was not present in the past. The consequences would
| harsher on everyone and there would be no meds.
|
| Note that he nearly got arrested for unrelated conduct. It
| was not social media issue.
| itronitron wrote:
| instead of quiet desperation, people can now lead lives of
| shrieking desperation
| smoldesu wrote:
| The main issue, as I see things, is that the average person has
| been losing their faculties to determine what is genuine online
| and what isn't. This greatly favors capitalism, which can
| perform native marketing on Twitter with brand accounts and
| hired reply-guys, as well as through advertisements and other
| methods of attention diversion. The final incarnation of this
| is platforms like Tik-Tok, which behave as perpetual,
| unfiltered streams of internet that intentionally mixes your
| wheat and your chaff.
|
| With relation to mental illness, this issue becomes
| exacerbated. The _anomie_ , or separation from the human race,
| is almost intolerable on platforms like Twitter and Instagram.
| All of it feeds into the grinder of selling more widgets and
| moving more product.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| > The main issue, as I see things, is that the average person
| has been losing their faculties to determine what is genuine
| online and what isn't.
|
| Is this truly the case, or is it that there we less average
| people in online communities in the past? Online scams,
| lying, and deceit have been a thing since online was a
| thing-- why else would we have nigerian prince, rickrolling,
| or the term "trolling" otherwise?
| exolymph wrote:
| Oh Freddie. You'll never get the peace you want from other
| people, it can only be found within yourself.
| unreal37 wrote:
| People emailing any potential employer he has demanding that he
| be fired seems to be breaking his peace...
| ogogmad wrote:
| Unless he's being harassed. Then there can't be inner peace.
| treebot wrote:
| That's quite a pessimistic outlook. You can find inner peace
| even though you're being harassed.
| irishloop wrote:
| I don't know, if you hear about the accounts of the parents
| of children killed in Sandy Hook, I don't think inner peace
| was available. Many had to move or go into hiding. Imagine,
| after losing a child in such a horrific way, that you also
| need to somehow start an entirely new life in a strange
| place because strangers think you're a crisis actor and
| threaten your life.
|
| Externalities matter.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Nobody is arguing that externalities don't matter. You
| have to respond to events that happen in your life.
|
| Inner peace is whether those families can come to terms
| with what happened and be happy, or whether they will
| live in emotional turmoil forever.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I think it's extremely hard to come to terms with what
| happened and be happy, if what happened (or rather, what
| is happening) is "I'm currently being chased out of my
| own home because people online want me dead because my
| child was gunned down in a domestic terrorist attack".
| dahfizz wrote:
| Inner peace can exist regardless of your circumstances.
| That's why its called "inner" peace.
| zepto wrote:
| I agree, but so what? He makes some very valid points.
| newbie789 wrote:
| This is genuinely hilarious, like truly and deeply funny.
|
| I'm not familiar with this guy or the 2017 incident but based off
| of a cursory Google it looks like he's kind of famous for having
| ~ _edgy opinions_ ~ about race and intelligence.
|
| It's entirely likely that people dislike him for this reason and
| not because of some old tweets. This piece is some amazing
| performative bullshit that somehow accuses anybody that dislikes
| him (or doesn't care to read his writing) of being insensitive to
| mental health issues. If you don't like his opinions, you're
| actively victimizing everyone with bipolar disorder! There's no
| other possible interpretation!
| unreal37 wrote:
| You go from being "not familiar" with the guy to having a deep
| "no possible other explanation" opinion really quick.
| newbie789 wrote:
| Ah yes, I can't have an opinion on the race science guy
| unless I read all of his writing about race science. Clearly,
| I hate the mentally ill, because this guy is entitled to my
| attention and I'm obligated to read his opinions about race
| science.
| paganel wrote:
| Freddie DeBoer on Hacker News, that's nice. Found out about him
| after frequenting /r/stupidpol/, one of the few sub-reddits that
| still has genuine left-wing discussions focused on the actual
| material condition of the working classes (even though they're
| getting rarer and rarer lately).
| podgaj wrote:
| I feel bad that Freddie deBoer feels like it is still his
| responsibility how he behaved because of this illness we share.
|
| Can you imagine being given a drug without you knowing, like
| meth, which caused you to act bizarre? Everyone would understand
| that. And it is the same thing with these mental illnesses. But
| for some reason it is always our fault and we have to apologize.
| I think Freddie deBoer is self stigmatizing and it is unhealthy.
| syspec wrote:
| So what did he do wrong? I couldn't tell from the article, it
| only hinted that he did something wrong but did not disclose what
| it was
|
| "In August of 2017 I made totally baseless accusations of sexual
| misconduct against the writer Malcolm Harris on social media. "
|
| Can anyone provide more (specific) context
| bhelkey wrote:
| > I couldn't tell from the article, it only hinted that he did
| something wrong but did not disclose what it was
|
| I also have zero background knowledge here. Maybe this article
| just doesn't target us.
|
| In a stand alone 2.5K word article I would expect more than 20
| words detailing the transgression.
|
| It's fine to write articles that require knowledge of a
| controversy. Though, in such cases, I won't have much to say if
| I don't have that prior knowledge. It does seems a bit odd to
| have such an article hit the front page.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| He did disclose it, what you quoted _is_ what he did wrong.
| Making baseless accusations of sexual misconduct is a pretty
| widely understood "wrong" behavior. He then went into
| treatment for his condition and has stayed medicated since (per
| the article).
| avrionov wrote:
| I expected some great insights about "Clojure" the language.
| worik wrote:
| > I have asked that people consider that I deserve neither total
| condemnation nor total exoneration.
|
| This. In a lot of circles I move there is a tendency to "total
| condemnation".
|
| We can be better to each other. When we do not deserve it is when
| we need it the most.
|
| Peace, love, respect foster peace, love and respect. "Total
| condemnation" might make the condemner have some temporary good
| feelings, but does no good for anybody beyond that.
| unreal37 wrote:
| Also, "To those of you who are not people I harmed in my
| psychotic episode in August 2017... what is it you think I owe
| you?"
|
| There seems to be this tendency that people who only learned
| about something 5 minutes ago get outrage and demand
| retribution. Like it's a reflex.
|
| The mob has vigilante tendencies. Let's go write an email to
| someone's employer and demand that they fire them. Millions of
| people band together and demand justice. For what?
| watwut wrote:
| The original victim seems to be pissed on author for making
| himself victim now and for not going away from his life as he
| promised.
|
| Some of the angry people have been there whole time and are
| actually the ones having to deal with it.
| zepto wrote:
| Is DeBoer 'making himself the victim'?
|
| It looks to me as though he _is_ a victim of a bunch of
| social vigilantes who have nothing to do with the original
| situation.
|
| The 'original victim' would be better off if these
| vigilantes weren't involving themselves in the situation.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> The original victim seems to be pissed_
|
| He does? I'm not seeing that in any of the posts by Malcolm
| Harris that have been referenced in this thread.
| Pensacola wrote:
| People might do good things or bad things, but people aren't
| good or bad. They're just people. Actions can be good or bad.
| It's fair to completely condemn the action, not the person.
| Since you can't get inside someone's head to know their
| motives, it's dishonest - or at best deluded - to totally
| condemn anyone. You can't fix a css problem by debugging the
| server code.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _I have asked that people consider that I deserve neither
| total condemnation nor total exoneration._
|
| The basic irony of the intellectual community responding to the
| symptoms of bipolar disorder by carrying out the behavior that
| is the most characteristic feature of bipolar disorder can't be
| lost on anyone.
| kempbellt wrote:
| > This. In a lot of circles I move there is a tendency to
| "total condemnation".
|
| Which, ironically feels more like a bipolar approach to
| resolving a problem. Are they _good_ , or are they _bad_? Is it
| _legal_ , or is it _illegal_? Are they _right_ , or are they
| _wrong_? Do we _punish_ , or do we _praise_?
|
| There seems to be this strange generalized assumption that
| _people_ are bipolar, and _they_ are the problem. Completely
| ignoring the fact that society itself demonstrates some
| seriously bipolar tendencies. Many times, suggesting
| "either/or" solutions to problems that would really benefit
| from more nuance.
|
| Sometimes the best answer is: -\\_(tsu)_/-
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I don't think this is an accurate depiction of bipolar. This
| is more accurate to the term "splitting" or black/white
| thinking which is more common in personality disorders.
| ditonal wrote:
| Yes, unfortunately the vernacular usage of the word
| bipolar, and actual bipolar disorder, are significantly
| different. The vernacular usage of 'bipolar' implies sudden
| mood swings and black/white thinking, whereas bipolar
| disorder implies episodes of mania or depression that
| typically last weeks to months. It also doesn't help that
| people consistently confuse bipolar disorder with BPD
| because the acronym could work for either.
| afarrell wrote:
| Nuance requires more attention and brainspace than most
| people have for someone they are only tangentially aware of
| like a NYT author. Such casual thought only leaves room for
| binary yes-or-no questions.
|
| Is Freddie DeBoer still worthy of condemnation?
|
| As an uninvolved party, I think the wisest answer for me to
| give is: Meh -\\_(tsu)_/-.
| [deleted]
| whatimeantosay wrote:
| downvoting because I wanted this to be about Clojure
| kleiba wrote:
| Of course, my brain read the word in the headline as "Clojure",
| and so I was expecting "Honesty" to be the name of a new Lisp
| dialect. I think I need to get out more...
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Same here. My first thought was: another post about someone who
| tried Clojure and at some point realized it was not apt for
| their project so now decided to criticize it in an article.
| tptacek wrote:
| It is not, in fact, "unambiguously a lie" to relate to others
| deBoer's grave (and admitted, and unambiguously real) misconduct
| without the full context of his mental illness.
|
| People are entitled to form their own opinions about deBoer's
| credibility, and he is not entitled to set conditions on how they
| do that.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> It is not, in fact, "unambiguously a lie" to relate to
| others deBoer's grave (and admitted, and unambiguously real)
| misconduct without the full context of his mental illness.
|
| Coincidentally I've been discussing this very issue the past
| week. I asked the question "when is it lying to say something
| that is true?"
|
| The example I gave someone was this: You sleep in and arrive
| late to work. When asked "why are you late" you respond with
| "traffic was terrible, there was a crash and a backup" which is
| actually true on that day. The statement is true, but it may in
| fact be a lie. If you overslept so much that you would have
| been late regardless of traffic then what you've said is "I'm
| late because of traffic" which is a lie because you would have
| been late regardless of traffic. Excuses are often this kind of
| lie. Sometimes a true statement is a partial truth, but not the
| larger one that is being concealed while saying it.
|
| Another example: A friend is a therapist and someone in his
| office died and they're sending all the deceased clients
| (patients) to others in the office. They've been instructed to
| tell the patients that their therapist no longer works there as
| a reason for the change. Is that a lie? I think so even though
| it's technically true. They fear some people will be too upset
| at the truth. But IMHO therapists lie too much already and when
| this "lie" comes to light the clients will be even more
| devastated than just telling them the truth. My recommendation
| of course is not to follow those instructions - have some
| integrity.
|
| TLDR: When is it a lie to say something that is true?
| ineptech wrote:
| > People are entitled
|
| All of them? Every single one? Wow, harsh.
|
| I kid, of course; my point in taking your words of context is
| to say that context always matters. People may be "entitled" to
| form a negative opinion of you based on my misleading out-of-
| context quotation of your words, but it seems pretty
| unambiguous that they'd be wrong to do so.
|
| That said, it would be nice if Freddie had been responding to a
| specific person, whom he quoted, so that we could tell whether
| _he_ was taking _them_ out of context.
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| I don't know deBoer from Adam, mind you, so I'm only going off
| the article as written. That said, while it's not strictly a
| _lie_ to communicate deBoer 's actions without conveying how
| psychosis played a role, it seems to leave out important
| context in favor of the presumption that he's simply an
| asshole. My assignment of credibility to deBoer could be
| substantially colored by learning of his psychosis and current
| efforts to remain treated.
| watwut wrote:
| When DeBoer calls it a lie, he is doing what he complains
| about - does not care about motivation or context in which
| that statement was given.
| zepto wrote:
| What context are you accusing him of leaving out?
| worik wrote:
| Lies are more than untruth.
|
| A lie is "[leaving] out the important context"
|
| The most effective way to lie is to use facts. Selectively
| ksdale wrote:
| I agree completely. As the parent says, people are entitled
| to form their own opinion of his credibility, but I don't see
| how you could _possibly_ form an accurate opinion without
| knowledge of his mental state, and if you don 't care to form
| an accurate opinion, then why bother?
| corndoge wrote:
| Intentional omissions of relevant facts constitute lies. Do you
| disagree with that or do you disagree that the facts are
| relevant? Or what?
| googlryas wrote:
| Lies of omission are generally accepted as lies. Of course
| people are entitled to form their own opinions - the discussion
| is about others (who already have their opinion formed) trying
| to form the opinions of even more people, by presenting what
| the author views as not-the-full-story.
| breck wrote:
| I think from the author's shoes it is a lie, but only because
| the author has a better model of the mind than most. The
| accurate view of the mind is that there is not just one
| consciousness in there, but many. The lie is that there is an
| "I". He seems angry when people oversimplify and say "people
| have one consciousness and DeBoer's is bad", rather than
| "people have many consciousnesses, and DeBoer has at least one
| that is bad".
|
| But I also wouldn't rule out the idea that even if our speaking
| about people as a single consciousness is a gross over-
| simplification it might be a better strategy for society at
| large.
|
| (Disclosure: currently reading A Thousand Brains and Society of
| Mind and very much under the influence of the many minds idea
| at present)
| lostdog wrote:
| I don't know the background, but I do think that saying or
| implying that he was conniving or strategically malicious would
| be a lie.
|
| Are you suggesting that he may not even be bipolar?
| weeblewobble wrote:
| "unambiguously" a lie?
| [deleted]
| spadros wrote:
| As somebody in a family with bipolar I have to disagree.
| Someone's schizophrenic episodes should be taken into account
| in judging their actions, just as one's manic episodes should
| be as well. This in no way excuses their behavior. Whether or
| not you want to continue associating with that person is a
| different matter.
| tptacek wrote:
| He's entitled to share his mitigating context. It may well be
| persuasively exculpatory for a lot of reasonable people. He
| goes far beyond that in this argument, suggesting that he
| would find dishonest any description of his misconduct that
| doesn't capture his full state of mind; for instance, any
| claim that he attempted to "cancel" Malcolm Harris.
| msandford wrote:
| I'm not sure we read the same article. I didn't get a "you
| have to know the full contents of my mind" vibe, but I
| definitely did feel like he's making an appeal to know the
| full truth of what he did before you decide how bad he is.
| And asking people who would publicly write about / condemn
| him for what he did to at least tell the entire story.
| spadros wrote:
| I would agree that any description of his misconduct not
| including reference to his literal bipolar manic state to
| be not painting the true picture. If we swapped "bipolar"
| for "schizophrenic" would you have the same opinion?
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't have to consider that counterfactual, since
| deBoer himself stated clearly that he knew the
| accusations he was making were false at the time he made
| them.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| I think you're woefully uninformed about the nature of
| psychosis. Schizophrenic people are fully capable of
| telling intentional lies to combat a perceived threat,
| even when they are imagining that threat due to
| psychosis. Even for someone schizophrenic, not all
| psychosis is so dissociative as to not have a goal-
| oriented thought process at all.
| tptacek wrote:
| deBoer isn't schizophrenic. Again: the counterfactual
| proposed here isn't useful.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| The psychosis that schizophrenic people experience and
| that of bipolar people is not treated as two separate
| "kinds" of psychosis by medical professionals. They are
| treated with exact same medications. We even have a
| specific disorder name for people whose mental illness
| includes the overlapping features of both
| (schizoaffective). So I don't think you can move the
| goalposts away from "schizophrenic people can't
| intentionally lie due to psychosis" and pretend the
| counterfactual is totally irrelevant so easily.
| tptacek wrote:
| I didn't say anything about what people with
| schizophrenia can or can't do. Please don't put quotes
| around things I didn't say when responding to me.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| Perhaps I misunderstood you, but I think the claims you
| made were quite clear. In response to the suggestion of
| the schizophrenia counterfactual, you wrote precisely:
|
| > I don't have to consider that counterfactual, since
| deBoer himself stated clearly that he knew the
| accusations he was making were false at the time he made
| them
|
| My understanding of that was that you saw the fact that "
| clearly that he knew the accusations he was making were
| false at the time he made them" as a reason to disregard
| the counterfactual. Can you explain what you meant by
| that other than the suggestion that the latter half of
| that sentence was sufficiently inconsistent with
| schizophrenia as to render the comparison meaningless?
|
| I apologize for using quotes to distinguish the view I
| was referring to from the rest of the sentence. I thought
| it would be clear that I wasn't quoting you since the
| comment I responded too was so short.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Bipolar mania often comes with psychosis. The paranoia
| the author writes about is a classic symptom of both
| mania and schizophrenia.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| You're making the assumption that him knowing they were
| false meant he had a choice in saying them.
|
| When it comes to psychosis, your knowledge and your
| actions can become completely disconnected. For my manic
| episodes, I'm fully conscious and aware of what I'm
| doing, with no ability to stop what I'm doing. I'm in the
| passenger seat of a car driving off the cliff.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| Claiming he attempted to "cancel" Malcom Harris doesn't
| just not "capture his full state of mind", it ignores
| material facts to allege he was in a _different_ state of
| mind.
|
| And I have to admit I'm curious about what line you'd draw
| with other situations of omitting information to make one's
| argument more persuasive. Do you feel writers are honest
| when they emphasize the increased rate of myocarditis cases
| in teens who take the COVID vaccine, while not including
| the fact that teens who get _infected_ with COVID have even
| higher rates? I think you're setting a pretty high bar for
| considering something misinformation in a way that is
| highly detrimental for forming accurate world views.
| pdonis wrote:
| Since a claim that he attempted to cancel Harris is a
| pretty strong claim about his state of mind, it would seem
| that omitting relevant information about his state of mind
| would indeed be dishonest with regard to that particular
| claim. Claiming that he attempted to cancel Harris is a
| stronger claim than just claiming that he falsely accused
| Harris; the latter claim does not carry any implications
| about his state of mind. It's even a stronger claim than
| claiming that he knew the accusations were false at the
| time he made them; that's a claim about his state of mind,
| yes, but it's a state of mind he's admitted to, as you
| point out. He has not only not admitted to attempting to
| cancel Harris, he has explicitly denied it and explained
| why that wasn't his state of mind at the time.
| ilamont wrote:
| _Whether or not you want to continue associating with that
| person is a different matter._
|
| Sometimes you have no choice.
| licebmi__at__ wrote:
| Why should it matter? I mean, if somebody tells me that they
| are intimate with the president, if they want to con me, or
| are troubled with mental illness, shouldn't make a difference
| on the judgment of how trustable are their statements.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| Are there medications you can take to make you drastically
| less likely to try to con people?
| unreal37 wrote:
| Generally, people are judged based on the "facts of the
| case". If I stole an iPhone from the Apple Store, you can
| call me a thief and demand I spend 6 months in jail. But if
| a single mother stole a loaf of bread from a store because
| their kids were starving and going to die without food,
| that same punishment might be considered unjust.
|
| Context matters. The facts matter. Not just, "did you do
| this or not".
| chrsig wrote:
| Because we as a society have determined that intent matters
| -- which is why we have the concept of manslaughter vs
| murder.
|
| It's a hard thing to accept, but if you're wronged by
| someone in a state of psychosis, there is no true malice.
|
| Does it change everything? Certainly not.
|
| Change in trust in particular is a hard thing to determine
| here. You should trust that they're experiencing what they
| say they are. You should not trust that their statements
| are factual.
|
| Change in response? It's the difference between if you
| should seek to get them help or muster some compassion
| versus whatever you might do if it was a healthy person
| acting out of malice.
|
| That being said, mentally ill people can still be assholes,
| and can still act out of malice. So there's that. And that
| makes situations even more difficult to figure out.
| licebmi__at__ wrote:
| I'm not talking about behavior nor judgment of him as a
| person, I know morality tends to equate this, but I don't
| consider it to be the case. I just mean that I wouldn't
| trust somebody who tends to lie because of mental
| illness, the same way I wouldn't trust somebody without
| preparation to talk about theoretical physics.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| The lies of a con man or an uninformed person are
| generally pretty distinguishable from the lies of a
| psychotic or manic person, especially in long form
| writing (isolated tweets are another matter). And for the
| type of writing deBoer does, which is quite well-sourced
| whenever he is making factual claims, I think dismissing
| it because he has a mental illness is kind of silly.
| Honestly I'll take a bias of disorganized thought that is
| likely to be easier to detect over an ideologically
| motivated bias any day, and we certainly don't prevent
| anyone from being published for the latter.
| zepto wrote:
| A lie of omission is still a lie.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| > People are entitled to form their own opinions about deBoer's
| credibility, and he is not entitled to set conditions on how
| they do that.
|
| I don't know what conditions he's set, he's just asking people
| to include context. Context which completely changes how most
| people would view that incident.
|
| Maybe "unambiguously a lie" is a too strong and you can't tell
| a lie by taking an action out of context, but if you can this
| is it.
| watwut wrote:
| > Maybe "unambiguously a lie" is a too strong
|
| In many cases it is simply a lie - of the exact kind he
| complains about here.
| scythe wrote:
| A _lie_ is intentional. Regardless of the falsehood, it is not
| a lie if you believe it when you say it.
|
| But it is certainly _misleading_ to make these claims about
| deBoer 's actions without context. If this is intentional, then
| it is intentionally misleading. I wonder if there's a word for
| that.
| tptacek wrote:
| Whatever it is, we should all be able to agree that it's not
| "unambiguous".
| zepto wrote:
| What DeBoer describes is unambiguously a lie.
|
| Whether some individual is actually doing what he describes
| has a lot more room for ambiguity.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| If someone suffers from a psychotic episode, and you accuse
| him of something he does during that psychotic episode
| without mentioning anything about the fact that he was
| suffering from a psychotic episode, then that is
| unambiguously a lie by omission.
|
| People who suffer from psychosis do not behave in a
| reasonable manner. A psychosis is a medical emergency. It's
| like complaining that someone caused a traffic accident
| without mentioning they had a heart attack.
|
| (Disclaimer: I have never heard of deBoer before, and for
| the sake of discusion I am going to assume he did in fact
| suffer from a psychotic episode)
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| Never knew Freddie DeBoer was mentally ill. I came across a few
| of his Twitter rants and guessed as much but in an insulting way.
| To see that he's out there and open with it makes me a lot more
| sympathetic. Glad he's now getting the help he needs.
|
| Makes me wonder how much of the wild conduct we see online is
| mental illness and if more empathy would help. Or at least
| calling in a mental health check up.
| weeblewobble wrote:
| For context, here's Freddie's contemporaneous apology, which he
| has not only deleted from his website but from the Wayback
| Machine as well (sorry for the weird site, only copy I could
| find): https://www.falserapetimeline.org/false-rape-5950.pdf
|
| Some excerpts: "Crucially, despite my mental state at the time, I
| knew when I sent those tweets that they were untrue. I am
| responsible for having made those false allegations, and that
| makes me a liar, it makes me guilty of slander, and it makes me
| someone who undermined the profound seriousness of rape
| allegations."
|
| ". I have abandoned all social media permanently. I have stopped
| freelance writing. I have in general tried to permanently remove
| myself from online life and from the world of political writing
| in which Malcolm resides and I once resided. These changes are
| not attempts to make up for what I've done, really; they are just
| matters of self-preservation as I try to build a life where I do
| not cause harm to people anymore. I have fully committed to
| constant treatment, and I have fully committed to going away. I
| am so profoundly sorry"
|
| I remember reading this at the time and feeling the pain through
| the screen. He seemed genuinely ashamed.
|
| Here's Freddie's more recent explanation for why he tried to
| remove his apology from the internet:
| https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/statement
|
| He says he doesn't care if we find it on the wayback machine, but
| _someone_ had to go out of their way to exclude it
| (https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://fredrikdeboer.com/2018...)
|
| Here's Harris' contemporaneous reaction:
| https://twitter.com/bigmeaninternet/status/10471296316970475...
|
| My feeling is that the initial apology has been undermined by a)
| trying to memory hole it and b) writing all these blog posts
| quasi-defending himself. Would be nice if Freddie and his IDW
| friends displayed such forbearance and grace for the college
| students and journalists they make their living attacking.
| Perhaps those people are going through some mental issues as
| well.
|
| The good news is, Freddie seems to be doing better than ever. He
| got a fat advance from Substack and even just had an op-ed
| published in the liberal New York Times.
| trgn wrote:
| I love deBoers writing when it's about _something_, but the
| navel-gazing gets old really quick. Yikes!
|
| If he truly feels sorry, he just needs to move on. He seems to
| understand what he did was foul. Well then, move forward, be a
| good man to all the new people in your life. Instead, he craves
| absolution (and, reading between the lines, acceptance). No
| human being can be cajoled into extending that. It's truly
| foolish to expect people can be argued into extending that.
|
| In fact, what he really needs to do, is that he himself needs
| to forgive the people being mean to him, who have rejected him.
| When he can do that, only then he can free himself from this
| burden.
|
| Good luck Freddie!
| Veen wrote:
| > Would be nice if Freddie and his IDW friends
|
| You're wide of the mark there. De Boer was never part of the
| IDW. He might criticize some of the things they do, but he's
| coming from a different starting point entirely.
| weeblewobble wrote:
| Fair enough, maybe anti-PC is a better label?
| watwut wrote:
| And here is Malcolm Harris now - he retweeted that recently.
|
| https://mobile.twitter.com/BigMeanInternet/status/1372530096...
|
| He is not appreciating what DeBoer does now and don't think he
| follows amends he promised.
| zepto wrote:
| Malcolm Harris doesn't say what commitments DeBoer is
| breaking. He would be more credible if he did.
| newbamboo wrote:
| I like Freddie despite his mental problems/communism. His heart
| usually seems in right place even if his brain isn't working
| right.
|
| But when he say his "psychotic disorder is harder on me than it
| is on you" it sounds a bit like the guy who beats his wife while
| saying "it hurts me more than it hurts you."
|
| Destigmatization should not be a license for communism/cancel
| culture.
| spadros wrote:
| I think he argues quite harshly against himself and says that
| his actions cannot be excused. He seems to harbour quite a bit
| of guilt and shame around this topic.
|
| For context, bipolar is one of the highest suicide risk
| diseases due to this. When you come out of a manic episode you
| tend to feel intense shame and guilt for your actions. For
| reference, 1 in 2 bipolar will attempt suicide in their life. 1
| in 5 will successfully end their life in the long run. So it is
| important to take his real admission of guilt and request for
| forgiveness into account.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| I feel profound empathy here. Having been on both sides of this
| situation, it's just _really complicated_. You can forgive a
| person but really once you've seen them in manic psychosis you
| will never fully trust them or their judgment ever again. There
| are a lot of contradictory emotions at work and they're all
| valid.
|
| It's kind of a shit lot in life, but you get good at making new
| friends. Eventually you can get it under control enough to build
| a life that works. But it's a messy process to get there.
| pasabagi wrote:
| I don't know if this is true. I've had a couple of friends go
| through manic episodes, and while I very much did not enjoy it,
| there's a world of difference between them in normal-mode, and
| manic-mode, and I don't think I trust them less as a result.
| Maybe it would be different if violence was involved - but I
| don't think that's very common.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| The critical thing is that you're aware that your friend in
| normal-mode will do different things than your friend in
| manic-mode. The default assumption is that people have
| various levels of predictability and trustworthiness in
| normal mode; learning that someone made a terrible choice
| once means that their morality and wisdom is not what you
| thought it was, or at least the variance is extremely high.
|
| People with bipolar disorders are essentially two very
| different people. You'd be foolish to trust someone in the
| middle of a manic episode, but and they can be great friends
| and very trustworthy when in normal-mode.
|
| The problem is that you have to know which mode they're
| operating in.
| pasabagi wrote:
| I think the first time around, mania kind of creeped in -
| everybody got sort of frog-boiled by a set of progressively
| more weird ideas and behaviours that all built up on
| eachother so it wasn't totally obvious that it was all
| nuts, until it got really extreme. Now, though, I like to
| think I'd see it coming a mile off.
|
| In general, I think trust is the wrong rubric for living
| with humans. It's better to have faith. In reality, people
| make horrible decisions and do monstrous things all the
| time, especially neurotypical people, and if you can only
| trust people who will not make terrible choices, _you
| should trust no-one_. History proves that the vast majority
| of people, in the right circumstances, will do astonishing
| and awful things.
|
| It makes more sense to treat it as a moral good in and of
| itself to trust other people, no matter if they let you
| down or not. That's the key insight of having faith in the
| people around you. Maybe they will let you down, maybe they
| won't, but suffering for an overabundance of faith is in
| itself virtuous.
| spadros wrote:
| Bipolar is a tragic disease. It's something that's pretty
| rampant in my family. You eventually get to a point that the
| author is. You can't excuse your behavior, but you want people
| to know desperately that those actions aren't the normal you.
| There's an acceptance that people will cut you off from their
| lives, and that's fair. Hurts but its the way it is.
| rhizome wrote:
| Freddie doesn't have to be a public figure. He could become a
| web developer and go by his middle name and quietly cruise
| out the rest of his years like the drummer for Flock of
| Seagulls or something.
| Veen wrote:
| He could, but it would be a shame. He's an excellent
| writer. I am well to his right politically, but I've
| followed him for years because I enjoy reading his work and
| find his analysis a valuable counterpoint to stuff I would
| more normally read.
| deft wrote:
| All true, but the problem seems to be people who don't know him
| are screwing him over and preventing him from making new
| friends so to speak.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Yeah, I'm really glad I wasn't a public figure when I was
| going through that. But his career as a public figure _is_
| likely over due to the trust issue. It sucks, but sometimes
| you can't be anything you want.
| kjs3 wrote:
| _But I do hope people will think deeply, about the nature of
| forgiveness in our current culture, about mental illness, and
| about a disorder I did not choose and which has resulted in me
| setting my life on fire more times than I can count._
|
| I've been on the receiving end of someone with mental health
| issues slagging me undeservedly who at some point got the help
| they needed. And part of that was asking 'forgiveness' from those
| they'd wronged. When they asked me I had to 'think deeply' about
| it and in the end I couldn't simply say "sure, we're good".
| Because the mental health thing might have been the 'reason' or
| 'excuse', possibly even 'mitigation', but it doesn't in any way
| fix the damage done. It doesn't fix a damaged reputation. It
| doesn't change the opinions of the people you convinced I'm a bad
| person in one of your 'episodes'. This whole thing reads like
| "Hey...I know I burned down your house, killed your dog and stole
| your car and I own that...but I was going through a rough patch
| and you're a bad person if you don't just let it go. Oh...and
| never tell anyone about the arson, theft and the rest, because,
| you know, couldn't help myself and if you do you're the bad
| person".
|
| I do want to be sympathetic to someone whose done wrong, has
| gotten help, and wants to own past transgressions. We all have
| things we should atone for. I just don't think that's what this
| article is really asking for.
| rfrey wrote:
| Your "reads like" summary is a mischaracterization of the piece
| in my opinion. He's addressing those he did not directly harm,
| not Harris; he does not say people should "just let it go" and
| certainly does not say they are bad people if they do not; and
| he does not say people should never tell anyone about his
| misdeeds.
| quanto wrote:
| I don't presume to fully understand someone's inner struggles
| through a mere article online. Nevertheless, my condolences.
|
| What I find curious is the trend to isolate some condition and
| how it is not part of some self-defined 'normal me,' thereby
| abating the guilt for the whole of 'me'. Unfortunately, in my
| view, mental conditions like this are very much part of a person
| (that's precisely why it is so difficult to get rid of such
| conditions) and thus there is no reduction of said guilt for the
| 'me'.
|
| I recall the age-old defense of abusive behaviors: "it's the
| hormones, not me." No. Those hormones are very much part of you.
| And they are your moral and physical responsibility.
|
| Nevertheless, my intellectual model of what constitutes a self
| does not preclude me from extending my sympathy and condolences
| to the author. I wish him embrace and tame the inner demon. I
| wish him peace.
| beebmam wrote:
| Certainly I'd like to think there's a special place in hell for
| those who accuse innocent people of sexual abuse; there's not
| much worse that one can be accused of.
|
| Mental illness or not, there's no excuse for these kinds of false
| accusations. It's certainly understandable given Freddie's
| condition. But us understanding why it happened doesn't ethically
| justify their actions, and it also doesn't relieve the
| perpetrators from the consequences of their actions.
|
| "To those of you who are not people I harmed in my psychotic
| episode in August 2017... what is it you think I owe you?" - What
| I'd like is to simply not hear from this person in public again.
| I don't want them to have any sort of public social power, given
| their capability to totally ruin an innocent person's life.
|
| Get a job, like most of the rest of us, and stop being a public
| figure. That's what I'd like
| chrsig wrote:
| I sincerely hope that you never find yourself having harmed
| someone as a result of a mental illness.
|
| > What I'd like is to simply not hear from this person in
| public again
|
| You're perfectly free to wear headphones in public, and stop
| reading anything authored by them.
|
| >Get a job, like most of the rest of us
|
| Nice ableism. Do you understand that severe mental illness can
| be a disability? Would you tell a person without legs to walk
| up the stairs like the rest of us?
|
| How nice it must be atop your pedestal.
| xondono wrote:
| While I'd not put it like GP, I think it's perfectly
| reasonable to _not want_ him to have a big platform like the
| NYT.
|
| We don't let people with severe mental disorders work with
| guns because they're a risk to others. While I would not
| agree with having the law involved here, if he is really
| sorry, one would expect him to not place himself in a
| position where he can cause severe distress to others would
| he fail again to manage his illness.
|
| > Nice ableism. Do you understand that severe mental illness
| can be a disability?
|
| We are still talking about someone writing for the NYT, he is
| probably well able to write professionally in other fields
| like marketing.
| zajio1am wrote:
| > I don't want them to have any sort of public social power,
| given their capability to totally ruin an innocent person's
| life
|
| Who are ones that ruin an innncent person's live? It is one who
| falsely accused, or those who immediatey accept such
| accusations instead of wait for result of investigation?
|
| In some sense people of sound mind who uncritically accept such
| accusation and act on that have more responsibility for their
| actions than a person who did the false accusation during a
| psychotic break.
| watwut wrote:
| Unfair accusation of murder have people in jail for years.
| Unfair reputation that you unfairly accused someone of sexual
| harassment renders you unemplyable forever everywhere.
|
| My point here is that there are many life destroying
| accusations. And they have been used against variety of people.
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