Where did David Icke get this idea about Reptilians?

Great Debates
201

Actually Finn, AHunter’s first post addressing my question did accept that if Ickes hypothetically said not only that the lizards must die, but also made specific and credible threats against specific perceived lizard people, then his rights could be restricted, independent of his having a schizophrenia label.

AHunter, I accept that the label of schizophrenia does not a priori mean that an individual presents a significant risk to society. But. Hypothetically. If there was some subset of citizens that by virtue of a diagnostic label did present a statistically significantly greater risk risk to others, would you accept that the bar of proof for their having a specific plan that warrants restriction of their rights should be lower than for the general public?

202

Yeah, but I wasn’t just talking about specific and credible direct threats. I was talking about a step down from that. Say that, for instance, you knew your neighbor was a paranoid schizophrenic, and one day you found out (doesn’t matter how) that they figured that your children were really aliens and they were beaming suicidal thoughts into his mind. Also, that he needed to figure out a way to stop them.

Now there’s no explicit threat there. But I know that I, at the very least would want that to be the basis of a restraining order (in a way that a neighbor saying “those kids are brats!” wouldn’t be), and possibly for investigation/incarceration of the guy. Same if it was my wife. Same, honestly, if it was me.

Or, in a nutshell:

203

There is apparently such a group.

Males

No, I do not a different standard that would be applicable to members of that group.

204

I like your work. :smiley: And I grasp your points. (and resent the implication made by one of your detractors that Jung, for one, was a “flake” :rolleyes:)

The definition of “mental illness” is very nebulous and variable depending on the context and the degree…for one example, the label of ADHAD is being frequently challenged as intolerant of individual differences and destructive (as a former child development professional I agree that this is not only one of the most over-diagnosed and medicated “conditions” but one which often accompanies great intelligence and creativity and should be seen as simply a different cognitive functioning, not a disease)

It can be argued either way, that something is a mental illness or simply a natural variable of the healthy human cognitive function, and different people have had different experiences, often depending on their culture and specific circumstances.

But when I see people like John Nash or Daniel Johnston (who just played my town recently…still alive and very kicking!:cool:) and others who are, by standard modern definition, “mentally ill”, I am forced to wonder if this variation might actually be an evolutionary leap forward in terms of genius…difficult as it can be to deal with.

Anyway, you should expect such a response here…this forum is positively infested with materialists, debunkers, and those lacking the will or insight to entertain any but the most mundane. :stuck_out_tongue: (and they will likely demand a cite for THAT comment :rolleyes::D)

P.S not that they will GET One…let them do their own research…:wink:

205

I’m not for basing it on statistics - too many groups could subject to that “lowered” bar and we do actually need equal protection. I know one half of the population that could be subject to a lower bar just because they are 10 times more likely to commit murder than the other half.

Honestly, I can’t think of a better solution than what we have - in principle anyway if not always in practice. A person is supposed to be involuntarily hospitalized if and only if they are an imminent risk to themselves or others, or so disabled that they can’t care for themselves AND also have a treatable mental disorder that is the cause.

There’s a lot of room for abuse in putting that into practice, no doubt, but I can’t see taking away any one of those clauses and not making things worse. If I were to become mentally ill (as any of us can) AND that illness made me dangerous i would want others to be protected from me until I got better. I’m sure Andrea Yates wishes somebody had committed her. I certainly do NOT believe that everyone with a given disorder should be hospitalized.

And God knows our problem these days is mostly the opposite - people who want and/or need treatment can’t get beds or are kicked out too early because nobody wants to pay for it.

206

Jung was not an anthropologist. And Smashy’s original claim was that most anthropolitists agreed with his rather odd views. Of course, he never provided anything to back that up and did pull a bait and switch by trying to change the subject.

And as Smash has gotten quite a few claims wrong about cites he’s given (as well as unquoted cites he’s suggested), it’s certainly worth while to find out if Jung ever said any such thing as is being claimed. Much like Foucault actually felt he had to specifically rebut the spurious bull that people like Smash were using his work to sell, Jung actually described schizophrenia as “drowning” while attempting to make sub-conscious connections between disparate elements was “diving”.

You can believe Smash’s claims, despite the authors of his own cites denying what Smash claims they said, but others (say, “debunkers”) would be well served by demanding to see the exact quotes and realizing what’s really going on when Smash just so happens to refuse to give (yet another) cite for yet another one of his claim’s that’s gainsaid by all available evidence.

Fallacy of hasty generalization.
Fallacy of anecdote.
Fallacy of begging the question.
Fallacy of cum hoc ergo proper hoc…
I could go on.

Yet again, if you want to argue that geniuses aren’t geniuses in spite of but instead because of these mental conditions, then you need to provide the research for that. Fortunately enough, you just have to use “debunking” “materialism” and, ya know, proper epistemology to do that.
As long as you don’t deliberately disarm yourself of those useful mental tools first, that is.

Nooooo, get outa town!
Next you’re going to tell me that this board is about fighting ignorance.

207

That’s a false analogy. There’s no evidence that simply being male causes one to be more violent. There is, on other hand, evidence that conditions like paranoid schizophrenia can (in some forms) cause one to have paranoid delusions.

208

Ignorance takes many forms, including that of refusing to be open to the possibility that what you KNOW might be mistaken. IMO science is not about dogma and violently debunking anything not in the current scriptures, but about the open and un-biased examination of reality.

Jung was NOT, by profession, an anthropologist, but he was very informed on the area and drew much from that knowledge. I’ve read his stuff, and my POINT was not some specific quotation but the general dismissal made of him as a “flake”, lumped in with others the poster considered such. Overall, his work supports the OP’s basic points, as anyone who’d actually read and studied and understood it would realize.

You can resort to all the college textbook “logic” you need in order to support your weak argument, but I hardly think my mention of 2 well documented, successful schizophrenics can be defined as either a resort to “anecdote” or “hasty generalization”. I won’t even bother with the other crap you raise, as it is equally moot…good for you that you can point such stuff out in a crowd and maybe it will earn you some passing grades, but this is the real world, so be real. Respond sincerely, not with overblown intellectual hyperbole…tell me WHY my “cite” of those 2 individuals, both diagnosed with schizophrenia and easily confirmed as such, is irrelevant to the discussion. :dubious:

Your panties seem to be in quite the knot. (cite?:p)

209

Shall I add strawman to the list of fallacies?
Show me anybody, at all, who has claimed that the epistemology of science (or anything else for that matter) yields perfect and irrefutable knowledge.

Duh.
But a good indicator of woo is that its proponents claim that the epistemological valid criticisms and “materialistic” debunking of their nonsense means that someone is worshiping science like a religion or is following dogma or enslaved to the status quo, or what have you. It’s a fairly well observable pattern. Beaten on the facts and the logic, you then claim that you’re just being debunked because your mistakes aren’t in accord with “scripture”.

Bull.
But congrats for an update of the tired old “If you don’t agree with my claims then obviously you couldn’t have read my post or the cites I offered!”
I’ve already established that Jung did not, in fact, believe that schizophrenia was an enhanced mode of functioning, but more like “drowning” where stream of consciousness wordplay was more like “diving”. Nor am I aware that Jung ever, anywhere, supported the view that all the shamans of the past were schizophrenic.

Instead of your base assertions, why don’t you provide some quotes that you claim back up your position, since rather obviously Smash isn’t going to do that any time soon.

Please pay attention. By pointing out that your argument is based on fallacious reasoning, I’ve shown that yours is weak. And as the burden of proof lies on you, I really don’t have to do much else.
That you put the word ‘logic’ in hard quotes doesn’t speak all that well of your argument either.
That you understand neither the fallacy of anecdote nor hasty generalization is rather obvious as well and at least strongly suggests that your argument won’t get past them any time soon.

So, in other words, it too eviscerates your rhetoric and you’d prefer to dismiss it. Without engaging with or understanding it.

I will sincerely respond that you need to educate yourself, discover what proper logic is and what separates it from fallacious logic and stop acting as if willfully remaining ignorant of epistemology is some sort of virtue of yours.

I just did.
Just because you don’t understand what the fallacies of anecdote, hasty generlization, cum hoc, etc… are doesn’t mean I didn’t already tell you why your argument sucks.
I told you. Quite clearly. You’re just spending a lot of energy to resist understanding.

210

I dunno about that. If maleness increases murder rate by 1000% I have to assume there’s something causative there. Too much testosterone or something in the brain.

But hello? that was my point. That is precisely why you can’t rely on just a statistical association to discriminate against a group - which was exactly what you were arguing for with schizophrenia. If you can’t do it for gender, you can’t do it for schizophrenia. You have to show something more than just numbers.

If you’re now switching to saying that “persecutory delusions” are really the risk you had in mind (which is basically what you’re doing), then you’re back on firmer ground. Then I suppose we can exempt schizophrenics who think they’re Jesus come to heal the world from the lower bar?

No, what you really want to is do it the way we’re supposed do it now: case-by-case evaluations of risk, not discrimination of an entire group based on diagnoses and raw statistics.

211

Don’t “but hello” me if you won’t even accurately describe my argument.

I’m not switching anything. Please respond to what I’ve actually said rather than posting a strawman and claiming victory when you beat some straw out of it.

Should I assume that the rest of your responses are going to have as little to do with what I’ve actually said? Feel free to invent some more positions, claim that I hold them, and declare yourself Teh Winnuh when you that some things I never said happen not to be things I should argue.

212

Nash is considered a genius for his embedding theorems and what he did with parabolic PDEs, not for his beliefs that men in red ties were chasing him, nor for scribbling things like “CHAIRMAN MAO’s CIRCUMCISION OCCURRED 6 mon., 6 weeks, 6 days AFTER King David DEFEATED CHIANG KAI-SHEK” on blackboards in Fine Hall, (tho I’m sure Smash could spin this to show he was imparting some great truth). He did the work that made him famous, and then he started suffering from delusions of grandeur and persecution in '59, started hearing voices in '64, and didn’t come back to society until the early nineties.
While it is true that Nash does not currently take drugs, he has said that it takes force of will, like a dieter resisting the temptation to snack, to avoid falling into paranoia. In A Beautiful Mind, he states that that whole common sense and rationality dealie that you pooh-pooh when it points out obvious holes in your arguments is presicely what got him back to doing what he loves, rather than running away from anyone he knows and writing them disturbing messages on postcards.

(ETA: discussion went in another direction while I was writing. Meant for conversation a few posts back.)

213

Finn, to review -

you had a sound argument until you nutshelled it by quoting:

I quoted that and said - no you can’t base it just on a statistical association because - all sorts of groups, men being the most obvious, would then fall into that category.

You said basically: no, maleness isn’t a cause, paranoid delusions are a cause.

Which hello? was my point.

214

Or to expand further. Your nutshell doesn’t work, because you could plug in “maleness” or “ethnicity” into the “diagnostic label” with a statistical association with violence. You have to add something to your nutshell to keep it from being a bludgeon to discriminate against random groups you don’t like.

215

I said that if there was a valid diagnostic label (as proven by statistical analysis) that the bar would then be lower. But the point is that you still need to analyze the individual cases, simply with a lower bar. And no, you have in fact not shown that testosterone is in any way, shape, or form fungible with full blown mental illness.

Now, if you want to conduct the research that proves that X concentration of testosterone coupled with Y and Z other chemicals/factors leads to an increased level of violence, then go ahead. If you’ve got that data, you can even conclude that men with such chemistry who act in a threatening behavior can be slapped with restraining orders more easily than someone without a history of violence who might engage in the same behavior.

Quit the “which hello?” stuff, it’s annoying and silly.
And quit this nonsense about how I’m using diagnostics as a “bludgeon” against “people I don’t like”. I was very clear in my statement that people should in fact not be forcibly medicated/institutionalized simply for having anything other than a full-blown case which required treatment (again, as to be determined via valid statistical analysis)

And that’s what I’ve been saying.
What I have said is:

You cannot have a ‘case by case analysis’ without the analysts knowing where the threshold lies. “Well, that seems a bit nutty to me.” is not a good line of demarcation. You need to be able to know what sort of delusion you’re dealing with. Does it respond well to medicine? Is some relaxation all that’s required? Is there no way to deal with it and, like serial killers, they need to be locked up for their own (and everybody else’s) good? Does the complex of symptoms that come along with that pattern of delusion have other effects? Can we make a reasonably sound judgment that someone who thinks his neighbors are trying to poison him will try to harm them or only if he also says that they’re trying to poison him but he’s come up with a way to stop them? Etc, etc, etc.

216

Quote:
Originally Posted by InterestedObserver
Ignorance takes many forms, including that of refusing to be open to the possibility that what you KNOW might be mistaken.

*You can, if you choose, but the “strawman” rebuttal is pretty lame and overused…think it needs a re-stuffing.

Why should I be required to show you anything in support of my self-evident observation that science is imperfect or infallible? WTF? Is this something which requires proof? Really? And many here beat the drum of SCIENCE as we know it to death, w/o regard to the possibility that what we know today could very well prove to be as false as what we thought we knew 100 yrs ago.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InterestedObserver
IMO science is not about dogma and violently debunking anything not in the current scriptures, but about the open and un-biased examination of reality.

*Duh.
But a good indicator of woo is that its proponents claim that the epistemological valid criticisms and “materialistic” debunking of their nonsense means that someone is worshiping science like a religion or is following dogma or enslaved to the status quo, or what have you. It’s a fairly well observable pattern. Beaten on the facts and the logic, you then claim that you’re just being debunked because your mistakes aren’t in accord with “scripture”. *
And YOU are relying on the argument that those who don’t toe the official science party line YOU worship are “Woo” :rolleyes: That THEY are somehow enslaved by some weird belief system devoid of logic and reason. It’s a a very observable pattern, and one that inhibits the advance of science as much or more than those you malign.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InterestedObserver
Overall, his work supports the OP’s basic points, as anyone who’d actually read and studied and understood it would realize.

**Bull.
But congrats for an update of the tired old “If you don’t agree with my claims then obviously you couldn’t have read my post or the cites I offered!”
I’ve already established that Jung did not, in fact, believe that schizophrenia was an enhanced mode of functioning, but more like “drowning” where stream of consciousness wordplay was more like “diving”. Nor am I aware that Jung ever, anywhere, supported the view that all the shamans of the past were schizophrenic. *Instead of your base assertions, why don’t you provide some quotes that you claim back up your position, since rather obviously Smash isn’t going to do that any time soon. *As I said, I refer to the basic gist of Jung’s work, which acknowledged a metaphysical aspect to Human existance, and the possibilty that our experiences held more meaning than simple brain farts. (something I suspect you reject out of hand).

Why don’t YOU provide some quotes in support of YOUR arguments? Since it seems you are the one arguing about Jung, not me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InterestedObserver
You can resort to all the college textbook “logic” you need in order to support your weak argument, but I hardly think my mention of 2 well documented, successful schizophrenics can be defined as either a resort to “anecdote” or “hasty generalization”.

[*

Fuck you very much. (see? I AM paying attention :p) *OK, so WHY, exactly, does the burden of proof lie on ME? I already provided more than sufficient support for my comments re’ John Nash and Daniel Johnston, both well documented, diagnosed schizophrenics who, despite (and/or perhaps because of) their “mental illness”, achieved great things in their respective fields. It was simply an observation with a speculation included, not some bold, radical, unprovable assertation requiring PROOF.

What, exactly, do you think I am required to PROVE wrt these comments? :confused: Do you doubt their existence? Their diagnosis? Their achievements? WHAT? “Anecdotal” refers to a personal account not substantiated by any other “official” verification. A “generalization” implies some sweeping statement including an entire group, whereas I merely mentioned 2 individuals who happen to belong to a certain group. What IS your point? (guess I am too “ignorant” to grasp it :rolleyes:)
Quote:
Originally Posted by InterestedObserver
I won’t even bother with the other crap you raise, as it is equally moot

*So, in other words, it too eviscerates your rhetoric and you’d prefer to dismiss it. Without engaging with or understanding it. *Just because I don’t agree does not mean I don’t understand. Again, exactly what proof/evidence/cites are you seeking in support of YOUR rhetoric? I suggest you find and post it instead of demanding it of me, since YOU are the one arguing with the obvious.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InterestedObserver
Respond sincerely, not with overblown intellectual hyperbole

*I will sincerely respond that you need to educate yourself, discover what proper logic is and what separates it from fallacious logic and stop acting as if willfully remaining ignorant of epistemology is some sort of virtue of yours. *See above.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InterestedObserver
…tell me WHY my “cite” of those 2 individuals, both diagnosed with schizophrenia and easily confirmed as such, is irrelevant to the discussion.

*I just did.
Just because you don’t understand what the fallacies of anecdote, hasty generlization, cum hoc, etc… are doesn’t mean I didn’t already tell you why your argument sucks.
I told you. Quite clearly. You’re just spending a lot of energy to resist understanding. *Talk about spending a lot of energy to resist understanding. :smack: I just love this pompous attitude…if only you were only intelligent enough to understand my argument, you would AGREE with me! :stuck_out_tongue: Get over it. (and yourself…everyone else has :rolleyes:)

217

InterestedObserver and FinnAgain, ratchet down the heat.

No one is impressed by the insults, old and tired as they are.

[ /Moderating ]

218

I accept maleness as a comparable point on the increased risk spectrum and point out that indeed being male results in less leniency within the criminal justice system relative to being female. The bar is set differently. In particular I think this makes most sense when considering probation (how long rights should be withdrawn): recidivism rates for the population should be considered; given that males are more likely to violently offend again, they should get probation later than females do.

Still, maleness is a far cry from what I was considering as my hypothetical. I was imagining a much higher risk than that. Hell, for the purposes of discussion let’s take the absurd extreme. You know with 100% certainty that a particular individual will commit a violent crime if unfettered (as in Minority Report); is limiting that individual’s rights (not anticipatory punishment, but “fettering” him or her, perhaps medication, perhaps monitoring them closely, whatever) justifiable? How about 90% certainty? 50%? I think most of us would agree that the first case justifies significant “fettering” and that decreased risk justifies less, even if we disagree what the exact relationship between them should be.

219

How would such a system be implemented without a high likelihood of subjecting individuals to unfair discriminatory treatment on the basis of arbitrarily recognized categories that they happen to fall into? Especially categories historically (and presently) known to be subject to categorical discrimination and discriminatory attitudes?

Your hypothetical individual: how, exactly, do I know with 100% certainty what this person will do if unfettered? In real life isn’t it 100% true that I might be wrong, and that I’m trading off that risk of being wrong against the certainty of intruding upon this individual’s freedoms?

I’ll do a hypothetical back at you by way of formulating an answer. Let’s pretend I have an actual mind reading machine. It can pick up people’s thoughts, including emotional content and images and memories and so on. If my machine tells me that Person X has specific plans to stave in someone’s head with a brick at the first opportunity, I’d be inclined to support involuntary restrictions to stop him. If my machine tells me that Person X has vivid images of staving in someone’s head with a lot of attached emotional satisfaction, and that they harbor a lot of rage overall, I would NOT.

The entire modality of our criminal justice system has limitations in what it can do. Perhaps scrapping it altogether and formulating an alternative not based on imposing sanctions for the violations of law or on coercion at all, but instead on communication and conflict resolution, would better lend itself to solutions to this kind of problem, but that would be an entirely different debate.

For now, we have a system designed to be fair, intended to stop crime by reacting to crimes committed with suspension of the violator’s range of motion and imposing some punishments as deterrents. The link you provided shows that women in fact do receive more lenient treatment in sentencing and probation, but it is not implemented as policy and many would argue that justice should be blind to any such considerations. Let the punishment fit the crime. Not let the punishment fit the criminal.

Crime PREVENTION is supposed to step carefully, with an overarching instruction to defer to citizen’s rights except where compellingly good reason exists for imposing restrictions. We have little tolerance for infringements on our right to do pretty much anything we want to do based on what somebody else thinks MIGHT be the unfortunate outcome. And rightly so. Restrictions of that nature that we do have were mostly imposed on outgroups, so that mainstream & more powerfully connected groups perceived the restriction in terms of THEIR (not OUR) freedoms because of what THEY (not WE) might do. That’s not fair. That’s not good. Such laws are not defensible, and while I’m sure there would be societal support for laws that would restrict schizophrenics’ rights based on what we might do, implementing such laws is an immoral act.

220

I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask for a citation for a wild claim like that. :smiley: