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Failing at Normal: An ADHD Story

bcglorf says...

The original test I did way back was on a different site that looks shutdown now. On there though it mentioned that it's very similar set of questions was basically pre-screening they would normally do to see if they bother testing you further or not. AKA, if you test 'normal' on this, they stop there. If your result is other than that they would do further tests to confirm a diagnosis.

Technically no matter how high you test on something like this, it's not a diagnosis and I've never done anything further myself. The fact I tested way out on the high end on the test though left me pretty sure further testing would conclude I fall somewhere high functioning, and all the activities done in my youth to help me be more outgoing and less shy all strongly resemble most of the formal treatment methods you see now anyways:
How to cope with x, y, z.
In this social scenario, this is what's going on.
Etc.

newtboy said:

Good link, but where did you see "test further"? I see the range 33-50 indicates significant autism traits, but no suggestions of what to do with that information.

Failing at Normal: An ADHD Story

bcglorf says...

The screening tests are readily available online:
https://psychology-tools.com/autism-spectrum-quotient/

It wasn't till I was married and raising kids that it even occurred to me to check. I was just the notoriously shy kid growing up who would as soon play beside his friends as with them. I took the pre-screening tests though and my score there landed my in not just the range to test further, but the almost certainly going to be on the spectrum.

I've looked more at Aspergers now since and in very, very many ways it looks much like just a more extreme form of the 'male' dominant mind. A greater interest in things than in people. In many ways it's just exactly as the video presenter alludes to. People are just different, and this is a classification of a particular kind of difference. Our differences make some things easier and others harder and such is life.

moonsammy said:

Huh. At 38 I've never really seriously entertained the possibility that I might have ADHD, but this talk certainly gave me pause. Many of the behaviors she describes are something with which I identify, but I'm not certain whether that's because I actually share a set of peculiarities with her or because they are, much like a horoscope, things with which everyone identifies to some degree. If nothing else, I think I need to start looking into what actually defines whether someone has ADHD, and what to do with that knowledge if they do. Thanks for posting this notarobot!

Colbert To Trump: 'Doing Nothing Is Cowardice'

bcglorf says...

Heck, an armed populace is harder to oppress is really all I was ever suggesting on the count of common ground. One point of commonality.

On Rwanda, the genocidal former government of Rwanda kept their arms and just retreated into the Congo jungle. They've basically kept their "freedom" in the process and subsequently no small reason the DRC has been plagued with horrific violent crimes against humanity the last couple decades.

On Kagame I suppose it depends who you ask about being a tyrant or not. Perhaps pragmatic dictator would be the closest a majority of dissenting experts might agree on? That said, make no mistake that supporters of the former regime weren't allowed to remain armed where Kagame had the ability. Because of the genocide the world largely disregarded it, Kagames forces made large numbers of 'violations' of DRC borders raiding for former genocidairres.

newtboy said:

I can rarely agree with a blanket statement, but it I think we do agree that an armed populace is more difficult to oppress, I just contend it doesn't make oppression impossible.

I think people living under the control of warlords would differ and call them oppressive dictators, even if their areas of control might be small.

Yes, but doesn't Rwanda prove my point in a way? The genocidal thugs were armed, yet control was eventually taken from them....although I hope Kagme isn't a tyrant...I honestly don't know about him.

Colbert To Trump: 'Doing Nothing Is Cowardice'

bcglorf says...

Come on, it's ok if we agree on something . Your African examples aren't really oppressive dictatorships, they are collections of failed states or outright anarchy, which I'll readily agree is easily possible with or without a well armed population. If you want to note African examples, when Kagame seized control of Rwanda, he didn't exactly decide to leave the genocidal opponents he cast out open ended gun rights. As is always the case, removing their ability to wage war was kind of prerequisite to his control of the country.

newtboy said:

I'm sorry, but a claim isn't evidence.
There are African countries where there may not be gun rights, but neither are there restrictions, mainly because there's barely government. Armed tyrannical groups have still managed to seize control, even though the populace was moderately well armed. Somalia comes to mind. The same happened repeatedly in central America and South America in the past.

So I disagree it's impossible, but it is more difficult.

Colbert To Trump: 'Doing Nothing Is Cowardice'

bcglorf says...

Let's step back then from arguing against other people's claims.

The claim that tyranny is pretty universally based upon an unarmed civilian population provides at least some real world evidence that civilian armament and freedom have some correlation. Whether that warrants allowing citizen's access to weaponized anthrax and cruise missiles is another matter. Can you agree that a well armed population is incompatible with historical tyranny(Mao, Stalin, Saddam, Gadhafi, the Kim's)?

newtboy said:

You're mistaken. I've heard exactly that suggested by multiple people....not that there's any actual push for disarmament.
No reasonable person suggests that, but people are often unreasonable about this topic.

Colbert To Trump: 'Doing Nothing Is Cowardice'

bcglorf says...

@newtboy and @scheherazade,

I think I may have come up with a shorter line of evidence for a well armed population being protection against tyranny.

Granted, a poorly armed population with strong arms control laws doesn't necessarily devolve into tyranny. We can all demonstrate this with counter examples like up here in Canada. However, can anyone name an oppressive dictatorship that had 2nd amendment level freedoms for every man and woman in their state? I can't think of a single example myself.

As I said before, that doesn't lead me to immediately declare zero restrictions on guns are thus worth any cost to forestall future tyranny. However, I have to acknowledge that the NRA style argument for protection against tyranny isn't entirely without merit.

That leads to my objections with declaring that it is objectively obvious that gun freedoms must morally be pulled back, while at the same time objectively obvious that idealogical/religious practice freedoms must not. We have ample examples of extremists gathering together to plot violence, mayhem and death on a grand scale and putting some extra lines in the sand of when that becomes unacceptable is no more obviously immoral than restricting gun ownership.

Colbert To Trump: 'Doing Nothing Is Cowardice'

bcglorf says...

Here's a Canadian example:

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/aly-hindy-salaheddin-islamic-centre

A mosque who's former founder has gone off to lead a team of Al Qaeda linked suicide bombers in Iraq. The mosque Ohmar Khadr's father brought their family to before relocating them to fight for Bin Laden in Pakistan. The mosque attended by the leaders of the largest terrorist ring Canada has broken up thus far. Other members have gone off to join terrorists in Somalia and Egypt.

The question of should we be setting up some manner of legal accountability for an organization that is clearly idealogically supporting these things isn't a clear and obvious, nope, nothing can be done. At least not any more than nope, nothing can be done is clearly the answer to the Vegas shootings.

Colbert To Trump: 'Doing Nothing Is Cowardice'

bcglorf says...

I don't disagree that weapons don't necessarily make anyone more free. I also can't say people are wrong to observe in a civil war level of unrest, a dissenting party armed with fully automatic weapons has more leverage than one armed with knives.

Freedom to practice religion is not 'fairly safe' without guns, unless you want to ignore attacks with cars, trucks, IEDs, and, historically, civilian airliners.

I am mostly pointing out that restricting laws on gun ownership to protect people is not so terribly different from limiting freedom to practice/express idealogies. It is readily demonstrable that BOTH those freedoms have directly contributed to civilian casualties.

The difference between say, banning automatic weapons, and the banning of affiliation with extremist groups like the KKK or ISIL is mostly divided along partisan lines, logically they are pretty much two sides of the same coin, with democrats and republicans each decrying one as necessary and the other as evil.

newtboy said:

But, without guns, the freedom to practice religion is fairly safe, without religion, guns aren't.

If the Catalonians had automatic weapons in their basements they would be being shot by the police looking for those illegal weapons AND beaten up when unarmed in public. Having weapons hasn't stopped brutality in America, it's exacerbated it. They don't make police respect you, they make you an immediate threat to be stopped.

Colbert To Trump: 'Doing Nothing Is Cowardice'

bcglorf says...

Canadian devil's advocate here.

We've got incredibly strict gun laws up here by comparison to the US. So our country has done the 'more than nothing' on gun laws. 3 days before the LA shooting we had a terror attack up here in Edmonton but the attacker used vehicles and a knife.

If we accept the rationale that current levels of freedom to own guns is leading to higher body counts and that restricting those freedoms will reduce body counts, that rationale is slippery.

Here's the parallel.

If we accept the rationale that current levels of freedom to 'practice religion' is leading to higher body counts then restricting those freedoms will reduce body counts.

Because, the Attacker in Edmonton was a Somali refugee. They had an ISIS flag in their car. The US tried to extradite him before Canada welcomed him with open arms. Canadian police even investigated him before when a co-worker reported him advocating genocidal ideas about Shiite scum.

We had a lot of potential red flags that we could have acted harder on or used for profiling and in this case having him in jail would've prevented the attacks.

The thing is, it is NOT immediately self evident that restricting those freedoms is objectively the best answer.

Personally, banning automatic weapons as my country has seems a very sane thing to do. Countering myself though, would the Catalonians in Spain be getting beaten up for holding a vote if the residents had automatic weapon in their basements or would the police show a little more respect to the citizen's than they did?

PHJF said:

Father of one of the (injured) victims on NPR, when interviewed, took the time to point out he was and will continue to be a 2nd amendment zealot (for there's no other word for these people). He gave a thoughtful comment that one man had affected thousands of lives with his shooting spree. When the interviewer asked the father what he thought about one man having such (fire) power readily available TO ENABLE him to affect so many lives, the father had no response.

This "Bearcat'" Smells Like Popcorn

Calling Turns in the High-Stakes World of Rally Racing

Why Solitary Confinement Needs to Be Banned

Why Solitary Confinement Needs to Be Banned

bcglorf says...

This isn't one of those things you can discuss in isolation. There does exist the problem of violent criminals that refuse to listen to any and all authority. When you have free citizen that murders somebody, if you are lucky enough to catch and convict them they go to jail. Some of these folks continue to violently attack other inmates. Some even continue to violent attack the prison guards when they come in to try and stop that. There comes a point where the question is what to we do? Just how many resources do we expend working with individuals hell bent on abusing the rights and bodies of everyone else around them? Western legal systems have already ruled any form of punishment through physical force as out of the question, so self preservation isn't a motivation. There exist scenarios where the only option left for protecting people from an individual is isolation.

It's good to do our best to treat even the worst elements of society with the highest standard possible. The trouble is in practice failing to punish certain actions with imprisonment or isolation leads to predictable abuse of otherwise innocent bystanders.

Good Role Model Teaching Kids to Work Through Emotional Pain

bcglorf says...

You kinda missed the whole boat when you still think the lesson had anything to do with learning how to punch better or harder. This wasn't a scene from some movie where the kid needs to go on to take out the bully with his fists or win some tournament to save the day. The entire point was about life being hard, and painful and needing to be able to get through that without hiding from it. Breaking a board wasn't at all the important bit.

transmorpher said:

Good role model? More like psychological abuse from a jedi wannabe.

What's the point of this test? To see if the kid can break a board the wrong way?

How about he teaches the kid the correct punching technique first, so that the kid won't break his hand.

Punching has got nothing to do with pain or strength, and all about technique.

Good Role Model Teaching Kids to Work Through Emotional Pain

bcglorf says...

Better men than you disagreed:
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

Red said:

Will make a good slave which have learned to suffer and endure pain uselessly. Dignifying suffering is a road to nothing but more of the same.



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