Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

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Oh this is interesting, somebody just posted the same article wrt the mental health issue in Vancouver that I linked to above. My guess is the plussers are going to attack the source as being "right wing MSM" ....even if the article was written by a female PoC.
 
Stout said:
...luckily for us, the disruptive behavior went away all on it's own. At least it's gone away for now, it's been 6 months and there's been nothing that's indicative of anything other than boredom.

Whew...
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Very nice! I admit, though, if a medication came around that might help our son I'd be very tempted...well, I'd read everything published about it, anyway, and go from there. If TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) gets into a serious clinical trial soon we'd see about getting our son into that study. (So far that work has been with verbal autists and has been on the pilot-study scale, unless I've missed something, which is possible...initial results showed a reduction in stimming...)

We did fight over GCF diet. We compromised on checking for celiac disease...he doesn't have it => not doing gluten free.
 
Diogenes said:
Very nice! I admit, though, if a medication came around that might help our son I'd be very tempted...well, I'd read everything published about it, anyway, and go from there. If TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) gets into a serious clinical trial soon we'd see about getting our son into that study. (So far that work has been with verbal autists and has been on the pilot-study scale, unless I've missed something, which is possible...initial results showed a reduction in stimming...)

We did fight over GCF diet. We compromised on checking for celiac disease...he doesn't have it => not doing gluten free.
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Cheers, yes we "dodged a bullet there" The pediatrician was talking Ritalin, something my next door neighbours eventually had to use on their son and when we compare the two boys, the neighbours son was way more "volatile" on a day to day basis than our son was.

I'd do my research on any proposed course of treatment as well however, I must admit a lot of the specifics are over my head when it comes to medicine.

My seven year old nephew has been diagnosed with autism and been kicked out of school for aggressive behaviour. I'm not up on the specifics of his situation as he and his family don't live locally. He's been allowed back into school as long as his parents pay for what amounts to a full time minder. Luckily, they can afford it.
 
Stout said:
...He's been allowed back into school as long as his parents pay for what amounts to a full time minder. Luckily, they can afford it.
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We're fortunate to be able to afford the private, non-profit school here that specializes in autism treatment.
 
Atwill said:
When FTB had their ConScience web conferences, one of the speakers was high-functioning autistic (with a very long clinical history, so no self-diagnosis here), and she took huge offense to the notion of treating children with autism spectrum disorders, making the case that her form of autism is something more akin to a personality quirk that shouldn't be classified as a disease.
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My 9 year old son's diagnosis is Aspergers (or autism spectrum now as pointed out) and ADHD, he's very high functioning.

That's awesome though I'll tell him, he who doesn't get invited to any birthday parties anymore, who has been disallowed to play with most kids on our street by parents (who don't even talk to us), who has been kicked out of every after school care program, every summer camp, and every team or group activity that we have ever tried (and there is a LONG list, AND we get an aide for all of them), who had the behavioural therapy suspended due to WCB rules, that it's just a quirk.

I'll let my wife know it's just a quirk too, maybe it'll repair all the damage our marriage has sustained, and the anguish we both go through.

Diogenes said:
Very nice! I admit, though, if a medication came around that might help our son I'd be very tempted...well, I'd read everything published about it, anyway, and go from there.
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None of the people involved with my kid have suggested medication be a single solution, but always that it be used in concert with other things (behaviour therapy, etc). Sometimes it is short term, something to buy time to allow the therapy to do its work and rewire or introduce behaviour patterns.

And the nice thing about medication is that it is temporary, if it doesn't work, or has unintended side effects, it can be discontinued. I agree I usually do a lot of reading about any medication that is recommended to us but I usually am willing to give it a try.

Diogenes said:
We did fight over GCF diet. We compromised on checking for celiac disease...he doesn't have it => not doing gluten free.
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Ha, we just got referred (finally) to one of the best child psychiatrists in our area (apparently), and she specifically asked us about this, I said I didn't know of anything to support such a diet making a difference in my kid's type of situation and she agreed.

Stout said:
My seven year old nephew has been diagnosed with autism and been kicked out of school for aggressive behaviour. I'm not up on the specifics of his situation as he and his family don't live locally. He's been allowed back into school as long as his parents pay for what amounts to a full time minder. Luckily, they can afford it.
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That sucks, where I am the school district "has" to provide an education, they can't refuse based on a disability, even if that disability has aggressive behaviour as a result. Even in a complete worst case scenario I think they would have to basically home school my kid, working towards reintegration, they can't say "don't come back".

Diogenes said:
We're fortunate to be able to afford the private, non-profit school here that specializes in autism treatment.
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Yeah my son was in something like that for a while, he was starting to really have difficulty there because it was too much geared towards the lower functioning kids, really not challenging academically. We switched to public but the behaviours side of things really got out of hand at the end of last year.. so this year we thought about going back, but our initial consult with the psychiatrist we got referred to said too many changes would probably help vs. hurt. It's a very hard decision.
 
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temporalillusion said:
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Yeah my son was in something like that for a while, he was starting to really have difficulty there because it was too much geared towards the lower functioning kids, really not challenging academically. We switched to public but the behaviours side of things really got out of hand at the end of last year.. so this year we thought about going back, but our initial consult with the psychiatrist we got referred to said too many changes would probably help vs. hurt. It's a very hard decision.
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That sounds like a rough line to ride. My son's school appears to do a good job covering most of the spectrum, at least I see kids that seem to be VHF/Aspies. (self-edited to delete going on about my own kid...more than I already have, that is)
 
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temporalillusion said:
None of the people involved with my kid have suggested medication be a single solution, but always that it be used in concert with other things (behaviour therapy, etc). Sometimes it is short term, something to buy time to allow the therapy to do its work and rewire or introduce behaviour patterns.
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Hear hear. ASD symptoms typically include anxiety disorder as well, and medication to treat anxiety is a great help in enabling treatment for other aspects of the disorder. Since the anxiety is as much situational, temporary medicating for it will help alleviate one of the biggest road blocks to productive therapy.

That sucks, where I am the school district "has" to provide an education, they can't refuse based on a disability, even if that disability has aggressive behaviour as a result. Even in a complete worst case scenario I think they would have to basically home school my kid, working towards reintegration, they can't say "don't come back".
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Unfortunately, what a school district is legally required to do, and what their actual practice is, can often be two very different things. And it takes someone with a considerable amount of money to go through the legal hassles of getting them to abide by the law.

Ha, we just got referred (finally) to one of the best child psychiatrists in our area (apparently), and she specifically asked us about this, I said I didn't know of anything to support such a diet making a difference in my kid's type of situation and she agreed.
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Digestive system disorders are frequently co-morbid with ASDs. I would not rule out the possibility that there is something of the sort exacerbating his difficulties.
 
ApostateltsopA said:
The heck?

How is blocking someone hitting them? You are calling the people on the block bot list victims now?
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People on the block bot list ARE victims, did you not see the BBC Newsnight story about it? Did you not see people's names appear on screen and people being called abusers based on arbitrary criteria decided by a small group? This is actual harm to people's reputations.
 
Kochanski said:
People on the block bot list ARE victims, did you not see the BBC Newsnight story about it? Did you not see people's names appear on screen and people being called abusers based on arbitrary criteria decided by a small group? This is actual harm to people's reputations.
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Quite.

While there is no doubt in my mind that a number of them are horrible, horrible trolls, sexists, and even rape apologists, that doesn't mean all of them are.
 
I don't know who poster e4e5 is over on A+ but I take my hat off to him/her for some fine skepticism and critical thinking over on their mental health in Vancouver thread.

Not only did e4e5 dispel their assumptions that he/she was posting from an abelist perspective but he/she also exposed the chemgeek blatantly making things up as well.

Keep in mind though, this is just the city of Vancouver being discussed, the greater Vancouver area is significantly larger.
 
Dawkins was interviewed in the current TIME Magazine where he was asked some FTB/A-plus-typical questions.
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Humes fork said:
Unfortunately it's behind a paywall.:( But yeah I can imagine they go crazy over Dawkins' life history.
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I borrowed back the Time magazine (Sept. 30 2013 issue pp 72) so I could do some fair use quotation:

You write that you were felt up by a master in high school bit it was no big deal back then. Have times changed that much?

It should never have been acceptable, of course, but it was much more normal. And now society has developed a horror of it, and rightfully so. But I think it's important to not be too judgmental of past ages by the standards of ourselves, in the same way we don't condemn George Washington or Thomas Jefferson for having slaves, because that's simply what happened in those days.
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Dawkins has been grouped with rape apologists by the A+/FTB crowd for saying he was uharmed by being felt up in high school.

Are you a fan of evolutionary psychology?

I think it has been unfairly demonized. It makes sense to interpret quite a lot of modern human behavior in terms of out evolutionary past, never forgetting this overlaying by cultural history. But I think it's taken too far when people jump to a cute or ingenious hypothesis for why we do something and then run away with the hypothesis without bothering to test it.
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PZ Myers has bitterly demonized evolutionary psychology on FTB, and the working hypothesis at A+ seems to be that human behavior is 100% nurture and 0% nature.
 
qwints said:
Kochanski, I'm curious what you think about the SPLC's work on hate groups.
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Before going down that road lets not forget that the bot's designed auto-report feature only doesn't work because of rules, not because the designer found it inappropriate to automatically work to try to ban twitter accounts...technical difficulty and ToS violation...no recognition that it would be inappropriate to attempt to unilaterally silence people that don't agree or are "guilty by association". That's far beyond just blocking any given person from your own twitter feed.
 
Kochanski said:
SPLC?

All I know is I ended up as level 2 on blockbot for a reason I have never been told and for anyone who viewed that show and looked at the list I am now an "abuser" as far as they are concerned. I DO NOT APPRECIATE THIS AT ALL.
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Southern Poverty Law Center

In an attempt to go for some kind of false equivalence between the identification of hate groups and people like you and others that are being blocked for either "guilt by association" or that you disagree or something...in their words an "anti-feminist obsessives, who viciously harass those who don’t support their warped views."...approaching a thousand accounts.

qwints appears to be on the verge of a Godwin, though.
 
Diogenes said:
Southern Poverty Law Center

In an attempt to go for some kind of false equivalence between the identification of hate groups and people like you and others that are being blocked for either "guilt by association" or that you disagree or something...in their words an "anti-feminist obsessives, who viciously harass those who don’t support their warped views."...approaching a thousand accounts.

qwints appears to be on the verge of a Godwin, though.
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Gee I guess I am just an evil, evil sister punisher, chill girl rather than an individual who thinks and speaks for herself, as I thought was appropriate for an empowered female.
 
Kochanski said:
Gee I guess I am just an evil, evil sister punisher, chill girl rather than an individual who thinks and speaks for herself, as I thought was appropriate for an empowered female.
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My method might be flawed, but I started my first twitter account and hit "follow" on the lvl 2/3 folks I sort-of recognized to see if I could make the list without ever posting a single tweet....I probably should follow more twitter accounts on the list and see if that results in getting blocked before ever posting anything.
 
Kochanski said:
All I know is I ended up as level 2 on blockbot for a reason I have never been told
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Of course not! If they told, you, that would obviate the all-important "think about what you said and why it got you there" step!
 
As a slight off-tangent, I do have serious problems with SPLC's methods. They (and especially founder Morris Dees) have been repeatedly criticized by other charity groups and charity watchdogs for doing so little while taking in so much money. They also refuse to list hate groups that are left-wing, such as trans exclusive radical feminists.
 
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