That Thread



  • So that SpectateSwamp thread has been going for nearly 4 years now. It's humbling and depressing at the same time.

    Is the Canadian mental health system just like "Well, we can't get you the good anti-psychotics, but here's a copy of Visual Studio and Internet access. You'll know what to do." ??

    If feel like, I dunno, someone, somewhere should be doing something to help the poor guy. Like, isn't this somebody's job? There must be a guy in a cubicle somewhere in British Columbia who's just been playing computer solitaire for the last six years.

    Discuss.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Like, isn't this somebody's job?
     

    I keep wondering whether he's got guidance at home. Maybe he's already in some home. Maybe the nurse(s) think it's safe and good for him to interact on a forum.



  • I don't participate because I think it's cruel. Like kicking and jeering at a dog with three legs.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I don't participate because I think it's cruel. Like kicking and jeering at a dog with twelve legs.

    FTFY



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    So that SpectateSwamp thread has been going for nearly 4 years now. It's humbling and depressing at the same time.

    Is the Canadian mental health system just like "Well, we can't get you the good anti-psychotics, but here's a copy of Visual Studio and Internet access. You'll know what to do." ??

    I've never tried actually reading it more than a page or so, is it wackjob crazy or mental illness crazy?  I mean wackjobs can have an actual mental illness too, but there is a big difference between just having a mental illness and being a wackjob.



  • @locallunatic said:

    I've never tried actually reading it more than a page or so, is it wackjob crazy or mental illness crazy?  I mean wackjobs can have an actual mental illness too, but there is a big difference between just having a mental illness and being a wackjob.

    You really ought to, if you have some serious amounts of free time. I'd say for the most part it's just high-functioning wackjob crazy.

    Read through, make your own call. 



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    So that SpectateSwamp thread has been going for nearly 4 years now. It's humbling and depressing at the same time.

    Is the Canadian mental health system just like "Well, we can't get you the good anti-psychotics, but here's a copy of Visual Studio and Internet access. You'll know what to do." ??

    If feel like, I dunno, someone, somewhere should be doing something to help the poor guy. Like, isn't this somebody's job? There must be a guy in a cubicle somewhere in British Columbia who's just been playing computer solitaire for the last six years.

    Discuss.

    I've glanced at that thread a couple of times and and read a little bit of a couple other threads of his that pre-date this one, but it's just too much weirdness.  I generally like weirdness, bu this is just too much.   I really want to believe that it's just someone with a lot of free time trolling, but even if that was true, keeping it up for that many years is a form of mental illness all by itself.

    Speaking of weirdness. The blog mentioned in this thread no longer exists, which I guess shouldn't be surprising.  That level of crazy is not sustainable.



  • @locallunatic said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    So that SpectateSwamp thread has been going for nearly 4 years now. It's humbling and depressing at the same time.

    Is the Canadian mental health system just like "Well, we can't get you the good anti-psychotics, but here's a copy of Visual Studio and Internet access. You'll know what to do." ??

    I've never tried actually reading it more than a page or so, is it wackjob crazy or mental illness crazy?  I mean wackjobs can have an actual mental illness too, but there is a big difference between just having a mental illness and being a wackjob.

    He's pretty clearly "mental illness crazy". Paranoid schizophrenia. For one, he's been posting on the same topic in the same thread for nearly 4 years, with nary a break. I don't know if he goes into it in the new thread, but before he had a lot of videos that showed what he claimed were UFOs or magic or what-have-you. He also claims he's, like, a shaman or something, and can do magical dances. Normal delusional stuff. He's a pretty big substance abuser, too, IIRC.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I don't participate because I think it's cruel. Like kicking and jeering at a dog with three legs.

    I don't either, for the same reason. The guy's textbook schizo. Like, I'd call a person of normal or above-average intelligence "retarded" when I think they're saying something stupid, but I would never use that word for someone with actual developmental disabilities. By the same token, pointing at the guy with mental illness and calling him "crazy" is cruel. And since the guy actually has problems, he's not going to give up and stop taking the abuse, he's just going to stand there and let people make fun of him as he tries to explain something that makes sense to him.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    I've glanced at that thread a couple of times and and read a little bit of a couple other threads of his that pre-date this one, but it's just too much weirdness.

    Yeah, that "weirdness" is called a psychotic disorder.

    @El_Heffe said:

    I really want to believe that it's just someone with a lot of free time trolling, but even if that was true, keeping it up for that many years is a form of mental illness all by itself.

    Exactly. Even if he isn't quite what he seems, he's still clearly ill.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @locallunatic said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    So that SpectateSwamp thread has been going for nearly 4 years now. It's humbling and depressing at the same time.

    Is the Canadian mental health system just like "Well, we can't get you the good anti-psychotics, but here's a copy of Visual Studio and Internet access. You'll know what to do." ??

    I've never tried actually reading it more than a page or so, is it wackjob crazy or mental illness crazy?  I mean wackjobs can have an actual mental illness too, but there is a big difference between just having a mental illness and being a wackjob.

    He's pretty clearly "mental illness crazy". Paranoid schizophrenia. For one, he's been posting on the same topic in the same thread for nearly 4 years, with nary a break. I don't know if he goes into it in the new thread, but before he had a lot of videos that showed what he claimed were UFOs or magic or what-have-you. He also claims he's, like, a shaman or something, and can do magical dances. Normal delusional stuff. He's a pretty big substance abuser, too, IIRC.

    Hmmm, OK though to be classified as proper psych delusions they both need to be in the face of tons of evidence contrary (things about magic and shamanism are complicated there depending on details, many of the systems that use those terms aren't easy to disprove as you are trying to prove things are a coincidence) and not connected to consumption of substances.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Like, I'd call a person of normal or above-average intelligence "retarded" when I think they're saying something stupid, but I would never use that word for someone with actual developmental disabilities. By the same token, pointing at the guy with mental illness and calling him "crazy" is cruel.

    Depends on the style you do it in; calling attention to something that makes you or someone else be outside of "normal" can be done in many different ways.



  • @locallunatic said:

    (things about magic and shamanism are complicated there depending on details, many of the systems that use those terms aren't easy to disprove as you are trying to prove things are a coincidence)

    Belief that a shadow on a single frame of video is an alien spacecraft or that you have magical powers to do a dance and stop wars is legitimately delusional.

    @locallunatic said:

    ...and not connected to consumption of substances.

    During the delusional state. Plenty of people fry their brains on drugs and end up having delusional states after-the-fact, which are legitimately counted as paranoid schizophrenia. Now it's possible SpectateSwamp has been high every time he's said something crazy, but I doubt it.



  • I was perfectly entertained by his threads until he started calling me "Swamp".  Anyone who's even remotely polite to him becomes "Swamp".  It's like The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.  Why not delete the entire thread for space conservation reasons.



  • @Medezark said:

    Why not delete the entire thread for space conservation reasons.
    I think the general consenus is that deleting the thread might result in his migration to a different thread or forum.  Better to keep it contained in one place.  We know exactly where he is so he's easier to avoid.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    @Medezark said:

    Why not delete the entire thread for space conservation reasons.
    I think the general consenus is that deleting the thread might result in his migration to a different thread or forum.  Better to keep it contained in one place.  We know exactly where he is so he's easier to avoid.

    Yep. Also, CS doesn't let you delete a thread (it just goes to a Deleted Posts forum), so it wouldn't save space unless Alex went into the DB.

    BTW, I consider the fact that he hasn't moved outside of that single thread in 4 years as further proof of his insanity. If he was a mere troll, he would be posting everywhere to get more attention.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    @Medezark said:

    Why not delete the entire thread for space conservation reasons.
    I think the general consenus is that deleting the thread might result in his migration to a different thread or forum.  Better to keep it contained in one place.  We know exactly where he is so he's easier to avoid.

    Yep. Also, CS doesn't let you delete a thread (it just goes to a Deleted Posts forum), so it wouldn't save space unless Alex went into the DB.

    BTW, I consider the fact that he hasn't moved outside of that single thread in 4 years as further proof of his insanity. If he was a mere troll, he would be posting everywhere to get more attention.

    I bow to the superior strategies and knowledge of my superiors.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Yep. Also, CS doesn't let you delete a thread (it just goes to a Deleted Posts forum), so it wouldn't save space unless Alex went into the DB.

    Just to humour me, how many of the threads in the first page of that forum contain "passport" in their title?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Ben L. said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    Yep. Also, CS doesn't let you delete a thread (it just goes to a Deleted Posts forum), so it wouldn't save space unless Alex went into the DB.

    Just to humour me, how many of the threads in the first page of that forum contain "passport" in their title?

    Currently? One.



    TDWTF spam photo cvv.png



  • Don't we still require admin-approval of new accounts? Because I'm curious who approved the "lookathere.please" and "boss.cvv_sell" accounts..



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Don't we still require admin-approval of new accounts?
     

    Not to my knowledge.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Because I'm curious who approved the "lookathere.please" and "boss.cvv_sell" accounts..

    lol i did

     

     


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @dhromed said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Don't we still require admin-approval of new accounts?
     

    Not to my knowledge.

    No. They haven't since around September '11.



  • I don't think so. I think it isn't any kind of illness or a disease; it is just crazy, and you should stop calling crazy a disease. Stop saying that "normal" human isn't disease and everything else is; such a belief would be very wrong and cause more harm than something else. I think he has the right to make all of this crazy stuff, and sometimes a good point will come up (but usually in the entirely wrong way possible). However, I quote: "Insane people have the best ideas. Sometimes."



  • No, he certainly has a disease.



  •  I've been a lurker for a very long time, but I pretty much stuck to sidebar. However, I was pointed towards his thread recently. I actually just finished reading the *entire* thing.

     

    Oh and uhm.. hi.



  • @zzo38 said:

    it is just crazy, and you should stop calling crazy a disease.
     

    You are super wrong. Calling crazy a disease is helpful and constructive to the crazy people because it implies a fixable, curable state, rather than the dismissive, judgmental label "crazy" that causes them to be shunned by the less-crazy, regular folk.



  • @Arashi said:

    I actually just finished reading the *entire* thing.
     

    Do you feel like a richer, wiser human being?



  • @dhromed said:

    @Arashi said:

    I actually just finished reading the *entire* thing.
     

    Do you feel like a richer, wiser human being?

     

     

    I'm pretty sure I hold more promising conversations with my cat.  Sometimes I just want to pretend he's a bot that was unleashed unto the community to learn how to properly interact, but that his codebase is so badly written he just loops instead. I keep waiting for a post saying "Thank you for participating in my experiment, I hope your head didn't explode."

     



  • @dhromed said:

    Calling crazy a disease is helpful and constructive to the crazy people because it implies a fixable, curable state

    Uh, no it doesn't.  Calling something a disease doesn't mean that it is curable, but that it may be treatable which is a world of difference.



  • @PJH said:

    @Ben L. said:
    @morbiuswilters said:
    Yep. Also, CS doesn't let you delete a thread (it just goes to a Deleted Posts forum), so it wouldn't save space unless Alex went into the DB.

    Just to humour me, how many of the threads in the first page of that forum contain "passport" in their title?

    Currently? One.



    TDWTF spam photo cvv.png

    photobucket ruined that image more than Community Server did.



  • @locallunatic said:

    doesn't mean that it is curable, but that it may be treatable
     

    Ok, that's what I meant. Used the wrong word.



  • @zzo38 said:

    I don't think so. I think it isn't any kind of illness or a disease; it is just crazy, and you should stop calling crazy a disease. Stop saying that "normal" human isn't disease and everything else is; such a belief would be very wrong and cause more harm than something else. I think he has the right to make all of this crazy stuff, and sometimes a good point will come up (but usually in the entirely wrong way possible). However, I quote: "Insane people have the best ideas. Sometimes."

    Paranoid schizophrenia is very clearly a mental illness. It's at odds with reality and with society as a whole. It's not merely abnormal or unconventional.



  •  @morbiuswilters said:

    @zzo38 said:
    I don't think so. I think it isn't any kind of illness or a disease; it is just crazy, and you should stop calling crazy a disease. Stop saying that "normal" human isn't disease and everything else is; such a belief would be very wrong and cause more harm than something else. I think he has the right to make all of this crazy stuff, and sometimes a good point will come up (but usually in the entirely wrong way possible). However, I quote: "Insane people have the best ideas. Sometimes."

    Paranoid schizophrenia is very clearly a mental illness. It's at odds with reality and with society as a whole. It's not merely abnormal or unconventional.

     I don't know, he's not quite "there" for Paranoid Schizophrenia. He definitely deserves a tin-foil hat award, though.



  • @Arashi said:

    I don't know, he's not quite "there" for Paranoid Schizophrenia. He definitely deserves a tin-foil hat award, though.

    I'm not going to bother trying to diagnose him, but the point is he has a disease which could probably be controlled if treated properly. Making fun of him on a forum is not helping.

    Look at this guy for example. Similar case. He needs medication, not YouTube videos.



  • Just for the heck of it I took a glance at "that thread" and here are the two most recent posts: @Eternal Density said:

    Here's a novel idea: write a novel. With SSDS.
    Oh great.  Encourage him even more. To which he replies:  @SpectateSwamp said:
    here is a good start.

    So I followed the link.  The file was posted to that website in December 2011.  The content seemed vaguely familiar and a quick search revealed that the content of that file is simply the first few posts that he made here back in February 2007.  Also, for the purposes of that website the "text" file has been converted into some sort of Flash file and you have to pay them if you want to read all of it, download or print it.

    I smell a troll.  A mentaly ill troll, but a troll nonetheless.


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