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The problem regarding putting mentally ill people in asylums is who gets to decide who is mentally ill? I mean that's literally incarcerating people for though

by slg 23d ago

The problem regarding putting mentally ill people in asylums is who gets to decide who is mentally ill? I mean that's literally incarcerating people for thoughtcrime. If people have committed no crime, how can we justify taking away their freedom?

kurthr 23d ago
Yet strangely, we imprison people based on their intent all the time. For years a woman ran around in traffic and was killed by a car to protect her from the state. Nothing could be done? She had to die? https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Castro-homeless-woman-known-for-wandering-into-15783160.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Ca...
thayne 23d ago
Ideally we would have a way for people who can't take care of themselves, or hold a job to be taken care of that isn't effectively putting them in prison. Mental "asylums" that were almost as bad (and sometimes worse) than prisons is clearly bad. But just leaving people to live on the streets or end up in actual prisons isn't strictly better. I'm not saying we should bring back the asylums, at least the way they were, but there should be a better way to take care of people who aren't able to care for themselves.
- fragmede 23d ago
  Bring them back! Yes they were bad and got abused, but not doing them is worse. Bring them back, spend so much money on them that the abuses of the system are monitored tracked reported and fixed and then fire the people who abuse the system. That takes political capital and will that doesn't exist, but the Overton window isn't going to move in its own.
mohamedkoubaa 23d ago
Exactly and once you're in the asylum the doctors can lobotomize and drug you to the point of insanity. People used to abuse the system to get rid of family members they had an inheritance dispute with.
- mock-possum 23d ago
  Also queer kids who refused to pretend to be a good little cishet
cucumber3732842 22d ago
Well, historically we did this by hand waving away all that and just letting some evil system take care of it out of sight out of mind, who cares how the sausage is made if you never see the factory. That's not really an option now since the last people to blindly believe in institutions to that extent are the boomers and it'd be a tough sell to even them.

by slg 23d ago

kurthr 23d ago

Yet strangely, we imprison people based on their intent all the time. For years a woman ran around in traffic and was killed by a car to protect her from the state. Nothing could be done? She had to die? https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Castro-homeless-woman-known-for-wandering-into-15783160.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Ca...

thayne 23d ago

Ideally we would have a way for people who can't take care of themselves, or hold a job to be taken care of that isn't effectively putting them in prison. Mental "asylums" that were almost as bad (and sometimes worse) than prisons is clearly bad. But just leaving people to live on the streets or end up in actual prisons isn't strictly better. I'm not saying we should bring back the asylums, at least the way they were, but there should be a better way to take care of people who aren't able to care for themselves.

fragmede 23d ago
Bring them back! Yes they were bad and got abused, but not doing them is worse. Bring them back, spend so much money on them that the abuses of the system are monitored tracked reported and fixed and then fire the people who abuse the system. That takes political capital and will that doesn't exist, but the Overton window isn't going to move in its own.

mohamedkoubaa 23d ago

Exactly and once you're in the asylum the doctors can lobotomize and drug you to the point of insanity. People used to abuse the system to get rid of family members they had an inheritance dispute with.

mock-possum 23d ago
Also queer kids who refused to pretend to be a good little cishet

cucumber3732842 22d ago

Well, historically we did this by hand waving away all that and just letting some evil system take care of it out of sight out of mind, who cares how the sausage is made if you never see the factory. That's not really an option now since the last people to blindly believe in institutions to that extent are the boomers and it'd be a tough sell to even them.