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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38489 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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He was a paranoid schitzophrenic who murdered innocent people. He's hardly worth lionizing.

Having read his manifesto, I find it hard to imagine a schizophrenic could write that lucidly, and express his points so clearly and concisely. I find him much more lucid, direct and less prone to digression than e.g. Curtis Yarvin or Eliezer Yudkowsky. His defense attorney thought that pleading insanity was his best chance, but he refused to do so, despite knowing full well he'd probably be treated better in an institution than in a prison. You think he shouldn't be lionized, fair enough, but I don't think there's good evidence to suggest he was a madman.

Paranoid schitzophrenia was the official diagnosis of the psychiatrist who interviewed him post-arrest.

ETA Sourcing: https://harbor.klnpa.org/california/islandora/object/cali%3A1205

Fair enough, but see also Wikipedia:

Forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz said Kaczynski was not psychotic but had a schizoid or schizotypal personality disorder.[119] In his 2010 book Technological Slavery, Kaczynski said that two prison psychologists who visited him frequently for four years told him they saw no indication that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and the diagnosis was "ridiculous" and a "political diagnosis".[120] Some contemporary authors suggested that multiple people, most notably Kaczynski's brother and mother, purposely spread the image of Kaczynski as mentally ill with the aim to save him from execution.[121]

It seems like a controversial diagnosis even within the psychiatric community. I'd say either he wasn't schizophrenic, or he's the most lucid and clear-minded schizophrenic in the history of the diagnosis.

Doesn’t he have an IQ of like 183? Seems like a relevant variable to that last bit.

167, per the New York Times's obituary.

I mean, that’s still really, really high, and the sort of thing that seems relevant to him being oddly clear minded for a schizophrenic.

Yeah, 167 is off the charts.

As so often happens, you're both right.

Bingo,

There's nothing inherently contradictory about being a brilliant writer and also being a paranoid schitzophrenic or murderer.

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