[ExI] addiction p.s.

[William Flynn Wallace]

No, nothing special about disagreement about a concept, except for the
people who need help and may not be getting it because of how a concept is
or is not applied to them.  bill w

On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 6:31 PM Dan Ust via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> My point remains though: there’s nothing special about disagreement in
> this area save its impact on policy and public attitudes. I mean there are
> disagreements over what a concept is, what a word is, what matter is, etc.
>
> I agree there’s another problem with behavioral and mental health issues
> in that social appropriateness and ideology often impinge much more heavily
> than, say, on things like defining what a concept or what a planet is. But
> that goes for more concepts than just addiction — as you note.
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>    Sample my Kindle books at:
>
> http://author.to/DanUst
>
> On Jan 10, 2020, at 1:58 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> 
> I am quite sure that government agencies, for one, have definitions of
> addiction they are forced to use. In medical areas one must have a
> diagnosis before you can assign a treatment.  That doesn't make any of them
> the only one, the best one, and so on.  You could probably accurately say
> this about any mental health diagnosis - they change over time.  Not only
> that, but the words used are changed, like from 'mental retardation' (which
> itself was a change from 'idiot, imbecile, moron') to 'developmental
> dysfunction' or something like that.   bill
>
> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 3:12 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> I’m not sure that’s so. That there’s contention over an idea doesn’t mean
>> one can’t offer up a working definition or even stipulate one. I hardly
>> think there’s any field where this isn’t some disagreement about concepts,
>> including basic ones. Further, I imagine the bigger problems here arise
>> because “addiction” has policy implications and matters in public debates.
>> And the term has entered common everyday use, which further complicates
>> things. (The definition of esoteric subject matter can be contentious, but
>> most times those debates stay within small circles of interested folks.)
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Dan
>>    Sample my Kindle books at:
>>
>> http://author.to/DanUst
>>
>> On Jan 10, 2020, at 12:31 PM, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>> 
>> There is no one definition of any kind of addiction.  If there were,
>> there would be no fights over whether you can be addicted to sex, gambling,
>> shopping, video games, and so on.
>>
>> Certainly some of the those people, maybe all of them, need some form of
>> therapy, but to call it addiction is another thing.
>>
>> bill w
>>
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