no, me too

Thanks (I think) for adding this new and exciting term to my vocabulary. I'm torn between thinking these folks must be attention seeking or looking for a way to get disability payments--but I suspect that there are some truly troubled individuals out there, in need of medication and counseling, who will get a hug and a ton of "understanding" while they sharpen their saws.

My view is let them do whatever they wish to themselves so long as no one but them has to pay for it, or support them after it.

If we are paying for it as a society that is where the problem lies, not in letting people mutilate themselves in some way. If they had to pay for it and still had to get their bread through their own sweat, tears and blood this would not be happening.

I want to sit around and eat donuts all day, hundreds of them. I want you to pay for it, too. I have a problem. Don't be a hater.

I do love donuts...down to about one every few months now...

Do it.

Yeah, that doesn't really fit my description. Funny story, though! I don't get the young people with the mangled, opened ear lobes. Grosses me out. That's just me, though.

It seems to me to be neurotic at best, and, at
worst, downright evil; a sort of masochistic eleva-
tion of deformity over healthiness. Someone who
deliberately does this to himself (absent an emer-
gency, such as cutting off his own leg to escape
from a burning car) does not deserve any help
in his disability (unless he does it out of some
kind of insanity).One sympathizes with the
Hunchback of Notre-Dame; but then, he did not
ask to be that way. I would have much preferred
not to have epilepsy.

Well they have special gifts for white elephants so it's practically a holiday of their own (probably more widely celebrated than festivus). But the PC term probably would be elephants-of-pallor. Of course, I'm turning into a gray bull elephant. We are pretty much the oppressors of everyone else in the elephant world. Except for Babbar. He's pretty nice.

Yes, my opinion is this is pathological and not normal.

But, no, I do not think that it is anyone's business except that of the person handicapping themselves - as long as (as LetsShrug says) we do not have to pay for their self-mutilation hobby.

This is not just a modern phenomenon - self mutilation has been part of society for millennia (Ceres - self-castration). So perhaps there have always been outliers who felt this way about themselves.

The trouble with not-accepting these people's right to self-mutilate is that anything that regulates them may effect the ability of people to have trans-human changes made to themselves. For example, I have sometimes toyed with the idea of having a bodymod: a tiny magnet inserted into the tip of one of the fingers on my left hand. This allows you to 'feel' magnetic currents - you can, for example, tell if an electrical cord is live or not just by passing your hand over it.

So I would ignore these people and let them sort it out with their loved ones, shrinks, and consciences. But I would not pay them a cent or grant them any handicapped status.

Jan

To the best of my knowledge, pierced ears do not handicap a person...

Jan

Clearly you meant to say elephants-of-pallor...

The most useless appendage that should be removed is the one on their shoulders. Totally dead wood.

Except for white elephants. People like those. They are so pachy-racist.

You'll be lonely, though. Everyone ignores the elephant in the room...

Imagine if the "transabled" redirected their determination and skills toward more fruitful endeavors, like entrepreneurship.

I believe that the tossing away of "spare the rod, spoil the child" philosophy has had a significant impact on the development of real adults. We've now had a few decades to notice the difference.

Normalcy aka normality aka Warren G. Harding allusion to WWI combat veterans returning from war to peacetime and to "normal" occupations as farmers, businessmen, etc. I found no reference to psychological standards of normalcy except by abnormality. One wonders, however, about PTSD aka shell-shock and if that has become a normalcy rather than an abnormality, and if transgender-ites and "transabilitites" are being integrated into normalcy. Miss Rand was adamant when she stated that words have an exact meaning (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, lecture series, NYC, 1970). If Harding's concept is to be applied to psychology, then I submit that proposed standards should be advanced and defined in Oxford, Webster, and/or Wikipedia. I don't agree with Technocracy that the concept is vague and tenuous -- I think it can be readily defined in terms of values, and the boundaries of what is rational and irrational. I agree that normalcy might exclude moochers but some would argue that that is no longer the norm (sic).
[BTW, is the prefix "trans" being used to imply transitional, transitory, transfer, a state of change (aka transObama)...]

If you want to define "normalcy" from an Objectivist standpoint, I would posit this:

"Objectivism defines normalcy as actions that lead to the furthering of individual achievement, individual productivity, individual rights, and logical thought. Actions which lead to restrictions upon individual achievement, individual productivity, individual rights, or logical thought are to be vigorously opposed."

These people need mental help. And doubly so if they expect the rest of us to pay for their choices.

Here's my argument: if you are intentionally seeking looter status, you need mental help. If you don't want to be a participant in productive society and seek to disable yourself either mentally or physically, you also choose to allow the rest of us to completely ignore you. I'm not against voluntarily helping people (of my own free will - NOT through taxation) who have _temporarily_ fallen on hard times. I draw the line at condoning this kind of willful act in ANY form.

LS: can't put it better than you did.

I could only stomach the article once (and I want to keep my stomach): did it say whether these people are now eligible for public disability payments?

My guess is yes, and by today's standards, they can double dip: for both physical and mental disability...

There are some very gruesome mental disorders, but this one's near the top of the list. I don't really care what body parts a person chooses to cut off of themselves, long as I don't have to pay for it. But, I do.

Glad I scanned all comments...was going to post an identical solution...

no pierced ears even? my daughter wanted pierced ears. she was 9. I had to wait until I was 13 and then-my parents made me go to the doctor to do it-not a potato behind the ear or the mall. anyway, she begged and I relented. we go to the mall and after the first one was done she started screaming and crying-why did YOU let me do this???!!! she refused to get the other side done. LOL

excellent, snezzy. Gates, Buffet are two I can think of with that complex. Problem is-they want others to be transfunded against their wishes. reminds me of that Twilight zone where everyone on their 18th birthday had to choose to look like three different types of people

LOL