HN user
I agree that there is something uncanny about this site. I can't tell if I am looking at something genius, like someone describing something real but beyond the limits of my own imagination. Or if I am looking at the work of someone who has gone too far down the rabbit hole.
If this guy survives – which he most certainly will – he is yet another example of someone who has set themselves up with a considerable public profile simply by exploiting our addiction to spectacle. It's not hard to imagine him spinning this into a lucrative career of some sort.
Two points here:
- It's interesting how his academic background in criminology is in an area tangentially related to his own alleged social deviance -- maybe a "call of the void" type deal, in the sense that (anecdotally) some people who have a lifetime academic fixation on particular subject matter eventually reveal that it is somehow linked to their own deviant obsessions with it.
- It's also interesting how many law enforcement agencies there are embedded in the federal government, and how they basically have the same powers as one another. I recall surprise upon learning for the first time that the USPS has its own law enforcement agency back when Steve Bannon was arrested by postal inspectors last year, and am newly surprised to learn that the USFS has an equally well-equipped (in terms of warrant powers) police force.
I'm not very trusting of less scientific advice (as therapy is oft to recommend).
Science can't provide all the answers; in fact the goal of science isn't even to explicitly provide "advice" for anything. It's simply a tool we use to understand the natural world better.
Nor is the goal of therapy to provide advice. You don't go in there, tell them all your problems, and they tell you what to do. You might find that the experience is very different than your expectation of it – hopefully more helpful.
When it comes to human happiness, I think you'll find that abandoning logic in some instances is the best path toward fulfillment. I don't know if you are religious or hold spiritual beliefs (you don't have to be to be happy), but it's not difficult to see that many people who DO hold beliefs that aren't "scientific" per se can also be very fulfilled. If your goal is fulfillment, or meaning, or finding a better center for yourself, it may help to open your mind a little bit and accept that not all human problems have scientific explantations.