Yeah if the comment just meant a review is warranted, great. But it’s not like separating personal desire and professional responsibility isn’t a routine part of just about every career. (Not saying this is equivalent to saying “that shirt looks great on you” when as a retail worker you think a customer looks ridiculous; but the analogy isn’t so far off that we should be shocked anyone would manage to have the fetish and still be a caring professional).
They go into that. Basically the institution investigated themselves and found nothing wrong. Surprise. Patients have a different view and have an attorney.
I wish I made that choice. I got to "Hopper used the email address adecentguyincornwall@gmail.com to set up the profile “AdmiroDoc” on eunuchmaker.com, a pay-per-view fetish website featuring videos of men and boys either maiming themselves or allowing others to mutilate them on camera. " then noped out
There is probably some correlation between one's profession and fetishes. We already know some programming languages attract certain types of personalities/attitudes so why would that be different elsewhere?
Where is the line between fetish and mental illness??? Why is it that if someone wants to cut off their own healthy limbs, we are calling this a fetish rather than saying what it is, a mental illness. No rationale human being would want this done. And before people state that there are many fetishes and that people have the right to have them, if any of you had a friend that wanted this done, you would take them to a professional to get them help, you wouldn't be encouraging them to cut off their legs.
What do we gain by pathologizing it in newspaper headlines? Fetish is relatively value neutral, just a blank way of conveying the fact of his desiring it (against the current of normalcy).
If, as you imply, most people would stop a friend who did this, then it sounds like society already has the right attitude against it, and underscoring our concern by turning it into explicit disapproval at every mention is just lathering on a layer of censoriousness or shame.
> Why is it that if someone wants to cut off their own healthy limbs, we are calling this a fetish rather than saying what it is, a mental illness.
I do call it a mental illness. If I came across someone that wants to amputate a healthy limb, I'd tell them they're mentally ill and need professional help. Most amputees I know feel the same way. As an amputee (RBKA, due to necrotizing fasciitis and sepsis), -I know a number of amputees and none have "wanted' to be an amputee.
There's the component of suffering for sure, but I think being a functional member of society is the most important. So if you don't annoy anyone with your abnormalities you are more likely to be considered sane.
"senior developer deliberately self-sabotaged side-hustle by unnecessarily using kubernetes and kafka instead of docker and rabbitmq - where his employers safe?"
Admittedly I'm not sure how an amputation fetish works. I don't know if it's about the act of amputation itself or if he liked looking at amputee porn, for example.
Like someone might have a humiliation fetish but not actually like seeing people get humiliated in the workplace, for example. A sexual context and an everyday context are very different.
The plainspoken doubt being expressed indirectly / by-analogy here is:
“Was their professional judgment impaired by their fetish?”
That concern is the correct one.
But: It doesn’t particularly matter how the fetish works, because people will assume that the existence of a fetish guarantees that judgment is compromised. That assumption will often be couched in terms of skepticism and doubt rather than as a flat statement of mistrust, especially here in the US. Unfortunately, the concern is valid, even when the frequent-but-not-always underlying assumption is not.
Has the licensing board ruled on whether or not patient abuse occurred yet?
If not, then, like, maybe don’t read this article at all. Wait for the outcomes of a professional evaluation. Don’t chase this particular ambulance. It’s not healthy to stop and admire a train wreck, and if it ends up not being a train wreck for patients, and professional care was given regardless, then it’s just gossiping about someone making irreversible physical edits to their body — a completely normal event around the world, starting at birth in many cultures, with widespread differences within each around how little/much editing is too little/much. I know HN likes to clamor about slipper slopes, and this is the sort of checkout aisle magazine headline fodder that leads to that:
Should someone who has had breast reduction surgery be permitted to perform them?
Should someone who has had leg lengthening surgery be permitted to perform them?
Should someone who has had a facelift be permitted to perform them?
Should someone who has had a tattoo be permitted to perform them?
Should someone who has had hair removal sessions be permitted to perform them?
Now, replace ‘to perform them’ with ‘to advise patients about them’; does the answer change?
Yes, amputation is ‘extreme’; so are many, many other voluntary (e.g. heart tattoos) and involuntary (e.g. dysphoria-treating surgeries) body edits. The level of concern expressed for the practitioner’s judgment should not be a function of the severity of edit, and we should always be alert for signs of corruption in those practitioners — whether it’s tattoos, leg lengthening, or limb amputation.
I wasn’t talking specifically about trans dysphoria above, but having had to navigate those guidelines personally, I can certainly attest that they prioritized societal fertility over the needs of US patients. Fourteen letters of approval and two years and $25,000 of professional consulting required (at US cash rates before insurance) to receive a single body edit out of the four required. Cis women who aren’t even trans at all can get next-day breast inflation but must pursue months of paperwork and approvals for breast deflation (and the exact opposite for cis men, too). Tattoos are walk-in and don’t always have sobriety requirements. Religious body edits that permanently impair sexual function are routinely performed at birth without the consent of, and sometimes over the objections of, the newborn’s parents. (This is not a comprehensive list of US body editing biases, just some highlights as examples.)
Point being, cultural biases are reflected in body edit difficulties, and each culture has their own biases and stupidities. That should not prevent us from aspiring towards a better future, where body edits are uniformly treated with care, caution, and consent — rather than varying degrees condescension and Gilliam’s “Brazil” levels of bureaucratic bullshit and bribes: https://youtu.be/VveTsyjFlNA
This article may have done a terrible job at advancing any useful goals in the field of body editing, but the headline sure is some top-shelf clickbait.
Because there's at least a possibility that the surgeon recommended and performed amputations in order to satisfy his own fetishes rather than to do what's best for his patients. As a doctor, he is supposed to do what is best for the patient, not himself.
If it is verified that he has performed medically unwarranted amputations, that'd probably result in some kind of criminal charge due to the grave and permanent bodily harm involved. The loss of his medical license would be the least of his problems.
The 4chan toaster meme remains undefeated.
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1695828-that-is-my-fetish
> fuck up your and countless other people's lives
FTFY.
Wow, well, that's one of the more f'd up things I've ever read about. Not sure what else there is to say.
Generalised: principle-agent problem: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...>.
Particularly where the agent has specialised knowledge and/or privileged access.
Not uncommonly an issue in IT.
A growing concern with AI, to boot: Alignment.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_alignment>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alignment_Problem>
Welp, that's enough internet for me today!
Warning for the squeamish: I only made it partway through the article before deciding it would probably make me nauseous if I continued.
I don't know why the framing. This is easy: review the cases. If it has his hand it's tainted one way or the other. That's it.
How is it tainted by that alone? It’s almost certain that at least some of the patients he amputated actually needed amputation.
But the other question is the manner in which these were carried out, even if they were needed.
There is a real chance he caused needless pain, with long draw out procedure with insufficient anesthetic.
It doesn't automatically condemn him but it will probably trigger some kind of independent review of his cases. Better hope it's a perfect record.
Yeah if the comment just meant a review is warranted, great. But it’s not like separating personal desire and professional responsibility isn’t a routine part of just about every career. (Not saying this is equivalent to saying “that shirt looks great on you” when as a retail worker you think a customer looks ridiculous; but the analogy isn’t so far off that we should be shocked anyone would manage to have the fetish and still be a caring professional).
They go into that. Basically the institution investigated themselves and found nothing wrong. Surprise. Patients have a different view and have an attorney.
Could ask this about most news stories these days. They are so bold as to not even hide the opinionated framing anymore.
I'm deciding not to read this article.
Yeah I wish I hadn’t, this will not help me get to sleep at night
I wish I made that choice. I got to "Hopper used the email address adecentguyincornwall@gmail.com to set up the profile “AdmiroDoc” on eunuchmaker.com, a pay-per-view fetish website featuring videos of men and boys either maiming themselves or allowing others to mutilate them on camera. " then noped out
I don't think this should be flagged. It is very much rooted in the enabling aspect of the Internet for fringe groups.
There is probably some correlation between one's profession and fetishes. We already know some programming languages attract certain types of personalities/attitudes so why would that be different elsewhere?
There’s also a known correlation between firefighters and arsonists
Yesterday on HN: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49130853>
> We already know some programming languages attract certain types of personalities/attitudes
... to say nothing of the monsters that use spaces instead of tabs ;)
" We already know some programming languages attract certain types of personalities/attitudes"
What evidence do you have to back that up? I think you're trying to pull facts out of your a* to rationalize something.
Where is the line between fetish and mental illness??? Why is it that if someone wants to cut off their own healthy limbs, we are calling this a fetish rather than saying what it is, a mental illness. No rationale human being would want this done. And before people state that there are many fetishes and that people have the right to have them, if any of you had a friend that wanted this done, you would take them to a professional to get them help, you wouldn't be encouraging them to cut off their legs.
What do we gain by pathologizing it in newspaper headlines? Fetish is relatively value neutral, just a blank way of conveying the fact of his desiring it (against the current of normalcy).
If, as you imply, most people would stop a friend who did this, then it sounds like society already has the right attitude against it, and underscoring our concern by turning it into explicit disapproval at every mention is just lathering on a layer of censoriousness or shame.
> Why is it that if someone wants to cut off their own healthy limbs, we are calling this a fetish rather than saying what it is, a mental illness.
I do call it a mental illness. If I came across someone that wants to amputate a healthy limb, I'd tell them they're mentally ill and need professional help. Most amputees I know feel the same way. As an amputee (RBKA, due to necrotizing fasciitis and sepsis), -I know a number of amputees and none have "wanted' to be an amputee.
> Where is the line between fetish and mental illness
In general, the DSM V draws the line at hurting yourself or other people.
There's the component of suffering for sure, but I think being a functional member of society is the most important. So if you don't annoy anyone with your abnormalities you are more likely to be considered sane.
Probably because they’re not mutually exclusive and one more accurately reflects the component of arousal.
See also, I suppose, our discussion yesterday in Firefighter arson a long-standing issue https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49130853
"senior developer deliberately self-sabotaged side-hustle by unnecessarily using kubernetes and kafka instead of docker and rabbitmq - where his employers safe?"
Why do I care if someone wants to amputate their own legs? The only issue here is the insurance fraud, if that happened.
Would you be comfortable later finding out that the surgeon who amputated your leg had an amputation fetish?
What if that surgeon's advice had been part of the decision process that lead to you deciding to go ahead with amputation?
Admittedly I'm not sure how an amputation fetish works. I don't know if it's about the act of amputation itself or if he liked looking at amputee porn, for example.
Like someone might have a humiliation fetish but not actually like seeing people get humiliated in the workplace, for example. A sexual context and an everyday context are very different.
The plainspoken doubt being expressed indirectly / by-analogy here is:
“Was their professional judgment impaired by their fetish?”
That concern is the correct one.
But: It doesn’t particularly matter how the fetish works, because people will assume that the existence of a fetish guarantees that judgment is compromised. That assumption will often be couched in terms of skepticism and doubt rather than as a flat statement of mistrust, especially here in the US. Unfortunately, the concern is valid, even when the frequent-but-not-always underlying assumption is not.
Has the licensing board ruled on whether or not patient abuse occurred yet?
If not, then, like, maybe don’t read this article at all. Wait for the outcomes of a professional evaluation. Don’t chase this particular ambulance. It’s not healthy to stop and admire a train wreck, and if it ends up not being a train wreck for patients, and professional care was given regardless, then it’s just gossiping about someone making irreversible physical edits to their body — a completely normal event around the world, starting at birth in many cultures, with widespread differences within each around how little/much editing is too little/much. I know HN likes to clamor about slipper slopes, and this is the sort of checkout aisle magazine headline fodder that leads to that:
Should someone who has had breast reduction surgery be permitted to perform them?
Should someone who has had leg lengthening surgery be permitted to perform them?
Should someone who has had a facelift be permitted to perform them?
Should someone who has had a tattoo be permitted to perform them?
Should someone who has had hair removal sessions be permitted to perform them?
Now, replace ‘to perform them’ with ‘to advise patients about them’; does the answer change?
Yes, amputation is ‘extreme’; so are many, many other voluntary (e.g. heart tattoos) and involuntary (e.g. dysphoria-treating surgeries) body edits. The level of concern expressed for the practitioner’s judgment should not be a function of the severity of edit, and we should always be alert for signs of corruption in those practitioners — whether it’s tattoos, leg lengthening, or limb amputation.
Wait until you find out who helped write the guidelines for those "dysphoria-treating surgeries"...
https://reduxx.info/top-trans-medical-association-collaborat...
I wasn’t talking specifically about trans dysphoria above, but having had to navigate those guidelines personally, I can certainly attest that they prioritized societal fertility over the needs of US patients. Fourteen letters of approval and two years and $25,000 of professional consulting required (at US cash rates before insurance) to receive a single body edit out of the four required. Cis women who aren’t even trans at all can get next-day breast inflation but must pursue months of paperwork and approvals for breast deflation (and the exact opposite for cis men, too). Tattoos are walk-in and don’t always have sobriety requirements. Religious body edits that permanently impair sexual function are routinely performed at birth without the consent of, and sometimes over the objections of, the newborn’s parents. (This is not a comprehensive list of US body editing biases, just some highlights as examples.)
Point being, cultural biases are reflected in body edit difficulties, and each culture has their own biases and stupidities. That should not prevent us from aspiring towards a better future, where body edits are uniformly treated with care, caution, and consent — rather than varying degrees condescension and Gilliam’s “Brazil” levels of bureaucratic bullshit and bribes: https://youtu.be/VveTsyjFlNA
This article may have done a terrible job at advancing any useful goals in the field of body editing, but the headline sure is some top-shelf clickbait.
Did you read the article? The man was sick
I read half of it.
Because it's a sign that he may have been amputating other people's limbs when not medically necessary.
Or making necessary operations be unnecessarily long, painful, and unsuccessful. I think the anecdotes point to that at least.
Because there's at least a possibility that the surgeon recommended and performed amputations in order to satisfy his own fetishes rather than to do what's best for his patients. As a doctor, he is supposed to do what is best for the patient, not himself.
If it is verified that he has performed medically unwarranted amputations, that'd probably result in some kind of criminal charge due to the grave and permanent bodily harm involved. The loss of his medical license would be the least of his problems.
This would end up classified under “patient abuse or neglect”, which has an ejection rate of around 200 doctors per year in the U.S.: https://plaindiscipline.com/action-type/conviction-patient-a...
Joan's reported experience sounds like a pretty major issue to me.