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Comment by anoonmoose | Hacker News Reader

He has personally admitted to being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

I never want to be engaged in mind-reading, but it seems to me that the people who are shouting about him being mentally ill the loudest are doing so in a way to justify stifling everything he says, as if saying "he's mentally ill" ends any conceivable discussion about any of his ideas.

I think my general question remains. "How could an average outside observer distinguish between another's mental illness and a guy who's just a real out of the box thinker who might be wrong about many ideas but might also add value to the world by perceiving reality in an atypical way?"

In my opinion there's no real discussion to be had on the things he is saying recently, so dismissing them as the rantings of a mentally ill man is the most charitable thing to do. If he's not mentally ill, then he's an extremely ill-informed anti-Semite who either believes outlandish things or pretends to for engagement.

Even if he’s known to be mentally ill, his ideas can still stand. Take Ted Kaczynski for example. His actions were inexcusable but his ideas and writings on technology and its relationship to society have value.

Do you think Kanye's claims that Hollywood Jews have placed child actors in his home to sexualize his children will stand the test of time and be shown to have value?

Whether or not some or all of Kanye's claims are the most ridiculous things, cherry-picking and presenting one piece of bait and trying to associate everything Kanye has ever said with the same brush feels like a hell of a disingenuous way to argue. You can't just dismiss everything somebody said just because they were very wrong other stuff.

PS: I'm not going to say what's true or false about any of Kanye's claims here, but who the hell knows what goes on in the highest levels of Hollywood? This is a circle of people who felt zero shame publicly disparaging critics of Roman Polanski. And apparently the Harvey Weinstein stuff was common knowledge in Hollywood crowds for decades. If you think Kanye has little credibility, well, think about how Hollywood's credibility ought to be perceived.

No one is accusing Candace Owens, for instance, as being mentally ill for her beliefs, and Bi-polar has some very specific tells.

It seems like consensus is able to make that distinction without too many problems.

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