Category Archives: Psychology

Measuring success in one metric

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For some things, measuring success is pretty obvious, and the metrics are nicely binary. e.g., “Did the boomer go BOOM after you pulled the trigger?”

In other things the metrics are either much harder to measure, or there are “good” reasons that the people measuring success don’t want a good metric; it would show they are failing miserably. Or, worse, they are no longer needed to “do the job.” Pick just about any political appointee and the example writes itself.

Anyway, the reason I ask is that I am, among other things, a teacher. Yeah, I know, taking one for the team here guys, leave me alone about that, will ‘ya? So in preparing for an upcoming interview, I started to think about what sorts of things I can ask them – that’s always a “fun” place for the interview to go, because it can’t be any trivia you can just read off the school web-site, but it also cannot be something that exposes glaring problems or hypocrisy in their system, because after they uncomfortably give you a non-answer you’ll not be offered a job. So it’s a balancing act.

So this question popped into my head, and I thought I’d bounce it off ya’ll to see what sort of trouble I might get myself into, but also maybe find some good follow-ups. I’ve got what I think it’s a pretty good measure of success, but it would likely open a huge can of zombie attack worms the size of anacondas, which I don’t want to deal with just yet. So, the question is: Continue reading →

Quote of the day—Rob Morse

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The antipathy towards gun owners is not based upon stopping violence, but upon reducing the discomfort felt by idealists.  For the idealist, letting society take the burden removes both the duty and the emotional cost of facing an imperfect world. For the idealist, protecting the fantasy narrative is more important than respecting the facts.

Rob Morse
March 27, 2017
Violence and Utopia- Realism and Idealism in the age of Gun Control
[This is probably fair to the majority of the anti-gun people. But, I wouldn’t use the word “idealist” to describe a large minority of them.

“Idealist” is far, far too generous to those in power who know and understand the facts. They want a monopoly on power and the existence of a large number of gun owners are an obstacle to them.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rachel Dolezal

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People didn’t seem able to consider that maybe both were true. OK, I was born to white parents, but maybe I had an authentic black identity.

Rachel Dolezal
March 24, 2017
Rachel Dolezal struggling after racial-identity scandal in Spokane
[And maybe I’m standing upright and on my head at the same time.

It’s not surprising that she changed her legal name in hopes it would help her get a job. But, “Nkechi Amare Diallo”? And then she tells the AP her new name?

The political left not only is the party of criminals it’s the party of the mentally ill (see also my post on Peterson Syndrome)..—Joe]

Quote of the day—Andrew Heaton

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We threw the baby out with the bathwater when we kicked the monarchy out of America, and we ought to bring it back.

…

In America we’ve combined power and reverence in the office of the presidency, but legal authority and veneration compliment each other about as well as Scotch and back pain medication. It’s safer to ingest them separately.

Andrew Heaton
March 18, 2017
Why America Needs A Monarchy
[I find it hard to disagree with this point. There many be some interesting psychology going on here that could be affecting politics adversely.—Joe]

Expendable men

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Times change.
But it ain’t all progress.

There has been a lot of social upheaval in recent years on the topics of equality, “equality,” women’s rights, men’s rights, patriarchy, the wage gap, marriage, MGTOW, misogyny versus misandry (I note the spell-checker has the previous but not the latter word), marginalizing men, etc. websites like Men of the West, videos like this Continue reading →

Is she clueless, or hoping we’re clueless?

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Or both?

The bizarre assertion is that feminism is being bogged down by its association with leftist causes.

Sisters; the one and only purpose for the “feminist movement” is to advance what are essentially Marxist principles and goals. That of course includes the defamation and de-emphasis of men, especially Jewish and Christian men, along with them the very concept of morality, and the de-emphasis of the nuclear family as a cornerstone of civilization.

Calling for outreach to Christian women who embrace the American Principles then, is like the PLO and the other jihadists reaching out to Jews for assistance in destroying Israel.

It could work in some cases I suppose, if you find enough dumb “conservative” women who’re only pretending to be conservative or pretending to be Christian but don’t really know what any of it means. You get them irritated and agitated enough, and they’ll be open to your propaganda.

Agitprop.

Truly strong, American women have no use for the “feminist” movement. They’re already doing what they want to do, and the “feminists” (communists, essentially) have been verbally attacking them for it all along.

Constantly viewing oneself as a victim of this or that, or a victim of everything, is detrimental to one’s success, whether you’re a truly strong woman or anyone else (we have to be careful with definitions here though; to “The Sisterhood” of pissed off leftist women, the term “strong woman” means “nasty, dumb bitch”).

That’s the whole point really; the Marxist/Progressive/authoritarian movement needs as many people as possible thinking of themselves as victims and thus being pissed off, otherwise the movement has nothing. It’s the Grievance Culture, and so it doesn’t matter whether it’s women, men, black women and men, gay, trans, or any and all of the rest of Humanity; if we can get people pissed off and feeling like they’re powerless without Big Daddy Government stepping in to intervene in their personal lives, then the American Principles have been defeated right there.

It’s never been about protecting anyone’s rights or advancing anyone’s quality of life. The Original American Principles do that already. The Grievance Movement is purely about keeping the grievances alive and growing, as a political weapon against the American Principles.

And you in the “movement”, at least those few calling the shots, you know all this perfectly well. Nice try, keep it up and all, but your premise here is just ridiculous.

A more complex label

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Rachel Dolezal, white woman who identifies as black, now jobless, may soon be homeless:

Rachel Dolezal, the infamous white woman who for years passed herself off as African American and rose to become head of an NAACP branch, is now jobless, on food stamps and expects to soon be homeless.

A defiant Dolezal, 39, recounted her current plight to The Guardian. Dolezal said she’s only been offered jobs in reality television and porno flicks. A friend helped her come up with the money for February’s rent and she doesn’t know how she’s going to pay for March.

And she still says she’s not white.

“I do think a more complex label would be helpful, but we don’t really have that vocabulary,” Dolezal told The Guardian. “I feel like the idea of being trans-black would be much more accurate than ‘I’m white.’ Because, you know, I’m not white . . . Calling myself black feels more accurate than saying I’m white.”

I agree with her. A more complex label is needed. I’ll bet a good psychologist could find one for her.

I wish her luck with therapy.

Innovation?

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Maybe I’m old-fashioned in thinking that a motor vehicle design team would set out to make something that works.

This is similar to the “flying car” company web sites. They’re “designing” things that cannot work. They’ll even pre-sell you one.

In this case, they’ve “designed” something out of science fiction fantasy. I don’t know, but I think this crosses a line, and not a good one. We have designers from two major companies getting together to roll out their brand new…nothing. It only works in the virtual world, where the laws of physics are completely flexible. I have to believe there was marijuana involved.

Quote of the day—john jay

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the snowflakes simply lack toughness. because they have never needed it. never understood its utility. and, quite likely, never will. they will be, essentially, children of arrested development the rest of their lives. they don’t know what it is to surmount a challenge, because they have never met a challenge.

so, they sing “i will survive” to indicate they can take a trump presidency. as eloquent a demonstration of idiocy as you will ever witness.

john jay
January 16, 2017
Comment to Speculative thought
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Speculative thought

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A thought occurred to me about all the Special Snowflakes in society today. Could it be in significant part the result of smaller families? In China the “One Child” policy has resulted in a generation plagued with “little emperors.” When you have a lot of children, even a good parent that loves all of them equally, and treats them all as fairly and equitably as possible will know they are not all truly equal, and not all as smart, or strong, or whatever, as anyone else. In short, you know some are more “valuable” or “expendable” on different measures because you confront it every day in your own home. Continue reading →

Violence and the left – pathology and party

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Interesting interview by Stefan Molyneux of an academic researcher. Dr. John Paul Wright is a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati and the author of “Criminals in the Making: Criminality Across the Life Course.” More links and discussion at his youtube page.

Not a lot we here didn’t already know, but interesting. I like some of his observations about why this sort of connection are not normally the subject of research.

Quote of the day—Scott Adams

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You’re wondering how I can know that other people are hallucinating and not me. That’s where it comes in handy to study persuasion and hypnosis. Delusional people leave tells.

One of the tells in this case is an ad hominem attack on whoever disagrees with you on climate science. You can see that happening on my Twitter feed today as the pro-climate-science types are coming after me in numbers. When you see an oversized reaction to what should be nothing but competing scientific claims, that’s usually a tell that someone slipped into cognitive dissonance.

Scott Adams
December 29, 2016
The Illusion of Knowledge
[And in the gun rights domain we have Markley’s Law demonstrating anti-gun people are delusional in regards to their beliefs.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Korwin

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FBI background check registrations are insufficient to these people. They begged and pleaded and campaigned for background checks, and now want more, but they’re obviously not enough. The smelter is the real issue.

This is the topic Tucson raises — violation of law by elected officials in pursuit of the same irrational perverse goal their fellow leftists pursue at everyone’s dangerous expense. It is an impossible attempt to quench their paranoid fears by suppressing the rights of innocent people everywhere. The notion of guns in the public’s hands is simply unacceptable to them. It’s not political, it’s medical, they’re hoplophobic, and a dire threat to freedom. Their unbalanced actions qualify them for removal from setting public policy and destroying valuable public property in the process, in violation of law.

Alan Korwin
December 18, 2016
Tucson Melting Guns. Again
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell

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Undaunted by history, the same kind of thinking that had cheered international disarmament treaties in the 1920s and 1930s once again cheered Soviet-American disarmament agreements during the Cold War.

Conversely, there was hysteria when President Ronald Reagan began building up American military forces in the 1980s. Cries were heard that he was leading us toward nuclear war. In reality, he led us toward an end of the Cold War, without a shot being fired at the Soviet Union.

But who reads history these days, or checks facts before leading the charge to keep law-abiding people disarmed?

Thomas Sowell
Senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University
December 23, 2016
Sowell: Gun-control laws do not make us safer
[To answer the question about facts, there is a good chance that it is like the one admitted Marxist I was having a discussion with about gun control in Chicago (where he lives).

This Marxist told me there were some very dangerous places in Chicago and “you just don’t go there because you will get shot”. I told him that it that couldn’t be possible because guns were banned there (this was before the Heller and McDonald rulings). He told me they got their guns from the surrounding areas where guns were not banned. “Oh! You must be really at high risk of getting shot in those areas then.”, I told him. “No, actually, those areas are pretty safe.”, he replied. I then told him, “Gun control doesn’t make people safer.” He told me, and I’m not making this up, “I disagree with your facts.”

It’s called reality. These people should check it out sometime.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ulysses S. Grant

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All the States east of the Mississippi River up to the state of Georgia, had felt the hardships of the war. Georgia, and South Carolina, and almost of North Carolina, up to this time, had been exempt from invasion of the Northern armies except upon their immediate sea coasts. Their newspapers had given such an account of Confederate success that the people who remained at home had been convinced that the Yankees had been whipped from first to last, and driven from pillar to post, and that now they could hardly be holding out for any other purpose than to find a way out of the war with honor to themselves.

Even during this march by Sherman’s the newspapers in his front were proclaiming daily that his army was nothing better than a mob of men who were frightened out of their wits and were hastening, panic-stricken, trying to get under the cover of our navy for protection against the Southern people.

Ulysses S. Grant
1894
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant Page 652
[I just finished this book, except for the appendix.

I found it striking that the Democrats of the 1860s were as out of touch with reality as the Democrats of 2016.—Joe]

Flat earth

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Either they are extremely persistent trolls or there are people that really believe the earth is flat.

I wonder what psychological need such a belief satisfies.

Quote of the day—Angelo M. Codevilla

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The notion of political correctness came into use among Communists in the 1930s as a semi-humorous reminder that the Party’s interest is to be treated as a reality that ranks above reality itself. Because all progressives, Communists included, claim to be about creating new human realities, they are perpetually at war against nature’s laws and limits. But since reality does not yield, progressives end up pretending that they themselves embody those new realities. Hence, any progressive movement’s nominal goal eventually ends up being subordinated to the urgent, all-important question of the movement’s own power. Because that power is insecure as long as others are able to question the truth of what the progressives say about themselves and the world, progressive movements end up struggling not so much to create the promised new realities as to force people to speak and act as if these were real: as if what is correct politically—i.e., what thoughts serve the party’s interest—were correct factually.

…

the point of P.C. is not and has never been merely about any of the items that it imposes, but about the imposition itself. Much less is it about creating a definable common culture or achieving some definable good. On the retail level, it is about the American’s ruling class’s felt need to squeeze the last drops of voter participation out of the Democratic Party’s habitual constituencies. On the wholesale level, it is a war on civilization waged to indulge identity politics.

…

The imposition of P.C. has no logical end because feeling better about one’s self by confessing other people’s sins, humiliating and hurting them, is an addictive pleasure the appetite for which grows with each satisfaction. The more fault I find in thee, the holier (or, at least, the trendier) I am than thou. The worse you are, the better I am and the more power I should have over you.

…

America’s progressive rulers, like France’s, act less as politicians gathering support than as conquerors who enjoy punishing captives without worry that the tables may turn.

Angelo M. Codevilla
November 8, 2016
The Rise of Political Correctness
[Also, as an example:

“Comrade, your statement is factually incorrect.”
“Yes, it is. But it is politically correct.”

Fascinating and very enlightening.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Scott Adams

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For now the citizens of the United States live in two separate realities. As a hypnotist, I doubt any of us can see reality for what it is. My worldview is that we were in one kind of illusion before and some of us moved to another. When it comes to understanding reality, the best we can do is pick a version that does a good job predicting.

My view of reality predicts that the Hitler illusion will wear off in time because Trump keeps refusing to do Hitler-like things. Check my prediction at the end of Trump’s term. I think you’ll see his popularity continue to improve from here.

Scott Adams
December 10, 2016
The Time That Reality Forked Right in Front of You
[Interesting observation.—Joe]

Obstacles to sex research

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Via Justin J Lehmiller:

I have done research on human subjects and had to get the research approved by distrustful committees so I have a glimmer of understanding of what she was up against and more than a little sympathy for her.

Almost as a side note I thought one of the points she made was very good. And that is that nearly everyone has used sex, either solo or with a partner to help them get to sleep at night. But sleep therapists, not a single one as far as she could determine, even mentioned this as a potential aid in overcoming sleep difficulties. Could this cut down on the use of pharmaceuticals? It would seem likely and probably have fewer undesirable side effects.

Similar benefits might exist for other issues as well. Orgasms affect mood and brain chemistry. Knowing more about this would seem likely to lead to better, or at least alternate, treatments for things like depression, right?

She not going so far as to endorse Dr. Joe’s Cure For Everything, but she is on the right track.

Don’t get on the crazy train

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Tamara says:

here’s a puzzler:

It’s a cardinal sin in the progressive weltanschauung to deny someone the validity of their own narrative.

Unless their narrative is “I’m doing this for Islam and the caliph!”

It’s not really a puzzler. Let me explain in a roundabout way.

I received an email a few weeks ago which said in part:

Standard progressive technique against non-progressives is the “basket of deplorables” attack: accuse them of *-ism and watch them wilt as they do a mad scramble trying to show they are actually good people.  What the victims of those attacks don’t realize is that the attack has no connection to fact, and denials aren’t helpful because it isn’t about evidence or truth.  Harry Reid knew this well and used it against Romney, as did many others.

My reply, in part, was:

The psychology of the progressives is that of a personality disorder. If you were to read the book Stop Walking on Eggshells I would bet you would see, as I do, amazing parallels between Borderline Personality Disorder and the political left in this country. I don’t have the book in front of me right now but here are some things that I remember:

  • It is always your fault when something goes wrong.
  • They create or maneuver things such that you are put in “can’t win” situations.
  • They are at high risk of hurting themselves (riots damaging their own neighborhoods is my analog of this) if they get mad at you.
  • They constantly start fights over nothing.
  • The attempted use of facts will result in accusations of “You always have to get your way”, “You need to compromise.”, or increase the verbal and/or physical abuse.
  • There is no successful treatment.
  • The best you can hope for is to expend less energy/time dealing with them without complying with their crazy demands (or as Barb says, “Getting on their crazy train.”)

The basics of how you deal with them, as individuals, is to tell them you aren’t going to tolerate their misbehavior. They will go ballistic at this, after all, it is all your fault, not theirs. They have done nothing wrong. Then ignore them, walk away, or otherwise disengage and do your own thing when they inevitably misbehave. You must not give in to their misbehavior. They will only encourage them to misbehave more.

…

I just wish there was a way to divorce ourselves from the political left. I’m tired of the constant abuse and crazy talk.

Back to Tamara’s puzzlement.

These people are nuts. Barb and I have both had decades of experience attempting to deal with people like this and spent time talking to counselors getting help dealing with personality disordered people. Several times a week during the first year or so we were together one of us would tell a story and ask, “Why did they do this?” It took a while but it finally reached the point where the other person would say, “Don’t try to make sense of it. You will go crazy if you try.” That shortened to, “You are trying to get on crazy train with them.”

We mostly have the stories out of our system and it is now rare for one of us to tell one. And if one does come out the response is just, “Don’t get on the crazy train.”

And that is what our response to these sort of puzzlements should be. Give them “that look” and tell the sane people attempting to appease or understand the progressives, “Don’t get on the crazy train.”