Category Archives: Psychology

Quote of the day—Melissa Mackenzie @MelissaTweets

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After COVID, I no longer wonder how Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot happened.

Inside too many of our neighbors is a little tyrant who desires to tell you how to live your life, use violence to achiever their ends, and clothe themselves in righteousness while doing it.

Melissa Mackenzie @MelissaTweets
Tweeted on April 18, 2022
[At first I thought it rather sad it took this long for Mackenzie to realize how such things happen. Then, a chilling wave of fright swept over me as I realized that it is extremely likely that most people still don’t understand or deny the example she just gave.—Joe]

Quote of the day—David Burge @iowahawkblog

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I swear to god some people’s brains are wired with only two settings, mandatory and forbidden

David Burge (@iowahawkblog)
Tweeted on April 19, 2022
[This is not news. This has been known for quite some time.

While being wired this way does relieve the stress of decision making it also means they can, and probably should, be replaced by a simple robot.-Joe]

Quote of the day—Richard Curtin

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Adam Smith’s legendary invisible hand describes how individuals acting in their own self-interest can create unintended benefits for the entire society. Unfortunately, the country now faces the potential for an inflationary hand that can transform self-interested decisions into losses for the entire economy.

Richard Curtin
April 7, 2022
Inflationary Psychology Has Set In. Dislodging It Won’t Be Easy
[We live in interesting times. Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Danny Westneat

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On Friday, 10 days after five people were shot in an apparent drug deal gone bad, city officials and various nonprofit groups met at City Hall to talk about what to do about the city’s homelessness emergency. They seemed bizarrely put off at the idea of shutting The Jungle to homeless access.

One talked of The Jungle’s “sense of community.” Another said some Jungle inhabitants would be worse off if they were uprooted. Others said it was stigmatizing to even call it The Jungle, preferring “Beacon Hill greenbelt.”

Instead, ideas for aiding The Jungle ranged from putting lockers under the freeway so the homeless could store their belongings, to providing encampments with bins for used hypodermic needles.

It was at this mention of needle bins that Dustin Davies and Angel Johnson couldn’t take it anymore. They burst into incredulous laughter and left the council chambers.

Davies was an alcoholic and meth addict who was homeless until 19 months ago. Johnson was a drug addict and prostitute who has been sober 12 years. In recovery, both have been helping the homeless through charity groups.

They came to the meeting to say that the very worst thing you could do for the denizens of The Jungle is keep it open. That the idea was even discussed seemed crazy to them.

Danny Westneat
February 5, 2016
Keeping Jungle open is the opposite of compassion
[“The Jungle” was a Seattle homeless encamping area over six years ago. This is the same author on last Saturday:

I’ve argued in this space for more than a decade now that allowing these makeshift encampments is a humanitarian catastrophe — back to the days of The Jungle, which itself was only closed after a mass shooting. The shantytowns are an embarrassment to both Seattle and the liberal project.

The “city officials’ have been told their ideas are crazy for many years and the data is there to back up those claims. Yet they insist the world should change to match their beliefs rather than their beliefs change to match reality. This, by some definitions, is insanity. A diagnosis of evil also fits the available data.

Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sïstēr Märy Bäphømēt @marybaphomet

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With the state of his AVI, is there any wonder he’s defending his fellow gun fellating nutbars? The very epitome of tiny dick energy.

Tweeted on April 1, 2022

Tiny.

Dick.

Energy.

Gun fellating snowflake.

Tweeted on April 1, 2022

When they’re using semi-automatic weapons to compensate for their inadequacy, it’s relevant. How big is your gun collection? (Big gun = tiny penis) Tell me petal, do you drive a big truck too?

Tweeted on April 2, 2022

These trigger-happy, gun-humping, 2A flag-wavers are a sensitive bunch aren’t they?

Tweeted on April 4, 2022

Sïstēr Märy Bäphømēt @marybaphomet
[It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday, it is another science denier!

People were having a perfectly reasonable and thoughtful conversation and this penis obsessed freak went off the deep end. If it didn’t happen all the time it would be really weird. As it is, it has become a law. Markley’s Law.

It is listed in the Urban Dictionary. I wonder how long it be before it is listed in the DSM.

Via tweets (and here) from In Chains @InChainsInJail.—Joe]

Projection/Evil/False-Flag

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Via Firearms Policy Coalition @gunpolicy:image

image

The indictment:

image

There are at several ways to interpret this:

  1. The anti-gun people want you disarmed so they can more easily kill you (evil).
  2. The anti-gun people think you are just as murderous as they are (projection).
  3. The anti-gun people want more “gun violence” to justify their agenda (false-flag).
  4. Two or more of the above.

Prepare and respond appropriately.

Reality is tough

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You hear the phrase “two movies, one screen”, right? People perceive what they expect/want to perceive. This makes it really tough to be in touch with reality. You may think, “Not for me!” I’m not so sure. Watch and listen to this:

These sort of things demonstrate the difficulty of distinguishing between truth and falsity. It takes a great deal of effort to change minds, even when the facts are overwhelming, because people’s brains get hardwired into thinking about something in a particular way.

My mom learned to do subtraction in a different way that what was taught in my elementary school. She could not help me learn how to subtract like Mrs. Cole was teaching it. She asked Dad to help me. After I learned to subtract I asked Mom to show me her way. It was incomprehensible to me. Dad could not understand it either. She got the right answers, but she could not understand our method either.

I came up with a different way of viewing exterior ballistics problems. Someone who was taught the traditional way is completely confused by my method. I understand how they do it but my way is simpler and has broader application. I can teach either way to newbies just fine. But teaching it to someone who has done it conventionally will result in their total confusion.

It’s obvious to some people that banning guns will save lives. The facts don’t matter because elimination of “gun deaths” mean fewer people are dying, right? Their brains have become hardwired down a particular path. Once they start down that path it is a slippery slope to the same conclusion regardless of the factual obstacles presented.

Spooky action at a distance is a very difficult concept. It just “can’t be true”. But it is.

Socialism/communism must be the most tested and failed political system ever. Yet people believe the false reality.

Reality is really, really tough. For everyone. I’m sure there are countless examples all around us that no one has yet properly deciphered and we all believe one or more flavors of falsehood about it. It may even take a generation or two after the truth is discovered before people are comfortable thinking in terms of the “new reality” and people laugh at “the things people used to believe”.

Sadly, I think she is right

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Tamara graces us with her wisdom yet again with The Paradox of Site Moderation.

Quote of the day—Brandon Smith

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The political left is now the side that is most appealing to narcissists, sociopaths, the emotionally unstable, etc., and this attraction is forming a mob that can be easily exploited by the establishment.

Brandon Smith
January 13, 2022
For Leftists, Your Freedom Is Their Misery – Your Slavery Is Their Joy
[There is more than a little truth in this.—Joe]

Typical

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Via Catturd ™ @catturd2:

image

This kind of thing happens a lot. If you supply someone with irrefutable evidence of their wrongly held belief they will be very creative in protecting that belief.

It’s irrational to expect people to be rational.

Quote of the day—Victoria Parker

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Some policies—and some partisans—deserve forceful opposition, even contempt, from the other side. Vigorous disagreement, both within and between parties, is essential in a functioning democracy. But democracy also requires at least some level of mutual comprehension. No matter where people are on the political spectrum, they ought to know whom they’re fighting with and what they’re even fighting about.

Victoria Parker
December 27, 2021
Conservatives and Liberals Are Wrong About Each Other
[It is my belief that instead of treating people as belonging to one tribe or another people should treat each other as individuals. Individuals that have a much more nuanced set of beliefs and actions than the caricatures assigned to them by the leaders of their tribal opponents.

That may be too much to ask. The tribal behaviors are almost certainly deeply embedded in our psyche and difficult to override. As I have said many times before*, “It is irrational to expect people to be rational.”

The end result may be a tragedy of misunderstandings with a great mass of people “targeted” by each side when, if at all, it should only be that small fraction of extremists who are dragging the whole population into the fire.—Joe]

* For example:

Quote of the day—Noam Shpancer

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Mature people use their fire to warm the house rather than burn it down, refrain from assaulting flight attendants, help old ladies cross the street, pack a sandwich for the long road trip, and can take a joke.

Our current cultural climate trends in the opposite direction. Instead of constructive sublimation, we celebrate raw destructive aggression; instead of suppressing dark emotions, we revel in them; instead of preparing for the future, we’re busy destroying it; instead of laughing at ourselves and our shared humanity, we either laugh at the weak or foreswear humor altogether.

In America today, the delicate and complex machinery of democracy is placed in infantile hands. You don’t need a child’s imagination to foresee trouble ahead.

Noam Shpancer, Ph.D.
November 13, 2021

Psychological Immaturity Threatens Our Democracy
Democracy requires psychological maturity, which appears to be in short supply.
[The article does a good job of describing the problem from the viewpoint of a psychologist. I wish he had some suggestions for a solution.—Joe]

Quote of the day—T.S. Eliot

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Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.

T. S. Eliot
“The Cocktail Party” (1949), Act 1, scene 1.
[H/T to Phssthpok.

A search for the context of this quote led me to this gold mine of quotes created by Thomas Sowell.—Joe]

The mind of an anti-gun advocate (@Pigdowndog)

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See also A process failure aka Peterson Syndrome and truth and falsity for more glimpses inside their minds.

From the comments to Quote of the day—Pigdowndog @Pigdowndog. Please be cautious in extrapolating these results to other people, especially if they come from a different country and/or demographic.

My quick look for more information on Pigdowndog resulted in moderate confidence he is in the range of 75 to 85 years old, lived a number of years in southern France, and I have high confidence he currently lives Southwest of London.

In my initial QOTD post, I said “Simple logic for simple minds.” I way over estimated his ability to think logically. Sorry about that. But he arrived on scene and didn’t take long to correct my error. Here is the evidence:

pkoning on October 18, 2021 at 6:42 am said:

You mean the UK, where a defenseless MP was murdered just days ago by a knife wielding religious fanatic?

Toastrider on October 18, 2021 at 6:50 am said:

And that’s with knife control in England.

Lulz.

Pigdowndog on October 23, 2021 at 3:09 am said:

There is no knife control in the UK apart from an age limit to buying them which is wholly sensible.

You’re right about the murder of an M.P. being tragic but that doesn’t mean that he should have been armed.

Even if he was do you think he would have had a chance to reach for the gun before the knife struck?

It’s real life, not Hollywood.

Thankfully those horrendous events are rare over here unlike over there.

Joe on October 23, 2021 at 10:01 am said:

I still would like to know what color the sky is in your universe. It’s very clear we do not live in the same reality. In my universe U.K. law states:

The maximum penalty for an adult carrying a knife is 4 years in prison and an unlimited fine. You’ll get a prison sentence if you’re convicted of carrying a knife more than once.

Basic laws on knives
It’s illegal to possess a banned knife or weapon. It’s also illegal to:

bring into the UK, sell, hire, lend or give someone a banned knife or weapon
carry any knife in public without good reason, unless it has a manual folding blade less than 3 inches long
sell a knife to anyone under the age of 18, unless it has a manual folding blade less than 3 inches long

The list of banned knives is long and includes batons and blowpipes.

Pigdowndog on October 24, 2021 at 2:44 am said:

You conveniently left out;
“carry any knife in public without good reason, unless it has a manual folding blade less than 3 inches long”
“use any knife in a threatening way”
“Lock knives are not classed as folding knives and are illegal to carry in public without good reason.”
All sensible sanctions as our knife crime is far too prevalent.
Your gun crime also is far too prevalent but your government just turns a blind eye to the consequences of allowing anyone to possess a killing machine.
I’m more than happy that we have protections in place that attempt to solve the problem rather than allow the carnage to carry on regardless of the outcome.

At first I was a bit perplexed. Is this someone suffering from Alzheimer’s and can’t remember what they said just the day before? It could be. But we’ve seen inability to follow logic or respond logically from Joan Peterson who I doubt was at the age where Alzheimer was a likely explanation.

After thinking about it some I am more inclined to believe they are not suffering from Alzheimer’s or other dementia. If that were the case I think the clues would show up in his twitter posts.

The weird inability to think logically and conform their claims to the hard reality is common in anti-gun people. Many of them simply do not accept reality. How else do you explain this?

Yesterday morning he claimed, “

There is no knife control in the UK apart from an age limit to buying them…

After I linked to and quote U.K. listing numerous knife regulations on the carry of knives and the bans of many common knives he came back less than 24 hours later and said I had “conveniently left out” further knife regulations. What? There is no knife control but when I don’t list all the knife laws he claims some sort victory by adding to the list of controls that supposedly don’t exist?

He then doubles down on the contradictions. Yesterday, referring to a stabbing, he said:

Thankfully those horrendous events are rare over here…

This morning he claims:

our knife crime is far too prevalent

There are other things I could point out but this should be more than sufficient to draw the appropriate conclusion.

These are symptoms of someone with mental problems. It may not be dementia but things between the ears are not in working order. It’s almost certainly Peterson Syndrome.

Quote of the day—Caitlin Johnstone

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It doesn’t matter what you’re allowed to say if it doesn’t matter what you say. It doesn’t matter if you’re allowed to call the oligarchic puppet put in office by the last fake election a dickhead. It doesn’t matter if you’re allowed to Google any information you want only to find whatever information Google wants you to find.

Caitlin Johnstone
October 10, 2021
The Science Of Propaganda Is Still Being Developed And Advanced
[True.

I’m at a loss for a solution as is Johnstone.

Sometimes I wonder if a major reset (economic collapse?) would improve things. But when I give it more than a moment’s thought I decide things will get worse under those sort of circumstances.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tom Ozimek

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he New York Fed’s August survey of consumer expectations showed that Americans anticipate food prices to rise by 7.9 percent in a year, higher than the overall inflation expectation of 5.2 percent.

Federal Reserve officials have repeatedly characterized the current bout of inflation as “transitory” though they have increasingly expressed concern about the risk of a de-anchoring of inflationary expectations. That’s where confidence in the “transitory” narrative falls and people start to believe and behave as if inflation will be far stickier than previously believed, impacting wage and price-setting behavior and potentially even sparking the kind of upward wage-price spiral that bedeviled the economy in the 1970s.

Tom Ozimek
October 9, 2021
Food Prices Hit Highest Level in a Decade
[See also Biden’s Inflation Now Costs Families $2.1K A Year And About To Get Worse.

One of the things about economics, the stock market, and retails sales that was difficult for me to accept was that significant components are emotion driven. It wasn’t that I rejected that it was true. It was that I wanted it to be false.

I wanted to believe that “everyone”, at least a sufficiently high percentage of people, would act rationally enough that most of the time shortages, crazy housing/tulip-bulb/Dot-Com/whatever bubbles and extreme economic cycles wouldn’t occur. I would think, “How many times must these lessons be taught in the school of hard knocks before people learn the lessons?” The answer I didn’t want to accept was that the majority of people will never learn the lesson.

I’ve become more cynical (realistic?) in my old age.

If people believe there is high inflation coming then they increase the odds that it will happen.

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Pam Carlson (@PamCarlson3)

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Big man sticking up for the tiny penis crowd trying to sic his tiny penis followers on me.  Better hope this doesn’t go the way you want.  Twitter has a harassment policy, you know.

Pam Carlson (@PamCarlson3)
Tweeted on September 27, 2021
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

This was in response to my blog post which automatically posted a link to it on Twitter.

I found this hilarious! She starts out by harassingly gun owners with childish insults. I merely quoted her and pointed out she appeared to be incapable of bringing anything but childish insults to the discussion. I did not advocate or even suggest anyone engage with her. In response, she projects her harassment of us as harassment of her and continues harassing us.

Liberalism is a mental disorder.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Cantankerous Socialist @Cante12175815

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Bless, did I hit a nerve Cletus

Perhaps you need to visit a gay bar and get rid of all that pent up frustration.

Toodle pip

xxx

Cantankerous Socialist @Cante12175815
Tweeted on September 20, 2021
[This was in response to receiving the honor of a Markley’s Law Monday quote of the day a couple weeks ago.

I would like to thank Cantankerous Socialist @Cante12175815 for confirming my previous diagnosis.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Catherine Clifford @CATCLIFFORD

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There have to be more people at different levels in the organization, in different parts of the organization, who are given the platform and the ability to initiate, to mobilize, to move things forward. It doesn’t only live at the C-Suite.

And ideally, if it’s done well, each person, no matter what part of the company you’re in, feels that they have a stake in this climate change response. Nobody is exempting themselves because they don’t know enough about climate. An effective response is one where everyone has something to add here and is a part of the response.

Catherine Clifford @CATCLIFFORD
September 26, 2021
Climate psychologist says neither gloom-and-doom nor extreme solution-obsessed optimism is the best way to discuss climate change productively
[I knew there were dog psychologists, horse psychologists, and I found out there are cat psychologists and even cow psychologists. But climate psychologists? Wow!

I wonder if she has a heavy client load. Are there a lot of climates in need of a shrink?

To be fair, I poked around a little bit I can can’t find where she claims she helps climates with their mental health issues.

I do wonder about her mental health some though. She seems to presume facts not in evidence. I’m fairly certain her claim that everyone should feel “they have a stake in the climate change response” is not true. For example, there are those who are more concerned about another ice age putting a sheet of ice a mile thick over southern Canada and the northern states than the possibility of a dozen feet of ocean rise. Hence, if we really think we can affect the climate then we should error on the side of keeping the earth warm rather than on keeping it cool.

Does she want those people to feel like they have a stake in the climate change response? Or is she is living in a delusional world where everyone agrees with her view of reality. In other words, is she a liar or delusional? It could be both, but I have insufficient evidence to conclusively determine which.—Joe]

Self-esteem correlated with number of sex partners

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Interesting:

An analysis of data collected across 10 world regions suggests that men’s self-esteem is more strongly tied to their sexual success than women’s. The findings were published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

…

The study authors accordingly proposed that having a greater number of past sexual partners should increase self-esteem. They further reasoned that this positive link between self-esteem and number of past sexual partners should be stronger among men since greater sexual acceptance is more adaptive for men. That is, men’s ability to pass on their genes relies strongly on having a high number of sexual partners, while women’s success in passing on their genes rests on having higher quality sexual partners who will invest in offspring.

The first thing that came to mind when reading this was, “Correlation doesn’t mean causation. Perhaps having a high self-esteem, as a consequence of such things as job success, physical attractiveness, etc. contributed to the higher number of sexual partners.”

The authors are concerned about that as well:

The authors note that past experimental studies have found that manipulating self-esteem seems to impact sexual desire differently among men and women, suggesting that self-esteem might be “both a cause and a consequence of short-term mating success in men.”

“Future work should seek to disentangle the many functions of self-esteem within men’s short-term mating psychology,” the researchers write, “including work to identify how self-esteem may serve specially-designed functions as both a consequence, and a cause, of short-term mating success.”

Many years ago I would hear things to the effect that women with high number of sexual partners by women was frequently a result of low self-esteem. At the time I knew two young women (in their mid 20s) who that seemed to apply to but it did not appear to be a consistent pattern. More recently with women in their 50s and 60s I have talked to about numbers of sex partners don’t seem to show any correlation one way or the other. But this did not involve any accurate self-esteem measurements.

More study is required before, if ever, the head shrinks start prescribing lots of sexual partners to increase self-esteem.