Just Not Said

W O D -- Thank you. I suspect there are a lot mo...

2013-05-18T08:31:23.553-04:00

W O D --
Thank you.

I suspect there are a lot more lies I haven't seen through than those I have.

I did laugh at this post. I like to read it as i...

2013-05-18T07:56:59.274-04:00

I did laugh at this post.

I like to read it as if your trying to work out what the hell is going on in this world and have see through some of the lies.

Oscar -- I'm not a psychologist. I have an und...

2013-05-17T20:47:23.673-04:00

Oscar --
I'm not a psychologist. I have an undergraduate degree in psychology from Harvard, but the truth is, I graduated from college without any clue as to what a sociopath is. I found that out at age 25, through personal experience, and have been fascinated (and horrified) by them ever since. I've met a few in person, have read about many more, and have also read most of the books on the subject. If you read the news you never have to look far for one, as they are constantly making headlines.

Hi John, I find this sociopath subject fascinating...

2013-05-17T20:41:21.290-04:00

Hi John, I find this sociopath subject fascinating and I would like to ask you if you are a psychologist or have been studying this science. I do have a personality disorder (borderline) which is considered more harmful than antisocial personality disorder, but that doesn't make of me a dangerous character. Regards.

Anonymous -- I think I can actually set your mind ...

2013-05-17T18:10:59.251-04:00

Anonymous --
I think I can actually set your mind at east on this. First of all, being a sociopath isn't a matter of inheriting some of your traits from each parents, the way it works with genetics. As long as your mother was good and loved you, you can escape sociopathy entirely;

Second, most people don't have all that many people they'd sacrifice themselves for, if any. Most people pay far more lip service to love than they actually feel. As my brother observed after my sister died, it's only the immediate family who really cries. (And if you don't cry when your father dies, don't worry about it; that's only natural too, given his behavior.)

Third, if you don't hurt people, you're not a sociopath. That one piece of evidence is almost conclusive in itself.

And fourth, and maybe most telling, is that you actually worry about being a sociopath. No sociopath I've ever known would have worried about it. Their attitude was much more like, okay, so I am one, so what? What does it mean? It just means that I'm strong and the rest of the world is weak. So eff you.

I don't know you, so I can't say for sure, but the clues I got from your comment indicate you're not.

Anon -- Thank you very much, especially for lookin...

2013-05-17T18:02:15.097-04:00

Anon --
Thank you very much, especially for looking through the archives.

I"m not even sure why I do this. I keep building it, the way some semi-crazy guys used to build elaborate train sets in their basements.

I know this is an old post, though I found it thro...

2013-05-17T17:41:56.874-04:00

I know this is an old post, though I found it through Google when putting in the search, "Can sociopaths love their children". My dad was a sociopath (or rather, still is, though I say it in past tense as I've purposely cut contact and want nothing to do with him.) and going by his personality, I'd say no. He only cared when it was to his advantage, which means it wasn't really true, honest care towards myself or my brother, but rather a care for himself.

At the same time, as much as I hate to say it, sometimes I wonder if I'm some weird mix of sociopath and "normal" due to my upbringing. There's only 3 people I feel for deep down, and only 1, maybe 2 of those, I would put before myself in an emergency situation... and I say that while still being somewhat on the fence about it. I can force tears to appear sad at funerals, etc... though there are times my tears ARE genuine. I don't act abusive like my dad at all or purposely seek harm on people like him either. I guess sometimes I wonder if I'm just confusing psychopathy with being numb. And numbness to emotions would be an understandable safe guard given an abusive upbringing, right?

It just frightens me sometimes because I don't want to be anything like him. Sometimes I worry that if people knew how I really felt even half the time, they wouldn't trust me, let alone want to be around me. If I think too much about it, even I won't like me.

Hey Just wanna let you know I have been reading yo...

2013-05-17T17:10:58.848-04:00

Hey Just wanna let you know I have been reading your blog for a couple of months. I read thru the archives also. Keep up the good work.

Ambrose -- Someone else just told me a few days ag...

2013-05-17T01:43:50.810-04:00

Ambrose --
Someone else just told me a few days ago he hopes affirmative action is not abolished for the same reason. I'd never heard that before, but it' an interesting viewpoint, and you both may well be right.

I actually don't even mind tat there are transponders. There are people with gender dysphoria, and if society can make them happy, fine. I was just objecting to the notion that they should be allowed to compete against women, AS women, which is ludicrous.

Anon -- Sorry, wasn't suggesting YOU were pull...

2013-05-17T01:34:12.649-04:00

Anon --
Sorry, wasn't suggesting YOU were pulling my leg, merely that the story had sprung up as some kind of urban legend. Now it sounds as if Snoop Dogg himself might have been misled, possibly mistaking his special order for some kind of new product line. Especially if he had no conception of the company structure at GM. Given all the stereotypes you mentioned above, I can't imagine GM management ever even considering such a potentially controversial project.

This is just another example of liberal feel-good,...

2013-05-17T01:10:26.246-04:00

This is just another example of liberal feel-good, 'everything's acceptable' mentality followed to its logical conclusion. This is how crazy society gets when it refuses to uphold ethical norms and abandons historical and traditional distinctions between men and women.

Regardless of how much this 'thing' wants to be a woman, it's still a man and still possesses the greater strength that men have over women.

I think the only way our society can ever hope to reverse this nonsense is by these kinds of crazy things being carried to their final conclusions. I hope this stuff is crammed down our throats even more so that, collectively, we start to vomit up all this poison we've politically ingested for the past 45 years! I hope Americans get so sick of this stuff, that a national revolt of some sort begins. Oh well, it's nice to dream.

I wasn't pulling your leg. I only recently fo...

2013-05-17T00:26:43.689-04:00

I wasn't pulling your leg. I only recently found out about the Snoopmobile from Adam Carolla's podcast. He reounted a story about when Jimmy Kimmel was negotiating his Late Night contract, back then. He advised Jimmy to insist ABC give him a Cadillac, which used to be a symbol of finally making it to the top.
Carolla later visited Snoop Dog, and told him about it: "I told Jimmy he should make them give him a CADILLAC!"
Snoop replied, "FUCK Cadillac. They cancelled my Snoop Deville. Well, fuck those guys. I'm taking my idea to GM".

Anon -- Ha! Good point about Big & Tall stores...

2013-05-16T01:47:48.792-04:00

Anon --
Ha! Good point about Big & Tall stores.

At first I wasn't sure whether you were speaking in jest about the Snoop DeVille, so I Googled it, and sure enough, there were several pictures of tricked out Caddies. But then I looked it up on the Urban Dictionary, which basically says it's a pimped out 1965 Coupe Deville with wire wheels and custom pin striping used by 50 Cent in a rap video. So....you had me going there, but I can't imagine that idea ever getting past management at GM.

Not necessarily defending CBS, but they do air a s...

2013-05-15T23:13:50.244-04:00

Not necessarily defending CBS, but they do air a sitcom ("Mike and Molly"?), which stars a couple of big, fat pigs. I don't suppose the report gave "equal time" to the issue, by investigating complaints from svelte midgets about the lack of suitable merchadise at "Big & Tall" stores.
You mention Ferrari on a different note, but I believe they, and other high-end car makers, should screen their customers to protect their brand and image. About 10 years ago, Cadillac almost ruined theirs, when they were close to marketing a "Snoop Deville", with every stupid stereotypical pimp feature built-in. People had always laughingly associated that car with "those people", but if they'd gone through with those plans.... forgetaboutit.

Lowly -- Thank you! I consider it a public servi...

2013-05-15T14:46:47.309-04:00

Lowly --

Thank you!

I consider it a public service.

Good of you to clear these things up! Sometimes on...

2013-05-15T14:01:43.880-04:00

Good of you to clear these things up! Sometimes one just don't know what to think.

Anon -- I've always wondered about Einstein; o...

2013-05-15T08:41:28.574-04:00

Anon --
I've always wondered about Einstein; on the one hand there's that famous story about how he didn't learn to speak until he was four, but I've also heard that that story is not true, so I don't know.

And on the other hand he was, as you say, a successful womanizer, and I've never known an Aspie who was one. (Of course, it's also true that women will often flock to celebrities, who can trade off their fame to rack up the numbers no matter how charmless they are.)

But the strongest evidence against Einstein being an Aspie are some of the quotes attributed to him: he seems wise and witty as well, traits not normally associated with Aspergers.

Contrast him to Bill Gates, another guy on a lot of the famous-people-with-Aspergers lists. When was the last time you heard a witty quote attributed to him? His friend Warren Buffett is a veritable fountain of pithy, funny, commonsensical sayings; Gates seems to be a desert. And its not as if if he said something funny, it wouldn't get some publicity.

(By the way, I have no doubt that Gates, had he been inclined that way, could have been a world class womanizer just based on his money and fame.)

As far as Newton, I've heard that was a homosexual; might that not explain his lifelong virginity (at least vis-a-vis women)?

That first article about g was interesting, thank you for that, although I still have my doubts. I'm not the expert in IQ that you are, I'm just someone who's read about it a little. But my everyday experience is that most of the people I've known who are extremely good at one thing show, if not talent, at least a certain amount of common sense about most subjects, even if that not all that interested in those other subjects. I think that at a fairly early age we all just get fixated on certain interests, usually with all the foresight and planning of baby ducks imprinting on their mothers, and those interests tend to turn into lifelong interests. And if you're fixated on certain things, you will just dwell on them more, examine them from all sorts of angles, and think about various possibilities associated with them. And that's how insights spring up. To me, both talent AND genius are matters of fixation and appeal as much as different gene clusters. (Those gene clusters DO explain how much intelligence you can bring to bear on your subject/fixation of choice, but not necessarily why you ended up focusing on one subject and not another.)

The first article you linked concluded that Shakespeare could not have done what Newton did, nor could either have replicated Edison's achievements. True enough; but that statement really applies to the middle-aged versions of each of these men. What if Shakespeare had become fixated on questions of science as a 5-year-old, rather than romance and the mysteries of the human psyche? What would he would have accomplished? We just don't know.

Many of the arguments I've heard against g theory tend to involve, if not autistic savants, at least people who might have Aspergers. But autistics aside, all of my firsthand experience pushes me in the direction of g.

"Einstein is on a lot of lists of famous peop...

2013-05-15T06:28:04.597-04:00

"Einstein is on a lot of lists of famous people with Aspergers"

he was quite social and a womanizer, Newton the life-long virgin would be a better candidate.

"I tend to believe in the "g" theory of intelligence, and think that different people become good at different things simply because that's what they're interested in."

No. Read the last one here:

http://www.megasociety.org/noesis/141/towers.html

and IQ is more about talent than genius.

Genius by Eysenck on Galton's folly and regression to mean

Ed -- The argument that Hispanics are natural Repu...

2013-05-15T03:57:11.618-04:00

Ed --
The argument that Hispanics are natural Republicans" is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. They come in at the bottom of the economic ladder, and they're supposed to vote for the party of less taxes and less welfare?

The Democrats' agenda is perfectly clear.

I like your suggested guideline.

Its easy to understand the Democrat support for gr...

2013-05-14T22:36:40.337-04:00

Its easy to understand the Democrat support for granting citizenship to illegal immigrants, they will vote Democrat by a large margin and be consumers of the big-government programs Democrats thrive on providing.

For Republicans its long term political suicide but somehow they continue to support it anyway. Maybe its because big business benefits from cheap labor from illegal immigrants, or from the downward pressure illegals put on salaries.

How about a common sense policy: if real national unemployment is above 5%, no immigration (legal or naturalization of illegals) will be allowed. Its time for the US to start looking out for its current citizens - most of whom are financially stagnated or worse.

- Ed

Ambrose -- You are right on all counts. There'...

2013-05-14T21:24:07.374-04:00

Ambrose --
You are right on all counts. There's absolutely no question that intelligence is largely genetically determined, and everybody who says otherwise is saying so either out of ignorance or because they have a political axe to grind.

These days, of course, "open-minded" means the opposite of what it used to. it used to actually mean, open-minded. These days it means being close-minded to all but the liberal viewpoint.

And yes, they have no sense of fair play. Their playbook is straight from Alinsky.

Aside from the Heritage Foundation acting cowardly...

2013-05-14T21:16:06.163-04:00

Aside from the Heritage Foundation acting cowardly in this matter, it reveals once again how liberals attack academic freedom. They are masters not of intellectually refuting the position of their opponents, but by intimidation, social stigma ('racist'), and ruining the careers of those who politically differ from them.

This notion that liberals are 'tolerant' and 'open-minded' is one of the biggest lies that's been foisted on the American public.

Liberals are not out to play fair with their opponents or treat them with mutual respect. They're out to utterly destroy them and ruin their lives. They have, in effect, a 'scorched earth' policy of dealing with the opposition.

Conservatives must always keep this in mind. Never, ever trust liberals and recognize that the days of political niceties are over. The Left is at war with us, and we better start fighting like our very lives and future is at stake - because they are!

(Second) Anon (or are you the same person?) -- I&...

2013-05-14T20:17:17.594-04:00

(Second) Anon (or are you the same person?) --

I"m familiar with how it's easier to score high if you're a child. I have a friend who scored 211 as a child, and he says that he would do no better than 130 or 140 if he took the test now. I don't entirely believe him, but he's right that he would score lower. (Type in "The Smartest Guy I ever met" into the search bar of this blog, and my post about him will come up, along with my impression of what constitutes intelligence in general.)

I gave my sister a test out of a book when she was 10, made sure she stayed within the time limits etc, and she scored a 210. She, too, would not have scored as well a a later age, although she was extremely, almost freakishly, intelligent. (She did solve some geometry problems on that test without ever having taken geometry.)

(First) Anon -- Einstein is on a lot of lists of f...

2013-05-14T20:11:16.218-04:00

(First) Anon --
Einstein is on a lot of lists of famous people with Aspergers; I have no idea whether that's true, but if it is, it would explain his relatively narrow focus. And it's hardly fair to compare anyone's mathematical expertise with someone like Galton, who was a recognized genius in that field.

I tend to believe in the "g" theory of intelligence, and think that different people become good at different things simply because that's what they're interested in. I also believe that IQ tests are probably better for measuring populations as a whole than for being reliable indicators of individual genius. You sound like the kind of guy who's probably taken a number of IQ tests just out of curiosity, to see how you would do. (I am, too.) Think of the variation between your individual scores on different tests; which one measures the real you? (I'd like to choose my highest score and say THAT ONE is the real me, but I know about variations between tests, especially some of those you can find on the internet.

Interesting about Feynman, thank you for that.

Anon -- It actually does sound like that movie Big...

2013-05-14T19:52:48.281-04:00

Anon --
It actually does sound like that movie Big Fish, if that's what you're referring to. But Big Fish was allegorical and fantastical, this one is not like that at all. It's much more real. I sorta liked BF, but far preferred this one.