The alternate view: Confessions of a Wall Street Nihilist

[wayiwalk]

Re: The alternate view: Confessions of a Wall Street Nihilist

Cool. Scientific proof that republicans are evil....at least you can come away with that from the ponerology website.

The biases of the writer/owner of that site would likely lead to a blindness in their analyses, wouldn't they?

My life experience is much different.

I grew up in a upper middle class neighborhood on Long Island. The very wealthy/powerful there, were selfish, money grubbing, arrogant bastards who I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them. And predominantly democrats. And still are.

I moved to an upper middle class neighborhood in New Jersey. The very wealthy/powerful there, are selfish, money grubbing, arrogant bastards who I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them. And predominantly republicans.

Any "valid research" that can only see one wing of the political body of a nations as being the party of evil, sociopaths, is suspect.

[Rajiv]

Re: The alternate view: Confessions of a Wall Street Nihilist

Did you even read the extracts from the book? There is nothing about democrats and republicans there. In fact the person who blocked the publication of the book was a democrat.

What is important is the text, since the book has no photographs or images, but it is just a treatise into the causes of psychopathy, and how to protect yourself from them.

[Rajiv]

Re: The alternate view: Confessions of a Wall Street Nihilist

Also Sam Vaknin -- the "I, Psychopath" in the above documentary -- his website

[reggie]

Re: The alternate view: Confessions of a Wall Street Nihilist

Cool. Scientific proof that republicans are evil....at least you can come away with that from the ponerology website.

The biases of the writer/owner of that site would likely lead to a blindness in their analyses, wouldn't they?

My life experience is much different.

I grew up in a upper middle class neighborhood on Long Island. The very wealthy/powerful there, were selfish, money grubbing, arrogant bastards who I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them. And predominantly democrats. And still are.

I moved to an upper middle class neighborhood in New Jersey. The very wealthy/powerful there, are selfish, money grubbing, arrogant bastards who I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them. And predominantly republicans.

Any "valid research" that can only see one wing of the political body of a nations as being the party of evil, sociopaths, is suspect.

I've read Lobaczewski's work, and it was very interesting. Here are some clips I've saved:

“When three “egos” govern – egoism, egotism, and egocentrism – the feeling of social links and responsibility toward others disappear, and the society in question splinters into groups ever more hostile to each other. When a hysterical environment stops differentiating the opinions of limited, not-quite-normal people from those of normal, reasonable persons, this opens the door for activation of the pathological factors of a various nature to enter in.” (Lobaczewski, 177)

"The actions of [pathocracy] affect an entire society, starting with the leaders and infiltrating every town, business, and institution. The pathological social structure gradually covers the entire country creating a “new class” within that nation. This privileged class [of pathocrats] feels permanently threatened by the “others”, i.e. by the majority of normal people. Neither do the pathocrats entertain any illusions about their personal fate should there be a return to the system of normal man." [Andrew M. Lobaczewski]

Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology:
The Psychopathy of Power:

They view us from a certain distance, like a para-specific variety. Natural human reactions -which often fail to elicit interest to normal people because they are considered self-evident - strike the psychopath as strange and, interesting, and even comical. They therefore observe us, deriving conclusions, forming their different world of concepts. They become experts in our weaknesses and sometimes effect heartless experiments. The suffering and injustice they cause inspire no guilt within them, since such reactions from others are simply a result of their being different and apply only to “those other” people they perceive to be not quite conspecific. Neither a normal person nor our natural world view can fully conceive nor properly evaluate the existence of this world of different concepts.


Excerpt from Chapter III:
Ponerology

Our natural world of concepts – based upon species instincts as described in an earlier chapter - strikes the psychopath as a nearly incomprehensible convention with no justification in their own psychological experience. They think that customs and principles of decency are a foreign convention invented and imposed by someone else, (“probably by priests”) silly, onerous, sometimes even ridiculous. At the same time, however, they easily perceive the deficiencies and weaknesses of our natural language of psychological and moral concepts in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the attitude of a contemporary psychologist — except in caricature.

The average intelligence of the psychopath, especially if measured via commonly used tests, is somewhat lower than that of normal people, albeit similarly variegated. Despite the wide variety of intelligence and interests, this group does not contain examples of the highest intelligence, nor do we find technical or craftsmanship talents among them. The most gifted members of this kind may thus achieve accomplishments in those sciences which do not require a correct humanistic world view or practical skills. (Academic decency is another matter, however.) Whenever we attempt to construct special tests to measure “life wisdom” or “socio-moral imagination”, even if the difficulties of psychometric evaluation are taken into account, individuals of this type indicate a deficit disproportionate to their personal IQ.

In spite of their deficiencies in normal psychological and moral knowledge, they develop and then have at their disposal a knowledge of their own, something lacked by people with a natural world view. They learn to recognize each other in a crowd as early as childhood, and they develop an awareness of the existence of other individuals similar to them. They also become conscious of being different from the world of those other people surrounding them. They view us from a certain distance, like a para-specific variety. Natural human reactions -which often fail to elicit interest to normal people because they are considered self-evident - strike the psychopath as strange and, interesting, and even comical. They therefore observe us, deriving conclusions, forming their different world of concepts. They become experts in our weaknesses and sometimes effect heartless experiments. The suffering and injustice they cause inspire no guilt within them, since such reactions from others are simply a result of their being different and apply only to “those other” people they perceive to be not quite conspecific. Neither a normal person nor our natural world view can fully conceive nor properly evaluate the existence of this world of different concepts.

But, I didn't agree with his call to action on the last page, where Lobaczewski calls for a "eugenic morality". He says this would "inspire voluntary effort to contribute to the reduction, from generation to generation, of the burden of genetically transmuted psychopathologicial anomalies." Segmenting the population across some man-made metric, then extinguishing that subgroup through some man-enforced Darwinian action, makes me pretty darn nervous.

As far as that website that you refer to, I suggest sticking just to the author's material. I think you'll find Robert Hare quite relevant (I referred to him earlier in the thread).

[flintlock]

Re: The alternate view: Confessions of a Wall Street Nihilist

Sorry, I misspoke. Of course I meant the Russian Army, later known as the Red Army. The Russian Army( or former elements of it) most certainly were the muscle behind the revolution. Troops sent in to quell the unrest mutinied and joined the mobs. Easy to understand when you realize how badly the government had treated them ( for example, troops sent into battle with no arms and told to pick up a rifle when casualties made them available). WWI was probably the direct cause of the Revolution. The Tsars had been pissing off Russian peasants for centuries. Its when they armed millions of them with magazine rifles and sent them off as cannon fodder that things finally went bad. Also, the revolution had to survive a civil war with the Whites before it could be declared a victory. Cheka and citizen commitees did not fight that war. Trained, uniformed troops did. Back then, you either had the ear of the Army or you did not. Police were not militarized back then like they are now. And serfs didn't own firearms. So you had to have the Army to have a revolution.

To answer your question, our massive paramilitary police forces will be used to put down any active resistance. We are approaching one million police in the USA. That's roughly the size of the US Army in the European theater of operations in WWII. And unlike police in 1944, our "police" today are well equipped with automatic rifles, sniper rifles, even armored vehicles. They receive military type training. Wear military gear. I don't think it was any accident that after 9/11 Homeland Security was handing out money like it was candy to equip these police forces with some serious fighting gear. I certainly don't think they really expect to see some local swat team shooting it out with terrorists. That money is not about catching Osama bin Laden. It's about quelling unrest. Well, of course, unless they brand anyone who disagrees with them a terrorist. Then it is about terrorism. I think most police would not choose to fire on their fellow citizens. But there is quite a bit of brainwashing going on there. And many swallow it hook, line, and sinker.

I think the military will sit this one out. Their numbers are not needed. The government knows it is better served by intimidation, midnight raids, and branding dissidents as "terrorists" than any straight up fight. That's the last thing they want. Hitler, Stalin, Sadam Hussein. All knew an aggressive police force was their best insurance.

[Shakespear]

Re: The alternate view: Confessions of a Wall Street Nihilist

Segmenting the population across some man-made metric, then extinguishing that subgroup through some man-enforced Darwinian action, makes me pretty darn nervous.

You are quite right. The moment someone starts to feel that Genetically they are superior, trouble is probable just around the corner. Then give these people some power and we are on a down slope to the Reign of Terror ala French Revolution or Nazi Eugenics Programs (which were already being studied in the US).

Germany during WW II was quietly doing just that to get rid of handicapped and mentally ill individuals. There may be on YouTube some black and white films from documentary films showing how through clever cinematography a subgroup could be made to look like "evil insects" needing to be gotten rid of. I suspect subtle forms of this are being done today in Mass Media denigrating certain groups and planting the seed of hatred.