Enough! by SignyM

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Enough!

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Saturday, September 11, 2010 19:46
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 2753
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Tuesday, September 7, 2010 8:25 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Okay, got it. Fixed it. Again, a typo. Fingers fly TOO fast sometimes, and sometimes I don't proof...usually I do, but I know I make errors. My most common one is teh!

And no, I meant Sig, CTTS...you too, but you're not here often enough for me to have gotten a feel for your biases. Many of Sig's posts, however, show an anti-government stance that SEEMS to indicate she wants less of it, which would, in many ways, increase the power of big business. I could be wrong, I mix people up at times, but that's how it has appeared to me anyway.

However, admittedly this thread showed exactly the opposite attitude from the beginning, so I could certainly have gotten the wrong impression.

And I agree completely; letting the rich continue to get the advantages they did under Bush is absurd, and returning them to where they were under the previous adminstration isn't a "tax increase", it is letting something expire which was a short-term "gimme".

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Tuesday, September 7, 2010 12:59 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Niki, you know I'm just bustin' yer chops, right?

By the way, it still says "an strong" up there... ;)

Oh, and I think you've got quite the wrong read on Signy. She's quite pro-government, and quite adamantly ANTI-corporate.

AURaptor's Greatest Hits:

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 20:32 To AnthonyT:
Go fuck yourself.
On this matter, make no mistake. I want you to go fuck yourself long and hard, as well as anyone who agrees with you. I got no use for you.

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.

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Friday, September 10, 2010 8:33 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Oh hi Frem

Sorry for the delay. There is a growing and recently developed body of evidence that sociopathy is established extremely early in life: (general google search results http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=sociopathy+in+children&aq=f
&aqi=g1g-s1g1g-s1g-o1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=ab5cdb1806fef4aa).

Sociopaths (1-4% of the population) have 15% smaller amygdala (and do not respond with stress signals indicating internal 'punishment'), do not respond to oxytocin (~2% of the population), have either damaged tracts that lead to the pre-frontal cortex or low pre-frontal cortex activation (similar to those whose pre-frontal cortex was damaged in accidents), are associated with a suite of 'warrior genes', sociopathy is heritable, and has other demonstrable anatomic, biochemical and genetic differences. Children who later become sociopaths are manipulative, entitled, and often torture animals, siblings or friends at a very young age. And the dominant characteristic of sociopaths is that they are resistant to change.
Sociopaths are NOT the same as children brought up under extreme deprivation or insecurity. Sociopaths come from all economic levels.
The connection between nature and nurture in sociopaths is that SOME children with sociopathic anatomies etc will grow up to be normal if raised in a loving, supportive environment.
As an interesting aside, I just read a series of studies indicating that children who cheat on tests in high school (~14%) show many sociopathic tendencies even if they are not full-on sociopaths.

I think in this predatory economy sociopathically-inclined children who might otherwise grow up fine are exposed early to pathological families responding to a pathological society with stress, abuse, fear, anger, and above all a sense that the only thing that counts is winning. Being the predator, not the prey.

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Friday, September 10, 2010 8:42 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
You just don't get it. And I'll spell it out even though it won't help your understanding; don't crush a kid's worth of themselves, and they won't grow up to accept a way of life that sees 'crushing' as an acceptable way to live.
Good Nazis & victims are made that way, dontcha know...

Oh I agree completely. But the crushing is completed around the age of 5 or 6. Before then children have an ad hoc personality. Around that age of 5 or 6 they develop a coherent sense of self - a self identity - for better or worse. I am the quiet one appreciated for being undemanding but who never gets heard. I am the bad one who will be successful but is unlovable. I am the fighter who get can what I need by being tough. etc It happens in the ever-lovin' cradle of the home, not the school.

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Friday, September 10, 2010 9:02 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Byte

Have I addressed you in any other threads? I don't recall doing so. I think this is only the second thread I have posted in at all. Perhaps you are mistaking me for someone else.

Actually, you think campaign reform is a pathetic last resort that you don't really support. What you mention is cooperatives and small independent entities (plus, ah, colonizing space).

I'd like to point out that these don't have the chops to dismantle multinationals who are basically running the world.

"Have you noticed that Europe had a major economic crisis on it's hands when Greece's troubles destabilized the Euro, and how it kinda sorta dragged the US back from the verge of a recovery? Have you noticed how inflated budgets and debts seem to plague certain socio-economic systems?"

Uhm, the US had paper mached over the big gaping gaps in its economic structure. There never was a recovery. The result that the recovery that never was fizzled into the nothingness it was is not surprising. As for Europe, there are structural problems with the EU - everyone wants to have the force of a united European economy, but can't QUITE square their individual budgets, economies and policies with the overall plan. Greece was a great example of that. The EU constitution calls for a maximum govt debt to GDP of 3%. Greece's was 4x that. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/business/global/29bailout.html HOWEVER, given the GENERAL level of European government debt compared to the US, I would take the slightly bloated EU one over the massively bloated US one any day.

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Friday, September 10, 2010 9:06 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Examples?

Any northern or western European country, perhaps minus Britain, and add Canada.

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Friday, September 10, 2010 11:32 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Well Kiki, for some of that, imma refer you to another one of Perry's papers, this one highlighting that there are actual, physically detectable differences in the brain structure and chemistry of a badly abused/neglected kid.
http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/issue_briefs/brain_development/effect
s.cfm
In fact I suspect the study you're referencing there is likely based in part of this one as source material.

And yes, even someone seriously screwed up can overcome it with the proper nuturing and environment, although a true-born sociopath isn't likely to be affected by that whatever, unfortunately.

But frankly, most of the folk we take as sociopathic.. ain't, not really.

Hell I even wrote up a piece under a pseudonym about learned sociopathy as an adaptive mechanism, regarding how children develop into those behavior patterns by modelling their "successful" peers based on how our society *rewards* that behavior, rather extensively, even often glorifying it in our media.

So with the constant cycle of reward-approval for that behavior, while actively socially discouraging behavior that is altruistic or empathetic, you wind up with a really hard-conditioned case of learned behavior sociopathy, which begins to calcify in puberty and then hardens to the point where only a life-shattering catastrophe and related epiphany will have the slightest effect on their behavior.

In fact, my name for it comes from a classical example of it in media, as I call that Rosebud Syndrome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane

But really, what else can we expect when we have a society that marks malicious, exploitive, manipulative behavior as "cool", and completely glorifies it so long as you pull it off with style... and regards humane and altruistic folk as naive, suckers, and clueless ?

I know which of those two *I* prefer to hang with.

At least the granola-eatin hippie will share his granola with me, instead of poisoning my coffee for shits n giggles like "Mr. Coolguy" will.

This despite me being a very malicious bastard myself, in a bizarre dichotomy, all but the tiniest fraction of my malice toward others springs from compassion, not hatred - as those who harm others for fun or gain spark a deep, visceral need in me to HURT them, badly.

But yeah, I understand this issue a bit more than my thuggish demeanor might suggest, sure.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 3:52 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
But the crushing is completed around the age of 5 or 6.

ENNNNNHHHH Wrong answer Hans! Wanna go for double jeopardy where the stakes can really increase?

Whatever. I'm not gonna post study after study for ya- that makes a boring thread. You know some of what you speak, I'll leave it at that.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 5:19 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Jezus, Mike, what was I smoking that day?!?!

I'm pretty sure you're right about Sig, and I offer my apologies. Who IS it who is so anti-government they squeak? And NOT 'one of them', THEM I know perfectly well! One of the reasonable people...I have an idea, but I don't want to hazard a guess lest I be that far off AGAIN!

As to 'pro-government'--naaah, nobody here is "pro-government", you can't trick me like that!

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 5:29 AM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
Actually, you think campaign reform is a pathetic last resort that you don't really support. What you mention is cooperatives and small independent entities (plus, ah, colonizing space).

Well, actually, the complete dismantling of the government is my last resort as I just said. Campaign Reform is something I do support, otherwise I wouldn't mention it, but there are such very real problems in considering how to get around corruption that it would take real attention from the American people to FIND and support candidates untouched by lobbyists/special interests... Attention which I don't think they have. But I would be happy if they could prove me wrong.

Quote:

I'd like to point out that these don't have the chops to dismantle multinationals who are basically running the world.

Perhaps not, but they don't have to. The powers that be, both corporate and government, are so paranoid about any signs of a population that could be becoming even remotely independent from them that they will leverage the national guard, SWAT teams and private security to put down any threat to their control. The more that happens, every brutal curb stomp that seems like gross overreaction, the more regular people wake up and start questioning. You HAVE to have public opinion on your side if you ever want to stage any sort of peaceful revolution.

Quote:
Uhm, the US had paper mached over the big gaping gaps in its economic structure. There never was a recovery. The result that the recovery that never was fizzled into the nothingness it was is not surprising. As for Europe, there are structural problems with the EU - everyone wants to have the force of a united European economy, but can't QUITE square their individual budgets, economies and policies with the overall plan. Greece was a great example of that. The EU constitution calls for a maximum govt debt to GDP of 3%. Greece's was 4x that. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/business/global/29bailout.html HOWEVER, given the GENERAL level of European government debt compared to the US, I would take the slightly bloated EU one over the massively bloated US one any day.

Hmm. Okay. Again, I don't know much about economics. I was speaking only from what I thought I was observing.

I think that the smaller debts of the European Union nations have much to do with their much smaller military budget and less corporate welfare. Not a bad thing, but this is more a result of mindset and less corruption than it is the actual socio-economic structure.

If a balance could be found between respecting citizen rights and privacy, maybe what you propose could be liveable. I also object to the way the EU and to some extent the US attempts to homogenize their citizens, and I see the European Union as particularly working towards this agenda.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 5:30 AM

KWICKO

Niki, I've met some people who actually ARE "pro-government". Of course, they tend to come from places like Denmark, where the government actually does some good for the people.

And heck, just about every right-wing whacko here was VERY pro-government when their boy was in charge. Anyone who wasn't was accused of being an anti-American terrorist!

AURaptor's Greatest Hits:

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 20:32 To AnthonyT:
Go fuck yourself.
On this matter, make no mistake. I want you to go fuck yourself long and hard, as well as anyone who agrees with you. I got no use for you.

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 2:48 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Hi Frem

FWIW I don't count gang-bangers as necessarily sociopathic, nor neglected or toughened children.

What distinguishes a sociopath is not what they do - since all people at one point or another will probably do the same thing (except probably freely torture or murder without being induced to it). What distinguishes a true sociopath is that they CAN'T do anything ELSE. They CAN'T do anything 'HUMAN.'

So we may not even be disagreeing, since my inclusion of who I consider TRULY sociopathic is very narrow.

Also, I think that, like anything else, there is probably a range (with me counting only the extreme end), and a number of different causes for the same appearing end result.

I spent a fair bit of time on various websites either visited by or set up for self-identified sociopaths, because I wanted to get a feel for their internal world as they see it.

One I remember in particular was written by a young mother who said she never felt close to, or cared for, anyone except her child.

Obviously the biological workings of sociopathy haven't been worked out, but if I had to make up a story about her, I would say she either didn't produce much baseline oxytocin or had faulty receptors to it and was neurologically resistant. It took the birth of a child, and I suppose nursing, to either create a normal level of oxytocin, or create a surge that would saturate her receptors and cause her to FEEL something we all take for granted. It's not that she couldn't, it's that she couldn't very much. Also, she seemed to get no pleasure from winning over others. So, if she is a sociopath, it may be through a different mechanism than the torturer-rapist-killer sociopath, who, I think, may be different from the con-man-swindler sociopath etc.

Also, if I were to suppose further, I think a case can be made that behavior is MUCH better modified through reward than punishment, for either normal children or those with sociopathic tendencies. I've come to the supposition that overall, we need to change our child-rearing practices to be reward-and-security based, not fear-and-punishment based.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 2:59 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

ChrisIsAll

I am not very much interested in you posting studies even though I myself spend a fair bit of time reading them. I am curious why you post what you do. What experience, observation, train of thought, philosophy has led you to conclude basic personality can be significantly altered? Obviously you have a deeply felt insight that I would like to learn about.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 3:31 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Byte

While I disagreed with some parts of your post I still appreciated it.

My posts are me strictly motoring across thoughts and not attending to people - at all. I can see how that might cause offense. Given that, I find your even exposition of your thoughts to be welcome.

I think the problem is - how do you create a large-scale movement? And how do you do that in competition with the other movements that cynically exploit real anger, not in the interest of creating real solutions, but to further personal ambitions? After all, it's fairly easy to gain people's attention with inflammatory rhetoric, to stoke their anger, to put them in an unthinking state. And then direct them at will. (Look at Iraq. Bin Laden was the worst guy in the world, an enemy to the death, and then, in mere weeks, he was less than nobody.)

I think education has to be part of it, or people will remain puppets to the Cheneys of the world.

So, if people were to learn ONE thing, what should it be?

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 3:46 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

CTS

I didn't mean to skip by you. But I recall that you argued that corporations weren't as much to be feared as government since they 'merely' held the power of the purse. OTOH governments were given legitimacy by their citizens in their life and death powers - the power of the gas chamber, police and army - the power of the gun. And as legitimized sole killers, were far worse than corporations.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 3:55 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
So, if people were to learn ONE thing, what should it be?

To question the motives of ANYONE who tries to get you to hate others.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 4:51 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
I am curious why you post what you do. What experience, observation, train of thought, philosophy has led you to conclude basic personality can be significantly altered? Obviously you have a deeply felt insight that I would like to learn about.

First- thanks for a most respectful reply. I would have understood some snark.

My Dad's Dad beat his Mom, literally to death. My Dad beat my Mom, until my discovery of Bruce Lee lent me the insight to stop the cycle at age 14.
If my 'crushing' and acceptance of same had been formulated & calcified by age 6, the cycle would never have ended.

I saw peeps in JR High & High School 'crushed' into acceptance of their lot. Bullies, fooled by my gentle & artistic demeanour, thought to place me in the same pigeon hole. Imagine their surprise when I fought back & won (My technique was incredibly sloppy back then, but ultimately effective).

I AM the change I can see dormant in the helpless.
The change possible after the supposed solidification in the home environment in the early formative years.

I am not the happiest person on Earth. But I'm still flyin'. Much more than I can say for past peeps in my family line.

Edited to add: Wow, I got a lot more personal there than I intended to. I may delete it...

Edited again to add: Nah, like Doc Brown says, What the Hell.

Chrisisall

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 5:30 PM

BYTEMITE

If you do, then I just want to say some words of support here. I'm glad you made it through that.

Also, I second your opinion that later on there can be changes to the personality. I had an experience when I was 13 that turned me from a bitter misanthrope to a genki girl. For a while anyway. I've since stabilized to something between the two.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 5:36 PM

CHRISISALL

Thanks.
*Virtual Hug to Byte*

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 5:42 PM

CANTTAKESKY

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
CTS
...But I recall that you argued that corporations weren't as much to be feared as government since they 'merely' held the power of the purse.

If corporations "merely" held the power of the purse, that would be true. (Edited to add: Well, sort of. I think I would prefer to say the "mere" power of the purse should be feared in a different way, not more or less, than the power of the gun.)

But corporations don't just hold the power of the purse. They buy the gun the govt holds and aim it at whoever will make them even more profit. So in reality, they are worse--holding both the power of the purse AND the gun.

Now, if the power of the gun didn't exist or weren't so easily up for sale, I think there are ways to deal with the "mere" power of the purse that do not require that anyone hold a gun at all.

I hope that wasn't as confusing as all get out.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 5:46 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
They buy the gun the govt holds and aim it at whoever will make them even more profit. So in reality, they are worse--holding both the power of the purse AND the gun.

^^^^^^^THIS!!!!!

The laughing Chrisisall

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 5:52 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Also, if I were to suppose further, I think a case can be made that behavior is MUCH better modified through reward than punishment, for either normal children or those with sociopathic tendencies. I've come to the supposition that overall, we need to change our child-rearing practices to be reward-and-security based, not fear-and-punishment based.

Hell yes.

That's a drum I been bangin since 1980, and wise folk like Alice Miller been hammerin on long before that, in fact I can find you arguments over it in print as far back as 1348AD - googling Poisonous Pedagogy will net you loads of information.

But I think Boris really said it best.

Quote:
“As long as the child will be trained not by love, but by fear, so long will humanity live not by justice, but by force. As long as the child will be ruled by the educator’s threat and by the father’s rod, so long will mankind be dominated by the policeman’s club, by fear of jail, and by panic of invasion by armies and navies.”

Boris Sidis, from “A lecture on the abuse of the fear instinct in early education” in Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1919.

THAT is a fight that's been going on a long time, perhaps as long as mankind has.

Quote:
“There are two great powers,” the man said, “and they’ve been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.”

Philip Pullman: The Subtle Knife

I know which side of that I am on, have always been on, from the moment I can remember sentient thought.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 5:54 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Also, I second your opinion that later on there can be changes to the personality. I had an experience when I was 13 that turned me from a bitter misanthrope to a genki girl. For a while anyway. I've since stabilized to something between the two.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSnarkKnight?from=Main.Th
eDaria
*smirks*

-F

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 5:59 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I've since stabilized to something between the two.

A place in the middle.
Does it work for you? If so, then cool.

Damn. Firefly just really speaks to all us peeps willing to recognize how messed up our worlds are, eh? The rest watch Dancing With The Stars & The Biggest Loser I guess.

Sorry- a little 'elitist' there. All shows have their fans...

The not-so-humble-at-times Chrisisall

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 6:06 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
from the moment I can remember sentient thought.

I was grabbing my toes in the crib- BEAT THAT MEMORY!!!! HAHA!

The laughing-baby-memoried Chrisisall

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 7:46 PM

BYTEMITE

I remember a terrifying pressure and then painfully harsh light.

And then laughter. The horrible, shrieking laughter.

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