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Just the other day I saw an article complaining about another extremely racist policy: Color-blind assessment. (See here)
That's a big part of why so many of us on the left aren't thrilled about the progressives are doing... "equality" now means simply switching which groups get preferential treatment, as punishment for past wrongs. It's a completely untenable position. And part of the reason why Trump won... a lot of Democrats just stayed home. Your whole life you advocate for everyone to receive equal treatment, now that makes you a right-wing racist because equal treatment isn't good enough... that alienates people.

No need to wait for SF authors. Sperm has been proven to be an anti-depressant in women.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201101/attention-ladies-semen-is-antidepressant

Perhaps the idea of "Fake News" is fake itself!

So, if fake news is fake, then it's real news?
OK, I think I can process that...
But does that mean the real news was the fake news all along?
I mean, in the end, do I go with the fake real news or the real fake news?
It feels like I'm being gaslighted...

A toy presents a set of rules for play by its very nature. There are only so many things you can do with a toy before the object itself becomes irrelevant, and if you place importance on the object you cut off a whole range of free play.
Which, to be stingingly honest, is the intent behind the entertainment industry, including toy makers. It's a form of social conditioning. Not unlike what the 'SJWs' say about Barbies, but they are generally very lacking in their interpretation of the scope of these measures. The toys just don't enforce "gender norms", they enforce the scope of a child's very humanity by relation to their social role, regardless of gender. They enforce an extremely irrational subordination to authority, a la "these are the rules, you must follow them, enjoy, or else you can't have any stimulation, because there is nothing else."

That there is an object that play is centered around is not good. Play should be centered around the social and environmental interactions. A toy should just be any old thing that is lying around.
This is in order to stimulate all parts of the mind, all the instincts, big and small, that make up the human mind. Children need free play to stimulate the various parts of their minds and bodies proportionally and to develop good mental and physical health.
But when you raise children in urban/suburban 'pens', there isn't anything at all just lying around. It's a constrained, sterile environment. Unfortunately this is just something most of us just have to live with, not having the luxury of being able to move out into the country. So we have to be extremely, extremely careful about the toys we give our children and we have to go far out of our way to provide them with regular free play experiences.

To be honest, kids absolutely need a natural environment to play in. Fields, woods, etc. They need to be able to range around unsupervised. It's a desperate need, every single day, it's not negotiable except at the cost of your child's development. Your children will be hurt deeply without these experiences. Do whatever you can to provide this for them.

Check out this article, especially its references:
https://www.psychologytoday.co...

My brain blinks when I think of something I need to do in another room and after I walk there, it blinks to something else and I forget the reason I went there.
#oldageblinkingsucks

Were you thinking about the study mentioned in this article?
https://www.psychologytoday.co...

Here's proof. Married men do not live longer than men who stay single all their lives. They only outlived men who got married and then divorced.

Since getting married means you are taking a chance on divorce, then getting married means you are taking a chance on shortening your lifespan. And if you don't get divorced, you lifespan is back where it would have been if you never got married.

You're trying to use "historical context" to say that because some people were judged by the color of their skin to their detriment, they should now be judged by the color of their skin to their benefit, and vice versa, to compensate for the past. Once again, two wrongs do not make a right, and people should never be judged by the color of their skin in a world where we're all equal. Even if you disagree, its absurd to suggest this is a racist attitude.

Hardly. Give this a read:

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

Good luck with your sociology project. I encourage you to ask a woman's opinion about your thoughts on sexual assault. There's a reason every one will find them reprehensible.

Here's where the sleight of hand comes in with your argument:

Liberal: "...and we should acknowledge and operate under the reality that men and women may have different preferences..."

Merely stating "that" without answering "why" is more or less meaningless.

There's a very good article at Psychology Today that summarizes a number of the same research articles I've cited on this topic in the past.

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

Look especially at the section summarizing Wang, Eccles, and Kenny (2013). I find one conclusion Dr. Jussim draws from the paper particularly interesting:

"People (regardless of whether they were male or female) who had only strong math skills as students were more likely to be working in STEM fields at age 33 than were other students".

I wonder a bit if our collective arrogance (at least in computer science related fields) blinds us into thinking that anyone who is highly skilled must want to pursue a job in our field. Maybe we think a little too highly of ourselves and STEM is a niche for people that are highly skilled at math with poor verbal skills. Why would anyone that has strong verbal skills want to surround themselves with people who don't?

What we've got now is generally more humane than what we had in the days of Karl Marx, and some elements of the Communist Manifesto are in general practice

Like what?

The basic capitalist distribution of wealth doesn't match anything most people would find desirable.

Your echo chamber isn't "most people".

It reduces opportunities for the less wealthy, and that's not good.

Based on what, exactly? We're seeing more and more opportunities for the less wealthy as time goes on. Hans Rosling showed this pretty well using hard numbers. This primarily comes from new technology that the private sector creates for its own self interest. And whenever a new technology comes around that disrupts jobs, we see whole new industries spring up that weren't possible without that technology. Case in point: The word "computer" was a person's job title. Obviously that job no longer exists, but look at the numerous industries that now center around computers, and better yet, computers have enabled other industries to scale to a level not before possible. So you're going to need to explain why you think your statement is true.

My goal is equal opportunity.

We already have this, at least in the United States at any rate. Just under 10 years ago I personally had about $20 to my name with no job. I applied for FAFSA, went to college, and only two years after graduating, I had an $80,000 a year income as a single guy (in my zip code, that puts me within the top 19% of income earners, which is within the range that Marxists would define as the "upper class". In other words, I'm the bad guy according to them just because they picked a number that says so.

What we need to do is provide good health care and good education for everyone, and some sort of safety net if people get screwed up so they can try again.

You mean like medicaid and food stamps? Yeah, I was on these when I had no money and no job. Health care was fully covered with no copays/deductibles, and the food stamps were more than adequate for my needs.

As we found out in the pre-WWI era, capitalists aren't going to profit from public education, because there's not much money in it.

Using capitalists to describe a group of people is pretty vague. Do you work in exchange for money? Congratulations, you're a capitalist. I'm not saying that you work for a burger joint, but suppose you do, then you're not flipping burgers so you can take joy in feeding other people, you flip burgers for your own self interest because you want money. Marxists call working for your own self benefit (i.e. greed) evil and that you should be working for the benefit of all, but they're dead wrong, because asking people to do work strictly for the benefit of others is the evil thing to do. Why? Because that makes people depressed, and depression is unhealthy for you:

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

And depression is unhealthy for those around you as well:

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

It's no wonder that socialist countries are so miserable to live in that socialist governments have to use penalty of death to prevent people from leaving (aside from the whole "everybody except for the party leadership is equally poor" part.)

Rant aside, a previous job I had paid for me to take additional college classes, and (especially in the IT field) it's very common for businesses to pay for very expensive training. Many businesses are also donating money to trade schools to subsidize education for workers they need locally when few are available. So yes, there is money in it, and your statement is likewise false.

What we've got now is generally more humane than what we had in the days of Karl Marx, and some elements of the Communist Manifesto are in general practice

Like what?

The basic capitalist distribution of wealth doesn't match anything most people would find desirable.

Your echo chamber isn't "most people".

It reduces opportunities for the less wealthy, and that's not good.

Based on what, exactly? We're seeing more and more opportunities for the less wealthy as time goes on. Hans Rosling showed this pretty well using hard numbers. This primarily comes from new technology that the private sector creates for its own self interest. And whenever a new technology comes around that disrupts jobs, we see whole new industries spring up that weren't possible without that technology. Case in point: The word "computer" was a person's job title. Obviously that job no longer exists, but look at the numerous industries that now center around computers, and better yet, computers have enabled other industries to scale to a level not before possible. So you're going to need to explain why you think your statement is true.

My goal is equal opportunity.

We already have this, at least in the United States at any rate. Just under 10 years ago I personally had about $20 to my name with no job. I applied for FAFSA, went to college, and only two years after graduating, I had an $80,000 a year income as a single guy (in my zip code, that puts me within the top 19% of income earners, which is within the range that Marxists would define as the "upper class". In other words, I'm the bad guy according to them just because they picked a number that says so.

What we need to do is provide good health care and good education for everyone, and some sort of safety net if people get screwed up so they can try again.

You mean like medicaid and food stamps? Yeah, I was on these when I had no money and no job. Health care was fully covered with no copays/deductibles, and the food stamps were more than adequate for my needs.

As we found out in the pre-WWI era, capitalists aren't going to profit from public education, because there's not much money in it.

Using capitalists to describe a group of people is pretty vague. Do you work in exchange for money? Congratulations, you're a capitalist. I'm not saying that you work for a burger joint, but suppose you do, then you're not flipping burgers so you can take joy in feeding other people, you flip burgers for your own self interest because you want money. Marxists call working for your own self benefit (i.e. greed) evil and that you should be working for the benefit of all, but they're dead wrong, because asking people to do work strictly for the benefit of others is the evil thing to do. Why? Because that makes people depressed, and depression is unhealthy for you:

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

And depression is unhealthy for those around you as well:

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

It's no wonder that socialist countries are so miserable to live in that socialist governments have to use penalty of death to prevent people from leaving (aside from the whole "everybody except for the party leadership is equally poor" part.)

Rant aside, a previous job I had paid for me to take additional college classes, and (especially in the IT field) it's very common for businesses to pay for very expensive training. Many businesses are also donating money to trade schools to subsidize education for workers they need locally when few are available. So yes, there is money in it, and your statement is likewise false.

While I do agree with your sentiment, I have to admit that I take issue with your use of the expression

..the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

. Every time I hear that I cringe.

https://www.psychologytoday.co...
To be clear, insanity is a legal term pertaining to a defendant's ability to determine right from wrong when a crime is committed. Here's the first sentence of law.com's lengthy definition:

Insanity. n. mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior.

Yeah it really is a mental illness. Unless you want to argue that the entire branch of psychology is wrong.

So let's roll with this: The "conscious self" says one thing, the physical body is saying something else. Will you now argue that someone who wants to cut off a part of their body to gain a disability doesn't have a mental illness? Is that not the very definition of a psychiatric problem?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

He followed data he didn't collect, or understand, to a conclusion he had already decided was right (even given the fact that the data DID NOT support that conclusion).... that's called confirmation bias. Even the person who did collect some of the data, whom the engineer posted as a source, says the engineer came to the wrong conclusion.

So, Google probably should have fired him for not being able to read and understand the written word, or maybe for being so clueless as to have absolutely no foresight in regards to the possible repercussions of his actions. Either way, conservatives have pushed "at-will employment" laws to undermine unions for 30+ years, and his firing is allowed by those.... so while he may not be whining, and just answering questions... all of these posts on /. past the first one is basically conservatives whining about a perceived slight because of their victim complex.

Nope, I saw that. I also saw that people reanalyzed the data and found that the analysis was faulty. Here is another explanation of the topic.

You mean, apart from women being neurotic?

It is a fact, confirmed by established research, that women are significantly more likely than men to exhibit neurotic traits such as "depression, panic disorder, phobias," and so on. For example, see

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/know-your-mind/201306/the-stressed-sex-1

and

http://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-3514.94.1.168

The guy's "Ph.D." was in evolutionary psychology, which is Nazi-style ideology, not science. They just like to wear lab coats.

1

2

He insults them ("neurotic" and spenders of men's hard earned money)

But those claims are absolutely true. Women are more likely than men to exhibit neurotic traits such as "depression, panic disorder, phobias," and so on. See

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/know-your-mind/201306/the-stressed-sex-1

And women place "greater emphasis on the earning capacity of a potential spouse". See

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016230959290021U

You know that bit in the manifesto where he described neuroticism as a female trait?

That claim is absolutely true, and is supported by established research. See, for example,

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/know-your-mind/201306/the-stressed-sex-1

The research shows that women are significantly more likely than men to exhibit neurotic traits such as "depression, panic disorder, phobias," and so on.

It's all old, tired arguments that have been comprehensively refuted before. For example, he states that women are more neurotic and less able to deal with stress. We know that isn't true, because we have studied it in great detail.

Wrong! According to

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/know-your-mind/201306/the-stressed-sex-1

women have higher rates of anxiety and depression than men. The article does not claim that claims that women are "less able to deal with stress", but it does claim that women are generally more "stressed" than men.

Your claim that these are "old, tired arguments that have been comprehensively refuted" is a bald-faced lie.

For most of those people staring at a screen, it's not the device that interests them, but rather the content. They have found a way to interact with more interesting people who are not in physical proximity. Here's a nice article on neurochemicals the brain uses to reward behavior. It's possible to design computer games that stimulate the release of these chemicals, particularly dopamine. In some cases, this can lead to behavior that qualifies as addiction. Most of the time, you're seeing people replacing behavior that's valued by someone in their physical proximity with behavior that's valued by people who are more distant. Whether the support systems in our society are sufficiently good that we can so frequently disregard physical proximity as an organizing factor in the web of value exchange that we use to construct our place in society is a discussion worth having, and probably worth having in secondary school. However, it's not a discussion about addiction.

This is no different than every other stupid moral panic we've endured. If it's not terrorists in every neighborhood, it's pedophiles behind every bush and tree. If it's not pedos swarming the backs of local park bushes, it's out-of-control high-impact sexual slavery in every motel room even if no pimp or underage person is ever involved and everyone consents to what's going on. Anger and fear are the only two emotional states that cause the logical side of the brain to completely shut down. These moral panics exist solely for the purpose of power grabbing. It was never about protecting lives, children, or women; it has always been about making you afraid enough that you'll support permanent removal of the rights of yourself and others to conduct your respective lives as you see fit, giving that control to the authoritarian politicians that crafted the panic in the first place, and thanking them profusely for protecting you from others by making you a little bit more of a slave to the government and its very real slippery slope of control.

See also http://reason.com/blog/2017/06... and https://www.psychologytoday.co... and an interesting thing I found along the way http://www.acadiau.ca/~thomson...

You are experiencing the halo effect: https://www.psychologytoday.co...

Nonsense. I provided a very insightful comment (attention, mods!),

grandiose narcissists truly believe in their own greatness

Don't go yet! I read this:

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

So I'm trying a whole new approach to creimer. Trying to humanize the guy by understanding his mental health issues.

And the problem with that is? I mean, unless you're a racist turd? Why not have the Muslim street "feel good"? Maybe less jihadis, maybe not, costs nothing.

Who's the racist turd here? I mean that if the Obama thinks that Muslims are so depressed about their past accomplishments that he needs to make it a government policy to "make them feel good" then is that not racism by low expectation? Isn't such a policy treating Muslims like children that need a pat on their head for a "good job" they did crapping in their own pants? I'd think that they should find it insulting.

No, it actually would help. Proof: Uneducated people were not insulted by the biggest elitist on the planet. How? Trump makes uneducated people feel good about themselves and, as a result, people like him.

I can't imagine Congress is going to let this go on forever

You can't? Considering no one in the Republican-controlled Congress has a backbone and as a result, are failing in their Constitutional duties, it is quite easy to seem them cowering like the cowards they are and letting this go on.

The potential damage to the US economy is enormous.

Which is what I'm hoping for. Yes, you read that right. I want damage to the U.S. economy because of the con artist's incompetence. Then we get to hear more of his deflections about it not being another of his failures, how it's not his fault the economy tanked, how it's Obama's fault, how Hillary would have been worse, how everyone else is to blame except him. It will be a classic case of malignant narcissism on full display.

Seems about on the level of, "Doctors claim vaccines don't cause autism, but Jenny McCarthy doesn't agree," which started from and is largely maintained by the left.

Started by "the left"? Say what? "Left" and "Right" have nothing to do with this. "Doctors" are at least as likely to be members of "the left" if by that you mean social liberals as opposed to conservatives. Oh, wait, they are more likely:

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

http://www.reuters.com/article...

http://jamanetwork.com/journal...

The last article is very thoughtful and analyzes trends in political contributions specifically, fractionated by gender, race, and subspeciality. It indicates that left/right even for physicians is more likely to be a question of income, gender, race, speciality, and age than it is of "intelligence" per se, but it is a simple matter of fact that on average liberals are smarter than conservatives.

Now, if you want to get into pseudoscience, we can talk about the "conservatives" in Texas and Kansas and Missouri who are passing legislation to make masturbation a misdemeanor crime (Texas), teach intelligent design on a par with evolution in the schools, rewrite history so that the founding fathers are Good Christians as opposed to deists or atheists and suppress evidence to the contrary to prevent it from being mentioned in school, let alone taught.

Personally, I tend to think of science as mostly being social value neutral, but the glaring exception to this is when science collides (as it so often does!) with religion. This is beautifully reflected in surveys like this:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...

although it is perhaps better summarized by this piece:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

To quote:

The more religious a person is, the more conservative he is, and this relationship is strongly mediated by the value placed on tradition — respect for customs and institutions. But even though religiousness and spirituality are highly correlated, the more spiritual a person is, the more liberal he is. This relationship is mediated by the value placed on universalism — social tolerance and concern for everyone’s welfare.

As with previous studies, conservatives were more conscientious (organized and self-disciplined), while liberals were more agreeable and more open to new ideas and experiences. The trend of conservatives being more religious and liberals being more spiritual held even when controlling for these personality factors, and when controlling for age, gender and socioeconomic status.

As a scientist, I interpret this as the more orthodox religious a person is, the more likely they are to accept absolute nonsense as truth just because it is written down in a scriptural text somewhere and hence exempted somehow from the ordinary rules and methods of reason. The more spiritually religious they are, the more likely they are to accept absolute nonsense as truth just because they "feel" like it must be true and their feelings are again exempt from the ordinary rules and methods of reason. You can see the problem -- liberals and conservatives are almost equally likely to accept at least some nonsense as truth if they are religious, and liberals and conservatives who are intelligent enough not to do this are, almost by definition, less likely to accept nonsense as truth whether or not it is religious simply because they apply the rules

So, all the examples I gave are not examples because reasons. Ok. The NY Times was one example and they have, more than once, have a title and a narrative of Russian collusion yet in one sentence hidden in the article say there is no evidence. That is disingenuous to me and the article that was discussed by Comey and Risch are of a similar narrative crafting. One sentence is contradicting 90% of the article is not honest journalism. CNN has been caught lying through omission and potentially other narrative crafting measures, yet you still trust them. Ethics and standards for journalism has been left behind such as the Goldwater rule. It isn't hard to find examples of a lack in ethics for journalists if you spend a few minutes looking. https://www.psychologytoday.co...
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
character assassination from the WSJ is a thing beyond Trump. https://www.wsj.com/articles/d...

What about anonymous unverifiable sources, how much should we rely on them for the truth?

Sure, they are not perfect but I also understand that it is standard practice to not let emotions get in the way of honest reporting (one reason why you don't interview a loved one), Yet, for Trump that is different because hatred doesn't cloud the judgement or reporting, apparently. There are too many examples I could list. You may disagree with them but it is not a delusion to see the media failing at their job. Everyone understands that except you are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and chastise me because I am not.

Honestly, If you don't see the crap that MSM have been doing then I don't know what to make of you other than you agree with their bias and lack of ethics and standards.

Actually there is a strong positive correlation between IQ (measured in school students) and later alcohol consumption, especially wine.

See https://www.psychologytoday.co...

Low IQ is associated with binge-drinking though.

Anti-feminists want you to think that bias is undetectable and that all methods of evaluating it are flawed. They would prefer we didn't even try, it seems.

You don't have to be anti-anything to see that a major part of the issue is that some of the more 'enthusiastic' feminists are quite happy to lie about statistics, even when they're easily disproved: "Full time women make 78% of what full time men make" is true, but they have to add "for the same job!" which makes it false. Twisting the results of possibly useful studies into "1 in 3 men would rape it they could get away with it" and "25% of college women are raped". With a single false story Rolling Stone set back the campus anti-rape movement more than almost anything else possibly could have.

If members of a movement make false statements, and double down on them when called out, they have no-one to blame but themselves when other people start assuming that a request for information is just a prelude to a smear campaign. Unfortunately, then only way to fix that is for the less emotionally-invested members to put pressure on the others to stick to the truth.

I'm white and I've had just enough black friends to see that racism still is a problem. The linked quotes are about not stopping minorities from saying so. Through the years, I've realized that yes, we're all a little racist. The studies actually show that minorities are often racist against themselves. It's not fair. There's a belief among some of my white friends that the pendulum has swung in favor of minorities, and anti-white racism is worse than pro-white. I've seen otherwise. Not just anecdotal from people, but empirical studies show this. I know it's hard to believe. If you ever have a chance to take one of the studies, try it and see. Here's just one thing off the top of a search, I can't find the study I participated in right now. https://www.psychologytoday.co...

All that said, what are we afraid of? If minorities are allowed to say racism is real, how does it hurt us? You're probably afraid of laws being made that actually hurt us, affirmative action. First off, whatever laws are made, and not even one is likely to ever happen at this point, it would have been nothing compared to slavery, Jim Crow, and even the subtle racism since then that hurts every life opportunity. That said, I don't think affirmative action should be in the workforce, because it won't make a lasting difference there, all it does is hurt whites for one generation. It could be in school. If when we close our eyes and think of minorities, if we thought of them as even equally educated, then racism would actually disappear.

Is it worth it? Should we sacrifice "so much" just to live in a diverse society? The answer is yes. It's been proven, again empirically, that most aspects of diversity directly lead to more powerful groups, more productive workforces, more profits even. This is actually what has and can make our country great.

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

Women don't have an expiration date.

So what do you call this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

And before that hits, there is the obvious decline in their physical attractiveness that tends to begin around age 30. Some call it "when women hit the wall". It can be delayed somewhat via a healthy diet, physical fitness, and stable mental health...or terrible decisions (IMO) like plastic surgery. But it doesn't change that men are visual creatures, we are primarily driven by a woman's looks, and so our interest (and the sexual market value of any individual woman) declines precipitously in their 30's as their looks and remaining fertility fade. Why else do you think we see so many articles, WRITTEN BY WOMEN, about how they are single and unhappy? Just as a sample:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/deb...
https://www.psychologytoday.co...
http://www.thenational.ae/life...

Kudos to the kid saving his mom, but it is also kind of sad about how isolated and dependent on institutions and technology so many of us have become... So much so, we just take it for granted a four year old would have no neighbor or relative nearby to turn to.

Perhaps I was just lucky to grow up (lower-ish) middle class in a suburb in the 1960s with siblings, many stay-at-home moms as friendly neighbors all around, as well as lots of kids playing in the street. That seems to be a world that perhaps hardly exists anymore in the USA for any child... Other countries may be more likely to still have that kind of circumstance perhaps...

And more wealth seems to only make it worse -- see for example:
"The Problem With Rich Kids"
https://www.psychologytoday.co...
"In a surprising switch, the offspring of the affluent today are more distressed than other youth. They show disturbingly high rates of substance use, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, cheating, and stealing. It gives a whole new meaning to having it all."

"The Culture of Affluence: Psychological Costs of Material Wealth"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
"Evolutionary psychologists have suggested, furthermore, that wealthy communities can, paradoxically, be among those most likely to engender feelings of friendlessness and isolation in their inhabitants. As Tooby and Cosmides (1996) argued, the most reliable evidence of genuine friendship is that of help offered during times of dire need: People tend never to forget the sacrifices of those who provide help during their darkest hours. Modern living conditions, however, present relatively few threats to physical well-being. Medical science has reduced several sources of disease, many hostile forces of nature have been controlled, and laws and police forces deter assault and murder. Ironically, therefore, the greater the availability of amenities of modern living in a community, the fewer are the occurrences of critical events that indicate to people which of their friends are truly engaged in their welfare and which are only fair-weather companions. This lack of critical assessment events, in turn, engenders lingering mistrustfulness despite the presence of apparently warm interactions (Tooby & Cosmides, 1996). ...
Physical characteristics of wealthy suburban communities may also contribute to feelings of isolation. Houses in these communities are often set far apart with privacy of all ensured by long driveways, high hedges, and sprawling lawns (Weitzman, 2000; Wilson-Doenges, 2000). Neighbors are unlikely to casually bump into each other as they come and go in their communities, and children are unlikely to play on street corners. Paradoxically, once again, it is possible that the wealthiest neighborhoods are among the most vulnerable to low levels of cohesiveness and efficacy (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997). When encountering an errant, disruptive child of the millionaire acquaintance next door, neighbors tend to be reluctant to intervene not only because of respect for others' privacy but also, more pragmatically, because of fears of litigation (e.g., Warner, 1991)."

It used to be we lived in tribes and then still close-knit communities...

Daniel Quinn proposes we try to go back to that way of life:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"New tribalists believe that the tribal model, though not absolutely "perfect," has obviously stood the test of time as the most successful social organization for humans, in alignment with natural selection (just as well as the hive model for bees, the pod model for whales, and the pack model for wolves). According to new tribalists, the tribe fulfills both an emotionally and organizationally stabilizing role in human li

Same AC here and that is an interesting idea I had not heard before.

First link I found:

http://www1.appstate.edu/~hill...

Some of that describes me well, but not all of it.

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

Okay, I plead guilty to some but not all of those things. Some of the signs I'll have to recuse myself from making a judgement on (too subjective, possibly too self-absorbed)

It really depends what you read, you are right the first thing you get when google the difference between sociopath and psychopath is the are synonyms, however if you click on the link it actually goes on to describe differences like psychopath is genetic and sociopath is nurture. Psychopath is dangerous, sociopath is crazy.

from http://www.medicaldaily.com/wh... the top link

Psychologists tend to break down the two groups by certain factors, and they have a lot in common. Both tend to be charming, despite being unable to empathize normally with others. They offer convincing systems of fear and disgust, but tend to lack both. Here’s the crux, though: Psychopaths cross the line. Sociopaths may hole up in their houses and remove themselves from society, while a psychopath is busy in his basement rigging shackles to his furnace.

If you go a little further (the 3rd link down) you can find from psychology today https://www.psychologytoday.co... which I assume is a reasonably authoritative source, you get a description more like the Joker/Dexter argument, minus the pop culture references. By this definition you would expect CEOs to be psychopaths, not sociopaths.

I am no physiologist so I have no idea which source is more authoritative but my guess is there is probably disagreement in the community.

While correct, I'd say that the models hired for these events make more money than being a woman in IT. Attractive people always make better sales people. You may not like that fact, but human nature (that fact) does not care how you feel. (Plenty more citations for you to find if you are interested in those pesky things called studies.

Funny you mention IQ. Lady Gaga was in the same program at johns hopkins that the founder of google and facebook were, the one that took the top 1% smartest kids. I mean I'm sure YOU have an IQ that is even higher than that, and you have an online test that proves it. Alternatively, I'm sure that since posting that you've had the sudden insight that IQ doesn't measure anything real anyway.

Name a guy or woman you think is smart from the tech sector. Make them talk about entertainment or something they don't have a background in. "Man, (insert name here) is an idiot with an IQ of a half a box of doorknobs!"

Stupid is as stupid does, and all these celebrities you're saying are dumb are without question successful at what they've attempted to do, IQ number aside. None appear to have been the product of dumb luck or mommy and daddy money from what I can tell.

Seriously slashdot, the basement dwelling anonymous trolls are getting to be too much of a distraction, as are the morons with mod points who thought "They're dumb!" is insightful.

There is a better way to 'distract' the patient. Hypnosis.

Actually, that's pretty much backwards: 'Another name for distraction is hypnosis'.

Nothing empirically special can be found to identify hypnosis. Indeed, from the above article:

The upshot is there's no consistent and agreed-on set of procedures among practitioners. Any therapeutic incident can be considered hypnotherapy--as long as a therapist says it is.

So, a therapist calling VR "hypnotherapy" meets the goal simply by naming it so. But, I agree with you , I just say it differently - "Health care givers need to learn better and more varied assurance techniques."

Again, from same article:

Roughly 15 percent of the population is held to be highly hypnotizable. About 25 percent are thought to be not hypnotizable at all.

One quarter of us can't be hypnotized and 60% are on a scale between. Don't throw out the juice or knockout gas just yet.

They shouldn't be using something that isn't scientific to try and do more science...

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

I am not claiming that I know "better than professionals in the field of psychiatry", I am claiming that the usage of a negative word on repeat to denigrate a person is used by him to try and make the we against them camps. That is how hate speech works.
And maybe you consider mental illness to be a very negative word then you never had anyone consider you as a mental ill person.

https://www.psychologytoday.co...
As the article points out, yes we should make the words "mental illness" not be such a bad word, but it is right now, and taking it down on how it is perceived will take time and dont go away because YOU dont consider it such a negative word.
Any person with any knowledge on how language is used to "dominate" others can see he is used the words "mental illness" to denigrate that person.

Here's an NIH paper on how Iran does it, and their model seems to work particularly well:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

This will probably never happen in the US though. Too many people have this idea that it will lead to widespread organ theft, thanks to an old urban legend promoted by an episode of Law and Order where a dude woke up with a missing kidney. So far, there haven't been any actual confirmed cases of organ theft anywhere in the world, only unproven rumors.

The truth is, harvesting organs is not at all simple and it takes a lot of effort (and knowledge) to keep them alive outside of a body. Contrary to popular belief, you can't freeze organs, they can't come from a person who is dead on arrival, (only about 3% of all deaths are viable for organ harvesting) and you actually need a whole team of doctors just to harvest them, never mind implanting them.

And by the way, if you search Google for 'organ theft', the first two links are crap.

The first is a wikipedia page that mentions people selling their own organs on the black market, which does happen but it's by definition not theft, and the rest of the sources talk about a Kosovo incident that hasn't been confirmed; even Wikipedia's own dedicated page about the topic says so.

The second Google link is this:

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

Note that ALL THREE of the examples cited are either false or didn't result in actual organ theft.

- The Chinese kid's eyes were gouged out by his aunt.
- The African girl had nothing happen to her, and they wouldn't have done anything without her positive consent at any rate (it was a UK hospital, after all, and the donor has to agree multiple times over the span of a few weeks.)
- As for Kendrick Johnson, the fact that the brain was missing should immediately raise a red flag, and indeed it turns out that the doctor who performed the autopsy removed them, and the funeral home inserted newspaper to fill in the body cavity (which is legal; same with other common materials like cotton and sawdust.) After Kendrick Johnson's family lost the lawsuit, they're now being sued for defamation by multiple parties, and will probably lose.

Words can hurt. And they can do damage to society. The pen is mightier than the sword, remember?

You're quite confident in your "colorblindness"...just don't fool yourself into thinking it isn't harmful.

Actually, the relationship between intelligence and political leaning is complicated. One study indicated that conservatism is associated with cognitive rigidity and therefore difficulty with intellectual challenges. Another indicated that intelligence tends to be associated with a stronger tendency to weigh more factors when rendering an opinion about something, and therefore it tends to make people more moderate (i.e., centrist.) In other words, that cognitive rigidity tends to steer people towards more extreme ends of the spectrum. And yet another showed intelligent people can display mixed tendencies in both directions. Also, cultural and historical context can have an influence.

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

Voter ID is one of those common sense things

The great thing about calling something "common sense" is that it can be applied to absolutely anything. It doesn't have to correct, it just has to be a common belief and be able to survive a very shallow logical analysis. And, actually, it doesn't even have to all that common... you can also use it to describe something you'd like to portray as a common belief in the hope that it will become one.

Common sense is neither common, nor sense. We should ignore it and instead focus on reasoned sense, based on solid data. And from that perspective there is absolutely zero evidence that voter ID is necessary... or even useful.

if you're incapable of obtaining identification which most people have (state ID, drivers license, etc.)

Mu.

No one is saying people are incapable of obtaining identification, but there is a large minority of people who don't need identification in their daily lives, and therefore don't have it. Requiring them to obtain it solely for the purpose of voting places a large obstacle in front of them... especially if the government also "consolidates" DMV offices, closing the ones within easy reach of the people who don't have identification, which was also done in NC. Even without that step, it's a great way to discourage people from voting, to add one more (rather large) obstacle. How many people who have ID don't vote because they're too busy to make it to the polling place? Now tell them they have to first spend half of a day sitting in a DMV office several weeks beforehand. Oh, and that's half a day during working hours; so they have to take time off -- and the class in question does not get paid time off, so it's also expensive.

The effect is not only predictable, it's measurable, and has been measured. There are many studies, actually, that article discusses only one of them.

then perhaps you shouldn't be entrusted with a vote.

You should be ashamed of yourself for even thinking that, much less saying it. If you're going to do that, why not limit the vote to male landowners, or have income level requirements, or IQ tests?

The government should represent all of the people it governs, not just the ones you think are "worthy". I'll grant that there are other big problems with our achievement of that ideal, but that's no reason to add more.

There is a large number of scientific studies ...

Quotation needed.

Firstly, it's [citation needed], if you were a real nerd you would know that. Secondly: here you go.. Thirdly, try this site the sooner you sign up the better you'll feel when you finally break out of the circle of denial.

Tens of millions of Universities? Oh my indeed!

ahh, the troll, the last resort of the defeated. better luck next time.

Now lets drop the snark for a second, because I want to ask you a serious question.

Immediately after I gave you webpage citations, several of them, and then said "I can give you hundreds more", and the challenge to tell Universities that they are trolling the world with a problem, that you actually thought that I was talking about individual students, and not the Universities that are experiencing the problem that I was giving the links to?

And lest we forget, I answered you in the same vein as you replied, which to the trained eye, looks kinda snarky, but if you declare that trolling, then you were as well. P So since I've cleared that, is it your opinion that the problem does not exist, and that the Universities are making this up?

In some ways, this is like the remedial classes that are taught at Universities for Algebra, or other ares that placement tests show that a student is deficient in.

The big difference is that the deficiency is held by the parents of the students, who have not learned the final courtesy of parenting - letting your child become an adult. In my University, as the problem presented itself and would not go away, they eventually separated the parents from the students for special parental orientation. And it was much more traumatic for the parents by far. And only partially successful, as 18 years of overprotection doesn't go away just because someone tells you you are interfereing in your adult child's emotional growth.

Another part of the disservice we have done to them is the self esteem movement, a cornerstone of the millenial's education and socialization, has failed and failed badly.

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

http://www.albertmohler.com/20...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

side note - when the President of the Southern Baptist Theological seminary and the Huffpost agree on something, we might pay attention.

http://www.education.com/magaz...

http://articles.latimes.com/20...

Regardless, the millennials were badly let down, by their parents inability to parent, and by societies belief that if you constantly tell someone they are special and the best, that they will grow up to be special and the best. Neither idea actually worked very well. Self esteem, that cornerstone of the millenial's upbringing, as it turns out, is earned, not conferred by praising every tiny thing a person does. A young person should not have either high or low self esteem. It is something developed, not inculcated. They should be encouraged and told about what they might be, but not told they have achieved greatness for sharpening a pencil.

And another corrosive element often shared by sports people is that if a person puts their mind to it, they can be anything at all that they want. Nope, nope nope. I can never be a female supermodel, and although athletic, I will never set a record in a marathon. Just won't. Wrong body style. I can wish and try as hard as I can, but I will fail.

And yet, I have very high esteem. It's built on what I have done in life, and my many achievements. All of them earned, and earned well.

Smoke for some reason is a trigger

Those are called Psychosomatic Symptoms. The reason that doctors go along with your scientifically impossible COPD is because they make bank off of your insurance by letting you believe what you want to.

Same with jump starting the economy by giving tech entrepreneurs cash too. They don't need much to survive, and it is better incentive than making them a slave to some VC fund or fat rich bastard. Communism died because workers hated giving the bulk of their labor to the party. Same with today's workers having to give the bulk of their labor to fat rich bastards who have amassed undeserved wealth (old money, payback for giving a politician a blowjob, and personal connections). Great book: https://www.amazon.com/Meritoc... https://www.psychologytoday.co... http://www.truth-out.org/opini... https://www.washingtonpost.com... http://www.newstatesman.com/po...