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Is Your Boss a Psychopath?
Dogers writes "Robert Hare, creator of the Psychopathy Checklist, has recently been applying his test 'Is your boss a psychopath' to businessmen and has found some disturbing results. From the article: 'Why wouldn't we want to screen them? We screen police officers, teachers. Why not people who are going to handle billions of dollars?'. Citing Enron and Worldcom management as an example, it seems a reasonable argument. The same source also has a quiz (magazine produced it seems) which allows you to test your own boss, too!"
Yes! Next question?
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
I think that this could be the very first Slashdot thread composed entirely of AC posts.
Minus this one of course.
If Psycopathy has a genetic component, then has it survived natural selection. Surely in ancient times psycopathy would not have got you far. You'd likely be expelled from a society or likely killed.
It's too common to be a mutation because genetic diseases often have percentage rates of 0.01% or below.
It makes me wonder!
Simon.
Should we screen everyone then? On man's psycopath is aanother man's genius.
Although there are psychopaths out there- I had an internship where a boss of mine spend 10 minutes screaming at me for stapling something crooked.
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
to basically earn your way through life by exploiting and berating underlings, some of which are inevitably of equal or even superior skill and/or intellect to you.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
So apparently I'm in the Be Very Afraid range. Remind me to never go into business for myself or I'll eventually kill the bastard.
Do not taunt Happy-Fun Ball
God, it's one of those magazine quizzes that are entitled "Are you a homosexual? Find out" and the questions range from "Do you like women?" to "Do you like men?". I hate obvious quizzes.
Is he a con artist or master manipulator? Who would have guessed!
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
My last boss was the demon itself! There was a week when every single day someone departed from the job, you know 5 people in a week! If you someday find a colombian called Mauricio Roman that says he studied in MIT... run!
examples: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bill Clinton, George Bush.
OK, this must mean that about 95% of politicians are psychopaths:
- glib and superficially charming
- grandiose sense of self-worth
- pathological liar
- master manipulator
- lack of remorse or guilt
- shallow
- callous and lacking in empathy
- fail to accept responsibility for his own actions
Yep, that's a politician alright.
This describes just about every single politician out there.
Why do so many bosses suck?
Because those who desire the power should be the least likely to have it. I've had some good bosses, and 90% of the time they didn't really want the job, they just kind of grew into it over time.
Other times - whew. There was the one boss who, coming in the first day, told everybody that he wasn't there to be a friend, and he could fire the whole department at a moment's notice if he wanted.
5 minutes later I was dusting off my resume. When he found me dressing nice (so I could go on lunch breaks, which were really interviews), he told me he'd fired me if he caught me interviewing somewhere else. And he'd know, because he had "contacts" all over town who would tell him. "Contacts" who would call him and ask if I was applying somewhere. Private eyes - were watching me - they'd see my every move.
Oddly enough, I guess his contacts forgot to call him three days later when I quit and went to my new, higher paying, better hours job.
So if nothing else, I'm thankful for bad bosses, since they seem to be the greatest force in people finding new and better jobs. (Even though they suck.)
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
(posting anonymously for obvious reasons, and yes I'm posting from work)
Now I'm out of the academic world, and with perspective I can see what a shithole that place was.
Or maybe he's just got a trait that makes him selfish and therefore good at climbing the corporate ladder and stepping on others on the way up.
Think about it: How many of us (software people especially) work for someone who is:
1. Less intelligent (seriously, not just saying this for the sake of ego).
2. They'll step on their own mother if it means getting a promotion.
This has been my experience anyway...
I read this article a couple months ago....
-Why take life seriously?? You're not gonna get out alive anway! - Red Skelton
is 16 pages away from telling me how to please my man.
Every idiot out there loves to cite these two companies as examples of all that is typical and wrong with corporations. Every company is just like Enron, but just hasn't been caught yet.
GET THIS - these were ABERRATIONS. The accounting and other shenagins that went on were beyond the pale for how companies ordinarily act. The people involved went to JAIL. They are not examples of how companies typically behave.
[1] Is he glib and superficially charming?
[2] Does he have a grandiose sense of self-worth?
[3] Is he a pathological liar?
[4] Is he a con artist or master manipulator?
[5] When he harms other people, does he feel a lack of remorse or guilt?
[6] Does he have a shallow affect?
[7] Is he callous and lacking in empathy?
[8] Does he fail to accept responsibility for his own actions?
Now RTFM, and see what they scored. Honestly, I feel that any "good" businessman will tell you that without all of these traits, you cannot succeed in this world we call America. I'm not saying that I agree with the attitude, but really look at it, it seems obvious that a lot of bosses have this attitude. It's almost a "must".
Time is comparison of movement to other movement.
He seems to have many of these qualities.
(Developers, developers, developers..)
The Corporation
This documentary looks at a corporations from a psychologists perspective and finds that corporations are sociopaths
-best
-greg
Of course there will be a higher incidence of psychopathy at the tops of corporate pyramids.
How do you think people get there? And why do you think they are successful at earning profits?
1. Start new company 2. Run the Hare test on management to make sure they are psychopathic 3. ??? 4. Profit!
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
God wants it that way.
...I didn't even really need to take the quiz to know the answer - but of course it is "Yes". Not surprisingly, my last two project managers matched the exact answers for each of the questions. Honestly, I think this is what has kept me from persuing Project Management.
You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different.
I found I was okay, but one of my split personalities is a real nutcase.
The reason is quite simple.
Much of our history has been dominated by violence, and our ancestors are those who survived violent episodes. Either by being very smart, very cute, or very evil.
Psychopaths are overwhelmingly male and psychopathic behaviour is generally evidenced by the ability to hurt and harm others without the usual remorse and empathic pain that most people feel.
The reason why only a small fraction of people show this behaviour is because (a) it's quite counterproductive in stable societies, so quickly gets pushed into marginal genepools (the bad boys of any village), and (b) it has a large component of environmental triggering, meaning that many people (mainly men, again) can exhibit psychopathic behavour given the right circumstances.
Why are psychopaths so charming? Partly because it works well in conflict situations. Partly because it acts to deflect attention. Selection works at the gene level, and the charming psychopathic genes have survived civilisation much better than the pure violence ones.
My blog
...explains a lot, actually.
Because if screening teachers & policemen for psychopaths has taught us anything, it's that it obviously doesn't work.
And secondly, are we to assume that if you are a psychopath you cannot do your job?
And to be perfectly honest? I'd MUCH rather know that oppertunistic greedy businessmen without remorse are making sure US companies reign supreme than having a bunch of carebear crybabies in control.
... ow wait, I'm self-employed
GETPKG - Package Management for Slackware
Bosses aren't psychos; they are just exhibiting basic primate behavior. They gain status by abusing lower-ranking members of the troop, and by showing deference to the higher-ranking members.
The faster we get this mess over with, the better. We should just start offering MBA's to the prisioners in all the "super-max" facilities.... That way, they could start being useful immed. upon their return to society. I can just see it now...."IPO to be offered upon parole"
To prove my point... http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=5176
see the story about this guy, he's continuing to get paid WHILE he's serving 18 mos. for criminal offenses. The board kept him on because he's a "visionary" and "knows the business" the best!
See what I mean?
... you insensitive clod!
I'm self-employed, you insensetive clod!
On the other hand, it looks like I may fit the profile pretty well. Grandiose sense of my own self worth... check, check, check... I pity the poor fools who are working for me - fools who, also, are me.
about 10 years ago i got in to the business of asbestos abatement, (as a laborer) Tyvek suit and respirator with HEPA filters (the works). we got in to this old high school working all the steam pipes & hot water lines.
i don't know how the boss bid the job but he tried to keep us in there from 6AM to 10PM, 16 hours a day with just few breaks, i walked off and found a better job working with better working conditions before the day was over.
it is not that i did not want the money in overtime it is just that anyone would want to get out of those dank crawlspaces & tunnels, take off the suit & mask and get some fresh air & sunshine once in a while... _TunnelRat;p
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
You reminded me of one of my favourite Pierre Trudeau quotes (for those who don't know, one of Canada's most famous Prime Ministers).
Trudeau knew what Adams knew. The quote during his election campaign:
CBC Reporter: How badly do you want to be Prime Minister?
Trudeau (not missing a beat): Not very badly.
Imagine a politician today having the balls to say something like that... I'll end with another one:
"It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from there."
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Who cares if your boss is a psycho, when we work out why people who do all the work (manual labour etc.) get 10 times less money then the people who point and go "Get it done by next week" (managers). I think we'll be about ready to ask pointless questions like these..
I like muppets.
Companies and the market in general require that you don't care about anything but the bottom line. By definition this will mean that you will have to subvert or erase any "human" characteristics such as compassion, fairness, generosity etc. in order to make the most money. Don't hate the player, hate the game :-) Seriously, amongst the top execs, I bet the incidence of genuinely honest good guys is next to zero. It is simply too difficult to work against the flow of the whole system, even if you're naturally like that.
Read The Corporation and a different view might emerge.
The most dominant social system of our time is, by definition, psychotic. It is hardly surprising that individuals "become psychotic" as they work for these organizations. Indeed, if they did not, their jobs would quickly end: if sanity were to prevail when weighing social responsibility against profit, the decision--by corporate by-law a bad one--would damage shareholder value, and be grounds for immediate dismissal. The system guarantees that the inmates will run the asylum (and be praised all the way to the bank for doing so.)
All that is exceptional about Enron and Worldcomm is their excesses were exposed, not that their excesses occured.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
Pop psychology strikes again
14 = Be Very Afraid
"Is your employee a whining crybaby?"
For each question, score two points for "yes," one point for "somewhat" or "maybe," and zero points for "no."
1) Does he/she frequently post on geek websites, complaining about you being a psychopath?
2) Does your employee hate Microsoft, IBM, the Patent Office, and/or does he feel that somehow his future is threatened by them?
3) Does your employee believe SCO may have a case?
4) Is your employee constantly whining about management decisions like purchasing a Microsoft Exchange server or cisco routers?
5) Did your employee get overly agitated when you decided to pay SCO for their Linux Licenses?
6) Does he/she often speak in a language uncomprehensible to human beings? using words such as "packet" "protocol" or "xfree"
7) Does he/she look frustrated when you make bold management decisions, such as assigning half the company to a research project about sending electricity over fax machines?
8) Is your employee constantly whining about not having enough time or resources in order to achieve his goals?
1-4 | Our condolences. Your employee may be dead.
5-7 | Be cautious about not approaching him.
8-12 | Be afraid of approaching him.
13-16 | Be very afraid of approaching him.
Of course he is... I am self-employed.
Apparently I should be "Frustrated" if I were my own boss.
...have the boss from "Office Space", only its a woman. But she contantly uses that patronizing voice and after telling you to do something say "mmmmkay that would be great". My first few days working here it was all i could do not to burst out in hysterical laughter when ever she spoke to me. That was two years ago. Now its all i can do to keep from taking off my shoes & socks and stuffing them down her throat.
Don't ya hate it when the correct spelling of your favorite screen name is taken?
For each question, score two points for "yes," one point for "somewhat" or "maybe," and zero points for "no."
[1] Is he glib and superficially charming?
[2] Does he have a grandiose sense of self-worth?
[3] Is he a pathological liar?
[4] Is he a con artist or master manipulator?
[5] When he harms other people, does he feel a lack of remorse or guilt?
[6] Does he have a shallow affect?
[7] Is he callous and lacking in empathy?
[8] Does he fail to accept responsibility for his own actions?
1-4 | Be frustrated
5-7 | Be cautious
8-12 | Be afraid
13-16 | Be very afraid
--
make install -not war
"On man's psycopath is aanother man's genius."
There are many other psychological disorders out there that you could say, "One man's _________ is another man's genius" but psychopath isn't one of them. If soemone IS a genius and has these qualities, then I'd still not want them in the corporate environment, because if someone has no problem harming other people or doesn't care about the ramifications of their actions toward someone else, then even if they are super smart, it's no excuse for their behavior.
Other ________'s could be perfectly feasible, though. A schitzophrenic (no clue on spelling) for instance could be a wonderful genius and under supervision could still be helpful (note: not in alot of power, but still in the force). An agorophobic (also, not sure of spelling) could still be a very productive person. But Psychopath always involves harming others.
Evil Genius? Yes. But still keep them out of the workplace, because as we've all seen on movies, cartoons, and politics, when evil geniuses have power, Bad Things Happen.
Luke
----
Help your boss learn about computers. Send him to ChristianNerds.com
Is he glib and superficially charming? - Is he a people-person?
Does he have a grandiose sense of self-worth? - Does he add value to the company?
Is he a pathological liar? - Does he keep the investors informed
Is he a con artist or master manipulator? - Does he attract new business?
When he harms other people, does he feel a lack of remorse or guilt? - Does he have what it takes to thrive in a competitive enviroment?
Does he have a shallow affect? - Does he let his emotions control his business decisions?
Is he callous and lacking in empathy? - Is he able to place the interests of the company first?
Does he fail to accept responsibility for his own actions? - My personal favorite - Is he able to look at the 'Big Picture'
Yes, tis true. We are the future!
this is "geeks versus jocks" high school level of insight going on here
i'm certain bosses could have just as many checklist items of what to worry about psychologically in their geeky employees
the point is, taking the stereotypical and the shallow seriously is a hallmark of you having the problem
now i could be accused of not having a sense of humor, except i don't see a big monty python foot next to the article here
which means somebody is actually taking this claptrap seriously
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You know it always annoys me when I see these two words confused. As I was taught, a psychopath cannot hide his mental illness. A psychopath is the person who crashes into McDonalds and starts shooting. Sociopaths are serial killers that manage to hide their predilections for years without getting caught.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
Individuals aside, corporations seem quite willing to engage in any and all kinds of inconsistency and unconcern to a degree that would put the most ambitious and selfish individuals to shame. Worse, they're still taken seriously even when caught in the most egregious lies. Would any (non-corporate) person be capable of pulling off SCO's absurd campaign against Linux and IBM?
The answer is simple: We don't pay them. Teachers and cops work for the state, so the state can choose to screen them as they desire. CEOs work for a company, so, if the company wants to screen them to make sure they aren't psychopaths, they can feel free to do that. In fact based on this article, I would say that they *should* do that, but as a hands-off government kind of guy, I don't really like the idea of anyone besides the person writing the paycheck screening employees. Call me old-fashioned, but it just doesn't sit right with me.
based on the results of the quiz, it seems my boss is probably not a psychopath. But I might be one myself!
Great... now I'm paranoid, too!
=Smidge=
It's probably good they didn't use the clinical term, though, cuz the quiz is a very superficial assessment of what the disorder is, which has resulted in all the posts w/ topics like "this is very common" or "every politician is this". Jeffrey Dahmer was a sociopath. Most politicians and business leaders are narcissistic and grandiose, but are not sociopaths.
Anti-Social Personality Disorder (formerly known as psychopathy) is a DSM-4 disorder that has a wide variety of presentations. "Psychopaths" is quicker to type.
Normally, people think of psychopaths as con-men and serial killers. These are the ones that are noticed by the system. What about those who aren't? These are referred to as "functional" psychopaths.
An advertisement, placed in newspapers and designed to appeal to psychopaths by presenting their features in a good light by saying they needed someone who wasn't tied down, loved adventure and excitement, etc., led to the discovery that there are many psychopaths out there.
These are people who are highly motivated by money or power, willing to take risks, view people as tools to be manipulated and used, and appear charming. Is it any wonder that bosses, politicians, and others are functional psychopaths?
But is someone truly a psychopath just because they have some of the traits?
Police and other public safety personnel tend to score high on the psychopathic deviancy scale on the MMPI (a standard psychological personality test), but not as high as the psychopathic criminals they must deal with.
I believe the inventory referred to in this article simply tests for psychopathic traits, or at least their appearance. Whether these folks are truly psychopathic would require far more in-depth investigation.
Some bosses are psychopaths. But some may simply act that way.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
Yeah give me an irrational emotional basketcase to run the company.... soooo much better.
I'd rather have some emotionless calculating weasel thank some incompetent flake watching my money.
That being said, eventually the psychopaths would just like to pass the test, it isn't like they'll have a moral objection to cheating.
This system is bunk. Its used to screen teachers?
I've had some pretty crazy teachers in my day.. It obviously doesn't work.
or does that occupation render them immune?
The problem is that most folks have a natural inclination to disbelieving that sort of thing, especially if it involves their own fearless leader.
The unbeleivability factor of it is perfect camoflage.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Thanks for reiterating the parent's point, I was confused the first time around!
"These are callous, cold-blooded individuals," Absolutely true I've always said. Fire the assholes.We don't need 'em.
Java Oracle Linux Enthusiast
That /. is going in. The only topic better than this one would be, "are women psychopaths?" Or, better yet, "women ARE psychpaths...."
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
My boss showed me this article a few weeks ago, and
he scored pretty high amongst our team. Needless to
say he isn't our boss anymore.
I would laugh and agree with you, but I can't. See, I have taken the time to meet and actually discuss the real issues with these folks.
Yes, they come off to casual observers as being glib and superficially charming. But that is because when they are campaigning they are meeting literally hundreds and thousands of people a day. Try doing that and not acting glib. I saw an example of this last night. One of the people in our group complained about a recent decision by the city council. How many times have they heard this? I am guessing at least 10, maybe 20 times a day. Anyway, the one gal gives the canned, practiced response. How many times had she given this? At least as many times as she heard the complaint. It was a reasonable response, but you had to think about it for a while to understand the real issues. But to the casual observer, it was glib, superficially charming, and meaningless.
Politicians aren't generally liars or grandiose. Those are the ones you see on TV and read about in the paper. The vast majority of politicians only show up when it's election time, and they have to attempt to manipulate you to vote for them. All of them must make this rite of passage. The only ones that don't are those who are in appointed positions.
As far as callous and shallow, this is again a trait that the minority has. The vast majority, on both sides of the aisle, really care about what they doing and are pouring their heart and soul into their work. They can't care about everything, though. They can't even know about everything. So while you may see one at a funeral who isn't touched, remember that this is probably the third funeral of the week, and that they probably don't know the guy personally or at least to the point where they have become emotionally attached. After all, it's only politics, and if you become emotionally attached to people prepare for serious heartbreak when they endorse your opponent or turn on you after a bad decision.
Lack of remorse or guilt, and a failure to accept responsibility... I think you have to really get to know them and see the problems from their perspective. Sometimes, they knew there would be fallout, and they are prepared to accept the bad parts because they want the good part. So when those who are affected by the fallout come to complain, they are going to seem callous. Or would you rather have them say, "I knew this was going to happen, and you would be affected this way, and I made the decision regardless. It was a tough decision, but it was the best damn decision I could've made. And basically you weren't here to show us a better decision and it's water under the bridge now. I know you won't care about what I have to say because you can't see past your own problems, so I won't bother explaining. Just get it out of your system and let us move on to more important things."
But another thing you will see is that politicians, at the end of the day, are used and abused by their constituents. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people support a candidate only to turn on them moments later, only to support them moments later. It's a roller coaster ride, and the only way politicians can cope is to stay emotionally detached in their work. If there's crying to be done, it's done very privately on the shoulder of their spouse or very. very close and trusted friends. Otherwise, emotion can't enter into it. If it does, they will quickly become psychopathic.
I want to emphasize that there are a few psychopaths in politics, on both sides of the aisle. They probably aren't who you think they are and a few of the ones who you think aren't probably are. You will find them somewhat equally distributed throughout all levels of politics. Use the criteria, but apply it individually. And you must take the time to get to know the candidate personally. I tell you from experience that the local newspaper is abou as trustworthy as the pious gossip at your local church. If you base any of your opinions on what you see or read second- or third-hand, prepare to be misinformed.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
My software dev team worked for Atilla-the-dumb once. The guy was so afraid of loosing the mid-management position he had clawed his way to that he spend much of his time getting the team to fight with each other so he could step in to save the day.
We found his resume on the network drive one day, submitted it to Monster, Dice, and a few others. Withn a month he was all excited about his "value" and took another job.
That's what we call a win-win.
Cogito Ergo Sum
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Anthropologically speaking, before about 6,000 years ago, ultimate authority resided in the nuclear family. Mom, and Dad, could independently decide what to do. Other people in the tribe, likely to be part of your extended family, could offer advice, and even beat on you if things really got hairy, but ulimately, they couldn't force you to do something that you really didn't want to. In some remote places this is still the case -- I recommend reading Napoleon Chagnon's work with the Yanomamo if you want to get a good idea about life with no ultimate authority to execute justice.
Then, once you have agriculture and food you can store and transport, you have people submitting to a stranger as an authority, pledging their life to them, and accepting their judgement as ultimate justice -- because if you don't, off with your head. These priest kings thought they were divinity on Earth, and the fact that they ruled over people was just the natural course of things, as surely as the sun moves across the sky. For reference, see the decription of any god-king. God-Kings got their place through the military, either rising to rulership, or usurping some family member in the throne. The person who would do best in this role is a psychopath.
Fast forward to modern democracies. Government isn't the domain of military leaders anymore, but supposedly more enlightened speakers who rule with the consent of the masses. Those psychopathic people now see their opportunity in business, where they can bully people in the privacy of offices and meeting rooms, and underlings live as undignified yesmen. Again, the people who do best as bosses are psychopaths.
Now, I'm not saying that all bosses are bad, or that all jobs suck. There are good bosses and enlightened companies, but the best bosses are psychopaths, and the companies that do the best are headed by people who can get their underlings to knuckle and do whatever they're told.
I've had two bad bosses in my short (15 years) time in the workplace -- after several fuckups and yelling matches, I've found out that these two bosses both believed that the rules didn't apply to them. One would berate us employees for not doing a good enough job following up on delinquent accounts, complaining about customers who refused to pay us, while he had creditors calling us constantly for his *own* delinquent accounts. As the company was running out of money, and we confronted him about late and bouncing checks, he told us it wasn't our place to call him on it. He believed on some deep level that it was very wrong for other people to owe him money -- but if he owed other people money, he should be allowed to slide. The rules just didn't apply to him.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Out of interest I was reading a book of samurai philosophy called "Hagakure" and I found a good amount of applicable advice in it. I forget the exact quote but the essence of one passage that really hit home is this: as a samurai, your honor depends on loyalty to your lord. But you have to realize, if your lord is a dishonorable person, there is no way for you to gain honor by serving him and you are better off cutting your losses. Turns out that applied perfectly to my psycho boss. I tried to work with her and all I got was fired. Should have quit when I had the chance.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I am just amazed at the number of people posting "That's what you want in an exec." or "That is how companies need to run to return value." Are we really that misguided as a society? Do the 71% of Americans who claim to go to church actually listen? (Or maybe they do not really attend). Not that church is a requirement for morality, but at least it should be a standard we can claim a measure against.
The problem is becoming more clear as I read the replies and see what is happening daily. We want ethical treatment but if the other person is acting unethical then heck, I should too. To those who would claim I am misguided, I would say they are. That it is just the way things work in the real world is because of people who go quietly into the dark, seeking nothing but protection for themselves at the expense of others.
That is what some of the executive who went to prison missed. They made a lot of people a lot of money, and most of them were probably not asking about the details. (For example, most of the get tough laws promised and passed by Congress were never enacted.) However, ethics is not something you do, it is something you are and it is binary choice. You cannot be "sort of" unethical or immoral. That is not to say you cannot make mistakes, humans do. However, to excuse behavior as a long series of mistakes makes you an accessory, not an observer. Part of the problem.
I've had PLENTY of retarded teachers.
The only thing that is worth screening is criminal records. Everything else (batteries of psych tests, etc) can be beaten. Who, other than the blatantly deranged, is going to answer questions on a test that are obviously filter questions in a way that would single them out?
As we have seen on national television, plenty of violent/blood lusting cops make it past the screening process too.
Sorry, it doesn't work.
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
That quiz reads like an implicit description of ex-president Bill Clinton, the most consummate political animal of modern times. It's all there, the lying and manipulativelessness and obsessive self-reinvention and evasion of responsibility.
I've been saying for years that the reason criminals as a population are so stupid is that the intelligent sociopaths go into politics, where the identical same behaviors are rewarded and encouraged. This quiz pretty much confirms that.
>>esr>>
I'll see your half dozen communist dictators and raise you 100 US Senators. I'll hold onto my President card just in case you have any thing else to play.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
The bottom line is that Jeffry Dahmer was not only a sociopath, but also a psychopath. Not all sociopaths, however, become psychotic.
My GF works at a technical school. She teaches, and her and her whole department is tenured.
Her boss comes over and threatens to fire her whole department on a weekly basis. The last time it was because he couldn't find them. They were sitting in the classrooms that they teach in. It was lunch hour. He was mad because they didn't leave a note on their monitor as to where they were. On lunch hour! She usually doesn't get threatened, but she just happened to be caught up in the mix. He accused them of conspiring behind his back, hiding from him, playing computer games at work, and on and on and ON! They were hiding alright. In their fucking work area no less! With the door wide open! Her coworkers told her that her boss does this to them every single week! How would you like be threatened every single week with being fired? These people aren't even allowed to have their own phones on their desk.
Their IT department is a whole other story. Remember this place is a technical school. So check this out. They have to get permission to download anything above say like 10 megs. And their whole class is bandwith capped, so forget about installing Windows and getting updates, or forget about doing a net install of linux. They get something like 5k/sec per classroom or something ridiculous. Meanwhile the douchebags at IT are sitting on at least a T3 with unlimited bandwith pumping into their offices. They also get super pissed when an employee, God forbid, actually connects to their wireless lan by accident. Not to mention that they have VNC installed on all the employee machines and that all they seemingly do all day is abuse the schools bandwith and spy on people with their VNC. How fucking draconian is that?!
I keep telling her to get another job, but she keeps saying that she doesn't have time and such. It really has made her quality of life suffer since she moved out there and honestly it hasn't helped our relation at all. A lot of nights she just comes home and goes right to sleep after she sits and bitches to me for an hour about how much her job sucks. Truly not worth the hassle.
zosxavius photography
In American society, it seems like this kind of selfishness is a virtue Ayn Rand crap is increasingly becoming an accepted part of the culture. The crap that American is more successful because we have sociopaths running the government and corporations makes no sense. The Enrons and Haliburtons are draining our society and only bringing American down. Selfish politicians are killing the government.
People who subscribe to the philosophy that selfishness is a virtue need people who have a consciences to feed on. A world full of Ayn Rand sociopaths would not even be a place were Ayn Rand sociopaths want to live in.
I've actually worked with nice people in management positions. Even from the bad managers I've seen, the ways in which one can be "bad" at one's job are more diverse than being a psychopath or sociopath. Psychopaths do exist, they're not a majority.
Also, for a start, I don't think that berating someone is necessarily bad (much less a sign of being a psychopath). People make mistakes, or do something wrong, or whatever. _I_ make mistakes. I like to think a good manager would tell me when that's the case. (But don't blow it out of proportion, and don't forget the positive feedback too when/if that's deserved.)
I also don't think that "exploiting" someone is a crime. For better or worse, selling my work to a company is the way the economy works. A manager is there to manage and organize that process.
You can think of it as a necessary evil. Personally I don't even consider it "evil". If the boss is doing a good job of organizing things, that's less chaos for me to deal with, so that's actually improving my life.
And, anyway, if they do their job well, I see no problem with them earning a living out of that.
There _are_ ways to be an asshole about it, and yes I've seen awful assholes in management positions. But there are also ways of doing that job without being an asshole.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
because Nice Guys Finish Last!
I for one welcome our new corporate psychopath overlords.
would score very highly on this test... just the corporation itself... not the execs
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
First let me say that I'm in full agreement with the article. A great many "bosses" just shouldn't have that job.
On the other hand, as an employer and in the interest of fairness, it occurs to me that the same test could be applied to determine which of my employees are psycopathic with equally shocking results!
Let's just face it, the world is a wild and wooly place no matter which side of the fence you're on...
cheers.
They're called "Dr. Evil"...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Whilst I've seen plenty of bully type managers, but about three or four jobs ago, I had what I can only consider as a psychopath as a boss.
(he scored 14 in the article test btw).
He was quite unlike any manager I've worked with both before and after that job.
He was always cool, calm and detached and he never once shouted or even as I recall raised his voice.
But he was also remorseless, a pathological liar and a black hole as far finding out any information about what plans the company had.
But one of his main defects and one the quiz didn't mention was his lack of foresight, he would make a dumb decision and then six months further down the line, have to spend lots of time arse covering and generally firing people to keep everything under wraps. It was as if he had no concept of the consequences of his actions.
He did a reasonable job of hiding everything as well. It was only after I left the company and kept in contact with a few of the people who had been fired that we pieced all the bits of the jigsaw together and worked out what was going on.
Out of all the managers I've worked with he's the one who would have me running for the hills if I met him in an interview again.
What I can't figure out is this : "didn't these guys know that there already was a liberal talk radio network: NPR" ???
I am so low on the corprate ladder I have a team lead, not a manger.
He scored 9, if he were a manager and given more room to crow, I'm sure a full 16 would be due him
Why do all the questions refer to the potential psychopath in the male gender?
I mean, I applied this test to all my ex girlfriends and they ALL scored high!
IMHO, this system was designed by psychopaths, for psychopaths, and is maintained by psychopaths. The rest of us just try to fit in the best we can, and try not to become one ourselves.
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
95% of humans (American males, for sure) would qualify.
YOU MAY BE A PSYCHOPATH IF:
You drive an SUV.
If you toe the party line.
If you abide by the words of Bill O'Reilly.
You believe (without question) that you are heading in the direction of Righteousness
You hide behind your ego.
Hey.. This isn't psychopathy, it's the Human Condition!
The Psychiatric community currently has no present consensus on the matter. But most psychiatrists would agree that not all persons with APSD are psychopathic, rather they just have a certain number of psychopathic traits.
The argument that there are only different levels of the disorder is probably technically true, but it is misleading. There is no one psychopathy. Instead, there are a multitude of psychopathies. Having one out of between seven and forty (depending on who you talk to) indicators is, on a certain level, only different in extent from having most of those same indicators. Yet, on another level, having more indicators certainly qualifies as a difference in kind, not just extent.
An easy test for you: if someone goes around murdering people in a grizzly, macabre fashion then they are probably psychopaths.
Hmm... darn.
What if I don't use the grizzly? Are brown bears acceptable, or should I just go with the crazed attack weasles instead?
--
NotAPsychopathNoReallyImNot
Yes, indeed, he's a psychopath.
Is always prepared to fire redundant ppl to keep the jobs of the others safe. The ppl he fired probably call him things that are much worse than Psychopath.
Heck, I'm a Psychopath. It's necessary to avoid discussions with the common office-trash that likes to draw you into conversations because social skills are pretty much their only skills (but that's another story...).
There was this great line from the first Red Dwarf novel. I can't find the exact text online, this is how I remember it. It takes place before the 3 million year sleep, right after Lister comes on board and Rimmer is addressing him and the rest of his shift.
Lister: I'd like to be transferred to another shift, sir.
Rimmer: Why?
Lister: With all due respect, sir, I think you're mentally unbalanced.
Rimmer: There's always one in every group, isn't there. One idiot, one loser, one psychpath.
Lister: Yes sir, but he isn't usually in charge.
Technoli
designed to provoke an emotional response... "Let me tell you about my mother."
- glib and superficially charming
* seriously disgusting and offputting
- grandiose sense of self-worth
* Hate self so much they slash their wrists
- pathological liar
* Tells their brutal honest feelings, which are usually offensive or overtly negative
- master manipulator
* Can't manipulate anyone because nobody likes them
- lack of remorse or guilt
* Guilty all the time, they balme themselves, hate themselves
- shallow
* Over sensitive and over dramatic
- callous and lacking in empathy
* bleeding heart
- fail to accept responsibility for his own actions
* Accepts all responsibility for their own actions until they become the whipping boy
I don't know which is worse.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
...how easy this test is for SCO employees:
Glib: check.
Grandiose: check.
Pathological liar: check.
And so on.
According to most recent research, around 5% of all men and 1% of all women are psychopathic to some extent. And do note that being prone to physical abuse of others is not one of the indicators of psychopathy. All of the indicators of psychopathy measure emotional and psychological traits such as a lack of empathy for others.
Given the propensity for critcising your boss that this thread will create I wonder how many people will respond as AC's?
In my case, the boss isnt psychopathic. Apathetic as all hell, but a decent human being.
Clinton had empathy. Perhaps he was the narcissist described in the article, but the US was better off for his presidency
Whereas Bush - he's the poster child for psychopathy.
I find it interesting that your quote only goes as far as to suggest that an ideology other than capitalism is responsible for producing more psychopaths, and yet your quote has become the subject of so much abuse. This is a symptom of the sickness that has gripped our society since the 20th century: criticize the West and you're applauded; criticize any other society no matter how awful and you're called to the carpet as intellectually shallow, hateful, prejudiced, and what-not.
Good job on your post, by the way!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Representative democracy, a la the U.S. and Britain, is a setup for psychopaths running society after a while. Pure democracy a la ancient Athens could be better, but you'd still have the evil charmers swaying people. The societies that will do best will be those that "graduate" from democracy into some sort of science-based meritocracy.
Most psychopaths are men? Do you have a link to scientifically validate that sexist tripe, or did you just pull it out of your arse?
99% of the women I've met in my live were lying, manipulating, scheming, backstabbing, goldbricking, evil little monsters. Got to love 'em.
libertarianism is nothing more than the same concept as selfishness dressed up in the trappings of philosophy, which i guess is supposed to make it respectable
it doesn't
it's still a cheap whore in an expensive dress
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't need no quiz to tell me my boss is a psychopath.
On the other hand, so are his employees
They might not do so well in small businesses, however. They have a tendency to make promises that can't, or can't be bothered to, keep. Also, they lack empathy for the needs of the customers - or anyone else, for that matter. They are eventually viewed as toxic by many of their fellow employees and business associates.
I would think, however, that psychopaths would do better in non-capitalist systems. Such systems strongly favour those with political skills. In capitalist systems, manipulation can take you only so far. Eventually you must demonstrate your productivity.
as it turns out, I'm the psycho. Looks like I'll be moving up in the company soon.
SYS 64738
It must be a desirable trait. How else could they be so successful? And what does say about us who claim not to be psychopathic, yet continue to do business with them? The fact is that dominant males in all of the natural world exhibit the same behavior. This is evolution at work...er...no...that's the way (insert your favorite intelligent designer here) planned it.
What?
I was writing their names and then I thought better of it. Some of them were outright criminals. Some were merely 'ego puff balls' or incompetent unqualified 'artistes' playing in a hard engineering role.
... eventually... once I'm clear of any fallout caused by the legal and/or justice system.
I would have been the last one to leave...
But your 'Mauricio Roman' would have been broke, divorced and in jail.
I've become wylier, a lot more effective and a lot more vindictive over the years, working for PHBs and other lower forms of life. I never get mad but I do get even
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
someone both can solve complex nonlinear differential equations in their heads, AND goes around killing people in a macabre fashion? On second thought, what if one goes around murdering people in a not-so-macabre fashion? There could be a completely polite and respectful serial killer out there, I guess.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
One psychopath that I worked for was Barry Lewis. He would have screaming fits on the phone. After he refused to pay me for a month, he still wanted me to spend time working for him, when I told him that I'd gather what he wanted, once I received payment, he then started calling me about 20 times a day.
He was convicted of harassment. The ADA told me that Barry Lewis threatened him and some of the other employees of the court.
Fight Spammers!
You cannot expect someone to live in a stressed, hyper-rationalized environment which was conceived to make as much profit as possible, to be nice a care about others... Multinationals, as their name indicates, are not tide in one neighbor... so their are not influenced by social pressure as much as SMBs.
Besides, I would like to highlight that psychopathology/psychology is heavily influenced by our expectations as a society. Given a context, people should behave like that. Dr. Hare does that and creates a P-Scan-like form. However, during business hours pressured individuals forget their own values and act under the authority of their employer. Just read Milgram's experiments.
wake up! Don't judge actors only, but also contexts!
Psychopaths are a subset of sociopaths who are a subset of persons with Anti-Social Personality Disorder. Successfully being able to hide one's psychopathic behavior, as in your example, doesn't make one a sociopath as the indicator is one's behavior and not being able to successfully hide one's behavior. The difference between a sociopath and a psychopath is largely being able to control the impulses towards psychopathic behavior. Antisocial Personality, Sociopathy, and Psychopathy is a good overview.
I was always under the naive impression that anyone in office was a sociopath who cared about power or money or whatever, and had therefore concocted a detailed plot to use the government and people for their own benefit.
Then I actually job shadowed a state senator for a day, sat in on a couple meetings and the general assembly... and I realize that they aren't (for the most part) psychopathic or plotting...
They're just... average.
And then I realized that the horrible state of legislation was not the result of malice, but of the pure incompetent that infects the entire society. These were the C students in high school who had the right connections, or just the right interests. They were the masses that I have spent my entire life trying not to disdain because they do not comprehend most complex issues as quickly as my "gifted" friends.
Heinlein once said (paraphrased) than an elected official, ideally, represents a slightly above average member of his electorate. I realized that day that when I consider my opinion of most people I meet, I am not surprised at all at what comes out of the capital. It is no hand-picked best of the best representatives, nor a oligarchy of vile schemers, but simply a vaguely representative group of the more affluent members of our society.
Unfortunately, I think that this realization made me expect even less out of government. An intelligent psychopath at least acts intelligently in his own interest, as opposed to blindly herding in whatever direction is popular today.
"That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves." - Kim Stanley Robinson
I don't work for Bill Gates.
How can anyone take serious this Cosmo-magazine pop psychology bullshit? This test is about as useful as your typical online "Purity Test". (Actually, the "Purity Test" is much more scientific because it asks about actual behavior, instead of completly subjective opinion from someone who is likely to be biased.
How about making Presidential candidates submit to psych testing before allowing them to be Commander in chief?
Seems like we would want to know that the President liked to torture small animals as a child before they get elected instead of after (As a child, Dubya blew up frogs with firecrackers up their butt... the "up the butt" pattern seemed to repeat at Abu Ghurab and Gitmo, huh?). Seems like it's a good thing to find out they are sociopaths BEFORE they start bombing civilians and torturing prisoners.
And why, pray tell, did you include Guevarra in your little list? (Hint: Read your own link)
Have you read his book on Guerilla Warfare? Intentionally putting innocent peasants in harms way and sacrificing them is an acceptable tactic. I guess that sort of info didn't come on the tag that accompanies the Che t-shirts that all the posers wear.
Check out "borderline personality disorder". It is often a diagnosis given to women, when they are truly psychopathic. And it's FAR more common in women.
The reason teachers, police officers, and firefighters are screened is because they are working for the PUBLIC. Companies are PRIVATE institutions. Get an education.
My boss passed, but now I'm pretty sure I'm a psychopath.
The post you responded to did not mention capitalism, but only governments based on ideologies that compete with the ideology you linked to. Given that you linked to examples of state totalitarianists, it is sensible to assume that ideologies opposed to them would be various forms of government. There is, after all, no reason that a totalitarian government can't back free market capitalism.
Ok, having been in a supervisory role I scored this for both myself and my boss.
We both score 11. Be Afraid!
There is a great problem in the claim of the article, and indeed with any sort of similar claims. It is the chicken and egg problem: are these people truly psychopaths or they have become psychopaths in the course of their life? In other words, is psychopathy a biological attribute or it is the result of a social process?
The answer to this question is very important. If psychopathy is purely a biological attribute, then psychopaths could be screened out early in life. If it is not a biological attribute, but rather a social attribute, then the social processes that lead to psychopathic persons must be corrected.
Company I left last year, which I left for the primary reason being my boss. I applied the test to him, he scored a 14 or 15 on that test. Glad I got out of there!
Increased self-worth? Lacking in remorse or guilt? Callous and lacking in empathy? PLEASE. These are all just regurgitated Democratic talking points! What's next? Posting the script to Fahrehnheit 9/11? Raising money for MoveOn.org?
If /. can't do better than this I may just have to write about it on my blog and begin an organized character assassination campaign against ScuttleMonkey.
Why is Che on this list? Socialist != psychopath.
I guess you only bought the t-shirt and never read his book on Guerilla Warfare. To advance his political goals he was willing to put innocent peasants into harms way and sacrificing them. He considered that a legitimate sacrifice to achieve socialism.
n/t
- tristan
But then, I suppose everybody assumes politicians are psychopaths, so nobody cares.
Bush is a psychotic, dry drunk, typically Chistian hypocritical chimpanzee.
Latest word is the White House has "weather reports" among the staff each day to see if he's feeling good - or on some rage where he's likely to lash out at anyone around him. Shades of the Watergate Nixon White House.
Right now, since he's taken yet ANOTHER "vacation" at his "all hat, no cattle" ranch, where he's been forced into hiding by a mother who wants answers for his stupid, greed-and-power-driven policies, we can all expect another "terrorist attack" (read: Reichstag fire incident) in a few weeks, since reportedly all military leaves have been canceled from September into December.
Presumably the next victim is Iran.
It's not surprising he's supported by corporate types like Bill Gates and morons like Ah-nuld who generally show similar characteristics.
Not that Clinton was any better - as he once told Genifer Flowers, he was "born 17 and stayed 17. Hillary was born 40 and stayed 40."
And don't even get me started on Donnie Rumsfeld, a rambling, lying, arrogant, senile pissant who wouldn't be respected by the counter clerks if he was running a McDonald's in Podunk.
Still, you monkeys all demand that people respect these assholes, because otherwise you wouldn't know where you are in the primate hierarchy - which might cause chimpanzee anxiety.
Just read an article this morning quoting Henry Kissinger from Woodward's book saying how military men were all dumb, stupid animals to be manipulated for foreign policy aims, and stating how Kissinger used to dress down General Al Haig in front of the secretaries in the White House for alleged incompetence.
Primate politics at its best.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
If you are doing anything other than standing up, being yourself, and attempting to be true to yourself and your beliefs, none of those nasties will show.
If you "appear" superficial, it's because you are lacking depth. It's not a fault of the viewer - the truth shines through - good or bad.
Grandeur, righteousness, callousness, sneaky weaseliness, all side effects of being human and not owning up to the truth inside.
Don't judge, and don't allow yourself to be judged by the judgemental. Sounds familiar.. Probably leads to cruxificion or stoning or something..
There are plenty of psychopaths - on both sides. More than you think or want to admit, and none of them are aware of it.
And I also know that the indicators that suggest a person has BDP are different from the indicators that suggest a person is psychopathic. Both are clinical terms with specific meanings. While there may be overlap between people that meet the criteria for each disorder, if women were truly psychopathic, they would be diagnosed as such alongside the diagnosis of BPD rather than be given the diagnosis of BPD instead of being determined to be psychopathic.
But borderline personality people generally do not have the social skills to be psychopath. They do share some traits (not sure about the lying) such as grandiosity, no empathy. I think the no empathy is simply a lack of empathy whereas a psychopath actually enjoys the pain of others and that requires no empathy as necessary condition.
I work as an R&D director in a medium size software company. Some time ago we hired a very promising director. She immediately became close friends with our managing director. At the time I didn't see anything wrong with it. But changes were about to come..
There was a well liked and very good technical worker in my team. Only problem was his appereance. The director couldn't stand the way he was. He was fat, quiet and wore an old sweatsuit all the time. Technical guy was very content with his appearance and felt no reason to make any changes.
Just in few months she succeeded to turn the whole management board againts this guy. He suddenly became a lazy and unreliable worker, who created a bad athmosphere to the whole office. When I found about the claims, it was too late. I tried to stand up for him, but couldn't defend him. The director was too cunning and I was too naive -- although I'm not anymore.
That wasn't the only trick the she pulled, but it was last one againts me. I found out that only way to avoid those tricks was not to talk to her at all.
I don't want to make this story long by telling about the ways she acted or methods she used. You propably can image them anyway. It's all charm, but totally hollow.
Problem is that the director still works in our company. I have no tools to fight againts a psychopath and I don't want to risk my position by showing it what I truly think. To psychopath its all black and white, if you're not on their side, you're an enemy.
If you have any ideas, please let me know.
I would have to site Ted kaczynski as an exception, then. He was a brilliant mathematician, actually working in complex analysis. He also blew up many people.
-- Give us your technology and we'll give you all the cow lips you want.
The Greeks defined virtue as the golden mean between two extremes. For example, courage was held to be the mean between rashness and cowardice. Self-control was held to be the mean between wantoness and total abstinence.
Oh how I used to enjoy whipping the little nerdy boys who were no more than glorified monkeys in a bullpen typing out code on and on.
I really enjoyed firing them when they f-ed up. One by one when the crash came. Some were alcoholics who owed me mucho favors, some were just emotionally crippled stooges. They all went bye bye in the end.
And then I shipped their jobs to India. And I wreak havoc from afar through e-mail now.
I AM corporate America and we are ALL psychopaths.
Looking through your list, you seem more to be going by the popular myth that "psychopath == axe murderer" rather than the "lacks empathy and is entertained by power games" definition and profile that TFA gave you.
Stalin for example was brutal and certainly responsible for more deaths than Hitler. And I do not only in WW2. Pre-WW2 he starved the peasants (ask any ucrainian about that, because they got the shit end of the stick the worst) and executed his own officers.
But it's very arguable if he fits _any_ of the personality traits of a psychopath. He wasn't some charismatic leader that manipulated people, he was a paranoid asshole surrounded literally by yes-men.
For that matter it's hard to even judge whether he had any empathy or not, because _any_ kind of information that could trigger an empathic response was filtered before it got to him. Don't assume that anyone went and told him "but, comrade, we're executing innocent people" or "but, comrade, millions of ukrainian people have already _literally_ starved to _death_." The information he got were more like "yes, comrade Stalin, we're taking care of the conspirators as you ordered" or "yes, comrade Stalin, we'll levy more grains as you ordered. The peasants have plenty. It's only, uh, some traitors paid by the enemy agencies that hoard their grain to sabotage your enlightened leadership. Yes, we'll take care of them." Yes-men tend to have that filtering effect.
Also you may notice that the USSR as a whole was essentially run like a corporation, rather than as Karl Marx's idealistic communist utopia. For a long while Stalin cared only about profits (e.g., exported grain) and investments (e.g., into factories and machineries.)
So even _if_ he were a psychopath, then you've basically just showed me a corporation run by a psychopath. I don't think it invalidates the point.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Guess again.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
This explains a lot.
Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning? - GWB
I for one welcome our psychopathic employment overlords.
The truth is that we all possess the innate ability to suppress normal social behaviors and to engage in violence under "necessary" conditions. That is a proven survival trait. It is the basis of military training. However the psychopath may be miswired to suppress social behaviors too easily, or all the time.
why people who do all the work (manual labour etc.) get 10 times less money then the people who point and go "Get it done by next week" (managers).
In the end, many people will accept a position, no matter what size the actual workload, so long as it is handed to them and their responsibilities are fairly clear. Our boss is well-liked, but most of my peers would never dream of stepping up to take his job (and have said as much). It pays more, the actual, measurable demands are lower, but the responsibility is higher and not as well-defined.
Basically, most of the group prefers bitching and complaining to taking responsiblity for something.
And 72.4% of scientific statistics are false.
See how easy it is to make crap statistics up? This quote from the article is just beautiful:
'...Scientific consensus says that only about 50% of personality is influenced by genetics, so psychopaths are molded by our culture just as much as they are born among us...'
That's a nice neat package for one hell of a complex phenomenon like behavior. To say that its 50% nature vs nurture is utterly stupid from a scientific point of view. So if you only train someone as a psychopath 25% of the time you'll get only a 25% psychopath? At best the 50% statistic is a guess.
-- IV
http://www.LinuxMedNews.com Revolutionizing Medical Education and Practice.
The 8 traits that supposedly make up the "Corporate Psychopath" are actuallly very close inline with Pathological Narcissism. As a mater of fact . Grandiosity, Manipulation, Lack of Empathy and Affect are major keypoints in Narcissism. Psychopaths do not make good leaders, Narcissits do. If you want to know more about this then check out The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership by Michael Maccoby.
Part of the problem is that, atleast in the US, there is no recognized single disorder that covers psychopathic personalities. The most closely aligned, according to the DSM(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) is Antisocial Personality Disorder, which does share some traits with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but neither APD or NDP alone would qualify someone as a Psychopath. In the ICD (international equivalent to the DSM) there is a personality disorder covering psychopaths, as well as a couple other disorders that are closesly inline with psychopathic personailty, but most likely neither of those would apply to your boss. There is a reason there as so many different diagnostics and that they some time share traits, because each different combination of traits should be treated differently.
So please don't everyone go of thinking there boss is a psychopath because they are manipulative, grandiose or don't show any feeling or affect. It's a job, and it is those particular traits that most likely allowed them to get where they are.
...there are two places where you'll find true sociopaths.
The first place is in the sanitarium.
The second is in the boardroom.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
Questions taken from the Slashdot story: Is your boss a Psychopath?
How do you rate George W. Bush and Dick Cheney? -- Questions for Questions:
Q: When he harms other people, does he feel a lack of remorse or guilt? A: Does killing people qualify as harming them?
Q: Does he lie habitually even though he can easily be found out? A: Does lying to start a war qualify as lying? A2: Does pretending that you have reduced the violence in another country, rather than increased it, qualify as lying?
Q: When he's exposed, does he still act unconcerned because he thinks he can weasel out of it? A: Does saying it's all fine qualify as being unconcerned?
Q: Is he concerned about himself rather than the wreckage he inflicts on others or society at large? A: Does worrying only about election results qualify as being concerned only about oneself?
Q: Does he use his skill at lying to cheat or manipulate other people in his quest for money? A: When both Bush and Cheney have a long history of oil and weapons investments among family and friends, does starting a war in the world's second most oil-rich country qualify as a quest for money?
Q: Does he cruelly mock others? A: Does George W. Bush calling his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, "turd blossom" qualify as cruelly mocking him? A2: Does giving people disrespectful nicknames qualify as mocking them?
Q: Is he callous and lacking in empathy? A: Does taking habitual risks with the lives of other people while driving qualify as lacking in empathy? A2: George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest A3: George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest George W. Bush was arrested 2 other times in his life, also, for stunts that were not something a sober person would find interesting. A4: Dick Cheney DUI, record of 1st arrest A5: Dick Cheney DUI, record of 2nd arrest
--
If your government chooses killing as policy, expect others to choose the same.
Both a psychopath and a sociopath remove their emotions in order to do the thing at hand.
A psychopath is a person who removes their emotions in order to acquire something and often, they do so perminantly. A Psychopath does it by choice and then, generally, runs from the pain that they feel and what their emotions tell them for the rest of their lives.
A sociopath removes their emotions as a defense to something, such as a parent beating them every night, society completly rejecting them, ect. Take, for example, emo kids(if you do the research, it's true too); the reason they're emotionally crippled is because their parents and society have utterly failed them at every turn, and as a result, they become confused, depressed, suicidal, and generally exploitable. This is what happens if you don't reject your emotions in that manner.
Then there's me, who's been through so much shit that in all probability I should be in a mental hospital but I'm not. I rejected my emotions, especially the ones about self preservation, to cope with my environment. The major difference between a socipath and a psychopath is that the sociopath is capable of controlling their emotions and most importantly, understands the contexts where it's useful and where it isn't. A psychopath always runs from their emotions and always casted them aside to get something. The reason someone who removes them in order to survive isn't a psychopath is because they wanted them in the first place; a psychopath views them as an unwanted hurdle to success. A sociopath has been through hell, they just want to be safe and loved.
Emotion is like a soft inner guiding voice that can be tricked and that can be screwed around with quite heavily. There's an even deeper connection, to god, in there if you really search for it that can set emotional confusion straight.
In any case, sociopaths tend to be more masterminded about the world, meaning, they're masters of themselves and therefor, masters of the environment around them. They are very rare, and most don't want to be uber l33t bigtime corporate guy because they know that they don't want the work nor do they want to deal with a bunch of assholes. Psychopaths want control, because the first thing they acquired by giving up their emotions was never enough to replace them so they need something else. Pretty soon, they're fucking babies and killing millions in order to get what they want, and what they'll find is that it'll never be enough to replace their emotions.
No one else has a problem with this?
Are you the same group of people posting links to the EFF, and complaining about violations of privacy?
This might be surprising to some of you, but being a sociopath is not illegal. Nor should it be grounds for not getting hired into a job. Being a sociopath does not mean you will become a serial killer either, despite what hollywood tells you. 3% of all men, and 1% of women are sociopaths. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopath/
If someone has the intellegence and ability to do the job, who cares if they won't cry when someone else gets burned? As long as they are a law abiding citizen, they should be able to live a normal life.
(Unless anyone with "mental disease" should be locked away)
Which is to say that this nonsensical quiz is so vague as to be little more than a rorshach test.
If we are talking about psychopaths I'm going to ask if a government can be psychopathic. I guess you could call it the psychopathic State. If a given State has the given traits common to psychopaths, why not label the State itself psychopathic?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
a ctor_Model_of_Psychopathy
Why are psychopaths so charming?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopath#A_Three-F
Psycopaths are callous, manipulative, impulsive, and quick to anger. These are not exactly charming traits.
Not every argument requires reduction to absurdity.
I for one would just like to say that the quiz is very sexist assuming that one's boss is a he.
perceptive reason vs reactive gloss
enlightened vs ignorant
admittant vs obstructive
preservation of truth vs preservation of ego
tao!
Here is the DSM-IV criteria for a Sociopath (not psychopath):
1) failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
2) deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3) impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
4) irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
5) reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6) consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
6) lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another
Now consider the conduct us US VP Dick Cheney:
1) (a) criminal conflict of interest (moving from industry to politics and securing massive contracts for the company he was just CEO of) (b) criminal incompetence and criminal negligence in conducting the war leading directly to avoidable deaths of US servicepeople and Iraqi civilians
2) lying about Iraq being the most likely "nexus of terrorists and WMD", lying about the existence of WMD, lying about Iraq being part of the war on terrorism when it is in fact the distraction from the war on terrorism
3) There was no plan for security in Iraq, everything was looted and now neither US forces or the Iraqi people have security or even reasonable levels of basic services such as electricity and water
5) Reckless endangerment of US troops and Iraqi civilians in the poorly planned war in Iraq.
6) Rationalizing the justification for the war.
This Barry Lewis is from Cape Cod (Mass.) He claimed to have gone to law school in Arizona. He lived in downtown Boston and Newton. He started a company called Basic Language Systems.
Fight Spammers!
Both are deluded by belief in something unprovable and patently absurd.
Blar.
The Corporation (2004) http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=600348 10&trkid=90529
In America, I'd say alot of us are psychopaths. How many of us actually care about people? We don't support universal healthcare, we laugh while people in Africa are dying of AIDS and starving to death, and we like war. I think its safe to say that if you are in America, you'd be better off being a psychopath than not being one.
You're all fired for posting on Slashdot on company time. Next time your try something like that again, I'll fire you again because I am the metaboss. My horns of hair know no limits!
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
you mean dr evil? no of course not
120 chars is not bloody enough for a real sig!!! you bastards even count spaces!!!
You can learn a lot about a person by looking at his/her childhood upbringing. I had a boss who is nut and I couldn't understand why until a learned of his very unfortunate childhood. Then it all made sense to me... Still, one's childhood is not an excuse to trample on people.
Would a concentration camp run efficiently directed by mentally healthy people?
Of course we don't work in concentration camps, but in childhood we're forced into fenced big buildings, later, at work we stay all day in somewhat restrictive places, all of them a much lighter version of a concentration camp, so I guess it's a matter of degree.
Googles founders are not narcisists or psychopaths and they are doing just fine in competition with Microsoft.
A psychopath definately should not be boss, not because they run the company bad fiscally, but because they run the country into the ground to make the company successful. Having a narcisist is not much better if you want a clean environment and good health.
Do you think food companies give a damn about our health? They want us to have cancer and heart disease because its profitable. Do you think the government cares about our health? They want healthcare prices to rise above our limits and they dont want you getting drugs from Canada. DO you think doctors care about our health? They want to just sell the drugs the drug companies bribe them to sell.
Psychopaths are EVERYWHERE and unless we create some ethical standards for certain positions or even for getting certain degrees in college its not going to stop. If everyone who wants a masters degree or who wants to be a boss has to pass a psychological screening in the same way we have to pass a drug test I don't think there would be a problem. If we don't do this, then expect our bosses to destroy the world for profit because psychopaths do not care about the world, you do.
If you want any form av credibility don't use a site ending with "Please help therealcuba.com reach more people worldwide to let them know what Castro has done to that once beautiful and happy island". Castro is no saint, but neither was the dictator before him, although he was more open to US' interests...
I also decided to rate George W. Bush on the quiz, and he scored nearly a perfect score of 16 as a psychopath. To be fair, Bill Clinton scored pretty high as well.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Saw this on digg ages back... dupe!
And where can I read up on on both the studies that have examined the rates of misdiagnosis of ASPD for BPD and the assertion that psychopaths are split 50/50 between the sexes?
Don't become a manager, just get yourself a f'n robot and program it. Use the machines to do all your work if you cannot handle people.
However, most of us don't want to be replaced by machines, so if you do that we arent going to work for you anymore, and we don't want to be treated like machines because unlike machine, we have feelings and we can go insane.
Hardly.
Obviously, some of the dissent comes from individuals with a vested interest.
And you seem to have misunderstood what I wrote. I never argued that psychopaths wouldn't qualify for the APSD checklist.
Not to mention that your counter argument fails to address that not all impairments in personality disorders require the failure to observe rules and laws.
None of us like to be treated like machines. Bosses don't, People dont. So why should we create a culture or a workplace which values people are machines?
If we treat people as people, they'll be more loyal, they'll work longer hours because they won't mind it, and they'll ultimately be more productive.
So they should be psychopaths, just psychopaths for shareholder value. Probably a rare strain of psychopath indeed. I can see why they're so well paid.
He that is able to become president
is not worthy of the position.
Why wouldn't we want to screen them? We screen police officers, teachers. Why not people who are going to influence the mindset of people? Or even which politicians are allowed to run in elections? With the example of nazism, it seems a reasonable argument. We simply screen out everyone who does not conform to what the socially conscious and sensitized segment of society finds likely to hurt the feelings of other people. From the quiz; Is he a likable personality and a terrific talker -- entertaining, persuasive, but maybe a bit too smooth and slick? Can he pass himself off as a supposed expert in a business meeting even though he really doesn't know much about the topic?.. Does he brag? Is he arrogant? Superior?..Does he downplay his legal, financial, or personal problems, say they're just temporary..? Is he concerned about himself rather than the wreckage he inflicts on others or society at large? Is he cold and detached, even when someone near him dies, suffers, or falls seriously ill -- for example, does he visit the hospital or attend the funeral? .. Does he claim to be your friend but rarely or never ask about the details of your life or your emotional state? Is he one of those tough-guy executives [sic!] who brag about how emotions are for whiners and losers?
Does he not give a damn about the feelings or well-being of other people? Is he profoundly selfish?.. Can he fire employees without concern for how they'll get by without the job?
Does he always cook up some excuse? Does he blame others for what he's done?
Answering "Maybe" or "Somewhat" to all of these nets 6 points, placing the boss squarely in the "Be cautious"-category. Answering "Yes" to two of them places him or her in the "Be Afraid" category. And the author of the thread and others who believe this is 'a reasonable argument' would implement laws that screen who is allowed to hold hold jobs at organisations according to similar criteria?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Not holding all of your social/economic/political beliefs != psycopathy.
The fact that most people who mess with war or war-like scenarios do believe that civilian sacrifices needs to be made, is undeniable.
Every military is itself based on the fact that people are willing to kill other people for what they want.
Right now, the US troops needed to kill civilians on Iraq, their oppenents think they need to do it too, and everybody thinks they are right.
The problem with killing innocents, is that it is inevitable once you are in the business of killing people.
Of course, I am against killing all kinds of people (_all_ kinds), but I don't believe Che's recomendations are any worst than carpet-bombing a city, or any less acceptable, taking into account that I disprove of both.
Between "terrorist", "child pornographer", and now "psychopath", people should be able to get anybody locked up they don't like. Those labels are just so much more convenient than the more traditional "witch", "Jew", "homosexual", and "communist"--even easier to apply and even harder to disprove.
Sure, it would be great if we could identify dangerous people before they can do harm. But centuries of experience with that have shown that giving government and society the power to label and lock up people in that way is even more dangerous than the people themselves.
I expect people to save up for themselves. Why do we feel entitled to retire at age 65 whether we have the means to survive or not? Social security was started at a time when most people didn't live to be 65 and very few lived much longer than that. I had a friend who's grandfather was still farming at age 80. He did it because he enjoyed it as well as that he needed the money because he refused to let the government pay for something that is his responsibility. I would rather keep my money and use it the way I feel I should. And that way is not social security, especially not its current design.
expect the government to spend itself into debt,
If you want the government to pay for all your expectations (and by the sound of it, you do) how do you want them to pay for it? To make up money out of thin air? To tax us all out the roof? I think a lot of programs need to be cut, and the budget needs to be balanced and the debt needs to be payed off. But we do that by reducing government, not spending more.
expect the cost of healthcare go continue to go up forever until you cannot afford it,
Insane. If we can't afford it, then who will pay for it? The upperclass? Fine I suppose. And then eventually healthcare providers will realise that there is a lot of money to be made by selling it to the middle class. And the trend will continue. But then, maybe you just read the news that is all doom and gloom. I see a lot of people in the medical field doing things for the poor. I believe in humanity, not the news-worlds view of it. At my University there was a group that just back from somewhere in South America which performed free dental services for thousands of people for free. Where was that in the news? It was in our daily campus newspaper, but didn't even make it into the local newspaper. It happens. I volunteer on occasion. Do you? If so, great. If not, shut up!
expect the poor to be tossed in ghettos and left to die, all around the world.
I'm looking at the poor here in the US and thinking, wow. I am technically considered poor by the standards here. I don't feel that way. I have food on my table and a roof over my head. When the rich get richer, the poor do NOT get poorer. There is no finite pie in economics. When the rich pay for things, who are they paying? The middle class. When they pay for things, who do they pay? The poor. So where does the money of the rich go? To the poor. Eventually. And as I aluded to before, some people donate their money and their time. This trend is seen in the US a lot. There are truly poor people here in the US, yes. There are much poorer people in other countries. I spent a month in the jungles of Vietnam back in May. Those people are very poor by US standards. They don't act like it though. they work. Hard. They have food on their tables and a roof over their heads, and it is NOT their communist (read socialist) governments fault that they have this. Quite the contrary. It is the governments fault they are hindered and held back.
Again, if you are actually doing something to reverse the trend, then I applaud you. If you are just sitting back and ranting then get off your high horse and shut up. The world is in a much better state than some may let on. There is a lot, and I mean a vast amount of a lot, of things we can improve upon. But rants like yours make it sound like we are in worse shape than any time on earth. Some things are bad. Let's improve it. Not just rant and complain.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Because money doesn't grow on trees?
It should start with: Is your boss a man?
That would make the rest of it make more sense.
You can at least pay for our healthcare. We have to pay for your wars to protect your special interests? The least you could do is protect the people who pay for these wars. DO you care about the soldiers? Do you care about the health of America? Do you care about the old?
Just come out and admit you don't care, just be brave and say it. Why argue with me about how healthcare is bad, and how the poor should take care of themselves, when you want to just say you don't care? Just come out and say it, you don't care about the soldiers or the workers. If you don't care then yes, Social Security, Universal Healthcare, and Economic Security are all meaningless. If you want America to be the strongest then you also want America to be the healthiest, most happy, more economically secure nation on earth.
Don't worry, I'll leave America and move to a country that cares, along with the rest of the people who think like me, and you'll have your survival of the fittest world you desire. Good luck.
Boss scored like a 2 & 1/2.
I'm however pushing the teens.
400 billion on war. Hundreds of billions on the Iraq war alone, so I don't even want to hear the petty excuse that we don't have enough money to fix America's problems when we are spending it on fixing Iraq's problems.
We have the money.
Old names for it were psychopath and sociopath.
James R. (Jamie) Saker of Omaha certainly qualifies. Massive fraud with a low level white collar mafioso named Michael Luther while operating something called Synergy, a low level role in a P&D scam named Pensat, and then lots of collection problem style behavior in his current efforts at American Relay.
He is all of the things described in the article and from the things people tell me this personality defect all likely stems from some childhood sexual abuse. He is, however, quite glib and personable during initial contact.
I have held the opinion for a very long time that the medical profession is the most disruptive field that attracts sociopaths. All the attractants are there in spades.
You are confusing unintended "collateral damage" and intentional harm. If you insists on Iraq analogies Che's position would be closer to the terrorists who view civilians as a resource to be used to further their goals. Che advocated *intentionally* putting civilians into harms way and *rationalized* their suffering and deaths as the price to advance socialism. The US military is not intentionally targetting innocent villagers.
You should feel guilty for supporting poverty, war, and for what has been done to the poor. If you do not feel guilty, or any sorta remorse, responsibility, etc, then by this definition you are a psychopath.
Look at Africa? Who is responsible for this? Look at ghettos in the USA and tell me who is responsible? Lets look at the native Americans, who is responsible?
If Americans are not psychopaths, when is it going to be time to take responsibility and fix these problems? They wont fix themselves, and even if you did not create them yourself, you benefit from its existance.
If we arent psychopaths, ok, lets actually discuss how to help Africa, lets actually trade with Africa. Let's actually rebuild ghettos in this country instead of just watching it on MTV. Why should we accept such low standards when we could do better? We are the richest country in the world, the least we could do is have a country with no ghettos. We might not be able to save Africa all by ourselves, but if we actually traded with Africa like we trade with Europe then perhaps Africa wouldnt be starving to death. Fair trade.
It's not a difficult problem to solve, its not an expensive problem to solve, and in the long term it helps the economy to put the poor to work. Putting the poor in prisons and robbing them of jobs is not only cruel, its illogical.
Why should the USA be outsourcing labor when we can just hire all these people living in ghettos to build stuff? Let's hire them to build the fiber optic internet accross the country. Let's build new trains, lets build stuff, it might cost money to build but it will pay for itself.
It has nothing to do with politics, you could be a conservative and not be a racist, and actually care about the poor. Jesus Christ himself cared about the poor, Jesus Christ was not hanging with the romans and saying let the poor starve to death.
His book was required reading for all US soldiers, at least back in the 1980's.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Not sure about your money cycle argument - when the rich pay for things, they are often paying a large organisation owned by people like them - the rich and upper middle classes, being the main private shareholders (at least in the UK) keep most of their money among themselves, with the poor being given enough to get them to do a job and keep them from rioting about the unfair distribution of wealth.
Good luck sometimes arrives disguised as bad
Robert Hare is the same person who contributed to and appeared in the book and film http://www.thecorporation.com/index.php?page_id=3" http://www.thecorporation.com/index.php?page_id=3" >The Corporation, and seems to have been the central proponent of the film's main premise: "The corporation is the prototypical psychopath."
I wouldn't be surprised if the idea originated with him, since he seems pretty interested in pursuing various angles of it.
Influence of the corporate culture.
If you have socio-psychopaths at the top, they infect the entire culture. The only people who will be attracted to work for socio-psychopaths are themselves socio-psychopaths.
The rest of the employees end up quitting, one at a time while the socip-psychopaths subordinates behave in reprehensible ways to 'achieve' goals that were deemed 'good' by the top management.
The World Bank is an example.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
His book was required reading for all US soldiers, at least back in the 1980's.
Know your enemy. Dehumanize your enemy, especially easy when his own words do it.
...isn't burdened by conscience. Psychopaths have a profound lack of empathy. They use other people callously and remorselessly for their own ends. They seduce victims with a hypnotic charm that masks their true nature as pathological liars, master con artists, and heartless manipulators.
... the descendents of the people turned off the commons will thank you. In all fairness I should be clear that the gratitude in quesiton is limited to the descendents of the suriviors, since this is the only kind of descendents there are. You aren't likely to win any population contests among the dead and their hypothetical, potential descendents.
They're talking about psychopaths, but they could be talking about the kind of behavior that corporations are actually admired for.
Think about what a corporation is supposed to do. It's supposed to make as much money as possible by any means possible. The only check on this is when the cost of breaking laws or social norms exceeds the value of doing so. A large corporation, with its financial resources and manpower, is vastly more powerful than any individual human being. And not supposed to care about anything human, except as a means to an end.
This vast kind of simplifications of ends is always a winner, efficiency-wise, over the complex tangle of values. The rights of the peasant to graze on the commons is part of the long tradition that enabled that class of people to feed themsleves. Take away those rights, and you can reorganize the manor on modernized agricultural lines, at the cost of starving the poor. But
The behavior of the psychopath is well suited to leading corporations, because their actions are unencumbered by empathy, humanity or decency. As the corporation itself is supposed to be. Just as long as the proprietors keep an eye on him so he can only do well by doing well by them.
When people created the corporation, it was like a magician summoning a demon: they conjured up something incredibly powerful and nasty at the same time, with an idea of using it to serve their ends. And by in large it's worked out remarkably well. But it we'd do well to remember that because it does good, it is not necessarily good in itself. To the degree we work in corporations, we should be mindful that it's not a good thing that often the right man for boss is somebody who'd slip a knife in your ribs if thought he'd get something by it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So most US presidents have been sociopaths -- that's what you're saying? Not that I don't believe you, I'm just surprised by how unconcerned you sound about this. Frankly, I'm pretty damn concerned that I live so close to the kind of nitwits that would consistently elect sociopaths to their highest seat of government and not see anything wrong with that. Canada has certainly had some sociopathic leaders, but at least most people here see that as a bad thing.
"The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind " by Julian Jaynes, until 50 thousand years ago, we were selfish little animals and then things started to s-l-o-w-l-y change.
If you were to meet somebody from 500 years ago, they would strike you as having a very odd, inconsistant basis for their beliefs and you'd have a very hard time not being repelled by them.
Jaynes wrote that our not so distant ancestors were ALL psychopaths. (He argues that early Greeks, Roman, Norse and most civilizations were all run by psychopaths.)
Is it any wonder that many people are still showing the lack of empathy required to be a socially well adjusted person?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
people who dont care, they require money.
I do not require money, I fix what I can when I can. I'm guessing a lot off Americans understand that they are their government. When Americans think about war, and collectively want it, the government will make it appear.
The government is owned by the money, the money is owned by the government, and right now the people people who are aware own the government whilee the people who are unaware are owned by it.
Go to a library and you can read up on how things are set up. You don't change the government or the politicians, you start by changing yourself and the people you know. It has the same effect.
Being a sociopath is not, nor should it be, illegal. But it is a very serious disqualification for any job where the person in question will have power over others -- in exactly the same way that being blind is a disqualification for driving, or that being suicidally depressed is a disqualification for... well... almost all jobs, or that schizophrenia is a disqualification for a career in the armed forces or law enforcement, or that pedophilia is a disqualification for working with children. You get the picture.
"People are, by and large, lazy and ungrateful shits." Right, that's Theory X. Fortunately, there is also a Theory Y
Carl Sandburg once wrote:
Drove up a newcomer in a covered wagon: 'What kind of folks live around here?' 'Well, stranger, what kind of folks was there in the country you come from?' 'Well, they was mostly a lowdown, lying, thieving gossiping, backbiting kind lot of people.' 'Well, I guess, stranger, that's about the kind of folks you'll find around here.' And the dusty gray stranger had just about blended into the dusty gray cottonwoods in a clump on the horizon when another newcomer drove up: 'What kind of folks live around here?' 'Well, stranger, what kind of folks was there in the country you come from?' 'Well, they was mostly a decent, hardworking, lawabiding, friendly lot of people.' 'Well, I guess, stranger, that's about the kind of folks you'll find around here.'"
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Who's talking about locking people up? This is just about not letting sociopaths be in charge of other people -- in exactly the same way that pedophiles aren't allowed to be teachers. You don't let people do a job where they are extremely likely to hurt people. That's just good sense. No one has a right to be a CEO or a politician. Just like any other job, you have to be qualified -- and being a sadistic ass should be a disqualification.
> When the rich get richer, the poor do NOT get poorer
Is the "poor" class not growing larger while the middle class gets smaller? And, as another poster pointed out, money doesn't "trickle down" when it ends up going to other rich people who invested in stocks (which the poor cannot afford to do).
Chosen Reject, we *need* more like you and I in the world.
I would call it common sense, but it is no longer common... the idea that our individual attitudes form a simple feedback loop in society.
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
Ever wonder why certain people get put in key positions in the whitehouse? Bush, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Poindexter...etc.
Hrmm. Im curious where you will go?
Europe - Good luck getting a job! Until you are granted full citizenship, you will be behind EVERYONE who is EU citizen in the line for ANY job. As you said, good luck!
Asia - Sure, China is growing. However, their healthcare, governmental, and longterm economic stability leave MUCH to be desired compared to US or Europe. S. Korea isnt in horrible shape (obviously N. Korea is bad news). Japan has been having real economic and societal problems for the last 20 years (their population base is aging much much faster than the US population, and their kids arent procreating). As you said, good luck!
South America - Sunny! and unstable. The governments are partially corrupt. I hope you have money to bribe your way into a job. Healthcare -- nonexistant. Economic Stability -- Nonexistant. Also, I hope you speak spanish or portuguese fluently. As you said, good luck!
Middle East & Africa - Hrmm. You can figure this one out on your own. Regardless of the instability -- these are not places that are generally considered a step up in terms of "healthiest, most happy, more economically secure" nations, as you mentioned.
The grandparent was correct - things ARENT that bad here, compared to the rest of the world. He was also correct in saying that we can improve here. Try it sometime. I volunteer regularly, donate often to charities, and vote regularly on both local and federal levels. Make things better in your community instead of bitching about "well ill just move!". If you really feel like you will be better off somewhere else, then go do it. At very worst, STOP FUCKING BITCHING.
I'm not certain that it's possible to have accurate testing for psychopathy. I think it's more a matter of being aware and making smart choices. If somebody continues to do harm while smiling, there comes a time when you no longer, 'Forgive and Forget' or 'Turn the Other Cheek', and feel guilty for, 'Gossiping'.
Simple as that. Basically, the way to defend against manipulative, abusive people is to regularly network and share knowledge, (Psychopaths love secrecy and cannot help but tell lies, so regular networking will show up a liar for what s/he is). You need to be objective. "Yes I like this person, but do the results of his/her actions match their words?" And you need to stand up for yourself, always sharing information openly with those around you so that others can be aware.
If everybody thought this way, then psychopaths would not rise so easily to the tops of power structures in both business and government.
-FL
Collateral damage is _exactly_ harming innocent people intentionally, and measuring collateral damage is rationalizing that harm.
Of course, the guy could be more honest about his thoughts, because he didn't have to care about PR, but it's exactly the same thing, there are no substantial differences.
The US military bombed Baghdad, where inocent people lived, and now die. Just because they did it to "fight the terrorism" or "liberate iraq", and CG talked aout killing civilians to "free the people", it doesn't make the method any better. Kiling civilians is bad, of course, but it's very common, and most militaries, US included, do it strategically.
> Christ himself was probabably a Taoist, but nobody studies what he actually said.
While it's true that early Christians called themselves followers of "the Way" I doubt they knew of Taoism as it's understood here in modern times, or that very much of any of it was known to people in 1st century Palestine.
As for what Jesus actually said, well, according to whom? Paul wasn't off in his own little world--he was part of the Christian community that later decided the set of writings we now hold as cannon were trustworthy. If he's studied more than some, it's because he wrote so many epistles, but that doesn't mean that you won't find sermons on Jesus' parables or the Beatitudes--quite the contrary, a great many of the sermons I've ever heard were on such things.
At least, in my church.
But yes, being concious of your own motives, whether good or ill, is certainly very important.
The most interesting thing I find about these reactions to this story is the pervasive ignorance of, and discomfiture regarding mental illness as evidenced by some of the comments. If you look at most of the checklists regarding checks for most mental disorders, what strikes you is how similar they all are and how much of diagnosis is a result of painstaking cross-referencing by therapists to arrive at a "pretty good idea" of where the problem lies.
If you had a broken leg, you would go to the doctor, tell the doctor what the problem is and follow the prescribed treatments. People with disorders don't tend to do that. They get referred by authorities and then do all they can to present themselves as not having a problem. If anyone has confronted an alcoholic, or has dealt with them, they have no doubt been told that they are the alcoholic, not the alcoholic themselves. This makes treating people with disorders highly problematic.
If you had a broken leg, you wouldn't think twice about seeing a doctor, yet when significant trauma hits someone's life, the notion of seeking professional help is almost seen as a weakness in a lot of quarters. Sad for the 21rst century really.
Likewise, I had to wonder about the people here who don't consider Chairman Mao a psychopath. I guess it doesn't count when you merely expunged everyone in your society who doesn't fit your Cultural Revolution's vision of the future.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Unfortunately, I know what it's like to deal with working with a psychopath first-hand.
About four years ago, I was working for a company called Verticalscope as a freelance writer, writing articles about the web hosting industry. They'd send me a contract over email, I'd sign it and send it in, and about a week later, I'd have the article in for posting. Seemed like good, regular freelance work.
However, something was wrong. Payments were late and smaller than expected, and no matter how often I asked, I couldn't get an accounting of what articles had been paid for and which ones had not. When I finally brought this up with the person who I had been dealing with, I was told that none of the contracts had ever been counter-signed. It felt like being hit with a sledgehammer. At this point in time, they owed me $2,600 Canadian.
Hoping to fight him, I issued a press release, which can still be found here: http://diabloii.net/garwulfs/press-release.shtml What followed were several months of email sparring, in which the person involved attempted to intimidate me by threatening to sue me for libel. I nearly took the company to small claims court, but then I realized that even though I'd probably win, I'd never be able to collect it.
Close to a year of my life was ruined by that man, and I still see red whenever I think of it. Verticalscope has since then become fairly successful - whether the person who screwed me over is still there, I don't know. Perhaps, if there's some justice in the world, the guy who screwed me over was fired and the company cleaned up their act. But I still see red whenever I think of it, and realize that the bastard probably never cared what harm he did to me or any of the other freelance writers - he only cared about moving himself along in the company.
Moral of the story: even if an a**hole or psychopath might be good for your business, they do more harm than good in the end. Better to use the Scott Adams model of management, with no tolerance for a**holes, period.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
document on the Company comptroller's desk and since I can read upside down, I looked up at him and announced that I was quitting, effective immediately.
It was an announcement that we were to be saddled with a new head of IT who was getting the job because he sold us a bill of goods, had gotten us into a mess in the first place, (I knew he was the nephew of some muckity-muck at [censored]) and that he was starting on Monday.
I left that afternoon, with a letter of recommendation, (I was friends with the head of HR, only back then it was called payroll,) found a job that afternoon, and never looked back.
He didn't want the job and upon arriving he fired everybody, from the chief analyst who was a pleasant enough co-worker, to the data entry clerks.
I was already working for somebody else but all of the other employees weren't so lucky.
Sometimes the boss is a 'bungie cord' boss who gets parachuted in on you and when neither him nor you want him there, the results are just awful.
He was an idiot, an arrogant prick, a blow-hard, a bad manager, an incompetent and he was 'forced' into the job because he'd bankruped his own company so he had nothing better and the Corporate big-wig who'd made the mistake of buying his crap in the first place just couldn't admit it.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
This article was referenced on Yahoo! Finance about two months ago. What took so long for SlashDot editors to publish the story?
signature pending slashdot approval
Yep, that is the nutcase.
Fight Spammers!
Think outside the box for a moment here. A person should live whereever the money is, but we live in a global economy. This means if you make money in Europe on the Euro your money might actually be worth more than the dollar at some point. This money can be used to help build the local community at home. People have been giving money back to their homelands for a while now, why do you think Americans would just abandon everything?
The point is if you are running a business, you'll move to whereever business is and whereever money is. Where you live does not matter anymore, its what you do with your money that matters now, its who you help with your money, and its how you invest. You don't have to give to charity when you can buy stock. You can be a capitalist while also doing good work, its more challenging but it improves peoples live. Right now most capitalists are just making money to make money, if they actually did give back to their communities we would be in a much better state. This does not mean giving back through higher taxes, it means giving back by venture capital.
What part of the words "free" and "totalitarian" do you not understand?
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Private eyes - were watching me - they'd see my every move.
So were you working for Darrell Hall or John Oates?
Sorry, obscure 80's song reference.
-J
And so on. The point that the researchers noted was that psychopaths seem to have trouble monitoring their own speech. What is more, they often put things together in strange ways, such as this series of remarks from serial killer Clifford Olson: "And then I had annual sex with her." "Once a year?" "No. Annual. From behind." "Oh. But she was dead!" "No, no. She was just unconscientious." About his many experiences, Olson said, "I've got enough antidotes to fill five or six books - enough for a trilogy." He was determined not to be an "escape goat" no matter what the "migrating facts." [Hare]
Some Bush Jr. quotes. . .
This is true. But eventually the money gets down. For example: Mr Rich guy buys a new plasma TV from Sony. Rich gave the money to the rich. But who does Sony employ? Yes there's a lot of money going into management overhead, but the rich aren't doing the customer support. The rich aren't manning the factories. The rich didn't deliver the finished product or the raw materials. The rich didn't build the buildings or clean the buildings. And it's a good bet that the rich didn't even sell the TV.
When you look at all the expenses that a business has, and look at the money flow for just one product, you will notice that money travels fast from the rich to the poor. Another example. Let's say you get rich enough some day that you don't want to mow your lawn. I come in and say I will do it every week for a fair price we both agree upon. I make money. You get a service. We are both happy. Money flows from rich to poor. I then make enough money to buy a car, which let's say your company made. So money keeps the flow. If in any of those transactions, neither of us is happy with our end of the deal, then we don't follow through. You aren't happy because your lawn isn't mowed because I am not willing to mow it for $0.50, or whatever. But the money does flow.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Really ?
...
They're peasant victims are the results of "evil"
but our peasant victims are due to "unfortunate and unavoidable side-effects" ??
Both look like piles of bodies of the vulnerable to me.
And you both sound like self-justifying murderous S.O.B.s to me.
Read the info on F.I.S.H. during Fallujah ??
That's Fighting In Somebody's House.
Basically shotgun holes in walls and doors, then throw grenades in,
then rush on full auto, and afterwards, everyone who is dead was an "insurgent".
Or just leave them for 2 weeks to rot in the wreckage, since who gives a fuck,
we don't count "their" dead.
Look at the pictures of the dead.
Look at the ratio of casualties to captured weapons.
Too Many Civilians.
For people who claim that grenading innocents, whether they be men, women or children, sight unseen, bodies uncounted, is just "unavoidable collateral damage", my heart is ashen, and I look upon you in shame, if not in anger.
But then, you're not listening, are you ??
(R)ule in Hell or (S)erve in Heaven [R]?
Trickledown econonomics was discredited years ago. The money doesn't make it to the poor. Ever. It circulates among the middle and upper classes, driving up prices for the things they desire (property, say) and increasing the gap between rich and poor. Making the middle-class richer makes it harder for the poor to become middle-class; it makes it harder for them to move to a nice area, harder for them to get their kids into a good school, harder to get good health-care. Making the rich richer does not make the poor richer. Relativley, it makes them poorer. And they don't catch up.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
There are certain characteristics which Psychopaths do often share. Certain language problems
I think it's more a matter of being aware and making smart choices. If somebody continues to do harm while smiling, there comes a time when you no longer, 'Forgive and Forget' or 'Turn the Other Cheek', and feel guilty for, 'Gossiping'.
Simple as that. Basically, the way to defend against manipulative, abusive people is to regularly network and share knowledge, (Psychopaths love secrecy and cannot help but tell lies, and regular networking will show up a liar for what s/he is). You need to be objective. "Yes I like this person, but do the results of his/her actions match their words?" It takes time, because you need to see a pattern of behavior, but the patterns will emerge. Then you need to stand up for yourself, always sharing information openly with those around you so that others can be aware.
If everybody thought this way, then psychopaths would not rise so easily to the tops of power structures in both business and government.
-FL
[Spits coffee.] "What???"
--Define 'mild' psychopath, please. And how could ANYBODY think that even a 'mild' psychopath is a suitable person for one of the world's most powerful seats of government?
And you might want to think twice about accusing anybody of spewing propaganda. --A common tactic of the psychopath is to accuse others of what he is himself guilty of.
-FL
Collateral damage is _exactly_ harming innocent people intentionally,
It's funny when people don't know what a word means, but are convinced that they do. I'll bet you use the word irregardless, too...
For the record, Collateral damage is_exactly NOT intentional by it's very definition. Before you continue to spout of your pinko nonsense, could you at least bother to open up a dictionary so you use the right words?
if a corporation's ONLY motive is shareholder value, why isn't the "Vision" of all of them the same:
"We will make bucketloads of cash" and then leave details up to whatever works that day?
Have to say....this is old: you all were scooped almost two months ago:. htm
http://www.creativetechwriter.com/archives/000362
Really? Even in the case where they bombed a restaurant because they thought Sadam was there? The odds that they'd hit Sadam were not that great, and they were virtually certain to hit someone innocent.
In what way is this not `deliberately putting innocent citizens in harm's way'? Because they didn't think of the consequences? At a certain point stupidity is no longer an excuse.
We screen police officers, teachers. Why not people who are going to handle billions of dollars?
Two words: private sector.
Reducing government is a great idea. Let's start by reducing government's power to concentrate wealth into the hand of a few, by revoking or greatly limiting the issuance of corporate charters, land deeds, inheritance rights, resource rights, copyrights, and patents. (Actually before that should be ending government's power to criminalize consensual behavior like drug use and prostitution, but let's stick with economic issues for the moment.)
The "social spending" that the right would like to slash is just an (inadequate) governor on the engine of state capitalism. Breaking the government power that enables the L-curve is a necessary prerequiste for eliminating these governors.
Which is the problem with economics - it does not correspond to reality.
All natural resources, and all human resources, are finite. Land or gold or the services of a skilled physician that I own, reduces the amount available to the rest of you.
Until economic theories that accept that we live in a finite world come to greater prominence, we're screwed.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The source code is not available to anyone. I hadn't finished it. I was building the architecture and designing the system when the money vanished.
Fight Spammers!
If being too dumb to synthesize useful sentences qualifies you as psychopathic, then there's probably an alien race vastly smarter than us which thinks every human is psychopathic. Most politicians rank above 13 on that quiz. George Bush is too dumb to get above 6.
The blurb and TFA both use the word "psychopath", which covers pretty much any mental disorder. The detail of the article refers to people who lack empathy and conscience. That is a particular type of psychopathy - it is talking about the sociopath.
Sociopaths lack empathy, but that doesn't necessarily mean they lack a conscience. Most sociopaths recognise a logical connection between their behaviour and outcomes that leads to a different kind of conscience based on logic. Because the conscience is based on logic and the non-sociopath conscience is based on emotion (empathy), the conscience of a sociopath may well be better tuned to recognise the suffering of others outside their immediate circle. Non-sociopaths are more likely to have a conscience that is more limited to the people they actually interact with.
Of course the sociopath who has not developed this logical conscience is much more interesting to most people because they tend to leave a trail of destruction in their wake. People in this category include pretty much every spammer on the planet, and socially irresponsible business executives like Darl McBride.
Very logical people and people in the top intelligence percentiles are more likely to be sociopaths than others, so the Slashdot audience is likely to have a much larger proportion of sociopaths than the general community.
Successful business frequently requires making decisions that adversely affect those around you. If you have too much empathy, these decisions can be difficult or impossible for you to make. Sociopaths are more likely to make those decisions since their conscience, if it exists at all, is bound by logic and will recognise the necessity of the decision. TFA suggests that the high proportion of sociopaths among business managers is something of a concern. Bullshit - it's the expected outcome.
Politics is another area where sociopaths tend to be dominant, for reasons fairly similar to the reasons business leaders are more likely to be sociopaths. Politicians need to make many decisions that are going to have an adverse impact on a lot of people. Too much empathy hinders this.
As an aside, Governments use the empathy factor to their advantage. In Australia, they have gone to great lengths to ensure that refugees are not only kept segregated from society (in detention centres), and they have taken many steps to avoid "humanising" images of detainees appearing in the media. A mass media image - either a photo or a TV clip - is likely to arouse empathy among the general populace. Some of the Australian Government's internal communications have quite literally stated in so many words that people involved in immigration should take all steps possible to prevent humanising images appearing in the mass media. It's just one more way our leaders try to manipulate us. It doesn't work so well on the informed sociopath, or on the non-sociopath who has personal knowledge of the plight of refugees, but for the vast bulk of the population, it works well especially where the government can convince people that the refugees are a threat to them or people they know (in this case the empathy triggers an endorsement of the Government position).
But then, you're not listening, are you ??
Sorry, but you are the one who is not listening. The US military does not intentionally put the villagers into harms way, the terrorists do, just as Che teaches. We try not to kill them, Che *needs* their death as a tool to manipulate the emotions of other. Which, is exactly what you are falling victim to with the FISH comment. The terrorists operating from civilian homes are following Che's teachings, the terrorists are hoping that villagers dies so that they can get a propoganda tool as Che teaches. The US would prefer that civilians not get caught inbetween.
No one is denying that innocents die, but you have to look at who put them in harms way (terrorists, Che) and who has remorse when they do die (not terrorists, not Che).
And they don't catch up.
It's a sad world when you can't catch up. But it's not terrible when it's only difficult. Education is a key, as is giving more as individuals. We as a world need to combat the problem. But "we" is defined as those who willingly do it, not those who are taxed are have laws that state they must.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Really? Even in the case where they bombed a restaurant because they thought Sadam was there? The odds that they'd hit Sadam were not that great, and they were virtually certain to hit someone innocent.
If it's a bunker or hideout of some sort then Sadaam brought harm to the civilians. If the US put hospitals around it's nuclear silos wouldn't you say the US was putting innocents in harms way? Extreme example but the same concept. You don't put your military assets among civilians unless you want human shields.
I have to correct you because you do not understand what Rand's philosophy is. Read this quote from the article:
"Their ruthless pursuit of self-interest was more easily accomplished..."
Ayn Rand does NOT advocate the ruthless pursuit of self-interest. She advocates the RATIONAL pursuit of self-interest.
What this means, specifically, is that we all, by nature, are selfish creatures (divorce yourself from any perjorative meaning of "selfish" for the moment). The fact that we choose not to deprive any other individual of life, liberty, or property through force or fraud is obtained through the choice to abide by reason. Hence, rational self-interest.
That said, I believe that there are many sociopaths who have chosen to seize upon Rand's writings as a justification for their evil actions. A case in point: My partner's old employer.
My partner's old employer was a company that managed kiosks in shopping malls which sold cell phone service for a major cell phone provider. My partner worked as a regional sales manager, which meant that he had district sales managers reporting to him, store managers reporting to the district managers, and sales people reporting to the store managers.
The environment was nothing short of abusive. My partner went in with his Home Depot team-building mentality which was completely useless in that culture. The only thing that was important was SALES, SALES, SALES. The only thing that mattered was how many sales you did THAT DAY. Everyone beneath the president was called and text messaged EVERY THIRTY MINUTES with "What are your sales at?" And every day he received messages like, "All of you are terrible, worthless jerks!" (For all the abuse they dished out, they thought that saying cuss words was "unprofessional", weirdly enough.) My partner would be driving from one mall to another, get a call on the cellphone with his boss screaming at him, "Write this down! Write this down NOW!" Or, better yet, he'd be on the road and he'd get a call, "We're having a conference call NOW!"
Of course, all the messages were the same: "What are your sales at?" and "You suck!"
The company's president lied to its managers in the yearly convention. Directly. One person asked, "Why can't we send faxes to the regional office?" He replied, "There is NOTHING wrong with our fax system. If you can't get it right, then you're doing something wrong." This was after my partner was told that the area office frequently pretended that they ignored faxes.
The company glibly overlooked abuse done by the sales people. I would advise you: Never, under any circumstances, buy a cell phone from a mall kiosk! To give you an idea, salespeople would sign up a person, then after the customer left, sign up four more lines without the customer's permission on the customer's credit card, then sell those cell phones to passersby for $50 and pocket the cash! When they are abused for the sake of sales and are generally flakey employees, are you surprised that it would happen?
And the company CEO was all about "business as usual" about his evil company. To him, this was "capitalism".
So I find it unjust and underhanded that you would assume that *all* business is just as evil as this and would, in fact, impugn me with the evil done by my partner's old employer because I am a capitalist and agree with much of Rand's philosophy. My partner *left* that evil company because of its abuse and lack of ethics, and our desire is to create a good company that takes care of its people and engages in win-wins with its customers.
The happy ending of this story is that the evil company was recently severed from its cell provider due to its horrible business practices. Even more, NO OTHER CELL PROVIDERS would agree to do business with this compnay because its name was mud in the cellular world. In effect, this company is now out of business. Yes, it feels good to see the evildoers get justice.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
I'm reading The Corporation by Joel Bakan, he makes a good case suggesting Corporations have almost all requirements for being considered psychopaths. He also states this is by design, it's the way it should be in our current system.
So, the boss being a representative of the Corporation may show signs of being a psychopath. But this is his job, being selfish for the company, self absorbed, thinking he/the company is the best, not caring about anything or anyone, not facing consequences, it's all in the name of maxing profits.
But as Joel Bakan says, he's probably a 'normal' guy when he goes home. He has a family and all, the psycho thing is just work you know?
At the same time that we cut the business ties with government, let's also stop doing things that cause problems, like people becoming dependent on welfare and social security. Are those things the governments responsibilites? No. They are the individuals first. Then the families, then maybe any communities that individual might be a part of. Of course, it is all voluntary, and I believe it should never go beyond the individual if that individual isn't putting forth his own effort, be it whatever it may be.
There may not be infinite resources or man power, but there is sufficient. Until the whole world is owned by a few and the rest of us are just slaves, then there may be problems, but life is still good and the problems are still solvable. Believe in humankind, don't just bash it and become more cynical. Just because we don't have economic theories like you mention, doesn't mean we are any more screwed than we are now.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Being a multiple-venture entrepreneur, with dealings in private equity and VC funding, I can tell you that this sounds good, but really isnt possible for a variety of reasons. I do appreciate your viewpoint, however.
1. "This means if you make money in Europe on the Euro your money might actually be worth more than the dollar at some point." First flaw. The reason the money is worth different amounts in different economies is BECAUSE we dont have a global economy. If you have a true global economy, you have no hedge, becuase money and markets will be fast enough to compensate (within hours) to geographic changes. So, your euro conversion to dollar will never gain you real purchasing power in a true global economy. Although you might still get 2 to 1, the value of a banana will be equivalent given your assumption, so no hedging is possible.
2. "The point is if you are running a business, you'll move to whereever business is and whereever money is." This is true now, given a long enough timeline, so no flaw there. This is the flaw: "You don't have to give to charity when you can buy stock." That sort of goes against true charity. True charity is giving. True and correct stock ownership is just that: ownership. It seems inherently hard to mix giving with ownership. Can i give you a peice of bread telling you to eat, but telling you I own that bread no matter what you do with it? No, I cant. Its illogical. When you give someone something, it becomes theirs. Ownership is given away, thats the point.
3. "Right now most capitalists are just making money to make money, if they actually did give back to their communities we would be in a much better state." This is a nice sentiment, but I think its a little off base on two points. First, capitalists make money to make money, thats the point of being capitalists. Thats how it has always been, and always will be. As soon as you take away that motivation, it really isnt capitalistic thought anymore. But technicalities aside, I actually disagree that society would be better off if we had less capitalists and more "givers". I think there is a place for both. The thing you are missing is that capitalists, THROUGH capitalist endeavors, are giving to society in a very unique and incredibly beneficial way: Jobs. I think you will find that those you might consider the greediest capitalists create more jobs than anyone else. Building large businesses to make me lots of money takes other people.
I think you will find that the most successful societies are ones that assume humans are inherently greedy and selfish. Although I dont believe this to be true for people in general, setting societies rules in this fashion prevent many people from causing problems by being selfish.
4 - "This does not mean giving back through higher taxes, it means giving back by venture capital." I am assuming that you have never had any interaction with venture capital, due to these statements. Venture capital is not giving, in fact its about as far as you can get. Venture capital is often called Vulture capital in the circles I run. It has its place, but its nasty and unfriendly business generally. Venture capitalists are out to take control of ventures, for their private circle of investors' benefit. Aside from this nasty fact about VC that most people dont know, you are still ignoring the fact that most people are inherently risk-averse. People dont want to put their pension funds, or even donate funds, to risky enterprises. High risk ventures have huge payout, sure, but for every 100 that make it big, the other 99 fail or are killed by the VC's prematurely. Most people cant come into line with those type of investments, which is why VC's investors are those companies or individuals who have enough cash to throw around that it fits. This ISNT average middle american denizen.
I certainly appreciate your ability to "think outside the box", but its important to remain grounded in reality at the same time. The key is (from the
So, who's really making the money on building this house? The roofing contractor who got 6 months wages, or the person who got a $3m home built for $2.5m?
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
The problem is simple, once the baby boomers retire, half the population will either be retired or under 18. It doesn't matter how much money you've got, it isn't going to manufacture a spare pair of hands to wipe your ass if everyone is busy, and we are all going to be very busy if we don't wish to watch our society collapse.
The only thing that can overcome this is immigration, so expect to see lots of it... baby boomers have the money to make the rules, and they're not going to just die quietly and leave their wealth to their children when they can bring people in from elsewhere to coddle them and help them eke out every possible minute of retirement home life they can get.
When this actually happens, skilled young people are going to very suddenly become very wealthy, powerful, influential and necessary, because there will be no one else to hold things together when all the experts go wear diapers, play golf and spend their money. And there still won't be enough human resources to look after all the elderly. Expect them to die poor and unable to understand how this injustice fell upon them.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
The worker entered into an agreement and he is able to pay for the necesseties of life. He did his part and got his share. Why should he be entitled to anything more? You might ask the same for the boss. I would respond that it doens't matter. The worker already made the agreement and was justly and fairly compensated. The boss isn't necessarily entitled to anything more, but he took more because there was more to take. His getting richer did NOT make the worker poorer. The boss did not make up the profit by paying less to the worker.
But let's look at it again. You said: Their boss gets a little richer by charging more than they pay for their workers' efforts (ie profit). Profit is revenue - cost. If the boss made no profit then he did his part for no compensation. Therefore he would have been even more generous than the worker. The worker agreed to the pay in the idea that he would profit, but the boss did not get such reward.
But that last part is irrelevant. The rich did NOT get richer by taking money from the poor. They got richer, yes, but is the poor worker poorer? No.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Mah boss is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
How close to the whole world being owned by a few will it take till you wake up and smell the roses? The richest 1% having greater combined wealth than the poorest 95% obviously isn't enough (that's for the USA by the way, the gap is far larger globally). Does ownership of the means of production by the few not force people to work for the owners in order to eat?
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
The workers did. They got paid as well.
So lower class people have money to spend too?? Great. Why should we give tax breaks to rich people?
Lets say instead of a rich guy getting $10 back 10 people get a $1 back. So $10 goes back into the economy if given to poor people just like if $10 was given to a rich guy. Right? So what is the difference you might ask? The poor people will spend the $1 for food and clothes for thier children. The rich guy will spend $10 on a SUV.
The whole flaw in your argument is where the money that is earned, is spent.. people on the top of the food chain invest their money and watch it grow, they have enough money to pay all of their monthly expenses and then invest/save the rest.
People on the bottom constantly have to pay out every penny that they make just to sustain a living, forget being able to save anything.
Using your "how the money flows example", the poor are constantly pooring the money thay make back into the system and not saving, the rich take a little bit off the top every pay cycle and save that away... so eventually that money all ends up in the hands of the rich as the poor never get to save.
This is obvious if you have ever lived right above the poverty line, jobs in this class more often than not have no health insurance, make just enough money to stay housed and fed and so while someone with benefits can afford a hospital stay, the poor cannot and any money they do happen to scrimp and save by going without, often can be wiped out by a single health emergency.
"The worker entered into an agreement and he is able to pay for the necesseties of life. He did his part and got his share. Why should he be entitled to anything more?"
How about because the poorer worker HAS NO CHOICE, by putting all of the wealth in the hands of a few, you increase the competition between the poor who need the work and thus drive down prices for that work because of competition...
You make it sound like the worker came to an agreement on the price because that is all he needs, it is because that is the highest he was able to make the Boss pay wihtout losing the contract.
No it doesn't. Like I said earlier, I went to the jungles of Vietnam for a month. There isn't anybody there that I would consider rich at all. I am considered poor in the US, but I am much more well off than any of the people I stayed with. And yet they aren't working for any owners other than themselves in order to eat.
Yet they are poor. So a lesson learned here is this. Having a lot of rich people around is good. Look at industrial nations, like the US, UK, Australia, Japan, etc. You find the poor in those places aren't nearly as poor as those in Vietnam, China, or Africa. Some people want to make everybody richer by eliminating the rich. I say nobody is richer that way, there are only more people with less money to go around. I want poor people who are better off. This is done by having the rich around. Wouldn't you agree?
Someday I hope to own my own home. If I want to eat, I will need to work for the owner(me) to do so. I work for a company right now. If I want to get paid I need to work for the owner of the company. If I don't like his terms or anyone elses, then I start my own business. If I want I can live off the fat of the land. But I will probably have to work for it even then.
And that is life. If you want something, work for it. Strive hard to get it. You might not get everything, though. But whoever said you will? Who said you are entitled to such? It sounds like you want to be fed without working. When has that ever been the case, and why should it be now? You want something? Then work for it.
If your basic needs aren't being met there are plenty of people out there willing to help. I can even chip in a bit every once in a while and do so when I can. Which is the original argument I made. If you are in need, I may be able to help, and there are others who are able and willing as well. But that is my and their choice. Don't give me a government that makes me, or anyone else, do it. It's really easy to give away other people's money. It takes someone a little bigger to give away their own.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
It's not a flaw in my argument. My argument is the rich get richer without making the poor poorer. The flaw in your argument, if there is one, is that you think that being poor is a bad thing. I am where you talk about. I am poor. So I don't get a new car every year. I don't get a new computer every year. I do have a place over my head and food on the table for the which I am thankful. And there are people out there without those things. So let's all chip in and help them, you (Some Llama) and me(Chosen Reject). If you can help, do so. If you don't because you can't, then we all understand. If you don't because you won't, too bad for you.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
But let's look at your argument the way you formed it and pretend that is what we are talking about. So the rich guy goes and buys an SUV. The money then goes through the same cycle, and eventually trickles down and back up and everywhere in between. What's the problem.
And many of you are still missing my main point. Which is not economics or business practices. It is this: Why should the gov't force these decisions on people? Why can't I get a tax break so that I can donate it to the charity or even person that I see fit? The money will be used much more effectively and not lost in some gov't beauracracy.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
You can't live off the fat of the land, because somebody owns the land. You can't work only for yourself, because somebody owns the things you need to work.
If we, as a society, choose to have and enforce this model of individual property ownership why not also choose to ensure a more even distribution of it?
I don't mind working for a living. I don't mind working for the common good. I do mind being forced to work for the good of another individual (the owner of the means of production) in order to survive.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
"It's not a flaw in my argument. My argument is the rich get richer without making the poor poorer."
There is a finite amount of wealth and resources so there is no way for the rich to get richer without it coming from somewhere.
If there wasn't a finite amount of wealth or resources, then there wouldn't be rich or poor or a market from which these 2 groups (and others) spring.
"So let's all chip in and help them, you (Some Llama) and me(Chosen Reject). If you can help, do so. If you don't because you can't, then we all understand. If you don't because you won't, too bad for you."
Agreed...
...and he scroes about 5 on every last of those questions.
I don't really have a problem working for him, but I never turn my back on him when he's around. I do, however, wish I made more than minimum wage.
Guess what I do for a living?
Here's a clue, there's over 100,000 people just like me who work for this "company" with global coverage.
Why should the government restrict me from wandering the land as my ancestors did?
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
..I forget the guys name, replied.."Business ethics? There's no such thing. There are only ethics you either have them or you don't."
It seems most corporate megalomaniacs and their poltical cronies don't.
1. Doctors want too much money
2. Some people don't want to go to college, and other's aren't smart enough to make it through college; universal college education is unnecessary.. on the other hand, you about have to get an associate's degree to learn what people used to learn in high school so YMMV
3. This isn't so much about psychopaths as people being too lazy to learn things. Many people like the cancer causing chemicals and high-fructose corn syrup because it's cheap and it tastes good, and they don't know any better.
4. Because smokers just want their cigarettes, and the rest of us just want the smokers to keep it away from us.
5. Because a higher minimum wage merely drives inflation. If McDonalds has to pay its workers more, they'll raise prices, so skilled workers who eat there for lunch will want more money, so other companies will raise their prices, and there's inflation for you.
Why arent we all our own boss?
We tried this before. It was called subsistance farming and barter. Face facts: some of "us" aren't skilled at business, but others are only skilled at management (yes, some really actually are.. they just don't get a lot of the spotlight because the PHBs of the world are far too many). Also, some jobs require multiple-person teams (and you can't have a team of bosses, it doesn't work).
I wonder how this guy Tom Charlton would score on the test.
More importantly for this case, most of us don't want to deal with machines in the business world. (As customers.) Replace all the people with machines, and the small shops run by real people will start to make more money because nobody answered when I pressed 0 and I hate the [self-censored]ing voice response menus and I found another company to deal with.
You're arguing that no dictatorships exist which allow for free competition in the marketplace? Ever been to Singapore?
The Bully Online site may be of interest.
I think that a lot of people who are called psychopaths are "just" narcissists. They're still inconceivably awful.
The DSM-IV Diagnostic Criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder are:
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five or more of:
1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
..Gllgle seems to actually mean 'dont be evil' when they say it.
The difference between 'business mogul' and psychopath is in the metaphor given by Zorg in Fifth Element: 'If I break a glass, these worker bots have something to do.'
Politicians always need their Eurasia to be the reason they're fucking you so hard.
High gas prices serve to piss off who, at what, exactly? Think harder. (not too hard. that way lies paranoia...)
(BTW...if the car companies own part of the oil companies, does that mean they'll make more fuel efficient cars?)
Megalomania fits the politician viewpoint much more accurately; the biggest difference in a megalomaniac and a psychopath is in scale and area of effect; a politician can fuck over large numbers of people; your average psychopath doesn't have control over millions of people. The real drag is that people like that are drawn to jobs like that.
What we as a society need, is a national draft of random americans to be government employees; that way, no one is there long enough to be corrupt. Use the same list as jury pools; that keeps the list clear of crackheads and the like, (not that crackheads are neccessairly bad people...) but at least the confusion will prevent the large corporations from owning ALL the legislation...
Just my $.02...
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Funny that all of but one of them suscribed to totalitarianism and not true communism.
What's not funny is that you don't recognize the No True Scotsman fallacy when you make it. This is the most common fallacious defense of communism when people bring up Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, etc.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
This documentary looks at a corporations from a psychologists perspective and finds that XXXXX corporations are sociopaths
I inserted the 'XXXXX'.
Which word should go there: "all" or "some"?
If you choose "all", then it would be trivial to prove the movie false by showing an example of a "good" corporation that could convince a sizable number of people.
If you choose "some", then this movie would come off as merely being a "public service" and not the societal change that you want it to be.
This is why I think the 'XXXXX' is null: The movie is intended to paint *ALL* corporations as inherently evil without actually giving anyone the chance to prove them wrong. It's clever propaganda that full-motion, big screen movies excel at.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
This might be surprising to some of you, but being a sociopath is not illegal. Nor should it be grounds for not getting hired into a job. Being a sociopath does not mean you will become a serial killer either, despite what hollywood tells you. 3% of all men, and 1% of women are sociopaths.
You're quite right, they only very rarely become killers. But it's also worth remembering that Sociopathy is also known as Anti-Social Personality Disorder for a reason. Very rarely do people with this personality type leave others around them negatively unaffected. The more power they have, the more people are likely to get burnt by their disorder.
If someone has the intellegence and ability to do the job, who cares if they won't cry when someone else gets burned? As long as they are a law abiding citizen, they should be able to live a normal life.
Well, I care - just because particular types of behaviour are not legally constrained, does not mean that they should be tolerated. Using a lighter example, a work colleague who persistently and interminably bores you with tales of his boring weekend should not be legally sanctioned, but neither is he going to be your first choice to invite around for dinner. You would shun this person socially, and quite rightly.
The law is not the ultimate gauge of whether behaviour is acceptable or not, just a gauge of behaviour that is so outrageously unacceptable as to require some kind of agreed official constraint. Human being operate socially by principles other that The Law alone - this isn't Mega City One.
Conversely, the legal but socially destructive behaviour of sociopaths should ultimately result in their being shunned by all right thinking people, thereby limiting the number of people their disorder can negatively affect. However, in order to do this, people need to be aware of how to identify these personality types in order to steer clear of them.
SofaMan -- Occasionally Battling Evil With His Mighty Powers Of Indolence.
--I think you will find that those you might consider the greediest capitalists create more jobs than anyone else. Building large businesses to make me lots of money takes other people.
Yes, this is why the worker must pick only the greedy capitalists which create high paying jobs in North America.
Also for venture capital, investing dollars to build and fund businesses in Africa would be cheap for the average American. Africa needs venture capital, America has deep pockets.
People gain by working smarter not harder. Right now workers arent working in their own best interest in some cases.
The death penalty is the best cure for recidavism.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
...Seems to be the only country that gives a fuck about civillian casulties; me, I'd kill a shitload of 'em just to make people realize that I'm serious.
Boy, wouldn't that give the liberals shit fits...
The middle east would make a great spa for all the obese americans... after we killed all the towelheads, of course...
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Hiroshima and Nagasaki .. The US military said those were necessary to bring about an end to the war.
... but it is exactly what Che did in principle .Civilian casualties to further ones goals
I am not here to debate if that was right or wrong
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
No. Sociopathy is, from my understanding, the same as psychopathy, except that sociopaths haven't killed. --Though, the terminology even within medicine (at least ten years ago when I last checked), was not very well established or agreed upon. Perhaps things have changed.
In any case, I'm afraid I must disagree with you; I think that normal people have to learn to trust in each other. People offer low levels of basic trust, and if those are not betrayed, then higher levels of trust are offered.
The problem is that there are all these little guilt triggers which prevent people from making what would seem to be very basic decisions when trust is betrayed. Abusers are often protected by the silence of the ones they abuse because the victim is too embarrassed to speak, or has been taught to forgive and forget far beyond the margin of logically forgivable error.
There is nothing noble about allowing yourself to be abused by somebody who is not capable of learning proper behavior.
As for law enforcement. . , that only works when crimes are reported. And how can the law be realistically expected to protect us from those who manipulate co-workers and tell destructive lies? Those things are best protected against on a personal level by being open and aware and not allowing silly social programming to bind us. What better environment could there be for a predator than one in which everybody universally 'forgives and forgets' and seeks to protect the abuser by not warning others when it really matters? Yet this is the way society is currently built.
Forgiving is fine and necessary when the person who betrayed you is penitent and wants to grow. But why should we forget? All experience is valuable; it allows us to know how we and others are growing. If others are not growing, then forgiveness no longer makes sense. Memory is required to learn.
Our culture is filled with many dangerous little social programs which were designed to make us easier prey. One of the biggest being the whole fabrication of Christ dying on the cross. --That story compels believers that it is better to be tortured and to suffer a 'noble' death than to refuse to be abused. --Our culture has been programmed to allow us to be lied to horribly and to forgive the liar so that s/he can repeat the crime again and again.
"Saddam has WMD's." "Our troops will be home in ten weeks."
-FL
I'd guess that the two are one and the same.
-FL
Why should the government restrict me from wandering the land as my ancestors did?
Because property rights mitigate the need for violence due to competition for resources. Are you suggesting violence is preferable to property rights?
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki .. The US military said those were necessary to bring about an end to the war.
I am not here to debate if that was right or wrong ... but it is exactly what Che did in principle .Civilian casualties to further ones goals
What you are failing to realize is that Che and the terrorists sacrifice *their own* people. They *need* the death of *their own* people for propoganda to further a political goal. In 1945 the US acted to *save* American *and Japanese* lives, not further some political goal. Imperial Japan, a country that bears little resemblance to modern Democratic Japan, was willing to sacrifice millions of *its own* civilians. In 1945 a blockade looked like it would starve millions, an invasions looked to kill millions, the atomic bomb seemed to be a way to end the war with an order of magnitude fewer casualties. That's the horrible math of war, kill few, kill many, or leave a murderous regime in power. A regime that uses civilians for bayonette practice, uses humans for bio warfare experiements, infects villages with plague to test bio delivery systems. It's easy to say the atomic bombing were wrong when being superficial and revisionist, however the truth is actually far more complicated.
I realize you don't want to debate the justification of the atomic bombings but I fealt a little background info was need to justify the argument that the decision to bomb was not psychopathic. It was a rational decision. Whether it was right or wrong rational people will debate for ever, as they should, but few would argue it was psychopathic. However sacrificing your own people for propoganda purposes, as Che teaches, few would argue that this is not pyschopathic.
And that is different than the boss how? The boss got the highest he was able to make the worker work/buyer buy without losing the contract. What's the difference?
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
having a look at the ICD(International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems) for a psychopath
callous unconcern for the feelings of others;
gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules and obligations;
incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them;
very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence;
incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly punishment;
marked proneness to blame others, or to offer plausible rationalizations, for the behaviour that has
brought the patient into conflict with society
Whilst it is impossible to diagnose a dead person , it seems very unlikely that he could be classified as a psychopath
However having a look at the wikipedia article on Zealotry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealot he was a fanatic
"However sacrificing your own people for propoganda purposes, as Che teaches, few would argue that this is not pyschopathic."
-Interestingly if you look at the Christian god . In the stories did he not send his own son down to spread his word and intend for him to be sacrificed for his goals
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Collateral damage is a word that was used in the past with the meaning you say, but long ago lost that meaning.
I was pointing out to the GGP poster that collateral damage is just an euphemism for killing civilians, of even friendly targets, when fighting the enemy.
Of course they use "collateral damage" to say that they didn't really mean to kill those people, but when you cover a city with bombs, you are killing innocent people, and saying that it was incidental, and not planned, would just be a lie.
I am not a native English speaking person, so I did look up "collateral damage". Of course, a dictionary from 1940 won't say the current meaning, but that would happen with lots of words and expressions that have changed their meanings with the years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage
Of course.
Only bad people use human shields.
The problem is that killing the enemies human shields means targetting civilians.
So, the enemiess warfare practices turn you into a civilian killer.
That was the point, originally, that in the context of warfare, killing civilians (and assesing its value) is something that is done regularly. Of course, it's shocking to read it in a manual, but it is a fact.
I know some construction workers, with barely an elementary school education, who have done quite well for themselves.
They did it with damn hard work, and picking up on the job savvy. Heck, I have a mortgage on my home. Many of them don't (and live quite well).
You could've hired me.
No, the point of the thread was that Che was one of the people who *advocates* putting innocent civilians into harms way. He *needs* their death for propoganda purposes. He therefore qualifies for the psychopath title that some objected to originally.
"However sacrificing your own people for propoganda purposes, as Che teaches, few would argue that this is not pyschopathic."
;-)
-Interestingly if you look at the Christian god . In the stories did he not send his own son down to spread his word and intend for him to be sacrificed for his goals.
If you continue reading the story you will find out that his death was not permanent. Apologies for the spoiler.
If you continue reading the story you will find out that his death was not permanent. Apologies for the spoiler. ;-)
I appreciate the admission that this is a story rather than reality. We wait for you when you wish to react to what you can reason rather than what you merely hope to be true.
If I happen to be incorrect that the Christian story is merely a story, then may the Christian god strike me dead where I sit, and I ask such a thing in the name of Jesus Christ.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Sorry, I must have missed the day when US troops herded Iraq civilians into harms way to reach their military objectives. Link please.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
There is a 'Preview' button, but no 'can I rite shit wot does make sens' button. How curius.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Who will screen the psychologists? Think about it, if ever there should be an overall accepted psychopathy test, the ideal position for a psychopath would be the position of... psychologist! Everybody who's to be eliminated could just be labeled as a psychopath and down the drain goes their career and life. This is just dangerous, it should NEVER exist. And by the way, a psychological test only lasts so many years/months before it needs to be updated because of changes in society and because people start to get to know the 'right' answers to them.
And what if there's nothing behind the door until it is being opened?
If you truly beleive this, then how do you explain the fact that there are any poor people left in the world? Homo Sapiens has been around for about 300,000 years. The greatest advances in productivity have been made in the last 10 generations. If the voluntary actions of humans actually led to all of those with more to give some of what they have to those with less, everybody would surely be equal ground by now!
The existance of wealth disparity today (and especially the fact that the disparity has only grown over time) disproves your hypothesis. It is therefore quite apparent that if any attempt to disperse wealth throughout the population is to be made, it must be obligatory.
Let's face it. There will always be poor. Even if we got rid of the corruption in Africa that causes most of the poor conditions over there, if wars were no longer to exist, etc. there would still be the bottom 5%. There will always be poor. Let's make sure people have sufficient. I'd much more like to see people teaching good farming techniques, than for us to give out food. That makes them dependent.
The existance of wealth disparity today (and especially the fact that the disparity has only grown over time) disproves your hypothesis
Surely you jest. Let's paint a scenario. I make $5. Let's say it is enough for me. You make $50 and that is enough and to spare. Then one day you start making $55. Not only is there still wealth disparity, it has also grown. But I'm still fine. So if I have enough, who cares that you have more? Yes there are people who have less than enough, and yes there are people who voluntarily give some of what they have to those who have less. Don't shut your eyes to all of that just to push your socialist propaganda.
Ignoring the absolute destitute who don't even have food for just a moment, why does anyone have to have as much as me? Why must things be equal? Why must anyone give to someone else? You may say it's the ethical thing to do. I say you're lazy. The opportunities are there. Not everyone can be a Dave Thomas and go from rags to riches. But everyone can work hard and have sufficient. And if someone has sufficient what is the problem? I am serious. What need is a TV, car, nice home, new furniture, etc.? If you have food and clothing and maybe a little in savings for a rainy day, what is the problem? In my experience, both in talking with people and looking at history and governments, is that socialists either want more for less work, or want to be part of the corrupted government, and those two things aren't mutually exclusive.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
"You don't put your military assets among civilians unless you want human shields."
Here in the U.S.A. we do this all the time.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.