I do not know his actual psychological condition. And, I venture a guess that you do not either.
Your conclusion is partially correct, though. However, your justification is flawed as it plays out as a knee-jerk reaction, a red-herring, and is hypocritical to boot.
But, regardless, no... You should never let someone victimize you or others out of pity. You should never let someone victimize yourself or others because they have issues. Doing so only encourages the behavior, and justifies it socially. Knowing what you are dealing with only helps you on how to handle it. But, a lot of people seem to draw a blank when the standard "rules" don't apply and instead will give the perpetrator a free ride rather than adjusting to the difference.
Something to note: while breaking the law and pissing off authority is particular to sociopaths, it is not necessary for APD and psychopathic individuals. Many obey the law enough to where they do not get significantly punished for it and stay out of the hair of authority or even court favor with it if nothing because they can do so much more damage to people outside of a cell than inside. There are plenty of socially accepted and marginally legal ways to gain dominance over people and beat the living shit out of them.
In fact, I venture to guess that many people that are branded as antisocial or psycho colloquially are frequently former victims and victims of victims lashing out at their perceived tormentors. Rage is easily misdirected. Abuse scars the psyche permanently. But, like I said, that does not justify them tormenting others and spreading the problem. This is a tangential though unrelated to this case, but, I wish society would do more to deal with the root of the problem rather than simply isolating the damage after it occurs.
IANAHS (I am not a head shrink). And, this is my non-professional opinion, not advice, and not fact. Antisocial Personality Disorder and Asperger's Syndrome are two different things. For one, Sociopaths understand full well the actions they take are harmful to others. That's often the point; and, they don't care the rest of the time.
Interpreting the literature on Asperger's, it appears their lack of comprehension has more to do with having trouble relating to others, not because they don't care. In other words, a lack of comprehension versus a lack of empathy.
That said, I imagine it's not impossible for someone to be aspie and a sociopath. And, there is a relatively common sociopath trick that pops up when they get caught by the legal system: fake a pitiful psychological condition to try to convince people they should get away with it.
There are differences between memory, experience, wisdom, indoctrination, and conditioning. I "know" how to drive a stick shift. I have never actually driven a stick shift. I am fairly certain that should I ever actually get stuck in a situation where I have to drive a stick without practicing first, I should upload the results to fAil Blog.
Meh. This is just my two-cents; but, it's more like the sociopaths, the psychopaths, and their respectively loyal toadies are having a little turf war. They're both bullies, one just makes up new rules, and the other breaks them. They both appeal to pity and victim-hood to solicit implicit permission to continue and to recruit new pawns for their destructive little game of domination.
I am more concerned what they are going to do to the rest of us when they get through having it out with each other. Usually the psychopaths win as they tend to be better at rallying large numbers of pawns, and importantly, patrons.
Trying this, even in a constructive, non-combative manner on a small scale, results in upsetting both the people who want to live in their delusion and the people who are terrified and want to let sleeping wolves lie: Both of which will gladly stab you in the back. Even if what is attempted ultimately improves the situation for all parties, it is still insufferable as any opportunists in the leadership structure want both the credit and to strip it of any benefit to anyone else, except maybe their "friends."
I'm willing to consider moving. But, could you kindly point me in the direction of an English speaking country that is, well, not going in this direction or already there? Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand all seem to be in varying states of going down the loo. I know broken bits of French, Spanish, German, and Japanese. But, nothing I can get by on.
I think you may be attributing to deliberative action what is more frequently due to self-imposed incompetence. Seriously, the social psychology text I have OPENS with a pair of case studies done on people's reactions to differing results of studies into the health benefits of jogging. The chapter is on cognitive dissonance.
People want to believe they are making the right choices. So, they tend to believe that those choices are still correct even in the face of contradictory evidence. They will rationalize, minimize, attack the messenger, and all other manor of mental back-flips to avoid acknowledging to themselves or even seriously considering that they are in error, which would elicit negative emotions like guilt and shame.
You can't make people believe what they don't want to believe. If Cletus doesn't want to believe in gravity, you can push his ass off a cliff and he'll die thinking that the Debil made him fall or some such nonsense. About the best you can hope for is to appeal to people that are as of yet either undecided or don't have a lot invested in their position, turn the herd, and hope as many of the rest follow as possible.
I'm talking about individual empowerment, not unions. Extremely subservient employees are not as much of a threat to substandard managers. And, they give The Game players almost unlimited leeway to do and get away with whatever until audits or the law get involved. Most managers I have met are fine. But, it only takes a few since they don't necessarily have to be your immediate boss to make your life hell. Some regular grunts try to pull this sort of crap, too. But, usually the damage is limited unless (until) they get a hold of the gonads of a manager.
I honestly am not sure anymore that that is not part of the deal. Without launching into a rant, I'll just say this: Just because it conditions you for the benefit of your future employer does not mean it conditions you for your benefit as an employee. It's more about knowing your place as opposed to how to make due with it. Empowered non-management employees are a threat...oh...here I go, never-mind...
But, am I the only one that noticed that University technical and engineering curriculum are designed more around breaking intelligent people and teaching them their place in preparation for entering the workforce? Seriously, 3AM projects, professors that change assignments whenever they feel like it to make sure they have your undivided attention, double standards, ambiguous rules, incoherent professors and TAs, political axe-grinders of all stripes, it's not what you know, but who you know and how much you can bullshit, etc...
Don't get me wrong: It's not all like that. But, the cut classes are. Cram all the in majors into the same class sessions, curve the grades, then fail anyone that makes less than a C. Partying? Girlfriends? Networking? What are those? When you get a 39 on the mid-term, get curved to a C, and the "perfect score" kids are having emotional breakdowns in the corners of the lecture halls, you know something is up.
Oh, and do I really need to take 4 semesters of writing asinine "Hello World!" command line, ASCII text file based databases?...nine lines of comments per line of code in addition to the function diagram, really? God forbid they actually instruct us to do it in a industry standard format that we can use later on, or at least give us some theory so we can apply it to those standards.
Eventually got fed up with the grind, educated myself, got a two year and jumped into the workforce for my "how to deal with bullshit" training. I plan on going back to finish up. But, I won't be suffering under the delusion that it will be for any sort of intellectual gratification this time around. It will merely be so I can get my "Well adjusted for the corporate environment." certification. It helps to have a baseline to fill in the gaps as well. It is too bad that appears to be more of a secondary objective.
Fate and free-will are not two separate entities, but rather to aspects of the same mechanism. Fate is something you have, something you are a part of, your will, for the small part it plays in the grand skein of things, helps guide the weave of fate. I guess you could say that I look at it as kind of like the difference between uncertainty of Quantum Physics and the steady predictability of Newtonian Physics.
As someone that has been posting here on and off over the past decade or so, this is my experience: Most of what you think is really insightful doesn't get modded at all, and even then, usually not much. Go with the group think on controversial issue, get a +2 to +3 and have it rocket back and forth for several days. Post something obvious, like a link, the fad meme, copypasta, or a non-controversial line of the group-think and get +4 to +5 every so often if you are first in that thread. Post a counter-group think message that insults the egos of the readers, get modded troll and then you can whine about how much of a victim you are. Post the same, but without directly attacking the readers, while prefacing it with shit like "I know this is going to get me modded down. But..." will often net you a +4 to +5 about a quarter to half the time. Post a damning reply to an obvious shill: possibility of every post for the past several days modded down a few points within a few hours, or even have the entire branch of that thread somehow disappear.
Posting the simplistic and benign part of group-think on this board is the most reliable way to gain Karma. But, I've seen forum trolls and shills keep afloat for a while by inter-spacing their usual "You all suck!" "Foo, Inc. products are so awesome! I plan on buying them all right away!" posts with a "Well, I know this doesn't sit well with everyone. But, my reasoning is..." sort of post that rockets to +5 and stays there.
My opinion is not much different than yours. I have been to two local nuclear power plants several times (for legitimate business.) And, I was more worried about one of the guards at the gate going postal with an AR15 than any meltdown or exposure. I am merely pointing out the fallacy of assuming that because a previous incident ended with relatively minor consequences, does not mean the situation is safe.
Trolling involves provoking Pavlovian replies in the forum, usually of the antagonistic kind. The antisocial version is easy: manipulate as many people as possible to prove one has power over them. The delusional version is a bit more complex: Drive the real or imaginary "opposition" nuts to the point where they start behaving irrationally, so that oneself can claim that he or she is more rational, and therefore, more correct. Oh, and was the bad car-analogy theme lost on you? Do I have to point out that car safety features are primarily for the occupants?
What I am saying is, all those safety features do not matter if the drivers are reckless with the machinery. Yes, a well designed, implemented, and maintained machine will buffer the effects of the occasional mistake if they are working correctly and in the hands of capable people. But, put it in the hands of some jackass who's far too busy snorting coke off a hookers' tits to pay attention, and well, pardon me for having some concerns at him being a the helm of a "safe" vehicle. Guess who runs the show? A little corruption can go a long way when it comes to particle annihilation.
Since I'm feeding the troll, I might as well use a car analogy: Just because the last accident reported to your insurance was a low speed collision with a parked car, doesn't make you a safe driver. In fact, it indicates the opposite, unless you magically start paying full time and attention at highways speeds.
How should I put this? It's not putting lipstick on a pig that's a problem, although it's frowned upon. Quite frankly, a lot of people want to be deceived so that they don't feel responsible for the choices they make. Take just about any sexual relationship for example.
It's the social manipulation and coercion where it becomes a problem. Shit like turning anyone that reveals the truth into some kind of criminal or social reject. Making the purchase of the item or service a legal or social requirement, or at least making alternatives illegal, even if it will not be utilized. You know, like having soldiers go around and harass people that collect rainwater, because the local privately owned water utility wants to gouge to the fullest. Or, for a more western version, adding taxes to media so that content middle men still get free money even if it's just a garage band selling CD-Rs to local fans or a business that produced it's own ambient music being forced via the legal system to buy a license to play it from a competitor.
Etc...
Being hit with an "Ooh! Shiney!"-"Daddy like!" is not so much of a problem unless there is more going on. See the sig...
"MS apparently thinks that if they pop up warnings everywhere, then whatever happens they can just blame the user"
Hey, that's how it works in office politics. Management tells everyone to do foo, not bar. Then, actively impedes the careers of people unless they do bar, not foo, even promoting those that do it well....all off the official record, of course. Then when shit happens, management says, "Look; we told them not to do it, not our fault!"
"...(but apparently it makes you feel all superior, so that's a plus I guess)."
Actually, it makes me feel very, very goddamn lonely. In the jungle at night and you can hear the predators circling alone....nothing super about it.
But, for what it's worth, I consider ignorance to be a status (I don't know. But, I can find out!), and stupidity (I don't know, and I don't care!) to be an attitude.
You know, when I was demoing Chrome as a possible browser for my tablet, I went looking for a script blocking extension. To my consternation, I was met with the near worthless alternative of either running all scripts or none on a page, either through an extension designed like a high school side-project or using the built in white-listing feature. This is apparently because the API does not allow for functionality along the lines of blocking individual scripts from executing.
The forums and comments sections addressing user questions as to an alternative usually had self serving replies like "Chrome is so awesome that it doesn't need script blocking." and "It can't be owned due to sand-boxing. You know what sand-boxing is right?" (Because the only reason a person would ask is if they where an ignorant fool, right?)
So, *cough* tell me why Chrome doesn't need a NoScript-like extension again? @the marketing drones: Because, I'm so sure the cocksure poseur-charisma will scare the crime-ware away, really. The elephant in the room doesn't exist so long as the people that bring it up are shouted down, right?
It's free to get sued for software patent infringement. And, your prior employers don't necessarily take it well if you are running around sporting their code during job interviews.
Anyways, it sounds like the same problem that occurs when hiring management. People are really hired because they pump up the ego's of administrators, executives, and managers they bump into as part of competing for the position, not because they actually know what they are doing. They look good and talk a good game. Hell, who wants another dark and whiny neck-beard anyway? He looks and smells funny. He acts like he has some kind of mental problem, like "introversion." (...that's sarcasm guys!) He makes you feel dumb by talking about stuff you don't understand anyway. He works harder, has better results with less resources and effort, and puts in longer hours, and that makes you look bad. Just hire the charismatic guy and you can slap each other's back and talk about normal stuff like sports, cars, boats, and bonuses.
Oh, it's worth pointing out that a lot of the really horrid ones will just fake credentials, like mail order degrees, fake references, and the like. It's not that hard to copy an obscure open source program and slap your name on it. Usually, the more charismatic the person, the less likely the hiring committee will scrutinize the veracity of the claims made, due to impatience and likability (basically, an impulse purchase.)
Now that I've actually worked in the corporate field for a while, I can say this: It's not that all Americans are lazy. It's that doing a better job than your boss, even at your own job and not his or hers, is political suicide. This is why you got the crap beat out of you by bullies in high school. If he or she can keep you from enjoying any benefits your intelligence and hard work provides, he surpasses you on the food chain. "If you're so smart, why'd you get your ass kicked." "If you're so smart, how come you work for me?"
It's a pain in the ass when your boss is simply incompetent, ol' chip will go ape-shit if you can do something he can't. His position entitles him to be inherently superior to you. It's nightmarish when your boss is narcissistic, God knows all and does all that is good. And, don't you dare do anything that would indicate otherwise. It's a taste of hell on earth if they are sociopathic, the devil will have his due. And if he doesn't get it, people will sacrifice you to appease him. "Trying too hard" is a nice way to get a target placed on your backside. Why Americans promote and encourage this kind of leadership is another matter, though.
We have a society that prioritizes aggressiveness and charisma over innovation and results, folks. Hell, we have to create and fund an agency with the purpose of finding more effective and flashy ways to kill people in order to get decent R&D towards long range constructive efforts.
The overwhelming majority of people will follow the perceived authority and will viciously attack anyone seen as undermining said authority, especially if said people are dependent on that authority for sustenance of some sort (money, food, shelter, ego, stress management, etc...) Right, wrong, justice, morals, ethics...none of that really matters, as people usually defer those determinations to authority. The authority does it; it's OK....good, ol' bread and circuses. But, yes, I have little doubt that theirs at least a little astroturf to give the herd a direction to run in.
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I do not know his actual psychological condition. And, I venture a guess that you do not either.
Your conclusion is partially correct, though. However, your justification is flawed as it plays out as a knee-jerk reaction, a red-herring, and is hypocritical to boot.
But, regardless, no... You should never let someone victimize you or others out of pity. You should never let someone victimize yourself or others because they have issues. Doing so only encourages the behavior, and justifies it socially. Knowing what you are dealing with only helps you on how to handle it. But, a lot of people seem to draw a blank when the standard "rules" don't apply and instead will give the perpetrator a free ride rather than adjusting to the difference.
Something to note: while breaking the law and pissing off authority is particular to sociopaths, it is not necessary for APD and psychopathic individuals. Many obey the law enough to where they do not get significantly punished for it and stay out of the hair of authority or even court favor with it if nothing because they can do so much more damage to people outside of a cell than inside. There are plenty of socially accepted and marginally legal ways to gain dominance over people and beat the living shit out of them.
In fact, I venture to guess that many people that are branded as antisocial or psycho colloquially are frequently former victims and victims of victims lashing out at their perceived tormentors. Rage is easily misdirected. Abuse scars the psyche permanently. But, like I said, that does not justify them tormenting others and spreading the problem. This is a tangential though unrelated to this case, but, I wish society would do more to deal with the root of the problem rather than simply isolating the damage after it occurs.
IANAHS (I am not a head shrink). And, this is my non-professional opinion, not advice, and not fact. Antisocial Personality Disorder and Asperger's Syndrome are two different things. For one, Sociopaths understand full well the actions they take are harmful to others. That's often the point; and, they don't care the rest of the time.
Interpreting the literature on Asperger's, it appears their lack of comprehension has more to do with having trouble relating to others, not because they don't care. In other words, a lack of comprehension versus a lack of empathy.
That said, I imagine it's not impossible for someone to be aspie and a sociopath. And, there is a relatively common sociopath trick that pops up when they get caught by the legal system: fake a pitiful psychological condition to try to convince people they should get away with it.
There are differences between memory, experience, wisdom, indoctrination, and conditioning. I "know" how to drive a stick shift. I have never actually driven a stick shift. I am fairly certain that should I ever actually get stuck in a situation where I have to drive a stick without practicing first, I should upload the results to fAil Blog.
I should clarify before that flies off over the heads of the crowd: I am not claiming to be a member of said group.
The same response as now: The smart-asses are making shit up to make us feel stupid.
Meh. This is just my two-cents; but, it's more like the sociopaths, the psychopaths, and their respectively loyal toadies are having a little turf war. They're both bullies, one just makes up new rules, and the other breaks them. They both appeal to pity and victim-hood to solicit implicit permission to continue and to recruit new pawns for their destructive little game of domination.
I am more concerned what they are going to do to the rest of us when they get through having it out with each other. Usually the psychopaths win as they tend to be better at rallying large numbers of pawns, and importantly, patrons.
Trying this, even in a constructive, non-combative manner on a small scale, results in upsetting both the people who want to live in their delusion and the people who are terrified and want to let sleeping wolves lie: Both of which will gladly stab you in the back. Even if what is attempted ultimately improves the situation for all parties, it is still insufferable as any opportunists in the leadership structure want both the credit and to strip it of any benefit to anyone else, except maybe their "friends."
I'm willing to consider moving. But, could you kindly point me in the direction of an English speaking country that is, well, not going in this direction or already there? Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand all seem to be in varying states of going down the loo. I know broken bits of French, Spanish, German, and Japanese. But, nothing I can get by on.
I think you may be attributing to deliberative action what is more frequently due to self-imposed incompetence. Seriously, the social psychology text I have OPENS with a pair of case studies done on people's reactions to differing results of studies into the health benefits of jogging. The chapter is on cognitive dissonance.
People want to believe they are making the right choices. So, they tend to believe that those choices are still correct even in the face of contradictory evidence. They will rationalize, minimize, attack the messenger, and all other manor of mental back-flips to avoid acknowledging to themselves or even seriously considering that they are in error, which would elicit negative emotions like guilt and shame.
You can't make people believe what they don't want to believe. If Cletus doesn't want to believe in gravity, you can push his ass off a cliff and he'll die thinking that the Debil made him fall or some such nonsense. About the best you can hope for is to appeal to people that are as of yet either undecided or don't have a lot invested in their position, turn the herd, and hope as many of the rest follow as possible.
I'm talking about individual empowerment, not unions. Extremely subservient employees are not as much of a threat to substandard managers. And, they give The Game players almost unlimited leeway to do and get away with whatever until audits or the law get involved. Most managers I have met are fine. But, it only takes a few since they don't necessarily have to be your immediate boss to make your life hell. Some regular grunts try to pull this sort of crap, too. But, usually the damage is limited unless (until) they get a hold of the gonads of a manager.
I honestly am not sure anymore that that is not part of the deal. Without launching into a rant, I'll just say this: Just because it conditions you for the benefit of your future employer does not mean it conditions you for your benefit as an employee. It's more about knowing your place as opposed to how to make due with it. Empowered non-management employees are a threat...oh...here I go, never-mind...
But, am I the only one that noticed that University technical and engineering curriculum are designed more around breaking intelligent people and teaching them their place in preparation for entering the workforce? Seriously, 3AM projects, professors that change assignments whenever they feel like it to make sure they have your undivided attention, double standards, ambiguous rules, incoherent professors and TAs, political axe-grinders of all stripes, it's not what you know, but who you know and how much you can bullshit, etc...
Don't get me wrong: It's not all like that. But, the cut classes are. Cram all the in majors into the same class sessions, curve the grades, then fail anyone that makes less than a C. Partying? Girlfriends? Networking? What are those? When you get a 39 on the mid-term, get curved to a C, and the "perfect score" kids are having emotional breakdowns in the corners of the lecture halls, you know something is up.
Oh, and do I really need to take 4 semesters of writing asinine "Hello World!" command line, ASCII text file based databases? ...nine lines of comments per line of code in addition to the function diagram, really? God forbid they actually instruct us to do it in a industry standard format that we can use later on, or at least give us some theory so we can apply it to those standards.
Eventually got fed up with the grind, educated myself, got a two year and jumped into the workforce for my "how to deal with bullshit" training. I plan on going back to finish up. But, I won't be suffering under the delusion that it will be for any sort of intellectual gratification this time around. It will merely be so I can get my "Well adjusted for the corporate environment." certification. It helps to have a baseline to fill in the gaps as well. It is too bad that appears to be more of a secondary objective.
Fate and free-will are not two separate entities, but rather to aspects of the same mechanism. Fate is something you have, something you are a part of, your will, for the small part it plays in the grand skein of things, helps guide the weave of fate. I guess you could say that I look at it as kind of like the difference between uncertainty of Quantum Physics and the steady predictability of Newtonian Physics.
As someone that has been posting here on and off over the past decade or so, this is my experience: Most of what you think is really insightful doesn't get modded at all, and even then, usually not much. Go with the group think on controversial issue, get a +2 to +3 and have it rocket back and forth for several days. Post something obvious, like a link, the fad meme, copypasta, or a non-controversial line of the group-think and get +4 to +5 every so often if you are first in that thread. Post a counter-group think message that insults the egos of the readers, get modded troll and then you can whine about how much of a victim you are. Post the same, but without directly attacking the readers, while prefacing it with shit like "I know this is going to get me modded down. But..." will often net you a +4 to +5 about a quarter to half the time. Post a damning reply to an obvious shill: possibility of every post for the past several days modded down a few points within a few hours, or even have the entire branch of that thread somehow disappear.
Posting the simplistic and benign part of group-think on this board is the most reliable way to gain Karma. But, I've seen forum trolls and shills keep afloat for a while by inter-spacing their usual "You all suck!" "Foo, Inc. products are so awesome! I plan on buying them all right away!" posts with a "Well, I know this doesn't sit well with everyone. But, my reasoning is..." sort of post that rockets to +5 and stays there.
Great, now you're sticking words in my mouth so you can debunk them, including, in some cases, the opposite of what I have said. Consider this closed.
My opinion is not much different than yours. I have been to two local nuclear power plants several times (for legitimate business.) And, I was more worried about one of the guards at the gate going postal with an AR15 than any meltdown or exposure. I am merely pointing out the fallacy of assuming that because a previous incident ended with relatively minor consequences, does not mean the situation is safe.
Trolling involves provoking Pavlovian replies in the forum, usually of the antagonistic kind. The antisocial version is easy: manipulate as many people as possible to prove one has power over them. The delusional version is a bit more complex: Drive the real or imaginary "opposition" nuts to the point where they start behaving irrationally, so that oneself can claim that he or she is more rational, and therefore, more correct. Oh, and was the bad car-analogy theme lost on you? Do I have to point out that car safety features are primarily for the occupants?
What I am saying is, all those safety features do not matter if the drivers are reckless with the machinery. Yes, a well designed, implemented, and maintained machine will buffer the effects of the occasional mistake if they are working correctly and in the hands of capable people. But, put it in the hands of some jackass who's far too busy snorting coke off a hookers' tits to pay attention, and well, pardon me for having some concerns at him being a the helm of a "safe" vehicle. Guess who runs the show? A little corruption can go a long way when it comes to particle annihilation.
Since I'm feeding the troll, I might as well use a car analogy: Just because the last accident reported to your insurance was a low speed collision with a parked car, doesn't make you a safe driver. In fact, it indicates the opposite, unless you magically start paying full time and attention at highways speeds.
How should I put this? It's not putting lipstick on a pig that's a problem, although it's frowned upon. Quite frankly, a lot of people want to be deceived so that they don't feel responsible for the choices they make. Take just about any sexual relationship for example.
It's the social manipulation and coercion where it becomes a problem. Shit like turning anyone that reveals the truth into some kind of criminal or social reject. Making the purchase of the item or service a legal or social requirement, or at least making alternatives illegal, even if it will not be utilized. You know, like having soldiers go around and harass people that collect rainwater, because the local privately owned water utility wants to gouge to the fullest. Or, for a more western version, adding taxes to media so that content middle men still get free money even if it's just a garage band selling CD-Rs to local fans or a business that produced it's own ambient music being forced via the legal system to buy a license to play it from a competitor.
Etc...
Being hit with an "Ooh! Shiney!"-"Daddy like!" is not so much of a problem unless there is more going on. See the sig...
I think we went from people to citizens to workers to voters to taxpayers to consumers. But, I may be missing a few steps in there.
"MS apparently thinks that if they pop up warnings everywhere, then whatever happens they can just blame the user"
Hey, that's how it works in office politics. Management tells everyone to do foo, not bar. Then, actively impedes the careers of people unless they do bar, not foo, even promoting those that do it well. ...all off the official record, of course. Then when shit happens, management says, "Look; we told them not to do it, not our fault!"
"...(but apparently it makes you feel all superior, so that's a plus I guess)."
Actually, it makes me feel very, very goddamn lonely. In the jungle at night and you can hear the predators circling alone. ...nothing super about it.
But, for what it's worth, I consider ignorance to be a status (I don't know. But, I can find out!), and stupidity (I don't know, and I don't care!) to be an attitude.
You know, when I was demoing Chrome as a possible browser for my tablet, I went looking for a script blocking extension. To my consternation, I was met with the near worthless alternative of either running all scripts or none on a page, either through an extension designed like a high school side-project or using the built in white-listing feature. This is apparently because the API does not allow for functionality along the lines of blocking individual scripts from executing.
The forums and comments sections addressing user questions as to an alternative usually had self serving replies like "Chrome is so awesome that it doesn't need script blocking." and "It can't be owned due to sand-boxing. You know what sand-boxing is right?" (Because the only reason a person would ask is if they where an ignorant fool, right?)
So, *cough* tell me why Chrome doesn't need a NoScript-like extension again? @the marketing drones: Because, I'm so sure the cocksure poseur-charisma will scare the crime-ware away, really. The elephant in the room doesn't exist so long as the people that bring it up are shouted down, right?
It's free to get sued for software patent infringement. And, your prior employers don't necessarily take it well if you are running around sporting their code during job interviews.
Anyways, it sounds like the same problem that occurs when hiring management. People are really hired because they pump up the ego's of administrators, executives, and managers they bump into as part of competing for the position, not because they actually know what they are doing. They look good and talk a good game. Hell, who wants another dark and whiny neck-beard anyway? He looks and smells funny. He acts like he has some kind of mental problem, like "introversion." (...that's sarcasm guys!) He makes you feel dumb by talking about stuff you don't understand anyway. He works harder, has better results with less resources and effort, and puts in longer hours, and that makes you look bad. Just hire the charismatic guy and you can slap each other's back and talk about normal stuff like sports, cars, boats, and bonuses.
Oh, it's worth pointing out that a lot of the really horrid ones will just fake credentials, like mail order degrees, fake references, and the like. It's not that hard to copy an obscure open source program and slap your name on it. Usually, the more charismatic the person, the less likely the hiring committee will scrutinize the veracity of the claims made, due to impatience and likability (basically, an impulse purchase.)
Now that I've actually worked in the corporate field for a while, I can say this: It's not that all Americans are lazy. It's that doing a better job than your boss, even at your own job and not his or hers, is political suicide. This is why you got the crap beat out of you by bullies in high school. If he or she can keep you from enjoying any benefits your intelligence and hard work provides, he surpasses you on the food chain. "If you're so smart, why'd you get your ass kicked." "If you're so smart, how come you work for me?"
It's a pain in the ass when your boss is simply incompetent, ol' chip will go ape-shit if you can do something he can't. His position entitles him to be inherently superior to you. It's nightmarish when your boss is narcissistic, God knows all and does all that is good. And, don't you dare do anything that would indicate otherwise. It's a taste of hell on earth if they are sociopathic, the devil will have his due. And if he doesn't get it, people will sacrifice you to appease him. "Trying too hard" is a nice way to get a target placed on your backside. Why Americans promote and encourage this kind of leadership is another matter, though.
We have a society that prioritizes aggressiveness and charisma over innovation and results, folks. Hell, we have to create and fund an agency with the purpose of finding more effective and flashy ways to kill people in order to get decent R&D towards long range constructive efforts.
The overwhelming majority of people will follow the perceived authority and will viciously attack anyone seen as undermining said authority, especially if said people are dependent on that authority for sustenance of some sort (money, food, shelter, ego, stress management, etc...) Right, wrong, justice, morals, ethics...none of that really matters, as people usually defer those determinations to authority. The authority does it; it's OK. ...good, ol' bread and circuses. But, yes, I have little doubt that theirs at least a little astroturf to give the herd a direction to run in.
...thanks to the people that wrote the activation and WGA cracks.