Psychopaths and embarrassment

taratai said:
I wrote "more like", but i never mentioned that he definitely is. The context was that he's a psychopath. He's not, and that is all my post was meant to say.

Fair enough taratai. I got that false impression because of you saying he was more like an op and then going on to describe Freud's id to perfectly show how an OP's mind functions. Rather than saying that we just don't know and can't tell from Silverblack's 'possibly' biased description, whether he is an op, potentially souled or souled. So my appologies.

Nienna said:
I think that what you describe, taratai, when you say, "what matters for the OP is the perceived pressure of the society, and failing to adhere to it means being shamed." can also be described as being externally considerate (as Laura stated in the previous post). Are you aware of the terms "external consideration" and "internal consideration"? If not, you can read about them here.

The difficulty here is that "external consideration" and "societal pressure" might look exactly same from outside. And without knowing the person, i cannot say whether he's doing it because he's afraid of what others would say of him, or because he's feeling shame for his oblivious family.

I don't think being afraid of what others would say of him, or because he's feeling shame for his oblivious family really describes external consideration.
 
I have been in situations where I have asked my family members to step aside or give way to others. It has happened when we are walking slowly along a narrow path and I can see or sense others coming up fast behind us. Or when we are holding up a line trying to get some stuff right while others wait for their turn behind us. Never even thought about it consciously until coming across this topic under discussion.

Why have I acted the way I did? To be considerate towards others first and foremost. Also to be protective towards my family - to avoid a potentially more stressful situation if the strangers involved are jerks or worse - the type who would physically push people aside and/or verbally abuse others (have seen that happen).

I can understand if someone would get embarrassed or ashamed if their family was holding up others. I have felt such emotions to a mild degree. Traditionally in many societies, men have been considered to be responsible for their family's actions and in cases bear the consequences of those actions. So there could be an element of cultural inheritance at play in the man's emotions in such situations depending on where he came from. In modern western society the situation is different and so the emotions and resulting actions of the man concerned may seem strange or inexplicable.

But then again, I could very well be an OP sympathizing with another OP. ;)
 
Peam said:
Fair enough taratai. I got that false impression because of you saying he was more like an op and then going on to describe Freud's id to perfectly show how an OP's mind functions. Rather than saying that we just don't know and can't tell from Silverblack's 'possibly' biased description, whether he is an op, potentially souled or souled. So my appologies.
Why are you sorry? You have nothing to be sorry about. :P
You stated your opinion on the issue, i see nothing wrong with that.

But i think this entire Organic Portal term reached a point that it's pointless to even bring it out, just like with psychopathy. Each time they are mentioned, people freak out, as if everyone who does that tries to mark their own superiority. It's as if they turned into yet another derogatory labels to throw out on everyone people don't like, just like retard, idiot, moron (all of which were mental medical conditions at one point), and even cancer (yes, it's used as a derogatory term too). I should have known better that people will assume i'm one of those that throw those around without consideration, rather than "not guilty until proven otherwise".

obyvatel said:
I have been in situations where I have asked my family members to step aside or give way to others. It has happened when we are walking slowly along a narrow path and I can see or sense others coming up fast behind us. Or when we are holding up a line trying to get some stuff right while others wait for their turn behind us. Never even thought about it consciously until coming across this topic under discussion.
To me, when someone does what his stepfather did, it is not external considering - it's thinking only about yourself. About what others might think about you, about how to make your image look good, about your pride, about your ego. Not about others and what is the best for them. Not about harmony. Not about having as little negative impact on your surroundings as possible.
About yourself.

It's one thing to point out something or get impatient, but completely another thing to get angry to the point of becoming red and making a total fool of yourself and your family in front of everyone (even if your family might have already made fools of themselves). This is the ironic part - i find those the most paranoid about the image they present to others, and about some "respect" others have to them, being the quickest to make total fools of themselves and lose all respect they had.

And now you're saying you identify with that behavior? You really don't see anything wrong with it? Are you really fine with something like that?

I am not, because i know i would never do such thing, no matter how angry, shamed, or stupid i would feel. Not only it never fixes the problem, but it also makes it worse. Yet, i see so many people constantly keep on doing it, blind to the consequences, then insisting that it was the right thing to do, blaming the other, and getting all defensive about it when someone points out there might have been another way.

PS. If someone is getting angry because they fail to fulfills society's expectations, not because of actual harm done... well, that's exactly what i meant by "societal pressure" and OPs. For a "souled" being, the responsibility should come from them themselves, not from some expectations. If it doesn't and has to be forced, then it's either a malevolent soul, or "no soul" at all.
 
[quote author=taratai]
It's one thing to point out something or get impatient, but completely another thing to get angry to the point of becoming red and making a total fool of yourself and your family in front of everyone (even if your family might have already made fools of themselves). This is the ironic part - i find those the most paranoid about the image they present to others, and about some "respect" others have to them, being the quickest to make total fools of themselves and lose all respect they had.
[/quote]

Hi Taratai,
How do you know the man concerned was red with anger and made a total fool of himself? Being out in the sun for a time can make people turn red, and I did not see any evidence of making a total fool in the account either. Silverback put some hints in his/her post but maybe you read more into it? I did not find anything in Silverback's account that indicated any serious wrongdoing on the part of the step father and the post started with "my stepfather is a psychopath". If someone wants to demonize another person and all they can come up with is this, then it seems that the person has an axe to grind rather than look at situations objectively.

[quote author=taratai]
But i think this entire Organic Portal term reached a point that it's pointless to even bring it out, just like with psychopathy.
[/quote]

I think it is mostly pointless to whip out the term Organic Portal. And I also think that the term psychopathy, after being popularized, is used rather loosely in general discourse. And yes, these terms are generally used pejoratively rather than with careful consideration and knowledge. Psychopathy is a real phenomenon though highly complex and difficult but not impossible to detect. There is scientific material field tested with real data which helps in identifying psychopathy - like Hare's psychopathy checklist, and Lobaczewski's ponerology. But I for one believe that to use the term psychopathy properly and scientifically, one needs training in psychology and lot of experience in the field. We can try to learn and understand psychopathy better but being upset at someone and bringing out those terms to grind an axe does not, imo, promote learning.

[quote author=taratai]
And now you're saying you identify with that behavior? You really don't see anything wrong with it? Are you really fine with something like that?
[/quote]

What I wrote was I can identify with the situation and the emotions that can arise in such situations. Emotions can and most often do drive behavior but it is not inevitable. So, no, if the man had a big shouting match with his family without much provocation, then that is not a behavior that I would consider "fine". But then experience has taught me that if such incidents happen often, there is more under the hood than just holding up other golfers in a golf range and also, the person who does the shouting is not necessarily the only villain of the piece. Without more data, I would not draw any conclusions from Silverback's account other than that he/she is upset at the stepfather.

[quote author=taratai]
I am not, because i know i would never do such thing, no matter how angry, shamed, or stupid i would feel. Not only it never fixes the problem, but it also makes it worse. Yet, i see so many people constantly keep on doing it, blind to the consequences, then insisting that it was the right thing to do, blaming the other, and getting all defensive about it when someone points out there might have been another way.[/quote]

You seem very confident. This kind of confidence is often (but not always) based on inexperience and lack of exposure to a wide variety of people and situations. But even without such experience, if you read about human psychology seriously and apply it to yourself thus building self-knowledge, then it is possible that your confidence level in such statements may reduce. But keeping that aside, even if it was true that you personally would never act in such ways - it does not necessarily mean that a person who does is a OP/psychopath/villain of some sort.

[quote author=taratai]
PS. If someone is getting angry because they fail to fulfills society's expectations, not because of actual harm done... well, that's exactly what i meant by "societal pressure" and OPs. For a "souled" being, the responsibility should come from them themselves, not from some expectations. If it doesn't and has to be forced, then it's either a malevolent soul, or "no soul" at all.[/quote]

Maybe. But please understand you are expressing a highly subjective opinion without solid supporting evidence for these claims. Depending on whom you talk to you may be challenged on it or not. The danger of this kind of claim is that if someone challenges its validity, you can fall back upon "he doesn't understand because he is a OP" type argument, which would be circular reasoning. So I put down what you say as a possibility, though I would think it is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish a criterion of "OPness" given what I know about human psychology.

I said earlier that I think it is pointless to bring out the OP term in a discussion. Now let me qualify that by a categorically personal observation. I had done a thought experiment quite some time back after I encountered the term OP. Let's say hypothetically someone invents a gadget that could tell whether a person is a OP or not. This gadget is tried on me and the meter says OP (with flashing red lights and a beeping alarm to boot). The question I posed to myself was that how would such a finding affect my daily life and actions. Now there are confidence intervals (false positives, true positives etc) of any test. If it was a screen for a disease, then even after taking into account probabilities and confidence intervals, I could definitely see myself making some changes to my life based on that information. However, for the hypothetical "OP screen", I could not see any practical changes that I could or would want to make based on the result. So, for me at least, the term OP is not useful.

That however is not true for the term psychopathy. If I take the psychopathy checklist, I know I do not check the boxes and if I found someone who did check the boxes, I would be more wary about them . So my behavior would change based on the result of the test (taking into account confidence interval of the test). So psychopathy and its associated study is meaningful for me.
 
taratai said:
<snippety doo dah>

And now you're saying you identify with that behavior? You really don't see anything wrong with it? Are you really fine with something like that?

I am not, because i know i would never do such thing, no matter how angry, shamed, or stupid i would feel. Not only it never fixes the problem, but it also makes it worse. Yet, i see so many people constantly keep on doing it, blind to the consequences, then insisting that it was the right thing to do, blaming the other, and getting all defensive about it when someone points out there might have been another way.

PS. If someone is getting angry because they fail to fulfills society's expectations, not because of actual harm done... well, that's exactly what i meant by "societal pressure" and OPs. For a "souled" being, the responsibility should come from them themselves, not from some expectations. If it doesn't and has to be forced, then it's either a malevolent soul, or "no soul" at all.

My analysis of your take on the various topics of this thread:

:wrongbar:
 
obyvatel said:
Hi Taratai,
How do you know the man concerned was red with anger and made a total fool of himself? Being out in the sun for a time can make people turn red, and I did not see any evidence of making a total fool in the account either. Silverback put some hints in his/her post but maybe you read more into it? I did not find anything in Silverback's account that indicated any serious wrongdoing on the part of the step father and the post started with "my stepfather is a psychopath". If someone wants to demonize another person and all they can come up with is this, then it seems that the person has an axe to grind rather than look at situations objectively.
I could: assume everything is a lie, assume everything is true, or assume there is truth and lies. I assumed the last option, simply because trying to demonize someone doesn't mean the one being demonized is innocent. I've seen far too many situations where one side does something stupid/bad and then the other side blows way out of proportion for what has been done, which in the end spirals in both sides trying to shift 100% of the blame to the other. Once it reaches that point, it doesn't really matter who was the first one to start it - both are just as guilty and irresponsible. The description follows exactly that pattern of behavior, so i see no reason to assume that part was a lie.

obyvatel said:
I think it is mostly pointless to whip out the term Organic Portal. And I also think that the term psychopathy, after being popularized, is used rather loosely in general discourse. And yes, these terms are generally used pejoratively rather than with careful consideration and knowledge. Psychopathy is a real phenomenon though highly complex and difficult but not impossible to detect. There is scientific material field tested with real data which helps in identifying psychopathy - like Hare's psychopathy checklist, and Lobaczewski's ponerology. But I for one believe that to use the term psychopathy properly and scientifically, one needs training in psychology and lot of experience in the field. We can try to learn and understand psychopathy better but being upset at someone and bringing out those terms to grind an axe does not, imo, promote learning.
Yes, psychopathy is a clinical term, and with clear clinical description, but so are cancer and autism. That doesn't prevent people from calling everything they don't like "cancerous", and people they don't like as "autistic". It's the same with every term that has an actual meaning - once it gets out to the wider population, any meaning it had becomes diluted, and the word becomes meaningless, because of how often it is used out of its proper context. Then, even those that use the word only in its proper context might refrain from using it so not to hurt someone's feelings (especially in the climate of everyone being hurt over minor things).

I wish it wasn't the case, but sadly, i see the same thing happening with the term "psychopathy". As if the system reacted to the growing awareness by diluting any meaning from the word (which i think is partly the case here, and partly a natural thing).

obyvatel said:
What I wrote was I can identify with the situation and the emotions that can arise in such situations. Emotions can and most often do drive behavior but it is not inevitable. So, no, if the man had a big shouting match with his family without much provocation, then that is not a behavior that I would consider "fine". But then experience has taught me that if such incidents happen often, there is more under the hood than just holding up other golfers in a golf range and also, the person who does the shouting is not necessarily the only villain of the piece. Without more data, I would not draw any conclusions from Silverback's account other than that he/she is upset at the stepfather.
And this is exactly what i meant - not the only "villain". I see both parties here as guilty, not solely the stepfather. Only because i didn't specifically say that Silverback is partly to blame for the situation doesn't mean i think otherwise (well, i guess i should specify, but then my posts tend to be overbloated and gigantic, like this one i'm writing like now, and i'm always trying to avoid that :P ).

obyvatel said:
You seem very confident. This kind of confidence is often (but not always) based on inexperience and lack of exposure to a wide variety of people and situations. But even without such experience, if you read about human psychology seriously and apply it to yourself thus building self-knowledge, then it is possible that your confidence level in such statements may reduce. But keeping that aside, even if it was true that you personally would never act in such ways - it does not necessarily mean that a person who does is a OP/psychopath/villain of some sort.
Of course it doesn't mean they are OP, and that's why i wrote "more like", not "definitely". Yes. he might have been a souled being all along, either tired of interacting with OPs for long time and exploded, or was adjusted too well to the world of OPs and forgot.

But then, as a souled being, shouldn't he be the one responsible here? Shouldn't he act better than a mechanical OP - just reacting? Shouldn't he aspire higher?
If he is an OP, i can understand that he cannot do any other way. But if he's a souled being, then, no matter how hard the situation might have been for him, he should have a way to handle it differently.

It's like with a cat that devastates your furniture - you don't kill it for doing that, no matter how expensive it was. You teach the cat to not do it again, or release his energy in a way that he doesn't do that anymore, because the cat most likely doesn't even understand why is it happening. Yet when a human does it, and you can see it was done deliberately, you know that there is something very wrong going on.

To me, the situation with "souled beings" and "organic portals" as exactly that of a pet owner and a pet, or a parent and a child. The ones that are supposed to be responsible here are the souled beings, and it's their responsibility to take care of OPs, not to blame them for all the evil in the world (unless they want to go on the path to 4D STS, because that's exactly the way to go there :P ). If Silverback sees him/her self as a souled being, and will see the stepfather as an OP because of what i wrote, then he/she failed at that point in time described here (but try better in the future :P ).

obyvatel said:
Maybe. But please understand you are expressing a highly subjective opinion without solid supporting evidence for these claims. Depending on whom you talk to you may be challenged on it or not. The danger of this kind of claim is that if someone challenges its validity, you can fall back upon "he doesn't understand because he is a OP" type argument, which would be circular reasoning. So I put down what you say as a possibility, though I would think it is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish a criterion of "OPness" given what I know about human psychology.
I understand, but the thing is: no matter what we do or say, someone will use that as a justification for their own bad behavior and ignorance.
For example, one could come up to a conclusion that, after seeing how much bad things people do by using the OP term, the Cassiopaeans are actually evil, because it's their fault the term is used so much (and i'm sure there already were people that thought that). But is it really that way?

They only offered knowledge, but people used that knowledge to further their own agendas (blaming others and feeling superior). So i think it's safe to say that it's the people that are at fault here - the ones that use knowledge for "evil" do it because they are "evil".
Just like saying that blacks have higher crime rate than whites in the US is a fact, but there are people that will use it as a proof that getting rid of blacks is a good thing.
Or like Jews having higher positions in society and better paid jobs is a "proof" of a worldwide jewish conspiracy.
Or like the government, NASA, media, and basically everyone lying to the population is a "proof" that the Earth is flat.

People use everything according to what they are aligned with. "Good" people will tell lies if it serves others. "Evil" people will tell the truth if it serves their own agenda.

If people will use what i wrote to play the blame game, there is nothing i can do about it. But if there is any truth to it at all, then those that do not want to play the blame game, those that want to be responsible for OPs, they will find that truth and use it properly, and ignore any falsehoods in it.
If you think there is nothing true there, then maybe you are right. Or maybe not. I guess i'll be the one to blame for anything that happens from here anyway.

obyvatel said:
That however is not true for the term psychopathy. If I take the psychopathy checklist, I know I do not check the boxes and if I found someone who did check the boxes, I would be more wary about them . So my behavior would change based on the result of the test (taking into account confidence interval of the test). So psychopathy and its associated study is meaningful for me.
I don't really trust checklists.
First reason is that they assume that the person fills them faithfully and doesn't lie - it has to be a test that's designed in a really clever way in order to fool people into saying. Otherwise, i would expect the clever psychopaths to actually know how to slip through and which answers to give.
Second is that any tests and checklists are influenced by the biases of the people that make them. Like, i saw a checklist that would label this entire forum as sociopathic for, you won't believe it, "erroneous beliefs" (which it explained as: believing in UFOs, conspiracy theories, astrology and so on, among other things). If the system is corrupt, and people in it are corrupt, then any knowledge and truth applied to it will only serve to further the corruption (or be ignored if it doesn't serve it).

And if there was ever a situation where there will be some reliable test or checklist that allows regular people to spot a psychopath with a 100% accuracy, i'm absolutely sure that the 4D STS forces would find a way to somehow influence and shift the results (like, "coincidentally" the people that were to be write that test would happen to be influenced by psychopaths, if not be actual psychopaths), or the test would get completely ignored, or... people would be taught that psychopaths are actually good (like they are just now :P ).

That's not to say that all of this knowledge about psychopathy is for naught, but this post is already far too long, so i'm going to end it here. :P

Laura said:
My analysis of your take on the various topics of this thread:

:wrongbar:
I thought that varying opinions are welcome on this forum.
But don't worry, i'm done talking in this thread anyway, because i wrote far too much already. Don't like when half of the page is filled with my own text, how am i supposed to read the rambling of an idiot. :P
 
[quote author=taratai]
To me, the situation with "souled beings" and "organic portals" as exactly that of a pet owner and a pet, or a parent and a child. The ones that are supposed to be responsible here are the souled beings, and it's their responsibility to take care of OPs, not to blame them for all the evil in the world.
[/quote]

Ok. One can decide to take responsibility and do their best in life. Many people have done so and will continue to do so without necessarily labeling themselves as "souled beings taking care of op s". If the label of "souled being" is important for benevolent and skilled action, then it is useful. But the "op" label is more murky. Does the label of "op" help the "op" in a constructive way? Or does it justify their lack of responsibility with some version of "I cannot be/do otherwise because I am this ....op?"

Which brings up
[quote author=taratai]
I understand, but the thing is: no matter what we do or say, someone will use that as a justification for their own bad behavior and ignorance.
[/quote]

One way to deal with the situation is to use something like Occam's razor - make as few assumptions as are absolutely needed to get the job done. More assumptions which do not help the bottomline can be kept aside. Helps conserve energy in practical affairs - life is complex enough anyway.


[quote author=taratai]
If people will use what i wrote to play the blame game, there is nothing i can do about it. But if there is any truth to it at all, then those that do not want to play the blame game, those that want to be responsible for OPs, they will find that truth and use it properly, and ignore any falsehoods in it.
If you think there is nothing true there, then maybe you are right.
[/quote]

Some truths may not be usable in the present context. That does not make those ideas less true; just not practical for the time being. OSIT
 
obyvatel said:
Ok. One can decide to take responsibility and do their best in life. Many people have done so and will continue to do so without necessarily labeling themselves as "souled beings taking care of op s". If the label of "souled being" is important for benevolent and skilled action, then it is useful. But the "op" label is more murky. Does the label of "op" help the "op" in a constructive way? Or does it justify their lack of responsibility with some version of "I cannot be/do otherwise because I am this ....op?"

Some of these people taking responsibility and caring for others may even be OPs and they can take responsibility for a lot of things. It might not be so much an issue of taking care of others, or responsibility, but of complexity of soul, the ability to 'see' the unseen, and mechanicalness. Or, at least that is how I see ops.


obyvatel said:
Some truths may not be usable in the present context. That does not make those ideas less true; just not practical for the time being. OSIT

Good point. It's especially hard when what is being speculated upon is invisible and has potential for huge variety too.
 
taratai said:
Laura said:
My analysis of your take on the various topics of this thread:

:wrongbar:
I thought that varying opinions are welcome on this forum.
But don't worry, i'm done talking in this thread anyway, because i wrote far too much already. Don't like when half of the page is filled with my own text, how am i supposed to read the rambling of an idiot. :P

On the topic of opinions see: https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,3925.0.html

As to the purpose of the forum you may wish to review the Forum Guidelines: https://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,9553.0.html

... paying close attention to the description of the Esoteric Circle.

There is certainly a lot of leeway in some respects, but we try to stay consistent to our mission.
 
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