tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post5525249038805411998..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: The Phony Radicalism of Presidential PoliticsDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-78253958906999723292016-08-07T16:52:12.190-07:002016-08-07T16:52:12.190-07:00> Conrad: . . . Everything is German pudding wi...> Conrad: . . . Everything is German pudding with you, dad.<br />> You don't see things!<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXMQi-WWlFE<br />------------<br />How to Stay Sane Around a Narcissist<br />Understanding Narcissists <br />Aug 6, 2016<br /><br />(9:28/11:31)<br /><br />Some of the nicest, most grounded people I've ever seen,<br />just in their nature -- and sweetest people, most loving<br />people -- are enablers to narcissists, or have been, or<br />are vulnerable to it. Again and again. The most grounded,<br />reasonable, and often hard-working, virtuous people.<br />And I just mean that as just a character judgment, not<br />necessarily what they believe or what they do as far as<br />for a living or religious affiliation or any kind of moral<br />judgment -- just knowing them and being around them.<br />Some of the most lovely people. . .<br />====<br /><br /><br />The predators, and the prey. It's not surprising that people<br />had to invent Heaven and Hell to compensate. :-/<br /><br /><br />(This comment follows from the _Ordinary People_ one in this chain,<br />but the M. Scott Peck one prior to that I had intended to<br />add to the chain under "The Pathologization of Donald Trump".<br />It seems I missed the correct "comments" link when I first<br />opened up the "Post a Comment" screen. I think<br />I've done that a couple of times, recently. :-0 )<br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-35630974659436110672016-08-07T13:52:48.041-07:002016-08-07T13:52:48.041-07:00Yeah, I saw that Futurists As Moral Authorities th...Yeah, I saw that Futurists As Moral Authorities thing. Quite apart from the profound unrepresentativeness of the "discipline" (a point I used to hammer quite a bit here, years back, a critique that eventually condensed into the hard diamond of an aphorism: "The futurists have seen The Future... and it is a white penis"), the fact that futurism is best understood as a public relations and marketing genre masquerading as a kind of policy analysis or even analytic philosophy makes it utterly inapt as a source of guidance in public or personal deliberation. One might as well be guided by late-nite infomercials or televangelist scams. And I mean that analogy more literally than many people seem to realize. <br /><br />There are interlocking causes and contexts for the disastrous investment of the futurological with scientific and ethical authority when futurism is a pseudo-scientific moralism deserving nothing but rejection and ridicule: among these, first, a general American anti-intellectualism coupled with privileged insulation that has fed serial dysfunctions of this kind, second, the bankruptcy of Anglo-American analytic philosophy as a paradigm after the eclipse of pragmatism and given the endless know-nothing reactionary assaults against the "postmodern relativism" and "politically correct multiculturalism" of continental thought, third, the breakdown of the academy as a source of reliable expertise in the grip of the neoliberal pincer of an ongoing looting of public higher education and the treatment of the disinformational think-tank archipelago as equivalent to that embattled academy, fourth, the emergence of pseudo-disciplinary spaces like "bioethics" and "design" that rationalize tech sector abuses while pretending to autonomy from them, and so on. Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-87600713218477765902016-08-07T13:26:12.052-07:002016-08-07T13:26:12.052-07:00And now I need to re-watch _Ordinary People_. ;-&...And now I need to re-watch _Ordinary People_. ;-><br /><br />---------------<br />Calvin Jarrett: She was upset, Conrad. Your mother was hurt<br />because you quit the swim team. I don't understand it myself.<br /><br />Conrad: I don't mean just now. Don't you see? I don't mean<br />just today.<br /><br />Calvin: What then? Explain it to me.<br /><br />Conrad: I can't! Everything is German pudding with you, dad.<br />You don't see things!<br /><br />Calvin: What things?<br /><br />Conrad: [sighs]<br /><br />Calvin: What things? Please, I want you to tell me.<br /><br />Conrad: That she hates me! Can't you see that?<br /><br />Calvin: Your mother doesn't hate you, Conrad!<br /><br />Conrad: All right, all right. You're right. She doesn't.<br />Please leave me alone, now.<br />====jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-85887612884378391952016-08-07T13:25:05.036-07:002016-08-07T13:25:05.036-07:00> I think there is surely space to talk about n...> I think there is surely space to talk about narcissism<br />> as a cards-on-the-table moralist rather than as someone<br />> who plays a clinician on the internet.<br /><br />How about the discourse of demonic possession? ;-><br /><br />Narcissism is not a mental condition, it IS demon influence<br />SHINE FORTH <br />Published on Jun 28, 2016<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIS2m9-a3x8<br /><br /><br />Don't laugh -- there was a very popular Christian psychiatrist<br />from 30 or so years ago named M. Scott Peck who wrote an interesting book:<br /><br />People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil<br />https://www.amazon.com/People-Lie-Hope-Healing-Human/dp/0684848597<br /><br />Whatever you may think of his intimations of theologically-toned<br />etiologies (he gave one case history that he all but declares<br />was a case of a patient **inviting** possession by an evil spirit --<br />the patient had to summon up an act of "moral will" to banish this<br />malevolent influence from his life), he does give some case histories<br />that look (from today's perspective -- I don't think Peck ever<br />used the term) like rather chilling examples of narcissistic<br />personalities, the most salient being:<br /><br />https://books.google.com/books?id=hrdMD_ZoL8UC&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62<br />---------------<br />Bobby. . . [a]lthough he was seriously depressed and desperately<br />in need of help, the source, the cause of his depression, lay not<br />in him but in his parents' behavior toward him. . . [T]here<br />was nothing sick about his depression. . . The essential<br />sickness. . . lay. . . in the family environment to which is<br />depresson was a natural enough response. . .<br /><br />Bobby, when he first came to the hospital, was literally gouging<br />holes in himself. . . Why?. . .<br /><br />In the days immediately following [his brother] Stuart's [suicide]<br />he would have remembered. . . that only a week before he had called<br />his brother a stupid slob; that a month before he had kicked him<br />in the midst of a fight; that when Stuart picked on him, he<br />often wished that his brother would somehow be removed from<br />the face of the earth. . .<br /><br />What should have happened at this point -- and what would have<br />happened in a healthy home -- would have been for his parents<br />to begin reassuring him. . .<br /><br />[By] Christmas Bobby was already judging himself to be. . . evil. . .<br />Then, unsolicited, he was given his brother's "murder" weapon<br />[i.e., the rifle his brother had used to commit suicide]. How<br />was he to understand the meaning of this "gift"? Was he to think:<br />My parents are evil people, and out of their evil, desire my<br />destruction, just as they probably destroyed my brother? Hardly. . .<br /><br />Let us turn now from the identified patient to the parents,<br />the true source of the problem. . . They should have been the<br />ones to receive treatment. Yet they did not. Why not?. . .<br /><br />[T]hey did not want it. To receive treatment one must want<br />it. . . There are an enormous number of people in this world<br />with serious and identifiable psychiatric problems who. . .<br />are quite desperately in need of psychiatric treatment but<br />fail to recognize this need. . . [I]t is into this category<br />of persons most intensely resistant to psychiatric treatment<br />that the thoroughly evil fall. . .<br /><br />They reacted only with rationalization and belligerence to my<br />intimations that they had been remiss in not earlier seeking<br />professional help for Bobby and that their judgment had been<br />poor, at best, in their choice of his Christmas present. . .<br />[T]he idea that it would be better for him to live elsewhere<br />was anathema to them because of its implied criticism of their<br />ability as parents. Rather than acknowledging any deficit,<br />they refused to assume any blame on the grounds that they<br />were "working people". . .<br />====<br /><br /><br />In case you're wondering -- no, I don't believe in the Devil, or<br />in evil spirits. ;->jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-43779178526436402092016-08-07T07:24:19.778-07:002016-08-07T07:24:19.778-07:00In a more sinister vein (and this thing is apparen...In a more sinister vein (and this thing is apparently<br />actually being used):<br /><br />http://fortune.com/insider-threats-email-scout/<br />--------------<br />Spy Tech That Reads Your Mind<br />Leaks, theft, and sabotage by employees have become a major<br />cybersecurity problem. One company says it can spot “insider threats”<br />before they happen—by reading all your workers’ email.<br />By Roger Parloff<br /><br />On any given morning at a big national bank or a Silicon Valley<br />software giant or a government agency, a security official could<br />start her day by asking a software program for a report on her<br />organization’s staff. “Okay, as of last night, who were the people<br />who were most disgruntled?” she could ask. “Show me the top 10.”<br /><br />She would have that capability, says Eric Shaw, a psychologist and<br />longtime consultant to the intelligence community, if she used a<br />software tool he developed for Stroz Friedberg, a cybersecurity firm.<br />The software combs through an organization’s emails and text messages --<br />millions a day, the company says—looking for high usage of words and<br />phrases that language psychologists associate with certain mental<br />states and personality profiles. Ask for a list of staffers who score<br />high for discontent, Shaw says, “and you could look at their names.<br />Or you could look at the top emails themselves.”<br /><br />Many companies already have the ability to run keyword searches of<br />employees’ emails, looking for worrisome words and phrases like **embezzle**<br />and **I loathe this job**. But the Stroz Friedberg software, called Scout,<br />aspires to go a giant step further, detecting indirectly, through<br />unconscious syntactic and grammatical clues, workers’ anger, financial<br />or personal stress, and other tip-offs that an employee might be<br />about to lose it. . .<br /><br />Scout was soft launched as a client service by Stroz Friedberg in<br />late 2014, though the firm has long used earlier versions for internal<br />investigations. The firm was founded in 2000 by Ed Stroz, a 16-year<br />FBI veteran in Manhattan, and Eric Friedberg, an 11-year Brooklyn<br />federal prosecutor. . .<br />====<br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-18436133294893739112016-08-07T07:22:02.375-07:002016-08-07T07:22:02.375-07:00The real threat from "AI":
https://math...The real threat from "AI":<br /><br />https://mathbabe.org/<br />--------------<br />The Absurd Moral Authority of Futurism<br />August 5, 2016<br />Cathy O'Neil, mathbabe<br /><br />Yesterday one of my long-standing fears was confirmed:<br />futurists are considered moral authorities.<br /><br />The Intercept published an article entitled Microsoft Pitches Technology<br />That Can Read Facial Expressions at Political Rallies, and written<br />by Alex Emmons, which described a new Microsoft product that is meant<br />to be used at large events like the Superbowl, or a Trump rally,<br />to discern “anger, contempt, fear, disgust, happiness, neutral,<br />sadness or surprise” in the crowd.<br /><br />Spokesperson Kathryn Stack, when asked whether the tool could be<br />used to identify dissidents or protesters, responded as follows:<br /><br />“I think that would be a question for a futurist, not a technologist.”<br /><br />Can we parse that a bit?. . .<br /><br />I’d like to point out that futurism is male dominated, almost<br />entirely white, and almost entirely consists of Silicon Valley nerds.<br />They spend their time arguing about the exact timing and nature<br />of the singularity, whether we’ll live forever in bliss or we’ll<br />live forever under the control of rampant and hostile AI.<br /><br />In particular, there’s no reason to imagine that they are<br />well-versed in the history or in the rights of protesters or<br />of political struggle.<br /><br />In Star Wars terms, the futurists are the Empire, and<br />Black Lives Matter are the scrappy Rebel Alliance. It’s pretty clear,<br />to me at least, that we wouldn’t go to Emperor Palpatine for<br />advice on ethics. . .<br />====<br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-55261656007750969222016-08-07T07:05:53.627-07:002016-08-07T07:05:53.627-07:00Stop the presses!
Calling all transhumanists and ...Stop the presses!<br /><br />Calling all transhumanists and singularitarians -- global warming<br />is, after all, the most important (short-term) existential risk,<br />because the social chaos coming on its heels will make it<br />impossible to develop "Friendly AI" (and may even lead to<br />an "AI arms race"), which isn't OK because superintelligence<br />is still the most important (long-term) existential risk.<br /><br />http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/Torres20160807<br />--------------<br />Climate Change Is the Most Urgent Existential Risk<br />By Phil Torres<br />Future of Life Institute<br />Aug 7, 2016<br /><br />Climate change and biodiversity loss may pose the most immediate<br />and important threat to human survival given their indirect effects<br />on other risk scenarios.<br /><br />Humanity faces a number of formidable challenges this century.<br />Threats to our collective survival stem from asteroids and comets,<br />supervolcanoes, global pandemics, climate change, biodiversity loss,<br />nuclear weapons, biotechnology, synthetic biology, nanotechnology,<br />and artificial superintelligence.<br /><br />With such threats in mind, an informal survey conducted by the<br />Future of Humanity Institute placed the probability of human<br />extinction this century at 19%. To put this in perspective,<br />it means that the average American is more than a thousand times<br />more likely to die in a human extinction event than a plane crash.*<br /><br />So, given limited resources, which risks should we prioritize?<br />Many intellectual leaders, including Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking,<br />and Bill Gates, have suggested that artificial superintelligence<br />constitutes one of the most significant risks to humanity.<br />And this may be correct in the long-term. But I would argue<br />that two other risks, namely climate change and biodiveristy<br />loss, should take priority right now over every other known threat.<br /><br />Why? Because these ongoing catastrophes in slow-motion will<br />frame our existential predicament on Earth not just for the rest<br />of this century, but for literally thousands of years to come.<br />As such, they have the capacity to raise or lower the probability<br />of other risks scenarios unfolding. . .<br /><br />[I]magine trying to solve these problems amidst a rising tide<br />of interstate wars, civil unrest, terrorist attacks, and other<br />tragedies? The societal stress caused by climate change and<br />biodiversity loss will almost certainly compromise important<br />conditions for creating friendly AI, such as sufficient funding,<br />academic programs to train new scientists, conferences on AI,<br />peer-reviewed journal publications, and communication/collaboration<br />between experts of different fields, such as computer science<br />and ethics.<br /><br />It could even make an “AI arms race” more likely, thereby raising<br />the probability of a malevolent superintelligence being created<br />either on purpose or by mistake. . .<br />====<br /><br /><br />Does that mean that "rational" >Hists and S^-ians need to switch<br />their vote from Trump to Hillary?<br /><br />Say it isn't so!!! ;->jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com