But I also think he is aware it's going to suck more before it sucks less; he's more or less saying "Gosh, this is going to be really bad for me". At least he isn't quite whining about it.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:As I am learning the hard way, we have the freedom to choose to (sic) our actions, but we do not get to choose our consequences.
Does this strike anyone else as a really weird non sequitur? I mean, of all the lessons he might take away from this scenario, why this?
It seems like he's a classic sociopath: he doesn't feel much about what he did to his wife and family, or even about nonchalantly breaking the rules of his religion - no, he cares about getting caught.
Well, there's not enough in that statement to really determine that. But yes, it is a perfect example of what a sociopath would say.
There were many interesting examples of this sort of thing in Jon Ronson's book "The Psychopath Test." It claims that psychopaths tend to dissociate their actions from harm to anyone but themselves- so when the harm occurs, it is oriented to the self. If something hurts someone else, that is still seen through the filter of how it affects *me,* and not that other person.
But again, there's way not enough evidence to prove something like that.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:As I am learning the hard way, we have the freedom to choose to (sic) our actions, but we do not get to choose our consequences.
Does this strike anyone else as a really weird non sequitur? I mean, of all the lessons he might take away from this scenario, why this?
It seems like he's a classic sociopath: he doesn't feel much about what he did to his wife and family, or even about nonchalantly breaking the rules of his religion - no, he cares about getting caught.
Well, there's not enough in that statement to really determine that. But yes, it is a perfect example of what a sociopath would say.
There were many interesting examples of this sort of thing in Jon Ronson's book "The Psychopath Test." It claims that psychopaths tend to dissociate their actions from harm to anyone but themselves- so when the harm occurs, it is oriented to the self. If something hurts someone else, that is still seen through the filter of how it affects *me,* and not that other person.
But again, there's way not enough evidence to prove something like that.
Was it this book or The Sociopath Next Door (more clincial, still good, I recommend) that tells about the experiment where they counted down to 10 and shocked the prisoners? Anyway, all reacted. They did it again, the the non-psychopaths heart rate goes waaay up in anticipation, while nothing happens with the psychopaths. They just don't fear it.
Given how manipulative and self-aware these people are, I'm still shocked they fall into that trap. It's what blows my mind about some of the police shootings-- has it occurred to any of these people to say "I was scared and panicked. Your brain does funny things, and exaggerates danger, even if the person is unwarmed. I think every day about that poor kid and how he will never grow up, go to college, marry have kids and grow old."
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:As I am learning the hard way, we have the freedom to choose to (sic) our actions, but we do not get to choose our consequences.
Does this strike anyone else as a really weird non sequitur? I mean, of all the lessons he might take away from this scenario, why this?
It seems like he's a classic sociopath: he doesn't feel much about what he did to his wife and family, or even about nonchalantly breaking the rules of his religion - no, he cares about getting caught.
Well, there's not enough in that statement to really determine that. But yes, it is a perfect example of what a sociopath would say.
There were many interesting examples of this sort of thing in Jon Ronson's book "The Psychopath Test." It claims that psychopaths tend to dissociate their actions from harm to anyone but themselves- so when the harm occurs, it is oriented to the self. If something hurts someone else, that is still seen through the filter of how it affects *me,* and not that other person.
But again, there's way not enough evidence to prove something like that.
Well, to be clear, my intention was not at all to prove anything. Just an observation that his odd reactions to the scandals that have popped up seem to be in line with the actions of a sociopath. It could also be, as sam pointed out, an artifact of his religious beliefs and upbringing. I don't really know.
I should note if you have a religion that encourages and rewards psychopathic behavior, then you can expect to see some conflation between actual sociopaths/psychopaths and people who merely have been brainwashed into acting and thinking that way. Though I honestly don't know enough about psychology to tell you if there's a difference.
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: i guess he was having affairs with porn models while his wife was pregnant too
Allegedly. I find it kind of surprising she says he was too rough, but she wasn't adverse to second helpings.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
That's completely unsurprising and a pretty par for the course story for sex work. Sometimes the money is good enough to make you want to be okay with a renegotiation for round 2.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:As I am learning the hard way, we have the freedom to choose to (sic) our actions, but we do not get to choose our consequences.
Does this strike anyone else as a really weird non sequitur? I mean, of all the lessons he might take away from this scenario, why this?
It seems like he's a classic sociopath: he doesn't feel much about what he did to his wife and family, or even about nonchalantly breaking the rules of his religion - no, he cares about getting caught.
Well, there's not enough in that statement to really determine that. But yes, it is a perfect example of what a sociopath would say.
There were many interesting examples of this sort of thing in Jon Ronson's book "The Psychopath Test." It claims that psychopaths tend to dissociate their actions from harm to anyone but themselves- so when the harm occurs, it is oriented to the self. If something hurts someone else, that is still seen through the filter of how it affects *me,* and not that other person.
But again, there's way not enough evidence to prove something like that.
Was it this book or The Sociopath Next Door (more clincial, still good, I recommend) that tells about the experiment where they counted down to 10 and shocked the prisoners? Anyway, all reacted. They did it again, the the non-psychopaths heart rate goes waaay up in anticipation, while nothing happens with the psychopaths. They just don't fear it.
Given how manipulative and self-aware these people are, I'm still shocked they fall into that trap. It's what blows my mind about some of the police shootings-- has it occurred to any of these people to say "I was scared and panicked. Your brain does funny things, and exaggerates danger, even if the person is unarmed. I think every day about that poor kid and how he will never grow up, go to college, marry have kids and grow old."
In answer the first question, I think that experiment is listed in both books. It's a classic study of psychopathy.
The thing is, as far as I understand from reading these two books and a few other things, that there is a none-too-clearly understood *physical* malformation of the temporal lobe which affects not only emotional reasoning, but also things like speech and semantic understanding.
To a psychopath, there is no appreciable difference between a statement of regret for the consequences of an action, and a statement of regret for the person affected. It doesn't compute- that isn't in their software. For example, there is clinical evidence that psychopaths have more difficulty parsing abstract words- they cannot as easily grasp ideas presented in abstraction the way that normal people are able to.
So, for example, the idea that pain in the past is coming again at the count of ten doesn't somehow filter into their emotional responses. It just happens when it happens- the memory of the pain doesn't affect the way they feel about it. By extension, the knowledge that another person feels pain doesn't provoke a feeling of empathy, because the pain the other person feels is an abstraction that can't be appreciated easily.
That's why Ronson talks so much about psychologists who claim they can spot psychopaths by their speech patterns- they are unable to obfuscate their feelings because they don't actually understand the difference. But that's still a poorly understood area of study.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: i guess he was having affairs with porn models while his wife was pregnant too
Allegedly. I find it kind of surprising she says he was too rough, but she wasn't adverse to second helpings.
Lots of people complain about crappy customers but don't quit their jobs. She wasn't having sex with him because she wanted to; she was getting paid for it.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Holy shit. Aside from the ridiculous and unnecessary pivot to abortion in a discussion about social security, it read very much like an OSC from earlier days, one whom politically I could not just respect but admire.
Part of me wants to remark that it's a bit hackish and partisan not to name any political names when he talks about particular policies that he objects to-which in this case would indict republicans-but I don't have enough familiarity with his pieces in similar situations to make an informed accusation, so I can't do that.
I also disagreed with his bit about hacking over the heads of government entities, since those same entities routinely lie to the American people and their own congressional and judicial oversight as to what they're actually doing, but aside from that, which alongside the bizarre abortion shot, props to you, OSC.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I for one am glad that the conversation about welfare is starting to involve corporate welfare. Including middle class welfare can only make it a better one.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Unless I missed something, there seems to be a pretty big math problem. OSC says that of the 38 million accounts, a significant number were fake, and of the non-fake accounts, 95 percent were male. So then he takes 95 percent of 38 million and gets 36 million potentially cheating husbands.
But we don't know—or at least he doesn't say—what percentage of the 38 million were fake. If 50 percent of the accounts are fake, and 95 percent of the real accounts were male, then that's only 18 million potentially cheating husbands.
(He's also assuming that all the male accounts are of married men, but he does say that some men may have multiple accounts.)
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I was actually going to post in the other thread that several of his recent columns have been really good. Even in places he's said things I disagree with, he seems to have toned down the vitriol quite a bit.
As far as the Ashley Madison hacks: this is a pretty comprehensive data analysis. It seems pretty clear Ashley Madison was a giant scam - perhaps *the* giant scam considering the number of men using the site.
quote:About two-thirds of the men, or 20.2 million of them, had checked the messages in their accounts at least once. But only 1,492 women had ever checked their messages. It was a serious anomaly.
In other words, it seems very probable that almost all of the women on the site were fake. Like, 99.9%+ percent of them were fake. Men were paying hundreds of dollars a year just to indulge in the *fantasy* of possibly having an affair. Which is pretty sad.
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
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posted
I'm just surprised anyone didn't know. It's like all those other skeevy find-a-gurl-in-ur-area sites like adultfriendfinder: SPOILER ALERT THEY ARE ALL DUDES ALL OF THEM ARE DUDES
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: Unless I missed something, there seems to be a pretty big math problem. OSC says that of the 38 million accounts, a significant number were fake, and of the non-fake accounts, 95 percent were male. So then he takes 95 percent of 38 million and gets 36 million potentially cheating husbands.
But we don't know—or at least he doesn't say—what percentage of the 38 million were fake. If 50 percent of the accounts are fake, and 95 percent of the real accounts were male, then that's only 18 million potentially cheating husbands.
(He's also assuming that all the male accounts are of married men, but he does say that some men may have multiple accounts.)
It's a bit more complicated than all that- many of the accounts are not "real" in the sense that the user created the account (for real), but never paid for a subscription, meaning they never actually used the service. Judging from my experience in this field (SAAS platforms, not cheating), that ratio is probably on the order of 20 or 30 to 1 at the very best. So the actual number of paying customers is unlikely to be over a million. It's probably much less than that.
A great ratio for a SAAS product is 3% conversion to paid products. At that rate, if you assume half the accounts are fake, and they company had a phenomenal conversion rate of 5%, that's still 900k. And that's highly optimistic. I'd guess they probably had closer to 300k.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I'm just surprised anyone didn't know. It's like all those other skeevy find-a-gurl-in-ur-area sites like adultfriendfinder: SPOILER ALERT THEY ARE ALL DUDES ALL OF THEM ARE DUDES
Well, or hookers. There are hookers on these services. A friend told me. Totally a friend.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I'm just surprised anyone didn't know. It's like all those other skeevy find-a-gurl-in-ur-area sites like adultfriendfinder: SPOILER ALERT THEY ARE ALL DUDES ALL OF THEM ARE DUDES
Man, I never thought beating a cheating website scam would turn out to be one of the davantages of being gay.
Though I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out the released data is misleading in some way. It wouldn't be that hard to just delete the last messaged and last checked dates only from profiles marked as female.
Posts: 185 | Registered: Apr 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I'm just surprised anyone didn't know. It's like all those other skeevy find-a-gurl-in-ur-area sites like adultfriendfinder: SPOILER ALERT THEY ARE ALL DUDES ALL OF THEM ARE DUDES
Well, or hookers. There are hookers on these services. A friend told me. Totally a friend.
they only ever use sugaring sites where payment is much more explicitly presented as a condition.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
a few who have been involved in sex work did. as did one of my girlfriends from a number of years ago, who was still actively sugaring when we first started going out. There was no real reason to put up with ashley madison at all.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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