Friam

Re: Trump as a victim

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Jochen Fromm-5

Re: Trump as a victim

Well said Steve: "Trump seems to have nothing in his portfolio but a string of ghastly public failures where *he* slips out from under the crumbling building just in time to go on to slap a fat T on another one and start dismantling it from the foundation up like a hungry termite."

Losing 400 Million Dollar not once but twice - first the inherited fortune of the father, then the money from the Apprentice - is a kind of accomplishment too. The only problem is that the last crumbling building could be the American democracy, which is a bit concerning.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/podcasts/the-daily/donald-trump-taxes-investigation.html

-J.

-------- Original message --------

From: Steve Smith <[hidden email]>

Date: 10/7/20 18:10 (GMT+01:00)

To: [hidden email]

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

glen/marcus -

My mantra in this context is: "we all got to be the way we are somehow".

I can claim with seriousness that I *do* spend some of my empathy cycles, trying to grok WTF leads to a Donald Trump, and more to the point what leads to a Donald Trump at the head of our Executive Branch stumbling through his days of Fox&Friends and Twitter without having triggered *even more* disasters than it feels he has managed to exacerbate if not downright generate. My *empathy* kicks in when I try to sort out the various "but by the grace of god there go I" reflections each time I try to imagine what psychological gymnastics he must have gone through at each stage or inflection point in his life.

A study of his own children is probably a little easier than the study of him, since they are busy forming at his knee (under his thumb?) right now... His formation under the wing (and boot?) of Fred Sr. (and Roy Cohn and Roger Stone and ???) is a little obscured by time and a surely sqewed/muted record. Barron is somewhat obscured from us, but when I do catch a glimpse of him or hear a happy-story about him from one of the puff journalists, I cringe a little whilst also wanting to imagine that he can magically rise up and flip the whole precedent on it's head. "Pull a Mowgli" or somesuch. From the similarly thin glimpses I get of Melania, I don't get much sense that she is "helping" the situation much, though she is surely buffering better than Donald's mother was able to do. She (and others) seem to like to observe that he is a "little Donald" which sounds rather tragic on the face of it. I can't say I waste a *lot* of my energy on all of this, but they do make an interesting pseudo-public study in dysfunctional family dynamics... filling perhaps the same niche of morbid fascination as the royal family provides for the Anglophile/Commonwealth? I hear that Prince Harry has lost another title over having endorsed Biden-Harris. I suspect Meghan (at least) is muttering "good riddance" to that title.

I'm no fan of reality TV in most if not all of it's forms (I think I managed to get a kick out of one Ice Road Truckers and one Russian Guy Builds Log Cabin in Siberia episode/podcast but wasn't compelled to return) but I will admit to being stimulated via morbid fascination with the news-stream as Trump flops around in public like the villain in a melodrama trying to hold the stage for the entire last act as he dies dramatically. Trump seems to have nothing in his portfolio but a string of ghastly public failures where *he* slips out from under the crumbling building just in time to go on to slap a fat T on another one and start dismantling it from the foundation up like a hungry termite.

Reminds me a bit too much of that psychological thriller "Pacific Heights" with Michael Keaton as a psychopathic Donald-type:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Heights_(film)

- Steve

On 10/7/20 6:53 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:

A collection of people, who shall remain nameless, recently tried to shame me for objecting to their waste of empathy for poor lil ol Trump, in light of his infection. One argument went something like "His father was horrible." One primary argument went something like "empathy begets empathy". Empathy is not zero-sum. Etc.

I started my objection to all this Trump-as-a-victim talk by listing several aspects of his CHARMED LIFE, like the fact that he's lucky enough to have lived to a ripe old age (when so many of us die young), he was born wealthy (when so many of us live our entire lives dirt poor), his stupid TV show was wildly successful (when so many of us are serial failures), his weaponized litigousness has benefited him throughout his life (when so many of us can't even afford a lawyer). Etc.

All that *privilege* has been bestowed upon him. And it seems, to me, he's squandered it all. He reminds me of those pitiful pictures of Saddam Hussein in court and then prison and then dead. Oh boo-hoo, poor little dictator being mistreated. Such sentiments are not merely weird to me. If game theory and the success of simplistic tit-for-tat has taught us anything, it is that the algorithmic *depth* required to beat straightforward (poetic) "justice" is academically interesting, but pragmatically degenerate.

So, no. I will not waste any of my finite lifetime feeling sorry for poor lil ol Trump, our Privilege Squanderer in Chief. If that magically limits my ability to empathize in some other context, so be it. If it implies that when I die pathetically, under some bridge, eating partial hamburgers from the Wendy's dumpster, my colleagues *rightly* avoid wasting their finite lifetimes feeling sorry for me, then I'm ready for that day. Like it or not, tu quoque is a fallacy.

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David Eric Smith

Re: Trump as a victim

In reply to this post by jon zingale

Conley is an osteopath. Atlas is a radiologist. The AMA tries to weed out the crazy or corrupt, and considering how many really good doctors they manage to train and certify from a broad public of ordinary ability (the category in which I would put all of us as well), I think they deserve credit. But no institution is perfect, and in the US, they face an uphill battle.

Ultimately, the scum floats to the top, even if there isn’t an enormous volume of it.

Eric

> On Oct 7, 2020, at 2:41 PM, jon zingale <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Perhaps, to further flip this on its head, consider Trump's role on "The
> Apprentice". Here we find a man conditioned to play the role of a top
> executive on television. Believing that this means he is capable of
> competently navigating the top executive role for our nation is like
> selecting your doctor based on how well they play the role of a doctor on
> television. Arguably, we see this in the inability of a real doctor, Sean
> Conley, to play a politically savvy doctor on the evening news. On the other
> hand, Conley himself may not be a competent doctor as he appears to fail to
> grasp the spirit of the Hippocratic Oath. His medical advice appears to
> follow from the whims of his patient. Further, the overtly political display
> may fail to "First, do no harm" when it comes to setting a precedence for
> the American people at large.
>
> Meanwhile, Trump continues to act out of his "scope of practice", by
> continuing to give medical advice to the nation. As the Washingon Post puts
> it, "Trump's not a doctor. He's only playing one on TV"[☤].
>
> [☤]
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/23/trumps-not-doctor-hes-only-playing-one-tv/
>
>
>
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Steve Smith

Re: Trump as a victim

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Nick -

Shaping is done by geometric and physical constraints in my lexicon. I use Informed to be more Inform-ational than physical and to suggest that the "informing element/domain" actually provides some of the "material" or "substance" or "content" than the "shaping domain" would. Glen doesn't like us flapping on about metaphors expansively and arbitrarily, but to imply that an emotional reaction has a "shape" suggests more physicality and geometry than I intend. The "emotional reaction" in discussion may well have a deep neurological pattern to it, but *that* physical/geometric/topological shape is likely very difficult to map onto what I mean when I think "emotional reaction". To be self-referential, "what is the shape of your emotional reaction" to my (and others?!) use of the term "informed" do you think? *I* think your emotional reaction is likely *informed* by previous experiences you have had with "hoity toity" (Glen's term of art for much of our prattling/bloviating here, methinks) words being used where something simple and utilitarian could be used mo' better. Maybe other uses of "informed" have been more egregious (or at least less intentional) than my own here, leaving you with a "hair trigger" on the topic.

I'm probably just picking fights here because I wouldn't get past the first perimeter of the White House... prodding at others' "triggers" (I have a particular aversion to that word for my own reasons which are probably *shaped* (or informed?) by the metaphorical domain implied of perhaps firearms, explosive devices or other kinetic weapons). One of my biggest triggers perhaps is the use of the term "trigger" in an emotional context. It makes me want to "go off" on the person messing with my "trigger". I suppose one could say it is a "hair trigger"? So, in the future, I will *shape* my sentences to avoid using the term *inform* outside of the literal usage of one individual transmitting *information* to another!

This is all in fun of course... I'm really not triggered here nor trying to trigger anyone else beyond the superficial. Displacing hand-wringing with vapid banter perhaps.

Carry on,

- Stee

“shaped”, steve. It was shaped. You know what “shaped” means. Nobody knows what “informed” means, in that usage.

And if you ever use “incredibly” to mean “very” or “incredible” to mean good, I will come after you with pitchforks. Somebody said on a podcast that the NYTimes had some incredible reporters. In an age in which credibility is the central issue of our time, we do not want to fudge its meaning.

n

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 10:34 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

Marcus Daniels wrote:

Once one practices modulating a class of these feelings it changes how or even if one experiences them.    Having empathy can just be another form of being reactive which is not a good way for adults to be IMO. It is equally reactive to be enraged every time Trump or Trumpers are on TV.   They dehumanized themselves.

I believe that suppressing one's pity/sympathy/empathy/compassion entirely is the "reactive" mode...   I suspect our friend Donald started down that path at a very young age and has only the barest echoes or ghosts of those feelings remaining.    I knew too many "western men" as a child who seemed to have done the same with their relationship to nature and animals... being brutal with predators/varmints leading to a certain brutality to prey (game animals) to their own working stock (cattle, sheep, rabbits, horses, dogs) and then ultimately their families (wives, children) and could-have-been friends.   They were not devoid of this, but there was something about the lifestyle and circumstance (and social context) that seemed to strongly encourage, if not require, that suppression of empathy.

As a teen I was faced with a looming conscription to go to Vietnam and "kill some gooks" (sorry for the patently non-PC framing, but it captures at least half of the image of the time) as well as being faced with letting that happen and returning to the other half of the country shouting "baby killer" in my face.   I *knew* that these were not my only two choices, but it forced (opportuned?) me to consider what I had to lose if I let my own country (and most of it's citizens) inject me (like a pinball) into that pinball game of "no good choices". What I had to lose was my empathy, as underformed and possibly even maladapted as it was at 14 or 16 or 18 years old.

I am not willing to treat empathy as nothing more than an "emotional reaction", though I acknowledge that it is informed (sorry Nick, I can't help using that idiom) by a deep emotional experience.    Perhaps Empathy is to Pity as Justice is to Revenge...   most of the Right might think this is splitting hairs, and perhaps they have swayed the Left into the same perspective? Everyone's loss.

- Steve
From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of [hidden email]
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 9:07 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

Glen,

I don't think of empathy as something that you gin up; it either happens to you, or it doesn't. And then you decide what you want to do with your empathy. As a child, perhaps,, did you ever read any of Ernest Thompson Seton's (no relative) Lives of the Hunted? The wolf, terror of the Corrumpaw (?), wily killer of sheep, evader of traps, lies before you in a cage, wounded and helpless. You feel empathy. And so you kill it. Anybody who tells you that you should feel empathy lacks empathy for your lack of empathy. I WILL feel empathy for Trump when he's tried. I dread those trials. In fact, even watching him twist and lie and twist and lie, watching him contort, makes me queasy inside, like watching a man tortured. But empathy, like rage, is just another emotion, and needs, like all emotions, to be tempered with reason.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 6:54 AM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

A collection of people, who shall remain nameless, recently tried to shame me for objecting to their waste of empathy for poor lil ol Trump, in light of his infection. One argument went something like "His father was horrible." One primary argument went something like "empathy begets empathy". Empathy is not zero-sum. Etc.

I started my objection to all this Trump-as-a-victim talk by listing several aspects of his CHARMED LIFE, like the fact that he's lucky enough to have lived to a ripe old age (when so many of us die young), he was born wealthy (when so many of us live our entire lives dirt poor), his stupid TV show was wildly successful (when so many of us are serial failures), his weaponized litigousness has benefited him throughout his life (when so many of us can't even afford a lawyer). Etc.

All that *privilege* has been bestowed upon him. And it seems, to me, he's squandered it all. He reminds me of those pitiful pictures of Saddam Hussein in court and then prison and then dead. Oh boo-hoo, poor little dictator being mistreated. Such sentiments are not merely weird to me. If game theory and the success of simplistic tit-for-tat has taught us anything, it is that the algorithmic *depth* required to beat straightforward (poetic) "justice" is academically interesting, but pragmatically degenerate.

So, no. I will not waste any of my finite lifetime feeling sorry for poor lil ol Trump, our Privilege Squanderer in Chief. If that magically limits my ability to empathize in some other context, so be it. If it implies that when I die pathetically, under some bridge, eating partial hamburgers from the Wendy's dumpster, my colleagues *rightly* avoid wasting their finite lifetimes feeling sorry for me, then I'm ready for that day. Like it or not, tu quoque is a fallacy.

--

↙↙↙ uǝlƃ

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jon zingale

Re: Trump as a victim

In reply to this post by David Eric Smith

I think I agree about the AMA deserving credit for the very good work they
perform. They train very good doctors. Since in life it appears we only get
to perform "Quality Assurance" in production, I am dismayed to see that we
have uncovered more than a few bugs in our democratic process recently. I
cannot help but wonder with what probability a quiet, thoughtful,
compassionate, homely, and capable individual is predicted to be president,
or with what frequency one can expect the nation to need one.

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Prof David West

Re: Trump as a victim

AMA should get credit for what they do that is creditworthy.

They should also be chastised, to a lesser but somewhat lesser degree, for the harm caused when they assume the role of a "union" protecting members at all cost. "Bad" doctors are more likely to be incompetent or impaired than evil. That said, there is a lot of similarity between what police unions do to protect those who should be drummed out and doctors that should lose licenses.

In my opinion only.

davew

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020, at 3:40 PM, jon zingale wrote:

> I think I agree about the AMA deserving credit for the very good work they
> perform. They train very good doctors. Since in life it appears we only get
> to perform "Quality Assurance" in production, I am dismayed to see that we
> have uncovered more than a few bugs in our democratic process recently. I
> cannot help but wonder with what probability a quiet, thoughtful,
> compassionate, homely, and capable individual is predicted to be president,
> or with what frequency one can expect the nation to need one.
>
>
>
> --
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>
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>

Steve Smith

Re: Trump as a victim

Gotta love watching Trump "crack the whip" by tweeting that he's ending
COVID relief negotiations, watching the market dip, then implying to
turn them back on and watching it bounce back up.   What a power trip!
Imagine that while on Steroids!   I've never taken Steroids, what do I
know...   but it sounds like it might be a really heady experience...
next thing you know he'll be dating his daughter too?    Gotta love the
poor little imp.

On 10/7/20 4:08 PM, Prof David West wrote:

> AMA should get credit for what they do that is creditworthy.
>
> They should also be chastised, to a lesser but somewhat lesser degree, for the harm caused when they assume the role of a "union" protecting members at all cost. "Bad" doctors are more likely to be incompetent or impaired than evil. That said, there is a lot of similarity between what police unions do to protect those who should be drummed out and doctors that should lose licenses.
>
> In my opinion only.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 7, 2020, at 3:40 PM, jon zingale wrote:
>> I think I agree about the AMA deserving credit for the very good work they
>> perform. They train very good doctors. Since in life it appears we only get
>> to perform "Quality Assurance" in production, I am dismayed to see that we
>> have uncovered more than a few bugs in our democratic process recently. I
>> cannot help but wonder with what probability a quiet, thoughtful,
>> compassionate, homely, and capable individual is predicted to be president,
>> or with what frequency one can expect the nation to need one.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>>
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Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Trump as a victim

I think of him as a wounded hippo and I don't love him in the least.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020, 4:30 PM Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Gotta love watching Trump "crack the whip" by tweeting that he's ending
COVID relief negotiations, watching the market dip, then implying to
turn them back on and watching it bounce back up.   What a power trip!
Imagine that while on Steroids!   I've never taken Steroids, what do I
know...   but it sounds like it might be a really heady experience...
next thing you know he'll be dating his daughter too?    Gotta love the
poor little imp.

On 10/7/20 4:08 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> AMA should get credit for what they do that is creditworthy.
>
> They should also be chastised, to a lesser but somewhat lesser degree, for the harm caused when they assume the role of a "union" protecting members at all cost. "Bad" doctors are more likely to be incompetent or impaired than evil. That said, there is a lot of similarity between what police unions do to protect those who should be drummed out and doctors that should lose licenses.
>
> In my opinion only.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 7, 2020, at 3:40 PM, jon zingale wrote:
>> I think I agree about the AMA deserving credit for the very good work they
>> perform. They train very good doctors. Since in life it appears we only get
>> to perform "Quality Assurance" in production, I am dismayed to see that we
>> have uncovered more than a few bugs in our democratic process recently. I
>> cannot help but wonder with what probability a quiet, thoughtful,
>> compassionate, homely, and capable individual is predicted to be president,
>> or with what frequency one can expect the nation to need one.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>>
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>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
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thompnickson2

Re: Trump as a victim

In reply to this post by Prof David West

Dave West wrote:

In my opinion only.

Whose else?

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 4:08 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

AMA should get credit for what they do that is creditworthy.

They should also be chastised, to a lesser but somewhat lesser degree, for the harm caused when they assume the role of a "union" protecting members at all cost. "Bad" doctors are more likely to be incompetent or impaired than evil. That said, there is a lot of similarity between what police unions do to protect those who should be drummed out and doctors that should lose licenses.

In my opinion only.

davew

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020, at 3:40 PM, jon zingale wrote:

> I think I agree about the AMA deserving credit for the very good work

> they perform. They train very good doctors. Since in life it appears

> we only get to perform "Quality Assurance" in production, I am

> dismayed to see that we have uncovered more than a few bugs in our

> democratic process recently. I cannot help but wonder with what

> probability a quiet, thoughtful, compassionate, homely, and capable

> individual is predicted to be president, or with what frequency one can expect the nation to need one.

> --

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Robert J. Cordingley

Re: Trump as a victim

In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2

Trump is A Problem. The system that put him there is The Problem. It'll still be there after November regardless.

RJC

PS I read Mary Trump's book and felt sorry for him. That lasted about 10 seconds. R

On 10/7/20 5:04 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

I think of him as a wounded hippo and I don't love him in the least.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020, 4:30 PM Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Gotta love watching Trump "crack the whip" by tweeting that he's ending
COVID relief negotiations, watching the market dip, then implying to
turn them back on and watching it bounce back up.   What a power trip!
Imagine that while on Steroids!   I've never taken Steroids, what do I
know...   but it sounds like it might be a really heady experience...
next thing you know he'll be dating his daughter too?    Gotta love the
poor little imp.

On 10/7/20 4:08 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> AMA should get credit for what they do that is creditworthy.
>
> They should also be chastised, to a lesser but somewhat lesser degree, for the harm caused when they assume the role of a "union" protecting members at all cost. "Bad" doctors are more likely to be incompetent or impaired than evil. That said, there is a lot of similarity between what police unions do to protect those who should be drummed out and doctors that should lose licenses.
>
> In my opinion only.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 7, 2020, at 3:40 PM, jon zingale wrote:
>> I think I agree about the AMA deserving credit for the very good work they
>> perform. They train very good doctors. Since in life it appears we only get
>> to perform "Quality Assurance" in production, I am dismayed to see that we
>> have uncovered more than a few bugs in our democratic process recently. I
>> cannot help but wonder with what probability a quiet, thoughtful,
>> compassionate, homely, and capable individual is predicted to be president,
>> or with what frequency one can expect the nation to need one.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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thompnickson2

Re: Trump as a victim

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

Hi Steve, I have been pretty sick all day, sleep about tUUentytuuof the last tUUenty four hours. Many of my symptoms are covidish, but I have been as isolated as anybody on the planet, so I don’t knoUU UUtf is going on. So, Just to say, I uuont be answering your splendid message any time soon.

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 2:45 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

Nick -

This is all in fun of course... I'm really not triggered here nor trying to trigger anyone else beyond the superficial. Displacing hand-wringing with vapid banter perhaps.

Carry on,

- Stee

“shaped”, steve. It was shaped. You know what “shaped” means. Nobody knows what “informed” means, in that usage.

And if you ever use “incredibly” to mean “very” or “incredible” to mean good, I will come after you with pitchforks. Somebody said on a podcast that the NYTimes had some incredible reporters. In an age in which credibility is the central issue of our time, we do not want to fudge its meaning.

n

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 10:34 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

Marcus Daniels wrote:
Once one practices modulating a class of these feelings it changes how or even if one experiences them.    Having empathy can just be another form of being reactive which is not a good way for adults to be IMO. It is equally reactive to be enraged every time Trump or Trumpers are on TV.   They dehumanized themselves.
I believe that suppressing one's pity/sympathy/empathy/compassion entirely is the "reactive" mode...   I suspect our friend Donald started down that path at a very young age and has only the barest echoes or ghosts of those feelings remaining.    I knew too many "western men" as a child who seemed to have done the same with their relationship to nature and animals... being brutal with predators/varmints leading to a certain brutality to prey (game animals) to their own working stock (cattle, sheep, rabbits, horses, dogs) and then ultimately their families (wives, children) and could-have-been friends.   They were not devoid of this, but there was something about the lifestyle and circumstance (and social context) that seemed to strongly encourage, if not require, that suppression of empathy.
As a teen I was faced with a looming conscription to go to Vietnam and "kill some gooks" (sorry for the patently non-PC framing, but it captures at least half of the image of the time) as well as being faced with letting that happen and returning to the other half of the country shouting "baby killer" in my face.   I *knew* that these were not my only two choices, but it forced (opportuned?) me to consider what I had to lose if I let my own country (and most of it's citizens) inject me (like a pinball) into that pinball game of "no good choices". What I had to lose was my empathy, as underformed and possibly even maladapted as it was at 14 or 16 or 18 years old.
I am not willing to treat empathy as nothing more than an "emotional reaction", though I acknowledge that it is informed (sorry Nick, I can't help using that idiom) by a deep emotional experience.    Perhaps Empathy is to Pity as Justice is to Revenge...   most of the Right might think this is splitting hairs, and perhaps they have swayed the Left into the same perspective? Everyone's loss.
- Steve
From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of [hidden email]
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 9:07 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

Glen,

I don't think of empathy as something that you gin up; it either happens to you, or it doesn't. And then you decide what you want to do with your empathy. As a child, perhaps,, did you ever read any of Ernest Thompson Seton's (no relative) Lives of the Hunted? The wolf, terror of the Corrumpaw (?), wily killer of sheep, evader of traps, lies before you in a cage, wounded and helpless. You feel empathy. And so you kill it. Anybody who tells you that you should feel empathy lacks empathy for your lack of empathy. I WILL feel empathy for Trump when he's tried. I dread those trials. In fact, even watching him twist and lie and twist and lie, watching him contort, makes me queasy inside, like watching a man tortured. But empathy, like rage, is just another emotion, and needs, like all emotions, to be tempered with reason.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 6:54 AM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

A collection of people, who shall remain nameless, recently tried to shame me for objecting to their waste of empathy for poor lil ol Trump, in light of his infection. One argument went something like "His father was horrible." One primary argument went something like "empathy begets empathy". Empathy is not zero-sum. Etc.

I started my objection to all this Trump-as-a-victim talk by listing several aspects of his CHARMED LIFE, like the fact that he's lucky enough to have lived to a ripe old age (when so many of us die young), he was born wealthy (when so many of us live our entire lives dirt poor), his stupid TV show was wildly successful (when so many of us are serial failures), his weaponized litigousness has benefited him throughout his life (when so many of us can't even afford a lawyer). Etc.

All that *privilege* has been bestowed upon him. And it seems, to me, he's squandered it all. He reminds me of those pitiful pictures of Saddam Hussein in court and then prison and then dead. Oh boo-hoo, poor little dictator being mistreated. Such sentiments are not merely weird to me. If game theory and the success of simplistic tit-for-tat has taught us anything, it is that the algorithmic *depth* required to beat straightforward (poetic) "justice" is academically interesting, but pragmatically degenerate.

So, no. I will not waste any of my finite lifetime feeling sorry for poor lil ol Trump, our Privilege Squanderer in Chief. If that magically limits my ability to empathize in some other context, so be it. If it implies that when I die pathetically, under some bridge, eating partial hamburgers from the Wendy's dumpster, my colleagues *rightly* avoid wasting their finite lifetimes feeling sorry for me, then I'm ready for that day. Like it or not, tu quoque is a fallacy.

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Steve Smith

Re: Trump as a victim

Nick -

Hi Steve, I have been pretty sick all day, sleep about tUUentytuuof the last tUUenty four hours. Many of my symptoms are covidish, but I have been as isolated as anybody on the planet, so I don’t knoUU UUtf is going on. So, Just to say, I uuont be answering your splendid message any time soon.

Wow dewd! I hope you are COVID (and influenza/etc.) free...

This is a stale posting so there is no time-critical thing... just don't check out on us while we hold our breath waiting for your response!

I hope your recover is shaped and informed by our collective thoughts/prayers/karmic/morphic-resonance

- STeve

No

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 2:45 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

Nick -

Shaping is done by geometric and physical constraints in my lexicon.   I use Informed to be more Inform-ational than physical and to suggest that the "informing element/domain" actually provides some of the "material" or "substance" or "content" than the "shaping domain" would.    Glen doesn't like us flapping on about metaphors expansively and arbitrarily, but to imply that an emotional reaction has a "shape" suggests more physicality and geometry than I intend.   The "emotional reaction" in discussion may well have a deep neurological pattern to it, but *that* physical/geometric/topological shape is likely very difficult to map onto what I mean when I think "emotional reaction".     To be self-referential, "what is the shape of your emotional reaction" to my (and others?!) use of the term "informed" do you think?   *I* think your emotional reaction is likely *informed* by previous experiences you have had with "hoity toity" (Glen's term of art for much of our prattling/bloviating here, methinks) words being used where something simple and utilitarian could be used mo' better. Maybe other uses of "informed" have been more egregious (or at least less intentional) than my own here, leaving you with a "hair trigger" on the topic.

I'm probably just picking fights here because I wouldn't get past the first perimeter of the White House... prodding at others' "triggers" (I have a particular aversion to that word for my own reasons which are probably *shaped* (or informed?) by the metaphorical domain implied of perhaps firearms, explosive devices or other kinetic weapons).   One of my biggest triggers perhaps is the use of the term "trigger" in an emotional context.   It makes me want to "go off" on the person messing with my "trigger".   I suppose one could say it is a "hair trigger"?   So, in the future, I will *shape* my sentences to avoid using the term *inform* outside of the literal usage of one individual transmitting *information* to another!

This is all in fun of course... I'm really not triggered here nor trying to trigger anyone else beyond the superficial.   Displacing hand-wringing with vapid banter perhaps.

Carry on,

- Stee
“shaped”, steve. It was shaped. You know what “shaped” means. Nobody knows what “informed” means, in that usage.

And if you ever use “incredibly” to mean “very” or “incredible” to mean good, I will come after you with pitchforks. Somebody said on a podcast that the NYTimes had some incredible reporters. In an age in which credibility is the central issue of our time, we do not want to fudge its meaning.

n

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 10:34 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

Marcus Daniels wrote:

Once one practices modulating a class of these feelings it changes how or even if one experiences them.    Having empathy can just be another form of being reactive which is not a good way for adults to be IMO. It is equally reactive to be enraged every time Trump or Trumpers are on TV.   They dehumanized themselves.

I believe that suppressing one's pity/sympathy/empathy/compassion entirely is the "reactive" mode...   I suspect our friend Donald started down that path at a very young age and has only the barest echoes or ghosts of those feelings remaining.    I knew too many "western men" as a child who seemed to have done the same with their relationship to nature and animals... being brutal with predators/varmints leading to a certain brutality to prey (game animals) to their own working stock (cattle, sheep, rabbits, horses, dogs) and then ultimately their families (wives, children) and could-have-been friends.   They were not devoid of this, but there was something about the lifestyle and circumstance (and social context) that seemed to strongly encourage, if not require, that suppression of empathy.

As a teen I was faced with a looming conscription to go to Vietnam and "kill some gooks" (sorry for the patently non-PC framing, but it captures at least half of the image of the time) as well as being faced with letting that happen and returning to the other half of the country shouting "baby killer" in my face.   I *knew* that these were not my only two choices, but it forced (opportuned?) me to consider what I had to lose if I let my own country (and most of it's citizens) inject me (like a pinball) into that pinball game of "no good choices". What I had to lose was my empathy, as underformed and possibly even maladapted as it was at 14 or 16 or 18 years old.

I am not willing to treat empathy as nothing more than an "emotional reaction", though I acknowledge that it is informed (sorry Nick, I can't help using that idiom) by a deep emotional experience.    Perhaps Empathy is to Pity as Justice is to Revenge...   most of the Right might think this is splitting hairs, and perhaps they have swayed the Left into the same perspective? Everyone's loss.

- Steve
From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of [hidden email]
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 9:07 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

Glen,

I don't think of empathy as something that you gin up; it either happens to you, or it doesn't. And then you decide what you want to do with your empathy. As a child, perhaps,, did you ever read any of Ernest Thompson Seton's (no relative) Lives of the Hunted? The wolf, terror of the Corrumpaw (?), wily killer of sheep, evader of traps, lies before you in a cage, wounded and helpless. You feel empathy. And so you kill it. Anybody who tells you that you should feel empathy lacks empathy for your lack of empathy. I WILL feel empathy for Trump when he's tried. I dread those trials. In fact, even watching him twist and lie and twist and lie, watching him contort, makes me queasy inside, like watching a man tortured. But empathy, like rage, is just another emotion, and needs, like all emotions, to be tempered with reason.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 6:54 AM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim

A collection of people, who shall remain nameless, recently tried to shame me for objecting to their waste of empathy for poor lil ol Trump, in light of his infection. One argument went something like "His father was horrible." One primary argument went something like "empathy begets empathy". Empathy is not zero-sum. Etc.

I started my objection to all this Trump-as-a-victim talk by listing several aspects of his CHARMED LIFE, like the fact that he's lucky enough to have lived to a ripe old age (when so many of us die young), he was born wealthy (when so many of us live our entire lives dirt poor), his stupid TV show was wildly successful (when so many of us are serial failures), his weaponized litigousness has benefited him throughout his life (when so many of us can't even afford a lawyer). Etc.

All that *privilege* has been bestowed upon him. And it seems, to me, he's squandered it all. He reminds me of those pitiful pictures of Saddam Hussein in court and then prison and then dead. Oh boo-hoo, poor little dictator being mistreated. Such sentiments are not merely weird to me. If game theory and the success of simplistic tit-for-tat has taught us anything, it is that the algorithmic *depth* required to beat straightforward (poetic) "justice" is academically interesting, but pragmatically degenerate.

So, no. I will not waste any of my finite lifetime feeling sorry for poor lil ol Trump, our Privilege Squanderer in Chief. If that magically limits my ability to empathize in some other context, so be it. If it implies that when I die pathetically, under some bridge, eating partial hamburgers from the Wendy's dumpster, my colleagues *rightly* avoid wasting their finite lifetimes feeling sorry for me, then I'm ready for that day. Like it or not, tu quoque is a fallacy.

--

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