It's important to note there's a difference between antisocial personality disorder and just being antisocial.
Just being antisocial is not a personality disorder.
Antisocial - not sociable; not wanting the company of others
Antisocial personality disorder -Those with antisocial personality disorder tend to lie, break laws, act impulsively, and lack regard for their own safety or the safety of others. Symptoms may lessen with age.

We all know people with antisocial personality disorder, we likely have one or more in the Whitehouse, but recognizing them can be impossible if you don't understand what to look for, especially considering most know how to mask their lack of empathy and manipulative personality expertly, even more so when you understand many people would prefer a pleasant lie to a cold hard truth.
Kudos to him for being so open.
*promote *quality information

I've seen a few of these on the sift at least, and I remember a number of us were sceptical. A lot of the time you don't want to be the party pooper that ruins it for everyone by whinging about something being fake.

I think a lot of the time people call things fake but can't quite explain why they think it is too, and I put that down to a subtle reading of things like:
- how likely is that to have happened?
- were the actors behaving within normal parameters for the context? (people hanging around with cameras or props, bears chasing people when they normally wouldn't)
- was there anything to gain out of a successful video? (associated youtube channel)
- did people hit cues and say things that were too perfect?
- if you can't see a cut, can you see an obvious place for a GOOD cut that you missed?
- how hard is it to fake?

What with humans being sociable animals and our evolutionary success is tied to interacting with other humans, I think by and large we're pretty good at spotting bullshit. It takes a very very good fake to trick the majority.

Cheetahs are awesome. Humans have been taming them for thousands of years. They're very sociable and don't inherently see things our size/shape as "lunch."

Note that tame <> domesticate. Tame means "make safe and predictable," not "make into a pet." There are no house cheetahs. But there are lots of relatively safe cheetahs to be around. Look up Marlice van der Merwe.

This would make a hell of a safari story.

@MilkmanDan One of the examples they used in the book was ice hockey. Unlike your example of the multiplier, in many cases, it is winner takes all. So, in hockey, tryouts are in January. Leagues are typically by age group. So, being the absolute oldest you can be for the group naturally entails an age gap that makes you just a bit stronger, faster, more mature, ect. That edge means you are more likely that someone who is born, say, in July-August. That half a year of aging ends up that most of the oldest players edge out all of the youngest players, even in, given apples and apples of age, those younger players might be better overall players; the "skill" gap, however makes that edge not more so than the age gap, and therefor many will not make the team.

This cycle will continue; so, the younger not only will ALWAYS be younger, but usually miss out on being on the team, not getting the necessarily experience needed if he wanted to make hockey his job. He is, in effect, crowded out of the best training and experience not based only on his skill, but his age. So, he is implicitly left out in the rain. I can't remember the exact number, but some statistically significant (like 70+%) of hockey players are born near the normal tryout date for hockey. It would seem doubtful that this be some genetic inheritance of being born in a time of year more than a man made occurrence of time conditions.

So you could apply a multiplier to that, I guess. It just isn't quite as simple as "I have a bigger multiplier in this one spot". There are many "lucky" factors like time of birth, personality, family life, sociability, and random circumstances beyond your control that have huge effects on the overall outcome of your life. And moreso, beyond your raw ability to make up for that difference. One of the great examples (which the book uses) of life getting in the way is Christopher_Langan. He is the only person to score a perfect result on the IQ test, which has never been done, and such, is touted as the smartest man in the world, ever. However, the conditions of his life, broken home, and various others, resulted in him loosing his scholarship, working in a bar, and a relatively unremarkable life. No one knows his name (except for savy sifters, he's on here) even though he should have every opportunity to make use of his great mind. The point of the book, and I think most people would agree when they consider it, is that talent isn't enough. You have to be in the right place, at the right time, and know the right people to make that talent count for something. That even applies for science, it isn't immune to irrational bouts of favoritism and unreasonable circumstance. Everything has its, as Sun Tzu would call it, rules of heaven and earth.

The books main point is that the best of the best aren't in that spot based on merit alone. They had several other, equally important, factors determining the fate of their empires of awesome. The arc of the messages is that many great people in history have been forgotten, and many of the greats that we know weren't really that great.

>> ^jwray:

>> ^blackoreb:
Let me get this straight - you are in favor of increasing government spending, so the government can spend more money on it's people? Very sociable of you.
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I am in favor of any program that takes money away from government, and returns it to people.


He's also apparently in favor of increasing the national debt to pass short term tax cuts for the rich that don't really have any benefit to economic growth, just like dubya did.


But he's in favor of increasing the debt to return money to the people. I'm still not sure what the difference is, but apparently there's a difference. I've yet to hear anyone explain it in a logical fashion, though.

>> ^blackoreb:

Let me get this straight - you are in favor of increasing government spending, so the government can spend more money on it's people? Very sociable of you.
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I am in favor of any program that takes money away from government, and returns it to people.



He's also apparently in favor of increasing the national debt to pass short term tax cuts for the rich that don't really have any benefit to economic growth, just like dubya did.

Let me get this straight - you are in favor of increasing government spending, so the government can spend more money on it's people? Very sociable of you.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

I am in favor of any program that takes money away from government, and returns it to people.

>> ^Trancecoach:

If only people dated by the mathematical numbers.


Well, sex is like math; add the bed, subtract the clothes, divide the legs and hope to hell you don't multiply.

Your video, Math humour: perfect, friendly and sociable numbers, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

>> ^SDGundamX:

>> ^mizila:
In fact, I think atheists tend to appreciate life more and just plain be happier.
Actually, David Sloan Wilson in an amazing experiment using the "Experience Sampling Method" pioneered by Csikszentmihalyi (the guy who investigated psychological "flow" experiences) found the following:
"On average, religious believers are more prosocial than non-believers, feel better about themselves, use their time more constructively, and engage in long-term planning rather than gratifying their impulsive desires. On a moment-by-moment basis, they report being more happy, active, sociable, involved and excited. Some of these differences remain even when religious and non-religious believers are matched for their degree of prosociality." (From this article in which Sloan takes issues with some of Dawkins' statements in The God Delusion.)
So technically, your statement just hasn't been borne out by scientific investigation. That's not to say ALL religious people are happier than atheists. We're talking in the aggregate: on average, religious people tend to be happier (along with having other benefits). This should, of course, in no way interfere with your happiness as an atheist. You personally might be happier than everyone else that Wilson studied. But that doesn't mean everybody in the world besides you is better off without religion.
EDIT: What I would say, I guess, is that some people are happier and more productive being religious and others are happier and more productive being atheist. Depends on the individual.


Like Karl Marx said, religion is a drug. But what I would add is that instead of being opium, it's a mild performance enhancing drug. At least that's what religious people think. But it's simply a placebo: religious people think that by believing in god they are protected/doing good/gaining eternal afterlife/etc. and so they feel better. Classic self-fulfilling prophecy type of thing. The problem of course is that this changes their mental balance, and if something comes that challenge their world view they will get angry, like the addict you try to reason with. If something happens to make their religious worldview crumble, they get depressed, i.e. withdrawal syndrome.

On the other hand atheists are always on neutral. If new scientific evidence challenge their worldview, they'll just say "well, my experience of the world is the same, but my understanding of that experience must change". This is exactly to the contrary of the religious, who always thinks that his experience of the world itself is at stake. Religious people think their experience of the world includes a god, when in fact only their understanding of the world - gotten from the Bible or whatever source of authority - includes a god to explain Everything Else. This is why, I think, the theological debate hasn't advanced in two thousand years: religious types try to prove or disprove the experience of a god - which with the way they usually define god is impossible either way - whereas scientific types say with Laplace that a god is a superfluous hypothesis in the understanding of the experience we have of the world.

So atheists are more mentally stable and view the world and our experience of it in a more reasonable, detached manner. These, I think, are two things needed for humankind to not destroy itself with its own technological marvels. With this in min, it is no wonder that fundamentalists think global warming and weapons of mass destruction are "necessary" : they think the world is ok as it is and all is well with their god's plan, whereas they must also protect themselves against the guys that do not believe in their own god (the atheist commies and the islamic terrorists).

>> ^mizila:

In fact, I think atheists tend to appreciate life more and just plain be happier.

Actually, David Sloan Wilson in an amazing experiment using the "Experience Sampling Method" pioneered by Csikszentmihalyi (the guy who investigated psychological "flow" experiences) found the following:

"On average, religious believers are more prosocial than non-believers, feel better about themselves, use their time more constructively, and engage in long-term planning rather than gratifying their impulsive desires. On a moment-by-moment basis, they report being more happy, active, sociable, involved and excited. Some of these differences remain even when religious and non-religious believers are matched for their degree of prosociality." (From this article in which Sloan takes issues with some of Dawkins' statements in The God Delusion.)

So technically, your statement just hasn't been borne out by scientific investigation. That's not to say ALL religious people are happier than atheists. We're talking in the aggregate: on average, religious people tend to be happier (along with having other benefits). This should, of course, in no way interfere with your happiness as an atheist. You personally might be happier than everyone else that Wilson studied. But that doesn't mean everybody in the world besides you is better off without religion.

EDIT: What I would say, I guess, is that some people are happier and more productive being religious and others are happier and more productive being atheist. Depends on the individual.

Haha, that sounds like me in high school. I was sort of friends with the straight-edge kids who were on the football & lacrosse team (ie fucking jocks). Friends with the cheesy fatwreck punk kids with their intolerable immaturities. Friends with the lo-fi art rock kids, the diy hardcore kids, the loner "abstract artists", the rich brats & golfing kids, the video game geeks, the film nerds and their Videodrome & Holy Mountain... but more importantly I stuck to myself and ended up with a bunch of beautiful weirdo loner babes.

Ironically, for Lev and I since we live in SF we may be loners but it is goddamned impossible to be alone here. Even loners make friends here because everyone in this town is pretty damn weird. The whole loner thing just doesn't work as an adult - but when your a kid it works charms if you're actually into interesting things that no one knows about. If you can't make friends - you're not really alone but it would be pretty damn emotionally isolating - since there are only people & buildings. It was difficult to get used to at first and well - I don't really remember what happened because I spent the next 8 years drinking my way to sociability. Well, until I moved to what I call the only slice of "Appalachia" on Bernal Heights.

I know the feeling, bro. My son reads 'Ranger Rick' magazine, and even though he can easily spend hours on end on his PC because he's a little geek, he agreed with me when I quoted Ranger Richard: "Less screen time, more green time."

I took some pictures of him when we visited Garden Creek Falls today on Casper Mountain. I'll have to post them somewhere here, mainly to prove I'm not a bad dad.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
I've been making an effort to be more productive and sociable, which means cutting back on a nets a bit. I've even spent a little time in the out of doors, and boy does that sun burn bright on my internet vampire skin.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Thank you again, my brother. Haven't seen you around town lately, so I hope all is well for you and Ms. Issy.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
There's definitely definitely definitely no logic to human behavior. http://www.videosift.com/video/Bjrk-Human-Behaviour

*quality idea.

I've been making an effort to be more productive and sociable, which means cutting back on a nets a bit. I've even spent a little time in the out of doors, and boy does that sun burn bright on my internet vampire skin.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Thank you again, my brother. Haven't seen you around town lately, so I hope all is well for you and Ms. Issy.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
There's definitely definitely definitely no logic to human behavior. http://www.videosift.com/video/Bjrk-Human-Behaviour

*quality idea.