Trump said "they get it [data] very easily"

[CharonY]

13 hours ago, dedo said:

Maybe you didn't read all my posts as I outlined several possibilities from "DT fulfills hopes of voters" to "Civil war" with other possible scenarios including agreeing with possible JFK'd scenario, since two attempts made already, false flag,

I think I have been unclear, my apologies. What I was referring to is not the range of potential outcomes, but the false equivalency of the outlined outcomes. I.e. in an earlier post you have placed a variety of outcomes with vastly different likelihoods next to each other. So continuing the grab of power seemed, in your argument, just as likely as stopping and then suddenly do all the good things (or at least what his voters want).

Or that voters despite already having voted him in once and then giving him an even stronger mandate the second time around, despite him and his group outlining all the stuff they want to do being so shocked that they will give Dems enough power for impeachment. Or now false flag operations (where the more likely targets would be folks he withdrew security details from...). Again, probably they are all non-zero likelihoods given how crazy things are going. However, the most likely scenario is a continuation of things he only has been started to do.
In my mind, it does not make sense to make up all possible scenarios and treat them as roughly equivalent, especially as it would ignore the ramifications of ongoing events. There is a non-zero chance that he dies from a stroke in a few weeks. But clearly that is less likely than the ongoing dismantling of American institutions.

I also have no idea what your idea of a psychopathology is. What is wrong with this government is fairly simple, they want to amass power in few hands. That is not a mental illness. But a threat to democracy and the power of the people. Where is the need to reframe it to something more abstract? Why be vague when we have specifics?

 

[iNow]

48 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Where is the need to reframe it to something more abstract? Why be vague when we have specifics?

It's a handy way to deflect from the actual threat and distract into less relevant ethereal subjects where action cannot be taken. Whataboutism in another form...

[exchemist]

8 hours ago, dedo said:

Charon said that my answer was dichotomous, when I believe I mentioned ~5 possible futures for current events (there are probably more).  This whole thread is about "something is wrong" with this current administration, meaning psychopathology.  You mentioned issues in Europe.  So if someone wants to explore it somewhere else, that could be interesting.  Personally think the pathology is an external influence on behavior (in social norms), more than primary mental illness.  Something in society is moving people to follow their autocrat of choice.  Whatever that is, it threatens our survival.  Artists often hint at it first, Elvis Costello (Two Little Hitlers) about relationships but it hints at autocracy & conflict which intersects a political theory of preventing conflict called "Democratic Peace Theory" meaning democracies rarely fight one another.  However, something in society can turn a democracy into an autocracy which is what this thread is about.  (Intersection of art or other disciplines with science could be another interesting thread.)

Thanks for the clarification. However I don't see why you interpret something being wrong with the administration as meaning psychopathology - unless you are referring to Trump himself as the thing that is wrong. Is that what you mean?

There does seem to be a body of opinion that Trump may indeed be a psychopath. I gather he seems to have the classic attributes of one. But Project 2025 and the people behind that do not seem to be mentally ill - far from it. Trump is their front man -  their useful idiot - but not the ideological guiding spirit. His mind does not appear able to focus on anything other than himself. In spite of that, or perhaps harnessing it, it does look as if Project 2025 is being executed, with speed, as I indicated in my earlier post.  

I'm sure you touch on something important when you observe that  "something in society is moving people to follow their autocrat of choice." I am actually not sure if that is a correct inference. As an external observer from across the Atlantic, I am not clear at all whether or not US citizens have actively embraced autocracy (or the risk of it), by electing Trump a second time, in spite of awareness that he tried to overturn an election result. On the face of it, It looks as if they have, but that may be being too rational. From our own recent election choices (and the referendum on EC membership) it seems a fair portion of the electorate simply does not join the dots in a rational way. They seem motivated by single issues of concern to them, or by emotional "feel" about the candidates.

Perhaps you would be right to suggest there may be a collective psychopathy at work in society, in which hatred has been stoked to the point that people voted for Trump, emotionally, in order to "own the libs", heedless of where it could take the country. For instance there is a MAGA man on another forum who is beside himself with glee at how the "libs" will now be crushed. It's pure hatred, not any product of reasoning.  

 

[dedo]

39 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Thanks for the clarification. However I don't see why you interpret something being wrong with the administration as meaning psychopathology

By psychopathology, I meant that there is something wrong with behavior.  Behavior pathology does not have to be from mental illness, it can also be from biology including genetics, difficult birth, or external influences on behavior from toxins, trauma, drugs, or to some sort of indoctrination added to life experiences.

I believe the issues people are concerned about in this thread fall into the latter category, meaning external influences including indoctrination and life experiences.  

One criminologist proposed that criminal violence is caused by 4 specific cumulative life experiences including violent coaching or indoctrination discussed in the book "Why They Kill . . ." by Rhodes.    Much less is known or proposed about what specific life experiences causes violent autocrats to emerge, and for people to follow them.  

What people are concerned about here, may be the same process that creates autocrats around the world and in different periods of history.  What we don't know is how far it will go this time.  I believe it is a good idea to try to figure it out, before we find out.   That is because, if like criminal violence, it comes from a cumulative process then we either defuse the process that causes the pathology, or at some point it becomes fulminant and explodes.

[dedo]

6 hours ago, CharonY said:

So continuing the grab of power seemed, in your argument, just as likely as stopping and then suddenly do all the good things (or at least what his voters want).

Sorry, did not mean to imply probability weighting which is beyond my expertise.  A wild guess would be we are heading for a Constitutional crisis possibly resolved by the Congress, or a false flag issue.  Someone yesterday on X claimed there was a hit team in the US or coming with shoulder fired missiles.  Of course, believing anything on X is a stretch.  So your guess is as good as mine regarding the outcome of where we are now, and I believe I am as concerned as you.

[TheVat]

3 hours ago, exchemist said:

From our own recent election choices (and the referendum on EC membership) it seems a fair portion of the electorate simply does not join the dots in a rational way. They seem motivated by single issues of concern to them, or by emotional "feel" about the candidates.

Yep.  As I read this thread, I am reminded of Hanlon's Razor.  A variant on that might be, Never attribute to psychopathology what can be explained by stupidity.  And the current handmaidens of American stupidity seem to be inattention, civic ignorance, declining literacy, and...okay, there might be something there (especially as regards the toxic effects of social media) that could be framed as a pathology.  A social pathology, perhaps.  And the fundamental symptom might be shortened attention span.  Understanding complex issues, and why single issue obsessions cannot reliably guide a sound choice of governance, require sustained attention and critical thought.  The erosion of that is a sort of pathology in the body politic.

 

[exchemist]

10 hours ago, dedo said:

By psychopathology, I meant that there is something wrong with behavior.  Behavior pathology does not have to be from mental illness, it can also be from biology including genetics, difficult birth, or external influences on behavior from toxins, trauma, drugs, or to some sort of indoctrination added to life experiences.

I believe the issues people are concerned about in this thread fall into the latter category, meaning external influences including indoctrination and life experiences.  

One criminologist proposed that criminal violence is caused by 4 specific cumulative life experiences including violent coaching or indoctrination discussed in the book "Why They Kill . . ." by Rhodes.    Much less is known or proposed about what specific life experiences causes violent autocrats to emerge, and for people to follow them.  

What people are concerned about here, may be the same process that creates autocrats around the world and in different periods of history.  What we don't know is how far it will go this time.  I believe it is a good idea to try to figure it out, before we find out.   That is because, if like criminal violence, it comes from a cumulative process then we either defuse the process that causes the pathology, or at some point it becomes fulminant and explodes.

Behaviour of whom? That is what I am unclear about, from your posts so far. 

Are you talking about Trump as an individual? Or Musk, or others in Trump's administration? Or US society as a whole? Or some other group?