Warning Signs
POSTED BY: Jongsstraw
UPDATED: Sunday, April 29, 2007 19:28
VIEWED: 14532
PAGE 6 of 15
Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:Quote:Okay, there was definitely a screw loose, but society could be set up to not loosen more an already loose one... Okay, crappy analogy- but you get what I mean, right?
Originally posted by Fletch2:
Cho could see himself as victimised because he saw himself as a victim, and he believed he was a victim because he was "victimised."
Loose Chrisisall
Absolutely. The point I was making is that from INSIDE a situation the world can look very different from how it looks outside so Cho's explanation may not reflect general reality, just Cho's reality.
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Quote:Agreed.
Originally posted by Fletch2:
The point I was making is that from INSIDE a situation the world can look very different from how it looks outside so Cho's explanation may not reflect general reality, just Cho's reality.
Agreeable Chrisisall
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Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Not every child in our society will turn out like that, but our means and methods make damn sure every single one of them has the potential.
This one sentence really jumped out at me. And it really underscores the different ways we think about social systems and physical systems (by physical I am referring to systems that can be reasonably well modeled using the laws of physics).
If it was a physical system we were discussing and we had identified that the design or implementation increased the potential of a negative event occurring we would do something. We would either take steps to decrease the potential or we would satisfy ourselves that the cost of decreasing the potential was greater than the cost of dealing with the negative event given the probability of the event occurring.
Well, social systems are designed and implemented as well. The big difference is that many of the design decisions are masked by culture or history, etc. It's clear that we have a social system that amplifies the negative potential already present in certain individuals. To me, it seems pretty clear that the cost of dealing with the negative events that result from that amplification is way too high. So we have an obligation to take steps to change the system.
But it's more than that. The social system has a negative impact on everyone involved.
Not sure if that makes sense to anyone else but it really helped me. And all of this is with the caveat that I have a tendency to overapply engineering concepts to social systems (which ticks off my partner, who is in the humanities).
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Quote:Make perfect, logical sense, Soup.
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
To me, it seems pretty clear that the cost of dealing with the negative events that result from that amplification is way too high.
Not sure if that makes sense to anyone else
Chrisisall
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Taking the engineering analogy even further no matter how well designed something is you can get one off component failures. I don't know many businesses that would pay the expense to "rework the line" to try to correct 1 failure in 6 Million (which is the chance of a school/college shooting)most would keep the line the same and accept the failure cost.
In more general terms I think 3 things are going on here.
1) Parents are increasingly disconnected from their kids and their kids problems. Some of this is economic some of it societal but it deprives kids of parental support.
2) Pressure has definately increased, both performance pressure and peer pressure.
3) I know that people don't want to hear it bit there is a copycat effect. At one time kids that couldn't take it commited suicide, now culture and reporting of previous shootings suggest that if you take folks out with you then you become a "somebody." I think there are deeply unhappy kids that may kill themselves now TV suggests that if they kill others too they can die as celebrities.
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#1 - Abso-fekkin-lutely, many of our social timebombs are "Latchkey Kids" if anyone remembers that idiocy.
#2 - Definately, often in combination with #1, trying to run a household at the early teen age because your parent or parents are unavailable due to working long hours just to pay the bills is more stressful than those who have never been there could imagine, add in class, grade and peer pressure, and it's quite an unpleasant situation indeed.
#3 - I dunno about the celebrity aspect, it seems more to me a combination of 2 factors.
A- One way or another, the intolerable situation ENDS, right there.
B- They wanna send society at large a message.
Believe me, if there was any way to get it to those considering copycatting, I would put it in neon lights - Message Recieved, You Can Stop Now.... but society doesn't get it, ignores it, and so it continues.
I rather doubt someone facing imminent death really cares all that much for celebrity status, rather more so they want their message carried across loud and clear.
As for how to carry it across to would be copycatters that we've heard it, and wish to act on it ? mere words won't cut it, nor will more draconian measures, those will only reinforce the belief that death and violence are their only escape... we need to *show* them that we've got the point and are willing to work on the problem.
And for that, we have to be honestly willing to do it, not throw a couple quick bandaids on it and go back to ignoring it till the next one.
Don't ever think this cannot eventually devolve into generational warfare.
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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Name that poet:
Quote:
Nigger
Can you kill
Can you kill
Can a nigger kill
Can a nigger kill a honkie
Can a nigger kill the Man
Can you kill nigger
Huh? Nigger can you
kill
Do you know how to draw blood
Can you poison
Can you stab-a-Jew
Can you kill huh? Nigger
Can you kill
Can you run a protestant down with your
‘68 El Dorado
(that’s all they’re good for anyway)
Can you kill
Can you piss on a blond head
Can you cut it off
Can you kill
A nigger can die
We ain’t got to prove we can die
We got to prove we can kill
and
Also a company called Revolution has just issued
A special kit for little boys
Called Burn Baby
I’m told it has full instructions on how to siphon gas
And fill a bottle
and
and it occurred to me
maybe i shouldn't write
at all
but clean my gun
and check my kerosene supply
Answer:
Professor Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni, English and Black Studies, Virginia Tech University, teacher of shooter Cho Seung-hui, who gave the eulogy for 33 students murdered by her student.
www.vdare.com/sailer/070422_giovanni.htm
Giovanni taught the Virginia Tech shooter Seung-hui Cho in a poetry class. She described him as troubled and downright "mean" and, when she approached the department chair to have Cho taken out of her class, said she was willing to resign rather than continue teaching him. She also claimed that she immediately suspected that Cho might be the shooter when she heard about the shooting, and would have been shocked otherwise. She has a tattoo with the words "Thug life" to honor Tupac Shakur, whom she admired.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Giovanni
Where is the nigger from?
Answer:
My home town in Tennessee. Also home of Bushes' Skull & Bones mayor/ambassador/boytoy Victor "Victoria" Ashe, introduced on TV as "the openly gay mayor of Knoxville". Also home of Controlled Demolitions Inc, et al.
Mind Control 101...
More "coincidences" - the shooter's Korean sister is employed by CIA and Bush Jr's nappy ho Kinda Sleazy Rice. Bush was in charge of police at VA Tech, after the convenient copkilling there last year, and ordered the local cops to stand down to allow the body count to rise, just like he did on 9/11. VA Tech has CIA contracts for mind control experiments on students. CIA holds recruiting seminars for students on VA Tech campus - and on most college campuses.
www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=28209
"You can't stop the signal!"
-Mr Universe, Pirate TV
FIREFLY SERENITY PILOT MUSIC VIDEO V2
Tangerine Dream - Thief Soundtrack: Confrontation
https://video.indymedia.org/en/2007/02/716.shtml
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=8cd2bd0379340120e7a6ed00f2a53ee5
.1044556
www.myspace.com/piratenewsctv
DRIVE BY MIND CONTROL: FREE TV EPISODES ONLINE
www.myspace.com/driveonfox
Does that seem right to you?
www.scifi.com/onair/
Difficile est saturam non scribere
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Quote:Good for you. Do you want a cookie? I don’t know what kind of work you do or what kind of superior you are to your subordinates. Based on your personality on this board, I would suspect that quite a few people on this board, including me, snickered at the notion that you could possibly be uncritical about anything. But people’s online personalities are generally independent of the realworld personalities. So I take your word for it.
Originally posted by SignyM:
I supervise nine chemists, one technician, and a senior chemist and I fired (yep fired) a poor performer from a government position. I'm also a household employer and I've fired some of those folks too. I also parent a neurologically challenged and defiance-prone teen. And I tell you with all honesty that I have NEVER seen anyone motivated by criticism, not once. You can teach people to fear YOU, you might even get them to avoid a particular behavior but you will certainly not get better performance and greater motivation through fear. You get far better performance from instruction and reward. That is not to say that there shouldn't be consequences. I DO fire people, and I don't believe in enabling bad habits. But once the standards are known and the consequences are clear, and you've gone through a performance improvement plan then it's up to the person to decide what they're going to do.
Speaking hypothetically, it’s dangerous when a superior lacks the self inspection to see their own criticism, because what that means, more often then not, is that the superior will obliviously step over the line more frequently. Meaning that a superior who is unable to see his or her own critical arguments to his subordinates is often and unknowingly overly harsh. I know such a guy. He’s an asshole much of the time and doesn’t even realize it. If you get him away from work, he's really a nice guy. Not that you like that. I’m sure you’re a basket of roses at work. But just as curious is this idea that professional criticism is tantamount to “fear.” In order for you to feel like criticism exists, you must perceive some degree of fear from your subordinates? You can say all kinds of mean and rotten things before you ever get to the point where your subordinates are perceptively afraid of you.
Quote:Of course, you’ve already laid out that you’re never critical of anyone. And as far as Frem is concerned, well some of the comments I’ve read from him about Christians alone exceed anything that might be called criticism. But I’m not going to get into specifics. If for no other reason then that it seems futile. Whether you believe it or not, professional criticism does exist and it is instrumental in the workplace, particularly in fields of medicine and science, and there are few times, that I can think of, in which that criticism should extend to “fear,” but it does exist. I’ve worked professionally in two very different fields, as a medical physicist for a biomaterials and oncology lab and then as an analysis for the Army. In both cases there was a high degree of competitive and constructive criticism, which maintained our professional productivity and precision of product. But these are important jobs in which quite frankly the lives of other people were dependent upon the success of our product, so perhaps that drove us to a higher degree of critical analysis then is perhaps necessary in your work. I don’t know.
Originally posted by SignyM:
Hey! I do not! Neither (as I recall) does Frem. Nor do I propose or suggest that personal attacks improve debate. So watch who you're sticking with the criticism, OK?
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:It seems like most of the harshest Bullying that I dealt with in school ended with me getting my ass kicked, and I got the scars to prove it. It generally ended there though. After that one fight it was over. They didn’t bully me anymore and in at least two instances, the bully ended up being a friend later on. Go figure.
Originally posted by chrisisall:
EDIT: To tell the truth, I remember worrying that he might beat me up for my little wig-out, I wouldn't have my knife with me all the time. Imagine my happy surprise when he just never talked to me again, heh heh.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:except ...
Good for you. Do you want a cookie? I don’t know hat kind of work you do or what kind of superior you are to your subordinates. Based on your personality on this board, I would suspect that quite a few people on this board, including me, snickered at the notion that you could possibly be uncritical about anything. But people’s online personalities are generally independent of the realworld personalities. So I take your word for it.
Quote:hah hah hah! You clearly don't know me! Professional criticism from a supervisor (such as myself) might elicit fear. Criticism between peers is a different situation. Context is important.
Speaking hypothetically, it’s dangerous when a superior lacks the self inspection to see their own criticism, because what that means, more often then not, is that the superior will obliviously step over the line more frequently. Meaning that a superior who is unable to see his or her own critical arguments to his subordinates is often and unknowingly overly harsh. I know such a guy. He’s an asshole much of the time and doesn’t even realize it. If you get him away from work, he's really a nice guy. Not that you like that. I’m sure you’re a basket of roses at work. But just as curious is this idea that professional criticism is tantamount to “fear.” In order for you to feel like criticism exists, you must perceive some degree of fear from your subordinates? You can say all kinds of mean and rotten things before you ever get to the point where your subordinates are perceptively afraid of you.
Quote:No. that's not what I said. I said that motivating through fear doesn't work.
Of course, you’ve already laid out that you’re never critical of anyone.
Quote:I guess I misremembered.
And as far as Frem is concerned, well some of the comments I’ve read from him about Christians alone exceed anything that might be called criticism. But I’m not going to get into specifics. If for no other reason then that it seems futile.
Quote:It's very useful in brainstorming, in looking at problem from all angles (such as we do here on the board)
Whether you believe it or not, professional criticism does exist and it is instrumental in the workplace, particularly in fields of medicine and science,
Quote:Out of curiosity, how was this "competitive and constructive criticism" exchanged? Between peers? Through several levels of hierarchy? Formally? Over the coffeepot?
and there are few times, that I can think of, in which that criticism should extend to “fear,” but it does exist. I’ve worked professionally in two very different fields, as a medical physicist for a biomaterials and oncology lab and then as an analysis for the Army. In both cases there was a high degree of competitive and constructive criticism, which maintained our professional productivity and precision of product. But these are important jobs in which quite frankly the lives of other people were dependent upon the success of our product, so perhaps that drove us to a higher degree of critical analysis then is perhaps necessary in your work. I don’t know.
The problem that I have with my group is that everyone is doing something unique. Altho I try to make sure everyone is cross-trained, right now I'm so short-staffed that I can't afford overlap so person A doesn't get much involved with person B.
---------------------------------
Always look upstream.
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