Forgot to mention, people with NPD are in the same vicinity as psychopathy, with not feeling empathy or shame. That’s an important part of why it isn’t just another mental health disorder to treat, and why it’s such a serious designation, as compared to describing a person as a little vain. People who can’t feel empathy may still be able to intellectualize it, so it’s not to say they’re guaranteed to be ‘evil’ or something. And people who do feel empathy can still do horrific things. But it’s a pretty serious characteristic of the disorder.

If you mean narcissistic as in self-absorbed, I don’t see millennials being that way more than any other generation. Individualism appears to encourage an “I got mine” mentality where people are overly focused on carving out their little fortress of safety and happiness with little regard for how others are doing or how their hiding within their fortress contributes to the overall state of things. But that’s more of a thing of tapping out of society, whereas, as a pathology, narcissism thrives on attention and admiration. I would think people who are going out of their way to broadcast their life choices, they’re either doing it as a vlogging thing as desperate for money, or they specifically are wanting to know how society feels about things and where they land within it. Which doesn’t necessarily have to do with pathology. I mean, remember we are social beings. And wanting approval from your peers and reassurance that you aren’t an aberration is not narcissistic on its own; I’d say it’s very normal.

In my experience with very few people who seemed distinctly pathological narcissism, it’s not just being bothered by criticism or wanting attention alone. I almost want to say it’s sort of like, if you imagine someone addicted to hard drugs, but instead they are addicted to attention and admiration. So everything in their life becomes about that, it impacts their relationships, the kind of choices they make, and they use people as sources of narcissistic supply, maneuvering them into positions where they can control them and extract from them like resources. It’s not just hurt feelings or defensiveness or posting selfies, it’s like a part of their identity and some of them become disturbingly effective at using people to feed their addiction. (Side note: Addiction may not be the best analogy, cause I’m not sure how much success attempts to heal narcissists has, but it’s the way I could think of atm to convey how deep a thing it is compared to someone who is a little egotistical or gets mad at criticism some of the time.)

Haha, I know how that can be.

I learned a new phrase today, thanks. I could see that being intentional to an extent, for sure. Certainly the alphabet agencies have done far worse over the decades, so it’s not like it’s a stretch to imagine western imperialism trying a thing like that. Would also fit with the general theme of gangster/mafia-like, where the threat isn’t necessarily made explicit, but you are steered toward drawing the conclusion about what can happen. So that people develop certain kinds of fears without those in power having to go full mask off to induce those fears directly. Which, loosely related, but reminds me of how in horror writing, it’s often the case that the audience’s imagined version of the monster through implication is scarier than the real monster. And so much time is spent activating the imagination without showing the monster directly. I know there are also uses of this kind of thing through history, such as military tactics to make an army look bigger than it is or that sort of thing.

In fitting with this, I remember that Mao quote:

All reactionaries are paper tigers. In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying, but in reality, they are not so powerful. From a long-term point of view, it is not the reactionaries but the people who are powerful.

Intimidation and appearance of threat can be more powerful in its effect than the threat itself. Important for us to remember that. That we need to ground ourselves in what the threats substantively are, so we don’t let runaway imagination intimidate us into subservience to imperialism.

Reminds of the “This is Extremely Dangerous to Our Democracy” vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZggCipbiHwE

Fair enough. I guess I am so used to platforms where wording can be a problem, it’s gotten me in the habit of self-censoring more online in general (like reddit really got into my head with how on some subreddits, a post you made could be automatically hidden without you even knowing, presumably because of something in the wording that set off a filter).

Reminds me of Parenti talking about JFK assassination and the gangster nature of the state.

Have had it on my mind cause of other stuff recently too, like this: https://x.com/rafaelshimunov/status/1791581687178281026

Billionaire CEOs didn’t just reach Mayor Adams in a private chat urging him to arrest pro-Palestine Columbia students, they also offered PRIVATE staff to help NYPD. The Mayor accepted.

Members of the group also coordinated with Israel’s war cabinet, UN ambassador and former PM.

Or the Boeing whistleblowers who keep being unalived.

Then this thing from Blinken: not directly threatening starvation, but implying what will happen if you go against them.

Then was also thinking about how imperialist media has accused Russia of being a gangster state before and the whole “every accusation is a confession” thing.

“Resort to” seems like it’s understating a bit the conscious choice of violence on the cops’ part. These demonstrations have been putting nonviolent pressure on the university admins to divest, that’s all. And the protesters are treated like an armed force who is inflicting violence. So far, as far as I know, the only ones starting violence have been israel supporting zionists who have shown up to UCLA (may have been other universities too, not sure) and based on reports and some clips I saw, attacked the encampment with fireworks, attacked people with baseball bats and wooden boards, assaulting them for hours, while security and cops either left or stood by and did nothing.

As someone on twitter wrote: https://twitter.com/bitterarab/status/1785704132675813624

Oh my god this deal sucks get back in the tents 😭😭😭😭😭

I don’t want to be hypercritical because I am proud of every student taking part. But leaving it to a vote for the administration to have in five months (that means five months of genocide profiteering), that’ll probably end up in a no vote, is not a win!!!

Go to reading festival if you wanna camp please don’t accept these ridiculous deals and set shitty precedents for everyone else. Look at your agemates at Hind Hall!

So yeah, this is not a win. It’s the system being crafty, pretending to capitulate in order to disperse activist energy. If it was a vote within a week, I could understand. Then the pressure would be on them to act appropriately. Five months away with what’s happening to Palestine right now and has been happening is plenty of time for them to wait for energy on the issue to weaken, for the situation to change dramatically by then so that it’s no longer relevant in the same way, etc. Then they can silently vote “no” and have it be a footnote in some press thing.

Nothing to make flying feel safe like an airplane quality whistleblower being unalived.

I sympathize with your position here, but I would add that some observable benefit has been had in his orbit. Using myself as an example, some of the grassroots energy and political education that came from people who supported his campaign, or who saw some kind of value in it even if they thought it was a lost cause, helped lead me to the views I have now. We shouldn’t underestimate the value of seizing upon working class movements to educate, provided it’s not faux working class reactionary stuff. And in saying this, we don’t have to give Bernie himself credit for it, of course. My point is just that we shouldn’t let the disgust with the situation deprive us of leveraging opportunities to fight against the indoctrination. This next election may contain such opportunities too, where we’ll encounter people who stubbornly want to do “fix it from within,” but may be easier to get through to when combining the knowledge we can present with certain campaign messaging that is getting them to think about things they’d otherwise have ignored.

If there is anyone who could become a billionaire and then, somehow, without any working class force to make it happen, through sheer incapability to do anything sensible, become an eX-billionaire, it would be Elon Musk.