Notes on Office Politics

Anne Hathaway’s character in “The Devil Wears Prada” was a little irritating sometimes. Although I very much liked that movie overall. I liked all the pretty dresses and I liked how it was girl-power most of the way.  However, I did NOT like the ending, as predictable as it was -- the girl choosing the apathetic boyfriend and being happy when he got a promotion over advancing her own career.

You are getting there, but you have much to learn, young grasshopper.

I've seen manifestations of this elsewhere. "Oh gosh I'm such a good and pure and kindhearted person.” Permutations in other mass market paperback books also. “Oh gosh I'm such a good and pure person, I have never wanted to hurt someone in my entire life. I’m such a sweet innocent pure-hearted angelic person, I don’t have a selfish bone in my body, oh gosh I would NEVER play office politics to advance my own career. Never ever ever."

Oh, shut the hell up. You ain’t that naiive and sweet. You merely have an inflated sense of yourself, a distorted sense of unearned self-esteem. You need to knock yourself down a couple of pegs and quit thinking so highly of yourself, cause you ain’t that much of a good pure perfect person.

Office politics. I can, I have, and I will do it again.

I think it was in Glamour mag that I once read the following, I don't really remember, this was about thirteen years ago. A mag reader woman wrote in to the advice column or something, that she was starting her own business. Just before leaving her previous job, she took a list of her previous employer's clients with her and was planning to recruit those clients for her own business. Her question was whether or not this was ethical. Then, the column answerer chided this woman for not practicing ethics, this was totally dishonest, this was dishonestly and immorally stealing the business's clients, that’s stealing company property, blah blah blah.

Erm, maybe it's just me, but I really don't see a problem with what the reader woman did. If the column answerer was so sensitive about this situation, well then sweetie, perhaps you should not be in business. That’s just how the game is played. If you really can't handle that, then perhaps you would be better suited to a post in civil servantry. You sort of need to grow a thicker skin if you expect to be able to survive in the business world.

If that business doesn’t want employees stealing their clients, perhaps they should protect and guard them more carefully. All this woman did was take some cards from a Filofax file. It’s not like she broke into a locked office.

An important note -- I have never and I would not ever steal other people's ideas, plagiarize. This is because I know how much work goes into thinking up and implementing good ideas. And I would not do that. I absolutely believe in giving people full credit for their ideas.

However, I would play people against each other, make sure they blame each other for a problem and then act all innocent as if I had absolutely nothing to do with it. (The vast majority of the time, this is my game -- all I'm doing is being a messenger and gleefully cackling as they get angry at each other.) Learn people's insecurities and exploit them. Rally people and turn them against the supervisor because the supervisor is not giving me what I want. Keep a few people in my corner at all times. Go over my immediate and inept incompetent supervisor's head and go to the person who actually has some power and authority -- and get that person to say yes. Make friends with the right people who do have power just so I can have a little bit of weight in my corner.


Of course, I couldn't be an actual low-life criminal. Good god man, even the thought that so many people fantasize about being gangsters or mafia or whatever is quite pathetic. The few times I barely flirted with resorting to criminal means, it was an unpleasant feeling. I feel cold and alone, it's a sick, dark, depressing place. There is no one there to be my partner and friend. It is a low dark place desperate bleak place where all hope is lost, where you are completely alone. A dull feeling of mild devastation, it is dull, for you are so far gone that actual feelings do not register anymore. Despair.

Mind you, that is not the same thing as office politics. Office politics, I don't have a problem with. It’s just business, son. Some people call the act of stealing clients from a company unethical. Sorry, but that's not unethical, it's just business. If I have to play the waters and navigate to make sure I come out on top, I don't really see anything wrong with that. Play people against each other, whatever. I don't necessarily see a problem with that. I can, I have, and I will again.

However, screwing around sexually, sleeping one's way to the top -- that is not okay. Regular office politics shows that you can play the game and handle the business. It shows that you can do the job. But sleeping one's way to the top don't prove nothin' other than the fact that one is a wh---. Also, it's a matter of straightforward logic. The females that do that don't seem to realize that when they screw around like that, they almost always come out as the losers, physically and emotionally.


Sleeping around -- no, because that is disgusting and that truly is a lack of morals and respect for oneself. And again, some females don't seem to realize that when they sleep around, they are hurting themselves the most. Whatever little bit of fleeting recognition one might get from sleeping with the right person is greatly outweighed by the fact that you basically pretended you have zero emotions and that what happens with your body is completely separate from you as a person and that this can transpire without any damage to your own physical or emotional health.

Any males that have a problem with that are probably just mad that a woman got power and authority by successfully playing office politics _without_ needing to open up the goodies to do it. I.e., that male is mad that he didn't get to taste the goodies. And I know some females are going to be furious that I said that office politics are okay but sleeping one's way to the top is not okay. I've seen this before -- these letters are usually from females that are chronic sleep-their-way-to-the-toppers that are mad that I think I am better than them. They seem to think that simply making sure I keep my head above water is as bad as whoring yourself out. Ahh, they're just jealous that I was smart enough not to have to sleep the way to anyone's top. Perhaps they need a little bit of what the kids call "perspective." You're seriously trying to tell me that you can't tell the difference between being savvy in the workplace -- and whoring around? There is a spectrum of behavior that spans from "one-hundred percent lily white pure innocent completely honest with work and career at all times" --and-- being a disgruntled employee that shoots up the place.

And guess what -- office politics and whoring around are not duplicate overlappers on this spectrum.

I see other letters from women who are perhaps a little too innocent. They seriously seem to think that office politics is a huge breach of ethics that is absolutely as bad as sleeping the way to the top. I feel for them and I want to talk to them.

Yes, it is good that they want to be honest people and want to make sure they conduct themselves with self-respect and respect for others at all times. But also unfortunately, the reality is that you cannot go into any business setting and assume that everyone else has a very clear-cut moral and ethical compass and that they would always care about not hurting your feelings. You cannot assume that other people in the office are looking out for _your_ best interests and that they would never ever sell you down the river.

Sure it's great to help other people, but you have to make sure you are looking out for Number One first and foremost. That is the unfortunate reality -- you have to be a little bit on the defensive at all times. Keep your eyes peeled, your ears to the ground, all that good stuff. You have to be able to look out for yourself and be sure that you keep yourself safe and healthy.

And this is not necessarily a bad thing. "Selfish" doesn't have to mean screwing other people over. It can simply mean not letting other people screw you over. You don't have to compromise your core morals and sense of health and self-respect to be able to survive in the business world. You just have to learn to play the game.

Unfortunately some people will attempt to draw parallels between this and how I hypothetically conduct myself in my personal life -- which I find laughable. As if.

Personal life means family, friends, marriage. This means human beings that I interact with, actual relationships that I have with people who are flesh-and-blood and have feelings and need to be treated with respect. I feel a guilty ashamed feeling if the possibility even enters my mind to do something cruel or unfair to someone I love. I don't want to betray a person, and especially I don't want to betray myself. If I do something dishonest or disgusting in real life, i.e., regarding human beings in my personal life whom I love, I feel as if I have betrayed myself the most. I am not okay with human beings in my life treating me that way, and I am not okay with treating other human beings in my life that way.

Believe it or not, I can tell the difference between a human being and the generic work environment. A business is not a person, not a human being, not a living breathing conscious sentient creature with feelings. It is simply a business, a nameless, faceless entity that does not have feelings and does not need to be treated as such. I came here to get mine, get over, and get out. The only person to whom I need to be loyal is myself.

We are going to make it, after all.

This is one of the reasons that I love "Ugly Betty." She is smart and savvy enough to realize that yes, office politics is important. It is a useful skill to have, to be able to shrewdly analyze people and deduce what their motivations are, to whom their loyalties lie -- and being able to play these to your advantage. And she also steadfastly maintains her personal morals -- she never slept around or got people drunk to agree with her or anything like that.

Now, she was not always good at office politics. When she started out working at the Meade empire, she was very innocent and naiive about the way the business world works. But as the series progressed, she grew and learned and became more wise. And like Freddie Rodriguez said, "I've seen you swim with those sharks at Mode. You were right for choosing yourself. You're going to do great things."

Evolutionary Anthropology

call it evolutionary anthropology

My awesome groundbreaking trailblazing thesis/dissertation::

Does human creativity and imagination go through evolution as surely as human physiological evolution?  witness:

•Pyramids were built at similar times, seven thousand miles away from each other.  Aztec pyramids at Giza.  Egyptian pyramids.

•Two different people invented, discovered similar methods of extracting and purifying elemental aluminum.

•Charles Darwin and that other dude both discovered/theorized the existence of evolution at around the same time, without collaborating with each other.  that other dude didn't get much recognition for it.

"Synchronicity"

Evolution can be observed in culture and technology, both of which are human creations.

The deities that a culture worships are reflective of that culture's values. So this aspect is distinct and identifying from civilization to civilization.

I hadn't considered the fact that as humans evolved, so did our religion.  Obviously religion has changed over time as human understanding of the universe grew more detailed over time.

But here, they are making the claim that religion, meaning people's perception of the universe and of their place in it, actually improved over time.  As in, their system of belief reflected their more mature, comprehensive worldview.

Cultures Are Unrecognizable Now as Compared to 2000 Years Ago

Some cultures are COMPLETELY different nowadays compared to how they were back in their heyday, back during their respective golden age.  The ancient peoples would not recognize their own culture if they were transported through time to modern day.  Or more specifically, they would not recognize the people that now reside in the same geographic location.

There is a notion in sociology and history of the "collective consciousness," the soul of the people.  The culture has a sort of sentience, an awareness, a certain disposition and a way of looking at all aspects of life -- education, religion, sex, lifestyle, common occupations.

••Ancient Egyptians.

••Ancient Aztecs and Mayans.  Nowadays they promote a culture of Mariachi bands, Spanish senoritas dancing in fiery crimson dresses with fantastically flouncy skirts.  Don't get me wrong, I love all of it, it is so much fun.  In addition, many of them practice Catholicism nowadays in place of their old, native polytheistic belief systems.

But it is not *them.*  Luckily one of the Mexican restaurants where I live is paying homage to the old-school Mexican culture-- that of the native Indians.  Getting back to their roots.

••Ancient Rome.  They are much much better now than back then.  Back then they were vile thugs.  Bloodthirsty, sick, depraved creatures that derived their pleasure from the torturing of human beings.  They enslaved the ancient Greeks and absorbed (cough*stole*cough) all the Greeks' culture, from their gods to their Doric and Ionic columns.  They fed on dreck that was beyond disgusting, gruesome, as entertainment.

But now modern-day Italians are all romantic and sexy, a trend that has been in place for the last few hundred years or so. With their classical music, their sexy actors and futbol players, their reputations of being the world's greatest lovers.  And there's that whole Vatican City thing.

••Ancient Greece.  They are not really *worse off* now per se.  Just different.

••United States.  Obviously completely different.  Not sure if this is a fair comparison because the population is comprised of numerous different groups, which is caused by huge onslaughts of different cultures.  Whereas the above-mentioned places have not had significant amounts of immigrant influxes.

How can a collective population of souls just be suddenly violently derailed like that?  how can it be so impacted that the people are unrecognizable nowadays?

---
Hmmm...  The cultures of China and India, by contrast, have retained pretty much the same culture as what they had four thousand years ago.  There are technological advances and infrastructure, sure.  And they have developed majors of study in university that adeptly cover all modern branches of science.  But in terms of the culture -- the religious traditions, the food, the personal that can become the political, those introspective as well as social dynamics -- are still quite similar.  They still preserve the music and art, the dress, the rituals, the ceremonies.  Those are still practiced widely all over the place and much of the ancient tradition is retained.

A sobering discussion on Asians vs. blacks

I have long known that Asians are more intelligent than blacks.  I have had good reason to believe that Asians are more intelligent than whites.  And yep, I have been witness to ample evidence that whites are more intelligent than blacks.

In all the advanced-track classes that I have always been enrolled in, it has always been the case that there were not nearly as many blacks in these advanced classes as would be "expected."  Expected how exactly? you might ask.  I am talking about a percentage representation of the population.

In N. and S. Carolina, roughly one-third of the student population of any given public school in any given grade is black.  Now let us go into more detail.  Look at the demographic make-up of advanced math courses, advanced English, and the A.G/A.S. studies.

A cross-section representative sample of advanced studies courses does not in any way mirror a cross-section of the general student population.  Notice that black students are conspicuously absent from advanced classes.  An advanced math classroom that has thirty students is a large enough sample size to be representative of an entire grade of [[[[how many stu???]]]]

It should hypothetically provide an accurate cross-section -- **IF** all the students are genuinely equal in innate intelligence and ability.  In an average advanced math class of approximately thirty students, I have seen usually only one black student.

This is true no matter which school we specifically look at, which grade we look at, or which geographic region we look at.

The depressing, unfortunate truth is that no matter how many social, political, sociopolitical [[balustrades, rafters, arch___]]] are enacted, this severe discrepancy has never been remedied.  No matter how much welfare, government cheese, Section 8 housing, or money for FILA shoes the welfare office has given them, it has never resolved the stark lack of black students excelling in school.

The situation is even more severe when we look at a college student population.
[[[[The number of black students sharply plummeted when I moved from high school to college.]]]

But to definitively quantify this phenomenon by way of IQ scores seems a bit... harsh, and [[[final, finalized like it has been set in concrete__]]]  [[[set in stone and written in blood]]

Blacks and IQ- a tasteless truth

Now, we must address the darker side of these IQ studies, no pun intended.  (Sorry, too soon?)

During most of this time, I had contented myself with basking in the victorious glow of having science confirm what I already knew about Asians.  As far as I was concerned, let you whites and blacks duke it out amongst yourselves, re:  which one is the smarter and which one is the dimmer.  I dunno; Y'all figure it out.  But alas, this issue necessitates more thorough discussion.
--
I mean geez, sure <I> had given up on them, but only because they had given up on themselves.  After all, how can anyone expect another to worry about and fuss over them if they cannot be bothered to give a hoot about themselves?

This, however, was beyond depressing.  What these IQ studies were essentially saying is that we should give up on them because they quite literally do not possess the capability to improve or learn or grow.  The scientific conclusions reached by these IQ studies, and the implications thereof, are that the black race is hopeless. The black race is doomed, and their future is bleak. 

I felt like an evil, cruel, tyrannical Nazi just skimming the body text of the article.  I felt like a monster just letting my eyes linger for a few seconds on the page below the masthead.  Look, I'm a scientist.  I like to think that I can remain calm, cool-headed, and collected in the face of such upsetting news.  I can be rational and unbiased, and I can make sure my own emotional [[[tendencies]]]] inclinations do not cloud my receptivity.

Reviewing this, I think the reason that I reacted with such devastation is precisely the fact that I realized this <is> true.  A less capable __colleague might react with righteous indignation, anger, sputtering disbelief.  In short, they would react with denial.

But the IQ studies are comprehensive, organized, detailed.  They are, unfortunately, conclusive.

Race IQ of the Indo-Pakistani Subcontinent

Now, make no mistake.  I am ever proud to be from the same continent as our far east Asian brothers and sisters.  I warmly regard them with great respect, cordiality, friendliness____
----as colleagues in the professional work force
---- and I have had the pleasure of counting them among my closest friends.

But we South Asians are distinctly a separate race.  We are obviously a separate [[[ditinct]]] class offf heritage, ancestry, ethnic origins,,,,,
This is obvious.

I notice that mention of the South Asian subcontinent is conspicuously absent from any and all discussions of race and IQ.

elanoret bit more on how the blk IQ thing.  AS in use 2nd(3rd) essay, after 1 asians 2 blacks.
::::
Let us [[inspect study]] this phenomenon in more detail_[[[[more profoundly thoroughly.
onn how the caste system of India has produced greatly varying IQ [[____repseentacvs]] at all extremes of spectrum.
(((*** tie this in with caste system of undai))))

It greatly embarrasses me to say this,, but it must be acknowledged.  The Indo-Pakistani subcontinent is rife with crime, fraught with obliterating poverty.  So if the Asian IQ thing is to be believed, how does this theory possibly explain the vast enormous discrepancy between [[he different socioeconomic classes of Indians?  KeepinmindRemember this includes Bangladeshis.

caste system.
--so there was not a whole lot of opportunity for vertical mobility.  Not a whole lot of chances to climb the social ranks.

If this [[blocking attitude]] [[ensconced, surrounded,,,]]] education and job opportunities, then this is not a good thing.  People have a right to make their lives better.  The way to do this is to [[[open up channels of jobs and money.]]]]..

However, if this caste system concerns marriage/dating/etc., I'll be honest.  That does not really worry me.  Shrug.  Nobody has a "right" to marry someone above (or below) their socioeconomic class.  If a lower-class person likes an upper-class person, and the upper-class person also happens to like the lower-class one and agrees to marry them, then great, go ahead.  But this is not a human right.

Ohmigosh, you destroyed the curve. Everyone is, like, so totally mad.

The media firestorm is already underway.

We need to discus and establish what IQ is.  We [[steadfastly, solidify___]]]] need to set the record straight on the correct definition of IQ.  It is not just an arbitrary number on a scale.  IQ encompasses a lot of information about a person's cognitive capacity.. ****

one guy used flax seed. ___another guy used lead shot and produced results that were more palatable to the mass populace.

But that is not the whole story.  Intelligence is not about only [[[[raw___]]]] size of the brain.  There are a lot more factors of neurology than that.

There are synapses-- the connections between neurons, electrochemical signals from one neuron's axon to the dendrite of the next.

What is IQ?
Yes, evolution has to do with brain cognitive capacity.
more and more detailed, more branched, more numerous, finer and more precise,,,__ nerve to nerve connections, nerve to muscle connections,

Humans have far more numerous nerve connections than do other animals, and indeed, we have more than do any other primates.
neurotransmitters being transported___better
the electrochemical signal traveling faster and more efficiently

at this level of sub-sub-level of the hierarchy or organization, the physiological manifests in the abstract behavioral.  That is, physiological chemistry is expressed in the psychological, the mental.
There are so many synapses firing and rapid___ that it transcends the mere [[physical]]] basal biological urges, and now has become conscious free will.
The ability for conscious decision-making, the ability for judgment, voluntary action, free will, voluntary thought has developed.  voluntary decision-making processes.

neuronal pathway
more neural paths,  more neural tracts
stronger neural connections
[[[[diversified and specific]]]]
neural pathways that are more subdivided and specialized.

the brain requires an enormous percent of the body's nourishment and blood supply. 
An extremely vast, extensive network of blood vessels.  it is comprised of arteries, arterioles, capillaries, [[[distribution]]]]
for greater ability to [[[oxygen and nutrients such as sodium..]]]
a very detailed [[[___]]]] contributes to more activity in the brain.
--this is demonstrated in MRI brain scans of Alzheimer's patients.  Areas of the brain that [[[____]]]

gyri and sulci, the little hills and valleys that are commonly referred to as "wrinkles."  These serve to increase the surface area of the brain.  ___for more efficient absorptive capacity.

Raw brain size  blue whales have brains much bigger than humans do, but they are far stupider than humans.  you ever met a blue whale that excelled at calculus?

---------
Asian IQ scores; median; average arithmetic mean IQ scores

There are definite differences between the races that go far deeper than melanin production.  it is being in a state of excruciating denial to say that the differences between races are merely superficial.

There is so much noise surrounding the definitions of IQ and evolution, it is borne of necessity that we must explain what IQ is not.

It is NOT a random arbitrary ruler yardstick that has little bearing on the social impact a person has.  It is not a "meaningless" number that has no ramifications for real life.

it covers an enormous scope & breadth of the human condition.

1)   intelligence (deftness, adeptness), acumen for

*critical thinking, of weighing the pros and cons of a situation.

2)  impulse control,
or even possibly the existence of basal, primitive urges in the first place;
including forethought, foresight, being aware of consequences of behavior.  thinking in the long-term.  planning ahead, future awareness.
delaying gratification.  not resorting to immediate gratification.  not simply succumbing to base urges, but thinking through the long-term consequences of those base urges.


3)
and of course, IQ is closely intertwined [[[[interlaced]]] (hand in hand) with evolution. 
this is [[[[[[______]]]]]] real evolution.  not the pseudo-evolution [[[pimped out by;;; spread ]]]]]] that is violent, primitive, sesual urges.
*and moral behavior.  of empathy, of feelings, emotions, of seeing others as sentient, conscious creatures.  
something that serial killes are not capable of doing.  seeing others as equals, as members of the same species.  seeing them as worthy of respect and worthy of being treated with dignity.  not simply thinking of them as worthy of being considered the same species, but also acknowledging that said species is an evolved, mentally aware species.

they do not seem to comprehend that cooperation is only possible from individuals that are capable of both
   
this of course, all comes from higher evolution.  which leads to higher IQ.  Which leads to a capacity for critical thinking.  It leads to a capacity for understanding and comprehending abstract concepts.

----
I have to disagree with any categorization of mathematics and spatial skills as "abstract" concepts.  These are very much concrete.  These are not abstract, elusive concepts.  These are not wishy-washy opinions, there is none of that "there is no right or wrong answer" nonsense.  Nope.   These have distinct solutions and distinct answers.

These fields are also complex.  These require intelligence.  Just because these are concrete subjects does not mean they are simple.  It does not mean these are easy concepts to grasp.

Stepping back a few paces, having emotional quotient requires greater evolution.  Only higher order mammals have capacity for empathy, compassion, sympathy, putting oneself in another's shoes.

You see, the ability to understand mathematics requires even more evolution than that.  Especially when you enter the higher-order and graduate school-level mathematics such as multivariable calculus.  Which is why a person can have great emotional intelligence, empathy, compassion for fellow human beings while still sucking at math.

The topic of "equality"

I was always trumpeting the merits of equality in my younger days for the following reason:

Psychologists and political pundits never made any distinctions between the different groups of non-whites races.  Always, always, always, all minorities were lumped together in the same one big collective mass.  Public talking heads talked about minorities having more high school dropout rates, lower student performance all around.  more babies born out of wedlock, lower literacy rates, more violence, more crime, more gangs, more sexual promiscuity.  This was the pervasive current events trend back when I was in high school.

I witnessed with my own eyes that this was simply not true for *particular* minority groups.  Many of the minorities that my family and I personally knew (and still know) are nothing like that.  The south Asian Indian-Bengali subcontinent is where my famly is from, as are the large group of families that we are friends with in North Caorlina and here in South Carolina.  

All of them, and I do mean one hundred percent of them, are composed of husband-and-wife couples that have been married since at least nine months before their first kid was born.  All of them have at least Bachelor's degrees.  Many of them have Master's degrees in their chosen fields.  This is roughly equal between women and men.  Many of them have degrees in some sort of critical science field.  Again, this includes the women as well as the men.  All of them either work in industry or are college professors.  There are a handful of medical___

My average is better than your average

Ahhh.  Finally the complete, detailed, unfiltered truth comes out.
At long last, science has confirmed what I, and most people, have always suspected to be the truth.

(((((On the subject of Asians having higher IQs than whites, and whites having higher IQs than blacks.)))  Ahh.  That's more like it.  I breathe a sigh of relief.  At long last, they are giving us the __ detailed, *whole* truth.  I settle back in smug, comfortable victory.

__Full, whole, unabridged, unedited truth

(((((*I had been first introduced to the idea of races expressing IQ DIFFERENCES back when I was in high school.  I was vehemently against this idea
((((Since part of it was not true, I dismissed all of it as being false.))))  Because that great big detail was quite obviously untrue, I dismissed all of it as utter hogwash.
((((Now that I am older and wiser))))
IQ editings(for when ahh the truth finally is uncovered, has cast off its shroud ((((blanket)))
Back then,,They lumped all minorities together into one broad spectrum___
Jumbled them all toge into a into one lump sum

I am ok wi it because these scores consistently reveal Asians coming out on top.  Mathematics scores, verbal skills, SATS, national scholar scores, innate ability, IQ tests, everything.

The reason I was so adamantly against this when I was in my youth was that the general media reports made no distinctions whatsoever between the non-white races.  The mass media divided the entire human race into only two categories --- white and other.

But now more recently, the mass media has finally twigged onto the fact that not all minority races are created equal.

Bleeding-Heart Conservatives?

I do not understand why the recent conservative rhetoric as of late is trying to maintain that conservatives in the general populace are the "average man," "Joe plumber," et cetera et cetera.  Why have conservatives now assumed the personae of everyday commoners?

And they are insisting that liberals are elitist, conceited, privileged, and stuff.

This does not gel at all with the sociopolitical dynamic we have seen in years of yore.  In the past it has always been liberals that were average, that rallied against the snooty stuck-up elite.  They did not like rich people, they did not like corporate embezzlers, they did not like tax breaks for the wealthy.  And if you go further back in history, liberals did not like educated people, or privileged people, or business owners, or plantation owners, or land owners, or government office holders.  And certainly not slave-owners, but I do agree with them on that one.

Aren't conservatives the rich corporate execs?  Conservatives have always been the privileged rich white people that have connections, that easily get accepted into the Ivy League because Mother and Daddy are rich.

Conservatives are the ones with the connections; that is their historic impression with   They can effortlessly slip into business, into government, comfortably coasting right out of their ivory towers of higher education on their parents' coattails, ad ilk.  "The stupid sons of rich men."  Quote by Charles Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University.

Liberals aren't elitists.  Conservatives are.  Liberals are the dregs of society.  They have a couple of diseases, a couple of unwanted out-of-wedlock pregnancies, they have crack babies.  They have rap sheets the length of the human genome project, and woefully subpar literacy rates.  They are always poor and downtrodden.  They are the throwaway people.

And they keep making more of themselves, unchecked, so it does not matter if we lose a couple three.  Liberals supposedly always work for the poor, the tired, the hungry, the huddled masses, always rooting for the underdog.  And this part is hilarious -- they have horrible hygiene.  I am seriously not making that up; it's been documented.

Liberals are usually average, but they don't seem to realize it because their self-esteem is falsely inflated.  This is what the American Idol judges have been trying to drive home.  All these untalented hacks are constantly being told by society, being told by by their butt-kissing sycophantic friends, by liberals, that you can do it!  If you really want something bad enough, you can have it!  It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game!  It doesn't matter if you failed and if you did not get the desired results, what matters is that you tried your best!  Even if you didn't actually try your best!  What matters is that you *wanted* the success!  With lots of exclamation points!

Forty years of social promotion has had the unforeseen consequence of convincing a couple generations of people that they are extraordinary, ferociously intelligent, supermen and superwomen, talented beyond their wildest imaginations.

And that if they really put their minds to it, they can accomplish anything.  This has been the ongoing modus operandi in public grade schools, in the workforce, in college admissions practices, in community organizations such as youth athletics, art contests.

That is the biggest reason I don't get why Sarah Palin is the poster child for good ol' fashioned down home values of being a doofus and thinking that heart and character (ehhhh ehhhhh screeching sound) qualify her for running for president.  These self-described conservatives seem to be embracing liberal conceits of being an idiot and being proud of it.

Elitism?  Education?  Social status?  Why are these now suddenly being maligned as liberal ideals?  These are conservative precepts.

And now conservatives are trying to paint themselves as some sort of savior for the people?  Where did this strange reversal of dynamic suddenly emerge from?

"Free-thinking liberal atheists'" attitudes towards women, and inevitably towards morals- it's worse than we thought

Let us discuss some concepts of which atheist liberals evidently have no grasp.

These are notions of the bodily self and the right of a human being to have total control, final say in what happens.  This is regarding the right to refuse anything even if so-called atheist liberal "logic" presents a compelling argument

I am seeing a disturbing number of message boards all across the internet in which self-described "free-thinking liberal progressive/atheists" (take your pick of superlative) declare themselves to be enlightened, possessing [[[or blessed]]] with higher-order knowledge and liberation.  And therefore many of them come to the ultimate conclusion that there is no reason that any person should ever refuse sex, ever.  These "free-thinking atheists" claim that notions of morality, chastity, and personal limits to intimacy are antiquated, outdated notions that have no place in modern reasonable discourse.

Think I'm making this up?

Atheists have no appreciation nor comprehension for __concepts such as___ morality, personal boundaries, right to bodily autonomy,

They seem to have absolutely no grasp of the concepts of morality or philosophy.  They truly do not seem to understand abstract questions of human psychology and morality.  Worse, they do not even comprehend the fact that abstract notions exist.

It is very subtly, slowly seeping into societal norms like tentacles quietly stealthily creeping in.__]]]  this is a very quiet shift in society's collective conscious regarding personal boundaries, comfort levels, intimacy, the feeling of being safe and secure, and the distinct feeling of trust that should be present for a monogamous romantic relationship to exist.

It is subtle, far-reaching, for permeating, and terrifying.

I am going to make a statement that will probably ruffle a lot of liberal politically correct feathers, and it will upset people's simplistic cardboard cutout view of the world.

I have secretly suspected that the partying hook-up culture and rape culture go hand in hand.

I can guarantee you that in a society in which people condone and easily openly practice loose moral-free, no strings attached sx -- the women are being coerced into sex.  How do I know this?  I read a lot, I observe, and I gather information.  I look for patterns and explanations, as disgusting and infuriating as they might turn out to be.  I study human behavior, psychology, motivations.

And I have come to a conclusion that humans are not particularly complicated.  Humans are sickeningly simple, and they, perhaps subconsciously, lump together two categories which morally should be entirely separate.

This was true back in ancient Babylon.  This was true in ancient Rome.  This was true in ancient Greece.

People are carousing and casually partying with not a care in the world.  They think everyone is happy-go-lucky and everyone is completely 100 percent willing and consenting every step of the way.  No one has any objections in the slightest to any of the activities going on.

And this is true in modern-day spring break, modern-day college parties, and the modern-day dating scene.

In a society that purports to have no qualms or personal boundaries whatsoever regarding sex or physical intimacy, the women are essentially being raped.

I tried my damndest to pretend in my head that there was no correlation whatsoever between date-rape/rapes on college campuses and the partying culture.  I tried to pretend that college rapes are completely independent of partying excess.  But I can't keep lying and shoving my better instincts and common sense into a silly little box.

The moral-free males jump from female to female, having sexual encounters.  The males are not met with much resistance or hesitation.  Suppose they encounter a female who says "no."  You honestly think that the males, after having much past experience of not being deterred, are going to magically honor this one female's request not to engage in sex?

All that the liberal atheist males are seeing surrounding them all the time is an attitude of "anything goes." They evidently do not stop to think critically about the situation, nor do the females.  They do not think about their actions that are about to transgress, nor do they ponder and think what the consequences would be.

They do not think about how to possibly justify it to themselves, as in make the situation and make these decisions add up to their morals and square away with their self-protection instincts.  Or perhaps they do rationalize it somehow.  They possibly excuse this violence away by saying that in a situation like this, anything that happens is okay.  Who cares if this is disgusting, reprehensible, criminal behavior?  If it is at a drunken college campus party, then it is okay.  If it is at a drunken and drug-fueled club, then it is okay.  If it is within the realms of the modern "dating" or "social" scene, then anything and everything is okay, and no one is allowed to judge.

This is something that liberal females do not seem to get.  __they seem to be genuinely shocked, surprised when a female coed frat-party-hopper inevitably is forced to have sxe.  This transgression is repeated over and over and over again, and yet liberal females still remain astonishingly obtuse and naive.

Haven't you ever seen The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston?  Remember that scene at the foot of Mount Sinai while Moses was going on his sojourn to the peak?  Remember all the, er, activity that was going on?  Not all of the sex scenes looked like the participants were consenting.  Left to themselves, the people abandoned themselves.

This is pretty much the scene occurring at frat parties at college campuses across the country.  And it is the scene occurring at bars and clubs off college campuses across the country.  No sense of morals.  No sense of personal responsibly.  No sense of accountability for one's actions.

Because they not believe in God nor in heaven or hell, they also do not believe in an afterlife. They think they do not have to answer for their behavior to any deity. That is fine if that is what they believe. I don't really have much of a problem with that.

The problem is that they think that without the presence of a deity, there is no other reason to have respect for themselves -- nor respect for women.  They think the only reason to have any morals or self-respect is because of some spooky ghost in the sky. Because they do not believe in any such "ghost in the sky," they think this translates into not having any need for morals or self-restraint. The only thing they are concerned with is the here + now.

They are hedonistic. In other words they are self-destructive. They give in to every little impulse and give little thought to conscience or consequences.

Remember that they pride themselves on being "practical?" They will only follow a social or moral rule if it has been proven in "scientific study" to be beneficial to humans. They seem completely unaware that peer-reviewed scientific discovery in research journals has not had time to get to every possible concern that humans face. They pay no heed to instincts, common sense, tradition, family values, or morals and upbringing that our parents instilled in us.

What this means is that they only follow the bare minimum of moral behavior required for survival. Somehow they miraculously have only found the "scientific studies" that conclude that drugs and promiscuity do not do any harm to a person.

Consider liberal atheist attitudes towards birth control and abortion. These "free-thinking liberal atheists" think that all kinds of birth control exist presenting very little risk of pregnancy or STDs, therefore there is no "logical" objection to sex.  This is also their approach to sex regarding abortion.

Ah, excuse me?  They truly, honestly think that a person should have to come up with a reason NOT to have sex with someone?  What kind of screwed up thinking is that?

This is also their approach to deviant forms of "sex" that have all the nasty gross-out-ness that religious fanatics disapprove of, but with none of the emotional closeness that sex is supposed to provide for fully-evolved civilized homo sapiens.  I will not list them here.  I saw an article on MSN a few short years ago that tried to make the argument that these perverted, nasty forms of sex are totally mainstream now and that no one should object to them anymore.

That is not how human empathy and intimacy work.  If someone doesn't want to, then they don't want to.  That's it.  You can't "logic" your way into something that is a matter of personal boundaries and comfort levels.

Nobody has to think of a "good" reason not to be intimate with anyone.  Quite the opposite is true.  A person would need a very good reason TO have sex with someone.  Perhaps getting to know a person on a human level would be a good prerequisite. Then after that there might be a spark, emotional chemistry, that sort of thing.

Yet ALL the studies I have seen and ALL human behavior I have observed indicate precisely the opposite. Promiscuous people, especially women, are diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and have more chemical dependencies and addictions than women who are monogamous.

Women are overwhelmingly happier if they are in sustained, monogamous, committed, long-term relationships, i.e., marriage. The reason for this is obvious-- women are happier in a stable marriage relationship because it is stable, strong, secure.  A woman does not have to worry and fret about whether the person will leave, which would cheapen and demean the sex.

Most importantly, intimacy and affection are a very big deal. An emotionally healthy, psychologically solvent woman is not going to search desperately for rationalization of dangerous, irresponsible behavior. A healthy, sane, emotionally stable woman is not going to be okay with being physically intimate with numerous random hook ups. I daresay that this is true of men as well.

I would not even need to dumb this down or explain in such detail to a mentally healthy, generally sane person.

Somehow they have not managed to find any of the numerous studies that prove that people who are monogamous and sober are happier, healthier, and take better care of themselves. They have not discovered any of the studies that talk about alcohol being a problem on college campuses, date rape, roofies, the increase of rape culture, rapes at frat parties where the male thinks it is consenting drunk sex but the female thinks it is rape.

Affirmative Action Policies And The HaRm They Inflict*

*Footnote, almost:  Okay, that is a sarcastic title.  I do not really think affirmative action policies cause a whole lot of harm.

I have stumbled on an astounding new epiphany regarding the affirmative action curiosity.

White people are complaining about affirmative action policies in effect at various places of employment.  This means that if two equally qualified people apply for a job, one is black, one is white, they will definitely give the job to the black guy.

But wait a minute.  Why is the topic of race even an issue in the vast [[compendium, tomes, volumes]]]] that is jobs, the job market, qualifications, credentials, the hiring process, the interview process?

From what I have seen, people that major in the sciences have no problem getting jobs.  This does not matter whether they are white, black, Asian, east Asian, Latino, Eskimo, Inuit, Native American, west indies, Rastafarian, etc.

It is evident that the only time that affirmative action even pops up as a deciding factor in the hiring process is when the job is full of crap.

This is more evidence that perhaps the job itself has no substance.  The job intrinsically, in and of itself, has nothing definite about it that would be helpful in offering some hiring guidelines.  A line of demarcation.  The job itself does not have any certain delineators that would aid the company in choosing a qualified candidate for the job.

Therefore the company, the hiring manager, has to look to *external* qualifiers to see who should get the job or not.  Again, there is really no such thing as "the ability to do the job," because as we have established, the job itself does not require any concrete skills, abilities, training, education.  So how to choose whom to hire?

I think all this really is, is the fact that a large percentage of middle-classsssss white people, and indeed it seems, black people as well, are not qualified to do any ACTUAL jobs.  As in, jobs that have some substance to them.  Some concrete disciplines.  Again, harping back on this, math and science.

Sorry, but this also does not bode well for blacks, women, or other minorities who have benefited from affirmative action policies.  Because if actual skill means very little when keeping people out, then it also means very little when allowing people in.

Science and math-based skills and teaching jobs will not care about that affirmative action.  They cannot afford to.

These jobs require clearly delineated degrees in the fields of study.  They often require certification.  Medical Technologist -- the person who runs your blood tests in the clinical lab.  You cannot get that job unless you are nationally certified as a med tech.  Race be damned.  If one black person and one white person both apply for the same medical technologist job, the person that will get hired -- is the person who has the degree and the certification.  As well as previous job experience.  They must have graduated from a NAACLS-accredited degree program.

See, the thing is, these degree programs and courses are legit.  These subjects have clear, distinct, albeit complex requirements.  The colleges and universities that offer majors must pass US Department of Education requirements to be allowed to even offer those courses.  Engineering jobs require a prospective to have national ABET certification, as well as graduation from a college or university that has an ABET-accredited degree program.  Chemical companies will only hire someone who can prove that they have taken all the required courses.  Those degree programs must also be approved by the accrediting agencies.

This just goes back to the topic of bullshyt jobs in corporation, advertising, public relations, management, psychology, philosophy, commutations, marketing, English major, political science, etc.  None of those jobs are clearly demarcated as to *exactly* what are the qualifications.  They are evasive, elusive, and mostly BS.  So sure, hiring managers can fudge the data a bit and go with the job candidate who fulfills the company's affirmative action quota requirements.  This is the reason that public relations, marketing, etc. and crap like that can go with affirmative action.

Atheist psychology in general

They lambast and laugh, mock, deride whackadoo religious fundamentalists for not using logic, reasoning, or common sense.

Fair enough.  But inherent in their mockery is the assumption that atheists do operate from a place of logic.  So you're saying that you DO use reason.  And yet you still manage to come to the exact same conclusion___
They still manage to reach conclusions that are as whackadoo and insane as the dogma preached by religious extremists.

You mock creationists and intelligent designers because they start off with a conclusion and explanation, then they go off in search of whatever supporting data they can find to argue the conclusion.  Don't get me wrong, I too find their shenanigans to be cuckoo for cocoa puffs.

Yet, then evolutionary psychologists turn around and do the exact same thing.  Only because it is a little too close to home, they are unable to discern it.

Come on, people.  Does no one remember the important lesson that Jurassic Park was trying to impart to us all?  Scientific extremism is just as dangerous as religious extremism.  Ethics, morality, pacing oneself -- are all tenets just as important as research, investigation, science for the sake of science.  "Scientists were so busy wondering if they could that they didn't stop to think whether or not they should."  This was the same theme of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy.  Nazi-backed researchers performed all sorts of horrific, gruesome experiments on human beings in the name of "science."

artificial intelligence
creepily human-looking robots being built in Japan
    Seriously, what the hell is wrong with Japanese scientists?
*warning, this website is technically safe for work.  HOWEVER, it will sink into your psyche, and burrow deep within your subconscious much like bovine fungiform prions do to cow brains, until you find you are screaming yourself awake in the middle of the night, in a pool of your own cold sweat, with this thing having pervaded your worst nightmares.
atom bomb
hydrogen bomb
human cloning
cluster bomb