Sociopath Community

He made it to 82.

On April 17, 2014, Ann Shulgin reported on Facebook that her husband had developed liver cancer, and in a May 31 update on Facebook she said that, although appearing frail, he seemed to be experiencing his last moments in peace and without pain.[16] On June 2, 2014, Shulgin died at home in bed surrounded by friends and family, at the age of 88.[17]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling

Pauling died of prostate cancer on August 19, 1994, at 19:20 at home in Big Sur, California. He was 93 years old.[101][102]

I dunno they are both californians... can't be far to travel... only guessing.

Lets explore this, since to me Wisdom's always seemed more like a vague concept that varies from person to person as opposed to something static.

Your understanding of wisdom you posted was multiple answers (followed by the conundrum point):

Some say wisdom is the sum of all virtues: If this is wisdom, then their attachment to those virtues could be used against them. The thing is that anything can be used, so anything in the right hands can potentially be a weakness. That doesn't mean that the "good" won't outweigh the "bad" from their perspective, but it still could be used.

Some say it is just experience mixed with knowledge and common sense: If it's this sort of case, experience + knowledge can combine into some nasty damaging things. Someone post traumatic learned a lesson that was too strong for them to handle, and the "wisdom" in that sense ends up caustic. Is it no longer Wisdom if it's hurting them, or is there such a thing as bad Wisdom?

And others, growing up: Growing up can make a person weaker based on the lessons they acquired up to that point. Is it only Wisdom once they are past the pain of their experiences? If that's the case it's much easier to accept it as a "good thing" by itself, since those who hadn't grown past it simply would be waved away as having not become wise from it.

But what most seem to agree on is that it is a sort of "upgrade" of oneself: Couldn't then one person's understanding of Wisdom be completely different from another's? The notion of what constitutes an "upgrade" is open for interpretation as well.

"And upgrades tend to be seen as beneficial"
To the one that sees what they carry as an upgrade. What truely defines what is or isn't Wisdom, the individual?

To clarify, weakness to me is something that needs to be recognized, not necessarily shed. What denotes a weakness could also carry a strength just as much as a strength could carry a weakness. Anything else can be used against someone, but if they recognize their own acquired shortcomings and weaknesses they can work around not being a victim to it. I have weaknesses, plenty of them, but not succumbing to them through recognition makes them into less of an exploitable flaw.

So Wisdom and Strength vs Weakness then, to you, are a matter of interpretation instead of something fixed that's the same for everyone, or did I miss a portion that shows otherwise? The "use" portion has me wondering.

If so we're roughly on the same page.

Almost everything carries a potential to hinder, but seeing the weaknesses present in things at least gives the means to reduce it's impact.

If things like predictability can be seen as a weakness, then anything can potentially fall into the category of weakness, and that's not even looking at the costs that might be present within the lessons themselves.

Well, that's the differ. Weakness is charged with the connotation of hindrance.

How is that supposed to make sense.

There is an insane concept in math, where we have vectors.

In reality we have two poles.

So you can spin around all you want to avoid slipping to either end, if you want.

One strength is a weakness elsewhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_(virtue)

Temperance is the espousal of moderation, marked by personal restraint. It has been studied by religious thinkers, philosophers, and more recently, psychologists, particularly in the positive psychology movement. Upheld as a virtue throughout time and across cultures, it was one of the cardinal virtues in Greek philosophy, being believed that no virtue could be sustained in the face of inability to control oneself, if the virtue was opposed to some desire, and was subsequently incorporated in the Catholic catechism's Seven heavenly virtues. It is also one of the six main categories of the VIA character strengths. Temperance is generally defined by control over excess, so that it has many such classes, such as abstinence, chastity, modesty, humility, prudence, self-regulation, forgiveness and mercy; each of these involves restraining some impulse, such as sexual desire, vanity, or anger.

It is indeed a matter of perspective the "label" it carries, but the individual's use of it may be what defines it as strength or weakness in its core.

There's a very good film about that, called City Of Life And Death: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Life_and_Death  (about the "rape of Nanking", 2nd Sino-Jap war.)   Not something i'd want to watch again in the foreseeable future, but once is an absolute must. A really good film.

This ability for social units to see other social units as subhumans is not uncommon. 
Social conditioning can make the constituents of a society find acceptable the rape, torture, genocide, and general schadenfreude against other societies. What we see here is herd mentality at work. The phenomena of herd mentality is how Germans under the Nazis felt exterminating the Jews was 'just,' 

'Hive mentality' is even more accurate than 'herd mentality' i think, but basically the same concept.  Reminded me to one of my old PF replies (thread was 'Empathy in action'; i copy it here, too lazy re-typing:

 

[quote="Twentycharacterslong"] I wonder if collective empathy starts revolutions. [/quote]

[quote="wooster"] Not in a welfare country, but in a sufficiently corrupt & oppressive regime with the resulting poverty, yes. See all revolutions across the Eastern bloc, from '56 to '89, & etc.

Collective empathy also starts things like the Holocaust, so you gotta tread extremely carefully with anything collective. "Collective" has the effect of eliminating individual guilt and personal responsibility/conscience, so even impeccably upstanding citizens start burning Mr Kohn their grocer in the gaschambers cuz everyone & their maiden aunt is at it, therefore it has to be the right thing to do. [/quote]

( or currently HK, Ukraine & so forth) 

In short, 'society' at large is better handled with due suspicion. When "collective" breeds with ideology (of any kind) that's invariably bad news.

Perhaps this is why we have yet to see one openly agnostic or atheist U.S. president.

I think i've read somewhere that it's in the USA constitution that the president has to be Christian, no?  (I remember laughing in disbelief at the time, i mean for fucks sake... )

I would say 5-10% of people change. It is hard to behave in a different way, from the way in which you were brought up. I am different than my family probably, because of temperament, rebellion, listening to left wing music from a young age, and moving away to go to college. 

I have completely different morals, opinions, interests, political views, etc.

I am the black sheep of the family.

Technically rape is a warped reflection of survival of the fittest. It still allows for the chance of procreation, pushing their genes into further generations.

"I was remembering the claim Ana made that most men would rape women if it were acceptable within their society."
There'd also be a difference between if it's considered acceptable versus not thought about. Justification is more antagonistic than not thinking about the topic at all.

What I find interesting is that the concept of rape is demonized. Where do you think that started?

"Perhaps this is why we have yet to see one openly agnostic or atheist U.S. president."
I thought that was more of a numbers game. The movie Jesus Camp might have biased me a bit.