Ghost Leviathan posted:

I'd say PJ should probably be careful to avoid falling too hard into the writing tics common to people suffering from untreated schizophrenia, but on a moment's thought not only does PJ probably know those all too well but most of said tics I can think of are almost indistinguishable from academic writing anyway, which has its own disturbing implications.

Schizophrenia and Randomly Capitalized Words posted:

Schizophrenia and Randomly Capitalized Words

I wanted to try and explain specifically how my mental illness impacts my thinking and how you can see some of the results of that in my use of capitalized words. Have you ever read something written by an unmedicated schizophrenic and it is full of Randomly Capitalized Words that seem to be used in such as way as to Convey A Deeper Meaning that is important to the author but Indecipherable to the reader? This is an artifact of how schizophrenics think, and I am far from immune to it. What I have done is adapt myself to it. Let me explain.

Part of my illness is an extremely enhanced pattern recognition. This pattern recognition stems from a part of my conscious experience that process data in a fundamentally different way, I call this part of my consciousness [Pattern], and it processes and arranges data in a way that is very different from how a healthy mind processes and arranges data. [Pattern] perceives connections and repetitions in things, and it also smashes these perceptions down into more manageable abbreviations. By and large, all that [Pattern] does is process data in an extremely abbreviated fashion, sniffing specifically for commonalities between disparate data sets and then creating abbreviated methods to reference them. In most Schizophrenics this manifests as the Schizophrenic thinking and trying to communicate using these abbreviated references that [Pattern] has created in their mind. Generally they are unaware of doing so and simply assume everyone else thinks in the same terms as well, so when they write something and use one of these abbreviated terms they subconsciously turn it into a Proper Noun to distinguish the abbreviated [Pattern] produced concept they are referencing from the literal meaning of the words. As the schizophrenic is completely unaware of this, they feel they are communicating very specific ideas quite clearly, and they can read their own writing back to themselves and understand its intended meaning just fine. I am certainly not immune to this.

When you see my capitalized terms like Compaction or Inner Narrative then these represent a conscious attempt on my part to harness this aspect of schizophrenia. Through a rigorous internal review process I constantly monitor myself for the formation of new [Pattern] produced concepts. My mind creates these somewhat at random (I can consciously direct the topic that these will be formed around, but cannot really influence them otherwise), and then I try and find the ones that hold up to scrutiny. When I find ones that hold up to scrutiny then I try and find ways to communicate these concepts in terms that healthy minds will understand. Although I have naming conventions and systems for all this internally, much of it is too abstract to explain, so the names I wind up using are often part of my attempt to communicate these ideas.

The goal here then is to take the regular incoherent babble of a schizophrenic and try and turn it into something coherent.

Tugging at the Gordian knot: Translating schizophrenia into linear thought. posted:

When I drift off and let my mind wander I play a sort of free association kind of game. I am thinking not in english, but in patterns, vortexes, geometric shapes. memories, sounds, sensations of sounds, memories of emotions of reactions to vibrations of sounds. I free wheel and freely associate, thinking of nothing, just letting consciousness stream by. On occasion I will suddenly sense a connection between two things I have recently thought of. I find this sensation (which I call Epiphany) to be very pleasurable. When I am experiencing this sensation I just roll with it, and let my mind freely make whatever associations come. As I do so I get the sense that I have made a profound connection, learned something important. My mind races to make similar connections, to argue whether there is a connection between these two things or not, a theory is formed to explain the connection, and many interpretations are formed. I find this whole process to be thrilling and very fun. Once I have what I feel is a functioning theory, I construct a Mental Metaphor that contains all the ideas I have just had encoded into it. This Mental Metaphor will be a symbolic representation of my ideas written in an internal language of symbolism that I use. This language is heavily self referenced and often represented by very abstract ideas, nonetheless, it exists primarily as a way for me to recreate any particular thought line I had concerning the idea the Mental Metaphor is meant to represent at a later date. With a properly constructed Mental Metaphor, I can store many inter-related but not yet hashed out ideas into an elaborate symbol so that I can come back and consider later. Then at a later date I can remember the Mental Metaphor, and recall all the ideas that lead me to create it for further consideration and refinement. The Mental Metaphor then gets modified to reflect any new understandings or internal arguments that have been had, and gets deposited back in my memory again. I have many such mental metaphors, all written in a completely self referenced language that makes no attempt to communicate with anyone but myself.

I find this to be an activity that I spend most of my day in, in one form or another. It is extremely fulfilling to me. I usually sit zoned out watching kpop girl bands (helps relieve my Gender Dysphoria, and not hard on the eyes either) and just let my mind drift. Sometimes I am working with one of my Mental Metaphor's, sometimes I am building a new one, sometimes I am just coasting in free association in a kind of drifting listen mode.

When I feel a Mental Metaphor has neared a state of completion, I begin to test it. For this task I have an extensive library of internal self metaphors, folksy sayings, observations, and Pattern Tools (geometric representations of well known and internally accepted orders of operation for internal behaviour). I apply these Pattern Tools to my Mental Metaphor in a testing phase to see if there is any validity to the associations that were used to create the Mental Metaphor. This process is also really fun, I sort of mentally smash my ideas into the ground with as much vigor as I can. I try many ways to argue against my ideas and use many different styles of logic to attack the ideas the Mental Metaphor is meant to represent. I would say that out of Twenty such Mental Metaphor's, Seventeen or so are smashed at this stage. At some point a critical flaw is either discovered, or a simpler explanation, or the association checks out but turns out to have no important meanings. If so, the Mental Metaphor is modified to reflect the discovered flaw. The modification used to represent the flaw is itself stored as a Mental Metaphor so it can be used as a check for previously discovered flaws in new Mental Metaphor's.

Once this process is complete the (on average) three remaining Mental Metaphor's are accepted as "probably true, but still require testing" and added to my internal language database. They become mental constructs meant to represent complex concepts so that I can observe various concepts and communicate with myself more rapidly. By pondering one of these Metaphors and then pondering another I can also compare and contrast and study why I constructed a particular Mental Metaphor one way over another, and are there any connections between these two Mental Metaphor's? 

 The underlying essence of what I am doing is translating metaphorical thought concepts based on self referenced ideas that are created in the rich inner world of a schizophrenic mind into English, which is not an easy task. I have to find ways to teach you all basic concepts that underlie the far more elaborate interactions between the sophisticated geometries and memories that are my Mental Metaphor's associated with Narrativists. (How could you understand my description of the Cliven Bundy incident as a "Rapid Narrative Convergence Event" if you did not already understand what Narrative Convergence, and the Grand, Inner, and Outer Narrative's were?)

So I try to find Metaphors to describe my ideas that I think can be communicated. For instance, the above example of my internal ideas interacting with each other above, explaining that process is "Tugging on a few strands" of the "Gordian Knot" that "Schizophrenia twists things into". You see? That is my Communication Metaphor for the idea of needing to teach parts of my internal language before I can communicate my ideas.

So the next step in communicating these Mental Metaphor's is to call the metaphor up in my mind and then cross reference it with an extensive library of separate Mental Metaphor's meant to enable Communication to the outside. These Mental Metaphors are meant to represent past successes in communicating Concepts and reflect a working internal model of the majority of how Outside Minds have interlocution. A new metaphor is created, this one a Communication Metaphor meant to convey in simplest terms the rough outline of the idea the Mental Metaphor is meant to communicate. A good Communication Metaphor should appeal widely and be simple enough to be immediately grasped but with enough complexity that clarifying details can be added. The Communication Metaphor is constructed in such a way to communicate a little story while clarifying details are added as necessary. Let me give a good example of how this process works. I can walk you through this step by step.

For an elaborate demonstration of this concept please consider my description of the Compaction Cycle,which I derived using the above described method.

(on my website this article quotes the article about compaction cycles, cutting it out here since it would be redundant)

The Mental Metaphor of Compaction Cycle: "A series of large tinted glass bowls, each wide and holding about three gallons of liquid. Each bowl has a signifying color to designate its representation of a Narrativist Group Cluster. The colors represent different groups, and some bowls have multiple colors (or patterns) to signify to intermixing and style of intermixing of certain Authoritarian Group Clusters. (Each bowl is hovering in midair and are not affected by gravity in this Metaphor) The bowls are connected through the bottom by a series of small plastic straws that slowly cycle the water between them. Of note is that these straws all pass through a cold zone that chills the water in them before emerging in the bottoms of other bowls. Each bowl contains an IceBerg floating majestically in it. In some bowls the Iceberg is huge, in others small, and in most fairly intermediate in shape. Some Icebergs have mini blizzards occurring in them, that cycle the snow and water up and down, but without moving between the bowls. Over time, water evaporates and leaves, but the Iceberg grows faster than that. The Iceberg keeps growing because the water cycling slowly through the bottom of the bowls through the straws keeps getting colder and making the icebergs grow."

Note that in this Mental Metaphor, not every rule of reality has to be directly applied, which is reflected. Let me explain what this Mental Metaphor is meant to communicate. Each bowl of water represents a Narrativist group cluster, and the water represents people associated with the group, and the iceberg represents hardliners. The weather patterns in some bowls indicate that there is a cycle of creating hardliners that occurs completely self contained within just that cluster. (Ie a Fundamentalist Christian moving from church to church gradually joining more and more extreme ones). the water cycling the straws at the bottom of the bowls represents that constant low level cycling caused by internal group conflicts. Communicated here is the idea that one groups dispelled softliner, when joining another group, often lurks at the bottom contributing little for a long time before becoming a hardliner. (That particular bit of detail was lost in the translation to the slushball Metaphor) The chilling process of traveling through the straw is meant to represent the sense of isolation that eventually drives a Narrativist to seek another group that conforms to the Grand Narrative to meet his/her psychological needs.and also leads to the iceberg gradually growing from below,where most of the growth is occurring anyways.( Another facet of this Mental Metaphor is the idea that the In group cycles are more dramatic and more visible but less overall in importance to the intergroup cycle, this detail was also lost to the slushball Communication Metaphor, but that was deemed acceptable).

So in explaining what I named the Compaction Cycle I had to create a Communication Metaphor to explain the Mental Metaphor associated with all my thoughts on the Compaction cycle. This is a very interesting and (personally very satisfying) time consuming process, but in this case the Slushball Metaphor emerged and it seems to have been one of the more effective thus far.

quote:

Bayoumy: Talk to us about the evolution you’ve seen since you were in the movement 30 years ago—these views used to be on the fringe, and now are much more mainstream.

Picciolini: Unfortunately, I think that the underpinnings of the ideology have always been there. The extremists were on the fringe, and very visible, but other people weren’t willing to voice those beliefs. Thirty years ago, when I was in the movement, we were turning off the average American white racists who didn’t want to be so open and visible about those beliefs. So there was this effort to make it more mainstream, to grow the hair out, turn in the “boots for suits.” I never thought we would have a social and political climate that really kind of brought it to the foreground. Because it’s starting to seem less like a fringe ideology and more like a mainstream ideology.

Kathy Gilsinan: What role does the internet play? There’s a lot of discussion about internet radicalization for members of ISIS—is this a parallel process for white-supremacist movements, or are there differences?

Picciolini: It’s a very parallel process. The propaganda is very similar. The internet itself is a platform. Thirty years ago, marginalized, broken, angry young people had to be met face-to-face to get recruited into a movement. Nowadays, those millions and millions of young people are living most of their lives online if they don’t have real-world connections. And they’re finding a community online instead of in the real world, and having conversations about promoting violence.

---

Bayoumy: What does disengagement look like? What’s a typical example of someone reaching out to you saying they want to leave? How do you help them through that?

Picciolini: It’s a whole lot of listening. I listen for what I call potholes: things that happen to us in our journey of life that detour us, things like trauma, abuse, mental illness, poverty, joblessness. Even privilege can be a pothole that detours us. As I listen to those—rather than debate or confront them about their ideology, but creating a rapport with them—I start to fill in those potholes. I will find resources in their community to help them deal with the trauma, with whatever it is that was the motivation for them to go in that direction. Nobody’s born racist; we all found it. Then I leverage the community around them to try to engage them and support them, and try to find ways for them to crawl out of that hole. Typically what I found is, people hate other people because they hate something very specifically about themselves, or are very angry about a situation within their own environment, and that is then projected onto other people. So I’m really trying to build resilience with people.

I’ll also do immersions to try to challenge their ideology—so I’ll introduce them to the people they think they hate once they’re ready, and challenge them in the same way I was challenged. It’s helped me disengage over 300 people over the years.

Bayoumy: What are some of the things that prompt these people to question their beliefs?

Picciolini: Certainly not facts. It’s very emotional. I try to take them through an emotional journey where they come to the conclusion that they’ve changed, and it’s not me telling them that they’ve changed. What I’ve found least effective is me telling them that they’re wrong, or me telling them that they need to think a certain way. Typically these people are pretty idealistic, although they’re lost, typically pretty bruised emotionally, and they have very low self-esteem.

---

Gilsinan: What’s next?

Picciolini: I really think we need to get away from using the term lone wolves, because while they are single actors, they are part of a larger ecosystem. I just think it’s going to get worse before it gets better. They’re all trying to outdo each other, not just the last person, but Timothy McVeigh. Terrorists will always find another way to do it. I have to ask myself, Do we have white-nationalist airline pilots? There have to be. I knew people in powerful positions, in politics, in law enforcement, who were secretly white nationalists. I think we’d be stupid and selfish to think that we don’t have those in the truck-driving industry.

RandomPauI posted:

The Atlantic has an interview with a former white nationalist. Here are a few choice bits.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/08/conversation-christian-picciolini/595543/

LordSaturn posted:

it feels a little weird to describe a group dynamic like Compaction without a firmly-defined group to have that dynamic

LordSaturn posted:

it feels a little weird to describe a group dynamic like Compaction without a firmly-defined group to have that dynamic

Aleph Null posted:

Just wanted to say PJ was right about there being an escalation in violence as part of this Compaction.

Aardark posted:

Swooping in to say so-and-so was right based on some vague prediction is a classic right wing idiot tactic.

Prester Jane posted:

I've been thinking the same thing for some time myself. I posited a theory sometime back about what I called a "popcorn kettle" wave of terrorism. The idea here is that individuals who can potentially become radicalized enough to engage in Terror attacks are like seeds of popcorn in a kettle, inert until sufficient heat and pressure is applied. (Heat and pressure in this metaphor represent the general level of radicalization and extremist rhetoric present in the population.) As the heat and pressure level increases in the kettle, at first you start to see random kernels pop off here and there by themselves, then a staccato rapid fire of individual kernels popping off, and then as things really ramp yp you start to see bunches of kernels popping simultaneously. Likewise I believe that in the wave of radicalization spreading through the American populace, we will see first Lone Wolf terrorist attacks as we have been seeing, followed by the emergence of small groups carrying out coordinated Terror campaigns.

Prester Jane posted:

https://twitter.com/dallasnews/status/1140656385899814912?s=19


This particular case is interesting not only because this is (according to my "popcorn kettle" stochastic terrorism model) yet another kernel of corn in the kettle going pop; but because that this is happening so frequently now that this particular incident is receiving basically zero attention from major media. Now, in this particular case no one but the shooter was killed*, but this is still a straight up lonewolf armed with an AR-15- assaulting a federal building.

*because the shooter tried to assault a federal building with a courthouse in it

At this point incidents like these are so indistinct as to have become part of a steady background roar of popping kernels. If my overall previous predictions hold- then the next step-up in escalation from here would be for small groups of 2-5 individuals also conducting these kinds of attacks.

Aardark posted:

Swooping in to say so-and-so was right based on some vague prediction is a classic right wing idiot tactic.

Aleph Null posted:

I was phone-posting while pooping so I didn't have an easy way to go look up the relevant posts, but PJ directly predicted rising violence of white supremacist terrorists. What she did not predict was that some news outlets are actually calling them "terrorists" and not "lone wolves".

Aardark posted:

Swooping in to say so-and-so was right based on some vague prediction is a classic right wing idiot tactic.

Willie Tomg posted:

Dave Neiwert has been tracking this since the 90's. And didn't even need to make an internal alphabet to do it.

T-man posted:

Is your gimmick just posting "NUH UH I READ BOOKS" every thread?

Willie Tomg posted:

I mention him specifically because he's been screaming for 30 years that right wing violence has been continually rising and will continue because it's been a trend.

Helsing posted:

One second thought, nevermind.

Prester Jane posted:

(Also why are you complaining about my work using a specific lexicon in the thread that is supposedly the "containment zone" for me to quitely discuss said lexicon with other interested Goons?)

Willie Tomg posted:

Willie Tomg posted:

Willie Tomg posted:

LordSaturn posted:

lol

go outside

WampaLord posted:

why does all the supposed "constructive criticism" always turn into yelling at PJ and describing anyone who posts in this thread without ripping her apart as cult members

Willie Tomg posted:

incurious worshippers

Willie Tomg posted:

its a real headscratcher i tells ya.

Prester Jane posted:

I saw the original, and I just don't even know what to say.

Dumb Lowtax posted:

In fact most posters that I've read here have agreed with you that there is a US media movement about Russia that itself is far more influential, well funded, and dangerous than Russian efforts.

Willie Tomg posted:

if your idea is a fundamentally psychological one--and i contend, no it is not, narrativism as you've described it is sociological/anthropological depending on how othering you wish to be to the objects of your study--then surely none here are without psychologies.

Prester Jane posted:

To be a little bit more blunt about things: Russia wishes it had the ability to spread radicalization through our society to the degree that YouTube's loving algorithms have been doing for the past ~2 years*.

*Portions of Gen-Z are getting really really really hosed up by the media they are being exposed too by the recommendation algorithms- I don't know exactly what it's going to look like but I expect there to be some sort of (unexpectedly widespread) Zoomer equivalent to Otherkin in about 10 years or so.