3 ms·

One of the more equalizing things about bullies, especially the adult variety, is they’re often non-thinking and inevitably hoist themselves by their own petard

One of the more equalizing things about bullies, especially the adult variety, is they’re often non-thinking and inevitably hoist themselves by their own petard. Maybe this parallel is obvious, but being the aggressor and seeing yourself as the victim is completely characteristic of some popular political groups and a certain warfaring dictator. They always seem to destroy themselves given enough time.

JackFr 4y ago
In general that’s not a great heuristic to go by. In college, when I came across a bully who was much, much smarter than me it was terrifying. The lesson was avoid at all costs.
- trizuz 4y ago
  [dead]
throwawaylinux 4y ago
It's extremely popular these days to view oneself as victim. Boast about it even. It is rooted in narcissism to be sure (which is probably where a lot of bullying is rooted in too).
- pessimizer 4y ago
  It's simply exploiting the desire that people have to protect the vulnerable; extremely social people are competing to be the "underdog." People who say they are being victimized by other people's claims of victimhood are a subset of that same group.
travisjungroth 4y ago
I'd guess it's that everyone is often non-thinking. I'm not sure if there's a correlation between intelligence and kindness and which way it would go. But the thing is you get more free passes when you're kind. If it was all his friends throwing him a surprise party and forgetting of course he'd notice on his cameras, it would just be funny.
- drdeca 4y ago
  My impression is that, among humans, there is a somewhat positive correlation between intelligence and benevolent behavior. (But I would expect the tails to come apart somewhat. Also, among non-human minds I wouldn’t necessarily expect this to show the same pattern.)
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    I don't know if I've found that to be the case. I've known a lot of high IQ types that were fundamentally pretty bad people, or more often just sort of innocuously sociopathic. I don't find them to be a better-than-average class of person. I think the key here is that we all have different definitions of "benevolent." An awful lot of hate crimes have been committed in the history of the human race in the name of making things better. Almost nobody thinks that they are the bad guy. I hate to jump right to Godwin's Law here, but a lot of Nazis thought they were doing the right thing. Ridding the world of "undesirables" and so on was their (twisted, wrong) idea of bettering the world. One thing smart people are undeniably better at is coming up with grand justifications for their crappy actions and then proceed to buy into their own bullshit. Think of how a skilled lawyer or rhetorician can construct a convincing one-sided argument in favor of almost any damn thing. Dumb people can be shitheads too but only the smart shitheads will write a freaking manifesto about it.
    - drdeca 4y ago
      I just meant some correlation, not necessarily a particularly strong one. I didn’t mean to suggest that there are no people who are both highly intelligent and also completely vile.
      - JohnBooty 4y ago
        I definitely took it to mean that it was a (perhaps small) positive correlation and not an immutable law, but maaan. At this point in my life I might think it's even a negative correlation. I'd like to think that a benevolent sort of mutualism is kind of an obvious higher truth. I certainly believe in it. If we work together there will be more for everybody. Very few things in life are truly zero-sum. And I think for most of human history, things worked this way. In a small family/village/tribe, cooperation was essential, and there was probably a pretty strong evolutionary preference for those that were benevolent rather than evil, at least towards their own family/village/tribe. Smarter people would understand this better. Help your neighbor out, and he'll help you out, and maybe nobody has to get eaten by a bear. But no more. Groups are so big now. There's no obvious personal benefit to being a "good person." If you act like a dick in a small village then maybe you die next winter because the grain never gets harvested and everybody starves. But in modern society, there's just not much of a penalty for being a dick.
JohnBooty 4y ago
bullies, especially the adult variety, is they’re often non-thinking and inevitably hoist themselves by their own petard Wow, absolutely the opposite experience here. Adult bullies are in my experience typically waging some kind of information warfare -- spreading rumors and allegations. Either personal or work related. And/or they are exploiting some power asymmetry. These are people who play political games at work or in other organizations, and/or spread rumors online. They know how to build social/political currency and then "spend" it by making allegations that are either difficult or impossible to disprove. Essentially, unless massively incompetent, they hold all of the power. And most of them have been practicing this since their school days. It takes easily 10x the effort for you to disprove something as it does for them to make the allegation in the first place. Sometimes it's 100x, sometimes it's just impossible. And God forbid you're facing more than one of them. You really can't win, unless they lose interest in you. As far as "non-thinking" goes? I dunno. Some are totally non-thinking, and some are sociopathically doing it "for the lulz," but a lot of them have thought deeply about what they're doing and are absolutely convinced that they are right.
khazhoux 4y ago
> ... a certain warfaring dictator. They always seem to destroy themselves given enough time. Things we say to make ourselves feel better. A certain warfaring dictator has enjoyed a long life of unlimited power, riches, and indulgences.
- smcl 4y ago
  The man in question will live out his final years as an international pariah, paranoid about appearing weak in front of any potential rivals domestically, unable to freely travel internationally and with his legacy tarnished beyond repair. I’m not sure we will see him in a jail cell, but currently he’s not exactly living his best life …
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    I thought he had taken up painting and had a book tour a couple years ago.
    - smcl 4y ago
      Bush, Blair and the cohort that pushed for invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq will unfortunately retire in peace. They weren’t dictators, not that this excuses them in anyway
- TheHappyOddish 4y ago
  Who are we talkng about here? Bush, Clinton? Obama?

JackFr 4y ago

In general that’s not a great heuristic to go by. In college, when I came across a bully who was much, much smarter than me it was terrifying. The lesson was avoid at all costs.

trizuz 4y ago
[dead]

throwawaylinux 4y ago

It's extremely popular these days to view oneself as victim. Boast about it even. It is rooted in narcissism to be sure (which is probably where a lot of bullying is rooted in too).

pessimizer 4y ago
It's simply exploiting the desire that people have to protect the vulnerable; extremely social people are competing to be the "underdog." People who say they are being victimized by other people's claims of victimhood are a subset of that same group.

travisjungroth 4y ago

I'd guess it's that everyone is often non-thinking. I'm not sure if there's a correlation between intelligence and kindness and which way it would go. But the thing is you get more free passes when you're kind. If it was all his friends throwing him a surprise party and forgetting of course he'd notice on his cameras, it would just be funny.

drdeca 4y ago
My impression is that, among humans, there is a somewhat positive correlation between intelligence and benevolent behavior. (But I would expect the tails to come apart somewhat. Also, among non-human minds I wouldn’t necessarily expect this to show the same pattern.)
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  I don't know if I've found that to be the case. I've known a lot of high IQ types that were fundamentally pretty bad people, or more often just sort of innocuously sociopathic. I don't find them to be a better-than-average class of person. I think the key here is that we all have different definitions of "benevolent." An awful lot of hate crimes have been committed in the history of the human race in the name of making things better. Almost nobody thinks that they are the bad guy. I hate to jump right to Godwin's Law here, but a lot of Nazis thought they were doing the right thing. Ridding the world of "undesirables" and so on was their (twisted, wrong) idea of bettering the world. One thing smart people are undeniably better at is coming up with grand justifications for their crappy actions and then proceed to buy into their own bullshit. Think of how a skilled lawyer or rhetorician can construct a convincing one-sided argument in favor of almost any damn thing. Dumb people can be shitheads too but only the smart shitheads will write a freaking manifesto about it.
  - drdeca 4y ago
    I just meant some correlation, not necessarily a particularly strong one. I didn’t mean to suggest that there are no people who are both highly intelligent and also completely vile.
    - JohnBooty 4y ago
      I definitely took it to mean that it was a (perhaps small) positive correlation and not an immutable law, but maaan. At this point in my life I might think it's even a negative correlation. I'd like to think that a benevolent sort of mutualism is kind of an obvious higher truth. I certainly believe in it. If we work together there will be more for everybody. Very few things in life are truly zero-sum. And I think for most of human history, things worked this way. In a small family/village/tribe, cooperation was essential, and there was probably a pretty strong evolutionary preference for those that were benevolent rather than evil, at least towards their own family/village/tribe. Smarter people would understand this better. Help your neighbor out, and he'll help you out, and maybe nobody has to get eaten by a bear. But no more. Groups are so big now. There's no obvious personal benefit to being a "good person." If you act like a dick in a small village then maybe you die next winter because the grain never gets harvested and everybody starves. But in modern society, there's just not much of a penalty for being a dick.

JohnBooty 4y ago

bullies, especially the adult variety, is they’re often non-thinking and inevitably hoist themselves by their own petard Wow, absolutely the opposite experience here. Adult bullies are in my experience typically waging some kind of information warfare -- spreading rumors and allegations. Either personal or work related. And/or they are exploiting some power asymmetry. These are people who play political games at work or in other organizations, and/or spread rumors online. They know how to build social/political currency and then "spend" it by making allegations that are either difficult or impossible to disprove. Essentially, unless massively incompetent, they hold all of the power. And most of them have been practicing this since their school days. It takes easily 10x the effort for you to disprove something as it does for them to make the allegation in the first place. Sometimes it's 100x, sometimes it's just impossible. And God forbid you're facing more than one of them. You really can't win, unless they lose interest in you. As far as "non-thinking" goes? I dunno. Some are totally non-thinking, and some are sociopathically doing it "for the lulz," but a lot of them have thought deeply about what they're doing and are absolutely convinced that they are right.

khazhoux 4y ago

> ... a certain warfaring dictator. They always seem to destroy themselves given enough time. Things we say to make ourselves feel better. A certain warfaring dictator has enjoyed a long life of unlimited power, riches, and indulgences.

smcl 4y ago
The man in question will live out his final years as an international pariah, paranoid about appearing weak in front of any potential rivals domestically, unable to freely travel internationally and with his legacy tarnished beyond repair. I’m not sure we will see him in a jail cell, but currently he’s not exactly living his best life …
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  I thought he had taken up painting and had a book tour a couple years ago.
  - smcl 4y ago
    Bush, Blair and the cohort that pushed for invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq will unfortunately retire in peace. They weren’t dictators, not that this excuses them in anyway
TheHappyOddish 4y ago
Who are we talkng about here? Bush, Clinton? Obama?