4 ms·

Living in a Traumatized Society: Narcissism & Toxic Relationships

4 points by rendx 3y ago

nh23423fefe 3y ago
seems off topic for a hacker conference and not relevant for HN either.
- rawgabbit 3y ago
  I don't understand why you feel this topic is irrelevant. Many folks in HN are managers and thought leaders and have influence on technology that touches every aspect of our lives. In the USA, the news report a mass shooting almost every week. This affects those touched by violence permanently. How can tech help reduce this societal problem? Well, one way is to tone down the rhetoric found in social media.
  - elmerfud 3y ago
    Except the evidence doesn't support this in any way. The data show that we are living in the lowest level of crime in the United States that we've seen in decades but the data also shows that we are living in the most narcissistic times that we have ever seen. So the association of pervasive violence with narcissistic toxicity isn't there. It's disingenuous to attempt to conflate the two. And ultimately detracts from those who are affected by actual violence.
    - rawgabbit 3y ago
      I don't agree with your version of reality. Many mass shooters say they were inspired by social media. I also was addressing the question about why this topic is relevant; you have a problem with something else.
      - elmerfud 3y ago
        Not only is the relevance to hacker news dubious at best. The article itself makes a statements with no supporting evidence not even bad evidence. The author is demonstrating the exact narcissistic and toxic traits of putting out sensationalism and just having an accepted without question due to the fact that saying "violence is pervasive" is shocking. Because the underlying premise is if you question someone you are committing violence by asking them to substantiate their claims. Even your repeated statements of, mass shootings, while not trying to downplay any shooting, are media hype. Because you can go and review the crime statistics data and see what has increased is the media presence not the actual criminal activity. By every conceivable measure the United States does not have a pervasive violence problem unless you include verbal disagreements. Because with the rise of narcissism it has become the norm to say you have committed violence if you choose to misgender someone, as one popular recent example. That's not violence that's just being an asshole.
        rendx 3y ago
        It is not an "article", but a talk announcement, which typically do not give additional "references". Since we do not know the content of the talk, you exercise outright rejection and not sincere curiosity, and your comments do not invite an honest and open conversation. You may disagree with their perspective, and you can doubt its contents, call it out as "dubious", and ask them to "substantiate their claims", but I don't see how this makes the description posted "narcisstic and toxic", in even the broadest definitions of the terms that I can think of. They do give multiple books as references, which do look like book from actual trauma therapists and violence researchers. In the old days, you would have been called a troll, and we would not even try and feed you.
        elmerfud 3y ago
        Now you see a resort to personal attacks. If you can't engage in debate on the topic this is exactly what you do. Your own narcissism is evidence in the fact that apparently having an opinion is evidently offensive to you? Instead I must kowtow and beg for counterpoints, instead of having an opinion, stating it emphatically and leaving it there for response. The simple fact of a public post and a public response invites a response on the issues. Instead you leverage personal attacks which means you have nothing to say on the issue. It's as if you have knowingly or unknowingly substantiated every point that I've made in my comments.
  - nh23423fefe 3y ago
    It's cool you can pretend describe a tenuous connection. HN does tech, mass shootings are in media, be nice on twitter, utopia. but that doesn't make this relevant. this isnt content designed to be interesting or informative. its just activism.
elmerfud 3y ago
"a society where violence is pervasive" - with no example or evidence to back up this statement. Bold claims need bold evidence. I suspect that they're redefining violence as "words or statements that I disagree with". Which are one of the primary things that drive the issues in their title. Debate and disagreement is not violence. Only a toxic narcissist would think words of disagreement somehow violate them. Thus they use their toxic narcissistic ways to squash all debate.
- rendx 3y ago
  They do cite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication . A "toxic relationship" by most definitions you will find contains mostly elements of emotional and verbal violence, which have a broad range of definition. Pervasiveness of violence, literally thousands over thousands of studies: https://apps.who.int/violence-info/ https://apps.who.int/violence-info/ WHO definition of intimate partner violence: "Intimate partner violence refers to behaviour within an intimate relationship that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm, including acts of physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviours. This definition covers violence by both current and former spouses and partners.", of which they say 26% of all women have been affected of at least once in their lifetime. They call it "devastatingly pervasive": https://www.who.int/news/item/09-03-2021-devastatingly-pervasive-1-in-3-women-globally-experience-violence https://www.who.int/news/item/09-03-2021-devastatingly-perva... "An average of 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States — more than 12 million women and men over the course of a single year." "1 in 4 women (24.3%) and 1 in 7 men (13.8%) aged 18 and older in the US have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime." "Almost half of all women and men in the US have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime (48.4% and 48.8%, respectively)." https://www.thehotline.org/stakeholders/domestic-violence-statistics/ https://www.thehotline.org/stakeholders/domestic-violence-st... Europe: The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (the Istanbul Convention) (Article 33) defines psychological violence as “any intentional course of conduct that seriously impairs another person’s psychological integrity through coercion or threats.” "An estimated 37% of women living in the poorest countries have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence in their life, with some of these countries having a prevalence as high as 1 in 2." https://eige.europa.eu/newsroom/news/almost-1-2-women-eu-have-experienced-psychological-violence?language_content_entity=en https://eige.europa.eu/newsroom/news/almost-1-2-women-eu-hav...

4 points by rendx 3y ago

nh23423fefe 3y ago

seems off topic for a hacker conference and not relevant for HN either.

rawgabbit 3y ago
I don't understand why you feel this topic is irrelevant. Many folks in HN are managers and thought leaders and have influence on technology that touches every aspect of our lives. In the USA, the news report a mass shooting almost every week. This affects those touched by violence permanently. How can tech help reduce this societal problem? Well, one way is to tone down the rhetoric found in social media.
- elmerfud 3y ago
  Except the evidence doesn't support this in any way. The data show that we are living in the lowest level of crime in the United States that we've seen in decades but the data also shows that we are living in the most narcissistic times that we have ever seen. So the association of pervasive violence with narcissistic toxicity isn't there. It's disingenuous to attempt to conflate the two. And ultimately detracts from those who are affected by actual violence.
  - rawgabbit 3y ago
    I don't agree with your version of reality. Many mass shooters say they were inspired by social media. I also was addressing the question about why this topic is relevant; you have a problem with something else.
    - elmerfud 3y ago
      Not only is the relevance to hacker news dubious at best. The article itself makes a statements with no supporting evidence not even bad evidence. The author is demonstrating the exact narcissistic and toxic traits of putting out sensationalism and just having an accepted without question due to the fact that saying "violence is pervasive" is shocking. Because the underlying premise is if you question someone you are committing violence by asking them to substantiate their claims. Even your repeated statements of, mass shootings, while not trying to downplay any shooting, are media hype. Because you can go and review the crime statistics data and see what has increased is the media presence not the actual criminal activity. By every conceivable measure the United States does not have a pervasive violence problem unless you include verbal disagreements. Because with the rise of narcissism it has become the norm to say you have committed violence if you choose to misgender someone, as one popular recent example. That's not violence that's just being an asshole.
      - rendx 3y ago
        It is not an "article", but a talk announcement, which typically do not give additional "references". Since we do not know the content of the talk, you exercise outright rejection and not sincere curiosity, and your comments do not invite an honest and open conversation. You may disagree with their perspective, and you can doubt its contents, call it out as "dubious", and ask them to "substantiate their claims", but I don't see how this makes the description posted "narcisstic and toxic", in even the broadest definitions of the terms that I can think of. They do give multiple books as references, which do look like book from actual trauma therapists and violence researchers. In the old days, you would have been called a troll, and we would not even try and feed you.
        elmerfud 3y ago
        Now you see a resort to personal attacks. If you can't engage in debate on the topic this is exactly what you do. Your own narcissism is evidence in the fact that apparently having an opinion is evidently offensive to you? Instead I must kowtow and beg for counterpoints, instead of having an opinion, stating it emphatically and leaving it there for response. The simple fact of a public post and a public response invites a response on the issues. Instead you leverage personal attacks which means you have nothing to say on the issue. It's as if you have knowingly or unknowingly substantiated every point that I've made in my comments.
- nh23423fefe 3y ago
  It's cool you can pretend describe a tenuous connection. HN does tech, mass shootings are in media, be nice on twitter, utopia. but that doesn't make this relevant. this isnt content designed to be interesting or informative. its just activism.

elmerfud 3y ago

"a society where violence is pervasive" - with no example or evidence to back up this statement. Bold claims need bold evidence. I suspect that they're redefining violence as "words or statements that I disagree with". Which are one of the primary things that drive the issues in their title. Debate and disagreement is not violence. Only a toxic narcissist would think words of disagreement somehow violate them. Thus they use their toxic narcissistic ways to squash all debate.

rendx 3y ago
They do cite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication . A "toxic relationship" by most definitions you will find contains mostly elements of emotional and verbal violence, which have a broad range of definition. Pervasiveness of violence, literally thousands over thousands of studies: https://apps.who.int/violence-info/ https://apps.who.int/violence-info/ WHO definition of intimate partner violence: "Intimate partner violence refers to behaviour within an intimate relationship that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm, including acts of physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviours. This definition covers violence by both current and former spouses and partners.", of which they say 26% of all women have been affected of at least once in their lifetime. They call it "devastatingly pervasive": https://www.who.int/news/item/09-03-2021-devastatingly-pervasive-1-in-3-women-globally-experience-violence https://www.who.int/news/item/09-03-2021-devastatingly-perva... "An average of 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States — more than 12 million women and men over the course of a single year." "1 in 4 women (24.3%) and 1 in 7 men (13.8%) aged 18 and older in the US have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime." "Almost half of all women and men in the US have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime (48.4% and 48.8%, respectively)." https://www.thehotline.org/stakeholders/domestic-violence-statistics/ https://www.thehotline.org/stakeholders/domestic-violence-st... Europe: The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (the Istanbul Convention) (Article 33) defines psychological violence as “any intentional course of conduct that seriously impairs another person’s psychological integrity through coercion or threats.” "An estimated 37% of women living in the poorest countries have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence in their life, with some of these countries having a prevalence as high as 1 in 2." https://eige.europa.eu/newsroom/news/almost-1-2-women-eu-have-experienced-psychological-violence?language_content_entity=en https://eige.europa.eu/newsroom/news/almost-1-2-women-eu-hav...