Arya interview video link and Elsa interview invitation

Here is the link to the interview with Arya.

For Elsa, on the advice of a listener, we're going to try to have a more structured audience participation. So come prepared! Or feel free to lurk as always. But we're going to be discussing this Slate article from an American lawyer who specializes in Chinese law.

M.E. Thomas is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Elsa and Arya
Time: May 17, 2020 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/71244896244

Meeting ID: 712 4489 6244
Password: 5mhHH0

Tweets referenced:

Everybody can make a right choice no matter what they’ve done in the past. It doesn’t diminish the rightness of a choice that you’ve made terrible mistakes before. You can start over in a moment. This man was right to hand over the child, for all we know he may no longer be scum. https://t.co/gLsxu7tJd3

— M.E. (@sociopathworld) May 13, 2020

Adam Slater stabbed his wife and took his one year old. He then got into a wreck when fleeing the scene with his one year old. A bystander tried to save his one year old out of the wrecked car and Adam stabbed him. Adam then threw his one year old off a cliff to die. Evil exists. pic.twitter.com/RkCm3YpRaR

— Overheard On Duty (@OverheardOnDuty) May 13, 2020

Baby Boomers = generation of sociopaths?

I have expressed my prejudices re baby boomers before (i.e. generation of narcissists), but someone wrote a book about how they're sociopathic. From the Huffington Post:

In his new book, A Generation of Sociopaths, writer and venture capitalist Bruce Gibney puts forth the controversial hypothesis that baby boomers ― specifically the large subset of white, middle-class boomers ― are, both individually and as a group, unusually sociopathic. Gibney cites mental health data showing boomers have significantly higher levels of antisocial traits and behaviors ― including lack of empathy, disregard for others, egotism and impulsivity ― than other generations.

As a result, boomers have used their substantial voting power to create a society and government that don’t work very well. Or, as Gibney puts it, boomers’ “private behaviors congealed into a debased neoliberalism.”

The author regarding the impact of boomers' dogged self-interest:

There’s obviously been a substantial deceleration of economic growth. The Great Recession arguably began in 2001 and we’ve never entirely recovered ― so that’s 16 years of lost opportunity. 

The second big thing on the economic front is the intergenerational passing of burdens, and the most salient one is the debt. Gross debt to GDP 40 years ago was 34 percent, and today it’s around 105 percent. It’s projected by [the Congressional Budget Office] to exceed the World War II highs by the early 2030s. When boomers start taking control and influencing policies, the policies get worse on the debt, so that now we haven’t seen these levels of debt in more than 70 years.

There are consequences to these levels of debt. ... But that’s not really relevant for the boomers. This is not their problem and they have not been serious about it. The debt wasn’t discussed as a serious issue during the 2016 presidential election, but Social Security was ― because we know that this program is going to be partially insolvent by 2034. And this is the only thing that Trump and Clinton could agree on: Social Security ― untouchable. Medicare ― untouchable. These things are sacred. They couldn’t even agree where to stand on the stage together, and they agreed on Social Security.  

People who know me personally know I rarely pass up an opportunity to take potshots at baby boomers. It's not even the selfishness that gets on my nerves, because really everyone is selfish. It's the delusional self-aggrandizement. Boomers all think they're self-made success stories, just because they happen to have been born perfectly timed to profit from one of the biggest economic booms in known history. As they say, a rising tide lifts all boats, but a lot of boomers credit their success to being a particularly skilled captain. I think it's great (for me) when these people apply that hubris to their trades in the stock market, but it generally makes them boorish dinner companions.

Sociopath, though? No, I stick by my initial assessment of narcissists. I'd like to think that the average sociopath is much more self-aware than the average baby boomer.