At which exact point do you stop laughing at someone's (wilful) stupidity, and start feeling pity for their obvious psychological problems?

It seems to be hard to tell, these days. It's easy to spot the gullible twit at one extreme, and the person clearly in need of therapy and support at the other.

But there seems to be a continuum between these extremes, such that it becomes difficult to pick a point where the balance shifts.

Some more concrete examples: Those people who believe that the CIA is trying to control their minds are really ill, and need help, not derision. But the type of person who authors pro-hoax books, as well as their acolytes, don't need therapy, they need a sharp smack with the clue-bat.

I wasn't sure that I wanted the thread to go in this direction but now I see that is precisely in the direction it should be. A bit of foolishness is something I quite enjoy although I have a low tolerance for idiots. At least we are seeing that there is a potentially different mentality at work here.

Third option, one who is aware they are susceptible to others who might exploit them and yet keenly aware of both their world and their inner beliefs. I am such a person, initially I thought asperger's syndrome but it is rare less than 1%. SPD is far more common and has some curious traits not all bad. Certainly a full inner fantasy life and knowing the difference between that and the real world is not difficult, at least not for me.

The asexual or lack of interest is nicely compensated by a rich inner ... well lets just say it is there and needs like anything else to be kept under control. SPD and I don't believe sufferer or victim applies in the richest of cases do rationalise, they have to. So like any one else a keen interest is held regarding the world but from a different perspective, people don't interest me as much as fascinate me. Being Australian our culture is of equalness and so the detachment is not seen as vertical or superior just distant and yes I feel pity for those who just do not seem to get it.

There is but it takes quite a bit of climbing out of the shell to meet and particularly reveal the side that is calm and prefers to stay hidden. Not my family nor my friends know this much about me and because I believe they do not read here worry enough without needing to understand me regards trying to fit it all together (perhaps on day they may read what I write). Having seen just how much of an impact a heroine addict made on an audience with his testimony I felt it would take climbing out of the shell and exposing my thoughts and experiences to get others to understand why I tried to rationalise existence (I believe however the openness just damaged any chance of getting others to look seriously at the idea). There is a bit of a scientist in each of us although a privileged few get to try it.

Normal distrust is what I would ascribe to the whole of humanity. Heightened distrust would be a normal prerequisite for a conspiracy theorist, to me not that unusual. As for those who see the actors on television speak directly to them, yes sad. But what about a deeper in depth message?

Nostradamus even by random chance and lots of help still intrigues ... what if time is linked? Creative thought is a channel not to actualities but to possibilities. Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa with a beautiful smile in his younger days as evidenced by high res photography. Perhaps with all his ideas that smile was a reflection on how little the world had accepted of his creativity. The hope of youth replaced by the enigma of age, at least it wasn't cross.

Yes I avoid certain people when choosing a movie, I will cry watching "Lassie Come Home" because it is a sweet movie designed to allow you to emotionally be in a safe world to experience the depth of emotions given to us, that is it. Vampire movies ... different story, the theme is of 'humans' killing the living for food and being despised for it. If a holocaust occurred and people did resort to killing for food those who did would be despised and be seen to reject dead presumably rotting meat because of the disaster and seen as vampires for killing the living (soylent green).

That might be a low impression of people and it might not be ... watching the news can be damagingly informative. How shock resistant are people now, desensitized to horror, even children ... not good.

Dreams do not give exact meaning nor could interpretations of the memes of creative thought. Collectively however there are patterns that to some make a certain sense. So when Nostradamus indicates we will try to harness energy beyond our ability ... think how we feel about certain groups getting weapons grade materials or alternately placing the energy of a city behind atoms. Note SPD real people do get impending doom feelings and would like a secure world, they are also quite self sufficient although a bit lazy until the need arises.

Now you have the mental description as best I can put it of the one person I can talk about and one who has rationalised a centric idea. I do not claim to be on the side of flat earthers but nor do I accept the skeptics have all the right answers yet either.

Final trait, I do weather criticism fairly well and try to be tolerant of others but I still feel pain, get frustrated that I am not understood and swing from calm inner to quite a high on many occasions feeling that I have got it and even a normal person could understand a picture painted so simply.

If anything I have learned, it is not to get my hopes up ... I must look up auto-centric writing and see if that is why normal people can't or don't want to understand me. The upside and there is always an upside ... I have collected a wealth of knowledge on this site and feel much better for the experience

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"Nature is obliged to let reality determine its laws, whereas mathematics is under no such constraint."

Thank you for sharing your perspective, Michael. I googled Asperger's Syndrome and see the traits you're talking about. One question (perhaps I missed it): What is SPD?

Rick

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"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

SPD= Schizoid Personality Disorder.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Learning that Geocentrists exist caused me to quote Calvin and Hobbes: "I can't tell if that's really scary or really funny."

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

At least they're no longer the majority.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Thank goodness.

__________________
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Not yet anyway. If you look at the figures there is an increase in the percentage of people with various disorders, asperger's syndrome, schizoid personality disorder, food allergies, asthma and so on.

We may be small now but we are gaining on you

Cheers
Cheers

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"Nature is obliged to let reality determine its laws, whereas mathematics is under no such constraint."

Well you do have to admit that at the time, the evidence was that they were right, opinions changed as more evidence was discovered.

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

None of those things lead to geocentrism. I have Asperger's, I've never felt the urge to believe that I'm not living on a round planet.*

* EDIT: Yes, I know I got it wrong. I'm not fixing it, either. Go on, look at it. Drives you crazy, doesn't it? It's just so very wrong!

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

That is a good thing
Noclevername I am glad for you that you have not felt the urge to believe you are not living on a round planet.

When I first started reading I fit some but not all the points closely enough. I was looking for why people could not understand me. This from Wiki on Asperger syndrome
I was quite pleased with being different from other children and thought this was close but I was wrong. There is so much more to it.

Now with Schizoid Personality Disorder a better match. The next option is that the whole world has a problem and that is not logical.

I try experiments of thought logic to get to simple ideas, say a lump of ice in space. I see that if left for a long time in a freezer the ice erodes away. So if in a frost free very cold solar wind environment ... logically what should a large block of ice do?

Or applying electoral theory to human nature as observed by myself here:-
Take mathematics to express an idea about 100 people, those opportunistic (49), those realistic (48) and those altruistic (3). The opportunist takes any advantage, the realist works for what they get and the altruist is the biggest fool of the all.

The number may be high for altruism but it makes the mathematics work. In a straight vote the opportunistic has the numbers so dictatorships work in single leader cases. In a run off the realist takes the vote of the altruist and that is the reason for democracy but given this is how people see themselves:-
The 49 opportunistic ...would like to think they are altruistic ... Would take before they earned.
The 48 realists ... would like to think they are altruistic ... Would earn what is theirs.
The 3 altruists ... would like to think they are realistic ... Would need to learn to hold on to what was theirs.

There is symmetry in thought, for and against. A dictator with 49% is the most effective individual due to power of self interest. A democracy with 51% is the worst mathematical model but it works because human beings need not only to self promote but to prevent others from excelling. Altruism would be an ideal 100% satisfying the type or desire of each person choice but is outside of the ability of human nature to achieve.

The thing with people that is sad, funny and applied so often is that it is the worst case that best fits people. It is as if it is more important to hold others back that attempt self achievement. Individuals can aspire to noble thought and deed and so few achieve. Groups never do but can be forced by various means violent, by rule of law, by enforced belief and by implied threat.

Electoral theory indicates it is more important to the group that everybody gets the worst choice than it is for the individual to get the best one.

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"Nature is obliged to let reality determine its laws, whereas mathematics is under no such constraint."

1. trigonometric parallax: nearby stars exhibit parallax. Before the age of telescopes, this parallax wasn't detectable, and therefore proponents of geocentric model claimed this was proof in their view. But once stellar parallax was detected, the ball game was OVER, only the motion of earth around sun and not vice versa would cause this.
2. Coriolos force: Foucault pendulum, deflection of winds of earth, prove that earth is in an non-inertial reference frame relative to universe; that it, IT SPINS! So much for a non-moving earth in geocentric view.
3. Moons around Jupiter, other planets. If earth was geocentric, then why the heck would moons revolve around objects other than earth? They wouldn't, which is why Galileo understood the implication of his discovery for demolishing the geocentric theory.
4. Retrograde motion: although one can attain a high degree of accuracy with either model to explain retrograde motion, let's look at the difference. In geocentric theory, epicycles must be invoked to explain this. What an ad hoc, unnatural device. How could anyone believe in "epicycles"? In the heliocentric model, retrograde motion is explained naturally as earth passes, let's say Mars in opposition in cancer right now, so Mars will appear to retrograde in cancer for 2 months as we overtake its orbit. But neither earth nor Mars reverse directions, but rather retrograde motion is just an optical illusion of sorts.
5. stellar evolution models: we have good models now of how the solar system developed, which leads to a central mass ("sun") and outlying planets in a rough ecliptic plane. These models predicted that planets would be common in the galaxy, and guess what? We now have discovered hundreds of exoplanets which are clearly observed to be revolving around their central star.
6. gravitational theory: M (big mass) , m (small mass) in formula . The center of revolution, barycenter, is center of mass of system. Since M(Sun) = million X m(earth) (approx.), the barycenter would be inside sun.
7. Heirarchy of objects: this is common sense once we know the nature of stars, planets, etc. This is related to 5). In solar system, there is a pretty clear heirarchy of objects and in 2006 when IAU reevaluated Pluto's status, they clarified this heirarchy more clearly. A geocentric cosmology would make no sense within this context.

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"fifty is nifty" , unknown poet

The problem is that Geocentrists don't have any desire to change their beliefs. They already discount anyone who tells them that their views are wrong, automatically reject mountains of factual data, and giving them more of the same won't change that. It's not a rational belief, and rational means can't change it.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Good point,

although , I just can't put myself into the head of someone like this because I guess it's the antithesis of the way I think. Hopefully, this type of people are a rare breed in the human population.

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"fifty is nifty" , unknown poet

What have geocentrism and flat earth got to do with each other? One can be geocentric and believe the world is a sphere and one can be a flat earther and believe the earth orbits the sun, or are you doing an Alex Jones and thinking that Galileo proved the Earth was round?

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

I was doing a "don't post late at night when you took your meds at the wrong time".

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort