She Is So "Ood" (Rude)

I had often wondered about the cause of touchiness. What causes us to be so sensitive and explode in anger or feel hurt?
And I say that touchiness is one of the worst traits to have.

I had zoomed in on the feelings being damaged and / or on thoughts / rationality being damaged as the possible causes of this touchiness.

A damage to the thought is when, say, someone accuses you of dishonesty. If you are a very honest person, this is enough to get some of us into a rage. Unfortunately, we value external opinion so much that even an external untrue assertion can upset us.

In other people, a damage to our feelings is enough to get us all riled up. This damage may be because someone addressed us in the singular instead of in the plural. (This singular and plural form of addressing exists in many languages but not in English.) A damage to your feelings could also happen when someone uses abusive language at you or hits you or uses a loud intimidating tone. In all these cases, there is nothing done to or said about your character. In each of these cases, the issue is not one of whether what someone said was true or not, rather whether what was said  or done was socially appropriate.

Essentially, the injury we feel is of two kinds. One, when what is alleged is untrue. Second, when what is alleged or said is hurting but where there is no question of falsehood of what was said.

When people tell you, that you were very harsh - the thing often forgotten is: whether what you said was untrue. Or just harsh but true. Our emotions step in and zoom into the how something was said, rather than allowing our rational thought to check whether the said thing was true.
Note that something very negative printed about you is not libel if the printed thing is true. The emotions in us would hate to accept this.

Hence it's interesting to ask ourselves: are we upset more by harshness and the tone used? Or more by unfair allegations? What does each of these trigger in us?

It's one thing to be a nun and be called a whore. It's quite another thing to be a whore and be called one. Each of these may cause anguish in us and for very different reasons.

As DK said, the experiencing self is different from the remembering self (Read about DK and his book here: https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/10/thinking-fast-and-slow-daniel-kahnemann.html.

The remembering self, apparently, remembers the end and not a summary of all the events. Hence a social adept strategy is to always end an interaction well no matter how bad the earlier moments or years were. A socially inept strategy, on the other hand, is to end poorly.

Being humans we tend to place an inordinate emphasis on the end. An event that triggers a touchy response in us is enough to ingratiate itself in our remembering self, any positive memories from the experiencing self is locked out or squeezed small.

I guess the reverse is also true. You can change eons of poor experiencing self with a lovely finale. All is well that ends well.

Why is touchiness bad?
Because it erases any positive experiences and replaces them with the unpleasant remembering self. As I said in the beginning of this post, touchiness is awful.

Imagine if
100 - 5 = -4
And
-100 + 5 =4

The 5 standing metaphorically for the last social interaction. A negative sign indicates a negative interaction or negative memory. The 100 stands for the experiencing self. The remembering self is the sum value and equals almost the value of the last interaction while largely disregarding the experiencing self.

We then understand the importance we implicitly assign to the sign in our "mental maths". 

We probably love dogs because they seem to place so little emphasis on "last minute remembering self".  The experiencing self in them seems to be so overpowering.
Read: https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2018/07/inna-chethaarai-oruthal.html. 

Essentially being touchy seems to very unfair in that it doesn't reward the experiencing self at all, focusing, instead, all the attention on the negative remembering self. Is it possible for us touchy people to consciously force ourselves to focus on the memories of the experiencing self?

Additional reading
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-why-nobel-prize-winner-daniel-kahneman-gave-up-on-happiness-1.6528513: Quote - "Moreover, we usually choose the next vacation not as an experience but as a future memory. If prior to the decision about our next vacation we assume that at the end all the photos will be erased, and we’ll be given a drug that will also erase our memory, it’s quite possible that we’ll choose a different vacation from the one that we actually choose.”

Delivery By Drones

Much has been said about men being unable to handle or accept his wife's successful career.

While this is likely true of men, I wonder how women would react to surrogate motherhood of a variety where child birth that doesn't need women - Perhaps men give birth or maybe the good old drone (Amazon's version of stork) delivers babies home.

How would this affect women? Would they pained? Would they love it that they don't have to go through 40 weeks of pain? 

How would women feel about the question of men feeling defensive about a wife with a successful career when "surrogate motherhood" becomes popular?

Is a successful wife an issue only with men? Would wives be comfortable with absence of their pregnancy? Or worse, with "fertile fathers"?

In a lighter vein, men could claim that their midlife paunch is a result only of hormonal changes and childbirth. Imagine having to hear that.

Forcefulness

Forcefulness comes out of confidence about one's plan of action (POA). Whether the POA is justified, moral are not relevant. Forcefulness can be driven by a narcissistic nature or by competence. A strong feeling of need may not have anything to do with competence. 

When I tell someone to DO IT, it could be because:

1. I need (it to be done)
2. I know (it has to be done)

I think the need takes precedence over knowledge when we become forceful. Meaning, it's when we definitely don't have a need that it's knowledge that makes us forceful.

When We Hear But Don't Listen

I have a subscribed to a newspaper. I had problems reading it on their app on Android.

Here is the issue raised with them.

Hi, 

I have a yearly subscription. I think the last payment was made in July 2018.

I have 2 android devices. In the first one (Motorola), the subscription details are shown correctly in the app and i have no issue reading the articles. In the 2nd device (Panasonic) the subscription is shown as inactive and I am unable to read the articles. The message shown is that I have to subscribe.

I wonder why I have an issue in the Panasonic phone (Android 7).

Can you help me pls?

Thanks in advance.

Their reply:

Thank you for contacting! I see you are trying to link your Google account with your subscription. To access content with your Google account please be sure you completed the full registration for the link up. Here are instructions to help guide you.

Once you have subscribed through Google Play, you will be prompted to create a profile which will allow you unlimited access to the website, in addition to the app you purchased through. If you do not link your in-app purchased subscription you will not receive full access to the website and mobile website.

If you missed this step when you purchased, please follow the directions below:

Open the app you purchased your subscription from 

Go to Settings

Select Log In or Create Account. Follow the instructions to create a profile 

If you are having trouble linking your Google Play purchased subscription to your sign in credentials, please let us know.

Thanks!

Unbelievable. I thought a bot had responded to the issue. The response above was a mail from the customer care.

Path To God And Morality

When what you want is much more than what your drive or talent can provide, then:

1. You turn to God, Vaastu etc. This is usually packaged as a quest towards spirituality, inner peace, helping the needy etc. One needs to recognize it for what it is. Look towards the person's generosity. Such people are often not generous. They may occasionally pay Paul. But they are likely to have robbed many Peter's en route.
2. You become feminine (give what you can and ask for what you need). Incidentally this belief is also shared by communism. The insidious nature of this can be observed when someone does a lot to address your needs and all they get is a thanks (eg., recall the Thank You note written by Helen Hunt to Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets). Then you realize that you were primarily looking at getting your needs met and what you could do in return was (SASC and) say Thanks. They have been paid in full for services rendered. Is this such a bad thing? You gave them back what you could, which happened to be a heartfelt thanks. Imagine driving to a Volvo dealership and asking them to give you a car because you need one and all you have to pay for it is your good heart which can say an earnest Thanks. When all (that's a hyperbole) your payments are in intangible things and all (hyperbole once again) your receipts are tangible things, ain't that nice. This idea has been explained more eloquently in Atlas Shrugged.
3. Steal, murder and do other immoral / illegal things.

The above points are a continuous spectrum. A person having one of the above characteristics may or may not have the rest of the characteristics.
Only the 3rd point is illegal. The 1st and 2nd points aren't. 
The 1st point gives an indication of your nature, that of your unmet needs, couched in socially correct language. 
The 2nd is very subtle and uses social interaction for one's benefit at the cost of another's. The 3rd of course takes what belongs to someone else by force and is immediately recognized as unlawful. The 2nd is never seen as unlawful.

Robert And Mary - IPE

Imagine if you knew what affected each person. For example, some people react nastily to accusation of lying, some people to accusation of embezzlement, some to being uncaring. 

Some people don't mind much what you say if it's in private, some don't care where you said it and who heard it. What you accuse them of is all that matters, no matter who heard the accusation.

Some people are rational and understand only logic. Some understand only pain. Some people focus only on results achieved. Some focus primarily on lead indicators such as effort or intentions. Some are extremely offended by the tone of your voice, some are more offended by a smile that doesn't reach your eyes.

Some people need empathy to be shown to them than something tangible. Others need tangible generosity and can't stand empathetic (SASC) routine.

If you understood all this about your audience, you could decide the best way to communicate and deal with them. If you wanted to demolish a building or to design a better brake for a vehicle, you would decide on the approach based on the characteristics of the said building or the vehicle and the environment around the building, vehicle.

The same is true when dealing with people. It is engineering once again. How you ought to deal with Robert is different from how you deal with Mary. Dealing with people without understanding the specific characteristics of Robert or Mary is poor IPE (Inter Personal Engineering). 

What's the big deal about this idea? Every man worth his salt knows it and practices it. Right?

Really? Is that so?

No. There are some people who have never heard of this idea, many more who are aware of it but do not have the skills or preference to practice it. For such people, this IPE comes as something of a shock. These people express their thoughts and do things without considering the differences between Robert and Mary. 

Additional reading
https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2018/09/christene-blasey-ford-and-brett.html

Swimming InSensitivity

A friend sent me this link: https://www.storypick.com/single-mom-bullies-swimming-teacher/

I thought the exchange was rather funny because it's so obvious that the lady talking to the coach is awfully insensitive.

It's more interesting when it's not so obvious - for example when the lady (or man or child) isn't so expressive as the one in the link but the thoughts, not expressed as eloquently, are just as repulsive.

Continuing on, I thought insensitivity could be of 2 kinds.
Let's say a person is supposed to do some work for us everyday and that person doesn't turn up on Sunday and we ask why he didn't work on Sunday. There are two options here:

1. When we are paying the person by the hour,  we are insensitive and a J (as in MBTI). Note, we will pay him for the hour(s) on Sunday. There is some innocence in our question, an Innocence and insensitivity that arises from our J.
2. When we are paying by the month (so many $ per month for a quantum of work everyday), that's just pure insensitivity. The work on Sunday does not pay the guy anything extra. Here there is no innocence at play, we just want a good deal for ourselves at someone else's expense.

Now the lady talking to the swimming coach in the link above: which kind was she?

Quiet

This is mostly a set of quotes (without permission) from a nice book by Susan Cain.

The author seems to have equated E to ESxP and I to INyJ. The author's E seems to have the characteristics of a Venus, her "I" that of Saturn. The x sends likely to be F and y to be T.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts_in_a_World_That_Can%27t_Stop_Talking

Righteous behavior [it is believed] is not so much the good we do behind closed doors when no one is there to praise us; it is what we “put out into the world.”

Most of Berns’s volunteers reported having gone along with the group because “they thought that they had arrived serendipitously at the same correct answer.” They were utterly blind, in other words, to how much their peers had influenced them. 

Psychologists often discuss the difference between “temperament” and “personality.” Temperament refers to inborn, biologically based behavioral and emotional patterns that are observable in infancy and early childhood; personality is the complex brew that emerges after cultural influence and personal experience are thrown into the mix. Some say that temperament is the foundation, and personality is the building. Kagan’s work helped link certain infant temperaments with adolescent personality styles. 

Kagan hypothesized that infants born with an especially excitable amygdala would wiggle and howl when shown unfamiliar objects—and grow up to be children who were more likely to feel vigilant when meeting new people. And this is just what he found. In other words, the four-month-olds who thrashed their arms like punk rockers. did so not because they were extroverts in the making, but because their little bodies reacted strongly—they were “high-reactive”—to new sights, sounds, and smells. The quiet infants were silent not because they were future introverts—just the opposite—but because they had nervous systems that were unmoved by novelty.
The more reactive a child’s amygdala, the higher his heart rate is likely to be, the more widely dilated his eyes, the tighter his vocal cords, the more cortisol (a stress hormone) in his saliva—the more jangled he’s likely to feel when he confronts something new and stimulating. As high-reactive infants grow up, they continue to confront the unknown in many different contexts, from visiting an amusement park for the first time to meeting new classmates on the first day of kindergarten. We tend to notice most a child’s reaction to unfamiliar people - how does he behave on the first day of school? Does she seem uncertain at birthday parties full of kids she doesn’t know? But what we’re really observing is a child’s sensitivity to novelty in general, not just to people.    High- and low-reactivity are probably not the only biological routes to introversion and extroversion. There are plenty of introverts who do not have the sensitivity of a classic high-reactive, and a small percentage of high-reactives grow up to be extroverts. Still, Kagan’s decades-long series of discoveries mark a dramatic breakthrough in our understanding of these personality styles—including the value judgments we make.

If a high-reactive toddler breaks another child’s toy by mistake, studies show, she often experiences a more intense mix of guilt and sorrow than a lower-reactive child would. All kids notice their environments and feel emotions, of course, but high-reactive kids seem to see and feel things more. If you ask a high-reactive seven-year-old how a group of kids should share a coveted toy, writes the science journalist Winifred Gallagher, he’ll tend to come up with sophisticated strategies like “Alphabetize their last names, and let the person closest to A go first.”
There was an easy answer to the nature-nurture question after all—we are born with prepackaged temperaments that powerfully shape our adult personalities.
On the other hand, there is also a wide range of possible outcomes for each temperament. Low-reactive, extroverted children, if raised by attentive families in safe environments, can grow up to be energetic achievers with big personalities—the Richard Bransons and Oprahs of this world. But give those same children negligent caregivers or a bad neighborhood, say some psychologists, and they can turn into bullies, juvenile delinquents, or criminals. Lykken has controversially called psychopaths and heroes “twigs on the same genetic branch.”
Incidentally I said that CEO's and criminals are similar.
It may be that some disadvantaged kids who get into trouble suffer not solely from poverty or neglect, say those who hold this view, but also from the tragedy of a bold and exuberant temperament deprived of healthy outlets.
But even orchid children can withstand some adversity, Belsky says. Take divorce. In general, it will disrupt orchid kids more than others: “If the parents squabble a lot, and put their kid in the middle, then watch out—this is the kid who will succumb.”

Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person’s capacity to act. - —MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI
Our inborn temperaments influence us, regardless of the lives we lead. A sizable part of who we are is ordained by our genes, by our brains, by our nervous systems. And yet the elasticity that Schwartz found in some of the high-reactive teens also suggests the converse: we have free will and can use it to shape our personalities.
These seem like contradictory principles, but they are not. Free will can take us far, suggests Dr. Schwartz’s research, but it cannot carry us infinitely beyond our genetic limits. Bill Gates is never going to be Bill Clinton, no matter how he polishes his social skills, and Bill Clinton can never be Bill Gates, no matter how much time he spends alone with a computer.

Sometimes speakers need to talk about subjects that don’t interest them much, especially at work. I believe this is harder for introverts, who have trouble projecting artificial enthusiasm.

But Eleanor wasn’t the light, witty type he’d been expected to marry. Just the opposite: she was slow to laugh, bored by small talk, serious-minded, shy. Her mother, a fine-boned, vivacious aristocrat, had nicknamed her “Granny” because of her demeanor.

Some children, it turns out, feel a lot more guilty about their (supposed) transgression than others. They look away, hug themselves, stammer out confessions, hide their faces. And it’s the kids we might call the most sensitive, the most high-reactive, the ones who are likely to be introverts who feel the guiltiest.

High-reactive introverts sweat more; low-reactive extroverts sweat less. Their skin is literally “thicker,” more impervious to stimuli, cooler to the touch. In fact, according to some of the scientists I spoke to, this is where our notion of being socially “cool” comes from; the lower-reactive you are, the cooler your skin, the cooler you are. (Incidentally, sociopaths lie at the extreme end of this coolness barometer, with extremely low levels of arousal, skin conductance, and anxiety.)
We know from Kagan’s work that a relaxed torso is a hallmark of low reactivity; and alcohol removes our inhibitions and lowers our arousal levels. When you go to a football game and someone offers you a beer, says the personality psychologist Brian Little, “they’re really saying hi, have a glass of extroversion.”
Elaine Aron has an idea about this. She believes that high sensitivity was not itself selected for, but rather the careful, reflective style that tends to accompany it.

It’s not that there’s no small talk, observes Strickland, the leader of the gathering. It’s that it comes not at the beginning of conversations but at the end. In most settings, people use small talk as a way of relaxing into a new relationship, and only once they’re comfortable do they connect more seriously. Sensitive people seem to do the reverse. They “enjoy small talk only after they’ve gone deep,” says Strickland. “When sensitive people are in environments that nurture their authenticity, they laugh and chitchat just as much as anyone else.”

We all have old brains, of course. But just as the amygdala of a high-reactive person is more sensitive than average to novelty, so do extroverts seem to be more susceptible than introverts to the reward-seeking cravings of the old brain. In fact, some scientists are starting to explore the idea that reward-sensitivity is not only an interesting feature of extroversion; it is what makes an extrovert an extrovert. Extroverts, in other words, are characterized by their tendency to seek rewards, from top dog status to sexual highs to cold cash. They’ve been found to have greater economic, political, and hedonistic ambitions than introverts; even their sociability is a function of reward-sensitivity, according to this view—extroverts socialize because human connection is inherently gratifying.

What underlies all this reward-seeking? The key seems to be positive emotion. Extroverts tend to experience more pleasure and excitement than introverts do.
Dopamine is the “reward chemical” released in response to anticipated pleasures. The more responsive your brain is to dopamine, or the higher the level of dopamine you have available to release, some scientists believe, the more likely you are to go after rewards like sex, chocolate, money, and status.
Still other research has shown that the medial orbitofrontal cortex, a key component of the brain’s dopamine-driven reward system, is larger in extroverts than in introverts.
This blindness to danger may explain why extroverts are more likely than introverts to be killed while driving, be hospitalized as a result of accident or injury, smoke, have risky sex, participate in high-risk sports, have affairs, and remarry. It also helps explain why extroverts are more prone than introverts to overconfidence—defined as greater confidence unmatched by greater ability.

Kellogg School of Management Professor Camelia Kuhnen has found that the variation of a dopamine-regulating gene (DRD4) associated with a particularly thrill-seeking version of extroversion is a strong predictor of financial risk-taking. By contrast, people with a variant of a serotonin-regulating gene linked to introversion and sensitivity take 28 percent less financial risk than others. They have also been found to outperform their peers when playing gambling games calling for sophisticated decision-making. (When faced with a low probability of winning, people with this gene variant tend to be risk-averse; when they have a high probability of winning, they become relatively risk-seeking.) Another study, of sixty-four traders at an investment bank, found that the highest-performing traders tended to be emotionally stable introverts.

Kuhnen and Brian Knutson have found that men who are shown erotic pictures just before they gamble take more risks than those shown neutral images like desks and chairs. This is because anticipating rewards—any rewards, whether or not related to the subject at hand—excites our dopamine-driven reward networks and makes us act more rashly.

“Psychological theories usually assume that we are motivated either by the need to eliminate an unpleasant condition like hunger or fear,” Csikszentmihalyi writes, “or by the expectation of some future reward such as money, status, or prestige.” But in flow, “a person could work around the clock for days on end, for no better reason than to keep on working.”

Puzzle - Guess The Word

A friend of mine sent me this puzzle.

1. It is a 9 letter word: 123456789
2. If you have 234 then can 1234
3. 56 is one type of disease
4. 89 indicates exact location and time
5. 2 and 7 are same letter
6. 3 and 8 are same letter
7. 5 and 9 are same letter

Guest the word.

Maturity 101

A friend asked me what exactly the term maturity meant.

Here is my definition:

Maturity is about knowing what to say and what not to say based on what the situation demands.

It usually would involve avoiding truth and would involve better survival.

It has nothing to do with intelligence. It correlates more with EQ and with IPR (Interpersonal relationship)

Women are much more mature than men.

It may not have much to do with being responsible. A mature person may or may not be responsible. Same way, an intelligent person may or may not be mature.

Maturity correlates (negatively) with Innocence.

Financial Investment - 101 - TEQPS, ROE Etc

While trying to understand some fundamentals concepts such as TEQPS (Total Equity Per Share), Book Value (BV) I got to read the following articles. I still don't understand why TEQPS and BV, which are supposedly the same, have different values for companies. Anyway...

TEQPS 

https://bizfluent.com/how-7532440-calculate-pershare-equity-value.html

"When there are no preferred shares, the equity per share is simply the shareholders’ equity divided by the number of common shares issued and outstanding."

What is shareholders equity?

"Shareholders equity is the difference between total assets and total liabilities. It is also the Share capital retained in the company in addition to the retained earnings minus the treasury shares. ... Shareholders equity is also called Share Capital, Stockholder's Equity or Net worth."

Difference between net income and cash flow
https://i.investopedia.com/inv/articles/site/fcf.gif (from https://www.investopedia.com/university/fundamentalanalysis/fundanalysis8.asp)

From Investopedia:
Cash conversion cycle (CCC)
Calculated in days, the CCC reflects the time required to collect on sales and the time it takes to turn over inventory. The shorter this cycle is, the better. Cash is king, and smart managers know that fast-moving working capital is more profitable than tying up unproductive working capital in assets.

CCC = DIO + DSO – DPO
DIO - Days Inventory Outstanding
DSO - Days Sales Outstanding
DPO - Days Payable Outstanding
And
The fixed asset turnover ratio is calculated as:
Average fixed assets can be calculated by dividing the year-end PP&E of two fiscal periods (ex. 2004 and 2005 PP&E divided by two).
And
ROA (Return of Assets) = (Net Income)/ (Average Assets)

Where Average total assets can be calculated by dividing the year-end total assets of two fiscal periods (ex 2004 and 2005 PP&E divided by 2).

1. http://awgmain.morningstar.com/webhelp/glossary_definitions/stocks/Total_Equity_Quarter_1.html
2. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042015/why-would-company-buyback-its-own-shares.asp
3. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/02/041702.asp
4. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/10/share-buybacks.asp
5. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/fundamental-analysis/08/buybacks-vs-book-value.asp
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_repurchase
7. https://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2018/11/19/the-deeper-lesson-from-berkshire-hathaways-share-buyback/
8. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/fundamental/03/100103.asphttps://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/031004.asp
9. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/022504.asp
10. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/05/062405.asp (fraudulent practices in CF accounting)
11. https://www.investopedia.com/university/financialstatements/financialstatements2.asp
12. https://www.investopedia.com/university/financialstatements/financialstatements5.asp: (Revenue Recognition Issues: Very nice). (1) Net sales (2) Plus the decrease in accounts receivable (or minus the increase) (3) Plus the increase in cash advances from customers (or minus the decrease) = Cash received from customers
13. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-value-of-share-buybacks
15. https://zerodha.com/varsity/chapter/five-corporate-actions-and-its-impact-on-stock-prices/
16. http://theconversation.com/explainer-are-share-buybacks-good-for-investors-19686
17. https://dollarsandsense.sg/share-buybacks-what-it-means-and-how-it-impacts-investors/
18. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/markets/why-firms-opt-to-buy-back-shares-than-pay-dividend/article25691611.ece/amp/

Recruitment Lesson 101

My first attempt at fiction:

Imagine you are 27 years old. And your fiance ditched you. You are distraught. You don't have much of an academic background. You don't know what to do professionally. Nor do you want to get married again. 

A kind gentleman in his 50s approaches you and explains that you currently have nothing to look forward to. He gives you a proposal. How about joining in his mission to create the best educational institution. You don't have anything else on your plate. What the man said was enthralling. What choices did you have anyway? So you hooked up with him and started a school. 

Years have passed.

You now have a purpose in life and you feel fulfilled.

What did the man get from you? An energetic, passionate dog, loyal for life. You would think nothing of perjuring for his sake. (How the cartoon would love such recruits!! Instead he has Rod Rosenstein, Michael Cohen.)

Win win for both, no?

Like a friend used to tell me, you should recruit for attitude, train for skills. Occasionally the lack of deep talent would result in gaffs. But attitude trumps talent. 

Corollary:
If you are a passionate and loyal person, identify an Enneagram 8 to hitch your wagon to, even if you are kinda short on the talent department.

Additional reading

1. https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2018/11/when-perjury-is-essential-facts-of-life.html
2. Help! My Boss Is El Chapo: Help! My Boss Is El Chapo https://www.wsj.com/articles/help-my-boss-is-el-chapo-11547269215

When Perjury Is Essential - Facts Of Life

A friend of mine X told me that another friend Y committed perjury in front of a bunch of people. The perjury related to X's character. An elderly gentleman Z insinuated that my friend X had done something borderline unethical. Y, who is very close to Z and who knew exactly what X did, chose to keep quiet in the group meeting and let the insinuation hang. Y committed perjury by omission. Matter of fact whatever X did was on the specific request of Y.

Y and Z are the senior members of the group to whom everyone else reports in.

My friend X was aghast. She spoke with Y. Then X recounted her conversation with Y.

I [X] asked her whether it waa wrong to be honest or sincere. She [Y] laughed at me and said, "this is why I like you. It's not. But at times you should know when to lie also" (Y  thus acknowledged the perjury indirectly).

Y went on to tell X lovingly that X didn't understand her, Y, at all. 

Very touching. In the whole business, X's reputation has been tarnished. But then it was done in the larger interest. Whose interest? 

X didn't understand that her reputation had to be tarnished for the greater good of the institution and didn't willingly accept to be sacrificed. So naive of X. Sure X didn't understand Y at all.

Yatha Raja, Thatha Praja - As the king (Z) is, so are his subjects (Y).

It's interesting to note that Y and Z are in the business of imparting integrity and ethics among other things to hundreds of souls.

It's a good thing X, my friend, is female and Z is male. Had the genders been the other way around, Z could have accused X of molesting. Of course, for the greater good only. 

The end justifies the means, no?

Additional reading:

1. https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2018/03/different-points-of-view.html
2. https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2018/10/worst-botchup-ever.html

Maths And Puzzles: What Is She?

I was talking to a friend of mine who is a  doctor. She is in love with a married man who is 10 years older and staying in a town 2000km away. He is married with a kid. (She is single.)

And the man had asked her to move to his town.

She was confused, whether she could move, whether her relationship was strong enough etc.

I asked her whether the man planned to divorce his wife. She said he wouldn't because of the kid. I asked her to look at the bottomline. She replied she didn't know what the bottomline was.

I asked her whether things would be fine if he moved to where she was. She said things would probably not be fine. And anyway his family wouldn't want to move and he has a stable job.

I wished her all the best.

The puzzle question is: What (kind of person) is she?

Emotions 102

I had earlier written a 101 post (https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2018/10/emotions-101.html) with mostly reading material and some quotes from those.

Recently, I came across a nice link: http://yourbrainhealth.com.au/brain-process-emotions/

What follows is my understanding from the link - it took some time for me to process the information in the article.

The Limbic system in the brain consists of Hippocampus, Hypothalamus, Amygdala (and other structures):

• Brain receives sensory information through chemicals such as serotonin, dopomine, acting as neuro transmitters and thus recognizes objects and situations.
• The Hypothalamus:

• Controls the hormones that adjust or create our mood. 
• Manages our biological processes, sweating, pulse rate etc, "in line with our mood".

• Amygdala "assigns an emotional value to the situation" based on previous steps. Meaning the emotions are a result of both sensory information and our physiological changes (does this agree with 2 Factor theory?)
• The hippocampus then indicates "which courses of action are congruent with our mood and makes split-second risk/reward assessments" = S1 (For an intro into S1, S2 read https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/10/thinking-fast-and-slow-daniel-kahnemann.html). I assume the hippocampus also triggers the S2 as and when required.

There are newer networks that control our mood. Apparently Limpic system is an older network evolutionarily. Some scientists, as per wiki, believe that the concept of limpic system is obsolete and is out of sync with the current understanding of the brain.

The autographic network deals with memories and reflection. The cognitive control network  (CCN) controls coordination of activities, thoughts etc to get a task completed. Either the autographic network (AN) or the CCN is in the foreground at any instance. I would say AN is related to S1 and CCN to S2. 

Apparently issues in AN, CCN create mood related disorders.

Worst Botchup Ever - The Best

Trump Says Saudi Account of Khashoggi Killing Is ‘Worst Cover-Up’ in History

I am reminded of what a friend once said of her 12 year old daughter. She had been caught stealing a pencil in school. My friend said that she would have been proud of her (daughter)  had she done it smartly and not got caught. But she was so silly, she got caught. My friend was very annoyed with her.

What the cartoon finds reprehensible is not the macabre act but the silly way it's being covered up by KSA.

Enneagram 8?

Additional Reading:

1. https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-other-saman.html
2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/02/22/essential-cons-that-define-trumps-success/ Excellent summary of Trump
3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/yes-trump-is-undignified-demagogues-have-to-be/2019/03/08/bd8d8d9c-4109-11e9-a0d3-1210e58a94cf_story.html Nice one
4. How Donald Trump inflated his net worth to lenders and investors - Don't trust my statement. It doesn't give the full picture
5. Trump administration authorized nuclear energy companies to share technological information with Saudi Arabia: Both Trump and Sudi have huge drives and minimal ethics. Great bed partners
6. U.S. Role in Yemen War Will End Unless Trump Issues Second Veto
7. National Enquirer Put Up for Sale: Trump trying to "Catch And Kill" associates who ate too risky and thus creates more distance between him and outfits that have been too "dirty"? This will be a great thing to buy for Bezos.
8. Federal judge likens Trump’s attacks on judiciary to KKK https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/13/you-can-hear-klans-lawyers-federal-judge-likens-trumps-attacks-judiciary-kkk/
9. How Trump Lost Half of Washington
10. Decade in the Red: Trump Tax Figures Show Over $1 Billion in Losses
11. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2019/05/08/why-we-took-trump-off-the-forbes-400-during-his-decade-of-tax-losses/
12. Confidential draft IRS memo says tax returns must be given to Congress unless president invokes executive privilege
13. Second Federal Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block Subpoenas of Financial Documents https://www.wsj.com/articles/second-federal-judge-rules-trump-cant-block-subpoenas-of-financial-documents-11558559850

#SheToo

Imagine if there was a movement (by men) which objected to being bombarded by feminine behavior - showing skin, fluttering eyelashes, SASC (Shaking a** and Showing Cleavage), rolling eyes, expecting that her emotions be given due consideration, crying at work place in front of a man, expectating that men exhibit gentlemanly behavior, protect them, pay for their things, dinner etc.

Imagine further that this movement became big. And that men came out of their cupboards and started to accuse women - van driver or physical education teacher accuses school principal, Lab technician accuses Gynaecologist - "oh yes she too did it to me".

And imagine the school principal or the hospital gynaecologist is fired because a Tom, Dick and maybe Harry too came out and chose to be brave and complain against the horrible women. And these victimized men also say that they insisted that their house have another fire escape because of the terror that they feel when confronted with feminine behavior.

And in a Pristine Blatantly Fraudulent childlike voice they say that they avoid singles bars and they visit those only when needed professionally, maybe as a bartender or a bouncer.

And when further queried as to what he remember of the woman, the man replies in  a quivering voice "she was crying" or "her top blouse button was open". Imagine peeking at cleavage while retaining the right to complain of harrassment by its owner for enabling a man to peek.

Oh my.

Note:
Any resemblance to the testimony by Blasey Ford is purely coincidental. 
(https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2018/09/christene-blasey-ford-and-brett.html)

Emotions 101

This is about my quest towards getting a deeper understanding of emotions. I jotted down a few questions. And then the rest of the post consists of quotes, without permission, from links that I liked.

My understanding that emotion skews perception of reality. How does it happen? 

Emotions stand for Robin Hood / communist behavior. How does the mind make peace with such "unfairness". Kadai thengai (eduthu vazhi Pilaaiyarukku odaikkardhu) and Rob Peter (to pay Paul).

An emotional person looks at a logical person as so inhuman. How exactly does an emotional person see the other kind?

What creates emotions? I have started to consider the possibility that emotions can be controlled and steered.

Behavior regulation can happen only though an understanding of emotions. Thought, without emotions, cannot regulate behavior.

Now to the reading material. I found each of these links to be interesting. I learned new stuff.

https://www.verywellmind.com/theories-of-emotion-2795717:

In psychology, emotion is often defined as a complex state of feeling that results in physical and psychological changes that influence thought and behavior. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_perception: "While the visual system is the means by which emotional information is gathered, it is the cognitive interpretation and evaluation of this information that assigns it emotional value, garners the appropriate cognitive resources, and then initiates a physiological response. This process is by no means exclusive to visual perception and in fact may overlap considerably with other modes of perception, suggesting an emotional sensory system comprising multiple perceptual processes all of which are processed through similar channels."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_marker_hypothesis: 

"When individuals make decisions, they must assess the incentive value of the choices available to them, using cognitive and emotional processes. When the individuals face complex and conflicting choices, they may be unable to decide using only cognitive processes, which may become overloaded. Emotions, consequently, are hypothesized to guide decision-making.

Emotions, as defined by Damasio, are changes in both body and brain states in response to stimuli. Physiological changes (such as muscle tone, heart rate, endocrine activity, posture, facial expression, and so forth) occur in the body and are relayed to the brain where they are transformed into an emotion that tells the individual something about the stimulus that they have encountered. Over time, emotions and their corresponding bodily changes, which are called "somatic markers", become associated with particular situations and their past outcomes.

When making subsequent decisions, these somatic markers and their evoked emotions are consciously or unconsciously associated with their past outcomes, and influence decision-making in favor of some behaviors instead of others."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/somatic-marker-hypothesis: Exceptionally fascinating article:

"The interaction between emotion and cognition takes center stage in the work of Damasio whose “Somatic Marker Hypothesis” has been among the most influential theories of emotion in recent years. According to Damasio (1994, 1999), somatic markers are emotional reactions with a strong somatic component that support decision making, including rational decision making. These reactions are based upon the individual’s previous experiences with similar situations. Somatic markers permit a comparatively fast preselection of the relevant alternatives which are then subjected to a more detailed cognitive processing for the final decision. In doing so, somatic makers increase the efficiency and accuracy of human decision making. Following Damasio, decision making would be almost impossible if detailed cognitive processing of all the available alternatives were necessary.

Damasio refers to several case studies and experiments that seem to show that the inability to experience emotions results in a severe impairment of rational decision-making. In an experiment conducted by Bechara et al. (1997), healthy controls and patients with emotional deficits had to perform a gambling task which required a rational decision for the most advantageous strategy in order to gain as much money as possible. The controls started with an emotional reaction, then they adopted the advantageous strategy before they were finally able to tell what the advantageous strategy was, a few trials later. Patients, by contrast, showed no emotional reaction and continued to use the disadvantageous strategy throughout the experiment, although they also realized what the advantageous strategy was. The experiments support the basic idea underlying the somatic marker hypothesis, namely that rational decision making requires emotional reactions. 

Note that these experiments seem to indicate also that, in contrast to the hypothesis of Oatley & Johnson-Laird (1987), emotional reaction is an ongoing process that does not require unexpected events or specific junctions in the proceeding of our plans. Second, in order to perform the function described, emotions have to be very specific, and third, they have to acquire this specificity independently from cognitive processes: In the above experiment, the cognitive assessment follows only a while after the emotional reaction has set in.

The Somatic Marker HypothesisThe findings reviewed here, and other related observations, have led to the development of a framework that is termed the somatic marker hypothesis. In a nutshell, the theory posits that feelings and emotions give rise to “somatic markers,” which serve as guideposts that help steer behavior in an advantageous direction. Deprived of these somatic markers, VM patients lose the ability to experience appropriate emotional responses to various stimuli and events. We have proposed that the absence of these emotional responses – evidenced, for example, by the missing SCRs in the experiments described above – leads to defective planning and decision-making; this, in turn, leads to socially inept and inappropriate behavior that is characteristic of VM patients. 

Emotional neuroscience and psychophysiological research now challenges the view that rational choice and emotional processing are unrelated or opposed, with evidence for potential beneficial effects of emotion responses on decision making.

Changing moods influence the cognitive weighting of decision parameters, with low mood (and implicitly low autonomic reactivity) linked to a preference for low-risk, low-reward outcomes (Smith and Ellsworth, 1985), while anxiety (typically engendering heightened sympathetic tone) leads to a heightened intolerance of uncertainty (Stern et al., 2009). Together these studies illustrate the integration of autonomic control with cognitive processes underlying decision making. [[Low risk, low reward and heightened intolerance of uncertainty are both same, no? Yet WHILE is used.]]

Given the role of incentive learning in the encoding of reward, it is interesting to consider how the value conferred by this process is retrieved to determine choice performance. Because the choice tests are often conducted many days after incentive learning, in extinction the rat is forced to rely on their memory of specific action–outcome associations and the current relative value of the instrumental outcomes. So how is value encoded for retrieval during this test?
A currently influential theory, the somatic marker hypothesis (Damasio, 1994), proposes that value is retrieved through the operation of the same processes through which it was encoded. According to this view, decisions based on the value of specific goals are determined by reexperiencing the emotional effects associated with contact with that goal. With regard to outcome devaluation effects, for example, the theory could not be more explicit:

When a bad outcome connected with a given response option comes to mind, however fleetingly, you experience an unpleasant gut feeling … that forces attention on the negative outcome to which the given action may lead, and functions as an automated alarm signal which says: Beware of danger ahead if you choose the option that leads to this outcome. The signal may lead you to reject, immediately, the negative course of action and thus make you choose between other alternatives.

An alternative theory proposes that reward values, once determined through incentive learning, are encoded abstractly (e.g., X is good or Y is bad and so on) and, as such, from this perspective they are not dependent on the original emotional effects induced by contact with the goal during the encoding of incentive value for their retrieval (see Balleine and Dickinson, 1998a; Balleine, 2005, for further discussion).
We have conducted several distinct series of experiments to test these two hypotheses and, in all of these, the data suggest that after incentive learning, incentive values are encoded abstractly and do not involve the original emotional processes that established those values during their retrieval. [Huh?? Somatic is wrong? Emotions not involved? Just plain memory is it?]] By S.B. Ostlund, ... B.W. Balleine, in Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference, 2008

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/17/science/intensity-of-emotion-tied-to-perception-and-thinking.html: [[fascinating]]

https://silvialisam.com/data-visualization-people-remember-the-feeling-not-the-numbers-db0018dc9998: 

"Source and Perception: If the visualization comes from someone’s trusted media, they are more likely to believe in it. 

People remember the gist, message, and the feeling, not the numbers."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201610/turn-your-critical-and-controlling-inner-voice-calm-mo : Fascinating:

Additional Reading:

1. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201701/understanding-emotions-and-how-process-them
2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201701/the-concept-concept-creep
3. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201505/finding-your-emotional-sweet-spot
4. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201402/are-you-depressed-you-want-be
5. http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Emotional_control: 'Emotional control (or Emotional self-regulation , or emotional regulation or regulation of emotion) is the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed. Functionally, emotional regulation can also refer to processes such as the tendency to focus one's attention to a task and the ability to suppress inappropriate behavior under instruction. Individuals who are emotionally dysregulated exhibit patterns of responding in which there is a mismatch between their goals, responses, and/or modes of expression, and the demands of the social environment."
6. https://www.powerofpositivity.com/research-reveals-can-control-emotions/
7. http://analogcounseling.com/therapy-blog/the-nine-causes-of-emotion
8. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-control-our-thoughts/
9. http://analogcounseling.com/therapy-blog/why-do-i-do-what-i-do-attachment-styles-explained
10. http://sourcesofinsight.com/your-thoughts-create-your-feelings/
11. https://www.quora.com/Do-thoughts-control-feelings-or-do-feelings-control-thoughts
12. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-minute-therapist/201512/feeling-your-thoughts%3famp

The Other Salman Al Beckett

The usual routine:

1. Denial. It never happened. "We know Khashoggi left the embassy alive." https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/17/17989244/trump-ap-interview-saudi-khashoggi-kavanaugh

2. Deny personal accountability. "I didn't do it. It was some ogues whodunnit (innocent babies can't pronounce "R") ". 
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/15/turkey-jamal-khashoggi-granted-permission-search-saudi-arabia-consulate-istanbul and https://wapo.st/2EyS7PH

3. When evidence gets to be overwhelming, pick some people and hold them responsible after doing what-if analysis. "Who are the cheapest set of men or things you can sacrifice" decides whom you scuttle.

Saudis arrest 18, fire 5 officials after confirming Khashoggi was killed

https://wapo.st/2R0yXTY

And now Kavanaugh is relatively safe because the cartoon has "ensured that Justice has prevailed".

What happened was that the prince said in despair to the knights "won't someone rid me of this turbulent journalist."
And the knights flew to Toykey and brought back the head for the pince.
There endeth the story.

The fiancee may get some reimbursement for her troubles provided that she or someone close to her emigrate to KSA so the royal family can hold the fiancee to ransom.

Cartoon's hotels will continue to be patronized by Saudis. Business will be as usual for USA and KSA. Read: Saudi Arabia not fully cooperating with Khashoggi investigation, Turkish official says

Or will it?
Saudi Arabia says Khashoggi’s killing was premeditated, reversing earlier statement that the journalist had died in fistfight
What's happening here? What exactly does Erdogan have? How come KSA is dancing to his tune? Or was the premeditated murder going to be unauthorized by rogues?

Additional Reading:

1. CIA director briefs Trump on audio purportedly capturing journalist’s killing
2. Long Struggle for Supremacy in the Muslim World