Philosopher3000

Friday, May 03, 2024

Thoughts on human intellect and motivation: Why does #tRump exist? How did he succeed?

All intelligence is simply a form of pattern recognition.

There are at least 10 objectively testable types of human intelligence.
Musical intelligence is considered one: melody, harmony, rhythm, and a sense of pitch and auditory/aural spectrum. Music is the expression of pure emotion.

Two other forms of human intellect are emotional: IntRApersonal, and IntERpersonal intelligence. The first allows you to recognize your own emotional state and thus control your own mind, and the latter helps you understand the minds of others, and thus understand and manipulate them, for good or ill.

A "quotient" is simply a measure of the ratio of one's individual intellect over the average of that type of intellect. What the psychologists don't tell you is that the slope of that line actually determines the rate at which an individual intellect accelerates/decelerates in that field of thought, as compared to the norm.

Most human minds have strengths and weaknesses across the spectrum of intellect. As brains develop the nature and nurture of environmental influences give each individual mind a unique ability pattern. Those who have balanced minds generally have the happiest lives, as they can adapt and learn and thus prosper in most situations. Those with unbalanced intellect tend to be lost; unless they find some nitch to fill in society they will become alienated outcasts.
Of these ten forms of measurable pattern recognition, #tRump has only one. And because, as a narcissistic sociopath, he doesn't acknowledge, much less understand, anyone's emotions but his own, he can only manipulate those who think as he does. Thus, he has the unusual ability to understand the 'undesirables' who are greedy and selfish, those who have been neglected and have lower levels of education, and those who follow their base desires and live by instinct. Often without teachers and mentors, they develop no empathy or socialization, which means no concept of duty, service, or ethics. They seek power, gratification, and wealth, for their own ends. They tend to be the types of 'sinners' that gravitate to Evangelical Churches, as they pursue base instincts and are rewarded by the most primitive forms of trade and transactional relationships.

Apparently, half the Republicans have the same thought patterns.
I believe we can chalk it up to a capitalist system that promotes greed and neglect of family, leaving children unloved by their parents.
Ultimately, it was a perfect storm of systems of greed and power that have made him seemingly immune to any of the checks and balances that objective competition and social judgment normally would have constrained and mitigated his incompetence.

It seems like we allowed this. All of us, collectively. In pursuing personal advantage and security we gave up. We didn't dare to make the hard choices.

Imagine if we had not had the consolidation of power in the Executive, or the long arc of Republican Conservative gerrymandering to produce ever greater division and extremist views, as the white supremacists and Christian nationalists cling to their dying influence?

Authoritarian types always use the power to ratchet up their advantages; wealth and power. While good people, egalitarians, like those in the liberal progressive wing of the Democratic party are willing to compromise and submit.

What if we had just required audits of real-estate property for tax purposes in NYC? What if Democrats like Al Gore or Obama had fought for power rather than relinquish the Supreme Court to Republican appointees? Could we have avoided these endless unnecessary wars, and saved the climate? Could we have saved democracy?

Perhaps it's all just my speculation fantasy. But I wonder if I had fought harder to implement the Obama Education Plan in 2012, by rewarding and promoting the best teachers, we might have raised a generation of leaders capable of dealing with the coming disasters.