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7aef8ed
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There is no evidence that we've been placed on this planet to be especially happy or especially normal. And in fact our unhappiness and our strangeness, our anxieties and compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, are quite often what lead us to do rather interesting things.
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inspirational
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Jon Ronson |
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73e6f76
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I have panicked unnecessarily in all four corners of the globe.
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travel
humorous
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Jon Ronson |
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cd69727
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Suddenly, madness was everywhere, and I was determined to learn about the impact it had on the way society evolves. I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?
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Jon Ronson |
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8a09a60
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But we know that people are complicated and have a mixture of flaws and talents and sins. So why do we pretend that we don't?
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Jon Ronson |
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2ea18a0
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I wondered if sometimes the difference between a psychopath in Broadmoor and a psychopath on Wall Street was the luck of being born into a stable, rich family.
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Jon Ronson |
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d32d4f1
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We are defining the boundaries of normality by tearing apart the people outside it.
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Jon Ronson |
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cf15781
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We were creating a world where the smartest way to survive is to be bland.
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Jon Ronson |
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5778cc7
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At the end of our conversation she (Martha Stout) turned to address you, the reader. She said if you're beginning to feel worried that you may be a psychopath, if you recognize some of those traits in yourself, if you're feeling a creeping anxiety about it, that means you are not one.
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psychopaths
psychology
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Jon Ronson |
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9bf22bd
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A life had been ruined. What was it for: just some social media drama? I think our natural disposition as humans is to plod along until we get old and stop. But with social media, we've created a stage for constant artificial high drama. Every day a new person emerges as a magnificent hero or a sickening villain. It's all very sweeping, and not the way we actually are as people.
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Jon Ronson |
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4fbca17
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There is nothing I dislike more in the world than people who care more about ideology than they do about people.
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Jon Ronson |
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8c2154b
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I suppose it's no surprise that we feel the need to dehumanize the people we hurt--before, during, or after the hurting occurs. But it always comes as a surprise. In psychology it's known as cognitive dissonance. It's the idea that it feels stressful and painful for us to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time (like the idea that we're kind people and the idea that we've just destroyed someone). And so to ease the pain we create illu..
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Jon Ronson |
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c70ad73
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The snowflake never needs to feel responsible for the avalanche.
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Jon Ronson |
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534ff7e
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I heard a story about her once,' said James. 'She was interviewing a psychopath. She showed him a picture of a frightened face and asked him to identify the emotion. He said he didn't know what the emotion was but it was the face people pulled just before he killed them.
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Jon Ronson |
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46756c0
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Psychopaths [make] the world go around...society [is] an expression of that particular sort of madness...I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?
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psychopath
society
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Jon Ronson |
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75a49de
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Feeling no remorse must be a blessing when all you have are your memories
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Jon Ronson |
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d8e3fd2
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The DSM-IV-TR is a 943-page textbook published by the American Psychiatric Association that sells for $99...There are currently 374 mental disorders. I bought the book...and leafed through it...I closed the manual. "I wonder if I've got any of the 374 mental disorders," I thought. I opened the manual again. And instantly diagnosed myself with twelve different ones."
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psychology
mental-health
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Jon Ronson |
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f065082
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The DSM-IV-TR is a 943-page textbook published by the American Psychiatric Association that sells for $99...There are currently 374 mental disorders. I bought the book...and leafed through it...I closed the manual. "I wonder if I've got any of the 374 mental disorders," I thought. I opened the manual again. And instantly diagnosed myself with twelve different ones." --
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psychology
mental-health
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Jon Ronson |
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6f2b26e
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Oh, you know what bloggers are like, they write and write and write. I don't know why, because they're not being paid.
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psycopaths
psychology
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Jon Ronson |
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48e0363
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As somebody back then wrote, "Facebook is where you lie to your friends, Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers."
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Jon Ronson |
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b517ed6
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We see ourselves as nonconformist, but I think all of this is creating a more conformist, conservative age.
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Jon Ronson |
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374d7c0
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Most goat-related military activity is still highly classified.
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Jon Ronson |
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7445224
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That's an incredibly depressing thought," I said "that if you're in a room and at one end lies madness and at the other end lies sanity it is human nature to veer towards the madness end."
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Jon Ronson |
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3302004
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We're creating a culture where people feel constantly surveilled, where people are afraid to be themselves.
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Jon Ronson |
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98355b4
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We journalists love writing about eccentrics. We hate writing about impenetrable, boring people. It makes us look bad: the duller the interviewee, the duller the prose. If you want to get away with wielding true, malevolent power, be boring.
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journalism
insight
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Jon Ronson |
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b056b9b
|
W]e all care deeply about things that seem totally inconsequential to other people. We all carry around with us the flotsam and jetsam of perceived humiliations that actually mean nothing. We are a mass of vulnerabilities, and who knows what will trigger them?
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shame
vulnerability
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Jon Ronson |
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58139d7
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If you want to get away with wielding true, malevolent power, be boring.
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Jon Ronson |
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757acc1
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I suppose that when shamings are delivered like remotely administered drone strikes nobody needs to think about how ferocious our collective power might be.
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Jon Ronson |
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9d774c9
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Trying to prove you're not a psychopath is even harder than trying to prove you're not mentally ill,' said Tony.
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Jon Ronson |
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c74af10
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As soon as the victim steps out of the pact by refusing to feel ashamed," he said, "the whole thing crumbles."
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Jon Ronson |
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a7fee01
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A lot of people move around in life chronically ashamed of how they look, or how they feel, or what they said, or what they did. It's like a permanent adolescent concern. Adolescence is when you're permanently concerned about what other people think of you.
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Jon Ronson |
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d8a8d0d
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W]e need to think twice about raining down vengeance and anger as our default position.
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default
vengeance
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Jon Ronson |
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81ce687
|
We aren't all good people just trying to do good. Some of us are . And psychopaths are to blame for this brutal, mis-shapen society.
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Jon Ronson |
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4316a1e
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I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?
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Jon Ronson |
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57a827d
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Psychiatric diagnoses are getting closer and closer to the boundary of normal," said Allen Frances. "That boundary is very populous. The most crowded boundary is the boundary with normal." "Why?" I asked. "There's a societal push for conformity in all ways," he said. "There's less tolerance of difference. And so maybe for some people having a label is better. It can confer a sense of hope and direction. 'Previously I was laughed at, I was p..
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Jon Ronson |
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dd00a3f
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When I asked Robert Spitzer about the possibility that he'd inadvertently created a world in which ordinary behaviours were being labelled mental disorders, he fell silent. I waited for him to answer. But the silence lasted three minutes. Finally he said, 'I don't know.
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Jon Ronson |
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d109e12
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I, personally, no longer take part in the ecstatic public condemnation of people unless they've committed a transgression that has an actual victim, and even then not as much as I probably should. I miss the fun a little. But it feels like when I became a vegetarian. I missed the steak, although not as much as I'd anticipated, but I could no longer ignore the slaughterhouse.
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Jon Ronson |
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2727053
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As I glanced at the phraseology of the research report, dull and unfathomable to outsiders like me, I thought that if you have the ambition to become a villain, the first thing you should do is learn to be impenetrable. Don't act like Blofeld--monocled and ostentatious. We journalists love writing about eccentrics. We hate writing about impenetrable, boring people. It makes us look bad: the duller the interviewee, the duller the prose. If y..
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Jon Ronson |
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f04cac7
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Shall we go?' he murmured, perhaps regretting his decision to show me his army of plastic cartoon figurines.
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journalism
psychiatry
psychology
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Jon Ronson |
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efa161c
|
I favour humans over ideology, but right now the ideologues are winning, and they're creating a stage for constant artificial high dramas, where everyone is either a magnificent hero or a sickening villain. We can lead good, ethical lives, but some bad phraseology in a Tweet can overwhelm it all - even though we know that's not how we should define our fellow humans. What's true about our fellow humans is that we are clever and stupid. We a..
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shaming
social-media
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Jon Ronson |
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de354a8
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A strange thing happens when you interview a robot. You feel an urge to be profound: to ask profound questions. I suppose it's an inter-species thing. Although if it is I wonder why I never try and be profound around my dog. 'What does electricity taste like?' I ask. 'Like a planet around a star,' Bina48 replies. Which is either extraordinary or meaningless - I'm not sure which
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profound
robots
meaningless
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Jon Ronson |
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5d57368
|
Ask a victim to look at the positive things and she'll say, 'I can't. My eyes are swollen,
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Jon Ronson |
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012e5c6
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Serial killers ruin families,' shrugged Bob. 'Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies.
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Jon Ronson |
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0756bf6
|
Wow," I say, politely, but I don't feel it. I'm like a sociopath when it comes to expensive cars. I feel no emotion."
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Jon Ronson |
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b5648ff
|
You combine insecurity and ambition, and you get an inability to say no to things.
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Jon Ronson |