In the book People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil
Those who do the most heinous acts usually do not do them for pleasure. They do them to assuage a discomfort, likely originating within the amygdala – the brain structure which detects adversity and triggers an emotional response to it (through use of another structure devoted to creating such pain – the ACC). The sensations produced by the amygdala, which yield these heinous behaviors, are usually anger, sadness, or fear, and they will tend to have been felt extremely strongly for an extended period. When any of these emotions are present in sufficient quantity to elicit heinous behavior, they will often manifest the emotion present in the facial expression as well. If you can train your amygdala to detect subtle signs of such stresses, you can often spot individuals whose behaviors may be so motivated.
In the picture above, the mouths have been removed so that you will focus on how the rest of the face emotes. This is done mainly because people often alter their mouth position consciously to project a certain emotion (say cheese!), but few people alter the areas around the eyes and cheeks as well. As a result, if one wants to read the level of amygdala stimulation in a person, they are often best served training their own amygdala to focus on the area around the eyes and cheeks, and to devote less attention to the mouth. Looking at these mouth-less pictures is an exercise designed to train the amygdala to do just that.
In the picture above, one person’s amygdala is realxed and fully devoid of anxiety, while the other’s is highly agitated, and full of anxiety. One is smiling happily with relaxed, happy eyes, the other is anxious – his eyes and cheeks braced in fear of the next onslaught. One could be saying, “My God, how awesome is my life?” The other could be asking, “Why won’t you stop bothering me, and leave me alone?” The funny thing is, both are technically smiling.
The intensity of the emotional response produced by the amygdala, and the unconscious nature of its elicitation, is so difficult to hide and control that when such cognitive discomfort is present, it will tend to permeate many expressions which should, ostensibly, display no amygdala activation. If someone displays indices of amygdala activation on their face, in the form of anger, sadness, or fear, even when they are smiling, you have a sign that something is likely wrong with the function of their brain.
On the right, in the full photo above, is the Colorado school shooter, Karl Halverson Pierson. He was an avowed socialist who, “became easily aggravated, “always liked to be right” and didn’t like losing.” In other words, he was a leftist with a sensitive amygdala who got amygdala hijacked over the smallest of things. Eventually, something bothered him so much that the only way he saw to relieve the pressure produced by his amygdala, was to bring a gun to school, and kill a bunch of people. In the purest sense, his shooting was an attempt to obliterate a reality his amygdala couldn’t face, and when a Deputy approached, he finally defaulted to obliterating himself to relieve his fear of facing the deputy, which would have been an even worse agony.
Again, leftists and Narcissists have weaker amygdalae which can’t handle stress, or process it into productive actions, and it will often manifest on the face as a subtle anxiety, sadness, or anger beneath their expressed emotions. Leftism is an attempt by leftists to prevent amygdala stimulation by seeking conditions of full government control of everyone, where no one can ever surpass the leftist in happiness or success. When such an individual’s amygdala fires off in response to their environment, anything and everything is on the table to stop the anxiety, provided that what they do doesn’t offer the threat of greater amygdala stimulation. So shooting an innocent girl is a viable amygdala relaxation technique, but encountering an armed individual capable of fighting back and hurting them, such as a Sheriff’s Deputy is not. This is why Communism so frequently devolves into oppressive bloodbaths, and why anyone who lets these idiots within a mile of any real power is a fool.
On the left in the picture above is Claire Davis, the happy 15 year old girl the shooter shot in the head and killed. People don’t fully realize how these miserable losers hate the happy, and how they actively target them. Whenever I hear of a girl killed, or raped, or attacked, I assume it was a happy girl, and the attacker was one of these miserable shitbags, since such attacks always seem to be attempts to reduce the happiness of innocent, happy people who have never had the misfortune to learn what evil is.
Above are two girls, with a more subtle difference in expression. One was genuinely happy and sweet, the other suicidally depressed, judging by her journal entries. The suicidal one ended up kidnapping and slitting the throat of the happy one, because on a visceral level, she envied and hated her (again, according to her journal). The happy girl’s happiness and success stimulated the unhappy girl’s amygdala. The only way unhappy-girl could see to shut off the anxiety was to get her boyfriend to help her kidnap happy-girl, so happy-girl’s throat could be slit, and she would no longer exist as an amygdala-stimulating reality. Only that alteration of reality could shut unhappy-girl’s amygdala off.
It should be obvious that the happy one is pictured on the top. Her amygdala is fully relaxed and devoid of anxiety, and it shows in the area around her eyes and cheeks. Cover her mouth, and there is still no doubt that she is smiling. The one on the bottom doesn’t know whether to cry or look terrified, even as she tries to contort her face into a smile to coverup what she is inside. Around her nose almost exhibits a disgust affect, as if she is responding to a noxious smell. Even the mouth in the last photo, viewed in isolation, doesn’t look like a smile, as much as an unemotional exposure of teeth – especially compared to the happy girl’s warm, infectious smile-shaped mouth in the picture above.
Finally, we have the two paintings you see most commonly when writers discuss Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke.
Here, Paine, an aggressive r-strategist often portrayed as one of the first American Liberals, is trying to smile. Again, ignore the mouth. Focus on the areas around the outer edges of the eyes, and imagine him right after the painting, relaxing his face, and removing all the consciously-conjured muscular forces he is applying to create that smile.
As you look at his picture, ignore the mouth, and perform Silvan Tomkin’s Affect Psychology experiment. Flex your eyebrows to make your eyes and cheeks look like his, and imagine how you would feel as you made that expression. That is not a joyous expression. That is the emotional affect of anguish mixed with a touch of fear, and it belies an amygdala under a fairly high level of stimulation, even at rest, because it lacks the pathways which lead from unpleasantness, to rectification of the unpleasantness, to relaxation. That is prime amygdala hijack material, right there.
This is Edmund Burke, a traditionalist often associated with early Conservatism, and he doesn’t even bother to try and smile for the picture, preferring a blank emotional expression, probably representative of his underlying emotional balance. Here, the absence of amygdala activation is clear – his mind is fully relaxed, and his face betrays not a whit of anger, sadness, or fear.
Although everyone is different, and these indices are not always present, they are often there to some degree. Their nature is biological and timeless – inherent to the nature of our species. Teach yourself first to see these indices in the blatant cases, and you will begin to see them when their presence is much more subtle.
If I could communicate one thing, it is that there is a war, between two types of humans. It is a real battle between good and evil. Leftists and Narcissists hate the happy Americans who make this nation great. Their sole objective is to screw up the ability of those Americans to succeed freely, without the force of an oppressive government ruining things. Wherever leftists see success, they see a target for government seizure and interference. Wherever they see happiness, they see a need for government regulation and oppression. They have no ability to just leave fellow Americans alone to interact freely, and succeed and be happy. They have to intrude, to alleviate an anxiety that they will never be rid of. Even worse, they are so instinct driven, they can’t even see intellectually that they are bringing about the very harshness which will be their undoing and destroy the very facade of civilization that they need, to keep from being killed violently for their evil.
Additional Pic: Here is a link to a picture from some Liberal Democrat gathering.
You might want to look up Duchenne smiling.
Hey Uncle Bob,
Thank you for pointing that out. The difference between non-Duchenne smiles, and Duchenne smiles that include smiling eyes is kind of what I am describing, though with a small difference.
In this case, these dangerous individuals’ normal affects are not neutral as in non-Duchenne smiles, but rather exhibit one of the three main emotions produced by the amygdala, namely anguish, fear, or anger. Such an individual, experiencing any combination of those emotions due to un-manageable amygdala stimulation, will probably use a non-Duchenne smile, due to their underlying emotion precluding the type of joy that produces a genuine Duchenne smile. Furthermore, their non-Duchenne smile will contain eye and cheek areas which are not only not smiling, but which have elements of the underlying emotional imbalances of anger, anguish, or fear produced by theri amygdala.
As an example, this is a link to two pictures of actress Julia Roberts, one exhibiting the non Duchene/Pan-Am smile, absent eye smiling (perhaps at some event she needed to smile at for photographic purposes), and another of a genuine Duchenne smile in response to something genuinely pleasing to her. Her non-Duchenne smile is nothing like unhappy-girl’s smile above, in that the eye areas aren’t really fearful or anguished. Although it is difficult to tell, I wouldn’t be hyper-alert around her for other indices of profound damage.
These posts are mostly about people who have the type of intense damage which drives them to hurt others in an effort to make themselves feel better about their own situation. In my experience, when you find a hardcore Leftist, especially one for whom Leftism is a part of who they are, you will often be looking at that same framework of thought. It is why they still insist on taxing the rich, even when you show them it won’t produce enough money to really help anyone. That form of leftism is mainly about taking other happy people down, no matter what they say it is really about.
I periodically do these facial posts because for several years I marveled at my Narcissist’s strange facial expression, which always had an almost crying-level of anguish, even beneath his smiles. I knew it was different, but I didn’t know it meant I should look closer, or assess whether he might have the types of problems which could make him dangerous. My hope is somebody will stumble on this who might otherwise get hurt, and it will jumpstart a chain of events which will allow them to forestall a negative outcome, by realizing what that facial expression means. It probably has limited use for most people, though.
Thank you again for the point towards Duchennes.
I also look at the eyes first – especially if they don’t notice me doing it. After all, there is the ancient saying that they are the window of the soul. I’ve got what are called Smiley Eyes. More than one person has commented on it.
I immediately think of good parenting.
AC, More great observations. I remember in Hackworths book “About Face”, his correcting much damaged Amygdala with a beating. He wrote, all that many of these guys needed was to be shown that the world doesn’t begin or end with them, usually by beating the crap out of them “behind the tent”. Congruously, the Bible tells us to not spare the rod of correction. Do you think there would be less liberalism if there was more spanking and less time outs, while raising our kids?
Excellent point. The thing spanking does, is create an amygdala pathway linking easy/hedonistic behavior with a painful consequence. If you steal a cookie, and nothing happens, you steal one again later. But if you steal a cookie, and get spanked, the next time you start to lift the lid of the cookie jar, you pause, because the cookie theft is associated with a consequence.
That “pause-to-consider-future-consequences” response is a key function to create in a brain, and spanking is a good way to create it, as is something like Hackworth spoke of. Once that pause reflex is there, you will be able to operate with an eye to the future.
Leftists don’t have that. They see low wages, and jump to upping the minimum wage, even though that won’t jump start the economy, and create more jobs to give the worker leverage. They see gun crime, and immediately want to ban guns, no matter how it makes things worse. They see economic weakness, and want to tax the few producers mightily, to give money to the poor. They don’t look at later consequences, or have the ability to pause in the face of negativity to consider the future.
I’m actually doing a blog post in the near future on somethign similar, looking at how the amygdala is the seat of forward thinking, while the ACC is more reactive.
Nice connection. with the spanking/discipline though.
traits. A group that only contains exlproers and no ‘staying at homers’ wouldn’t last long as a unity and diminish the chances of survival of that group.From that already one can deduce that personality traits are a function genetically determined brain structures. Accepting that there is no reason why there shouldn’t be hardware to make a conservative or a progressive person.Thus far for example religion and genderpreference have been demonstrated to have dedicated brain structures.Imo hubris causes us to think of ourselves as an unique, superior animal that is unlike any other. That our brains function different from ‘the rest’ Reality shows this is not the case. It is really just a biocomputer with a fixed OS only letting software run through its API. Given that all humans behave basically on average the same and only differ on a very subtle level there MUST be a mostly genetical component to most of not all our principal behavioral patterns.
Anonymousconservative, do you have any blog posts on developing the amygdala? I have the same issue with the Colorado shooter, the neurotic smile, not the overly aggressive, wants to always be right traits(well kind of). Truthfully in some very little situations like simply conversing with people or even exposing myself to others puts me in full emotional bitch tears frenzy mode. Although reading more on these amygdala posts and being aware of when it sets off had helped.
I’ve been thinking about this. Obviously, you recognize your amygdala is firing off when you deal with others, and triggering panic/aversive stimulus. The question is why?
It might be something in your environment. One person who emailed had the same situation when dealing with co-workers. It turns out their coworkers were phoney, and they didn’t like them. They subsequently joined a social group they liked outside of work, and once belonging to a group of people they liked, their anxiety when dealing with people at work disappeared. Before, they really wanted to belong at work, because they had no group, and the fact they knew they couldn’t fit with the phoney’s in bothered them. Afterward, they had another group of people they liked, so they didn’t care how they were perceived, their amygdala stopped flagging interactions as important, and the anxiety lifted.
Alternatively, you might not interact socially often, and the uncertainty your amygdala perceives is setting off the anxiety. There was a story, the details of which I can’t remember. But it was about a well known guy in a psych field. He was terrified of speaking to girls. One day he just decided to talk to every girl he saw each day in the city he lived in, even if only for a few moments. Even though the first few times were painful, after a year, he had no more fear of talking to girls.
The problem is, the amygdala could also be firing off because it perceives something associated with a past event it did not like. It might even be something way back in childhood that you don’t even remember. That is more difficult to work around, because the amygdala doesn’t really allow you to erase such pathways. Rather, you have to put additional suppressive pathways over the old pathway through deconditioning, or alter how people perceive things, so they don’t trigger the old pathway to begin with.
In that case, some sort of professional intervention would be required, to “overwrite” the pathway in the amygdala producing anxiety, or alter how you see things. As much as I would like to help, I feel as if I really can’t effectively. I have no training in that, and would hate to give you advice which would make things worse.
Notice how just knowing about the amygdala, altered how you responded, for the better. A professional Psychiatrist will have a myriad such little tricks to alter how you perceive such situations, and what you think about when they occur, and could likely help you much more than I ever could. I really feel clueless in that regard.
That said, I will think about it more, and maybe put up a post with some more amygdala information which might help, but I would consider a few sessions with a professional, just to run through the situation, and how to deal with it. Bear in mind, for a few hours of your time, you could actually end up enjoying those interactions, all because of little things the shrink would give you to think about, like the amygdala info.
Good luck.
OK read the article. While I get what he’s getting at, and he may be onto something, the photographic “evidence” does not reflect his points. Claire’s smile is the one that looks forced or fake, like someone told her to stand in front of her horse and “smile” for the camera. While Karl’s smile appears genuine and spontaneous, like he was in the middle of doing something enjoyable and someone said, “hey” and he looked up and the shot was taken. In fact his body position in the photo is just that – he’s doing something. Claire is not, she’s posing.
The next set of photos, comparing two girls, they both have fake smiles and neither looks natural.
However he could be right about this and considering how the comments section of this Return of Kings quickly tends to devolve…
“People don’t fully realize how these miserable losers hate the happy,
and how they actively target them. Whenever I hear of a girl killed, or
raped, or attacked, I assume it was a happy girl, and the attacker was
one of these miserable shitbags, since such attacks always seem to be
attempts to reduce the happiness of innocent, happy people who have
never had the misfortune to learn what evil is.”
I’m not sure to what degree you are able to read people beyond what they present to you. You do seem heavy on meditation from another comment, which implies to me some deeper need to try and rein in an overactive amygdala, to regain some type of normal function. I know how to meditate, havign tried it when younger, but I never do it now because it really doesn’t do much for me. But you see a benefit, I’m guessing because it scratches an itch in you that I don’t have.
If that is a correct read, bear in mind MRI studies show lefties have smaller amygdalae, psychopathy studies link smaller amygdalae with lack of development and function, and lack of amygdala function is associated in other studies with an inability to read emotional cues in the areas around people’s eyes – indeed, even an innate tendency to not look around the eyes. I mean, it seems kind of unfair to say leftie opinions are not important beccause they can’t see this, but I think there is a string of logic, if you review the literature, which points that way.
Also, it is not about genuine or forced. What I am trying to point people towards is a subtle display of anxiety (amygdala activation) around the eyes. It can be a jacked expression like Karls, it can be a fearful expression like unhappy-girl’s, or it can be a grimace, like the girl in the engagement photo if you scroll down here. That photo really freaks me out.
Note also, you are making the case that you would look at a crazy mass killer’s photo and think he’s a swell guy, while judging the innocent girl he killed kind of phoney. At best you make the case people can’t be read at all, but it could also be a case that you specifically can’t read people.
Personally, I feel a deep revulsion whenever I see these people, which I don’t feel otherwise. There is soemthing there, if you can train your mind to spot it.
“Personally, I feel a deep revulsion whenever I see these people, which I don’t feel otherwise. There is soemthing there, if you can train your mind to spot it.”
You feel the revulsion because you already know what they’ve done.
“If that is a correct read, bear in mind MRI studies show lefties have smaller amygdalae,”
If what is a correct read? I don’t follow you here because you start off a new paragraph with that sentence, not explaining what “if that is…” is referring to.
” bear in mind MRI studies show lefties have smaller amygdalae, psychopathy studies link smaller amygdalae with lack of development and function”
Interesting. This guy tells people to “shrink your amygdala”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sidpwb-V_LM
>You feel the revulsion because you already know what they’ve done.
That would be convent in explaining this, but no. I first saw unhappy-girl at the beginning of the TV show which was about happy-girl’s murder. When they first flashed a picture of unhappy-girl, they portrayed her only as the girlfriend of the boy who kidnapped (and at that time in the show, presumably killed) happy girl. I had already thought to myself that the boy didn’t have that underlying stress affect in his photo, but when I saw unhappy girl, I immediately knew she was damaged in a way that would facilitate the type of intense hatred and envy which could produce murder. I felt the revulsion before they said anything about her even possibly being a killer, and I figured they would come back later and say she was involved. Later, when the show revealed her role as planner/instigator, and read her journal entries, I was unsurprised. I periodically feel the revulsion with other people I meet as well, and have found it a good predictor of unpleasant, emotionally-driven people. I have yet to feel the revulsion, and find someone was delightful to be around and trustworthy, though I have not felt it, and later found I should have – I assume that is usually something I missed due to inexperience and lacking enough training, though it is possible psychopaths don’t feel stress, and they will not be spot-able through this method. Then again, psychopaths are less dangerous than Narcissists, IMO.
The point of this post is, I clearly see an expression that lies beneath the conscious expression, and if you look at enough people and pictures, I believe you can too. There is something there, in the photos I post – I try not to waste people’s time. I use these famous cases, rather than random people, because you know the strain was there in these people. I see no other way to effectively convey, what I have found to be a most useful skill. When someone is stressed enough mentally that it will manifest in illogical behavior, they often cannot hide that stress on their face, even when they smile – and you can often see it.
You must understand, this isn’t a skill you either have or your don’t. I would not have seen this at all in my teens. You can train your brain (develop your amygdala) to look for the minor indices of stress, ie anger, fear, or sadness. You begin with the obvious ones, maybe even guys and girls openly crying, enraged, or terrified. You make those faces yourself in a mirror, and picture how you would feel as you see them. Then begin to work your way back. Eventually you will see the hints of anger, fear, and sadness, even when they are faint, and the person is trying to hide them. Eventually you will feel them inside yourself, when you see them. If you see them in somebody who has no reason to feel them, it is a valid warning sign.
If you can look at unhappy-girl’s face, and don’t see something deeply revolting, you need to go back and train yourself until you do. It is there, blatantly, and you are vulnerable to getting hitched to a real psycho until you can see it. You can’t spot all of them (though Jody Arias’ eyes are a little glazed and empty, her photos don’t revolt me – psychopathy may not produce the strain Narcissism does), but unhappy girl is on full display.
Thank you for the video with David Ji. The amygdala produces anxiety when it does not have a pathway from problem to solution. As a result, a bigger amygdala, with more pathways from more problems to more solutions, can encounter more problems and actually produce less anxiety – if it is well trained. As an example, if you are a liberal rabbit, and somebody shoots at you, you may freeze in panic as you stare at the shooter– your amygdala doesn’t have a pathway from problem to solution, so it triggers fear. If you are a combat-hardened Marine, and see a bullet whiz by, you may not even think before heading to the nearest cover. Your amygdala instantly applied fear to both focus you and drive a pre-trained response, all of which executed, eliminated the fear immediately.
What he seems to be doing is promoting a way to make his amygdala respond to stuff less, by practicing shutting it off, through mediation. Apparently, that diminished usage atrophies the organ and produces smaller volume. It may reduce anxiety, but it doesn’t create more pathways from problems to solutions, and I would bet people who do it will find their amygdalae flag subtleties, from minor facets of facial expressions, to minor economic indicators in investing, to minor signs of threat in the environment, less. As I write this, I find myself wondering if you will have trouble feeling the revulsion I feel when looking at these photos because you have spent a lot of time trying to train your mind to not feel negative emotions and sensations like revulsion. What I feel could be characterized as stressful or unpleasant, were you to magnify it’s scale.
We evolved an amygdala because it enhanced survival advantage. Purposefully atrophy it, and you may diminish abilities which are of use, even if you feel better with the diminished abilities. I suppose in the r/K model, that could be good or bad depending on whether times are r or K. Looking at David Ji, I bet he does well now, in this r-environment, but if we collapse as badly as we might, I’m not sure he will do as well. If he ever ends up on the LA Freeway surrounded by a Mad-Max gang on motorcycles and dune buggies, beating on his car with claw hammers and baseball bats, I’m not sure he will come out of it as well as I would. Now that I think about it, what he seems to be espousing is kind of like what happened to that guy in the movie Office Space, after he was hypnotized to not feel stress. As in the movie, that could be good, or it could be bad.
He may also be helping people with amygdalae which panic too easily, to stop a panic which is crippling them, allowing them to proceed more normally, though. I don’t know enough about the long term effects of what he is espousing, or what the story is with the people who follow his advice, to say with any certainty. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t either, though, so I don’t feel bad.
I would, however, be careful before deteriorating the function of any organ, especially one which all the literature seems to indicate is vital to surviving in a dangerous world – especially the way our financial system is looking.
“That would be convent in explaining this, but no. I first saw unhappy-girl at the beginning of the TV show which was about happy-girl’s murder. When they first flashed a picture of unhappy-girl, they portrayed her only as the girlfriend of the boy who kidnapped (and at that time in the show, presumably killed) happy girl.”
– You already had her pegged as a narcissistic, hypergamous, alpha-loving slut.
“There is something there, in the photos I post”
– While you might be able to read something in faces you see in person, photos are not reliable, much less photos that have been uploaded to the internet and lose even more resolution. And photos of paintings? Forget about it. Its shoddy pseudoscience – at best.
>You already had her pegged as a narcissistic, hypergamous, alpha-loving slut
No. She was a 15 or 16 year old high school girl. The boy was a good looking jock who was a year or two ahead of her. I wouldn’t assume hypergamous, or Narcissistic/evil, or prone to be attracted to alpha bad boys just off of that. Any young teen girl approached by a jock upperclassman in High School will tend to get glossy eyes, and say yes to anything, whether the guy is a steely-eyed sociopath, or drooling beta. Plus you assume I thought way more than I do when I see that facial characteristic. When I see it, my response is instantaneous, and wholly removed from any intellectual analysis of circumstances. It’s similar to seeing the girl with a massive open wound, down to the bone, on the entire side of her face. It is viscerally repellent.
>Forget about it.
LOL. I see a lot of the young me in you, so bear in mind you may end up closer to being like me in a few years than you’d think from this exchange. I was just as sure of my own omiscience way back, and sadly, I blew off a lot of info that could have sped my advancement. Fortunately, I crossed paths with a guy fresh out of the CIA’s old DO, and his ability to cold read people was beyond amazing. You think seeing some mental stress beneath a smile sounds funny? If someone had told me you could read everything he read off of people he just met, I would have laughed too – it seemed impossible. But he did it, and left people speechless – including me. He knew how many piles of magazines a girl he had known for minutes, had on a coffee table in her living room, and how she arranged the piles (it was, like all cold reads, an educated guess, but one which he was confident enough was right on to make the leap and put it out there – and he was dead on – not just on that one, but on a shitload just like that.) Because of him, I began saving all the information I previously would have disregarded. I realized I was, in disregarding stuff like this, being way to authoritative for my experience level in that arena. I also realized that you could develop abilities you wouldn’t believe possible, if you were open to trying. I’m nowhere near his level of ability, but knowing that level is out there, opens you to a lot of aspirations you wouldn’t otherwise have.
You don’t have to buy any of this. But keep an open mind as you move forward, and never discard any information – even if you disagree with it ardently. You’d be surprised how many times you’ll discard something, only to come back to it later, and see something worthwhile in it.
>Its shoddy pseudoscience – at best.
It actually isn’t even science. It’s just a simple idea that I think could help people navigate the human terrain, so I try to share it. We know that some forms of personality disorders which drive aberrant behavior are produced by abnormally high levels of stress reactivity, probably amygdala/ACC mediated. We know high levels of acute stress can produce certain facial expressions in response to it. That chronic stress, of the level that it produces a personality disorder, (ie. that it can make you ignore reality, behave aberrantly, and actually self-destruct), may often manifest on the face in a subtly strained expression, is not that far out.
It’s not 100%. You may find a person here and there with the expression who is still relatively normal. You may find a lot of people without it who are horribly fucked up. But over all, I have found it a useful early warning sign, to check my openness to new people (always a good thing), and my willingness to trust them in any fashion. If you know the limitations, and don’t use it as a concrete litmus test, this ability can be a valuable tool for avoiding getting burned. For that reason, I will periodically post these posts, so that those who follow the blog can test their own amygdalae, and better develop their sensitivity to stressful expressions in those around them. And though you may not have developed the ability to see it yet, I assure you that what I am describing is in those photos, and it can be seen, if you develop the ability to look for it through diligent effort.
Also, before we part ways, be careful following those pacifist/meditation boobs. They may be nice guys to meet, but the easy and happy way forward is not always the best way to realize the full magnitude of your personal potential. From lifting weights, to busting ass on stressful math problems, to buckling down for med school, sometimes the best way to enhance your ability to affect the world, and do good, is to endure hardship merrily. The dudes who punched Bin Ladin’s ticket didn’t seek a life of happiness and positivity through stress minimization and amygdala shrinkage, and I think few would argue they are worthy models to fuel aspirations. File away that it is possible it may not be best for you specifically, even if they like it.
Dear Anonymous Conservative,
I have a question regarding this r/K/amygdala theory here. It’s not exactly online with the this article you wrote but I think it ties in somewhat. Does the amygdala response of ‘r’ types help explain the rise and obsession with the whole “Positive Thinking” mantra so prevalent in our culture today? According to researcher LeDoux in this youtube video
Yes, your read is dead on. This is why I feel understanding the r/K paradigm is so important to understanding ideologues. If you grasp r/K, you begin to see that in an r-environment, since resources are free, what will determine success is both, maximizing mating, and avoiding dangers which could hurt you, and cut your mating-career short. You don’t want to be the rabbit who decides he will fight off the fox for the warren, if everyone else is running off to eat and mate elsewhere. Part of the programming for avoiding danger is a specific psychological tendency to avoid negativity/adversity, which renders facing it intolerable (so as to provoke avoidance and fleeing). Such an individual will also carry a subtle perception that their environment should have no negativity – and that such is a natural aspect of a “healthy” environment. (Of course, healthy just means what they were designed for.)
In K, one must face and surmount negativity – it is inherent to survival in the environment. So a K-psychology not only can face adversity, they expect it – and may even need it psychologically on some level. I see that scene in Huxley’s Brave New World, where the protagonist is sitting in the hover car, with the girl he is having meaningless sex with, they are high on Soma, looking at a beautiful view in front of them, and even though nothing is immediately wrong, it feels off to him, as if something is missing, and everything is meaningless. This is why hippies would rather have fled to Canada than get drafted into a war, and once there they wanted to avoid all “bummers” and “insensitive” speech. Then there are young K-strategists enlisting in the Marine Corps in time of peace, feeling as though they need to sacrifice for the nation even when it isn’t immediately necessary – and they playfully rip each other mercilessly with insults and colorful language.
It is a very deep, fundamental difference in human nature, and you are dead on in that it’s likely that it will ultimately be found to be some functional difference in the amygdala, and how it responds to “negativity.” Whether threat/adversity draws you in, or makes you run, will then govern a whole load of decisions, from attitudes on gun control, to demands for political correctness in speech, to thoughts about economic schemes, to demands for civility in politics. At its worst, it would seem that the negativity-free psychology morphs into an illogical, frantic willingness to do anything, even the horrible, to create that “negativity-free” environment by force. North Korea’s endless body count comes to mind.
But the reason I like r/K is that it lays out why the brain would evolve those two natures, one tolerant/embracing of negativity, and one which can’t handle its presence at all, why they will rise and fall with resource availability, and how they will affect attitudes on political issues. In the end you either have enough resources for everyone, or you don’t, so nature programmed us to adopt one or the other.
Thanks for the question.
I wonder, too, if it parallels liberals’ view that there is no singular, “real,” reality, but that reality is instead a malleable social construct. If you have addressed this elsewhere, thanks–I discovered this blog a couple of hours ago and am reading as quickly as possible. Every paragraph has opened my (smiley) eyes!
Anon Conservative,
Your ideas are very interesting, but I often have trouble visualizing just what it is you’re describing. Photos help, but they don’t really capture a person’s behavior outside of one split second. Are there any online videos that show the type of behaviors you attribute to amygdala problems? Also, have you seen many anecdotes that you think may be what you call “amygdala hijack”? Did Thomas Paine, for example, ever have a breakdown?
Thanks
The next post here will be of a celebrity having their amygdala hijacked on a reality TV show, though not completely, in part because they are relatively normal psychologically, unlike these optimized targets. In it you will see a loss of conscious, reasoned control of behavior, and I’ll give the backstory not included in the video, of how the hijack was engendered.
Most amygdala hijacks will tend to be difficult to see – probably why so little is written about them. People having them will spend considerable effort to mask the onset and few people know how to actually produce them, so few ever come to the completely disabling fruition of uncontrollable rage or stroke. Additionally, many people who are normal will respond violently before they reach stroke-like symptoms, so the full stroke is a complex goal, involving blocking-in the target so violence is absolutely not an option – that is not only complex, it also only doable on certain people. Nevertheless, even a well hidden amygdala hijack, with no outward symptoms, will considerably degrade the cognitive function of someone you employ it on, and condition them to avoid whatever conditions led to the hijack, such as screwing with you.
I have not heard a story of Paine breaking down, but after just checking his Wiki page, I see he does have a mixed history in interpersonal relations, with a checkered work history, a separation from his wife and child, and having alienated most of his friends by the time he died, so almost nobody attended his funeral. I usually assume that guys who jump frequently from job to job (with some firings interspersed), or alienate a lot of friends and family, have some inability to perceive the emotional states of others, calibrate behavior in response to those states, and perceive future consequences of actions (all amygdala related).
On judging threat, another amygdala function, Paine was almost executed in France, escaping the guillotine purely by chance and good luck. With respect to judging people, he was openly enamored of Napoleon when they met due to Napoleon’s compliments, only to later find that Napoleon had completely hoodwinked him. He was also hateful of George Washington later on, who I tend to think was not a villain since he did relinquish the Presidency and set the two-term precedent. As research shows, amygdala deficiency due to injury tends to produce an inability to read others, which combined with a sort of reactionary irritation, is what I would assume was going on with him. Tell him he was great, and assuage his amygdala, and he would like you, but sooner or later his amygdala would overreact to something, he’d piss you off, and if you didn’t immediately supplicate, his amygdala would activate at the thought of you, and you’d be enemies. I know that specific psychology well.
If I am right about his state, it was probably both a blessing and a curse. When I see his expression, I see a guy who would get so pained and irritated by minor stuff he would have to do something about everything. On the one hand, a lot of people without that force in their head could relax, enjoy life, thrive in one job, and maintain a loving marriage by not sweating the small stuff. On the other hand, that irritation is probably what drove him to fight and write his manifestos, and constantly try to alter history. Although I’m pretty sure he and I would not have gotten along, he did leave his mark, whatever it was.
“Tell him he was great, and assuage his amygdala, and he would like you, but sooner or later his amygdala would overreact to something, he’d piss you off, and if you didn’t immediately supplicate, his amygdala would activate at the thought of you, and you’d be enemies. I know that specific psychology well.”
Does this describe Newton as well?
I also see a smirk–the smugness and cynicism that dominate the mass media these days.
Thank you so much for this post. Today, we need this kind of info to “navigate human terrain.” Do you have any advice on how to teach our young children about these deceptive people among them. My children are very young still but the reality of our world today worries me from school and cyber bullying to human trafficking and violence. My children are so happy and innocent. I want them to reach their full potential, be the best people they can be. I’m sure the mother of the “happy girl” felt the same way as I do, and did not foresee the jealous monster who snuffed out her baby’s life because monster girl’s flaws were so glaring around “happy girl.” I don’t want to raise defenseless prey, but children who are wise as serpents and gentle as doves.
One night, I was watching a program on Andrea Yates, the mother who drowned all her children. They were so beautiful and sweet. They showed a photo of her mug shot shortly after being arrested. No exaggerating, I recoiled in fear when I looked into her black, soulless eyes. You should juxtapose a pic of her before the crime, when she was relatively normal, to that first mug shot. The contrast is startling.
Tough to say how to raise kids to be protected like those who know. It is nearly impossible to really understand evil, until you see it firsthand. I’m of the thought that you just protect them as well as possible while they are vulnerable, let them grow up good and kind, and if they encounter it later, make sure they are as strong as possible, so it won’t take them. Sadly, in some cases, fate can prove insurmountable, but you do the best you can.
Thank you for Yates, I’ll look her up.
This may be duplicate, if so scratch it….but a few years ago, I watched a documentary on Andrea Yates, the mother who killed all of her children by drowning. When they flashed a photo of her first mug shot right after the crime, I literally recoiled in fear. Her eyes were so black and soulless. You should juxtapose this photo with a photo of her a few years prior to her crime. It doesn’t even look like the same person.
I don’t want to sound archaic b/c mental illness does exist. But in the case of some of these heinous crimes, especially against children, our most vulnerable, could demonic possession be the root cause? Ephesians reminds us that we’re not wrestling against flesh and blood but the dark rulers/principalities of this world. Satan hates goodness, purity of soul b/c it is like a mirror showing him who he really is, and what he has missed out on in his foolish revolt against God. Children are perfect mirrors to evil. Happy people, who are almost children and young people, are perfect mirrors hence ugly, unhappy girl’s murderous actions….or was it Satan standing behind her?
After dealing with a Narcissist, I can say reality becomes so bent, anything is possible.
Amending and correcting:I soluhd’ve referred to brood parasites: cowbirds and cuckoo birds.Mocking birds, apparently, take pleasure in just jamming the mating calls of other species. This gambit is also in the quiver of Liberals.I’ve lost track of how many times a dyed-in-the-blood Liberal professes to be a Conservative done, of course, to maintain in-group status.
Happy Holidays AC-Man, your material is amazing and as I’m a bit behind on this
stuff-I review it slowly and take in all the links provided. I have an old friend from
high school-was my best friend from back then-who recently got in touch with me
again, after we had a nasty falling out on her part about five years ago. This was nicely
timed for our class reunion this year by her. She was apologetic for being an asshole to
me after I sent condolences to her on the death of her father-basically she told me everything that was horrible about me and how rotten I am. I couldn’t figure this out
@ the time and was astounded. Five years later she offers an apology and explanation
saying she was under a lot of stress. Can anyone say amygdala malfunction? Well,
I was nice to her and now she’s constantly sending photos of sisters and her and
whoever, she’s in every photo of course. Man, she has really scary, evil eyes in all
her pictures from 1980’s all the way to today. She’s “smiling” but her eyes look mad
enough to kill the whole planet,or like she’s screaming She’s been in the military and is
a security cop. Should I be alarmed?
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