Ariadne Conill 🐰1d ago

IQ and other psychometric assessments are not actually backed by hard science but vibes

so when someone brags about having a "genius level IQ", just write them off as a narcissist

sincerely, your local psychologist turned software engineer

Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧1d ago

@ariadne what does a psychologist say about narcissism anyway

i've seen probably every possible take on the internet by now

Show threadAriadne Conill 🐰1d ago
@whitequark its complicated, I think in a lot of situations narcissistic behavior develops out of self loathing and the discovery that they can self soothe through maladaptive behavior
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧1d ago

@ariadne that's useful and reasonable but i was thinking about something different

i think in practice i've mostly seen "narcissist" be used as an insult and as a leverage in an attack. this made it really hard historically to figure out how, if at all, one can make good conclusions about that type of behavior and its observations

Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧1d ago
@ariadne if someone tells me "X is a narcissist" I don't have any tools to find out if there's truth to it or they just really don't like X
Show threadasie1d ago
@whitequark @ariadne

i think it's pretty hard for an unqualified person to conclusively diagnose someone from a distance; harder, even, than self-diagnosis.

flip side: is there a meaningful difference between "narcissist" and "unlikable/best to avoid, but in a non-narcissistic way" in day to day social life?
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧1d ago
@asie @ariadne there is a pretty big difference between someone who I can reasonably avoid, and someone who is likely to (upon finding a real or perceived slight) start tracking down my friends and either coercing them or lying to them as a way to get to/at me
Show threadprincess pancake ​1d ago
@[email protected] @asie @ariadne That's a subset of a subset though

Most people don't spend days finding our address, harassing peers into getting in touch with us, socially engineering and buying pwned information to tell us they own us and will destroy us if we spend time with people who actually care about us

For it to get this bad it's intentionally left unchecked for years or decades
Show thread✧✦Catherine✦✧
@natty @ariadne @asie the last time I had to call cops on a stalker that trespassed in my home was December. subset of a subset or not, I don't care, it's something I have to account for simply in order to live my life
Apr 5 at 6:05pmWeb