161–170 of 193 posts
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Empathy is good because you understand people. Psychopaths may have empathy which often makes them good manipulators but they lack sympathy so they don’t feel with others. That’s my understanding.
I think you are referring to sociopaths and not psychopaths, the latter of which are associated with empathy impairment and aren’t as great manipulators as the former.
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People interpret charisma as depth (or at the very least, as being capable). Nobody looks at a charismatic person and says, now there's a real idiot. Even in this story you see it. The author thought he was a genius, even after watching the insanity of a supposedly unprepared speaker trying to wing it.
What? Isn't Trump, Boris Johnson and George W Bush charismatic people and that is what is used against them? Charismatic but a fool underneath? Maybe I'm misunderstanding your argument here.
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People interpret charisma as depth (or at the very least, as being capable). Nobody looks at a charismatic person and says, now there's a real idiot. Even in this story you see it. The author thought he was a genius, even after watching the insanity of a supposedly unprepared speaker trying to wing it.
What? Isn't Trump, Boris Johnson and George W Bush charismatic people and that is what is used against them? Charismatic but a fool underneath? Maybe I'm misunderstanding your argument here.
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton gathered large bases because of what they were saying, but not because of how they said it. Rather than instilling confidence by charisma, they had to convince people of their abilities. In a way, that's much harder. Charisma is a bit like a cheat code.
You can also see this in Bill Clinton, who despite passing some dreadful legislation and being scandalized, people continued to have respect for, because he was very charismatic.
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The office of mayor in London does not carry enough powers for any mayor to be "disastrous". That's just ridiculous hyperbole. Other than that, the views on London mayors tends to mostly follow party lines, so it's not a particularly worthwhile discussion.
Objective measures say different. Just look at the bloodbath on the streets, about which Kahn appears to be perfectly sanguine.
And even if you had been right, the office of the mayor only has oversight powers and limited powers to set priorities and shift some resources. Most of the Met budget and control of their day to day operations is outside the mayors purview.
EDIT: Here's a wikipedia page with info on the media frenzy around the violence in London last year, and the comparisons to New York in particular, which basically jumped to lots of conclusions from a single month: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London
And here is stats for April, that shows a higher rate of violent crime in Sussex (233 incidents per 100,000 people) than in London (227 per 100,000 people): https://ukcrimestats.com/Police_Forces/ - however this too means pretty much nothing; the numbers fluctuate too much to start drawing many conclusions based on the headline numbers.
But I guess by your argument there's a "bloobath" going on in Sussex then.
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but who seems oblivious to (or to be willfully disregarding) the long term detrimental effect his skirmishing has on the UK. He's not oblivious to it, he just doesn't care. Why should he? His ego is the only thing that matters, other people are a means to an end. He has the same low cunning as trump, I think he's quite good at reading people, and manipulating them, but others are just tools to him. He is remarkably s…
He did pretty well in London - certainly better than Kahn, who has been disastrous.
> Johnson excelled in English and Classics English and Classics... seriously, dude? That's good enough for working at Starbucks and McDonalds, I guess, but not for much else. Least of all for effective policymaking.
Not sure if you're kidding, but Eton is one of the finest schools in the UK, probably the world, so it's a bit much to be quite so disparaging. Also I'm guessing you've never heard of CP Snow: 'The Two Cultures is the first part of an influential 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow. Its thesis was that "the intellectual life of the whole of western society" was split into two cultures – the…
Max Hastings, his boss at the time doesn't have such a great opinion of Boris.
I would suggest as well that in more ordinary times, when the country has some decent leaders and is not so bitterly divided, he would have absolutely no chance of rising to the position he looks now likely to hold.
But these are very strange times, and "chaos is a ladder".
This was a fun read. My take is that politicians showing up to random award ceremonies and giving a canned speech is a normal situation, though. That he can give a canned speech in a way that seems self-deprecating and authentic, in order to entertain and connect with the audience, is impressive. I can understand why someone would feel that this is a form of lying. He is an entertainer and capable of manipulating cro…
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The office of mayor in London does not carry enough powers for any mayor to be "disastrous". That's just ridiculous hyperbole. Other than that, the views on London mayors tends to mostly follow party lines, so it's not a particularly worthwhile discussion.
Objective measures say different. Just look at the bloodbath on the streets, about which Kahn appears to be perfectly sanguine.
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You're aware of what a complete cock up he made of his entire time as Foreign Secretary?
Bring smart is not the same as being well-prepared, diligent, conscientious, tactful or having your constituents' best interest at heart. You don't get to be King's Scholar at Eton being a buffoon.
No, you get it by hereditary wealth, connections and nepotism.