Madelaine McMasters

Carole Franizzi wrote: Maddy: You've stated that schadenfreude is an effect, not a cause. I'm arguing it's both. Carole: No, I didn't, Maddy. (Is Maddy short for Maddening, by any chance?). Right, one last time - what I've been saying is - oh, hell - here it is in pill form:- Initially, psychological issues cause self-defence mechanism (schadenfreude) Yes Schadenfreude is thus an effect of psychological issues Yes Schadenfreude causes a sense of well-being to the self-esteem (its ‘healthy’ purpose) There's room for argument here (but let's not go there!!!!). Like most (all?) of our evolved mechanisms, I expect schadenfreude has flaws too, particularly in light of rapid societal evolution. But this is way, way over my head (as opposed to the rest, which is only way over my head). Too much schadenfreude causes social/relational issues (potential 'unhealthy' effect) This could be a tautology, but I get your meaning. And this is what I've been arguing. Although there's an interesting distinction between simply having too much schadenfreude (which could be entirely sub-conscious) and boasting about it, which requires conscious awareness of it... and pride in it. Way back at the start of this discussion, I said... Maddy wrote: “If that shadenfreude is apparent, might the social dynamics punish the holder?” And you replied... I doubt it. You talk about it as if it is a hypothetical phenomenon, rather than one which actually exists, and, I’m guessing, has always existed. Much of the world’s gutter press is based on the minor and major downfalls of stars, starlettes, politicians and sportspeople. Prince William is losing his hair. Antonio Banderas is looking old. His wife was mistaken for a trout at an angling competition and got a fish hook through her swollen lip. President XYZ has a secret love child… And what about our day-to-day conversations? What percentage of them are hand-rubbing gossip? Let’s be honest… Societies don’t punish all that. They will actually encourage it. If a powerful/rich/leading nation takes a tumble, you’ll see schadenfreude on an institutionalised scale in other countries, including ‘friendly’ ones. I don't think I've shaken your doubt. I surely didn't intend to prove that boasting of one's schadenfreude is unhealthy, just that it's reasonable to think it might be (or not unreasonable to think it is? Pick your favorite weak wording). Your doubt that the social dynamics punish the holder wasn't certainty as you've stated in your last bullet point. My suspicion that it does isn't either. Maddy: I didn't take liberty with the paper, I took liberty with Aethelwine's comment.... Carole (in tears): B-b-b-but YOU said you took a bit (!!!!) of liberty with the paper! Ack, I did misspeak! My apologies! Have a tissue! Here's what I said again and I'll try to clear up my intention after... What I haven't heard or read anywhere is an analysis of people's perceptions of others schadenfreudic behavior. But back to the first paper. This entire conversation started with Aethelwine stating... " Schadenfreude is not a healthy pleasure to be boasting about." I could read this as meaning "schadenfreude isn't healthy", or that "bragging about it isn't healthy". I'm not going to argue the first interpretation, as I don't understand schadenfreude's efficacy as a coping mechanism, particulary compared to other methods like self affirmation (which reduced schadenfreude in the first study you cited). But if you take the conclusion of that paper and take a bit of liberty in rewording it, you can get... "Bragging about low self esteem is not healthy". That statement seems harder to argue with. The logic error I purposely made is that "people with low self esteem experience more schadenfreude" isn't the same as "people bragging about their schadenfreude have low self esteem". People with all levels of self esteem experience schadenfreude, but I think the rejiggering of the statement to show that bragging about schadenfreude isn't healthy will probably find some support, if only because there's maybe a little bit of schadenfreude in it. The liberty I took with interpretation of paper's conclusion (morphing "low self esteem correlates with schadenfreude" into "schadenfreude indicates low self-esteem") was a logical error I purposely made because I think many will make it accidentally. I then cut and pasted that into Aethelwine's statement, to construct what I think more clearly demonstrates why people could think bragging about schadenfreude is unhealthy. But most people aren't actually making that logical error, as they've never read the paper. They're simply drawing on their life experience to conclude that schadenfreude is indicative of low self-esteem, and that bragging about having low self esteem is unhealthy (or that just having low-self esteem is unhealthy, which might not be true if it's an accurate estimation?). I made this substitution because, in my own conversations with others over my life, they've claimed that behaviors like schadenfreude and envy are "indicative of low self-esteem". I've made the same claim, but now with more caution. Somehow, we figured it out (or were taught it) on our own. I also said this conclusion may find support because there's schadenfreude in it. It makes me feel better to think the person who just boasted of their schadenfreude has less self-esteem than me! And please don't tell me I'm wrong, I don't want to hear it!!!! Somewhere back there you said (approximately) that the person boasting about their schadenfreude is the one least likely experiencing it, because they are conscious of what they're boasting about and schadenfreude is sub-conscious. Okay, let's grant you that. So then they are boasting of a conscious damage-joy (can't use "schadenfreude" if that's purely sub-conscious). I'm not sure that makes me feel any better about them! Maddy: We are aware enough of our sub-conscious that we've been able to name it. Our awareness of it is tenuous to be sure, but we say things like "I feel conflicted", or "I just had a thought!", or "What was I thinking?" or "Her name is on the tip of my tongue, it'll come to me in a minute" that suggest we're aware our brains have minds of their own. When our sub-conscious processes can't resolve a conflict, they'll phone the conscious for a consultation. Me: Recognising and naming the phenomenon - intellectual, academic process - is not the same thing as recognising and naming the phenomenon when it occurs SUB-consciously in ourselves - since, if we are aware of the process in act, it can no longer be a SUB-conscious but is then a conscious one. Plus, I think you're confusing all of this with memory and other non-related concepts. We are constantly made aware of sub-conscious processes when they need our attention. Go back to the example I gave of "Her name's on the tip of my tongue". It's on the tip of your tongue, you say so. So you know that your memory (a sub-conscious process) hasn't found it yet. You go back to your conversation and a seconds later, the word arrives. "Oh, it's come to me, her name is Carole!". We often think nothing more of it, but we've just witnessed a query being passed from the conscious to the sub-consious and back within the space of a few seconds. We may have had a difficult time (or no interest) in describing this, but we were at least somewhat aware of it. An aside... when a name is on the tip of my tongue, I sometimes spawn off a little thought, wondering how my brain will find it. When(if) the word finally arrives, I often chuckle over failure of the wondering process to return an answer. But I have, on more than one occasion, had a glimmer of insight return from the expedition. I once pooh-pooh'd meditation... now I'm "changing my mind". Psychologist Julian Jaynes theorizes that this introspective consciousness is pretty new, maybe a few thousand years old. It's pretty cool, that's for sure. Maddy: People feel guilt over schadenfreude...... Me: Contemporary to when they feel it? You sure about that? Hey, I'm not sure of anything! I'm not aware of any research timing the delay for something like awareness of a schadenfreude/sympathy conflict, but maybe the first pangs of "guilt" could arrive within the same time frame as that name on the tip of your tongue? And maybe the more serious the conflict, the faster it comes to your attention? And maybe you don't feel the guilt until something else happens later to change you understanding of the original event? And then the guilt is used to modify the mechanisms that produced the conflict in the first place. That process of modification runs lifelong. In my personal experience, this sort of guilt can come almost instantly, as when watching one of those YouTube videos in which someone does something risky and is hurt. There's other stuff going on as well, as Ima says, including the vicarious thrill of the risky stunt, so sure don't know all that goes into the calculations that ultimately result in guilt. My reaction to such things has changed over time. I don't know if my schadenfreude is being turned down or if my sympathy is being turned up. I only see what appears to be a changing balance in the direction I want it to go. I'm also aware that this balance tips depending on my perception of the person being harmed and the threat they pose, and I can see that assessment change over time. All said, I can still mortify myself. Maddy: Yes, just as I previously observed that you and I, and everyone else, also comfort ourselves. I think I have a self-deprecating sense of humor. I'm also well aware that's a disarming defence mechanism. I (we) also self-protect. Me: We do. You most certainly have. Yes. And yes. Maddy: Hence the old saw "actions speak louder than words". Which is even more pitted with rust holes here than in RL. Me: EXACTLY! Here it's 100% based on what we tell one another about ourselves. There are no observable actions of the person - manuevering a puppet doesn't count. Our bodies by proxy - our avatars - are built to our own specifications and we do with them things we would never ever do with our RL bodies (proof of avatar-operator) detachment. Like the bodies, we create a personality according to our specifications by telling others who we are - which of course really means 'who we want to be'. Which, modifying the words of a wise man, is why you should never believe anything about anyone in here, though I'd add this - you can get very clear ideas of who you're dealing with if you read between the lines, listen to what's not being said and put everything that is being said through a filter. Right, and this applies equally to RL. We've got more cues to work with there, but still not enough to provide certainty. The margin of error on a read of someone here is larger than in RL. Self delusion is easier here as well, we're not constrained by physicality or history, we can invent both from whole cloth. But deception (self and otherwise) happen in RL, too. As I'm sure you've discovered elsewhere (maybe not here ;-), you can derive a lot of pleasure from interacting with these clouds of potentially deceptive delusion. Oh, and you'd not be the first, and won't be the last, to think that Mad is short for Maddening. Imagine what it's like to be trapped in these discussions every day of your life. Then imagine enjoying it. That would be Snugs.

Dillon Levenque wrote: Interesting. I wonder if this will become a whole new Forum trend. Start a thread, read a few answers (without, of course, replying to any of them) and then retitle the OP to something completely different from the original topic, and start all over! :-)

When I was little, I built ever larger trebuchets with my Father. The smallest shot peas at Mom, the largest could toss tomatoes onto the neighbor's roof. As you saw in the video you linked, when very large they are a ballistic ballet. I've visited Morton's Punkin' Chuckin' festival several times. After the day's competition, they'd do battle. The big machines would throw things like lawn tractors and the little machines would try to hit them with pumpkins. They never scored a hit. We didn't care. They set a few junker cars out in the cornfield and pelted them too. The Q36 was the hardest to steer, but packed the biggest whallop. They turned a family size station wagon into a pile of rubble in half a dozen shots. We all gathered round the carcass after the demonstration and marveled at the damage. One pumpkin hit the driver's side door, pushed it accross the car and blew it out the other side along with the passenger side door. Both were a dozen yards away in the field. A smaller car was rolled over on its side by one impact. I hope you get a chance to visit one of these events, Perrie. There is nothing quite like the silliness of adults putting all that effort into throwing pumpkins. Except maybe when they set the pumpkins on fire first.... Oh, the Morton festival has also included a giant corn maze. I did get fairly lost in one and would have called for Mommy, but she was with me (and I was 35 years old), wagging her finger. Now I have an iPhone, and no worries.

Connection latency will be a problem here, socrates. My RL neighbor kid is a musician and has tried jamming with friends over the internet. He first experimented with Skype, and gave up. Then he tried this... http://ejamming.com ...and hated it. There's an expensive hardware solution that he asked me about. I don't think he tried it, or he'd have been in my kitchen bragging about how much he spent on it while waiting for me to make him a BLT. https://www.musicianlink.com If you manage to get a acceptable jam going, you'll then have to serve the combined stream as you would for a solo gig. Good luck!

Czari Zenovka wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Could that resident have mounted that buoy at the end of a large, invisible prim located on their land and extending into the Linden Land? @Maddy & Cerise - I didn't even think of the invisprim angle; I bet that's exactly it. I had the same issue with a new neighbor in back of me last year who had a mega-invisiprim that stretched into my parcel. When I talked to him he was very apologetic and moved it, saying that, since nothing was rezzed on my parcel, he didn't think it was owned. (Never mind the parcel clearly states ownership.) He said he didn't even think of someone living in the sky, as I have been, one of the reasons being extremely low-frame rates on my current PC with all the builds on the sim at water level. As far as letting it go - I'm of two minds: People purchase parcels for all kinds of reasons and unobstructed waterfront views are one of the last expensive parcels in SL. Also, using a megaprim with the root on one's land is a sneaky way to "offer" tenants a perk that could just as easily have been offered without putting the build out there since the owner's parcel also borders the ocean. I'd be happy to stop over and set a huge bonfire on an invislble plank you could extend over the buoy!

Could that resident have mounted that buoy at the end of a large, invisible prim located on their land and extending into the Linden Land?

Czari Zenovka wrote: Tex Monday wrote: Perrie Juran wrote: You wanting to pick a fight? I'm a bit outmatched..after all, you have a uranium P36 explosive space modulator capable of blowing up the earth...:matte-motes-sunglasses-3: ETA: although, I can put a call in to Bugs Bunny and then maybe have a shot.... Or you could bring in the really big gun - a Redhead! :matte-motes-big-grin: Hmm. My SL ex was a redhead. A Howitzer she was, went off without touching the trigger and fired in random directions. ... runs (with a limp) and hides.

jabeds wrote: With allot of people interested in combat in sl and allot of big builders build military equipment, should Linden Labs create a big continent for all these people to go? Wouldn't that eliminate the element of surprise? Nobody suspects a sleepy little lighthouse in an old Forgotten City to harber one of SL's most nefarious warrioresses. As for military equipment, if I can't fit it in my purse, I'm not taking it into battle. ;-)

Ima Rang wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Ima Rang wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: I wonder what happened in late 2006. Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq, and his co-defendants Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar were sentenced to death....and schadenfruede swept across the land by those boasting high self-esteem, but feeling that they deserved the penalty of death. I like that explanation, but the peak of 100 was in August of 2006, Saddam was executed in December, when schadenfreude ebbed at 25. And "boasting high self-esteem"? I really like that! ;-) October 2008 - start of the Great Recession? Higher since, but now in decline? November 2012, Schadenfreude for Romney (that's actually from the chart, which labeled that peak as "A"). The peaks seem more related to specific media articles than to any upswell in public interest in the concept. I've no idea if the general trend up is real or an artifact of changing Internet demographics. And we can't separate the interest of the public from the interest of the article writer. I could imagine a lot of people went looking for schadenfreude because they had no idea what it was. So is this more a measure of literacy than interest? According to the game theory of emotions (another thing I no nothing about) sports, wars and other conflicts are win-lose games, in which there are clear threats. So there's grist for schadenfreude in conflicts, and it's got less to do with self-esteem than with the threat to the thing you identify with (team, army, religion, political party, etc.) I was raised and live in a win-win environment, low in threat, and I don't identify with any team, army, religion or politcal party. So game theory would have me exhibiting less schadenfreude, and maybe being more sensitive to it in others. We've had people in the forums express belief that SL and/or RL was a zero-sum game and get a less than enthusiastic welcome by... win-win people? And so the argument that bragging about schadenfreude is unhealthy might boil down to the reversible "playing the wrong game may appear unhealthy to people playing the right one". I could go on... ;-) Rule changer! You said late 2006...He was sentenced in November of 2006...that's late! Exhibiting less schadenfreude? I'm wondering why it is that you think it is something that can be seen, or detected, when in fact most people probably have no idea what it is and whether or not they are schadenfroh'ish. Personally, I don't believe there is any such thing as a win-win people. And who would determine who is playing the right game and the wrong game? Well, I said I thought trending "schadenfreude" searches might have been a literacy test, so I agree that lots of people don't know the term. But they know the experience. When someone is oddly shadenfroh'ish, you feel it. Just as when someone has a sense of humor at odds with your own. I said the right-wrong phrase was reversible. I think in most situations, both sides think they're right, right? (Though I've been in plenty of situations with others were we couldn't agree that we were agreeing). And while I agree that nobody's win-win, I think there are biases (cultural, personal, both). There are clearly situations in which I'll feel it's win-lose. But even then, I can hope that I'm tempering my malicious glee. And I'm sure not gonna tell you when I'm rolling in it, I probably don't have to. ;-)

Hippie Bowman wrote: valerie Inshan wrote: Thank you Hippie my dearest friend! So glad of your kind words! Having a big time indeed: sleep, eat, suntan and fresh rose wine! Woot! Thinking of you and miss you all! My doggie Gordon sends hugs to Maddy: they'd get along well for massive siesta! Love you big time kids! So glad you are having fun Val! I will come by from time to time and pet your dogs and raid your fridge! Love ya! Peace! Hi you two. It's getting warm here, time for a siesta...

Tex Monday wrote: Perrie Juran wrote: You wanting to pick a fight? I'm a bit outmatched..after all, you have a uranium P36 explosive space modulator capable of blowing up the earth...:matte-motes-sunglasses-3: ETA: although, I can put a call in to Bugs Bunny and then maybe have a shot.... Tex, I'm unable to imbed the following video for some reason, but you might rent this for a showdown with Perrie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMFgkoCctdk I saw it. It was impressive. But I fell in love with the ACME catapult, which I watched hurl a washing machine through the air on a glorious October afternoon (there are days I'd love to hurl mine). It was so graceful I almost shed a tear. ;-)

Carole Franizzi wrote: Maddy:"Schadenfreude is not a healthy pleasure to be boasting about." I could read this as meaning "schadenfreude isn't healthy", or that "bragging about it isn't healthy". Me: Wut again? After 3 or 4 pages of mega-posts which have seen you repeatedly questioning whether schadenfreude negatively impacts a person’s health (and me wearing out my fingernails typing explanations as to why this ‘phenomenon’ cannot be seen in terms of healthy/unhealthy) NOW you’ve decided you’re not sure whether it’s the bragging about it which is the problem??? Excuse me while I go bang my head off the wall for a couple of minutes. Somewhere, in a previous wall of text, I said "But I don't think I'd be surprised to discover that even when only known internally, that shadenfreude has an effect on health. What if it's discovered that people who engage in it frequently live longer than those who don't? I don't expect we'll see that study soon, and it'll be surrounded by critique, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that our natures affect our health." So I'm questioning the effect, not describing it. You've stated that schadenfreude is an effect, not a cause. I'm arguing it's both. It might be far too complex and nuanced to tease apart from other factors, but it's been a topic of conversaton for ages and research for less than that. I'm not going to argue the first interpretation… B-b-b-but you have been doing just that all these pages!!! Again, my argument has been that schadenfreude has an effect, not that it's negative. ….as I don't understand schadenfreude's efficacy as a coping mechanism BANG! BANG! BANG! It's only a flesh wound, I'd rather know I don't understand something that not know I understand it wrong. I might not know the difference. Ouch. I know! But if you take the conclusion of that paper and take a bit of liberty in rewording it, you can get... "Bragging about low self esteem is not healthy". A bit of liberty? A bit??? What line in the conclusion did you decimate to make it mean that?? Not one single part of that paper deals with how one’s schadenfreude is discussed with others, if my memory serves me correctly. I didn't take liberty with the paper, I took liberty with Aethelwine's comment, as have others in this thread. I think people could reasonably interpret the statement in both of the ways I described. The paper did find correlation between schadenfreude and low self-esteem. I cut and pasted that correlation into Aethelwine's statement, purposely making the logical error because many people will, including me in a pinch. The logic error I purposely made is that "people with low self esteem experience more schadenfreude" isn't the same as "people bragging about their schadenfreude have low self esteem". Huh? BANG! Hey, I fired that bullet, so I get the credit for the bang! People with all levels of self esteem experience schadenfreude, but I think the rejiggering of the statement to show that bragging about schadenfreude isn't healthy will probably find some support, if only because there's maybe a little bit of schadenfreude in it. Yeah, but if schandenfreude is a sub-conscious mechanism, and since sub-conscious mechanisms are …erm… sub-conscious, when you’re affected by them, you’re unaware of it. That make sense? So, if a person is unaware of being affected by something, he can hardly boast about having it. You with me? Therefore….roll of drums…anybody claiming to be proud of being affected by a sub-conscious mechanism is….the one person in the room whom we can be sure is not schadenfroh! Now, how’s that for a theory? We are aware enough of our sub-conscious that we've been able to name it. Our awareness of it is tenuous to be sure, but we say things like "I feel conflicted", or "I just had a thought!", or "What was I thinking?" or "Her name is on the tip of my tongue, it'll come to me in a minute" that suggest we're aware our brains have minds of their own. When our sub-conscious processes can't resolve a conflict, they'll phone the conscious for a consultation. People feel guilt over schadenfreude, I have. And that guilt has come to me as mysteriously as the schadenfreude itself. I imagine there were some number of subconscious processes working on the situation (use schadenfreude and sympathy as proxy concepts for what are probably much more complex collections of mechamisms at work. They were not able to resolve a dilemma and so brought it to my attention. On conscious consideration, I resolved the dilemma in favor of sympathy, producing guilt. Hopefully, some of that consideration actually gets passed back into the subconscious, hopefully shifting the balance in the direction I consciously desire in future sub-conscious deliberations. It would make sense that schadenfreude goes undetected when there is no conflict worthy of making the phone call. But even then, we can sometimes access the logs of sub-conscious events by introspection and reflection. And if someone does recall the delights of schadenfreudic events and considers them worth bragging about, others could conclude that the sub-conscious malice of schadenfreude now bears the conscious stamp of approval. And of course that's provided they aren't in agreement. As Ima noted, there was a lot of public schadenfreude surrounding the hanging of Saddam Hussein. If there's a counter argument, showing that bragging about your schadenfreude could be personally beneficial, Ima's example looks good, though this is at odds with what I heard about sports schadenfreude being unaffected by anyone's desire to be part of the fan club. Here’s another one – what we say about ourselves to others is so heavily affected by how we want to be perceived that a person’s own self-description is not awfully reliable. Agreed! Jumping back to your comment about others perceiving you as intimidating, I’m going to suggest that anybody reading your words should be questioning to what degree you are fulfilled by being seen as intimidating and therefore as to how accurate that label actually is. You bet. It's worth questioning my perception, my self-perception and my motive. You're probably doing all that both sub-consciously and consciously. Yes, I know that others told you that’s how they perceive you, but you have to remember that only means that they find you intimidating - not that you actually are. Right. The adjective might appeal to you and you may cultivate it, assume it as if it is one which fits you, even if it actually doesn’t. It doesn't appeal to me, I hope I'm not cultivating it (I don't know), I hope it doesn't fit. Those who've stuck with me long enough to tell me they found me intimidating no longer do. That says nothing about those who fled. So, I don't extrapolate my friend's current impressions of me to others, but I do extrapolate their initial impressions. For many people, and in many situations, being intimidating is an excellent trait. It sure is, and it may be that I've benefitted from that appearance, even though I don't like it. The president of the company that raised me professionally was a mix of doting father and unforviging taskmaster. It wasn't pleasant to discover the line between those two (of many) aspects of his character. I could be the same. I’m not picking on you – And I'm not feeling picked on. we all construct and try to project self-images which are usually inaccurate, but which are the ones we need. You do it. I do it. We all do. Yes, just as I previously observed that you and I, and everyone else, also comfort ourselves. I think I have a self-deprecating sense of humor. I'm also well aware that's a disarming defence mechanism. I (we) also self-protect. And, of course, you may actually be a scary beyatch. May? Am! One last thing - don't forget - some people might have fun claiming to possess certain attributes just because the claim suscitates certain reactions in others. Hence the old saw "actions speak louder than words". Which is even more pitted with rust holes here than in RL. Okay, I've exhausted myself. I don't think I'm back where I started, but what do I know?

Tex Monday wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Companies are already drawing meaningful information from online social media. That's how Facebook got a market cap of 58 billion dollars! They are mining data that's largely insensitive to anonymity. Google is doing the same. They don't care who's really viewing the schadenfreudic YouTube videos that correlate well with certain buying habits, they'll simply show the correlation data to a customer and you'll see their ads targeted at your shadenfreude. Such targeted advertising is not new, but I think the selectivity and specificity allowed by the Internet is. But they'll also be able to pierce the veil of anonymity. You and I might not have the time to watch every little detail of a "person"'s life online, but a computer does. The little written affectations that make us wonder if someone is someone else can be reduced to a useful statistical correlation. A recent radio show discussed Google's ability to identify real people surfing anonymously by analyzing their online search behavior. Someone who checks the Manitowoc weather every day, is interested in root-beer flavored foods, purple clothing, tractor parts, quack psychology, and types "li'l" for "little" might not be hard to pick out in a crowd of search queries. So if Madelaine McMasters and five other identities have highly correlated search behavior, you might be able to sell the idea that they're all Madelaine McMasters. And I do mean sell. Google's Eric Schmidt wasn't kidding when he said it's Google's Policy to get right up to the creepy line. The scope and scale of the Internet's reach is unprecedented, and it is something that can be analyzed at nearly zero cost by computers. So that old explanation of "I'm not interesting enough for anyone to pay attention to" no longer holds. Now we're all interesting! I know this might be getting us off topic, but wanted to comment on your statement, Maddy. I work for a State Agency and we have people who sign in Facebook under an anonomous user and "perv" (for lack of a better term) potential employees posts. I'm sure that something inappropriate might (and I say might because state government works totally differently than private industry) stop you from getting an interview. This is a topic that I feel very strongly about...people don't understand that what you say in social media reflects how people see you. A good friend of ours has two kids..one posted a picture of himself giving the photographer the finger and the other tweeted being extremely whinny. I know they're good kids, but what happens if someone that doesn't know them sees that picture or those tweets? How are they going to be perceived by these people? They may not care, but what if that other person is an employer or a teacher? It urks me that social media is out there and there seems to be no supervision or remifications for the users actions. Watch your kids, people....see what they're doing on line and get involved... *clears my throat and quietly sits down* Sorry....:matte-motes-sunglasses-3: I already took us off-topic, no worries, Tex! There's a thing people are not able to do well, and that inability is thought to be important to our ability to live as social creatures. And it's a thing which the Internet does very well. That thing is... remember. The value of "forgive and forget" is that it erodes potential roadblocks to cooperation. If you never forgive or forget that I whacked you in the head with an alley broom when I was little, we're unlikely ever to get along again, even though there may be tremendous advantage in doing so. That photograph of the kid with the raised finger may now hang around forever, potentially absent the original context. Those involved have long forgotten, but the image is forever there to insult anew. Even laws and business practices forget. Speeding tickets vanish from your driving record after a while, as do late payments on your credit card. The Internet's memory is ungoverned. I believe we'll continue to value "forgive and forget" but this will challenge us.

Czari Zenovka wrote: Orca Flotta wrote: Still confused as to the 9000 series vs. the 640+ ones. AFAIK the timeline of nVidia cards is somehow like that: 8xxx, 9xxx, 2xx, 4xx, 5xx, 6xx, 7xx series. the higher the number behind the first number, the better the card. So it's like 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and GTX is better than GT. Lately nVidia adds to the confusion with Ti and boost versions, but they won't mess with the number system. A plain GTX 660 is still better than a 650 on steroids. Thanks, Orca Looks like nVidia got to the 9000 series then began over with a new numbering system. My current card is a nVidia GeForce FX 5700LE - no telling where that fits in the numbering scheme. Just in case your headache has gone, I'm happy to bring it back to you with this... http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php Type in the video card name (ie: 5700le) and you'll be taken to the benchmark results for the card. Your 5700le scores 26 on the Passmark G3D Test (which is the gold standard of... meaningless benchark names). The GTX 650 Ti Boost recommended by Tristan scores 3547. Since higher is better, this is better. If SL performance scales with those benchmark numbers, this card will allow you to run SL so fast that none of us will be able to see you, though we will probably hear the sonic boom as you fly by. Newegg has the 1GB version of that card (Tristan's is 2GB) for $139.99 at the moment ($154.99 with a $15 mail in rebate form)... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127731d ETA: Here's the 2GB version for $154.99 after the $15 mail-in rebate... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127730

Ima Rang wrote: And just before you draw too many more profound conclusions from the google searches of schadenfruede...you do realize they are a fairly well known band...right? I mean, I'm not a fan...but apparently they have at least 10. They have 14 fans, and I'm three of them.

Ima Rang wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: I wonder what happened in late 2006. Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq, and his co-defendants Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar were sentenced to death....and schadenfruede swept across the land by those boasting high self-esteem, but feeling that they deserved the penalty of death. I like that explanation, but the peak of 100 was in August of 2006, Saddam was executed in December, when schadenfreude ebbed at 25. And "boasting high self-esteem"? I really like that! ;-) October 2008 - start of the Great Recession? Higher since, but now in decline? November 2012, Schadenfreude for Romney (that's actually from the chart, which labeled that peak as "A"). The peaks seem more related to specific media articles than to any upswell in public interest in the concept. I've no idea if the general trend up is real or an artifact of changing Internet demographics. And we can't separate the interest of the public from the interest of the article writer. I could imagine a lot of people went looking for schadenfreude because they had no idea what it was. So is this more a measure of literacy than interest? According to the game theory of emotions (another thing I no nothing about) sports, wars and other conflicts are win-lose games, in which there are clear threats. So there's grist for schadenfreude in conflicts, and it's got less to do with self-esteem than with the threat to the thing you identify with (team, army, religion, political party, etc.) I was raised and live in a win-win environment, low in threat, and I don't identify with any team, army, religion or politcal party. So game theory would have me exhibiting less schadenfreude, and maybe being more sensitive to it in others. We've had people in the forums express belief that SL and/or RL was a zero-sum game and get a less than enthusiastic welcome by... win-win people? And so the argument that bragging about schadenfreude is unhealthy might boil down to the reversible "playing the wrong game may appear unhealthy to people playing the right one". I could go on... ;-)

Sy Beck wrote: 35,000 Americans take out insurance against being abducted by aliens each year, so there's always a sucker for any product and any price. This article or concept isn't that weird though from what I read. It seems to be aimed at the games provider rather than consumer. For example if LL were grossly negligent in some aspect and I had my virtual land and/or /inventory ruined by a malicious action then I might well win a case of compensation against LL. This merely insures them against that claim. Now it maybe the case that there are quite a lot of shoddy game providers in China who are incurring lots of valid compensation claims because they do not take appropriate measures to protect the IPR, data or virtual property of their gamers. So, they can either tighten up their act or go on paying increasing premiums each year. Seems to me that in the long run it's a win win scenario. 34,999, Sy. They dropped me for filing too many claims. The article ponders the valuation of the virtual goods that are insured. Is it much different than valuing an art piece or a patent? If this insurance is being offered by a legitimate insurance company, I suppose their actuaries have worked out a risk/reward ratio they think will bring them a profit. If they suffer massive losses because of an unforseen virtual natural disaster (a euphamism for "we didn't know what we were doing"?), they'll adjust or get out. The same analysis must be done by the purchasers of the policies. What's the value of extending the warranty on your $13 toaster by two years? Someone probably buys that from Best Buy when asked at the checkout. This makes sense if you remember we're all nuts!

Perrie Juran wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Don't get me started, we'll have another thread full of my walls of text. 4t l34st y0 p0stz 1z r34d4bL3 n n0t 1n 4LL C4Pz n b0Ld3d t3xt I'll get you for that! (ETA: The presentation, not the left handed compliment).

Perrie Juran wrote: Sometimes I answer questions by simply posting a link to where there question was answered and offer no other commentary. This is usually in response to poorly written questions with heavily abbreviated words and other l33t type speak, fragmented sentences and obvious misspellings (not typos). I post the links in contrast to my spelling out for them the answer. Some of those links will require that they do some reading to find their answer. I am sure that this may not make me look like the friendliest person in the world. I am generally a friendly person who does like to help. So my question is, "Do we hurt people more by spelling out an answer for them rather than letting them read the answer(s) for themselves on the Wiki?" I'm just kind of musing here. Don't get me started, we'll have another thread full of my walls of text. That said, if you want to drag someone out of l33tspeak, you'll probably have to engage more deeply than just linking them to answers. Or, embrace the l33t?...

Paprika Savira wrote: Add them to your house? Like, as a part of the roof, or a peice of furniture? Ooooh, rather than people built of houses (Cabin Man!), houses built of people! I like it!

Ima Rang wrote: You seem to have quite a hard on...for lack of a better description, for Google these days. I think the element of schadenfruede that is being overlooked is malice....which is not something that Google will be able to determine from an individual surfing America's Funniest Home Videos to watch skateboarders settle family planning matters on an unforgiving set of steel railings for the OMG...fool...or "I see how I can improve my technique". Thrill seeking behavior does not equate to a particular desire to see people maliciously and intentionally subjected to public humiliation that causes physical or emotional harm. IMO, schadenfruede is not a protective mechanism that activates when we are suffering from low self-esteem or ego deflation. I also don't think schadenfreude turns on when we're suffering low self esteem. The study linked by Carole Franizzi contends that low self esteem is correlated with schadenfreude. I seem to love watching Wile E hit the dessert floor regardless regardless of my mental state. But, right or wrong, people are going to draw the conclusion that notable (I'm still looking for a word to describe the sort of "you know it when you see it" character I'm imagining) schadenfreude is indicative of low self esteem. I said so in my reponse to Carole. Saying that Google has that power is like saying that Movie Theatres have the capacity to profile serial killers based on the number of movies that select customers frequent that include the theme of serial killings. Google hasn't got that scalpel like precison, and doesn't need it. I don't know which is the cart and which is the horse, but modern media understands that we like sensationalism. That now colors our news and there is handwringing over it. I think there will be handwringing (already is) over what Google does. My interest in Google is just a reflection of their being the biggest of the "big data" folks. I'm fascinated with what might be found in all the information they're collecting. Milwaukee's 1993 cryposporidium outbreak in the water supply was detected by pharmacists stocking out of tummy medications. Now we have Google Flue Trends. I can hardly wait for Google Schadenfreude Trends! Untill then, there's this... I wonder what happened in late 2006. What we do here is gloat. For instance...I may think someone here is a know it all...an eff'ing expert on anything and everything posted and I find them deeply irritating and a pedant...and then at some point, that person tries to best me on a subject for which I am actually employed as a subject matter expert, and that expertise allows me to publically best them...If I giggle afterwards...I'm gloating...not schadenfruede...because my intent to best was not malicious...I don't want you to have an cerebral aneurism or die in a fire because I bested you in public. Well, what's one more cerebral aneurism. You get used to them after a while. I'd like to think I possess both knowledge and curiosity. One out of two ain't bad? ;-)

Carole Franizzi wrote: Here’s some bedtime reading for you: http://www.goallab.nl/publications/documents/2011_Emotion_Van%20Dijk%20et%20al.pdf http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/01/26/0956797610397667.abstract That stuff almost put me to sleep! ;-) The first paper confirms what some people figure out on their own and what I've read elsewhere, that schadenfreude is correlated with low self esteem and that finding other ways to improve self image reduces schadenfreude. The abstract of the second paper was pretty short, about shadenfreude in sports. That's something I've heard discussed recently. A sports fan's degree of schadenfreude correlates to their interest in the sport. Die-hard baseball fans will cheer rivals losses no matter what. Casual watchers are more likely to take other things into consideration, such as the quality of the rival and the nature of the loss. For example, they'd experience less or no schadenfreude if a truly great rival loses because of an officiating error. This also applies to other group competitions, such as wars and the feelings leak past the sport into broader things like team nationality. I'd hoped they would discuss the violence that sometimes follow games (including parents at kiddie soccer games) but they didn't. What surprised me in that discussion is that fans apparently don't share in the schadenfreude to feel like a part of the fan club. I thought that would be a factor. When I see all those painted naked tummies in the stands at Green Bay Packer football games, I just get the feeling they'd doing so in part to "belong" to the fan club. But it seems they're really acting more independently, feeling directly allied with the team and experiencing schadenfreude because a threat to the team is a threat to their self image. There's also a game theory explanation I've heard, which says that zero-sum situations (sports, war, etc) evoke more schadenfreude than win-win. That makes sense to me. There's less threat in win-win. What I haven't heard or read anywhere is an analysis of people's perceptions of others schadenfreudic behavior. But back to the first paper. This entire conversation started with Aethelwine stating... "Schadenfreude is not a healthy pleasure to be boasting about." I could read this as meaning "schadenfreude isn't healthy", or that "bragging about it isn't healthy". I'm not going to argue the first interpretation, as I don't understand schadenfreude's efficacy as a coping mechanism, particulary compared to other methods like self affirmation (which reduced schadenfreude in the first study you cited). But if you take the conclusion of that paper and take a bit of liberty in rewording it, you can get... "Bragging about low self esteem is not healthy". That statement seems harder to argue with. The logic error I purposely made is that "people with low self esteem experience more schadenfreude" isn't the same as "people bragging about their schadenfreude have low self esteem". People with all levels of self esteem experience schadenfreude, but I think the rejiggering of the statement to show that bragging about schadenfreude isn't healthy will probably find some support, if only because there's maybe a little bit of schadenfreude in it. ;-)

Miko Kuramoto wrote: financial and.......... the sexual reputation that is tagged with SL. As a gamer (wow, swtor, lol, tera, gw2 just to name a few), most other non-SL gamers that i know think this is an erotic rpg. Big RL companies won't be associated with that. I miss them, they had fun sims. I think SL's reputation for sex preceded the arrival of big RL companies. If they left because of sex, why did they arrive in the first place?

Dillon Levenque wrote: The fact that he may very well have made a ton of money with the tool is not logically relevant, but it certainly does nothing to make him more attractive. Wait, wait, wait!!!! Since when does a ton of money not make someone more attractive!!!!! ;-)

Ima Rang wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Ima Rang wrote: Madelaine McMasters wrote: Aethelwine wrote: There is a distinction be made at whether it is at someone elses expense and also whether or not it is in some sense deserved. If it is not deserved and the person being laughed at is made uncomfortable by that then the situation is bullying and there is a wealth of information to suggest that is not good for the social group, the victim and also those doing the bullying or laughing along with them. If it is laughing at a bully then it is probably of benefit, as it would laughing along with the victim at a misfortune. And when you move this behavior to the Internet, where it may be more widely participated in (that's probably a shaky contention), more widely observed and more permanently recorded, I wonder what we'll discover. Nothing. Perhaps. It'll take some time to tell if the "Facebook cost me my job" anecdotes outweight the "Facebook got me a job" anecdotes. I don't think it will ever be possible to derive meaningful information from online social media primarily because there is no way to determine/confirm the veracity of the anecdotes...most especially in an environment where the 10 anonymous people in the discussion may very well be 1 person with 10 accounts...and other such scenarios... Companies are already drawing meaningful information from online social media. That's how Facebook got a market cap of 58 billion dollars! They are mining data that's largely insensitive to anonymity. Google is doing the same. They don't care who's really viewing the schadenfreudic YouTube videos that correlate well with certain buying habits, they'll simply show the correlation data to a customer and you'll see their ads targeted at your shadenfreude. Such targeted advertising is not new, but I think the selectivity and specificity allowed by the Internet is. But they'll also be able to pierce the veil of anonymity. You and I might not have the time to watch every little detail of a "person"'s life online, but a computer does. The little written affectations that make us wonder if someone is someone else can be reduced to a useful statistical correlation. A recent radio show discussed Google's ability to identify real people surfing anonymously by analyzing their online search behavior. Someone who checks the Manitowoc weather every day, is interested in root-beer flavored foods, purple clothing, tractor parts, quack psychology, and types "li'l" for "little" might not be hard to pick out in a crowd of search queries. So if Madelaine McMasters and five other identities have highly correlated search behavior, you might be able to sell the idea that they're all Madelaine McMasters. And I do mean sell. Google's Eric Schmidt wasn't kidding when he said it's Google's Policy to get right up to the creepy line. The scope and scale of the Internet's reach is unprecedented, and it is something that can be analyzed at nearly zero cost by computers. So that old explanation of "I'm not interesting enough for anyone to pay attention to" no longer holds. Now we're all interesting!