Something like them is true of me in this case. Obviously I don’t think my case is normal. If I didn’t have lots of experiences of successfully manipulating people (mostly in high school, when I didn’t care deeply about ethics) then it would indeed be silly for “I’m just handicapping” to show up on my radar as a hypothesis. Still though Jonii’s hypothesis has enough merit that it at least describes some people (e.g. myself), and I don’t get the impression he was suggesting it as the default explanation, so the strong reaction to the post seems misplaced. Might I suggest that you seem to be treating this issue as a pet cause, and are thus getting overly emotional about it, at least rhetorically? Your message is more or less correct but you sound like a moral crusader.
Something like them is true of me in this case. Obviously I don’t think my case is normal. If I didn’t have lots of experiences of successfully manipulating people (mostly in high school, when I didn’t care deeply about ethics) then it would indeed be silly for “I’m just handicapping” to show up on my radar as a hypothesis. Still though Jonii’s hypothesis has enough merit that it at least describes some people (e.g. myself), and I don’t get the impression he was suggesting it as the default explanation, so the strong reaction to the post seems misplaced. Might I suggest that you seem to be treating this issue as a pet cause, and are thus getting overly emotional about it, at least rhetorically? Your message is more or less correct but you sound like a moral crusader.