"DARVO" Habits-of-Mind

This article explains the core behaviors that true sociopaths all rely on to wreak their havoc, summing them up under the acronym DARVO: 

• Deny
• Attack
• Reverse Victim and Offender

While aggressive online trolls are not to be confused with sociopaths, I see a lot of commonality to the behaviors, especially around political topics.

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Deny = Denialism

Ignoring the facts, inventing "alternate facts" or, when absolutely desperate, claiming "false flag".

Attack = Whataboutism

Immediately pivoting to throw out scattershot claims about offenses the other side has committed. Whether those claims are factually accurate, and the offenses proportional, or logically relevant, is unimportant. All that matters is blasting them out, in order to deflect blame and change the subject.

Reverse Victim and Offender = Double Down

Doubling Down reverses the proposition from examining, explaining and justifying the problematic proposition in question, to embracing it and brazenly calling for more.

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I am not suggesting that the typical trollish online debater who embraces these tactics is a real-life sociopath, or even on a sociopath spectrum. I have personally seen plenty of examples of a person who exhibits this kind of behavior online, yet in real-life, they are totally normal, and might even be described as friendly, helpful, considerate. But the combination of online-ness and the contemporary political climate seems to bring out the "DARVO" cluster of behaviors in way too many people.

Clearly, this behavior is destructive and dangerous.  The immediate consequences are obvious: the DARVO approach makes online discourse highly abrasive, and immediately dumbs-down any attempts at serious discussion and intellectual exploration.

But long-term, I fear the online DARVOs may be doing lasting damage to their own personality, psyche and intellect, by ingraining such maladaptive habits of mind. Do years and decades of DARVO-like behaviors eventually cause a lasting change to the core personality?

Homeowner Tenure Going Up

Brief article commenting on the increasing tendency of homeowners to stay put. Mostly attributing it to higher mortgage rates. On top of that HUGE factor, I suspect there are other long-term factors at work as well.

• Two-income families often mean it is much more complicated to relocate for a job.
• Work from home opportunities reduces the need to relocate for a job.
• Rising home prices make the economics of trading up more difficult.

Freedom

Good quote I heard from one of the Bulwark podcasts: It seems conservatives didn't actually love freedom. They just hated communism.