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I work with ex-offenders and recovering drug users. If people responded to simple reward/punishment, my job would be easy. It ain't.
And you have a Master's Degree, or PhD in psychology?
As a senior NCO, with the responsibility of leading a company of Marines, in the midst of a war... I had to have a fair working knowledge of "psychology"... And as a "salesman", I use it on a daily basis, professionally.
However...
I am no more likely to argue psychology with TrQ, than she is to argue infantry tactics, with me.
Be careful what you beg for... you might just possibly get more than you think...
Ever heard of cognitive behavioral therapy for substance abuse?
Granted, we still need better models, since relapse rates continue to be rather high....a problem of the drug itself as having a short-term reward (getting high) versus the long-term goal of sobriety.
"Its a typical right wing view though, assuming people have simple motivations. They don't."
This is pretty amusing. I'm getting called a right winger. Hey Globe, Al would be proud.
Hi Globe....;) Now, checking out to make my run to the store for chocolate....for some of our favorities. I"m gonna get cream centers, if they have them!
Country Tales
"Hmmmm...maybe I'm out of my depth. But reward/punishment as I understand it isn't often the best way to get people to change behaviour. Otherwise my clients wouldn't keep going back to prison."
I'm not saying you don't have a knowledge base for your opinions, however, here are mine:
Yes, relapse rates are high, as you said. One issue here is that it is a lot easier to temporarily run from your problems via the use of substances to get high (negative reinforcment---to terminate an aversive stimulus) than to suffer through the moment of distress long enough to avoid the temptation of the bottle or the rock of cocaine.
Rock of cocaine = immediate gratification (negative reinforcement)
versus suffer through distress = immediate punisher for putting the rock of cocaine down and not using it.
Another behavioral principle is that given a choice, animals will work (that is, they will respond) in order to get IMMEDIATE reinforcement (like taking the drug for immediate termination of problems) in preference for getting delayed reinforcment (that is, suffering through distress in order to avoid getting put in jail and living a "clean/sober" life over the long term).
In other words, the great allure of drugs is that it is an IMMEDIATE reward, and although it has long-term negative repercussions, the addict will still have a knee-jerk response to grope for the "quick fix", the "silver bullet" etc. instead of toughing it out for delayed gratification, such as holding down a good job, avoiding jail, in the far, far future.
So that is why relapse rates, partially are so high. Basically, you are trying to train people NOT to reward themselves in the short term with drugs. After all, the "quick fix" (drugs) allow them to put their problems on the back burner for a short time during the "high."
This does not even begin to address the issue of classical conditioning. How many of your substance abusers tend to report to you that they "get a tingling feeling of excitement" when they see a marijuana bong, or when they hear the "pop" of a fresh beer being opened? Immediately, they start to feel an urge to drink or use weed, and even report that their mouths water to taste the beer. Sound familiar? What are all of those responses based on Blagsta? They are based on the principles of Classical Conditioning, as in Pavlov's dogs. Behavioral Principles, yet again.
When you work with a variety of problems Blagsta, are you not helping them to "modify their behavior?" You may not be consciously planning it, but in reality? That is exactly what you are doing...basically, deprogramming them via changing their behavioral patterns. Have you ever suggested to them to avoid bars and other places? Well, that is a behavioral intervention. You are having them put physical distance between themselves and the "trigger", such as the beer, which is likely to produce a chain of behaviors that have been "rewarded" with beer in the past.
Behavioral principles are not only used to "fix" problems, but they are also the source of DIFFICULTIES with helping then to overcome problems. Your intervention to help them is basically pitted against the natural physical, and powerful short-term reward of drugs. Thus, your battle will be an uphill one, at best.
Ya see?
ROFLMAO! If you ever indeed care to exhibit any such capacity rather than the patently rabid ideological soundbites you post and the other hatefilled monikers which comprise the remainder of your routine contributions, we might actually get somewhere.
A search of the history of both our posts will quickly reveal how utterly evasive you are to all who put you to the question in the face of repeated evidence of the duplicity of those you so rabidly defend.
Good ol Thanny, a hack to the bitter end!
Is that addressing a topic, or is it an attempt to shut another down via verbal force?
Fact is, you will find any post of Thanny's which might be credited as "substantive" to be few and far between (disounting lengthy cut and pastes with nothing more than the patented smug quip to cap it off).
What you WILL find are numerous threads in which the duck and cover tactic was employed or which were turned into personal attacks in face of legitimate attempts to actually engage him in any issue-oriented examination.
As you can see as well, he repeatedly slags off this site as being some cabal of ideological collusion whilst claiming mil.com is an open forum of intellectual debate. A brief examination of any assortment of threads from the Hot Topics forum will show how clearly it remains a bastion of self congratulatory flaming and ideological dismissal of "issue oriented discussion".
As for my post above, well I just had to laugh at such a flagrantly hypocritical comment as that cited from Thanny earlier in this thread.
P.S. I've seen Globe's prior posts on this forum. And some are better than others in terms of content, as is the case with all of us.
I can already see that there is a lot of rhetoric being bandied about these forums and accusations of being "too right" oriented.
Mil.com is not the only place that brushes with broad strokes. Mil.com just happens to be brushing with strokes toward the right, while it is more left oriented on this site. Without a conservative view on these forums, there is too much homogeniety, which makes for boring debate.
The saying at Mil.com is something like, "Our liberals are a bit chewed on as chew toys go, and thus, are an endangered species, but they are valued because they are so rare."
Seems like a similar sentiment might be expressed here regarding conservatives. Mighty boring if everyone sits around and agrees with each other I would think.
Oh, and I see you've met Clandestine...
Go ask Max Cleland or John McCain how intellectually honest Thanny's brand of "conservative" truly is.
I do see what you're saying, and yes, there is truth in it.
But for people with huge habits or other problems, it is not as simple as that. The majority (although not all) of people with drug problems have a long history of abuse. Their self esteem is in their boots. Quite often people turn to drugs and drink to avoid and suppress feelings that they can't handle or because its all they know, all they've seen from childhood. This can require intensive psychotherapeutic group work etc, techniques which (afaik) are not based on behavourism.
I do bow to your obvious superior knowledge of psychology, and yes, we are in the behaviour change business. But sometimes we have to look further than mere behaviour and get to the roots of why people are behaving in self-destructive and/or dependent ways. Once these things are dealt with and recognised and people learn to likethemselves as they are, then the business of behaviour change (using techniques like CBT and MI etc) can start.
Do you debate or do you just follow people around and make disparaging comments about them, such as Globe?
Btw, I don't appreciate your pot shots now, and I certainly don't appreciate that email that you sent to me regarding Thanatos being a "troll" on Mil.com. :rolleyes: Very childish, particularly given that I did not even know of your existence until you posted your comment on this thread, and then followed it up via the Mil.com email system.
Don't have to follow Globe around, he comes here.
And what 'troll' email is that? Coulda give me the full quote? Getting a habit with people now, all these vague references to my wondrous waxings. Shit or get off the pot.
I would not typically post somebody's email, but since you specifically asked me to do so, here is your quote.
Hi!
Originally posted by TrQ (on Mil.com):
'Hey Fate, did you know that I've been referred to as "delusional" because of this thread on another site by a member who tends to frequent Mil.com as well as the other place? Hehehehe.... '
Uncle Joe's response:
"I calls 'em as I sees 'em, Sweets. Thanny's not _my_ idea of a 'blond haired, blue eyed god'... 'Malodorous, web footed troll'? I would _never_ say that...
Note: Here is the link to where the above comment was posted on Mil.com:
http://forums.military.com/1/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=78919038&f=409192893&m=764101191&r=425109012#425109012
Now can we return to the topic as suggested by Jim V and stop talking about Thanatos and Globe?
:rolleyes:
As to the topic, fascinating as I find it, comparing the merits of communism and capitalism leads one, sooner or later to conclude that the optimum system will draw on facets of both. Even so, plenty of people will still be unhappy. It seems that any kind of welfare is too much for some capitalists, and I'm sure the competition of the arms race hacked off plenty of communists.
I would like to think, certainly, that Thomas Jefferson and his buddies were not simply motivated by self interest when they drew up the document whose signing is being celebrated in two days time.
"As to the topic, fascinating as I find it, comparing the merits of communism and capitalism leads one, sooner or later to conclude that the optimum system will draw on facets of both."
Well, happy day! Looks like we almost (although not quite) agree on something here. Unlike you, however, I would not say that drawing on pure Communism is something that we, in the USA, should be striving to do. However, what I do think is that there is no such thing as a "pure" Democracy or a "pure" Communistic society. Today, even Vietnam has free market elements in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon before it fell in the 70's to the Communist NVA). Just as the USA has Socialist elements in that some services are more federally regulated and/or comes out of our taxes for the "common welfare of others (e.g., mail service, water, natural gas, social security disability, etc.)
Originally posted by Uncle Joe:
"I would like to think, certainly, that Thomas Jefferson and his buddies were not simply motivated by self interest when they drew up the document whose signing is being celebrated in two days time."
Actually, I do think they were self interested. But here's the way I look at it....being interested in others IS STILL SELF-INTEREST. Why? Because we are not islands unto ourselves, and we are dependent partially on the surival of our peers in order to ourselves survive. We are social creatures. So, we want our own to survive, because it means that we, as individuals, will also survive.
Oh, a new yanker that likes jogging, mmm... How you doin'? Ages please, we need some backround here....
Of course, 'pure Communism' is not something the USA strives for. That concept was always built up by western media as something to be opposed, and a very lucrative business it was for some people, like Kissinger. A good thing that 'militant Islam' has been stoked up as a replacement in the oil-rich middle east, even if the course of cheap oil doesn't always run smooth (apparently, that pipeline is failing a host of safety checks and shaping up to be an environmental disaster whether it breaks or not, but that's capitalism for you).
I mentioned welfare. As I said, some would rather not pay taxes at all. Not the people whose livelyhoods are wiped out by poor governing, of course
Or, put it another way, we are communal creatures... I look at firefighters, and aid workers, and even soldiers serving abroad, and I wonder how that 'self interest' thing works for them. To be sure, those who penned the Constitution didn't think that concern for slaves, or the emancipation of women, served their self interest. The quality of liberty was very strained for some. Magna Carta and the robber barons all over again.