Posts Tagged ‘interpersonal theory’

About the Midlife Crisis

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

bankersThe Amount of Trust you are able to give to an other is based on your experience with others. During his life a human develops a Trust-Pattern.

Every time when something goes wrong this pattern is evaluated and adjusted.

 When the pattern is highly predictable it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. The prophesy controls the behavior of a person. This behavior is called the personality.

According to Interpersonal Theory there are two variabels that explain a person’s personality. These variables are called Communion (Connected vs Disconnected) and Agency (I vs the Other(s)). Psychopathologic Behavior occurs when a Human reacts according to only one variable. You are Paranoid (Extremely Dominant) when you always react out of High Agency. You want to Control everything and everybody.

Agency generates Correspondent behavior. A highly Dominant person is not able to create a fruitfull relationship with another Dominant person. They always end up in a Conflict. Low Agency (Friendliness) invites Friendliness. Friendly people always Avoid a Conflict.

Communion generates Reciprocal behavior. Disconnected, Low Communion, Humans, Love to be Dominated (High Agency) and Connected, High Communion, Adults love to Care for Humans with a Low Self-esteem (Low Agency).

bank clerkThe level of Communion and Agency changes with Age. A child starts its life with a high level of Communion. It is highly dependent on his parents.

In the phase of Puberty the Agentic variable rises. The child wants to explore the Self and disconnects the relationship with the Caretaker(s) and starts to Explore the outside world.

At the end of this phase Adulthood is reached. Later in life the level of Communion rises again and the level of Dominance lowers again. Old people become dependent on the help of others and are mostly more tolerant.

When we combine the waves of Communion and Agency in Life, we are able to define the Four Stages of the Human Life Cycle.

tellerbankThe first stage (Childhood) ends when the Down path of Communion crosses the Up path of Agency.

The second stage (Adulthood) ends when Agency is Up and the Communion is Down.

In the third stage (MidLife) the second crossing appears (Down Agency, Up Communion). Life ends in the same state it started (High Communion, Low Agency, Old Age).

Humans apply the concepts of Personality and Life-Cycle to Everything that is Acting (Organisms (Cat, Cow, ), Organizations,  and Forces (Sun, Wind))).

So Let’s apply these Concepts to the Financial Industry.

The Agency of the Financial Industry is High so they must have passed the state of Childhood, Puberty and Adulthood. The Communion of the Financial Industry is very Low. If we look at the Life Cycle Model we must conclude they are in or have entered the Stage MidLife.

What Happens when You Enter MidLife?

capitlistPictSome people experience a so called Mid-Life-Crisis.

Individuals experiencing a Mid-Life Crisis know that the Downfall is going to happen soon. They are unable to confront reality and Regress to the State of Puberty.

They start to gamble, abuse alcohol or drugs, buy unusual or expensive items, are depressive and pay special attention to their physical appearance. They want to be Young again.

Bankers are Gambling with Your money, aquire many unusual and expensive items (Cars, Clothing) and pay a lot of attention to their physical appearance (Buildings). They do Everything to Impress their Customers.

Why has the Financial System moved into a Midlife Crisis?

When you enter a Midlife Crisis you suddenly come aware of the fact that Life is very Boring. You are doing the same thing day after day. Normal Banking is boring. Its about moving money that is saved by people to people who need money. When Bankers found out Banking is really a simple process they started to invent exiting processes to become Young again.

bankerYou have to admit that gambling is very exiting when you discover a Way to Gamble and Never Lose called Financial DerivativesForex Academy has a whole course dedicated to that these days, for those curious, this is a godsend. The knowledge to make money from betting on financial markets is out there.

What to do with a person who is in a Midlife Crisis?

The only way to move out of a Midlife Crisis is to Accept Life As It Is. If you are bored in your work find something outside your work (a hobby) or look for another job.

What Has to be the Next Step?

Banks have to return to their Core Business. They have to Accept Savings and give Credit in a Predictable Way. This is the only way to give people and companies the feeling they are able to Trust a Bank. Life is really Simple.

LINKS

A Website about the MidLife Crisis

How to solve an Addiction to Gambling

About Financial Risk Management

How to Solve the Banking Crisis

About Ponzi Schemes in the Financial Industry

About Financial Bubbles

About the Games Played in the Financial Industry

Why the Financial Crisis is still not ended 

About the Left and the Right Brain

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

The human brain is divided into two, distinct cerebral hemispheres connected by the corpus callosum.

The sides resemble each other, and, generally, each hemisphere’s structure is mirrored by the other side, yet, despite the strong similarities, the functions of each hemisphere are very different.

Linear reasoning and language functions such as grammar and vocabulary often are lateralized to the left hemisphere of the brain.

In contrast, holistic reasoning language functions, the transduction of visual and musical stimuli, such as spatial manipulation, facial perception and artistic ability are functions of the right hemisphere.

People who were more active in the left frontal brain (right handed) deal with a stressful situation with continued optimism. Right brained (left handed) people are much faster at recalling memories of negative events. They’re more prone to depression.

Left frontal person are a little more extroverted, more willing to take social risks, because they’re driven by the opportunity for positive things. Where the person who’s right frontally activated are more driven by avoiding more negative things.

 The winner of The Nobel Prize in Medicine 1981, Roger W. Sperry made some of the most profound discoveries in neuroscience when he showed that the two sides of our brain can be independently conscious.

 In the 1960s, surgeons developed a procedure to cut the nerve bundle that normally connects the two hemispheres as a last resort to control difficult cases of epilepsy.

Before this, the classic view of the brain was that the left brain dominated thinking and was primarily the seat of language, analysis, and high-level learned motor skills. The right, or “minor,” hemisphere was considered less highly evolved and unable to understand reading or speech.

When Sperry started testing patients with split brains, he and other scientists were surprised. He found that not only could these patients continue to carry on most everyday functions after the two hemispheres were disconnected, but that the right brain wasn’t as word-deaf and word-blind as once thought.

It wasn’t as advanced in language skills as the left, but patients using only their right brains could recognize such sophisticated spoken phrases as “a measuring instrument,” and could spell three- and four-letter words.

Also, in split brain patients, both sides of the brain were clearly conscious, even when they weren’t aware of what the other side was seeing, hearing or thinking. While the two sides of the brain obviously worked in tandem when they were connected, they could operate independently if necessary.

When Children are born without a corpus callosum the hemisphere is able to divide itself in a right and left function.

Lesley J. Rogers and Gisela Kaplan (Comperative Vertebrate Cognition (2004, Kluwer)) show that the specialisation of the left hemisphere is highly conserved throughout evolution. On an evolutionary scale, this anatomy can be traced from primates to birds, rodents, reptiles, amphibians and fish and even insects.

Across the animal kingdom, the left brain processes complex tasks, like collecting food. It’s the side of the brain that gets animals out and doing things. The right brain deals with threats, like predators. It’s the defensive side.

When we zoom into one hemisphere we see a fractal pattern emerge. The hemispheres are divided into lobes that are focused on the right or the left.

Left Thread Right Thread
Particular General
Local (but to achieve the precision we need a single context, we move to the UNIVERSAL to recruit universal constants) Non-Local (BUT context sensitivity is local and so very diverse)
Objects Relationships
The ONE The MANY
Precise (quantitative precision) Approximate (qualitative precision)
What (Who,Which) Where (How, When)
Tonic Harmonic
Internal Linkage (within) External Linkage (Between)
Syntax/Semantics Semantics/Percepts
Single Context Multi Context
Exagerate, Distort, AS INTERPRETED AS-IS
Known Unknown
Ordered Disordered (or loosly ordered – the ‘everyday’)
Non-Change (need stability for high precision) Change
Ordinality (emphasis on directions – vectors) Cardinality (emphasis on magnitudes – scalars)
What IS What IS NOT
delusion illusion
repression supression
What WAS What COULD HAVE BEEN
What WILL BE What COULD BE
+1/-1 zero/infinity
Text Context
Foreground Background
Quantitative Qualitative
Expression Behind Expression
Self Others
The Dot The Field
Particle Interpretations Wave Interpretations
Metonymy (part-for-whole) Metaphor (whole-for-whole)
Axon-like (pulse, FM = SEQUENCE, Ordinality) Dendrite-like (wave amplitude, AM = SIZE, Cardinality)
neuron synaptic ‘soup’
dopamine biased (internal linkage emphasis, internal integrity) serotonin biased (external linkage emphasis, social integrity)
psychosis, schizophrenia neurosis, depression
identify re-identify
blend, bound (feeling terms for whole, parts) bond, bind (feeling terms for statics, dynamics)
Vectoring Waypointing

The divide between the Left and the Right can also be found in psychopathology. According to Interpersonal Theory all pyschological problems can be explained by two factors called Communion (Right) and Agency (Left).

Interpersonal Theory explains all the extremes in the human personality with ease.

I started my research for this blog because I wanted to learn more about MU.

Mu was according to legend the original home of mankind. All subsequent civilizations descended from it. The Pacific islands and their inhabitants are supposed to be the last survivors of this primordial motherland. Most of the time Mu is related to the Pacific Ring of Fire.

One of the most interesting books about Mu were written by James Churchward. Chuchward served with the British Army for thirty years. He claimed that, while posted in India, he befriended a priest (‘Rishi’), who revealed to him ancient tablets written in an otherwise unknown language.

The Rishi taught Churchward how to read this language, Naacal. The tablets described the land of Mu. He also claimed that he was able to discern writing from Mu on a mysterious set of tablets discovered in Mexico by an explorer named William Niven.

What is the relationship between Mu and the Left/Right-division in our brain?

Churchward has spend most of his life collecting symbols and comparing these symbols to find the root, Mu. He explains his research in The Sacred Symbols of Mu (1933).

 If you study the “symbolism of Mu” you will find the Left/Right-division and the Left/Right-fractal everywhere. It was called Male and Female in every culture he researched.

 The second level of the fractal (2×2. LR, LL, RR, RL) were called the Four Forces and they were combined with the Union (a small circle) in the middle. The second level generates the symbol of the cross and the swastika.

If we translate the Left and the Right into a zero and a one the fractal generates on the third level the patterns of the I Ching.

He ends his book with a citation of his Rishi Master: “My son, the brain of man is his storehouse for knowledge, but the holding capacity of this storehouse is limited.

Therefore, never put anything into it that is not valuable for your spiritual progress, or that which is not absolutely necessary for the development and continuance of your material body to the end of this incarnation, in order to prepare for your entrance into the world beyond.

Learn and store the wisdom of the teachings of nature, for nature is the great school house for attaining wisdom, nature is God’s voice speaking.

Materialism, generally, is not worth storing, only that which appertains to the elevation of your mind and soul, that which will raise you to a higher plane, thus preparing you for the continuance of your life in the world beyond, a step in your eternal life.

And remember, that when you enter the world beyond, you will leave all materialism behind. You can take nothing with you, nor will you remember anything about it, only Love you will remember, for Love, like your soul, is everlasting, it cannot die.

Approach the Heavenly Father with full confidence and love. His loving arms are always stretched out to welcome you. If you slip or fall by the way, yet approach Him in confidence and penitence, He will forgive and welcome you because He, Himself, is all Love“.

This is exactly what Roger W. Sperry tried to explain to the world when he reflected on his own discovery.

Do you want to know more about the Right Brain view this video:

LINKS

The Sperry Lecture

About Life Stories

Monday, October 1st, 2007

When you want to build a Story-Based-Game the best way to interview is to ask people about their Life-story. Let us first have a look at the The Foley Center.  The Foley Center of Northwestern University is specialized in Life Stories.

Dan P. McAdams of the Foley Center uses Agency and Communion as the major “modalities in the existence of living forms“. These two modalities may be viewed as two thematic clusterings in life narratives, each articulating important life goals, strivings, needs, and desires”.  When I read the articles of McAdams it was not difficult to see that he was using Interpersonal Theory .

Because I was able to map Interpersonal Theory to The Theory of Will McWhinney . I was able to to open up a huge potential to litterally Play with Life Stories. Will has also mapped his World Views to Games Levels.

When you consider a Life Story as a Narrative a mapping to the Theory of Bakhtin about Chronotopes is also very helpful.

When you use the concept of the Chronotope you will see that a life-story takes Place in a named Time/Place-continuum (A House, The Office,). So not only ask When an Event took place but also Where it took place. A place is are very important factor in a life story. Many people remember the atmosphere of a Place. The House I was born felt Warm and Cosey. In my office I felt Alone.

When we had a look at the thoughts of Bahktin about Context we realized that we were really trying to describe a Situation and that other Actors in the Situation also plaid an important Role (Father, Mother, Manager, …..). So not only ask Where and When but also Who was playing an important Role.

Many people are unable to make a distinction between the Self (I AM) and the Role they are playing in a Situation. This is an important cause of conflicts. When you are a Manager you have to play the Manager and not be the Manager.

A life story is a Sequence of Situations that are always started by a CRITICAL Event. There a many ways to classify Events but a simple classification is a high point, a low point or a turning point.

In his book Paths of Change Will explains that there a many “Strategies” to change a life and of course a Life Story. Every connection of a World View to another World View can be considered a Change, a Conflict, a Game or a Dialogue.

An Event is related to the the World View Sensory. Sensory People view the world as a Causal Chain. When an Event takes place the Emotions come into play. Emotions are related to the Social World View.

According to Nico Frijda:

  • An emotion is usually caused by a person consciously or unconsciously evaluating an event as relevant to a concern that is important; the emotion is felt as positive when a concern is advanced and negative when a concern is impeded.
  •  The core of an emotion is readiness to act and the prompting of plans; an emotion gives priority for one or a few kinds of actions to which it gives a sense of urgency – so it can interrupt, or compete with, alternative mental processes or actions. Different types of readiness create different outline relationships with others
  • An emotion is usually experienced as a distinctive type of mental state, sometimes accompanied or followed by bodily changes, expressions, actions“.

Emotions Evaluate a Situation. When they Evaluate a Situation they use a Concern to Priotize. When they are able to priotize with ease or when the Event is Dangerous the Action is Unconscious. When a dangerous event takes place the Reptile Brain starts to work and the only re-actions that are possible are Fight, Flight and Freeze.

When a Major Event happens the priotization becomes Conscious. The Actor has to make a Decision. This decision is crucial for the next step (a new Situation).

When you have a look at (or feel, or listen to, ) Life Stories the Process of Decision Making is the most important factor. Socials always feel what the Others are doing or start to take care. Unities start to manage and want to restore Order. Sensories take care of Themselves (Ego) and Mythics want to restore harmony. What we see here is the Self-refererence of the Model of Will McWhinney. Inside the Emotions the World Views are again at play.

If we know how people Evaluate we are able to learn a lot about their Personality.

When we look at the Chronotopes of Bahktin we also know their Favorite Life Narrative. A Sensory uses the Chronotope of Destiny. His or her life is a sequence of events that are just happening.

A Social uses the Biography, the praise of a public figure who has accomplished something in life. When he has not accomplished anything his life is worthless. He is a total failure.

A Mythic is always searching for something (The Grale). His story is described by the Chronotope of Adventure. Deep inside the Mythic wants to find Rest and Harmony. When he finally finds Rest he feels the urge to move on. Therefore the Life of a Mythic is full of Turning Points.

When we know the Favorite Life Narrative we also know “How to Help“. A Social needs to be re-valuated. He needs a tap on the shoulder. He needs to be praised.

A Sensory has to stop to Wait and See. He needs to do something and learn from his mistakes. Somebody has to tell him that others have made the same mistake and he is able to prevent mistakes by looking (!!) at other life stories of comparable people. The most important persons could be his father or mother. They also have made mistakes and when they just tell their children frankly what they did many children would simply learn from the parents.

I hope you understand why the theory of Roger Schank is so important. His theory is able to help the Unity/Sensory-combination (Experts or Craftsman) and this combination covers about 80% of the people in Western Civilization.

Roger has now created an impressive Virtual School for Children all over the World. He is teaching children to learn a CRAFT again. He is not teaching THEORY but he is giving children the opportunity to ACT in REAL LIFE SITUATIONS. He is teaching them to become a Nurse or an Engineer. Craftmanship is HIGLHY needed in the underveloped countries.

The Virtual School is FOR FREE. It is financed by people who want to take care of the poor children in the World. The Virtual High School is using Games and it able to train Children to move to the level of the University within a very short time (max 8 years). Roger has made connections to Famous Universities in the US. They are also giving away their educational content (again Games developed by Roger Schank!) for free.

Funny enough I was unable to find anybody in the Netherlands who just wanted to try out his Virtual School. Every School and University in The Netherlands is re-inventing the Wheel. This is a Rule. The Dutch Government is spending billions to create something that is already available. This is also a Rule. If you want to know more send me an EMAIL.

About InterPersonal Theory

Saturday, September 22nd, 2007

interpersonal

World Views are Perspectives on the Inner and Outer World. “Every man has his own Universe” so there are so many Perspectives as there are (and were) Humans. To communicate we have to decrease the Amounts of Perspectives.

Will McWhinney has found a model that covers most of the perspectives of the Human Being. It contains Four Perspectives circulating around a Center. His model is Self-Referencial (A Fractal) which means that the Model can be Applied on its Self.

It can be expanded to the Infinite Perspectives of all the Humans on Earth by detecting the Right Enfolding of the Fractal Pattern.

When I was working with Will McWhinney on his theory of World-Views I found many theories that could be mapped to his Theory of Change. The World Views proved to be a generic explanation of almost everything. This was a big surprise.

One of the sciences that interested me the most was Psychology. I studied Philosophy, Psychology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics and kept my knowledge of these fields always Up-To-Date.

My main problem with Psychology was the conceptual  mess it was in. I read book after book and all the time new ideas came up. It was fascinating but also frustrating.

Suddenly I found a book that helped me to see everything from one Perspective. The book contained a Model and I was able to Map the model to the World Views with ease.

The book I found was Horowitz, L. M. (2004). Interpersonal foundations of psychopathology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Interpersonal theory looks at the world from the perspective of Relationships.

According to attachment theorists, the infant’s attachment system keeps the child close and connected to the adult, thereby increasing the child’s chances of surviving infancy. As children come to feel sufficiently secure in their attachment to the caretaker, they separate from the caretaker and explore the environment, a first step toward autonomy.

When a person initiates an interaction with another person, the other assumes that the behavior is motivated (purposeful). When an important goal is satisfied, the person experiences a positive emotion; when it is frustrated, the person experiences a negative emotion like sadness or anger.

Internal motivations can be conflicting. This can result in serious mental disorders. The interpretation of the motivation of the other is often ambiguous leading to misunderstanding and even conflict. To resolve these potential conflicts an open dialogue is necessary where people make their motives clear to others (and themselves).

Motivational constructs (desire, motive and personal striving) can be conceptualized in two very broad, abstract categories, namely, Communion and Agency.

A Communal motive is a motive for a connection with one or more others; it is a motive to participate in a larger union with other people. A communional motive can range from Indifferent (no connection) to Love (a complete connection).

An Agentic motive, on the other hand, emphasizes the self as a distinct unit; it focuses on the person’s own individual influence, control, or mastery over the self, other people, and the environment. An agentic motive can range from Dominating to Submitting.

Interpersonal behavior can be described with the so-called Interpersonal Circumplex (a Cycle). This is a widely tested model that predicts the reaction of a person to a Motive (a combination of agency and communion) of the other.

The motivational behavior of a person is more or less determined in his youth. People that are extreme in the connection/agency-matrix (e.g. indifferent to the other, too dependent, very dominant or submissive) are unable to work in a collaborative manner. They are Psychopathic.

Interpersonal Theory is very helpful to understand relationships.

interpersonal2

The Interpersonal Circumplex or Interpersonal Cycle suggests that there are Infinite Types of Relationships. Some of them are named (Friendly, Dominant) most of them are not named.

When two persons are reacting according to the complementary expected behavior of the Other they feel “Related“. A highly dominant partner, a Master, needs a highly submissive partner, a Slave,  and vice versa.

By using the World Views Interpersonal Theory can be easily mapped to other Psychological Subjects like Learning. When we use the method of Mapping it can also be transformed to Art, History, Ecology, Mathematics and Physics.

To use the Four World Views (Unity, Sensory, Social and Mythic) we have to Map the Matrix of Horowitz to the Matrix of McWhinney .

Sensory people (Experts) are disconnected from their Self (Ego-istic). They are focused on the Senses (Facts).  An addiction to the Senses is called Schizophrenic.

Mythic (Artist)  is a Union with the Self. Mythic people are highly Imaginative and Creative. An addiction to the imagination is called Histrionic.

Social is a Union with Others. Social people are highly Emotional and influenced by the Other (Status). An addiction to the emotions is called Dependent.

A Unity (Master) is disconnected from the Self. Unity people want to control the Future. They are planning and expecting. An addiction to Control is called Paranoid.

Consciousness, the Observer,  the Center of the Cycle, is a Balance between Communion and Agency. People that are Constantly Out of Balance are called Neurotic.

What is Happening?

Paths of Change explains why Life is a Paradox.  It is a Paradox because the World Views are completely independent. They are valid ways of Looking At the World.

Normal” people combine Two or more Worldviews and are able to Switch from one View to the Other but they always look with one View at the Time.

Normal” people are mentally ill but we don’t see their illness because they are Switching all the time.

The Switch is called a Relation in Interpersonal Theory.  It connects two parts that are disconnect and will always be disconnect.

Is there a Structure behind this Structure?

Behind the Four WorldViews lies a much simpler structure. This structure contains just Two Views, the View of Control and the View of Desire.

Control is the proces of Compression. Control makes thing simple and essential. It brings everything back to the Void, the state of Infinite Potential.

Desire is the process of Expansion. Expansion makes things more complex. It generates an infinite amount of new combinations. It moves away from the Infinite Potential.

Control and Desire are Complementary Powers. When they join they are annihilated. If this happens They combine and become the Void again.

Control and Desire are constantly moving around the Void to A-Void that they move back to the state of the No-Thing, that is Every Thing.

The Four Views are nothing but Four Combinations of the Two that are Avoiding the Void which is the Center, the Connector, the Relation, the Switch, between Every Thing.

LINKS

A website about Interpersonal Theory

About the Interpersonal Circumplex

About Learning and Interpersonal Theory

About WorldViews

About the Void and The Logic of Creation

About Wordviews and the History of Literature

About WorldViews and the Cycle of History

About Mapping

Why Crazy people Always Win a War

Friday, June 8th, 2007
In the New York Review of Books of this month (June 2007) Robert Cottrel reviews the book “A Russian Diary” by Anna Politkovskaya. She was a very famous Russian journalist who was assassinated October 2006 in Moskow. 

Anna had the Guts to oppose Putin. The book is about him and the current situation in Russia. Robert Cottwel is very negative about the way the West is treating Russia. They need the oil and gas and don’t see that a possible world-wide war between Russia and the West is near.

The story about Russia is very frightening. Putin is a brilliant manipulator who is combining all his old skills (KGB), his almost total power and the underlying aggression in Russia to “Take Revenge”. 

I want to focus on one aspect in this article. It is about Kayrov the President of Chechnya. He is appointed by Putin. Anna interviews him. She finds out that he is completely crazy. He loves to kill and torture and he is very open about that.

Later in the article we find a small poem that was published in Russian Newspapers. The poem is about taking over Estonia. This will be easy “Who in NATO cares? .. They are Cowards,… in the end we will strike and make a deal with those greedy pigs. Who will sell their mother for gas”. 

With this in mind I thought about the Ethics of War.

Question 1:  What is Ethics?

The definition of Ethics is simple: Things normal people don’t do in a normal situation. War is not normal so you would say ethics is not possible but soldiers are normal  people that are trained to experience war as normal. Soldiers are tested and trained to behave normal. Crazy people are not hired. A soldier can become crazy because of the war-situation and kill and torture innocent people. We, in The West, are doing are utmost best to prevent this.

Question 2: What is Crazy (Not Normal)?

This question is easy to answer because craziness is like all diseases standardized by psychiatrist. It is just a matter of answering a few questions and the treatment and the pills comes out.  

A theory that explains mental illness is called Interpersonal Theory (See Horowitz.L.M, (2003), Interpersonal Foundations of Psychopathology).

People interact and in the interaction they show expected behavior. If a person shows standardized behavior (he is not flexible) he is “MAD”.

An example of highly standardized not flexible behavior is Paranoid. People always react according to the same rules.

Crazy people are people that are like computers; they are programmed.  They don’t see, feel, or hear the Other. They are alone in the universe. They love to kill and torture because they and not able to be empathic. They look at their victims and have fun. They hate their victims because they look like greedy pigs who will sell their mother for gas and they love their mother. 

Why are  the soldiers of NATO cowards? The answer is simple because they are normal and most of them are empathic. They flip when they realize what the others have done to their friends, their comrades.

Now I know why the story about Russia is frightening. Putin is mad. Perhaps he is even paranoid. He wants to restore the old Russian Empire. Like all his Predecessors.

He knows that the West is totally dependent on energy and he plays with them. He gives the greedy pigs the food they want. He knows they will negociate to keep their wealth.

What he does not realize is that in the West people can become crazy and some of them are in the Army. When they are brutallized till the end they flip and they will use non-normal highly destructive weapons. If this happens we are in Armageddon.

Perhaps we have a chance when we change our selection policy of soldiers and select real crazy people.

This will frighten Putin.