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Ben Carson's pyramid scheme

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CZroe said:
What memory was "wholly fabricated?" Not finding anyone who can remember students hiding in a biology lab is not the same as saying that white students never hid in any room. It's a ridiculous reach, really. How long ago was that again?!


We're aren't arguing that it's not a pattern. It's a pattern of recollection inaccuracies you and anyone else would have recalling such details from almost 50 years ago. None of those details changed the point he was making and, thus, you lose the motive you're trying to prove when pointing out this "pattern."
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Gifted Hands was published in 1992, not last week.
 
Victorian Gray said:
Gifted Hands was published in 1992, not last week.
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Sure was. That's DECADES from his childhood and DECADES of recalled/reinforced memories since.

Victorian Gray said:
In his own words:

“Tell the truth. If you tell the truth all the time you don't have to worry three months down the line about what you said three months earlier. Truth is always the truth. You won't have to complicate your life by trying to cover up.”
― Ben Carson, Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quote...for-excellence
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Yep. Strange how I take this entirely differently than you.

He's honest to a fault. Crazy, but honest.
 
CZroe said:
Sure was. That's DECADES from his childhood and DECADES of recalled/reinforced memories since.


Yep. Strange how I take this entirely differently than you.

He's honest to a fault. Crazy, but honest.
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DECADES you say? DECADES?

Damn, how did he manage to remember all that medicine stuff that he went to school to learn.
 
Victorian Gray said:
DECADES you say? DECADES?

Damn, how did he manage to remember all that medicine stuff that he went to school to learn.
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I keep telling you: Reinforcement through recollection.

It doesn't take a neuroscientist to understand that memories change the same way they stick. When a recollection is unchallenged it is often further enforced with positive results.

You are really bad at this "back and forth" thing if a previous answer applies to your "gotcha" question.

Doctors clearly aren't immune to the effect. I was recently prescribed antibiotics for a genetic/autoimmune diagnosis saying "it's bacterial."
 
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CZRoe is correct in the sense that memory, especially personal memory, is a horrible representation of reality. This is why "eyewitness" reports or trial witnesses are horribly unreliable, despite what TV and fiction lead us to believe.

One's own memory of a week or even less prior can easily be horribly distorted. Hard to fault the guy for likely mis-remembering past events when it is the default condition of all humans.

Now, that's one thing.

The problem with Carson is that he has made his case as a candidate based primarily on two traits:

--his faith
--his honesty

Because his primary qualification, as he has self-reported, is faith, this makes his faith a target for scrutiny. No question about it. Anyone whining about people asking him questions regarding his faith, need to slow down and shut the fuck up. That is his primary qualification, therefore it is up for debate.

Second, his honesty. This really is his own fault. You can't put up such a flawed human characteristic as a pillar of your value when you have such a history of either faulty recollection or targeted dishonesty (whichever it happens to be), in public scrutiny. These are words he published, this is one of his primary claims of his qualifications...so he has no one but himself to blame when he has no other history of qualifications that are typically used to scrutinize a presidential candidate.

He is trying to become the most powerful person in the world. This isn't a place for a little girly man to whine and bitch about being asked rather softball questions regarding the extremely limited set of topics which can be asked about him.

He is very proud of the fact that he isn't a politician, his 3rd primary qualification for becoming president, yet he's trying to play the game with politicians that actually know what they are doing. This is rather embarrassing, tbh.
 
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zinfamous said:
CZRoe is correct in the sense that memory, especially personal memory, is a horrible representation of reality. This is why "eyewitness" reports or trial witnesses are horribly unreliable, despite what TV and fiction lead us to believe.

One's own memory of a week or even less prior can easily be horribly distorted. Hard to fault the guy for likely mis-remembering past events when it is the default condition of all humans.

Now, that's one thing.

The problem with Carson is that he has made his case as a candidate based primarily on two traits:

--his faith
--his honesty

Because his primary qualification, as he has self-reported, is faith, this makes his faith a target for scrutiny. No question about it. Anyone whining about people asking him questions regarding his faith, need to slow down and shut the fuck up. That is his primary qualification, therefore it is up for debate.

Second, his honesty. This really is his own fault. You can't put up such a flawed human characteristic as a pillar of your value when you have such a history of either faulty recollection or targeted dishonesty (whichever it happens to be), in public scrutiny. These are words he published, this is one of his primary claims of his qualifications...so he has no one but himself to blame when he has no other history of qualifications that are typically used to scrutinize a presidential candidate.

He is trying to become the most powerful person in the world. This isn't a place for a little girly man to whine and bitch about being asked rather softball questions regarding the extremely limited set of topics which can be asked about him.

He is very proud of the fact that he isn't a politician, his 3rd primary qualification for becoming president, yet he's trying to play the game with politicians that actually know what they are doing. This is rather embarrassing, tbh.
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Very insightful. There are both valid and invalid criticisms of his recollection, but most fail to show any malicious motivation and, thus, it's a stretch to consider it "fabricated" or "intentionally dishonest." The Politico article was undeniably intentionally dishonest.
 
So Carson is a complete nutjub and a liar, seems typical for a rightwinger. I can see why he's so popular with the idiot class.
 
soundforbjt said:
So, Fox News is part of the left now? They ran with the story as well.
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The "admits fabricating" and "never applied as claimed" story?! Nope.

They said that he never applied but didn't lie to say that he ever claimed to have applied. They said that he was never formally offered a scholarship but never said that he admits fabricating the offer he was referring to. Politico had to change their article to reflect the same thing but the damage was done and the people ITT were still jumping all over it and sharing/defending the original misguided headline enthusiastically, like the forum staffer who originally shared it and now this Politico tool:
CitizenKain said:
So Carson is a complete nutjub and a liar, seems typical for a rightwinger. I can see why he's so popular with the idiot class.
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Hater going to hate and the Base can't be budged so it is up to the folks in the middle to see what is happening and vote accordingly. Alas I feel it is more like dwindling irreverent TV watching and just dying with a whimper. People think it has nothing to do with their lives.
 
zinfamous said:
CZRoe is correct in the sense that memory, especially personal memory, is a horrible representation of reality. This is why "eyewitness" reports or trial witnesses are horribly unreliable, despite what TV and fiction lead us to believe.

One's own memory of a week or even less prior can easily be horribly distorted. Hard to fault the guy for likely mis-remembering past events when it is the default condition of all humans.

Now, that's one thing.
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I agree to an extent. But, attempting to kill someone with a knife - details may be forgotten, but you don't forget who you attempted to kill (provided you knew the person). Are you suggesting that maybe someone else attempted to kill someone on a television show that Carson was watching, and he mis-remembered it as him trying to kill a friend - then a family member? Further, he changed his claim from his book - can CZroe explain how "reinforcing an incorrect memory" leads to rejecting that memory and changing it 20 years later?
 
DrPizza said:
I agree to an extent. But, attempting to kill someone with a knife - details may be forgotten, but you don't forget who you attempted to kill (provided you knew the person). Are you suggesting that maybe someone else attempted to kill someone on a television show that Carson was watching, and he mis-remembered it as him trying to kill a friend - then a family member? Further, he changed his claim from his book - can CZroe explain how "reinforcing an incorrect memory" leads to rejecting that memory and changing it 20 years later?
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Not sure what you mean. Why are you so sure the person doesn't exist?

You pretty much have to change names and relationships in personal memoirs for legal reasons and to protect the privacy of others who did not consent to be included. He later clarified that it was a family member and not a friend because the legal ramifications are different when you aren't profiting off of the detail or when further explanation is directly requested.

Deliberately changed names/relationships in line with the rest of the industry are exactly what they claim here and that's almost certainly the truth. The only reason to assume otherwise is this BS fabricated Politico story that cast EVERYTHING in the wrong light.

What controversy is left? What are you having trouble accepting about this aspect of reality?
 
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CZroe said:
Very insightful. There are both valid and invalid criticisms of his recollection, but most fail to show any malicious motivation and, thus, it's a stretch to consider it "fabricated" or "intentionally dishonest." The Politico article was undeniably intentionally dishonest.
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I'm willing to grant that he wasn't intentionally dishonest about the scholarship stuff, I think there is a little hair splitting there.

He seems to me he is lying about the stabbing event. Unless somebody can come up and convincingly say they were the person he almost stabbed I think it's just a lie. People from that time claim his behavior was not similar to that which he describes in general. I think we have a Brian Williams here.

Nonetheless, I think he is a complete joke of a candidate and what this stuff has done is not only shed light on some possible dishonesty, but shine multiple spotlights on his rank incompetence at the task at hand. The way he was with the interviewer during the CNN interview was an abomination. He handled himself like a whiny little bitch, and now he's tweeting a mock thanks to the media. Who does he think he is, Trump? Because Trump has acted like that for years but he knows what he's doing. Carson just comes across as a complete amateur.

I don't know what Republicans think they are doing supporting him. He would get absolutely crushed by Hillary. Can anybody seriously imagine him in a debate against Hillary and not getting obliterated?
 
Blanky said:
...
Nonetheless, I think he is a complete joke of a candidate and what this stuff has done is not only shed light on some possible dishonesty, but shine multiple spotlights on his rank incompetence at the task at hand. The way he was with the interviewer during the CNN interview was an abomination. He handled himself like a whiny little bitch, and now he's tweeting a mock thanks to the media. Who does he think he is, Trump? Because Trump has acted like that for years but he knows what he's doing. Carson just comes across as a complete amateur.

I don't know what Republicans think they are doing supporting him. He would get absolutely crushed by Hillary. Can anybody seriously imagine him in a debate against Hillary and not getting obliterated?
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These are some of the reasons why I do not support him as a presidential candidate either. I would not be enthused with him even as another's running mate.
 
brycejones said:
Why are you picking on Ben?
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His long-form Birth Certificate lists his middle name as "Ghazi".

Was he for sure even born in the United States?

He hangs his toilet paper the wrong way.

Sounds too much like Paul Winfield.

winfield.jpg
 
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CZroe said:
I keep telling you: Reinforcement through recollection.

It doesn't take a neuroscientist to understand that memories change the same way they stick. When a recollection is unchallenged it is often further enforced with positive results.

You are really bad at this "back and forth" thing if a previous answer applies to your "gotcha" question.

Doctors clearly aren't immune to the effect. I was recently prescribed antibiotics for a genetic/autoimmune diagnosis saying "it's bacterial."
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And the excuse for Mannatech is?
 
What disturbs me about Carson is that all these "stories" seem carefully crafted or told from a perspective to make himself seem a truly exceptional figure, when really many are rather mundane events, or possible fabrications.

The west point story for example, the way it's told sounds like he's earned something incredibly unique, but really these "scholarships" have been offered to thousands of people. In fact, both my wife and BIL had been approached by the academy, as they were both top HS students.

What they don't do is going about writing books about it, or try to weave it into some greater mythology about their incredible awesomeness like Carson tends to. It looks like he has some strong sense of a savior/ messia complex.

Definitely a strange cat.

His house is rather enlightening. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2015/nov/07/ben-carson-house-homage-to-himself-in-pictures


jesus.jpg
 
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