On Monday, March 20, 2017 at 10:15:35 PM UTC-4, Hopalong Hirschowitz wrote:
On 3/20/2017 6:58 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 20 Mar 2017 12:44:03 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Monday, March 20, 2017 at 1:59:26 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sunday, March 19, 2017 at 8:41:39 PM UTC-4, Hopalong Hirschowitz wrote:



Wieber is a chronic and reflexive liar. Dan Caster charitably tried to
call them "tall tails" [sic] some time back, but he and all Wieber's
other sunshine allies know he's a liar.

I did call them tall tails. I can not believe you think they are not. I think he post them just to get a rise out of gullible fools.

Dan

No he doesn't. Most of them begin as a transparent attempt to put someone else down, or to puff up his credentials as an "expert." Then he elaborates them to double-down on the authenticity of his story.

It's the behavior of a chronic liar, not of a spinner of tales.

I have the feeling that it is a bit more than chronic. I suspect that
it is more a matter of a denial of reality, that he is a lifelong
failure, primarily due to his own lack of effort.

I think gummer has made a fair amount of effort in the past, but it was
all badly conceived, misdirected and badly executed. That was the past.
Now, I truly believe he's paralyzed. He truly has no idea what to do,
and he can't even make any progress in trying to figure out what to do.
He's completely stuck, and has no idea how to get unstuck.

I know a fellow whose wife died last summer, leaving two school-age kids
(12 or 13, and 16). He seems better, but he describes life, still, as
"just putting one foot in front of the other." I truly believe gummer
doesn't even know how to do that.

One might even use the term "psychotic" liar.

I guess it all comes down to whether or not gummer believes his own
bull****. He claims it's all true. His very close friend and staunch
supporter, Dan Caster, insists the stories are all "tall tails [sic]",
and seems to suggest that gummer knows they are. It's hard to tell from
text posts in Usenet if gummer believes the bull**** or not. If he
does, then there definitely is some kind of mental defect in play. I
don't know if it's psychosis, but it's something pretty deep in him.

We're getting some social and political lessons right now about "alternative facts" and alternative realities, and the import of the big, particular case we're living through at the moment tends to sharpen one's attention to how this all works. Big consequences tend to focus the mind.

One thing that we're learning, I think, is that a pattern of consistent lying, which normal people think of as being either pathological or deeply cynical, may actually function in a way that isn't clearly psychosis or simple cynicism. It may be a learned way of controlling one's environment and life; an alternate narrative that both protects oneself against painful confrontations with reality, and that provides a more acceptable story line to explain one's own failings and problems. Alternatively, in the hands of someone really talented, it can be the basis of a confidence act that brings money and power.

Applying such an alternative reality to one's own life can lead to social withdrawal -- I know such a person, and he isn't nuts -- or to a belligerent form of self-assertion that's carried out with the aid of bluster and insults. The latter pattern fits one side of Gunner's mixed behavior. If he had the talent to pull off a real con, in addition to the bluster and insults, maybe he'd have a tower named after him.

--
Ed Huntress