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The world is full of assholes. Wherever you live, whatever you do, odds are you're surrounded by assholes. The question is, what to do about it?
Robert Sutton, a psychology professor at Stanford University, has stepped up to answer this eternal question. He's the author of a new book, The Asshole Survival Guide, which is basically what it sounds like: a guide for surviving the assholes in your life.
In 2010, Sutton published The No Asshole Rule, which focused on dealing with assholes at an organizational level. In the new book, he offers a blueprint for managing assholes at the interpersonal level. If you've got an asshole boss, an asshole friend, or an asshole colleague, this book might be for you.
Asshole survival, Sutton says, is a craft, not a science, meaning one can be good or bad at it. His book is about getting better at it.
I sat down with him recently to talk about his strategies for dealing with assholes, what he means when he says we have to take responsibility for the assholes in our lives, and why he says self-awareness is key to recognizing that the asshole in your life may be you.
https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/9/26/16345476/stanford-psychologist-art-of-avoiding-assholes
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 10 2017, @05:10PM
He was so amazingly good at maneuvering he managed to do that before he took office!
Specifically, the south seceded months before he took office. South Carolina forces had pushed the US military presence in Charleston to Fort Sumter and put the fort under siege, had fired on an unarmed US ship trying to bring supplies to the fort, and issued an ultimatum to President James Buchanan which Buchanan refused. This was all before Lincoln could do anything, because he wasn't president.
1. Inflation always happens during a major war. You are correct that the value of a US dollar was cut approximately in half during the Civil War. But the same basic thing happened in the 6 Years War, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, WW I, and WW II.
2. The Confederate dollar did much much much worse. By 1862, less than a year into the war, the Confederate dollar was worth half of what it had been at the beginning of the war. By the beginning of 1864, 1 Confederate dollar was worth about what had been 4 cents in 1861. And by the end of the war, $1 was worth the same as $0.001 at the beginning of the war. The Confederates basically went full-on Zimbabwe hyperinflation trying to pay for the war.
The country was deeply divided long before Lincoln showed up on the political scene. And when he won, the south seceded and started shooting before he took office. There's absolutely no way to blame that on Lincoln's actual actions while in office.
The only way Lincoln could have avoided a war was to give the South everything they asked for: Complete independence from the North. And even then, it's likely he would have only delayed things, because the South would probably not have stood for slaves escaping over the CSA-USA border: The USA under the control of southern leadership had already captured Florida and defeated Mexico over that. Furthermore, the consequences to giving in would have been pretty much the end of the US government: Maryland would likely have bolted to the CSA, leaving Washington DC surrounded and probably besieged.
Also, some historians have made the case that the Confederate government did more damage to the Confederate population than the Union did. For instance, the Confederacy instituted a draft well before the Union did, and drafted a much higher percentage of their population than the Union did (towards the end it was basically every able-bodied man in the Confederacy was supposed to report for army duty, although many didn't).
The Civil War happened because the rich people in the south at the time preferred war to facing the prospect of one day losing their wealth and power. They dragged a lot of people down with them. If one of your ancestors fought for the Confederacy and you want to feel better about it, pretend that your great-great-grandfather was drafted in and thought he was fighting to protect his home.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.