Author

My name is Pete Carapetyan and I am the author of this site, or at least any pages where there is no declared author for that page.

About being mean

There is a mean streak to this site. It is written in humor, and declared as 'satire' but heh, it's a mean kind of satire to attribute deceit and manipulation to any organization, directly or indirectly.

Please understand that everything I say about manipulating people may also have applied to me at one time in my life or another. In that sense, I was raised well, by the culture I grew up in.

There was a lot of mean-ness to go around, and we were expected to be proud of it, too. Clint Eastwood: "Make my day."

Part of my recovery is to make jokes about it, but also to come clean, whenever possible. Genuine mean-ness is not a habit I wish to continue, no matter how many jokes I make about it.

If you are offended by the mean nature of this satire, you have my apology. I hope that you click away fast enough to avoid a grimace.

Is it mean to say people can be manipulated?

Citing a manipulation has two targets, one intentional, the other accidental.

If you say that Jim manipulated Bob then the natural result would be to make Jim feel defensive.

But the bigger damage can be to Bob, because it infers that he can manipulated, perhaps too easily. In this instance, I refer to myself, because I have proved time and time again that I am quite easy to be manipulated, sometimes even when it's obvious.

It seems to me that this is the natural human condition. I do not hold myself above such a condition, if anything it is easier to manipulate me than the average person.