In BPD, there's a lot of "everything is my fault," and the nemesis is often oneself. Self-sabotage becomes an unconscious habit.
The false realities of narcissism are "I'm the best ever. Everyone loves me." The false realities of BPD are often "No one loves me. I'm unlovable. I'm literally the worst." A narcissist gaslights others. Someone with BPD gaslights themself.
They're not at all the same, and treating them like they're the same thing is so harmful. It's impossible for someone with BPD to recover if the whole world treats them like they're a narcissist.
Imagine the harm of being in therapy and wanting to get better, but when you learn that "everything isn't actually your fault; your not perfect, but no one is; you're not unlovable, you just haven't found the right people for you yet," then when you go out and try to put those principles into use, everyone treats you the way they should treat narcissists.
Narcissists are often extroverts and crave attention; the treatment for NPD (in the rare case they're willing to undergo treatment) involves taking a step back and looking within. People with BPD are often introverts and are already isolated, may even have social phobias. The treatment involves more human interaction and looking to others to get outside of one's own head.
Completely opposite treatments for completely opposite problems. But if you have BPD and tell someone that you do, they think "ew, cluster B" and won't get near you because of the stigma. Everyone treats you the way they should treat narcissists, while narcissists continue being treated well socially because they're extroverted and can be charismatic or charming, and people are more comfortable with that even when the person is magnitudes shittier than someone with BPD.
And often people with BPD can see through narcissist's bullshit, even when seemingly no one else does. They often resent narcissists, because they see them for what they are, and they see people treating them so kindly and sometimes reverently, while the same people treat the person with BPD like a feral dog, with mange or rabies.
Because the person with BPD is shy, awkward, introverted, possibly with a social phobia, and certainly a low self-esteem. The person with NPD is the opposite of all that, and it's clear who society prefers. Even if the person with BPD tries warning people about the guy with NPD, like "hey, he's abusive/manipulative/deceptive/whatever," NPDs love to use DARVO and will probably turn everything around on them.
A person with BPD might DARVO themself though. Like if they're a victim of something or not in any way to blame, they'll tell themself it was all their own fault. Imagine deconstructing that narrative in therapy, and finally going "You know what, it really isn't my fault," only for the whole world to then go "YES IT IS!!!!!" Because they have you confused with NPD. And then they go back to kowtowing to all the undiagnosed NPD people who are out there.
There's a reason a symptom of BPD is learned helplessness, not the delusions of grandeur associated with NPD.
You must take lessons in how to miss the point and dodge the question while responding to something that no one said, to argue against something no one claimed.
It's not just about third-party voters, it's also about non-voters. Not people who can't vote, and only partly about people who aren't registered to vote. It's about registered voters who didn't vote, either because they were lazy, busy, didn't have transportation, or because they were deliberately boycotting the vote. More registered voters abstained in 2024 than there were voters for either candidate.
Laziness can only be addressed with civics education. Busyness can be addressed by making election day a federal holiday and making it illegal for employers to schedule double-shifts that day for businesses that are open. Transportation can be addressed by bolstering public transit infrastructure and adding state-funded shuttle services on election day.
The boycotters can only be addressed by convincing people to ignore all the anti-election propaganda which is being peddled on social media. If leftists actually believe in harm reduction, they would understand why voting for Kamala Harris would have been magnitudes better than allowing trump to win...
That's specifically narcissism. Don't lump borderline in with that shit, life is already a personal hell for folks with BPD and they don't need people getting them confused with narcissists.
Also, narcissistic is an adjective. NPD is a personality disorder, but someone can have narcissistic traits without it being a fullblown personality disorder. Ask any psychologist.
Fuck narcissists by the way. I'm not defending them, just correcting some misinformation.
Why do you say ghosts' purported impact is on a scale above that which is unexplained?
Quantum fields impact the universe on a scale above their own. It's entirely possible that the explanation for ghosts is on the quantum scale or smaller, and the observable effects are just that: effects of a much subtler phenomenon.
Saying "science has never reliably shown something" is not the same as "science has definitively proven something false." Claiming otherwise is anti-scientific and logically fallacious.
According to the scientific worldview, we don't know what we don't know until we know it. Otherwise, we would never discover anything new.
I'm not saying ghosts are real. I'm just encouraging a healthy skepticism, whether for or against. So I'll play devil's advocate and respond in turn to each of your "million ways" it fails the smell test.
What makes a ghost exist?
We don't know, but there's a lot we don't know. What makes gravity exist? What made matter and energy exist? What causes the big bang? What is the origin and nature of dark matter?
There's a lot we don't understand about the universe, so the answer could be as simple as a cloud of electrons or even photons, or as complex as a field of quantum fluctuations, dark matter, a previously undiscovered type of boson, a state of matter beyond plasma where the particles vibrate so rapidly that they're mostly unobservable, a range of electromagnetic frequencies with wavelengths so fine that our instruments can't detect them, or even an entity in a higher dimension that ephemerally crosses the plane of our familiar third dimension.
Why aren’t we positively lousy with ghosts?
The answer depends on the above, but it could be that we are and just can't observe them under ordinary circumstances. Or perhaps there's a different place where they go, or possibly a different dimension, and we only notice the ones who get stuck here somehow. Or perhaps there's some sort of ethereal ecosystem which keeps the ghost population in check like birds do for insects.
Are there rules?
Probably, but there are plenty of rules in the universe we don't understand. What rule is responsible for gravity? Why does dark matter behave the way it does? Why do quantum fluctuations behave the way they do? Why does spacetime behave the way it does? And why do quantum mechanics and general relativity seem to describe contradictory sets of rules for the same universe, albeit at different scales relative to the one at which newtonian physics are accurate?
Until we figure out unified field theory, dark matter, and that higher dimension thing, we can't pretend we've described every rule in the universe.
What would they be and what mechanism is there to both quantify and effect them?
This has already been addressed under "what makes them exist?"
Why do ghosts follow the rotation and revolution of the earth but otherwise aren’t physically bound?
It could be that their physically-boundedness is just subtler than most things we've observed. They could maintain their relative position gravitationally or by friction, or possibly through electromagnetism, quantum entanglement, exertion of conscious effort, or simply some higher-dimensionality which allows them to be present anywhere they want at a given moment.
How can one have any sort of cognition?
How can any living human have any sort of cognition? There's a lot we don't understand there either. It could be that consciousness is a property of electromagnetic fields, in which case it would explain it if the ghosts were made of electron clouds. Or perhaps consciousness is a property of quantum fields, or something else we don't understand such as a higher-dimensional entity with more complex states of matter and energy, that simply can only perceive and interact with the world in three dimensions because those are the limitations of the physical organism it has developed to inhabit and maintain itself.
So the answer to ghost cognition depends on the answer to human consciousness, which is still one of the major mysteries of the universe.
Alternatively, perhaps ghosts aren't conscious at all and only appear to be, but they're really more like a complex sort of jellyfish, mindlessly following patterns that were set by the mind of the conscious entity prior to the death of the physical organism.
If a ghost does, how can it perceive anything without intercepting photons or other physical phenomena?
Perhaps it directly perceives electromagnetic waves that enter its field of existence, or perhaps there's some higher-dimensional perspective that allows them to observe the 3-dimensional world from the outside.
We don't intercept photons when we dream, yet our brains construct images. So physical sensation is not a necessary precondition to mental perception.
If there are ghosts and somehow they have cognition and perception, are we obligated to leave Netflix on when we leave for work?
No, that's when they're busy conspiring with your cats. And I'm sure they would have plenty of entertainment observing the antics of the living without requiring mortal means of diversion.
According to some distros, source is reality. According to other distros, binary is reality. But the truth is in the middle way: binary and source are the same.
In BPD, there's a lot of "everything is my fault," and the nemesis is often oneself. Self-sabotage becomes an unconscious habit.
The false realities of narcissism are "I'm the best ever. Everyone loves me." The false realities of BPD are often "No one loves me. I'm unlovable. I'm literally the worst." A narcissist gaslights others. Someone with BPD gaslights themself.
They're not at all the same, and treating them like they're the same thing is so harmful. It's impossible for someone with BPD to recover if the whole world treats them like they're a narcissist.
Imagine the harm of being in therapy and wanting to get better, but when you learn that "everything isn't actually your fault; your not perfect, but no one is; you're not unlovable, you just haven't found the right people for you yet," then when you go out and try to put those principles into use, everyone treats you the way they should treat narcissists.
Narcissists are often extroverts and crave attention; the treatment for NPD (in the rare case they're willing to undergo treatment) involves taking a step back and looking within. People with BPD are often introverts and are already isolated, may even have social phobias. The treatment involves more human interaction and looking to others to get outside of one's own head.
Completely opposite treatments for completely opposite problems. But if you have BPD and tell someone that you do, they think "ew, cluster B" and won't get near you because of the stigma. Everyone treats you the way they should treat narcissists, while narcissists continue being treated well socially because they're extroverted and can be charismatic or charming, and people are more comfortable with that even when the person is magnitudes shittier than someone with BPD.
And often people with BPD can see through narcissist's bullshit, even when seemingly no one else does. They often resent narcissists, because they see them for what they are, and they see people treating them so kindly and sometimes reverently, while the same people treat the person with BPD like a feral dog, with mange or rabies.
Because the person with BPD is shy, awkward, introverted, possibly with a social phobia, and certainly a low self-esteem. The person with NPD is the opposite of all that, and it's clear who society prefers. Even if the person with BPD tries warning people about the guy with NPD, like "hey, he's abusive/manipulative/deceptive/whatever," NPDs love to use DARVO and will probably turn everything around on them.
A person with BPD might DARVO themself though. Like if they're a victim of something or not in any way to blame, they'll tell themself it was all their own fault. Imagine deconstructing that narrative in therapy, and finally going "You know what, it really isn't my fault," only for the whole world to then go "YES IT IS!!!!!" Because they have you confused with NPD. And then they go back to kowtowing to all the undiagnosed NPD people who are out there.
There's a reason a symptom of BPD is learned helplessness, not the delusions of grandeur associated with NPD.
Treating them the same way is harmful.