Jorge's Blog

Photo: Progressive Charlestown W hen I think about leadership, I am increasingly interested in what happens when the person in charge gets something wrong. Do they acknowledge the mistake? Can somebody explain why a decision was unsuccessful without fearing retaliation? Is there a procedure for correcting it? I'm not necessarily trying to decide whether a leader has a narcissistic personality. I am more interested in what an audience can reasonably conclude from what it sees versus what it hears. A convincing performance can demonstrate communication skill without establishing the quality of a decision. Why confidence attracts attention A meta-analysis of narcissism and leadership found a positive relationship between narcissism and leadership emergence, but not leadership effectiveness overall. I find that distinction interesting because the abilities that attract an audience are not necessarily the ones that produce good decisions. A person...

The brilliance of Large Language Models requires a critical psychological audit.   (📷:empowervmedia) T he acceleration of Artificial Intelligence, especially the monumental Large Language Models, has dramatically blurred the lines defining intelligence. In 2025, systems like GPT-4 appear to hold cognitive capacities that were unimaginable until recently, prompting widespread (and often premature) declarations of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Yet, this dazzling performance compels us toward a deeper, more necessary question: What is the true measure of intelligence, and does AI’s current success satisfy this criterion? This dilemma revives the fundamental philosophical and psychological debate first articulated in 1980 and meticulously updated in 2021 by Van der Maas, Snoek, and Stevenson in their seminal paper . The core conflict hinges on the very definition of intelligence. If success is merely defined by the rapid processing and synthesis of massive information (a stat...

Australia currently faces a profound and rapidly evolving security challenge.   (📷:empowervmedia) T he modern understanding of national security must constantly adapt to emerging threats, and in Australia, the landscape of violent extremism has become complex, challenging, and fast-moving . Australia has historically dealt with intermittent acts of violence across ethno-nationalist, political, and jihadist motivations since Federation, though the scale has been less than in many other nations . However, the current security environment demands a re-evaluation of both the causes of radicalisation and the efficacy of the national response. 'Intelligence agencies say online teens becoming terror threats' ▶️2m52s The central research question guiding this analysis is: What are the root psychological and social drivers accelerating violent extremism in contemporary Australia, and how must national response strategies evolve to effectively mitigate this complex, often digitally ...

This Time Magazine portrait of President Donald Trump became an instant talking point.   (📷:DanielTorok) L ow-angle shots traditionally make a subject look larger-than-life. This camera placement implies dominance, a literal “looking up to” of the subject. In Torok’s Time portrait, Trump’s chin and neck are shot from below, isolating him against the sky (subject looking upwards with a light blue sky background). Because the camera sits low, the president is framed as towering above the viewer. According to Nashville Film Institute, “low-angle camera angles are ideal for conveying supremacy” . Similarly, the field of semiotics guide reminds us that low angles connote power and dominance . In other words, the technical framing here borrows from the visual language of heroism. 'Analyzing Trump’s “worst photo of all time” from an artistic perspective' ▶️1m09s Yet Torok’s use of this trope subverts it in small ways. Trump is not smiling or gesturing triumphantly; instead, his f...