This is something I’ve long believed to be true and important to understand, yet rarely see anybody else argue, so it makes me happy to read. I think of it like the kissing noise we make to make a pet come. You could call it the truth or a lie depending on what the pet is expecting and whether you then do it, but both judgements miss what actually happened: it didn’t even occur to us to think about whether it’s “true”, we just made that noise because we expected it to produce the desired behavior. CEOs and politicians are usually like this with humans.
There is a thin layer of high functioning sociopath at the top of all human social structures. Never trust anyone who wants to lead at that level. You have more in common with a colossal squid at the bottom of the deepest trench than you do with that kind of human.
Nah. People are just more adaptable to their circumstances than you think.
Something I think about from time to time is sacking during war, where soldiers are allowed to do as they please with a conquered civilian population. If I applied your same reasoning, I'd have to conclude that on average there's a great number of people who are not committing atrocities just because of the fear of repercussions. What I think happens is that getting desensitized to violence and being constantly made to make violent decisions makes anymore more likely to commit a violent act that they never would have otherwise. It doesn't need a special kind of brain, it just needs special circumstances.
Same for anyone in a position of power, except it's shamelessly lying and making decisions that affect hundreds or thousands of people, instead of direct violence.
There are lots of soldiers that don't rape and pillage when afforded the option to. There are plenty of good leaders who aren't sociopaths, it's just a career limiting feature.
There are, in fact, a substantial proportion of us that aren't doing horrible things because they are comfortable enough that risking that comfort is worse than what they would gain.
>There are lots of soldiers that don't rape and pillage when afforded the option to.
Sure, but you don't get stuff like the rape of Nanking from just a few handfuls of lunatics. It can't be simply explained as "oh, armies are just manned by 80% psychopaths, even after drafts". There's something about the extremeness of the situation that pushes an otherwise normal person towards abnormal behavior, even while some of his comrades refrain from engaging in such acts.
>There are, in fact, a substantial proportion of us that aren't doing horrible things because they are comfortable enough that risking that comfort is worse than what they would gain.
It's easy to say that without having gone through those experiences (either as a soldier or as a CEO).
>It's easy to say that without having gone through those experiences (either as a soldier or as a CEO).
I'm not sure what part of what I said is even remotely controversial. We see it literally every time the guardrails of society are relaxed and the typical social contract breaks down.
We are, as a species, riding the ragged edge of shit-slinging simian collapse. Humans were designed to exist in tribes of between 7 and 100 or so people. Any more than that relies of abstractions and heirarchy. The further up that heirarchy you go the less your world looks like the only expected human experience that our brains were designed for.
Ah, reading it again, I realize I misunderstood your meaning. Disregard my previous response to that sentence. Let me try that again:
>There are, in fact, a substantial proportion of us that aren't doing horrible things because they are comfortable enough that risking that comfort is worse than what they would gain.
That sounds like you're saying that most people don't "do horrible things" out of a utilitarian calculus (which, to some extent, I would agree with, depending what we include on that "horrible things" set), which would mean CEOs are acting just like normal people, except put in an unusual situation. But how do you reconcile that with your earlier statement that CEOs are sociopaths who are more dissimilar from normal folk than giant squids? Or did I change your mind already?
Not the OP but I'd wager to say that while many (and maybe most?) people are limited in their potential violent tendencies by basic human norms that only break down in times of crisis, sociopathic CEOs constantly test and break these norms whenever there is even a slight upside.
