Brian Klaas writes that the defining social goal of the 21st century is to relegate the violent psychopaths to the fringes and improve social structures. Wouldn't it be nice if we could somehow introduce a full-blown education/PR campaign to educate people on sociopathy/psychopathy so they can spot sociopaths/psychopaths a mile off - and maybe not vote them into power?
Rather than "relegation", psychopaths are filling C-suites of leading corporations, particularly of the SV flavour. It does appear at least nominally, that a prime requisite for a "successful" CEO is a cultivated psychopathology, immune to normal human feelings, but excelling in asocial behaviour of a sort that prescribes "survival of the fittest" and ignoring human suffering.
Winner take all, both in business and in politics, has proved to be the cynosure of (late?) capitalism, and the rest of us scrabble about for crumbs, in the "natural" order of things.
Yep. Seems psychopaths are everywhere that power is - like blood attracts the mosquito. Their lack of empathy, their cruelties, their predatory talent in reading the room for who and how to dominate and manipulate seem almost prerequisites for entry into the C-suite world…
Our ability to accurately profile, identify and isolate these psychopaths may make the difference between our continued existence and our utter devastation…
The part about silica gel sent me off into ruminations about sand and glass and the incredibly vast amounts of each to be found in our world. I live near the eastern shore of Lake Michigan with its beautiful white sand dunes, which, if studied, can give one a peek at the concept of infinity. I won’t go into all the paths my mind traveled, but I did prove the point of your title and subtitle. And now I’ll be late for work! 😬
Thank you, Brian - everything you write is so interesting. I always look forward to your smart and well-researched articles.
That is a lovely comment on several levels - sorry you're late for work! Getting stuck in an intellectual rabbit hole is as good an excuse as any I can think of...
One bright light in the modern age are the excellent history podcasts available, because they have made me realise that there have always been psychopaths ruling the roost - Gengis Khan and Ivan the Terrible spring to mind. But we now have the opportunity to spread ideas much more quickly. Note how the words "trauma" and "narcissism" (as in narcissistic personality disorder) have taken off in the last few years and are now in common parlance. Now we need to get the words "sociopath" and "psychopath" trending in connection with politicians and the like. If only we could get a course like "Personality Disorders and How to Spot them" dispensed by colleges and HR departments...
While controlling fruit flies is a scary concept. I suspect it will be easier to make tiny drones. Surely we can't be far from being able to make a bumblebee size drone with a tiny camera, face recognition software and a shape charge. That is a truly terrifying concept.
I love these link dumps Brian, so many fascinating tidbits to delve into.
Interesting to hear your take on Black Bag as I’ve been trying to decide whether to watch it. Now I think I will.
I’m pretty sure you’re the one that turned me on to Anthony Horowitz. I’m excited for the latest! Have you seen the TV series for Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders? I thought they were well done.
One correction: the mapping of the mouse brain was only one cubic millimeter (less than 1% of the total volume) but it’s amazing anyway. Just a matter of time before they map the whole thing.
Night Crawler is a phenomenal movie for the reason mentioned also for Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance. Riz Ahamed who co-stared was great, never heard of him. He latter stared in Sound of Metal, an absolute must see.
thanks for this, brian. so fun and illuminating. good one! “War and Peas” hypothesis. chuckling. jeez, the human story is so fascinating. so many things to think about; society today, and in the distant past. thanks all the recommendations. keep going. while i donate to unicef i'll imagine you in the marathon. keep going. ur fan, j.
"The key, then, is to more carefully engineer society—to relegate the violent psychopaths to the fringes, far removed from power, while designing social structures that amplify our widespread and astonishing tendency for cooperation, decency, and problem-solving."
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, though? And what if proximity to power (such as might allow this 'engineering' to take place effectively, surgically) brings out the worst in people?
It feels as if the question at the heart of what you call the defining social goal may beg itself. Is that fair?
Yeah, the reason I didn't sketch out a blueprint here is because that's basically the entire thesis of my book, Corruptible. I think there are much better ways to allocate power and genuinely effective options to oversee powerful people, but we (collectively) haven't decided to change society yet (and there are some very powerful forces that are blocking attempts at reform, too).
In Dark-Ages Europe and Britain, local wars were launched by lords as a means of increasing peasant holdings in order to bolster ag output, rather than improve the efficiency of existing cropland, and as such cemented violence as ancillary to economic gains.
Today, we have "soft violence", employed by the capitalist order to ensure worker compliance and gains in productivity, supplemented by monopolistic consolidation as "rationalizations of the marketplace".
Yesterday's serfs and helots weren't spared the lash, and today's employees suffer violence to the soul...who's better off?
oh brian...i read the sam kriss essay (crab) about his beloved mother. his story touches me. what lovely photos of his mother, ondine. I say her name. i will explore sam's substack. thanks the recommendation.
Thank you for addressing the problem of Psychopaths. I've been reading Hanno Sauer's The Invention of Good and Evil, and will read the article you suggested as well as chapter 2 of Corruptible. Some hunter gatherers found ways to see to it that the psychopaths in their midst had fatal accidents. These questions bring up moral dilemmas impossible to resolve for the good of all.
"...while designing social structures that amplify our widespread and astonishing tendency for cooperation, decency, and problem-solving. This is not going to be easy, but that challenge represents, to me, the defining social goal of the 21st century."
Design a social structure? Wouldn't search, evaluate, replicate work better?
I don’t think it really matters the mechanism - but I don’t think beggars can be choosers in this political environment. Whatever peacefully catalyses reform would be most welcome, but I do think a lot of the social problems are so dysfunctional that tinkering isn’t going to be enough — and is probably going to require some top down change.
The way we manage ourselves is almost absurdly complicated—we create cultures, we raise children in vastly different ways with vastly different proclivities. I often wonder whether it makes sense to suppose that somehow being a ‘hunter-gatherer’ is going to tell us what we ‘naturally’ are since the complexity of the cultural norms and the child-rearing practices and the social organization is probably not going to be LESS than in a modern culture.
This cultural ‘technology’ to create the person who behaves in such-and-such a way is not ever ‘unmediated’ by anything. The creation of other labor-saving or life-saving or material-procuring technology is not only what makes us *a human who, in a group, will show a propensity to behave in such-and-such ways* or *a human who will deviate from group norms.* A lot of that comes from the cultural process of making us a a certain kind of human. And we can’t disentangle what we ‘naturally’ are from what we ‘culturally’ are.
Though of course it makes sense to look at ourselves physically, and so on, and realize what kind of standing capacities we might have for lethality or look at what people of different groups seem to share.
Tl; dr—I’m wondering if there is a reliable method for figuring out what we have an ‘innate’ propensity to be do beyond ‘be violent sometimes, given certain conditions’ or ‘be retaliatory sometimes’ or things like this. Rates and degrees and so on just don’t seem to be a thing we would be able to find out enough to give a knock-down or quantifiable answer to a question about what we can expect from human beings altogether.
Brian Klaas writes that the defining social goal of the 21st century is to relegate the violent psychopaths to the fringes and improve social structures. Wouldn't it be nice if we could somehow introduce a full-blown education/PR campaign to educate people on sociopathy/psychopathy so they can spot sociopaths/psychopaths a mile off - and maybe not vote them into power?
There are also possibilities around psychological screening. I covered some of the ideas in this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=PpyIZ4DGIK8
Rather than "relegation", psychopaths are filling C-suites of leading corporations, particularly of the SV flavour. It does appear at least nominally, that a prime requisite for a "successful" CEO is a cultivated psychopathology, immune to normal human feelings, but excelling in asocial behaviour of a sort that prescribes "survival of the fittest" and ignoring human suffering.
Winner take all, both in business and in politics, has proved to be the cynosure of (late?) capitalism, and the rest of us scrabble about for crumbs, in the "natural" order of things.
Yep. Seems psychopaths are everywhere that power is - like blood attracts the mosquito. Their lack of empathy, their cruelties, their predatory talent in reading the room for who and how to dominate and manipulate seem almost prerequisites for entry into the C-suite world…
Our ability to accurately profile, identify and isolate these psychopaths may make the difference between our continued existence and our utter devastation…
The part about silica gel sent me off into ruminations about sand and glass and the incredibly vast amounts of each to be found in our world. I live near the eastern shore of Lake Michigan with its beautiful white sand dunes, which, if studied, can give one a peek at the concept of infinity. I won’t go into all the paths my mind traveled, but I did prove the point of your title and subtitle. And now I’ll be late for work! 😬
Thank you, Brian - everything you write is so interesting. I always look forward to your smart and well-researched articles.
That is a lovely comment on several levels - sorry you're late for work! Getting stuck in an intellectual rabbit hole is as good an excuse as any I can think of...
One bright light in the modern age are the excellent history podcasts available, because they have made me realise that there have always been psychopaths ruling the roost - Gengis Khan and Ivan the Terrible spring to mind. But we now have the opportunity to spread ideas much more quickly. Note how the words "trauma" and "narcissism" (as in narcissistic personality disorder) have taken off in the last few years and are now in common parlance. Now we need to get the words "sociopath" and "psychopath" trending in connection with politicians and the like. If only we could get a course like "Personality Disorders and How to Spot them" dispensed by colleges and HR departments...
'Fall of civilizations' have done an excellent 2 part podcast on Genghis Khan.
https://soundcloud.com/fallofcivilizations
It is shocking how much death and destruction he wrought.
While controlling fruit flies is a scary concept. I suspect it will be easier to make tiny drones. Surely we can't be far from being able to make a bumblebee size drone with a tiny camera, face recognition software and a shape charge. That is a truly terrifying concept.
I love these link dumps Brian, so many fascinating tidbits to delve into.
Interesting to hear your take on Black Bag as I’ve been trying to decide whether to watch it. Now I think I will.
I’m pretty sure you’re the one that turned me on to Anthony Horowitz. I’m excited for the latest! Have you seen the TV series for Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders? I thought they were well done.
One correction: the mapping of the mouse brain was only one cubic millimeter (less than 1% of the total volume) but it’s amazing anyway. Just a matter of time before they map the whole thing.
Argh you’re right - I meant to say that and I’ll correct it! And yes, I’ve seen the TV adaptations and I agree!
Night Crawler is a phenomenal movie for the reason mentioned also for Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance. Riz Ahamed who co-stared was great, never heard of him. He latter stared in Sound of Metal, an absolute must see.
Many thanks Brian.
thanks for this, brian. so fun and illuminating. good one! “War and Peas” hypothesis. chuckling. jeez, the human story is so fascinating. so many things to think about; society today, and in the distant past. thanks all the recommendations. keep going. while i donate to unicef i'll imagine you in the marathon. keep going. ur fan, j.
"The key, then, is to more carefully engineer society—to relegate the violent psychopaths to the fringes, far removed from power, while designing social structures that amplify our widespread and astonishing tendency for cooperation, decency, and problem-solving."
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, though? And what if proximity to power (such as might allow this 'engineering' to take place effectively, surgically) brings out the worst in people?
It feels as if the question at the heart of what you call the defining social goal may beg itself. Is that fair?
Yeah, the reason I didn't sketch out a blueprint here is because that's basically the entire thesis of my book, Corruptible. I think there are much better ways to allocate power and genuinely effective options to oversee powerful people, but we (collectively) haven't decided to change society yet (and there are some very powerful forces that are blocking attempts at reform, too).
Thanks Brian - time to read the book!
In Dark-Ages Europe and Britain, local wars were launched by lords as a means of increasing peasant holdings in order to bolster ag output, rather than improve the efficiency of existing cropland, and as such cemented violence as ancillary to economic gains.
Today, we have "soft violence", employed by the capitalist order to ensure worker compliance and gains in productivity, supplemented by monopolistic consolidation as "rationalizations of the marketplace".
Yesterday's serfs and helots weren't spared the lash, and today's employees suffer violence to the soul...who's better off?
"Moreover, as agricultural production rose and cities emerged, inequality soared, which created the impetus for violence."
Inequality soared>>>>> violence.
" Property is theft"
- Proudhon
" Inequality is violence"
Remarkable.
Fruit flies- a simple species- can be manipulated, via sensory stimulii, to spell out " Hello World".
Currently, a more complex species--da Crown of Creation-- also via sensory stimulii, is being manipulated into spelling" Goodbye Democracy".
oh brian...i read the sam kriss essay (crab) about his beloved mother. his story touches me. what lovely photos of his mother, ondine. I say her name. i will explore sam's substack. thanks the recommendation.
Thank you for addressing the problem of Psychopaths. I've been reading Hanno Sauer's The Invention of Good and Evil, and will read the article you suggested as well as chapter 2 of Corruptible. Some hunter gatherers found ways to see to it that the psychopaths in their midst had fatal accidents. These questions bring up moral dilemmas impossible to resolve for the good of all.
"...while designing social structures that amplify our widespread and astonishing tendency for cooperation, decency, and problem-solving. This is not going to be easy, but that challenge represents, to me, the defining social goal of the 21st century."
Design a social structure? Wouldn't search, evaluate, replicate work better?
I don’t think it really matters the mechanism - but I don’t think beggars can be choosers in this political environment. Whatever peacefully catalyses reform would be most welcome, but I do think a lot of the social problems are so dysfunctional that tinkering isn’t going to be enough — and is probably going to require some top down change.
The way we manage ourselves is almost absurdly complicated—we create cultures, we raise children in vastly different ways with vastly different proclivities. I often wonder whether it makes sense to suppose that somehow being a ‘hunter-gatherer’ is going to tell us what we ‘naturally’ are since the complexity of the cultural norms and the child-rearing practices and the social organization is probably not going to be LESS than in a modern culture.
This cultural ‘technology’ to create the person who behaves in such-and-such a way is not ever ‘unmediated’ by anything. The creation of other labor-saving or life-saving or material-procuring technology is not only what makes us *a human who, in a group, will show a propensity to behave in such-and-such ways* or *a human who will deviate from group norms.* A lot of that comes from the cultural process of making us a a certain kind of human. And we can’t disentangle what we ‘naturally’ are from what we ‘culturally’ are.
Though of course it makes sense to look at ourselves physically, and so on, and realize what kind of standing capacities we might have for lethality or look at what people of different groups seem to share.
Tl; dr—I’m wondering if there is a reliable method for figuring out what we have an ‘innate’ propensity to be do beyond ‘be violent sometimes, given certain conditions’ or ‘be retaliatory sometimes’ or things like this. Rates and degrees and so on just don’t seem to be a thing we would be able to find out enough to give a knock-down or quantifiable answer to a question about what we can expect from human beings altogether.