I’d love to make a suggestion that your tests include a goal/empathy/altruism/duty test that ensures they’re not in the office in order to simply enrich themselves through corruption.
I’d love to make a suggestion that your tests include a goal/empathy/altruism/duty test that ensures they’re not in the office in order to simply enrich themselves through corruption.
One of the fascinating world-building pieces of Divergent was that the group in charge politically was not Erudite (the clever/curious group), Amity (the kindness/service group), or Candor (the honesty/justice group) but Abnegation (the frugal/self-denying group).
Cheers for the mention. I still haven’t worked out if Divergent is meant to be a dystopia or utopia (somewhere in between I think?). Its an interesting world.
I think it’s dystopic that they see the virtues as rivalrous instead of cooperative (wouldn’t you want someone to have as many virtues as possible, and to ‘graduate’ from various groups?). The post-apocalypse part is hard to measure; less alienation, but also less trade.
I would suggest, though, that a real teen dystopia is one in which everything is perfect and you are not needed- and so the existence of an obvious defect that you can change (and become important by doing so) seems like a component of a teen utopia.
I think you’ve got a good point regarding having as many virtues as possible.
On the idea of perfection being dystopic, this reminds me of an argument I sometimes hear along the lines of “evil is good because without evil, good would just be normal”, which I don’t find very convincing. Still I guess a society and its people should always focus on betterment of themselves, and perfection is probably better thought of as a idealised goal than some place we arrive at.
Its a nice idea, although when making decisions regarding the live and death of many people, an empathic person might simply shut down, so it might be good to include some more dispassionate people who can shut up and multiply.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure there exist tests that can measure these things without being faked. Maybe you could measure empathy by looking at oxytocin levels? But more oxytocin=more empathy is a huge simplification.
Do you have any good ideas for a goal/empathy/altruism/duty test?
I think you’re right that the relationship is complex and you probably wouldn’t want to optimise just around empathy/altruism. In particular highly empathetic people can sometimes run into problems with cognitive bias around large abstract concepts or numbers. I’m guessing there might be a “sweet spot” for leaders of having enough empathy to want to do the right thing, but not to be overwhelmed by emotion and unable to make difficult decisions.
I’m very interested in possiblities for that sort of test, but it could be tough finding something that can’t be gamed. Perhaps some research looking at a range of candidates for (perhaps multivariant) correlations with morally good and effective leadership decisions needs to be done. Actually… surely someone would have done that… though I haven’t run into it so far...
A good idea might be to have a mix of cognitive styles so that you can approach a problem from different sides. Of course, you need to be able to decide between these different viewpoints, otherwise you just create arguements.
Perhaps some research looking at a range of candidates for (perhaps multivariant) correlations with morally good and effective leadership decisions needs to be done.
The first problem is to identify morally good and effective leadership decisions. This isn’t easy.
A good idea might be to have a mix of cognitive styles so that you can approach a problem from different sides. Of course, you need to be able to decide between these different viewpoints, otherwise you just create arguements.
Perhaps some research looking at a range of candidates for (perhaps multivariant) correlations with morally good and effective leadership decisions needs to be done.
The first problem is to identify morally good and effective leadership decisions. This isn’t easy.
Yes that’s a fairly good point and I don’t know any easy way around it either. Looking in the world of business, government, politics etc etc. would be a matter of fairly subjective ideas about moral goodness.
I suppose you could formulate an approach along the lines of experimental psychology, where you could deliberately design experiments with clearcut good/bad group outcomes. So get a bunch of people to be leaders in an experiment where their goal was to minimise their group members (including themselves) getting hit in the head with something unpleasant, build-in some selfish vs unselfish options, and then look at the correlations between leadership behaviours and oxytocin or whatever else you wanted to measure as an input. With a robust range of experiments you could perhaps develop something broadly useful.
Its a nice idea, although when making decisions regarding the live and death of many people, an empathic person might simply shut down, so it might be good to include some more dispassionate people who can shut up and multiply.
I don’t think that’s the case. EQ seems to make people both empathic and also able to keep a clear head when it comes to tough decisions.
I’d love to make a suggestion that your tests include a goal/empathy/altruism/duty test that ensures they’re not in the office in order to simply enrich themselves through corruption.
I’m not sure any of those things measure incorruptibility.
Agreed, but I think they’d have some correlation, and I strongly suspect their absense would predict corruptability.
One of the fascinating world-building pieces of Divergent was that the group in charge politically was not Erudite (the clever/curious group), Amity (the kindness/service group), or Candor (the honesty/justice group) but Abnegation (the frugal/self-denying group).
Cheers for the mention. I still haven’t worked out if Divergent is meant to be a dystopia or utopia (somewhere in between I think?). Its an interesting world.
I think it’s dystopic that they see the virtues as rivalrous instead of cooperative (wouldn’t you want someone to have as many virtues as possible, and to ‘graduate’ from various groups?). The post-apocalypse part is hard to measure; less alienation, but also less trade.
I would suggest, though, that a real teen dystopia is one in which everything is perfect and you are not needed- and so the existence of an obvious defect that you can change (and become important by doing so) seems like a component of a teen utopia.
I think you’ve got a good point regarding having as many virtues as possible.
On the idea of perfection being dystopic, this reminds me of an argument I sometimes hear along the lines of “evil is good because without evil, good would just be normal”, which I don’t find very convincing. Still I guess a society and its people should always focus on betterment of themselves, and perfection is probably better thought of as a idealised goal than some place we arrive at.
Its a nice idea, although when making decisions regarding the live and death of many people, an empathic person might simply shut down, so it might be good to include some more dispassionate people who can shut up and multiply.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure there exist tests that can measure these things without being faked. Maybe you could measure empathy by looking at oxytocin levels? But more oxytocin=more empathy is a huge simplification.
Do you have any good ideas for a goal/empathy/altruism/duty test?
I think you’re right that the relationship is complex and you probably wouldn’t want to optimise just around empathy/altruism. In particular highly empathetic people can sometimes run into problems with cognitive bias around large abstract concepts or numbers. I’m guessing there might be a “sweet spot” for leaders of having enough empathy to want to do the right thing, but not to be overwhelmed by emotion and unable to make difficult decisions.
I’m very interested in possiblities for that sort of test, but it could be tough finding something that can’t be gamed. Perhaps some research looking at a range of candidates for (perhaps multivariant) correlations with morally good and effective leadership decisions needs to be done. Actually… surely someone would have done that… though I haven’t run into it so far...
A good idea might be to have a mix of cognitive styles so that you can approach a problem from different sides. Of course, you need to be able to decide between these different viewpoints, otherwise you just create arguements.
The first problem is to identify morally good and effective leadership decisions. This isn’t easy.
A good idea might be to have a mix of cognitive styles so that you can approach a problem from different sides. Of course, you need to be able to decide between these different viewpoints, otherwise you just create arguements.
The first problem is to identify morally good and effective leadership decisions. This isn’t easy.
Yes that’s a fairly good point and I don’t know any easy way around it either. Looking in the world of business, government, politics etc etc. would be a matter of fairly subjective ideas about moral goodness.
I suppose you could formulate an approach along the lines of experimental psychology, where you could deliberately design experiments with clearcut good/bad group outcomes. So get a bunch of people to be leaders in an experiment where their goal was to minimise their group members (including themselves) getting hit in the head with something unpleasant, build-in some selfish vs unselfish options, and then look at the correlations between leadership behaviours and oxytocin or whatever else you wanted to measure as an input. With a robust range of experiments you could perhaps develop something broadly useful.
I don’t think that’s the case. EQ seems to make people both empathic and also able to keep a clear head when it comes to tough decisions.