I’d actually expect a substantial number of authority figures to carry both those sets of qualities: the OP’s make seeking and maintaining authority a lot more viable in a situation where anyone is even halfway good at judging honesty, and there are clear motivational reasons for yours. The only ones that could be said to interfere with each other are “good will” and “ruthlessness”, and I don’t think even those are fully incompatible.
I disagree with TimS’s reply. As I see it, people who seek power in the first place rarely do so for entirely selfless reasons. And even if they do seek power and somehow acquire it, they must still hang on to it, fending off assaults from the occasional competitor who cares about nothing but power for its own sake. In that kind of environment, only the most efficient optimizers survive.
You posit an environment where people are “even halfway good at judging honesty”, but I don’t know of any places on Earth where that is actually the case (though I do admit that they can exist).
TimS says that the best way to signal “common sense, good will, and a sense of responsibility” is to actually have those qualities, and maybe that’s true (unless your opponent is running attack ads, of course). But there’s a very high cost associated with having things like “good will” and “responsibility”. Signaling these virtues without actually having them is harder, but it’s probably worth it in the long run, as long as your goal is to acquire power and keep it.
It was the point I was trying to make, which seemed to be missing in the wedrifid/Porter discussion.
More generally, it’s quite hard to become influential (even in non-democratic societies) without signalling that you have “common sense, good will, and a sense of responsibility.” And the easiest way to signal that you have those virtues is to actually have them. Which isn’t to say that your bad qualities (ambition, ruthlessness, and a lust for power) don’t frequently outweigh them.
The only ones that could be said to interfere with each other are “good will” and “ruthlessness”, and I don’t think even those are fully incompatible.
Focusing on one’s narrow interests (lust for power?) conflicts fairly strongly with my understanding of “sense of responsibility.” YMMV
I’d actually expect a substantial number of authority figures to carry both those sets of qualities: the OP’s make seeking and maintaining authority a lot more viable in a situation where anyone is even halfway good at judging honesty, and there are clear motivational reasons for yours. The only ones that could be said to interfere with each other are “good will” and “ruthlessness”, and I don’t think even those are fully incompatible.
Or was that the point you were trying to make?
I disagree with TimS’s reply. As I see it, people who seek power in the first place rarely do so for entirely selfless reasons. And even if they do seek power and somehow acquire it, they must still hang on to it, fending off assaults from the occasional competitor who cares about nothing but power for its own sake. In that kind of environment, only the most efficient optimizers survive.
You posit an environment where people are “even halfway good at judging honesty”, but I don’t know of any places on Earth where that is actually the case (though I do admit that they can exist).
TimS says that the best way to signal “common sense, good will, and a sense of responsibility” is to actually have those qualities, and maybe that’s true (unless your opponent is running attack ads, of course). But there’s a very high cost associated with having things like “good will” and “responsibility”. Signaling these virtues without actually having them is harder, but it’s probably worth it in the long run, as long as your goal is to acquire power and keep it.
It was the point I was trying to make, which seemed to be missing in the wedrifid/Porter discussion.
More generally, it’s quite hard to become influential (even in non-democratic societies) without signalling that you have “common sense, good will, and a sense of responsibility.” And the easiest way to signal that you have those virtues is to actually have them. Which isn’t to say that your bad qualities (ambition, ruthlessness, and a lust for power) don’t frequently outweigh them.
Focusing on one’s narrow interests (lust for power?) conflicts fairly strongly with my understanding of “sense of responsibility.” YMMV