That is not how the world works. Most positions of power are already occupied by people who have common sense, good will, and a sense of responsibility—or they have those traits, to the extent that human frailty manages to preserve them, amidst the unpredictability of life.
OK, let’s consider the opposite proposition: Most positions of power are occupied by people who are crazy, resentful, and irresponsible. It might sound cynically plausible. But I would see even those traits as mostly a reaction to the difficulties of power. The idea of smooth sociopaths who lie their way to power and riches via superior awareness of human gullibility is way overrated. In most cases, power is a reward for boring hard work, taking responsibility, and being effective. Unless you’re born to power, you only get to have it and to hold onto it by working with some group of people who have a complementary power of their own, the power to depose you—your investors, your voters, your professional colleagues.
The LR paradigm seems to be based on a counter-myth, the opposite of the manipulator who cruises to worldly success on the basis of pushing the right buttons in people’s minds. This counter-myth is the idea of the super-effective altruist who similarly owes their success to superlative psychological knowledge. Both myths underrate the psychological sophistication of the peers who are being manipulated (for good or bad) by the mythical figures, and both myths overrate how far you can get just with psychology.
OK, let’s consider the opposite proposition: Most positions of power are occupied by people who are crazy, resentful, and irresponsible. It might sound cynically plausible.
That just sounds stupid to me. Being crazy and irresponsible are deleterious traits in those seeking power. Resentfulness is both something that the losers in the power game are more likely to feel and dwelling in resentfulness is something of a failure mode when it comes to practical power gaining. Don’t get mad, don’t get even, just take your next step to power.
The idea of smooth sociopaths who lie their way to power and riches via superior awareness of human gullibility is way overrated. In most cases, power is a reward for boring hard work, taking responsibility, and being effective.
These things complement each other. You need both if you are going to reach the higher echelons.
Unless you’re born to power, you only get to have it and to hold onto it by working with some group of people who have a complementary power of their own, the power to depose you—your investors, your voters, your professional colleagues.
And here is where I rest my idealism and my optimism. I don’t try to force people—particularly powerful people—to be benevolent and responsible (for anything but their own success). I don’t force myself to believe that people are bastions of goodwill and paternal grace. I prefer to see systems and institutions set up such that plain old self interested hypocritical Machiavellian monkeys have payoff structures that ensure that their behavior benefits everyone else anyway. Any fundamental, non hypocritical and internally coherent goodwill beyond that is just a bonus.
Is your objection the assertion that authority figures have “common sense, good will, and a sense of responsibility” at all? Or do you assert that other values will often override them?
If the former, I suggest that Tywin Lannister seems like he does have those three qualities. It’s just that he also has a bunch of jerkwad values. (if you aren’t familiar with Song of Ice and Fire, I’ll come up with a different example). And I think he’s a reasonable representation of many actual authority figures.
Is your objection the assertion that authority figures have “common sense, good will, and a sense of responsibility” at all?
I personally think that it’s certainly possible for an authority figure to have all these qualities. The probability of this happening is nonzero. However, it’s much more likely that the authority figure possesses ambition, ruthlessness, and a lust for power. Generally, one does not become an authority merely by being wise and nice to everyone.
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
If the former, I suggest that Tywin Lannister seems like he does have those three qualities. It’s just that he also has a bunch of jerkwad values. (if you aren’t familiar with Song of Ice and Fire, I’ll come up with a different example). And I think he’s a reasonable representation of many actual authority figures.
I’ve picked up enough from popular culture to get the general picture. I haven’t read or watched the series—I tend to be biased towards stories with with a clear character I can identify with. It’s fantasy escapism—I don’t want all this sophisticated moral murkiness. :)
I tend to be biased towards stories with with a clear character I can identify with.
I humbly suggest reading the series; there are clear characters for a range of values. Gregor Clegane is a stand-out example. They spend much of their time chopping the heads off of the morally murky characters, too!
I humbly suggest reading the series; there are clear characters for a range of values. Gregor Clegane is a stand-out example. They spend much of their time chopping the heads off of the morally murky characters, too!
I’m sure I’ll get around to it eventually. I must admit though, even my dark side doesn’t go quite so far as to empathize strongly with drug addicted child killing rapists. Raping a mother while the blood and brains of her slaughtered child are still on his hands—that guy really does take things to extremes!
Yes. He has a very logical mindset, though. “My horse failed me --> decapitate my horse” is one such example.
The ‘use a mare in heat’ was a good idea. I wonder if that would actually work. If so I wonder if they ever made a rule about it. It wouldn’t at all surprise me if some medieval Tim Ferris gamed Jousting systems in ways like this and outraged enough nobles that they made this kind of trick a capital offense.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Crusaders ran into trouble with this. The Europeans favored stallions (stronger and more intimidating); the Saracens favored mares (faster and easier to control); the combination didn’t work out well for the Europeans.
Huh? That is not how the world works.
OK, let’s consider the opposite proposition: Most positions of power are occupied by people who are crazy, resentful, and irresponsible. It might sound cynically plausible. But I would see even those traits as mostly a reaction to the difficulties of power. The idea of smooth sociopaths who lie their way to power and riches via superior awareness of human gullibility is way overrated. In most cases, power is a reward for boring hard work, taking responsibility, and being effective. Unless you’re born to power, you only get to have it and to hold onto it by working with some group of people who have a complementary power of their own, the power to depose you—your investors, your voters, your professional colleagues.
The LR paradigm seems to be based on a counter-myth, the opposite of the manipulator who cruises to worldly success on the basis of pushing the right buttons in people’s minds. This counter-myth is the idea of the super-effective altruist who similarly owes their success to superlative psychological knowledge. Both myths underrate the psychological sophistication of the peers who are being manipulated (for good or bad) by the mythical figures, and both myths overrate how far you can get just with psychology.
That just sounds stupid to me. Being crazy and irresponsible are deleterious traits in those seeking power. Resentfulness is both something that the losers in the power game are more likely to feel and dwelling in resentfulness is something of a failure mode when it comes to practical power gaining. Don’t get mad, don’t get even, just take your next step to power.
These things complement each other. You need both if you are going to reach the higher echelons.
And here is where I rest my idealism and my optimism. I don’t try to force people—particularly powerful people—to be benevolent and responsible (for anything but their own success). I don’t force myself to believe that people are bastions of goodwill and paternal grace. I prefer to see systems and institutions set up such that plain old self interested hypocritical Machiavellian monkeys have payoff structures that ensure that their behavior benefits everyone else anyway. Any fundamental, non hypocritical and internally coherent goodwill beyond that is just a bonus.
Is your objection the assertion that authority figures have “common sense, good will, and a sense of responsibility” at all? Or do you assert that other values will often override them?
If the former, I suggest that Tywin Lannister seems like he does have those three qualities. It’s just that he also has a bunch of jerkwad values. (if you aren’t familiar with Song of Ice and Fire, I’ll come up with a different example). And I think he’s a reasonable representation of many actual authority figures.
I personally think that it’s certainly possible for an authority figure to have all these qualities. The probability of this happening is nonzero. However, it’s much more likely that the authority figure possesses ambition, ruthlessness, and a lust for power. Generally, one does not become an authority merely by being wise and nice to everyone.
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
I’ve picked up enough from popular culture to get the general picture. I haven’t read or watched the series—I tend to be biased towards stories with with a clear character I can identify with. It’s fantasy escapism—I don’t want all this sophisticated moral murkiness. :)
I humbly suggest reading the series; there are clear characters for a range of values. Gregor Clegane is a stand-out example. They spend much of their time chopping the heads off of the morally murky characters, too!
I’m sure I’ll get around to it eventually. I must admit though, even my dark side doesn’t go quite so far as to empathize strongly with drug addicted child killing rapists. Raping a mother while the blood and brains of her slaughtered child are still on his hands—that guy really does take things to extremes!
Yes. He has a very logical mindset, though. “My horse failed me --> decapitate my horse” is one such example.
The ‘use a mare in heat’ was a good idea. I wonder if that would actually work. If so I wonder if they ever made a rule about it. It wouldn’t at all surprise me if some medieval Tim Ferris gamed Jousting systems in ways like this and outraged enough nobles that they made this kind of trick a capital offense.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Crusaders ran into trouble with this. The Europeans favored stallions (stronger and more intimidating); the Saracens favored mares (faster and easier to control); the combination didn’t work out well for the Europeans.