Perhaps we should taboo “resistance to charisma” first. What specifically are we trying to resist?
Looking at an awesome person and thinking “this is an awesome person” is not harmful per se. Not even if the person uses some tricks to appear even more awesome than they are. Yeah, it would be nice to measure someone’s awesomeness properly, but that’s not the point. A sociopath may have some truly awesome traits, for example genuinely high intelligence.
So maybe the thing we are trying to resist is the halo effect. An awesome person tells me X, and I accept it as true because it would be emotionally painful to imagine that an awesome person would lie to me. The correct response is not to deny the awesomeness, but to realize that I still don’t have any evidence for X other than one person saying it is so. And that awesomeness alone is not expertise.
But I think there is more to a sociopath than mere charisma. Specifically, the ability to lie and harm people without providing any nonverbal cues that would probably betray a neurotypical person trying to do the same thing. (I suspect this is what makes the typical heuristics fail.)
Would noticing when one is confused and writing the details down help?
Yes, I believe so. If you already have a suspicion that something is wrong, you should start writing a diary. And a very important part would be, for every information you have, write down who said that to you. Don’t report your conclusions; report the raw data you have received. This will make it easier to see your notes later from a different angle, e.g. when you start suspecting someone you find perfectly credible today. Don’t write “X”, write “Joe said: X”, even if you perfectly believe him at the moment. If Joe says “A” and Jane says “B”, write “Joe said A. Jane said B” regardless of which one of them makes sense and which one doesn’t. If Joe says that Jane said X, write “Joe said that Jane said X”, not “Jane said X”.
Also, don’t edit the past. If you wrote “X” yesterday, but today Joe corrected you that he actually said “Y” yesterday but you have misunderstood it, don’t erase the “X”, but simply write today “Joe said he actually said Y yesterday”. Even if you are certain that you really made a mistake yesterday. When Joe gives you a promise, write it down. When there is a perfectly acceptable explanation later why the promise couldn’t be fulfilled, accept the explanation, but still record that for perfectly acceptable reasons the promise was not fulfilled. Too much misinformation is a red flag, even if there is always a perfect explanation for each case. (Either you are living in a very unlikely Everett branch, or your model is wrong.) Even if you accept an excuse, make a note of the fact that something had to be excused.
Generally, don’t let the words blind you from facts. Words are also a kind of facts (facts about human speech), but don’t mistake “X” for X.
I think gossip is generally a good thing, but only if you can follow these rules. When you learn about X, don’t write “X”, but write “my gossiping friend told me X”. It would be even better to gossip with friends who follow similar rules; who can make a distinction between “I have personally seen X” and “a completely trustworthy person said X and I was totally convinced”. But even when your friends don’t use this rule, you can still use it when speaking with them.
The problem is that this kind of journaling has a cost. It takes time; you have to protect the journal (the information it contains could harm not only you but also other people mentioned there); and you have to keep things in memory until you get to the journal. Maybe you could have some small device with you all day long where you would enter new data; and at home you would transfer the daily data to your computer and erase the device.
But maybe I’m overcomplicating things and the real skill is the ability to think about anyone you know and ask yourself a question “what if everything this person ever said to me (and to others) was a lie; what if the only thing they care about is more power or success, and they are merely using me as a tool for this purpose?” and check whether the alternative model explains the observed data better. Especially with the people you love, admire, of depend on. This is probably useful not only against literally sociopaths, but other kinds of manipulators, too.
But I think there is more to a sociopath than mere charisma. Specifically, the ability to lie and harm people without providing any nonverbal cues that would probably betray a neurotypical person trying to do the same thing. (I suspect this is what makes the typical heuristics fail.)
I don’t think “no nonverbal cues” is accurate. A psychopath shows no signs of emotional distress when he lies. On the other hand if they say something that should go along with a emotion if a normal person says it, you can detect that something doesn’t fit.
In the LW community however, there are a bunch of people with autism that show strange nonverbals and don’t show emotions when you would expect a neurotypical person to show emotions.
But maybe I’m overcomplicating things and the real skill is the ability to think about anyone you know and ask yourself a question “what if everything this person ever said to me (and to others) was a lie; what if the only thing they care about is more power or success, and they are merely using me as a tool for this purpose?”
I think that’s a strawman. Not having long-term goals is a feature of psychopaths. The don’t have a single purpose according to which they organize things. The are impulsive.
Not having long-term goals is a feature of psychopaths. The don’t have a single purpose according to which they organize things. The are impulsive.
That seems correct according to what I know (but I am not an expert). They are not like “I have to maximize the number of paperclips in the universe in the long term” but rather “I must produce some paperclips, soon”. Given sufficiently long time interval, they would probably fail at Marshmallow test.
Then I suspect the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful one is whether their impulses executed with their skills are compatible with what the society allows. If the impulse is “must get drunk and fight with people”, such person will sooner or later end in prison. If the impulse is “must lie to people and steal from them”, with some luck and skill, such person could become rich, if they can recognize situations where it is safe to lie and steal. But I’m speculating here.
Rather than thinking “I must steal” the impulse is more likely to be “I want to have X” and a lack of inhibition for stealing.
Psychopath usually don’t optimize for being evil.
Are you suggesting journaling about all your interactions where someone gives you information? That does sound exhausting and unnecessary. It might make sense to do for short periods for memory training.
Another possibility would be to record all your interactions—this isn’t legal in all jurisdictions unless you get permission from the other people being recorded, but I don’t think you’re likely to be caught if you’re just using the information for yourself.
Journaling when you have reason to suspicious of someone is another matter, and becoming miserable and confusing for no obvious reason is grounds for suspicion. (The children of such manipulators are up against a much more serious problem.)
It does seem to me that this isn’t exactly an individual problem if what you need is group resistance to extremely skilled manipulators.
Ironically, now I will be the one complaining that this definition of a “sociopath” seems to include too many people to be technically correct. (Not every top manager is a sociopath. And many sociopaths don’t make it into corporate positions of power.)
I agree that making detailed journals is probably not practical in real life. Maybe some mental habits would make it easier. For example, you could practice the habit of remembering the source of information, at least until you get home to write your diary. You could start with shorter time intervals; have a training session where people will tell you some information, and at the end you have an exam where you have to write an answer to the question and the name of the person who told you that.
If keeping the diary itself turns out to be good for a rationalist, this additional skill of remembering sources could be relatively easier, and then you will have the records you can examine later.
Perhaps we should taboo “resistance to charisma” first. What specifically are we trying to resist?
Looking at an awesome person and thinking “this is an awesome person” is not harmful per se. Not even if the person uses some tricks to appear even more awesome than they are. Yeah, it would be nice to measure someone’s awesomeness properly, but that’s not the point. A sociopath may have some truly awesome traits, for example genuinely high intelligence.
So maybe the thing we are trying to resist is the halo effect. An awesome person tells me X, and I accept it as true because it would be emotionally painful to imagine that an awesome person would lie to me. The correct response is not to deny the awesomeness, but to realize that I still don’t have any evidence for X other than one person saying it is so. And that awesomeness alone is not expertise.
But I think there is more to a sociopath than mere charisma. Specifically, the ability to lie and harm people without providing any nonverbal cues that would probably betray a neurotypical person trying to do the same thing. (I suspect this is what makes the typical heuristics fail.)
Yes, I believe so. If you already have a suspicion that something is wrong, you should start writing a diary. And a very important part would be, for every information you have, write down who said that to you. Don’t report your conclusions; report the raw data you have received. This will make it easier to see your notes later from a different angle, e.g. when you start suspecting someone you find perfectly credible today. Don’t write “X”, write “Joe said: X”, even if you perfectly believe him at the moment. If Joe says “A” and Jane says “B”, write “Joe said A. Jane said B” regardless of which one of them makes sense and which one doesn’t. If Joe says that Jane said X, write “Joe said that Jane said X”, not “Jane said X”.
Also, don’t edit the past. If you wrote “X” yesterday, but today Joe corrected you that he actually said “Y” yesterday but you have misunderstood it, don’t erase the “X”, but simply write today “Joe said he actually said Y yesterday”. Even if you are certain that you really made a mistake yesterday. When Joe gives you a promise, write it down. When there is a perfectly acceptable explanation later why the promise couldn’t be fulfilled, accept the explanation, but still record that for perfectly acceptable reasons the promise was not fulfilled. Too much misinformation is a red flag, even if there is always a perfect explanation for each case. (Either you are living in a very unlikely Everett branch, or your model is wrong.) Even if you accept an excuse, make a note of the fact that something had to be excused.
Generally, don’t let the words blind you from facts. Words are also a kind of facts (facts about human speech), but don’t mistake “X” for X.
I think gossip is generally a good thing, but only if you can follow these rules. When you learn about X, don’t write “X”, but write “my gossiping friend told me X”. It would be even better to gossip with friends who follow similar rules; who can make a distinction between “I have personally seen X” and “a completely trustworthy person said X and I was totally convinced”. But even when your friends don’t use this rule, you can still use it when speaking with them.
The problem is that this kind of journaling has a cost. It takes time; you have to protect the journal (the information it contains could harm not only you but also other people mentioned there); and you have to keep things in memory until you get to the journal. Maybe you could have some small device with you all day long where you would enter new data; and at home you would transfer the daily data to your computer and erase the device.
But maybe I’m overcomplicating things and the real skill is the ability to think about anyone you know and ask yourself a question “what if everything this person ever said to me (and to others) was a lie; what if the only thing they care about is more power or success, and they are merely using me as a tool for this purpose?” and check whether the alternative model explains the observed data better. Especially with the people you love, admire, of depend on. This is probably useful not only against literally sociopaths, but other kinds of manipulators, too.
I don’t think “no nonverbal cues” is accurate. A psychopath shows no signs of emotional distress when he lies. On the other hand if they say something that should go along with a emotion if a normal person says it, you can detect that something doesn’t fit.
In the LW community however, there are a bunch of people with autism that show strange nonverbals and don’t show emotions when you would expect a neurotypical person to show emotions.
I think that’s a strawman. Not having long-term goals is a feature of psychopaths. The don’t have a single purpose according to which they organize things. The are impulsive.
That seems correct according to what I know (but I am not an expert). They are not like “I have to maximize the number of paperclips in the universe in the long term” but rather “I must produce some paperclips, soon”. Given sufficiently long time interval, they would probably fail at Marshmallow test.
Then I suspect the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful one is whether their impulses executed with their skills are compatible with what the society allows. If the impulse is “must get drunk and fight with people”, such person will sooner or later end in prison. If the impulse is “must lie to people and steal from them”, with some luck and skill, such person could become rich, if they can recognize situations where it is safe to lie and steal. But I’m speculating here.
Human behavior is more complex than that.
Rather than thinking “I must steal” the impulse is more likely to be “I want to have X” and a lack of inhibition for stealing. Psychopath usually don’t optimize for being evil.
Are you suggesting journaling about all your interactions where someone gives you information? That does sound exhausting and unnecessary. It might make sense to do for short periods for memory training.
Another possibility would be to record all your interactions—this isn’t legal in all jurisdictions unless you get permission from the other people being recorded, but I don’t think you’re likely to be caught if you’re just using the information for yourself.
Journaling when you have reason to suspicious of someone is another matter, and becoming miserable and confusing for no obvious reason is grounds for suspicion. (The children of such manipulators are up against a much more serious problem.)
It does seem to me that this isn’t exactly an individual problem if what you need is group resistance to extremely skilled manipulators.
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/-- some detailed analysis of sociopathy in offices.
Ironically, now I will be the one complaining that this definition of a “sociopath” seems to include too many people to be technically correct. (Not every top manager is a sociopath. And many sociopaths don’t make it into corporate positions of power.)
I agree that making detailed journals is probably not practical in real life. Maybe some mental habits would make it easier. For example, you could practice the habit of remembering the source of information, at least until you get home to write your diary. You could start with shorter time intervals; have a training session where people will tell you some information, and at the end you have an exam where you have to write an answer to the question and the name of the person who told you that.
If keeping the diary itself turns out to be good for a rationalist, this additional skill of remembering sources could be relatively easier, and then you will have the records you can examine later.