I think there are a couple ways to go about answering this question. If you go about it by seeing whether people who are related and people with a few life experiences that you want to track score high on a conscientiousness test, you’re not really answering the question “what training would work?”
I don’t have a direct answer to that, but I do have several bits of information that would be very useful for a person who would like to try and solve this:
Dabrowski did research on morality also. His theory is that there are certain traits called “super sensitivities” that predict moral behavior. There may be a way to increase these—perhaps with drugs or life experiences designed to make your nervous system more excitable.
See also Jane Elliot’s brown eyes, blue eyes experiment. I don’t know whether they did these formally, but they observed that when the situation was reversed (the situation was that kids with a certain eye color were told they were better and became abusive) the children who had experience being second class were much less abusive when put into the “better than” role, as if the experience of being second class had inoculated them against some amount of the bad behavior.
I researched violent crime one day and discovered that the main thing that was connected with violent crime was high testosterone. In theory, treatment using existing drugs could make a very big difference. That would probably require some kind of training intended to explain to the violent criminals that their problem was chemical, and convince them to take the drugs. This would be difficult because if they’re chemically imbalanced it may not be easy to get that through to them. To an ordinary person, it’s a no-brainer, but to them, it’s probably not. Some type of educational program designed to get them to wake up and realize they need testosterone reduction treatment may go a long way.
This doesn’t exactly qualify as training, as I’ve gone up to a meta level, but this kind of thinking could potentially make a very big difference:
We need to consider the role of perverse incentives. There are a lot of perverse incentives in life, and a lot of them are improperly checked and balanced. For instance, diagnosing a person with a mental disorder can be devastating to that person and to come up with an accurate diagnosis can take some time. However, psychologists are pressured to diagnose on the first visit because they can’t get paid by the insurance company without it. Take a good person and put them into a bad situation, and they may react as if they were a bad person because they need to in order to survive. Identifying and changing perverse incentives might really change not only the way that a large number of people behave, but would also redirect the selection pressure on humans such that the good ones are more likely to survive and reproduce, helping to “train” our genes in the right direction, rather than just our behavior.
I’d guess the GP was asking about conscientiousness as in the Big Five model, which is more about work ethic and motivation and not so much about morality. Anyone highly motivated and organized would be considered “conscientious” under this model, even if they were a criminal.
I’d never thought about why people are conscientious, but I can think of four sorts of reasons. In order to accomplish a task-related goal, in order to lower their own stress by making accidents less likely and less damaging, in order to not impose costs on other people, and possibly because it just feels right.
I’m guessing though—I’m only sporadically conscientious. Would conscientious people care to talk about how consientiousness feels from the inside?
Most effects of testosterone are permanent; do testosterone blockers reduce crime? Probably, since aggression and high sex drive are among the temporary effects.
Way too little is known about large hormonal alterations. What is known is that hormone replacement therapy can make people very happy, which vaguely suggests that giving T blockers to most men could make them miserable. (Then again we’re not suggesting adding estrogen, so the comparison doesn’t hold.)
In the early days of LW there was an eunuch who wouldn’t shut up about how great T blockers were. N=1 study powered by selection bias.
Castration works very well to reduce violent behavior based on the research I read. I didn’t spend months researching this, but I went through a lot of information, and reducing testosterone was the most effective thing they had tried.
which vaguely suggests that giving T blockers to most men could make them miserable
Or could help them in the event that their testosterone is ten times the level of non-violent inmates, which was the case in one of the studies I read. It was so effective that I wonder why they’re not using it. One bottleneck that has been proposed is that people perceive testosterone reduction as unhealthy or as a thing that would depersonalize a man by reducing his manliness. In light of this, it’s interesting that you reacted to my comments about high testosterone and chemical imbalance with the idea that giving testosterone blockers to most men would make them miserable. That’s irrelevant because most men don’t need them. Only the ones who have such unusually high testosterone that it significantly raises the risk of criminal violence, or for some other health reason qualifies as excessive / qualifies as a chemical imbalance should be prescribed testosterone blockers.
Now I’m wondering if the reason people don’t use testosterone blockers might be because people are, for some reason, afraid that it would be prescribed to most men.
I wish I had known there was a place where people appreciated this type of nerdy-yet-un-credentialed dip into subjects. I’d have made a site similar to Gwern’s. Alas, my research findings are not written up and my citations are scattered throughout things like bookmark backups from old OS installs.
it’s interesting that you reacted to my comments about high testosterone and chemical imbalance with the idea that giving testosterone blockers to most men would make them miserable
I said that because I didn’t know how large the difference was, or whether the idea was to target a class of particularly high-T violent criminals or to douse anyone in prison regardless of previous T levels. I’m also slightly afraid that the implementation will tilt toward the latter.
One bottleneck that has been proposed is that people perceive testosterone reduction as unhealthy
Screwing around with hormones is risky. The pill has a lot of health risks, so do T injections, supplementing menopausal women turned out to be a terrible idea. But that just points to “test it and see what happens”.
or as a thing that would depersonalize a man by reducing his manliness
Well, duh. It’s the point.
This ties into a deeper fear: you can fine me, jail me, whip me, send me to the mines, but I’ll still be me. (Inasmuch as the distinction between personality and environment is valid.) When you start controlling mood-affecting chemicals, you’re taking away my freedom of thought in a very real sense. I do think that the human rights infringement to social benefits ratio is better than for prisons, but it’s not a negligible cost.
As selfish castration anxiety analogues go, I don’t know if “We, not you, decide to mess with your hormones” and “You don’t really need T” outbalance “Messing with hormones is normal” and “All hormones in moderation”.
the children who had experience being second class were much less abusive when put into the “better than” role, as if the experience of being second class had inoculated them against some amount of the bad behavior
I don’t think it works that way especially much in the real world, though specific examples would be in mindkiller territory. I suggest that the unusual thing about the brown eyes, blue eyes experiment was that being abused only went on for a short time, and the abusiveness was framed as a bad thing by the teacher.
I think there are a couple ways to go about answering this question. If you go about it by seeing whether people who are related and people with a few life experiences that you want to track score high on a conscientiousness test, you’re not really answering the question “what training would work?”
I don’t have a direct answer to that, but I do have several bits of information that would be very useful for a person who would like to try and solve this:
Dabrowski did research on morality also. His theory is that there are certain traits called “super sensitivities” that predict moral behavior. There may be a way to increase these—perhaps with drugs or life experiences designed to make your nervous system more excitable.
See also Jane Elliot’s brown eyes, blue eyes experiment. I don’t know whether they did these formally, but they observed that when the situation was reversed (the situation was that kids with a certain eye color were told they were better and became abusive) the children who had experience being second class were much less abusive when put into the “better than” role, as if the experience of being second class had inoculated them against some amount of the bad behavior.
I researched violent crime one day and discovered that the main thing that was connected with violent crime was high testosterone. In theory, treatment using existing drugs could make a very big difference. That would probably require some kind of training intended to explain to the violent criminals that their problem was chemical, and convince them to take the drugs. This would be difficult because if they’re chemically imbalanced it may not be easy to get that through to them. To an ordinary person, it’s a no-brainer, but to them, it’s probably not. Some type of educational program designed to get them to wake up and realize they need testosterone reduction treatment may go a long way.
This doesn’t exactly qualify as training, as I’ve gone up to a meta level, but this kind of thinking could potentially make a very big difference:
We need to consider the role of perverse incentives. There are a lot of perverse incentives in life, and a lot of them are improperly checked and balanced. For instance, diagnosing a person with a mental disorder can be devastating to that person and to come up with an accurate diagnosis can take some time. However, psychologists are pressured to diagnose on the first visit because they can’t get paid by the insurance company without it. Take a good person and put them into a bad situation, and they may react as if they were a bad person because they need to in order to survive. Identifying and changing perverse incentives might really change not only the way that a large number of people behave, but would also redirect the selection pressure on humans such that the good ones are more likely to survive and reproduce, helping to “train” our genes in the right direction, rather than just our behavior.
I’d guess the GP was asking about conscientiousness as in the Big Five model, which is more about work ethic and motivation and not so much about morality. Anyone highly motivated and organized would be considered “conscientious” under this model, even if they were a criminal.
I’d never thought about why people are conscientious, but I can think of four sorts of reasons. In order to accomplish a task-related goal, in order to lower their own stress by making accidents less likely and less damaging, in order to not impose costs on other people, and possibly because it just feels right.
I’m guessing though—I’m only sporadically conscientious. Would conscientious people care to talk about how consientiousness feels from the inside?
Most effects of testosterone are permanent; do testosterone blockers reduce crime? Probably, since aggression and high sex drive are among the temporary effects.
Way too little is known about large hormonal alterations. What is known is that hormone replacement therapy can make people very happy, which vaguely suggests that giving T blockers to most men could make them miserable. (Then again we’re not suggesting adding estrogen, so the comparison doesn’t hold.)
In the early days of LW there was an eunuch who wouldn’t shut up about how great T blockers were. N=1 study powered by selection bias.
Castration works very well to reduce violent behavior based on the research I read. I didn’t spend months researching this, but I went through a lot of information, and reducing testosterone was the most effective thing they had tried.
Or could help them in the event that their testosterone is ten times the level of non-violent inmates, which was the case in one of the studies I read. It was so effective that I wonder why they’re not using it. One bottleneck that has been proposed is that people perceive testosterone reduction as unhealthy or as a thing that would depersonalize a man by reducing his manliness. In light of this, it’s interesting that you reacted to my comments about high testosterone and chemical imbalance with the idea that giving testosterone blockers to most men would make them miserable. That’s irrelevant because most men don’t need them. Only the ones who have such unusually high testosterone that it significantly raises the risk of criminal violence, or for some other health reason qualifies as excessive / qualifies as a chemical imbalance should be prescribed testosterone blockers.
Now I’m wondering if the reason people don’t use testosterone blockers might be because people are, for some reason, afraid that it would be prescribed to most men.
I wish I had known there was a place where people appreciated this type of nerdy-yet-un-credentialed dip into subjects. I’d have made a site similar to Gwern’s. Alas, my research findings are not written up and my citations are scattered throughout things like bookmark backups from old OS installs.
I said that because I didn’t know how large the difference was, or whether the idea was to target a class of particularly high-T violent criminals or to douse anyone in prison regardless of previous T levels. I’m also slightly afraid that the implementation will tilt toward the latter.
Screwing around with hormones is risky. The pill has a lot of health risks, so do T injections, supplementing menopausal women turned out to be a terrible idea. But that just points to “test it and see what happens”.
Well, duh. It’s the point.
This ties into a deeper fear: you can fine me, jail me, whip me, send me to the mines, but I’ll still be me. (Inasmuch as the distinction between personality and environment is valid.) When you start controlling mood-affecting chemicals, you’re taking away my freedom of thought in a very real sense. I do think that the human rights infringement to social benefits ratio is better than for prisons, but it’s not a negligible cost.
As selfish castration anxiety analogues go, I don’t know if “We, not you, decide to mess with your hormones” and “You don’t really need T” outbalance “Messing with hormones is normal” and “All hormones in moderation”.
I don’t think it works that way especially much in the real world, though specific examples would be in mindkiller territory. I suggest that the unusual thing about the brown eyes, blue eyes experiment was that being abused only went on for a short time, and the abusiveness was framed as a bad thing by the teacher.