Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
July 22 - August 26, 2017
When populations consist of small, isolated families, cheating is a poor strategy. It is easy to detect and punish cheats. Predators need a certain population density. They must be able to move on after exhausting a given territory.
We are either superb altruists, or we are superb cheats. Both take a lot of brain power: the more, the better. There is no safe middle ground.
A psychopath cannot laugh "right." He does not laugh, or he laughs too much, or too long. We are more wary of people who laugh too much, than of those who don't laugh at all. What is he hiding, we wonder?
We've started to unlock the mystery of psychopaths by treating them as predators, rather than broken people. The predator model does more than explain psychopaths. It also explains the evolution of the human mind, as the result of an ancient arms race between cheaters and altruists. For 3 million years, altruists have gotten better at working together, and cheats have gotten better at faking it.
Psychopaths hunt other humans. They attack and capture them. They feed on their time, resources, power, and energy. They dispose of the remains. And they move on.
To cherish everyone you meet is an extreme perspective that takes decades to find. Mallory fakes this by reflex, from youth. It does not take learning. It is her first rule of survival: others must adore you.
We'd find men responding most to youth, then looks, then availability, and then character. Availability is critical though. Male-on-male violence over women is significant enough that "is not available" should be a turn-off for most men. We'd find women responding to power, then character, then availability, and then looks. During peak fertility, women would respond mainly to power and looks.
The second trigger is more dramatic. It takes a male challenger, from outside the group. The dominant male either asserts himself, or loses the game. Women find such winner-takes-all dramas compelling, in real life, in sports, and in entertainment. It gives the same dopamine kick men get from watching a pretty woman undress.
Appeal is all relative, for sure. Yet while female attractiveness is an individual thing, male power flows from other males. No matter how large or rich or confident, a man alone is nothing. Male dominance is all about other men.
Humans seem to organize in two specific, and contrasting ways. These are the "living system" and the "power pyramid." A living system is a loose economic network of inter-independent actors or pieces. These pieces trade resources such as knowledge, work, or money. These resources flow through the system in different directions and at their own rhythm. Living systems have no obvious power structure. They have no identifiable owners and no central authority. They have no central decision making or planning. A power pyramid is an explicit structure, with a name, purpose, and leadership hierarchy.
...more
It takes some effort to keep masses of people sitting still while you feed off them. Power pyramids do this using a mix of force, bribes, and threats. They demand physical presence. The promise monthly salaries and bonuses. Failure to conform means dismissal. This is a form of constant, low-level internal violence. Power pyramids also project violence against external threats. They use force to remove competitors and achieve their goals.
We see power pyramids most often in business, in government, and in organized religion. When the three mix together we get fascism and genocides. This happens when society is too weak or naive to resist. More often power pyramids are negligent, rather than outright destructive.
Power pyramids do not listen to the market. Instead they try to force people to accept their goods, with heavy advertising.
A friend with good work experience interviewed with a large technology firm. The process left her feeling puzzled and humiliated. "Why do I have to prove myself to a young interviewer?" she asked me. "Can't they just look at my work. It is all on-line." We thought about it. I said, maybe humiliation is a goal of such interviews. If you accept that, you'll accept much worse, in return for that juicy pay check. Conformity is a test.
Most of us fear and distrust power pyramids for good reasons. These organizations make billions of people miserable, even if these effects are hidden in the much larger success stories of our living systems.
It is remarkable to see Mallory announce outright lies, to discredit others. He may be calm and sad, or burn with righteous indignation. It is theater, aimed at an audience. The best lies are plausible and colorful. They tend to be easy to disprove, yet few people do. Our minds evolved to agree with those in authority. We will accept obvious lies when they come from someone who acts superior to us. It's called the Asch effect.
Mallory's magic only works on Alice because she lies to herself.
The origin of what I'll call "social accounting" is clear. We're a predator species that survives risk by mutual sharing. When we succeed in a hunt we have more than we can consume or carry, so we share with others. When we fail, we beg. On average this exchange works out and keeps us alive. Yet it is vulnerable to freeloaders who cheat by always begging, never hunting. To beat them, we evolved tribal identity and accounting.
Evolution doesn't try to make everyone happy. It plays the averages. If 10% suffer so 90% can thrive, so be it.
The evolutionary benefits of responding like this are clear. To survive in an abusive family, a child must accept the abuse. To rebel is to starve. More, the child must push the worst of it onto his or her siblings. That means being the most enthusiastic defender, the first to comply.
Every cult and police state does the same cheap trick: "they hate us for our freedoms!" This refers to the devastated wastelands of the outside world, filled with roaming zombies. The message is clear: "stay here and follow The Rules, and you will be safe. Leave, and your death will be slow and nasty."
If Mallory gets caught, he always denies the facts, and blames someone else. It may be the victim. It may be other bystanders. He denies responsibility even when confronted with material evidence. There will be no remorse, no attempts to make it right, no apologies.
believe that it's fine to work for free. It is also fine to charge a full price for your services. The first is a gift. The second is a transaction, not an investment. What I will not do is work at less than my worth, on the basis of future rewards. This is something I've learned to avoid, unless I'm working for myself.
In a world of chaos, we regress to juvenile acceptance of authority. This reaction is well known to propagandists, who depend on it. Keep your public on a steady diet of shock and horror chaos. They won't question the corruption and repression.
When the brain gets annoyed it starts to show anger. If it gets a response, it calms down. If it gets no response, it moves into "fight or flight" mode.
Mallory prefers vague, unwritten, or chaotic rules.
A healthy group spends little time on decision making. Its members have high independence. They tend to do first, talk second. There is little or no argument. An infected group struggles to get consensus. Its members argue over irrelevant details. Even the smallest project takes huge planning, and stresses everyone.
The prognosis for a project group infected by a psychopath is always bad. The real problem isn't Mallory, it's that unfixable culture. There are no cures, only various ways of dying.
Mallory does not last long in stable structures. She prefers chaos, confusion, and a flow of fresh faces.
The symptoms are much like those in an infected project group. People seem too anxious about taking risks. It takes too long to come to consensus. There is too much argument over insignificant details. Staff spend more time justifying themselves than doing valuable work. The team feels stuck and lethargic, though individuals seem bright. People are leaving for unspecified reasons.
Look for the self-importance, the secret discussions, the poor organizational skills. Look for the solitary, over-confident, empty person. She is good at getting others to do things for her. She may be narcissistic and over-dressed. She always has an answer. If challenged, she attacks.
If you confront a psychopath in the workplace, have your exit ready. You will not be staying long. Mallory knows exactly how to make people hate and fear you. She will with tears in her eyes accuse you of sex crimes, financial fraud, and worse. She will explain in clear detail why all the trouble is your doing.
a successful psychopath looks just as you expect a "normal" person to look. Most psychopaths are successful and hide in general society. The number one talent of a psychopath is to look "normal," as I keep repeating. The number two talent is to trick the observer into forgetting what "normal" means.
Many people have these traits for other reasons than psychopathy. It is bad science to make a conclusion and then search for data to prove it. Be careful about diagnosing someone you dislike as "psychopath" and then searching for data to prove your point. It is wiser to search for data to disprove a theory.
In humans, the sense of smell is handled by the machinery for social emotions.
If psychopaths make up 4% of the population, then 8% of families have a psychopathic parent.
It is easy to convince a population to support a war of aggression. You just invoke the defense emotions.
A successful predator must avoid its prey feeling suspense until it is too late. There is thus an old arms race between predator and prey. The predator disguises itself, to move in closer. The prey becomes better at identifying its predator. The two strategies balance each other. If a predator is too successful it destroys its own host species. If the prey is too nervous, it dies from exhaustion.
psychopathy is a third sexual identity, a distinct gender. Social humans differentiate to either male or female gender identities. Psychopaths differentiate to their own sexual identity. While male and female do their particular dances, psychopathy romps around them both. For all his sexual intensity, Mallory is asexual in a profound way.
our empathic response to revenge is distrust. The more dramatic the display, the less we trust it. There are two ways to get support from the group. Mallory does it by building up hate and fear towards her target before she launches her anger and revenge act. This works, in specific cases. Then we get crusades, lynch mobs, and witch hunts, with Mallory at their head.
In 2015, hackers leaked the client database of the Ashley Madison website. This site claimed to offer cheating spouses a way to hook up. Analysis of the data showed that for about 3 million men there were less than 1,450 actual women. The bulk of "female" accounts were Ashley Madison employees or scripted "bots". The business model was to show interest in men, then get them to pay to send chat messages.
it protects you against manipulation. Mallory needs an emotional surface to attack. When you do not respond to his triggers, you can withstand even brutal personal attacks. Your normal response to Mallory's fury is terror, flight, and anger. To his desire, you feel intense love. These feelings will incapacitate you.
We usually define empathy as an emotional response to a family, group, or social emotion. Mallory lacks these emotions, and the empathy that goes with them. Yet she does have empathy for the predator, defense, and sexual emotions.
Mallory does do real damage. Yet for every physical assault, she delivers hundreds of non-physical blows. These are emotional, social, and economic. She is much more likely to drive her victims to suicide, than to murder them. When you look at psychopathy as a disease that damages Alice and Bob, it becomes obvious. A parasite or predator must find a balance. Mallory must work in stealth. Overt activity leads to detection.
The predator lifestyle is risky. A predator cannot afford even minor injuries. Non-human predators attack the weak, the immature, the old. Never an adult, capable of fighting back. A cow with a broken leg can still eat grass. A lion with a broken leg will starve. This defines the level of violence a predator will exercise. It will choose the easier prey. It will not fight another predator except to survive or reproduce. It will use bluff and noise to intimidate, yet will flee from a real fight.
A main goal of every abuser is to teach the victim that there is no abuse. "This is normal," goes the refrain. "And if anyone is crazy or abusive, it is you."
Good rules are simple, and apply to everyone in the same way.
She's making accusations. She's afraid of something and is attacking as cover. Note her accusations, she's talking about herself without realizing it.
She's asked for something small. She's nudging you to face the right way. If you give it to her, she'll attack you and demand a larger service.
