Corruptible Quotes

“Whatever specific interventions are adopted, a big part of the battle is acknowledging a core problem: those who shouldn’t be in power are more likely to seek it. We need to design every system to try to screen out the corruptible, power-hungry candidates.”
― Brian Klaas, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How it Changes Us

“According to Turchin’s data, groups of tens of people in bands were around for hundreds of thousands of years. Then, groups of hundreds formed farming villages around 8000 BC. Groups of thousands emerged as simple chiefdoms in 5500 BC. Groups of tens of thousands, known as complex chiefdoms, followed suit by 5000 BC. The first archaic states, comprising hundreds of thousands of individuals, rose around 3000 BC. By 2500 BC, there were macrostates with millions of subjects. And by 500 BC, mega-empires topped out in the tens of millions. In a comparative blink, we went from many smaller, flatter societies to enormous, hierarchical behemoths defined by inequality and dominance. The rest, quite literally, is history.”
― Brian Klaas, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us

“But why does this all matter? Why is the math of arrows and swords relevant to understanding why you might have a boss, a boss’s boss, and a boss’s boss’s boss at work? For a simple reason: as ranged weapons became more common, the dynamics of warfare started to dramatically favor societies with more soldiers. If a few hundred people got together and formed an army under the rule of a single chief, egalitarian bands of twenty to eighty members just couldn’t compete. And when humans get together in larger groups, flat societies become impossible. Put enough people together, and hierarchy and dominance always emerge. It’s an ironclad rule of history. Some people had to learn this the hard way. Bands that stubbornly stuck to the old ways of flat society started to get wiped out by those who joined together and embraced chiefs. Plus, on the battlefield itself, having leaders (generals) with formal power over their soldiers was much more effective than a ragtag bunch of soldiers making their own decisions. It was the opposite of the !Kung hunting rituals. To win a war, you didn’t want to insult your best and bravest. You needed to elevate your best fighters, not cut them down to size.”
― Brian Klaas, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us

“The world would be a better place if people in power worried more that their every corrupt move was being watched by someone lurking behind every rock and tree—or at least every rock.”
― Brian Klaas, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us

“As social scientists love to point out, the plural of anecdote isn’t data.”
― Brian Klaas, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us

“Often wrong, never uncertain remains a winning strategy in too much of our world.”
― Brian Klaas, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us

“As its name suggests, the dark triad has three components: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy.”
― Brian Klaas, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us