"""If you ask a psychologist, he or she may tell you that the powerful are simply too busy. They don't have the time to fully attend to their less powerful counterparts."""
No real psychologist will tell you that. Not even the worse case of status-quo apologist psychologist.
They would explain it in terms of personality traits, past history, sociopathic behavior, reward systems and tons of other insights etc.
There are lots of studies in power relations, and I've never seen the lack of empathy exhibited by some powerful people explained away as "they are busy".
That sir, is a generalization used to raise the importance of the article. I skip that. What you say is a relative explanation of the causes, but not showing evidence of a definitive neurological trigger, which they claim to have discovered as responsible.
This is also one reason why many people I know, don't take psychology serious, because it lacks on the neurological background and tries to explain things that 'could, would, should' happen in cases like 'a,b or c' without giving a definitive answer. This leaves the asking person in a uncertain and unsatisfied state. definitely. There are other psychologists who explain things logically and simple, that convinces much more people and gives them more insight into the 'why's' rather than squishy explanations of the 'what's'.
>This is also one reason why many people I know, don't take psychology serious, because it lacks on the neurological background and tries to explain things that 'could, would, should' happen in cases like 'a,b or c' without giving a definitive answer.
That's exactly the reason why I take it seriously. Because it considers many factors, and the multiple facets and interactions between a person and other persons and/or surroundings, and understands that human psychology does not work like some antiquated naive reductionist machinery.
The "definitive answers" on this front ("it's gene X that makes you behave Y, it's that substance in the brain that makes you violent", etc), are for people who believe in silver bullets and one-size-fits-all answers. IMHO they reek of pseudo-science, mixing cause and effect, correlation and causation and working at the wrong level of abstraction.
This does not surprise. Research has repeatedly found that even momentary success boosts testosterone, and we know the effects that has on behavior, including a loss of empathy. And vice versa for failure dropping testosterone.
This fits evolutionary "just so" stories very well. Males in pair bonding species pursue a mix of alpha (impregnate lots of females) and beta (trade child care for access to one female) strategies. A successful male should become more willing to go for alpha behaviors. A successful alpha strategy requires not minding the real negative consequences of your behavior on others. Conversely beta strategies are going to fail hard if you're not deeply aware of the feelings of those around you.
And the documentary: "Park Avenue: money, power and the American dream - Why Poverty?" http://youtu.be/6niWzomA_So - also exams the psychology behind power.
I suspect that the evolutionary mechanism behind this is that the members of the species (or tribe etc.) who are powerful (leaders?) must have some sense of ruthlessness in order to enable their whole group to survive; and empathy is directly counteractive to ruthlessness.
That's an awfully friendly reading of what's going on here. I'm not a biologist, much less an evolutionary one, but what I've heard is that explanations for the benefit of the whole group tend to be wrong or at least met with extreme skepticism.
Here's another reading: It could also be that we're wired to exploit situations of power. Isn't it convenient that empathy is reduced when you're more powerful, making it more likely for you to (ab)use that power in your own interest? That seems awfully likely to improve your personal reproductive success...
Indeed, biologists frown on whole group explanations, however I am not suggesting it as an explanation of reproductive usefulness (for the whole group), merely as a successful factor of having a good social standing among the tribe (i.e the chances of someone being more powerful are better if they are able to act as a leader/someone who can protect their tribe), which would quite possibly lead to better mate prospectives.
You have cause and effect backwards here. What research has demonstrated is that success creates lack of empathy. And not that lack of empathy creates better leadership.
Indeed the sociology research that I've seen on the latter question says that leaders who act in an entitled amoral fashion lead fundamentally less effective organizations than leaders who encourage empathy and cooperation.
Any person who, like you just did, talks about evolution in terms of benefits to the group has a fundamental misunderstanding. It is all about spreading your genes.
Group behavior is merely an evolutionary strategy. And interesting group behaviors can only be understood by analyzing how individuals in the group are incentivized.
The post you are replying to is why I take evo-psych explanations with a grain of salt, as your post is just as plausible while it doesn't try to stretch the findings in the article by reducing complex evolutionary processes to explain human society.
edit: ugh, grammar. this is what I get for posting from a phone
Nature doesn't do duels and doesn't do tests between groups. Those just happen -- but it's not like nature or evolution arranges them to weed out the "lesser" group as your comment implies.
I think having some sense of power important to the well-being of humans? Feeling powerless can lead one to feelings of despair and helplessness. Of course feeling superior over others and pointing them down is not healthy either. But feeling like you have some control over one's live is essential.
I think you got downvoted because your comment didn't add value, but I suspect there is something behind it, so I'd be interested in learning more without reading that entire book.
"What can’t neuroscience tell us about ourselves? Since fMRI—functional magnetic resonance imaging—was introduced in the early 1990s, brain scans have been used to help politicians understand and manipulate voters, determine guilt in court cases, and make sense of everything from musical aptitude to romantic love. But although brain scans and other neurotechnologies have provided groundbreaking insights into the workings of the human brain, the increasingly fashionable idea that they are the most important means of answering the enduring mysteries of psychology is misguided—and potentially dangerous.
In Brainwashed, psychiatrist and AEI scholar Sally Satel and psychologist Scott O. Lilienfeld reveal how many of the real-world applications of human neuroscience gloss over its limitations and intricacies, at times obscuring—rather than clarifying—the myriad factors that shape our behavior and identities. Brain scans, Satel and Lilienfeld show, are useful but often ambiguous representations of a highly complex system. Each region of the brain participates in a host of experiences and interacts with other regions, so seeing one area light up on an fMRI in response to a stimulus doesn’t automatically indicate a particular sensation or capture the higher cognitive functions that come from those interactions. The narrow focus on the brain’s physical processes also assumes that our subjective experiences can be explained away by biology alone. As Satel and Lilienfeld explain, this “neurocentric” view of the mind risks undermining our most deeply held ideas about selfhood, free will, and personal responsibility, putting us at risk of making harmful mistakes, whether in the courtroom, interrogation room, or addiction treatment clinic.
A provocative account of our obsession with neuroscience, Brainwashed brilliantly illuminates what contemporary neuroscience and brain imaging can and cannot tell us about ourselves, providing a much-needed reminder about the many factors that make us who we are."
"When Power Goes To Your Head, It May Shut Out Your Heart "
This is also called not being grounded - though it doesn't necessarily mean you don't use logic to dictate your behaviour, though heart is an easier guide at times.
there's an emerging field of research that suggests powerful people who begin to forget their subordinates can be coached back toward their former kindness
I know one way that ought to work, and has the added benefit of being just: stripping them of their power (over others). If there is another way, I'm curious.
that may not always be practical though - how would you go about stripping the power of the employer over the employee? without an employer's power to say, decide whether an employee gets fired or a raise, the relationship would no longer be there.
That's one reason skepticism for the employer-employee relationship ends up recurring in a lot of liberty-oriented philosophies. You can find it anywhere from more on the left (e.g. Emma Goldman), to more on the right (e.g. Lysander Spooner), and even in a form in Thomas Jefferson's "yeoman farmer" ideal (though he didn't follow it himself), since he thought industrial-style mass employment fit poorly with democracy.
An alternative is to constrain the power, as is done in more consensus-oriented labor systems like Scandinavia's, treating the company as a kind of partnership of multiple stakeholders, and having many decisions made by committees with both employer and employee representatives. A kind of weak importing of a few ideas from worker's cooperatives, without actually moving all the way there.
One obvious way to do that would be to get rid of the employer-employee relationship. Flat management styles attempt to work in this direction, but really you end up with worker cooperatives when you take the thought to its logical conclusion.
Humanity threatening its own survival like it currently does is not practical either. Even going back into the ocean like the dolphins is more practical than that.
And more importantly, I think there is a difference between justified authority and power. Not that I'm automatically accepting employer and employee relationships as desirable, just like with "citizen vs. politician", but for example it's perfectly okay that parents can yank their kids at the arm when those are about to run into traffic, and otherwise curtail their autonomy, as long as it's justified. That's not power, that's authority, and even authority needs to be constantly re-evaluated and justified.
If you're on an expedition and the most experienced person leads it, one would expect that when they get sick, they would pass that job on without any fuss at all, since it's about the well-being of the expedition, not about their personal power, right? Notice how in many cases instead we have people asserting ownership, certainly when it comes to employers, and even in politics. When was the last time you strolled into a place and up to the manager/president, proved you're smarter in all ways, and successfully convinced them they should give you their job and work under you? Thought so :P
One way I feel we can give people more power, on the individual level and even out the playing field in employer-employee relationships, is to have the government taking care of all basic living needs - where you don't actually need to work in order to survive. For a business to succeed then, they would have to be kind and people would want to have to work for them out of other options - of which I could see that leading to many more co-operatives and the like.
Indeed. There was also a study done in Canada, I believe in Manitoba, many years ago called MinCome. The data was locked away until recently though, so only recently has research been started into seeing the positives and negatives of it. I'm not sure if simply giving people $X is the best approach, though there will be an approach that will work.
The welfare state doesn't give a livable wage, it gives a very bare minimum - that doesn't really allow you to function or grow as an individual. Many people who need assistance not only need assistance for food, shelter, but also for counselling and support. Some may never improve where they can be productive to society, though the goal would be to make everyone at least not counter-productive.
isn't the problem here that the people who run the government are in power and as the OP suggests, that makes them incredibly unlikely to be compassionate? At a fundamental level, then, the government seems like a bad candidate to be the agency responsible for "taking care of all basic needs".
Also to add, when you only take care of a few of a person's overall needs then the synergy that can take place on the holistic level gets lost - and so the amplification effect and benefits on all of society are lost. You can't go half-ass when it comes to this - people will of course argue what that means and fully encompasses, though there will have to be a methodical, logical, pragmatic, etc. way to determine it - and so far for me business has allowed me to learn the tools and terminology - basically I look for the leading metrics for a healthy society, healthy people, and allow that to guide me; You have to have a definition for what health and wellness are, and what it means too, of course.
Luckily with the internet we can quickly reach people, raise awareness and educate people - and show the positives of the changes that need to happen. I've been formulating a political strategy for many years now that will be self-sustainable, and self-perpetuating - because what you say is true, the people who run the government are in 'power' - and so you need to be able to compete with that, like any business who's going to disrupt the market. I wouldn't use the government in its current state as a good example as to how it could or would be structured in the future - they can be different beasts, old and new.
Me too! It is tricky. I've been working on this problem, and evolving my understanding of the systems influencing it for 12 years now or so. I've been designing a growing plan that I feel has a good chance of getting there or starting the path that will lead there. :) This will incorporate business plans / projects, a charity I am starting, and political aspirations - as policy will eventually need to change, and noise will need to be made to at minimum start discussion and have people raise questions about the status quo.
The wealthy would fight tooth and nail against this as it threatens their positions of power. If their needs are met, who would toil for them to earn meager amounts of money just so that they can eat and have a roof over their head? Capitalism depends on a class of people that only has one mean of survival: to under sell their labor and time to employers. Closing off of the commons and the privatization of public lands accomplished this a few centuries ago. Giving the common people a basic income rolls back the stronghold the capitalist has on society.
Check out Citigroup's leaked Plutonomy paper[1].
It's details, in disgustingly congratulatory terms, such a stronghold. It is also a literal dictionary definition of conspiracy to maintain a political, economical, and societal control of their financial position.
I disagree. The wealthy and politically powerful would fight tooth and nail FOR this to consolidate their position of power, by grabbing subsidies for whatever products they provide, which they will fight to classify as "basic needs" and overbill the government for it, or bail them out when their product goes into downturn.
For example: In such a future, farmers might claim that food is a "basic need" and fight to get subsidies, and when their food crop goes out of style, they may get the politicians to subsidize their land to go fallow. Or even to the point where their unhealthy crop would be overproduced relative to demand and sold to the public as a a part of a "healthy diet", leading to obesity and widespread medical problem.
In such a future, doctors may claim that all of their medical procedures are a "basic need", and fight for a billing system that bills by procedure - to the point of requiring people to purchase coverage for procedures they will likely not need, and leading to unnecessary and risky medical procedures being performed on patients, with an untransparent pricing structure, leading to cost overruns that are an albatross on society.
In such a future, bankers may claim that access to financial systems is a "basic need", and when their malfeasance results in systemic economic collapse, they fight for a rescue package that soaks them in money forcibly taken from the public.
And in this future, sadly, the truly needy will always find a way to be unhelped by the wealthy and politically powerful (even some who are well-intentioned) who have captured the machinery and redefined "basic need" to their benefit.
I doubt any person in power would advocate such a radical shift that could possibly alter their favorable status quo.
As the Citigroup papers says, the current political and social environment almost solely serves the the interests of wealthy, and for that they are elated. They fear that a social movement that shifts the focus of the national narrative towards any kind of reduction in inequality would drastically alter the ecosystem in which they are the apex predator. To extrapolate, if it becomes politically viable to advocate a basic income for the people, then the narrative has shifted towards reducing inequality and that is a direct threat to the plutonomy they enjoy. Why risk the narrative when you can already suck on the government teat through contracting, subsidies, and political donations? Shuffling wealth around introduces too much uncertainty.
If you give government the control over everyone's pursestrings, then you are giving the opportunity or advantage to someone. Shuffling wealth around does introduce uncertainty - when it is the many-headed public that is doing the shuffling it via individual and group transactions, sometimes for-profit, sometimes charitably. When you are contracting out through a single entity (the government) that is when you create certainty that the already-privileged will find far easier to get an advantageous audience with and therefore, far easier to capture.
We do this shuffling already, "in the name of the people". How's that working out?
"By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become 'profiteers,' who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat...Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose." - John Maynard Keynes
It isn't their position for 'power' they're fighting for, they'd be fighting to maintain control. Control isn't power. And honestly those who are currently in control will still be in a better position resources wise than the majority of the world - so they could be smart about re-allocating their resources, or they could be dumb about it.
Your premise that if people's needs are met they will do nothing I feel is plain wrong - people will be bored then, and there are other societal pressures that can drive people to do, to improve themselves, to be productive. Want to be an attractive mate? Want to be an interesting person? Want to be more attractive (not talking just physical of course) and a more interesting person than other contenders? People and animals through evolution get enough of what they need to perpetuate their species forward - humans with out abilities for creating machines to automate processes and make our own lives practically infinitely more productive (and for the whole world) really changes, and I'd argue, lowers what minimum amount of work each of us actually need to do in service of others (to take care of others) - though we might as well make and incentivize all of the work we do (including education) towards what is good and what is in service for others; If everyone's working towards taking care of everyone else, then you'll be taken care of very well. :)
Capitalism itself we now know and have learned is great for innovation, however not for sustainability - so that is its sickness. It's not difficult to change certain economic cycles to turn capitalism into incentivizing and directing resources into a positive cycle for everyone to benefit - it's a matter of identifying the leading metrics and affecting them through policy.
Land being given away got people being productive, so that's the leading metric there - we need to incentivize and help people be passionate about something, to enjoy doing things, so they do them - become productive. I don't think it's directly either that it giving people a basic income alone really breaks the 'stronghold' the capitalist has. The issue you have to watch out for is if you de-incentivize capitalistic behaviour then people might not do jobs that we need. You have to manage the ecosystem, and not control it - though what businesses do, is control, and that causes problems -- and by managing you allow natural cycles to show themselves, and then can guide them as you discover and need to direct them (if they indeed need some direction due to negative impact / a negative cycle for society exists).
Re: Citigroup Plutonomy paper - Neat. I knew these structures existed, though not the source. The way things got done was whoever has more resources amassed who then can leverage them for their own gain -- if that's what they want (and that's usually only time they'll spend their resources/money, though government should be leveraging resources for their own gain; giving land away initially was useful because it was a strong enough incentive to get activity happening). This is similarly what things like the stock market allows, companies to amass large sums of money. FTA, "But as yet, there seems little political fight being born out on this battleground." This is language of karma. The effects of karma takes time to happen sometimes, for organization to occur - and of course as they state, you're fighting compliance of a mass market who mostly have enough to just get by - and it's perpetuated this way and always floats around this because businesses will adjust their price points/profit level based on people's demands, and there are certain things people require; We'll really be in trouble when for-profit driven motives cause certain resources to be no longer available - one of which being a healthy environment that we're allowing to be polluted. Capitalistic cycles are in a controlled-negative cycle. It doesn't take a lot of policy to shift this to positive cycles to start being self-perpetuating, however there will be backlash/hate/fear from the status quo who want to maintain. I think the education and awareness required of society is such that it can happen relatively quickly - the internet is providing such a platform.
Also FTA, "To this end, the cleaning up of business practice, by high-profile champions of fair play, might actually prolong plutonomy." This is funny because they're not really doing this to the degree they should in the U.S. - so perhaps they're shooting themselves in the foot - which is good news for society that no one really seems at the wheel of this way of living, they may all be doing their part individually - but without a visionary leading then a plan in the opposite direction can occur with relatively little pushback.
>Your premise that if people's needs are met they will do nothing I feel is plain wrong - people will be bored then, and there are other societal pressures that can drive people to do, to improve themselves, to be productive.
My point wasn't that if people's needs were met, they would do nothing- my point is was that with needs met people wouldn't be forced to choose to either starve or spend the majority of their waking hours working for someone else. And if the profit motive was not the main force driving productivity society, more time and energy can be dedicated to personal pursuits or actual work that 'changes the world' for the better.
No, and I know there are plenty of decent people.. I guess their power is restricted by their conscience and compassion, and in that sense I wouldn't call them "powerful, period". Yet also plenty of others seem to like their power more undiluted than that, they tend to be generally be very good at ladder climbing, too; and as Aristotle said, one swallow doesn't make a summer. Another saying is that exceptions confirm the rule.
Maybe that's just confusing witty sayings with arguments, but until Costco buys out all other companies except Valve et al, I don't see how this changes a lot. I never said you can't work hard or "lead" people, or that big projects don't require coordination and that individuals take themselves back so the undertaking can go smoothly. But power that respects no criticism, no logic, and only bows to equal or greater counter-power, still seems to be the norm, sadly. Kudos to the Costco guy, this bit
“I just think people need to make a living wage with health benefits,” says Jelinek. “It also puts more money back into the economy and creates a healthier country. It’s really that simple.”
reminds me of Henry Ford, who at least got that bit right, too. But when you generally look at corporate profits vs. wages, the "Costco spirit" seems to be an outlier. That guy is plain not greedy, which helps.
It also happens to work for their business model to be able to take care of their employees well, much like successful internet companies - through economies of scale they are amassing profits that would otherwise be spread out more equally among society. Costco would be like Walmart of course, though it's nice we have to contrasting examples - yet we're still left with systemic problems that don't take care of the needs of society.
No, I agree with the GP. There's a lot of people who buy guns in order to feel powerful and fantasize endlessly about having a justification for using it. Even if they never shoot anyone they tend to approach any and all conflicts in zero-sum terms. Also, they're incredibly tedious to talk to at parties.
>There's no rational reason for you to say that about a person you don't know. That's ignorant and textbook prejudice.
Why would I have to know the person? Just the fact that he likes owning guns is enough. It's a specific mentality that makes you like those kind of things.
Like in every other place of the Western world, where gun ownership is illegal (or very resticted), but murders by criminals are still way lower than anywhere in the US?
I thought hackers were for science and understood numbers...
And I thought that "hackers" would not be so close-minded as to not consider any of the other factors that go into gun-homicide rate. I wish I could be so willfully ignorant. If you ignore gang-violence, for example, our gun-homicide rate is much closer to that of Switzerland. Have you looked at the difference in poverty levels between the places in the U.S. where the rate is the highest when you compared it to other Western countries? Have you considered the fact that we share a huge border with a country ridden with crime and violence which provides a steady supply of illegal weapons? Have you thought about the U.S.'s drug and social policies and their effects on gun-homicide rates? Have you noticed how the rate has been steadily dropping for the past decade? Have you looked at the ratio of the number of guns in the U.S. to the number of homicides and done the same with other countries? Have you looked at the rate of other violent crimes in the U.S. and other western countries? Have you considered the affects of cultural differences? Differences in demographics? Have you thought about what some unintended consequences of implementing strict gun control in the United States could be?
I sincerely doubt it, or you would not say what you have said. If you truly are "for science" then you should understand that things are not nearly as simple as your political ideology dictates. You need to go beyond the simple, obvious correlation and try to look at all of the variables.
And even if it were demonstrated to be the case that the higher rates of gun homicides are directly attributable to lax gun policies in the United States, I would still not be in favor of severely restricting gun ownership. And don't be so presumptuous to assume that this makes me any less a "hacker". It just means that I have beliefs and morals that are not derived directly from science and numbers.
Why? If we should let science exclusively dictate our political policies, then we should outlaw drinking. And smoking. And driving. These all lead to a large number of deaths. We should also implement a government controlled diet throughout the entire populace to reduce the rates of obesity and malnutrition. We should also have a computer program which determines the jobs and wages of everyone in the United States so that we maximize productivity and minimize poverty. Would that be your utopia?
No real psychologist will tell you that. Not even the worse case of status-quo apologist psychologist.