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That you have little desire to manipulate people isn't really here or there; the fact is that a social brain has extensive hardwiring that is designed to manipu
by woodchuck64 11y ago
That you have little desire to manipulate people isn't really here or there; the fact is that a social brain has extensive hardwiring that is designed to manipulate other social beings in blatant and subtle ways, and that hardwiring has been shaped and fine-tuned by eons of evolution. The desire restricting the extent of manipulation against another's interest is going to be constrained by moral beliefs and instincts, empathy, which seems to be of much less concern in the OP than maximizing raw intelligence.
- eli_gottlieb 11y agoBut theory-of-mind is a distinct cognitive module from intellectual intelligence. You can enhance one without enhancing the other.
- woodchuck64 11y agoLet me make sure I understand you since I didn't understand why you were "remarkably insulted". The system fine-tuned by evolution is the human mind. Sociopathy and psychopathy seem to be genetically based and may occur in anywhere from 1% to 10% of the population based on various ballpark estimates. IQ is in no way related to moral behavior, smart people can be sincerely kind people or sociopathic, people of low-IQ can be sincerely kind or sociopathic. A person of low-IQ who is a sociopath ends up in jail most likely, a person of high-IQ who is a sociopath damages society far more by cleverly staying out of jail and may often land themselves high positions as they manipulate people's social intuitions without remorse. I suspect (but can't prove) that sociopathy has no correlation with IQ whatsoever. > But theory-of-mind is a distinct cognitive module from intellectual intelligence. You can enhance one without enhancing the other. I agree. However, I think theory-of-mind is one part of the puzzle. Another is moral reasoning and how it shapes social interaction. This, too, needs to be carefully understood because we know that authority and purity concerns, for example, both allow people to effectively turn off empathy. Turning off theory-of-mind when it is inconvenient is a potentially frightening ability.
- eli_gottlieb 11y agoI'm insulted because you appear to believe that increasing intellect necessarily decreases moral traits, that "smart -> malicious". Which is pretty damned insulting to those of us who are clever!
- woodchuck64 11y agoWhat?? I said "IQ is in no way related to moral behavior"! I don't in any way believe intellect necessarily decrease moral traits; that is an impossible reading of my remarks.