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> The short answer is her Jobs-like "reality distortion field" -- she was exceedingly good at convincing ... Considering this and the lack of substance behind

by api 8y ago

> The short answer is her Jobs-like "reality distortion field" -- she was exceedingly good at convincing ... Considering this and the lack of substance behind her claims, I would personally bet money that she is a clinical psychopath. The most disturbing thing I have ever observed about human beings is our tendency to follow psychopaths. Psychopaths seem to have this gravity around them and people just fall into line. I've observed some spectacular examples. A psychopath can say the most questionable or even absurd things and people will just believe, whereas people will be skeptical of even very sane things that come out of the mouths of non-psychopaths. It's as if clinical psychopaths have some special instinctive ability to generate body language, vocal cues, and linguistic patterns that manipulate others very effectively. I am not claiming that everyone with a "reality distortion field" must be a psychopath, but I've definitely observed a positive correlation.

maxxxxx 8y ago
I remember reading that a lot of CEOs and generally people in leadership positions have psychopathic traits. This probably is an asset if it's balanced by other traits.
- dmfdmf 8y ago
  I'd take those articles with a huge grain of salt. How could you distinguish a CEO with the courage to make an unpopular choice (e.g. layoff 1/3 of the workforce to save the company) -vs- a psychopath who does it to inflict suffering on others or to just establish dominance? How do you even measure psychopathic traits without defining exactly what "psychopathy" means and a rational ethic by which to judge the non-psychopaths (i.e. the "control group" or standard of normal)? Moreover, motive is not irrelevant to the question and not only is it not measurable by researchers, most people don't even know their own subconscious motives. I'd bet if you dug into the research what you'd find is the research really shows that psychologists who study such things do not have the character/psychology of those who become CEOs, not that they are psychopaths.
  - sjg007 8y ago
    Huh? You just give the ceos a psychopath exam.
    - dmfdmf 8y ago
      No. I reject the methodology of the psychologists who do these types of studies.
      - sjg007 8y ago
        Why?
        dmfdmf 8y ago
        Because you can't define pathology (deviation from a norm) without defining the norm. Modern psychologists dodge this question and implicitly assume various generally accepted moral standards and tenents (a form of circular reasoning) by which they condemn those who don't follow it. It is not science and to make it a science the psychologists should be seeking a rational basis to define ethics. Nobody has done this and until they do psychology will remain a pre-science like alchemy.
        cornholio 8y ago
        In addition, it would also be supremely discriminating if the "Psychopath exam" would, for example, consistently score Asians lower. That is, a psychological or culturally acquired trait should not be used against an individual without a proof that it actually affects his behavior. You are in essence denying that the person has any agency and it's utterly incapable of learning and acting on society's moral code, which I bet is false for the vast majority of people with sociopathic tendencies.
elgenie 8y ago
A lot of communication is non-verbal. A person evaluating a statement in context and expecting to find some physical and culturally-instilled signs of self-doubt in their interlocutor may unconsciously be strongly pushed to conclude that the person is telling the truth when not finding those signs, even if the reason that those aspects of communication are absent is because the person is incapable of producing them.
dreamcompiler 8y ago
I don't know about Holmes (other than having read Carreyrou's book) but I've been around pathological, charismatic narcissists enough to be as fascinated as you at their ability to lie to the face of very accomplished people and be completely believed. It's almost like executives need a training course in spotting and dealing with them.
- mhneu 8y ago
  The old quote “The hardest thing to fake is sincerity”.
  - hansthehorse 8y ago
    Or - the easiest person to fool is yourself.
- curuinor 8y ago
  But not the actual specialists. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/opinion/dont-blame-silicon-valley-for-theranos.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/opinion/dont-blame-silico...
- lsc 8y ago
  my outsiders view of management training is that they work so hard at cultivating confidence that they start thinking that confidence, not competence, is what they need to select for in roles outside of leadership. As far as I can tell, "leader types" are far more vulnerable to confident people than the rest of us because of this.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    I also think falling for this is implicit in the notion of the MBA. Previously, management was mainly company founders, founder families, and people who had come up through the ranks. That is, all people who spent years learning the specifics of the business. But the theory of the MBA is there's some universal set of "business skills" that makes actually understanding the business domain irrelevant. In practice, I think this means falling back on a limited sort of finance understanding and some generic notions of top-down business process. There's not much there, so they make up for it by leaning hard into their human instincts and skills. Unfortunately, that leads to many problems, including over-trusting people who present well and seem confident.
Kluny 8y ago
Psychopaths are parasites - one could make the argument that most of human culture, including our marriage traditions, religions, moral codes of conduct, sense of humor, and even fashion, are evolutionary attempts to thwart them.
- pmiller2 8y ago
  How would that argument go? Is it just that setting up social rules makes it easy to spot when people don’t follow them?
  - sjg007 8y ago
    Yes. And using a community to contain them or alert you.
  - Kluny 8y ago
    Yeah, exactly. Psychopaths don't empathize, so they don't understand why social conventions exist, so they sometimes get it wrong and something seems "off". When someone seems "off" you don't trust them.
    - Fnoord 8y ago
      People with autism also sometimes seem "off" though.
      - Kluny 8y ago
        Yeah, and that's a big part of why (high functioning)autism is such a serious disability in the first place. I'm really glad that society is starting to recognize and be aware of it so that autistic individuals can get a pass in this area.
    - cheeko1234 8y ago
      Unfortunately, what you described applies to people on the spectrum too. But I think the key is the difference between sociopaths and psychopaths. Sociopaths are usually really good at using their charisma to move up: >Psychopaths are dangerous. They’re violent and cruel, and oftentimes downright sinister. They show no remorse for their actions, usually because of a lesion on a part of their brain responsible for fear and judgment, known as the amygdala. Psychopaths commit crimes in cold blood. They crave control and impulsivity, possess a predatory instinct, and attack proactively rather than as a reaction to confrontation: A 2002 study found that 93.3 percent of the psychopathic homicides were instrumental in nature (meaning they were more or less planned), compared with 48.4 percent of the homicides by people who weren’t psychopaths. >Sociopaths are a different breed. They, too, may suffer from their mental illness as a result of lesioned brain regions. Upbringing may also play a larger role in a child becoming a sociopath versus those that are diagnosed as psychopaths, or the slide into dementia on the other end of the spectrum. Sociopathic behavior is manifested as conniving and deceitful, despite an outward appearance of trustworthiness or sincerity. Sociopaths are often pathological liars. They are manipulative and lack the ability to judge the morality of a situation, but not because they lack a moral compass; rather, their existing moral compass is greatly (yet not always dangerously) skewed. Pemment, for one, says this could point to both a social and neurological component. source:reddit
wpietri 8y ago
One of the patterns that interests me a lot is supernormal stimulus. An organism is evolved to deal with a stimulus in a certain range, and something comes along that is so far outside it that things break. The classic example is Niko Tinbergen, who created models of fish that were rounder and redder than the real fish, who would ignore other real fish and focus on the models. The human ability to refine things produces a lot of good examples. Like how refined sugar influences us so much that it ends up in most processed foods. Or how refining the coca leaf produces addicts. My theory with sociopaths is that giving no fucks what others think allows them to be unnaturally confident. Since we often evaluate others by how confident they are, we are easily taken in by people with supernormal confidence. That gives us the reality distortion field (as social primates, our main reality is social) and "drinking the kool-aid". Which is a metaphor Jobs used for how he wanted people to react to the Mac, but the metaphor is about a cult whose charismatic leaders led them to mass suicide. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown#Deaths_in_Jonestown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown#Deaths_in_Jonestown
- api 8y ago
  Wow. That is by far the most realistic and rational hypothesis for this phenomenon I've heard. It's simple, elegant, and seems testable. Thanks! I think this may also offer some explanation for the appeal of the utterly absurd, like flat Earth or galactic emperor Xenu. Its supernormally ridiculous, which invokes a sense of fascination. In any case if this is true I think this effect is being weaponized today to an unprecedented degree.
  - pharrington 8y ago
    High profile sociopaths are extreme outliers, as most sociopaths burn through their social connections well before becoming competent enough at social manipulation and finding enough people that are well-off enough to maintain a parasitic life. Also as a side note, within Scientology you don't actually learn about the Xenu shit until you're way too deep, financially and/or time commitment-wise, to pull out.
    - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
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deleted 8y ago
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eric-hu 8y ago
You make an interesting observation. I wonder if there are any doomsday stories of an AI that conquers humanity via psychopathic persuasion rather than conventional weapons.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- api 8y ago
  This is by far the most likely scenario.

by api 8y ago

maxxxxx 8y ago

I remember reading that a lot of CEOs and generally people in leadership positions have psychopathic traits. This probably is an asset if it's balanced by other traits.

dmfdmf 8y ago
I'd take those articles with a huge grain of salt. How could you distinguish a CEO with the courage to make an unpopular choice (e.g. layoff 1/3 of the workforce to save the company) -vs- a psychopath who does it to inflict suffering on others or to just establish dominance? How do you even measure psychopathic traits without defining exactly what "psychopathy" means and a rational ethic by which to judge the non-psychopaths (i.e. the "control group" or standard of normal)? Moreover, motive is not irrelevant to the question and not only is it not measurable by researchers, most people don't even know their own subconscious motives. I'd bet if you dug into the research what you'd find is the research really shows that psychologists who study such things do not have the character/psychology of those who become CEOs, not that they are psychopaths.
- sjg007 8y ago
  Huh? You just give the ceos a psychopath exam.
  - dmfdmf 8y ago
    No. I reject the methodology of the psychologists who do these types of studies.
    - sjg007 8y ago
      Why?
      - dmfdmf 8y ago
        Because you can't define pathology (deviation from a norm) without defining the norm. Modern psychologists dodge this question and implicitly assume various generally accepted moral standards and tenents (a form of circular reasoning) by which they condemn those who don't follow it. It is not science and to make it a science the psychologists should be seeking a rational basis to define ethics. Nobody has done this and until they do psychology will remain a pre-science like alchemy.
        cornholio 8y ago
        In addition, it would also be supremely discriminating if the "Psychopath exam" would, for example, consistently score Asians lower. That is, a psychological or culturally acquired trait should not be used against an individual without a proof that it actually affects his behavior. You are in essence denying that the person has any agency and it's utterly incapable of learning and acting on society's moral code, which I bet is false for the vast majority of people with sociopathic tendencies.

elgenie 8y ago

A lot of communication is non-verbal. A person evaluating a statement in context and expecting to find some physical and culturally-instilled signs of self-doubt in their interlocutor may unconsciously be strongly pushed to conclude that the person is telling the truth when not finding those signs, even if the reason that those aspects of communication are absent is because the person is incapable of producing them.

dreamcompiler 8y ago

I don't know about Holmes (other than having read Carreyrou's book) but I've been around pathological, charismatic narcissists enough to be as fascinated as you at their ability to lie to the face of very accomplished people and be completely believed. It's almost like executives need a training course in spotting and dealing with them.

mhneu 8y ago
The old quote “The hardest thing to fake is sincerity”.
- hansthehorse 8y ago
  Or - the easiest person to fool is yourself.
curuinor 8y ago
But not the actual specialists. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/opinion/dont-blame-silicon-valley-for-theranos.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/opinion/dont-blame-silico...
lsc 8y ago
my outsiders view of management training is that they work so hard at cultivating confidence that they start thinking that confidence, not competence, is what they need to select for in roles outside of leadership. As far as I can tell, "leader types" are far more vulnerable to confident people than the rest of us because of this.
- wpietri 8y ago
  I also think falling for this is implicit in the notion of the MBA. Previously, management was mainly company founders, founder families, and people who had come up through the ranks. That is, all people who spent years learning the specifics of the business. But the theory of the MBA is there's some universal set of "business skills" that makes actually understanding the business domain irrelevant. In practice, I think this means falling back on a limited sort of finance understanding and some generic notions of top-down business process. There's not much there, so they make up for it by leaning hard into their human instincts and skills. Unfortunately, that leads to many problems, including over-trusting people who present well and seem confident.

Kluny 8y ago

Psychopaths are parasites - one could make the argument that most of human culture, including our marriage traditions, religions, moral codes of conduct, sense of humor, and even fashion, are evolutionary attempts to thwart them.

pmiller2 8y ago
How would that argument go? Is it just that setting up social rules makes it easy to spot when people don’t follow them?
- sjg007 8y ago
  Yes. And using a community to contain them or alert you.
- Kluny 8y ago
  Yeah, exactly. Psychopaths don't empathize, so they don't understand why social conventions exist, so they sometimes get it wrong and something seems "off". When someone seems "off" you don't trust them.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    People with autism also sometimes seem "off" though.
    - Kluny 8y ago
      Yeah, and that's a big part of why (high functioning)autism is such a serious disability in the first place. I'm really glad that society is starting to recognize and be aware of it so that autistic individuals can get a pass in this area.
  - cheeko1234 8y ago
    Unfortunately, what you described applies to people on the spectrum too. But I think the key is the difference between sociopaths and psychopaths. Sociopaths are usually really good at using their charisma to move up: >Psychopaths are dangerous. They’re violent and cruel, and oftentimes downright sinister. They show no remorse for their actions, usually because of a lesion on a part of their brain responsible for fear and judgment, known as the amygdala. Psychopaths commit crimes in cold blood. They crave control and impulsivity, possess a predatory instinct, and attack proactively rather than as a reaction to confrontation: A 2002 study found that 93.3 percent of the psychopathic homicides were instrumental in nature (meaning they were more or less planned), compared with 48.4 percent of the homicides by people who weren’t psychopaths. >Sociopaths are a different breed. They, too, may suffer from their mental illness as a result of lesioned brain regions. Upbringing may also play a larger role in a child becoming a sociopath versus those that are diagnosed as psychopaths, or the slide into dementia on the other end of the spectrum. Sociopathic behavior is manifested as conniving and deceitful, despite an outward appearance of trustworthiness or sincerity. Sociopaths are often pathological liars. They are manipulative and lack the ability to judge the morality of a situation, but not because they lack a moral compass; rather, their existing moral compass is greatly (yet not always dangerously) skewed. Pemment, for one, says this could point to both a social and neurological component. source:reddit

wpietri 8y ago

One of the patterns that interests me a lot is supernormal stimulus. An organism is evolved to deal with a stimulus in a certain range, and something comes along that is so far outside it that things break. The classic example is Niko Tinbergen, who created models of fish that were rounder and redder than the real fish, who would ignore other real fish and focus on the models. The human ability to refine things produces a lot of good examples. Like how refined sugar influences us so much that it ends up in most processed foods. Or how refining the coca leaf produces addicts. My theory with sociopaths is that giving no fucks what others think allows them to be unnaturally confident. Since we often evaluate others by how confident they are, we are easily taken in by people with supernormal confidence. That gives us the reality distortion field (as social primates, our main reality is social) and "drinking the kool-aid". Which is a metaphor Jobs used for how he wanted people to react to the Mac, but the metaphor is about a cult whose charismatic leaders led them to mass suicide. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown#Deaths_in_Jonestown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown#Deaths_in_Jonestown

api 8y ago
Wow. That is by far the most realistic and rational hypothesis for this phenomenon I've heard. It's simple, elegant, and seems testable. Thanks! I think this may also offer some explanation for the appeal of the utterly absurd, like flat Earth or galactic emperor Xenu. Its supernormally ridiculous, which invokes a sense of fascination. In any case if this is true I think this effect is being weaponized today to an unprecedented degree.
- pharrington 8y ago
  High profile sociopaths are extreme outliers, as most sociopaths burn through their social connections well before becoming competent enough at social manipulation and finding enough people that are well-off enough to maintain a parasitic life. Also as a side note, within Scientology you don't actually learn about the Xenu shit until you're way too deep, financially and/or time commitment-wise, to pull out.
  - 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

eric-hu 8y ago

You make an interesting observation. I wonder if there are any doomsday stories of an AI that conquers humanity via psychopathic persuasion rather than conventional weapons.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
api 8y ago
This is by far the most likely scenario.