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2018 article and paper [1] suggesting that the Dark Triad [2] of personality traits, comprised of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, can be generali

2018 article and paper [1] suggesting that the Dark Triad [2] of personality traits, comprised of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, can be generalized into a D-factor similar to the g-factor in intelligence. From my perspective, the Dark Triad seems to be an obsession with zero-sum interactions or possibly discounting positive-sum interactions (narcissism and Machiavellianism?) while simultaneously miscalculating/misunderstanding the cost of being socially ostracized in response (psychopathy?). [1] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Morten_Moshagen/publication/326364629_The_Dark_Core_of_Personality/links/5b4b322e0f7e9b4637da7d66/The-Dark-Core-of-Personality.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Morten_Moshagen/publica... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad

specialist 6y ago
Great links, thanks. re zero-sum vs positive-sum (nonzero) What is Larry Ellison's game playing style called? Where it's not enough to win, but that others must also be crushed. "negative-sum" somehow doesn't capture the obsessive, malignant part of Ellison's strategy. I dimly recall von Clausewitz advocated something like total war and unconditional surrender. But my quick scan of his wiki entry doesn't help jar any further details. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz Edit: Sorry for the updates. I'm struggling with how to phrase my question.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  My recollection is that von Clausewitz didn't advocate total war and unconditional surrender, but used them in examples, as physicists use frictionless planes and spherical cows. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1946/1946-h/1946-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1946/1946-h/1946-h.htm BOOK VIII. PLAN OF WAR CHAPTER I. Introduction CHAPTER II. Absolute and Real War CHAPTER III. A. Interdependence of the Parts in a War CHAPTER III. B. On the Magnitude of the Object of the War and the Efforts to be Made CHAPTER IV. Ends in War More Precisely Defined—Overthrow of the Enemy CHAPTER V. Ends in War More Precisely Defined (continued)—Limited Object CHAPTER VI. A. Influence of the Political Object on the Military Object CHAPTER VI. B. War as an Instrument of Policy CHAPTER VII. Limited Object—Offensive War CHAPTER VIII. Limited Object—Defence CHAPTER IX. Plan of War When the Destruction of the Enemy is the Object > "As in war the want of sufficient exertion may result not only in failure but in positive harm, therefore, the two sides respectively seek to outstrip each other, which produces a reciprocal action. > This might lead to the utmost extremity of exertion, if it was possible to define such a point. But then regard for the amount of the political demands would be lost, the means would lose all relation to the end, and in most cases this aim at an extreme effort would be wrecked by the opposing weight of forces within itself. > In this manner, he who undertakes war is brought back again into a middle course, in which he acts to a certain extent upon the principle of only applying so much force and aiming at such an object in war as are just sufficient for the attainment of its political object. To make this principle practicable he must renounce every absolute necessity of a result, and throw out of the calculation remote contingencies." > "The aim of war in conception must always be the overthrow of the enemy; this is the fundamental idea from which we set out. Now, what is this overthrow? It does not always imply as necessary the complete conquest of the enemy’s country." > "In the preceding chapter we have said that, under the expression “overthrow of the enemy,” we understand the real absolute aim of the “act of war;” now we shall see what remains to be done when the conditions under which this object might be attained do not exist. > These conditions presuppose a great physical or moral superiority, or a great spirit of enterprise, an innate propensity to extreme hazards. Now where all this is not forthcoming, the aim in the act of war can only be of two kinds; either the conquest of some small or moderate portion of the enemy’s country, or the defence of our own until better times" He even mentions deconfliction: > "If this influence of the political object is once permitted, as it then must be, there is no longer any limit, and we must be pleased to come down to such warfare as consists in a mere threatening of the enemy and in negotiating." > "This kind of idea would be indispensable even if war was perfect war, the perfectly unbridled element of hostility, for all the circumstances on which it rests, and which determine its leading features, viz., our own power, the enemy’s power, allies on both sides, the characteristics of the people and their Governments respectively, etc., as enumerated in the first chapter of the first book, are they not of a political nature, and are they not so intimately connected with the whole political intercourse that it is impossible to separate them? But this view is doubly indispensable if we reflect that real war is no such consistent effort tending to an extreme, as it should be according to the abstract idea, but a half and half thing, a contradiction in itself; that, as such, it cannot follow its own laws, but must be looked upon as a part of another whole, and this whole is policy."
- sradman 6y ago
  Winning a negative-sum game is a pyrrhic victory [1]. Charitably I'd call Larry Ellison very competitive but the uncharitable description is cut-throat (i.e. Machiavellian). Enterprise software sales is a naturally zero-sum game and Ellison is a salesman as much as he is a technical/business strategist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory

specialist 6y ago

Great links, thanks. re zero-sum vs positive-sum (nonzero) What is Larry Ellison's game playing style called? Where it's not enough to win, but that others must also be crushed. "negative-sum" somehow doesn't capture the obsessive, malignant part of Ellison's strategy. I dimly recall von Clausewitz advocated something like total war and unconditional surrender. But my quick scan of his wiki entry doesn't help jar any further details. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz Edit: Sorry for the updates. I'm struggling with how to phrase my question.

082349872349872 6y ago
My recollection is that von Clausewitz didn't advocate total war and unconditional surrender, but used them in examples, as physicists use frictionless planes and spherical cows. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1946/1946-h/1946-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1946/1946-h/1946-h.htm BOOK VIII. PLAN OF WAR CHAPTER I. Introduction CHAPTER II. Absolute and Real War CHAPTER III. A. Interdependence of the Parts in a War CHAPTER III. B. On the Magnitude of the Object of the War and the Efforts to be Made CHAPTER IV. Ends in War More Precisely Defined—Overthrow of the Enemy CHAPTER V. Ends in War More Precisely Defined (continued)—Limited Object CHAPTER VI. A. Influence of the Political Object on the Military Object CHAPTER VI. B. War as an Instrument of Policy CHAPTER VII. Limited Object—Offensive War CHAPTER VIII. Limited Object—Defence CHAPTER IX. Plan of War When the Destruction of the Enemy is the Object > "As in war the want of sufficient exertion may result not only in failure but in positive harm, therefore, the two sides respectively seek to outstrip each other, which produces a reciprocal action. > This might lead to the utmost extremity of exertion, if it was possible to define such a point. But then regard for the amount of the political demands would be lost, the means would lose all relation to the end, and in most cases this aim at an extreme effort would be wrecked by the opposing weight of forces within itself. > In this manner, he who undertakes war is brought back again into a middle course, in which he acts to a certain extent upon the principle of only applying so much force and aiming at such an object in war as are just sufficient for the attainment of its political object. To make this principle practicable he must renounce every absolute necessity of a result, and throw out of the calculation remote contingencies." > "The aim of war in conception must always be the overthrow of the enemy; this is the fundamental idea from which we set out. Now, what is this overthrow? It does not always imply as necessary the complete conquest of the enemy’s country." > "In the preceding chapter we have said that, under the expression “overthrow of the enemy,” we understand the real absolute aim of the “act of war;” now we shall see what remains to be done when the conditions under which this object might be attained do not exist. > These conditions presuppose a great physical or moral superiority, or a great spirit of enterprise, an innate propensity to extreme hazards. Now where all this is not forthcoming, the aim in the act of war can only be of two kinds; either the conquest of some small or moderate portion of the enemy’s country, or the defence of our own until better times" He even mentions deconfliction: > "If this influence of the political object is once permitted, as it then must be, there is no longer any limit, and we must be pleased to come down to such warfare as consists in a mere threatening of the enemy and in negotiating." > "This kind of idea would be indispensable even if war was perfect war, the perfectly unbridled element of hostility, for all the circumstances on which it rests, and which determine its leading features, viz., our own power, the enemy’s power, allies on both sides, the characteristics of the people and their Governments respectively, etc., as enumerated in the first chapter of the first book, are they not of a political nature, and are they not so intimately connected with the whole political intercourse that it is impossible to separate them? But this view is doubly indispensable if we reflect that real war is no such consistent effort tending to an extreme, as it should be according to the abstract idea, but a half and half thing, a contradiction in itself; that, as such, it cannot follow its own laws, but must be looked upon as a part of another whole, and this whole is policy."
sradman 6y ago
Winning a negative-sum game is a pyrrhic victory [1]. Charitably I'd call Larry Ellison very competitive but the uncharitable description is cut-throat (i.e. Machiavellian). Enterprise software sales is a naturally zero-sum game and Ellison is a salesman as much as he is a technical/business strategist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory