4 ms·

> a power-hungry person can have the pleasure of telling 1000 other people what to say, and financially obliterate those who don't comply > Some people are mor

> a power-hungry person can have the pleasure of telling 1000 other people what to say, and financially obliterate those who don't comply > Some people are more power-hungry than others True. Also, some people are more violent than others, but we try to keep those away from the rest of the population and gradually titrate them out of the gene pool. I would love to live in a society that treated insatiable thirst for power the same way.

kleer001 6y ago
> gradually titrate them out of the gene pool. Where do you see that happening?
- KirillPanov 6y ago
  It's pretty damn hard to reproduce when you're in prison.
  - kleer001 6y ago
    Conjugal visits. Reproduce before going to prison. Reproduce after prison. Reproduce while on parole. I have a cousin in Los Angeles with three kids (last I heard about a decade ago) and he's in and out of prison all the time. I'm just having my first. Idiocracy wasn't too off the mark. One particular strength of male humans is their long reproductive years. There are many cases of 80 and 90 year old men reproducing. ttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/bjs/vospats.pdf > Based on admissions data for 1992 to 1994, violent State prisoners had an average sentence of about 10 years and were expected to serve slightly less than 5 years on average. That's nearly zero impact on a man's reproductive life.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
john_moscow 6y ago
In reality, if you try doing that, the movement will get spearheaded by a small group of cronies that will use it as an excuse to get rid of competition. I bet you can't be very power-hungry in North Korea unless you are a part of the ruling family.
- KirillPanov 6y ago
  Perhaps. Before civilization, it used to be that the most violent person in the group could simply take whatever they wanted. At some point we managed to "civilize violence" by creating a special caste -- police officers -- whose career is the use of violence in a controlled way, to prevent the violent from having whatever they want. Although the police abuse this "violence license" they haven't managed to subvert it into supreme dictatorial power. The fact that almost everybody knows what the phrase "police state" means, and that it's a bad thing, is probably part of this. I imagine there is some similar recursive trick with power-thirst, getting the political schemers to spend their lives chasing each other instead of the rest of us, the way the DEA spend their lives chasing drug lords but never make any real progress. Note that the drug lords are generally pretty happy that the DEA exist, or else their trade would not be nearly so lucrative. And the DEA are happy that the drug lords exist, or else they'd be out of a job. It might take us a few more millenia to acquire the vocabulary needed to describe the recursive trick, let alone discover it.
  - PontifexMinimus 6y ago
    > Before civilization, it used to be that the most violent person in the group could simply take whatever they wanted. My understanding is that in hunter-gatherer societies, that is not the case and they were (and are) quite egalitarian. E.g. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/freedom-learn/201105...): >The writings of anthropologists make it clear that hunter-gatherers were not passively egalitarian; they were actively so. Indeed, in the words of anthropologist Richard Lee, they were fiercely egalitarian.[2] They would not tolerate anyone's boasting, or putting on airs, or trying to lord it over others. Their first line of defense was ridicule. If anyone—especially some young man—attempted to act better than others or failed to show proper humility in daily life, the rest of the group, especially the elders, would make fun of that person until proper humility was shown. >One regular practice of the group that Lee studied was that of "insulting the meat." Whenever a hunter brought back a fat antelope or other prized game item to be shared with the band, the hunter had to express proper humility by talking about how skinny and worthless it was. If he failed to do that (which happened rarely), others would do it for him and make fun of him in the process. When Lee asked one of the elders of the group about this practice, the response he received was the following: "When a young man kills much meat, he comes to think of himself as a big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as his inferiors. We can't accept this. We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. In this way, we cool his heart and make him gentle."
A12-B 6y ago
> gradually titrate them out of the gene pool Are you advocating for eugenics?

kleer001 6y ago

> gradually titrate them out of the gene pool. Where do you see that happening?

KirillPanov 6y ago
It's pretty damn hard to reproduce when you're in prison.
- kleer001 6y ago
  Conjugal visits. Reproduce before going to prison. Reproduce after prison. Reproduce while on parole. I have a cousin in Los Angeles with three kids (last I heard about a decade ago) and he's in and out of prison all the time. I'm just having my first. Idiocracy wasn't too off the mark. One particular strength of male humans is their long reproductive years. There are many cases of 80 and 90 year old men reproducing. ttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/bjs/vospats.pdf > Based on admissions data for 1992 to 1994, violent State prisoners had an average sentence of about 10 years and were expected to serve slightly less than 5 years on average. That's nearly zero impact on a man's reproductive life.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

john_moscow 6y ago

In reality, if you try doing that, the movement will get spearheaded by a small group of cronies that will use it as an excuse to get rid of competition. I bet you can't be very power-hungry in North Korea unless you are a part of the ruling family.

KirillPanov 6y ago
Perhaps. Before civilization, it used to be that the most violent person in the group could simply take whatever they wanted. At some point we managed to "civilize violence" by creating a special caste -- police officers -- whose career is the use of violence in a controlled way, to prevent the violent from having whatever they want. Although the police abuse this "violence license" they haven't managed to subvert it into supreme dictatorial power. The fact that almost everybody knows what the phrase "police state" means, and that it's a bad thing, is probably part of this. I imagine there is some similar recursive trick with power-thirst, getting the political schemers to spend their lives chasing each other instead of the rest of us, the way the DEA spend their lives chasing drug lords but never make any real progress. Note that the drug lords are generally pretty happy that the DEA exist, or else their trade would not be nearly so lucrative. And the DEA are happy that the drug lords exist, or else they'd be out of a job. It might take us a few more millenia to acquire the vocabulary needed to describe the recursive trick, let alone discover it.
- PontifexMinimus 6y ago
  > Before civilization, it used to be that the most violent person in the group could simply take whatever they wanted. My understanding is that in hunter-gatherer societies, that is not the case and they were (and are) quite egalitarian. E.g. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/freedom-learn/201105...): >The writings of anthropologists make it clear that hunter-gatherers were not passively egalitarian; they were actively so. Indeed, in the words of anthropologist Richard Lee, they were fiercely egalitarian.[2] They would not tolerate anyone's boasting, or putting on airs, or trying to lord it over others. Their first line of defense was ridicule. If anyone—especially some young man—attempted to act better than others or failed to show proper humility in daily life, the rest of the group, especially the elders, would make fun of that person until proper humility was shown. >One regular practice of the group that Lee studied was that of "insulting the meat." Whenever a hunter brought back a fat antelope or other prized game item to be shared with the band, the hunter had to express proper humility by talking about how skinny and worthless it was. If he failed to do that (which happened rarely), others would do it for him and make fun of him in the process. When Lee asked one of the elders of the group about this practice, the response he received was the following: "When a young man kills much meat, he comes to think of himself as a big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as his inferiors. We can't accept this. We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. In this way, we cool his heart and make him gentle."

A12-B 6y ago

> gradually titrate them out of the gene pool Are you advocating for eugenics?