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It's not either/or. You generally need to learn from both. The problem is social stratification. If you're a normal person, you end up mostly around people who

It's not either/or. You generally need to learn from both. The problem is social stratification. If you're a normal person, you end up mostly around people who didn't succeed and get only half the story. If you have a break-out success (or just luck) you end up in a world where everyone has, and there's a lot of self-congratulatory just-worlding. Either way, you get a biased account. I think it's most adaptive to learn from both sides while playing the attitude of the successful, to make yourself seem like a high-status person. You always want to seem (except to true friends whom you'd actually like to help, with accurate information) like you've had an unbroken chain of successes and can't imagine anything else; you just don't want that to bleed into self-deception. Maybe the reason why psychopaths do so well in life is that they're most resistant against cognitive dissonance. It's easy for them to maintain a successful front without falling into self-deception or delusion. For everyone else, there's nonzero cognitive load in doing that.

vixus 14y ago
> psychopaths do so well in life Do they?
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  On their own terms, yes. The serial killers are the lower classes of psychopaths, usually with other mental issues. They don't all become CEOs but they generally rise to the highest level permissible by their intelligence. An 80-IQ psychopath isn't going to rise to the top of a bank, but he will end up in a position of power over other people. Of course, they blow themselves up every few years or so, but they usually move away unharmed.
- mindcrime 14y ago
  I don't know if there's been a lot of rigorous academic research on the topic or not, but there have been a handful of articles in the pop business press, talking about the connection between being "CEO material" and displaying the traits of a psychopath. For example: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-som...
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    Psychopaths are genetically built to be extreme r-strategists (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-strategist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-strategist ). What seem like stupid social behaviors are actually practice so that, when they are in a high-stakes social situation, they can win it. Most people find the psychopaths around them to be petty and stupid and think, "How could that guy ever succeed?" Well, the psychopath has decided that you're not of primary importance to the game he is trying to play, so he's using you for practice. By the time they're adults, psychopaths have a wealth of social experience and knowledge, often gained from high-pressure social situations they created at a rate exceeding what most people would ever encounter. When they want something, they're very good at playing to win. The prehistoric context was that developing an outsized social ability enabled someone to have an above-normal number of sexual encounters. The lack of emotional attachment and compassion, likewise, keeps them from pair-bonding and slows down their proliferation. In the work context, organizations are also r- or K-selective (quantity vs. quality) in how they replicate process. Get-big-or-die companies are r-strategists, while "lifestyle businesses" tend to be K-strategic. As the business world becomes increasingly r-strategic, so does the character of people running it.
Spooky23 14y ago
So in your universe, you're a superstar, psychopath, or failure? The meaning of "success" is subjective. Don't self-deceive yourself into adopting somebody else's definition of "success". Peter Theil has a vested interest in you adopting success criteria that will ultimately enrich him. (That isn't a criticism) I had a friend who was a priest. He owned almost nothing, and probably had less than $5,000 to his name. His vision of success was helping people who were indigent, incorrigible or otherwise considered broken by society. Was he a failure?

vixus 14y ago

> psychopaths do so well in life Do they?

michaelochurch 14y ago
On their own terms, yes. The serial killers are the lower classes of psychopaths, usually with other mental issues. They don't all become CEOs but they generally rise to the highest level permissible by their intelligence. An 80-IQ psychopath isn't going to rise to the top of a bank, but he will end up in a position of power over other people. Of course, they blow themselves up every few years or so, but they usually move away unharmed.
mindcrime 14y ago
I don't know if there's been a lot of rigorous academic research on the topic or not, but there have been a handful of articles in the pop business press, talking about the connection between being "CEO material" and displaying the traits of a psychopath. For example: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-som...
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Psychopaths are genetically built to be extreme r-strategists (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-strategist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-strategist ). What seem like stupid social behaviors are actually practice so that, when they are in a high-stakes social situation, they can win it. Most people find the psychopaths around them to be petty and stupid and think, "How could that guy ever succeed?" Well, the psychopath has decided that you're not of primary importance to the game he is trying to play, so he's using you for practice. By the time they're adults, psychopaths have a wealth of social experience and knowledge, often gained from high-pressure social situations they created at a rate exceeding what most people would ever encounter. When they want something, they're very good at playing to win. The prehistoric context was that developing an outsized social ability enabled someone to have an above-normal number of sexual encounters. The lack of emotional attachment and compassion, likewise, keeps them from pair-bonding and slows down their proliferation. In the work context, organizations are also r- or K-selective (quantity vs. quality) in how they replicate process. Get-big-or-die companies are r-strategists, while "lifestyle businesses" tend to be K-strategic. As the business world becomes increasingly r-strategic, so does the character of people running it.

Spooky23 14y ago

So in your universe, you're a superstar, psychopath, or failure? The meaning of "success" is subjective. Don't self-deceive yourself into adopting somebody else's definition of "success". Peter Theil has a vested interest in you adopting success criteria that will ultimately enrich him. (That isn't a criticism) I had a friend who was a priest. He owned almost nothing, and probably had less than $5,000 to his name. His vision of success was helping people who were indigent, incorrigible or otherwise considered broken by society. Was he a failure?