Psychopathy by Design | Jamie Wheal

So I watched Mark Zuckerberg at Congress, and you know he's a kind of a convenient whipping boy, let's say, for the conservatives. And you know, no doubt he's made his errors, and some of those he's publicly admitted. Although I have some sympathy for him because my suspicions are that the typical person, including the typical corporate magnate, when they're approached by high-order governmental agencies and asked to comply because of reasons of national security, especially 5 years ago, would have listened. You might think you're the one person who would have withstood that pressure, but it's like, I don't think so.

Asking Mark to do that, I think that's too much to ask for someone, especially under those circumstances. Because he didn't understand the full extent of his social media enterprise or how to regulate it, and he certainly didn't understand that he was being asked to do corrupt things by a government that was hellbent on a certain form of censorship. Having said all that, it's not like we know how to deal with this. We have these new communication technologies: Facebook and Instagram, TikTok and X. The narcissistic psychopaths have free reign, and that's aided by their anonymity and by the algorithmic expansion of their troublemaking.

But it's not like anyone knows what to do about that, right? Because when you tilt towards control, well then you have the problem of the suppression of free speech, which is a real problem. Like, that's not trivial. And if you just let there be a free-for-all, well then the bad actors have a disproportionate effect, and we don't know what to do about that. Like one of the things I've thought through, for what it's worth, is that I think it's a big mistake to put the anonymous people with the real people.

You mean like trolls or just faceless accounts? Like, be faceless. I think that social media networks should separate the faceless accounts from the verified identities. Well, it blows out millions of years of primate reciprocity and tribal. Yes, and that actually turns out to be quite a problem. Right? If I can't hold you accountable in any manner for what you do, all that does is—well, what it does is say it to my face, right?

While people are much more civilized face-to-face for exactly those reasons, all those mechanisms kick in. I mean, we know perfectly well this is actually valid social psychological research: if you anonymize ordinary people, the worst sides of their character come forward. A lot of what regulates us is the implicit requirements signified even by facial expression in face-to-face contact – that's indicative of the desire for reciprocity.

There have been studies on that, with dating apps. Right? That people are ghosting and doing all sorts of atrocious behaviors to each other on Tinder because it's a random dating pool of data points. In the past, I went on a date with you because you were my best friend's sister, or I met at church, or there was something in our neighborhood or region, and relational networks. I didn’t want to pee in that pool.

Yes, precisely. Well, versus just swipe for another one. It's also the case, see, we also overestimate the degree to which moral control is internalized. You know, we like to think that—she back to N—we like to think that if we're good people, it's because we control ourselves. It's like, that's not right really; it's more subtle than that.

There's some of that that's correct in that people do have a conscience and sometimes abide by it. But the reason that the typical good person is good is because they're socialized enough to be socially acceptable or even desirable. What that means is that a ring of people surround them constantly, and that means they can outsource the problem of the regulation of their behavior to the crowd.

So, for example, while you and I are talking, super ego, it's like an exterior instead of the super ego. Because while I'm talking to you, for example, I'm watching your eyes, I'm watching your face. You're signaling to me constantly whether you're still engaged in the conversation, whether you're thinking of something else, if we're turn-taking properly.

If I'm attentive and you're there, then I can use those moment-to-moment operations or observations to regulate my behavior. That's not internal; it's a dynamic that's playing out between us. Much of the manner with mirror neurons and micro muscles of the face, and affect and posture, all of that, right, it's deeply mirrored.

And so the upshot of that is that I don't have to undertake a tremendous amount of the complex problem of regulating my own behavior as long as people can stand having me around because they'll do that for me. All I have to do is pay attention. We do outsource a lot of moral regulation to the community, and that's fine. But what it does imply is that...

So, you're suggesting that sort of Vygotsky scaffold our good behavior is each other. And, well, it's also partly the demand, of course. It's partly the demand for the continuation, let's say, of the infinite game. You know, I mean if I have a friend and I'm a kid and I'm playing one-on-one basketball with him, you could say that each basketball bout is a finite game in that I could win it or lose it.

But the friendship, at least in part, could be a sequence of those games. The rule for a sequence is something more like, "well, try being a good sport and fun to play with," which is a—well, that's way different than win. Right? It includes winning, because if we're going to play, I would like you to try to win because part of being a good sport is playing full out.

Exactly. Exactly! In a fair game. In a fair game. And the fair part of it is a nod to that higher order morality that's part of, say, an infinite game rather than a finite game. But all of that's embedded and embodied in all of our social communicative practices all the time. The psychopathic types and the narcissistic types, they just use that to manipulate, right? They're not using it to play a finite game and or to play an infinite game.

And this is interesting too; they use which bit? Well, they—whatever information they derive from the social interaction, they just put to their own self-serving purposes, right? They're just using it to facilitate manipulation. And you might ask, "this is a perfectly good question: well, why not do that?" This is why people like Andrew Tate are attractive, let's say to the incel crowd. It's like, if I can manipulate you and I can get what I want, then why the hell shouldn't I do it? That's just Will to Power 101.

Yeah, precisely. Why shouldn't I take advantage of that? Why shouldn't I lie and cheat and steal if that means I get my way? Well, part of the answer to that is, well, that might work momentarily, but you're also playing an infinite game with yourself. We know perfectly well that the typical outcome of the psychopathic pattern of interaction is negative for the psychopath himself.

They're incapable of learning from experience, for example, so they repeat their errors; they don't modify their own behavior. If you're a psychopath and a narcissist and Machiavellian, you can optimize certain forms of short-term return, but it's a really bad medium to long-term game. So even if you don't include other people in the purview of your moral sentiment, if you're a psychopath, you dispense with your future self. That's why so many of them end up in prison.

Well, okay. So, you probably know these stats, stone cold, but right? Large numbers of psychopaths end up in prison. Then also what? One in three Fortune 500 CEOs are psychopaths. I doubt that, but...

Doubt it? Yeah, no, I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I think that's overblown, and I think there's a lot of implicit leftist anti-capitalist idiocy in those studies. That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of Machiavellian people, some of whom occupy positions of power. But the problem is, it's not a—To become successful in any enterprise that iterates, you can't screw people over.

Not very well because they remember, and people have evolved modules for remembering cheaters. Like, we're very good at remembering cheaters. Most people who are engaged in complex reciprocal social interactions can't be psychopathic because they get caught.

So can I ask you a question on the capitalist thing that you just mentioned?

Yeah, because I've heard you say a couple of things in, I don't know, however long, the last couple of years. One was, I think it might have been in your conversation with Elon, talking about any sort of Neo-Malthusian "we've got too many people" question, right?

And that being sort of what you were describing as sociopathic, and then something along the lines of capitalism and individual achievement attainment, right? Being a noble and virtuous good, right? And therefore, you know, high-net-worth CEOs, billionaires, etc., should be valorized, you know, not kneecapped.

Right? Which in my reading of you, I took to be sort of against the tallest poppy gets whacked socialism. Right? You're saying, "Hey, you have to preserve space and valorize humanity; we can't hate ourselves." Right? That on the population question.

And if there is somebody who is ingenious, creative, you know, bringing value to society, they shouldn't be kneecapped or, you know, regressive tax put them in positions where you can exploit them. No, I'm serious. This is the reason for meritocracy in places like Harvard.

You know, because the reverse view is, well, "Everybody deserves a chance," let's say. Look, it's not like there's nothing to be said about that, but it isn't that we're awarding positions at Harvard because we're benefiting the people who get the positions. That happens; that's not the reason.

The reason we pick the smartest and most competent possible people we can to educate deeply is so that everybody else can benefit from their ability. That's the reason. The reason for meritocracy isn't to reward the meritocratic; that's necessary because otherwise they'll stop being productive.

But you know, there's a Pareto distribution in terms of productivity, and the Pareto distribution is a vicious game: the square root of the number of people in an endeavor do half the work. So if you have 10,000 employees doing one thing, a hundred of them do half the work. It's like you want to reward those hundred because the whole 10,000 and then beyond depend on them.