Not another list of links! Don’t worry, if you’d rather read an essay, I recently wrote a guest post for one of my favorite substacks, Optimally Irrational. The post is about the evolutionary psychology of self-deception—or, as I call it, self-bullshitting. Check it out
Violent extremists and morality - a vignette. Some years ago I met a researcher who had conducted for some study or other in depth interviews with terrorists in Northern Ireland who'd received life sentences for murder. She talked to 25 Loyalists and 25 Republicans. These weren't planners or facilitators, these were men who had pulled the trigger. She took these in depth transcripts to a personality psychologist to see if anything unusual stood out about them. This all in pursuit I suppose of the 'is there a a terrorist personality' sort of avenue of enquiry. The psychologist concluded that no, based on these interviews all 50 of these men are all totally psychologically normal, EXCEPT for in one dimension - the heavy majority of them were waaaaay above average in...altruism.
I read your post and then immediately came across the following quote in the next email. I couldn’t help but think that your theories explain this contradiction rather well.
“The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.
-John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (27 Feb 1902-1968)
Violent extremists and morality - a vignette. Some years ago I met a researcher who had conducted for some study or other in depth interviews with terrorists in Northern Ireland who'd received life sentences for murder. She talked to 25 Loyalists and 25 Republicans. These weren't planners or facilitators, these were men who had pulled the trigger. She took these in depth transcripts to a personality psychologist to see if anything unusual stood out about them. This all in pursuit I suppose of the 'is there a a terrorist personality' sort of avenue of enquiry. The psychologist concluded that no, based on these interviews all 50 of these men are all totally psychologically normal, EXCEPT for in one dimension - the heavy majority of them were waaaaay above average in...altruism.
I read your post and then immediately came across the following quote in the next email. I couldn’t help but think that your theories explain this contradiction rather well.
“The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.
-John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (27 Feb 1902-1968)
I quite like your lists of bullshit links.
Thanks David! I always learn something new from your posts.
This list of bullshit links is bullshit, and I quite like it.
Would you be open to cross-posting your most sober take around the pinnacle of bullshit jobs, ie management consulting?
You are cool and your lists are cool
Refreshing, list or not. As an aside, I find myself muttering, "everything is bullshit" several times a day now.