7 months ago
Maybe not the right time to remind us how truly great those singular men are who rule our lives the Norse gods of yore. The author frankly sounds like he's pounding water with a sledgehammer when he's pointing out that—after all, just to drive this home!—Gates is "also a giant when it comes to giving away wealth".—https://archive.ph/6qCDJ
7 months ago
It's curious. Disdain of genius is a problem on the left, but disdain for expertise more generally is more of a problem on the right (e.g., the anti-vaxxer mentality).
7 months ago
And even the supposed "center"
>Daub brings a Tocqueville-like perspective to what passes for philosophy in the Valley. For people who’ve spent time at start-ups there’s almost a high that comes from seeing its thinking so adroitly defamiliarized.
7 months ago
I think it’s a pretty bad article. The elephant in the room is Elon Musk who seems to be smart about some things and stupid about other things. I am all for genius but lately I’ve seen more and more of a cult of “high D”
which is not at all a good thing. If Mamdani is a threat to billionaires it is that he’s a low D politician with high D competitors.
7 months ago
> Mamdani is a threat to billionaires it is that he’s a low D politician with high D competitors.
Please expand on this.
7 months ago
There are two really good links to videos that I post in this discussion
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44467685
which is supported by my commentary. In one you see Mamdani speaking for himself (if he keeps his cool like that while his enemies go apeshit... he wins!) [4] and in another some good analysis from people who are skeptical of his policies (as am I) who are still impressed with how he communicates.
You might say "couldn't a high D (dark traits) person mask as a low D person, as a wolf in sheep's clothing?" I don't think so, or at least they usually won't.
Contrast that to corrupt New York politicians like Cuomo, Adams, Clinton and such who don't know enough to be ashamed of their own behavior.
Narcissism in particular is considered to be an underdevelopment of the personality, as an absence rather than a presence. [1] [2] High D people don't understand Low D people and would have a hard time passing. A High D person who was successfully Machiavellian in a Low D culture (say Utah [3]) would probably have to pass but if you're in a culture where folks like Trump and Musk and the above New Yorkers are perceived to be successful if not "genius" you're not going to understand why you need to do that hard work.
As they say, "you can't cheat an honest man". There's that famous movie The Sting where they set up a trap for a crime boss based on his greed which has the same structure as those advance fee scams where they get somebody to (allegedly) pay to help an African general launder money. High D people victimize other High D people, Narcissists seduce other Narcissists. A person who presents as Low D is really Low D, particularly in a high D place like New York [3]
I found [3] lately and I've been doing a lot of reading about the calibration and implications of that scale, particularly how it relates to other tests
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/20/734141432/what-dropping-17-00...
where the highest D country in the world (China) had the lowest rate of people returning wallets.
[1] Kohut Analysis of the Self
[2] Kernberg Borderline Condition and Pathological Narcissism
[3] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2500830122
[4] Note there is no "billionaires shouldn't exist", no impugning the character of people who vote for someone else, and none of those weird words like misgynoir that make minorities and working class people run, not walk away
7 months ago
Thanks!
>You might say "couldn't a high D (dark traits) person mask as a low D person, as a wolf in sheep's clothing?" I don't think so, or at least they usually won't.
"person"
The analytical error here is the assumption that political actors are individuals -- we're certainly trained in US to think that way -- but historically political actors are part of some sort of collective process. To wit, we could be dealing with a high D ideology and a well trained member.
7 months ago
There is no doubt the competitive ideology is high D
https://exper.psy.rptu.de/hilbig/get.php?p=140
What could be higher D then “Many people should lose their health care coverage so a few wealthy people can get richer?”
Personally I think a lot of leftists on Mastodon and AoC are high D. I think Mitt Romney is low D.
The conservative in me thinks “politicians model behavior for other people.” In Trump’s first term my mother-in-law took a break from the casino because drunks felt empowered to grab ass. I’d much rather my son talk like Mandami or Romney rather than Trump or AoC.
7 months ago
>where the highest D country in the world (China)
Are you referring to the D in DISC?
https://blog.assessments24x7.com/disc-world-map/
I don't know about China (roughly on par with US in that link), but the other high-D countries (languages) make sense to me in your take
Russian Turkish, Indonesian, Hungarian, even Dutch..
Edit: found a country table for Machiavellianism/narcissism, I don't fully understand what it says, but numbers columns "M" (mildly) correlates with "D" above. (Ireland is a surprise??!! Turkey, I assume foul play by authors lol)
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Descriptive-statistics-o...
Maybe you have a more reliable source?
7 months ago
Low D in high D is an mindblowing concept!
Low D examples from those countries seem like next level of human evolution, almost like an impossible superposition of warmth+cool