This is the right place to understand key theories on civgene. You probably can’t read the many years of posts. The links, in order, should help you catch up. For an even shorter version you may want to visit the glossary.
I had the misfortune of being intricately involved with a few psychopaths over my life. I had a Eureka about them in 2011. After studying them enough to recognize them (sometimes) I was listening to one brag about how superior they are. I realized their boasting was a fantasy. They claim to be superior, but they can’t do anything that non-psychopaths can’t do. They are a behavioral subset of empaths (non-psychopaths.) They are the last genetic step before what we think of as modern man (or woman.) I laid this out in a paper I called ‘ancient breed.’ Ideas continue in ‘Ancient Breed II’
This lead to the discovery that advanced psychopaths shadow Freud’s subconscious model. And subsequently that psychopaths, without a conventional conscience are limited to three emotional primitives, despair, bliss, and will to action. The rest of us can form much more complex emotions. In general knowing what a person looks like without a conscience, makes how our mind works more clear.
I examine what a society could be if corruption caused largely by psychopaths seeking golden opportunities could be eliminated. There are two ways we can change civilization to be wholly conscionable.
1. The defacto way that anyone can (and should) promote is species wide cooperation. The problem is central accumulation of power as an end to itself. It requires both comprehension of the origin of prejudice (psychopathic societal behavior) and rejection of corrupted hierarchies through active forking. It’s flaw may be damage to the economy of scale as steady flow of corrupt branches are pruned away.
2. A second more direct and assertive way to minimize the destructive forces on trust and investment would be genetic screening. I have outlined what would be involved in pinning down the civilization gene. I’ve also layed out how civgene could be disproven.
A gene or mutation vastly improving on the animal conscience, being the final prerequisite to humanity civilizing has huge implications. I am cautious but very optimistic, as a great many things unexplained or now represented by mind numbing models simply click into place. From economics, to psychology. From religion and spiritual teachings to slavery and it’s societal effects. There is little we can not discuss here.
I am am prepared for the theory behind the civilization gene to be proven wrong. But I will be very, very surprised. Please join me in the conversation about where we go from here. Read the papers and lets discuss it together, right here.
You are correct and I am amazed to find this online. I have had extensive contact with psychopaths, very close family, and was forced to think about this issue a few years back. Through hundreds of hours of conversations with friends and other family I realized (comparing stories and bending over backwards to support arguments against ourselves) that this is a physiological makeup of the brain and currently unalterable, at least as far as ethical treatment is concerned. I do not belive it is a disorder or a defect but normal evolution from the past.
I closed my eyes and thought about this for weeks and I realized that they are a subset of us and a predecessor, probably needed when we had to battle superior physical natural enemies (not always human) with inferior weapons. Deception and ruthlessness would be selected for. Only when survival was insured did evolution have the luxury (I know I am personifying evolution, I realize it’s not a person and has no master plan) of selecting for more complex traits, nuanced for a more complex environment.
I also realized that if I knew for sure someone was a psychopath I could behave with a similar if not more ruthless attitude towards them but not towards anyone else, I could select for that individual, so we must have the ability to shut down the empathy and caring or possibly to have more empathy and caring for the people/objects animals that the psychopath would destroy thereby overriding any empathy for the psychopath.
I believe technology (sped up immensely by Einstein’s theories) have placed us in a position where the psychopaths are making a comeback but new technology (video, audio, internet making us aware of them) is now battling back. We are likely to see a lot of insane acts that are also caught (DNA, etc.) but not always prevented due to human rights laws designed by and for civilized people. We are likely to need more jails soon.
Hi
Thanks so much for your comment. Not sure jail is the best answer though it certainly is the defacto one. In the grander scheme of things it does seem logical that nuclear reactor technology would come first followed by the MRI.
The real problem is in order to make demands of them we need the moral high ground. A person needs to be both fully self aware and aware of their environment in order to be competent and to reason with them. Most empaths muddle through and get there, but only psychopaths in the sociopathic stage have that ability. So in order to come up with a plan they agree to, we have to commit to intentionally helping psychopaths become full blown sociopaths. Hare alluded to this with his Canada prison plan.
Or we can just wait until the economy self destructs and takes the reactors and any hope for humanity with it .
Not an easy choice.
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