You are probably familiar with my system for creating a type one civilization. It works on the premise that some, even many, psychopaths are undetectable in a large enough group. That while we can predict the behavior because we know how people without the civilization gene act, that it is infeasible to locate the civilization gene and screen for it. So long as the civilization gene is just a theory, this is best we can do. But what if we could do better?
Psychopaths are only officially identified using the Hare psychopath checklist. The Hare has problems though. It counts not only on the psychopath being unaware of it's conditions, but some of the conditions depend on the psychopath having a criminal history. It's a social test and social tests can be beaten by an intelligent sociopath stage psychopath with ease.
Dr Hare has previous suggested the only way to really protect society from psychopaths is to tie a bell around their neck. We already do that, sometimes. The ASPD or ego stage psychopaths volunteer themselves for screening by the criminal justice system. This is no accident. The antics of ASPD psychopaths in jail(like attempts on Dr Hare's life) led him to his numerous studies on the subject. The Hare was born in the pen, to be used in the pen.
Something truly new came from the ability to conclusively identify ASPD/ego/wants stage behavior. When a human brain is observed on the MRI, psychopaths display different brain activity when reading emotionally charged word lists. This is actually stimulating a wildcard condition in the metamind (activating the conscience.) If the whole brain is not lit up you're looking at an image of psychopaths brain. A less refined tool, designed to pick out ASPD psychopaths, verified a more refined one.
But MRIs are expensive and complicated, and you can bet that all sorts of excuses, tricks, and bribes will excuse the most dangerous sociopaths. But what if the MRI, a fine grained but expensive tool, were used to create a third simple and accurate tool. Genetic screening.
What exactly would be needed to create a genetic test for the lack of the civilization gene?
Proposed study of the civilization gene.
First it would need the correct premise. It is my strong view that the psychopathy is not a separate gene but the lack of one (compared to most modern humans). That somewhere a new mutation was introduced that quickly became prominent at or around the dawn of civilization through natural selection. It is completely genetically compatible, feasible for any parent to have a psychopathic child, but is more likely to occur when at least one of the psychopaths parents are also a psychopath.
It would need at least three full time roles filled by doctors of science in two stages. They would be the Principal Investigators. They should all participate in both stages, but play different roles. The first stage would be the screening and genetic material collection process. The second stage would search for a consistent difference between the genomes of the empathic samples and psychopathic ones.
The first doctor would run the study for the duration and protect it's integrity. They would organize recruiting techniques, and subject testing schedules. They would also be responsible for arranging for blind control tests (intentionally introducing verified psychopaths as empaths and vise versa) to verify the test process. They would ensure that the genetic pool was large enough to produce conclusive genetic identification. They would commission the appropriate computer equipment to track deidentified human data. They would need to budget financial awards for subject participation. They should have previous experience in running studies with large subject pools in a hospital setting. They should be comfortable with all technologies processes.
The second doctor would another dedicated to refining the conscience trigger and overseeing the subject testing. They would have to personally sanity check every MRI still of both triggered conscience events and non triggered states. They would be responsible for the integrity of genetic samples. Genetic samples should be sufficiently voluminous that the test pool can shared worldwide for at least several tens of runs. They will both need a psychology background in including psychopath testing experience, experience with MRI images, and a genetic background for obtaining and preserving genetic samples indefinitely.
The third doctor will be responsible for the second stage of operations of the study. Familiarity with genetic techniques including modern genetic spectrometry. They will be responsible for both searching for the consistent variation of samples between genetic pools. Possibly running a substantial team. In addition they will be responsible for collaboration (sample sharing) with collaborating laboratories both for study and verification of findings. Bioinfomatics programmatic work will also be required.
Lower estimates of psychopath commonality in the population should be used to determine subject pool size. The most conservative estimate of 1% should be used with a margin of error of 50%. To generate a sufficient sized pool 60,000 subjects will need to be tested and sampled to generate a genetic pool of 300 psychopaths and 300 emapths randomly selected from the negative pool. 150 each in the worse case. If a hotbed city such as New York is selected, projections of psychopaths in the population can safely doubled, and only 30,000 subjects will need to be sampled.
At a minimum a psychopath genetic study should have at least a 30-50 million dollar budget to get off the ground at approximately a $1000 per subject screening, handling and testing cost.
Study failure risks
The temptation will be to use anecdotal selection characteristics to lower costs. These costs can't really be lowered without increasing the likelihood that a ancillary gene is blamed for psychopathy permanently damaging both empathic people's reputation and the concept of a civilization gene itself. Anecdotal screening could lead to a similar situation to the popular 'warrior gene' misidentification.
I'd strongly advise staying away from using prison populations. While a second factor of pre-screeening and verification would vastly reduce costs and subject sample size, there may be other genetic identifiers that maybe distinctly dominant in prison populations. For instance the warrior gene (the loose your temper gene) could easily be present in many permanent ego/ASPD/wants stage psychopaths in prison, but is not directly related to psychopathy. While the PCL-R(the Hare) is an excellent tool in the prison setting, the key to a successful genetic sample is more robust MRI testing it has pointed to.
Funding
Many publicly accessible studies are funded by the federally run National Science Foundation, or the National Institute of Health. While NIH funding is plausible, I have serious doubts that either agency will be green lighted to fund a study based on such a new (but important) theory. Don't get me wrong, I for one would welcome a federal grant for this type of work, but I would be surprised.
A modern alternative could be a crowdfunded study. This would require that a scientist who agrees with the civgene theory preemptively assume the role of a PI as his or her own risk. At least one of the recommend PIs would rewrite the above document into a formal grant proposal and it's verbal mechanizations. Then a kickstarter style video and the accompanying grant proposal could be used to publicly request funding. Such things require some luck, but a groundswell of public support is the least corruptible mechanism I can envision for funding such a study.
Results
Once a gene has been identified from the sample pool, a population trial should begin. It should be validated against a pool of known psychopaths. Some exceptions may be found, but a sweeping majority should be able to be confirmed as lacking the civilization gene. This should be easy to complete as psychopaths in prison populations can be used for this step. To avoid political corruption, bribery and other sabotage, genetic samples should be gathered directly onsite by study personnel. Only professionally diagnosed Psychopaths who's diagnosis has a legal standing in their case should be considered. The pertinent legal records should be reviewed directly by study personnel or the inmate should be ineligible.
Post trials.
If the civilization gene is found it will have profound effects on the modern society. First is the problem of trust in a psychopathic culture. If global dominant psychopathic cultures are to be trusted as an accurate meter of human behavior, then widespread genetic screening will result in classification and enslavement of psychopaths. Possibly even extermination.
The first task before humanity is the rapid comprehension of the implications of the data. A successful gene discovery means that the vast majority of unconscionable people are now identifiable. Be very wary of vocal proponents of testing. There should be a public outcry to test the people demanding widespread testing, first. This will lessen validating accusations of impropriety.
Second supporting or condoning widespread testing should not be necessary. It should be legally acceptable for an organization to require testing, but social pressure should only casually encouraged. Trust within organizations will be far greater that adapt the changes. Adoption of not only testing, but of a new model of far broader trust should take hold quickly when organizations that do test enjoy vastly enhanced economies of scale.
Accommodations should be made within organizations to employ psychopaths, much the way that people with other handicaps are accommodated. But such as you would not let a blind man drive a bus 'to be nice.' Psychopaths may have no direct reports and no singular authority over data. They will attempt to enslave the people around them so your organizations must not lend their weight to their efforts.
People have a fundamental right to free will and to define their relationships, and may fraternize, interact, conduct business with, and even reproduce with who they like, including psychopaths. These rights shall not be infringed. This is the fundamental underpinning for the right to fork ANY organization including national governments. The right of rejection of government authority is the flip side of giving psychopaths rights that they are wired to abuse.
The morality of psychopaths as guardians is important but can not be addressed at this time. This should be studied separately. There are some indications they are capable of a primitive love for their own children like most animals express, but it is unclear that this is sufficient to repell any undue danger for the children.
If the civilization gene is indeed the mutation behind not only economy of scale, human beings defaulting to trust, and currency itself, then commonplace screening should vastly reduce waste and corruption and encourage massive investment. The following economic boom would be unprecedented, and could merge humanity into a comprehensive type one civilization, opening us up to the ultimate solution to resource constraints, viable access to other stars. This is beyond a doubt the superior solution to forking societal organizations on the first signs of corruption. While such a system can be fair and moral and that encourages vital trust, it's requirement of constant scrutiny and subsequent vigilance takes a large cost as investment and resources are lost to constantly pruning psychopathic corruption and the valuable resources they have coopted.
Promotion
Please review, criticize, repair and promote this document. Don't be afraid to comment or email me. I will assist in any way I can. - M.A.Newhall.