In general, there seems to be a tendency to overestimate the intelligence of people who do evil things. This is known as the Hannibal Lecter myth named after the 150+ IQ evil psychopath from the Silence of the Lambs movies.
I think the reason the Hannibal Lecter myth is so popular is that the reason intelligence evolved in the first place was survival (the mental ability to adapt situations to our advantage), and prior to evolution of higher morality, primates were largely motivated to use our intelligence only for selfish purposes (though all conscious behavior is selfish on some level), so sadly, on an instinctive level, intelligence used for evil goals is the intelligence many people recognize most easily.
Sadly, many people secretly admire evil, but they can’t come out and say it, so instead they just say “he was an evil genius, a terrible human being, but brilliant. Just brilliant!!!” This is a safe way of praising an evil-doer, while making it look like you are condemning them. It also makes people feel sophisticated, because they are expressing the nuanced understanding that people are multi-dimensional (positive traits like intelligence can coexist with negative traits like evil).
Another reason for associating evil with brains is that many mentally retarded people are the opposite of evil. They come across as the most loving, trusting, friendly, giving people you will ever meet. So if the most good people are often mentally retarded, it’s only natural to think the most evil people are geniuses.
Evil geniuses and saintly retardates notwithstanding, the reality is that evil people are probably less intelligent on average, because the same brain defects that impair one’s compassion for others, also likely impair one’s cognitive function, since the functioning of one brain system is likely correlated with others.
An evil genius is more frightening than an evil moron, because harder to outwit, and therefore makes a more much more interesting antagonist in fiction. The prevalence of evil geniuses in fiction probably leads us to forget that most real-life villains are dim-witted.
Thank You Captain Obvious.
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You’re welcome, Chairman Charm.
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studies have down that serial killers have , on average, below-average IQs
Thank You Captain Obvious.
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Intelligence is intrinsically evil, as it exists to maximize the paths an agent can follow to avoid being trapped, i.e., going extinct.
This often means–like with chess–trapping and destroying other agents so as to capture more paths for future movement. This expresses itself in human power structures that produce the greatest future freedom of those on top and the least for those on the bottom.
Structures in this universe–including humans– exist over others as they maximize rate of entropy production. One doesn’t need horrific fiction. Horror is baked into the fabric of the universe.
The occasional overlap between evil and genius is something I’ve thought about a lot. One of the first evo-psych related books I’ve ever read was “Folly of Fools” by Robert Trivers, which argues that human intelligence largely evolved to deceive oneself and others. Smart people make better liars and manipulators. I’ve met a few people who fit this paradigm to a tee.
But if you look at most of the data, there’s a very strong negative correlation between evil-doing and intelligence. In fact, in self-report surveys, more intelligent people claim to have both been arrested for fewer crimes and to have committed fewer crimes which they haven’t been arrested for. So smart people generally engage in a lot less evil doing, even when they know they won’t get caught.
In a book called “Crime and Human Punishment” by James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein, they cite a study comparing highly intelligent criminals with an average IQ of 126 with a another group with an IQ of around 90 (if I remember correctly). The more intelligent were much less successful as criminals, having stolen much less and having less prestige among their criminal peers.
When looking at the major races, the dumber races, like Blacks (unfortunately), tend to be more violent, while the smarter races (like Asians), tend to be much less violent. Of course, when it comes nation vs. nation level violence, the correlation becomes reversed: the smarter ethnic groups like the Chinese and Japanese are extraordinarily good at organized warfare.
Of course, though, the most violent nation in history, pound-for-pound, is probably the Nazi Germany. Today they are so peace-loving, liberal, intelligent and productive, but for a few brief years from 1933 to 1945, they went completely bezerk and became a stupendously well-oiled war machine of death and destruction.
Coincidentally, their primary enemy during this time period has been another group that has been accused of being evil geniuses: the Jews. This minority group has historically received the resentment of every nation they’ve settled, which is both fascinating and disturbing. One tends to sympathize with the underdog, but then you begin to wonder why a group is so disliked almost universally.
Evil in general is more or less an older, less scientific term for psychopathy. This is one of the most important psychological traits, and everyone lies somewhere on the psychopathy spectrum, meaning practically everyone’s evil to some extent or another.
Jayman claims that psychopathy is largely correlated with clannishness, as psychopaths mostly engage in destructive behaviors to benefit family members, but I think there’s a lot of exceptions to this. Many serial killers, like for instance Ed Kemper, are highly destructive towards family members also. Which leads one to believe that psychopathy is not an adaptive trait, but a brain defect, much as Pumpkin argues in his last paragraph.
I might look stupid stupid asking that but are psychopathy and clannishness 2 different concepts ? Because for me, at one end of the psychopathy spectrum you have people with absolutely no empathy for the others and it other end you have, of course the opposite. And at one end of the clannishness spectrum you have people with no empathy for people outside their family and a very high empathy for family members (of course there is no such dichotomy between family members and outsiders but it is easier this way) and at the other end you have people with the exact same empathy for family members and outsiders. And for example you could hypothetically have a non clannish psychopath with no empathy for both family members and outsiders or a very empathic clannish person with empathy for every living thing but with a much higher empathy for family members.
In other words, to make an analogy with cellphone settings:
High psychopathy = low luminosity
Low psychomathy = high luminosity
High clannishness = high contrast
Low clannishness = low contrast
I’ve wondered the same thing, but Jayman seems to equate clannishness with psychopathy, more or less.
I wonder how scientific a term is psychopath? I believe its first use was in the law court, as a synonym for “mentally ill”, in a defence of a killer. Hence “psycho killer”. Since then, it’s become attached to a somewhat scientific concept, the idea of a person who acts as if in possession of no moral sense – people who psychologists used to call “moral imbeciles”. Trouble is, the boundaries of that concept are very vague, and many people have no trouble asserting that all business people are psychopaths.
Pretty all terminology in psychology vague, because that’s the nature of the subject. In the case of psychopathy, there’s at least a few other disorders (sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder, narcissism) that significantly or somewhat overlap with it, and sometimes you see the terms being used interchangeably or defined in vague or contradictory ways.
*Pretty much all terminology in psychology is vague and non-scientific by the standards of the more rigorous sciences
True, but even within psychology, there are gradations of “scientificness”.
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Jayman claims that psychopathy is largely correlated with clannishness, as psychopaths mostly engage in destructive behaviors to benefit family members, but I think there’s a lot of exceptions to this. Many serial killers, like for instance Ed Kemper, are highly destructive towards family members also. Which leads one to believe that psychopathy is not an adaptive trait, but a brain defect, much as Pumpkin argues in his last paragraph
As Emilio quite cleverly explained, it feels wrong to equate psychopathy with clanishness, but I do think it might be an adaptive trait in some, and brain defect in others.
Rushton would have probably argued that blacks evolved to be more psychopathic than whites and especially East Asians as part of his r/K continuum.
Antisemites would probably argue that gypsies and Jews evolved to be psychopathic as part of a nomadic lifestyle, where they had to live off other peoples. However LOTB argues Jews are the least sociopathic and also incidentally the least ethnocentric of any race.
I wonder where Jews and gypsies rank in this clannishness scale?
I believe Western Ashkenazi are only slightly more clannish than Western Europeans. Eastern Ashkenazi are probably about as clannish as Russians. The Sephardics and Mizrahi are probably similar to other Medditerranean/Middle Eastern groups.
I Am An High IQ Psychopath.
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Pumpkin’s gonna redact your name. You’re not Emil Kirkegaard, you’re defaming him by pretending to be him.
Indeed
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indeed.
it is one of those positve attributes of the jews which gentiles would do well to adopt.
namely, being good often requires/necessitates being smart.
there was retard at my hs. she was nicknamed “spooner”, because she’d been caught “spooning” herself in the girls room.
i’m sure peepee’s hs nickname was cuccumber, and on top of that she was caught spooning with the other retarded girl at her school.
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the same is true of so-called “serious mental illness”, that is schizophrenia.
SCZ is much less common going up in IQ, like 1/4 as frequent.
the bizarre delusions of schizophrenia seem impossible to believe unless you’re stupid. but john nash though he was “the emperor of antarctica”.
pedophiles also tend to be dumb.
One theory is:
Low latent inhibition + low IQ = schizophrenia
Low latent inhibition + high IQ = creativity
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/10.23/01-creativity.html
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except that LI is just more psychobabble bullshit.
someone’s LI depends on the context and on the stimuli. “distactability” is just another word without thing to which it refers, because it is so context and stimuli dependent. what distracts person A at time t in surroundings S may be uninteresting to person B, and vice versa.
psychology, and a fortiori behavior genetics, is a pseudoscience. its things aren’t things in the real world.
LI even applies to sleep.
i remember living near a train that came by every night. after a week i stopped waking up to it.
Very high class Rushton.
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LOL, I didn’t type this. Did someone steal my email address somehow?
Holy shit Pumpkin can you ban the person above me?
Or at least delete the comment, that wasn’t me…
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Pumpkin someone stole my identity help me!
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HOLY SHIT 😦
Pumpkin, that;s not me, what’s Judas-sphere IP address
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I’ve use the Judas-sphere ID before but that’s not me this time.
Can someone find out your email on WordPress? THIS IS SCARY
Check the IP address of Judas-sphere
We’re typing from different locations.
fake commented redacted by pumpkinperson, Oct 8, 2015
This is really sad. I will no longer be using WordPress as there are clearly security flaws that has allowed someone to find out my email address and steal my identity. I’ve enjoyed my time here and the exchange of ideas, but I can longer use this website. I can no longer trust that my identity will be kept hidden while using blog. But thanks everyone for the entertainment and education!
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They’re not using your email, just the image. Looking into it.
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Thank you.
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I’m sure you can see he stole Jorge’s identity also.
Yes. I’m in the process of redacting all the fake comments by checking emails/IPs.
I stand by my comments about leaving. After this incident and also spending this past Saturday night drunk while commenting here, I’ve realized I need to spend more time on fruitful activities. Nonetheless, I’ve enjoyed the conversation here.
Sayonara!
That’s incredibly sad news but I respect your wishes. You will be missed, as you brought great intelligence, wisdom, objectivity, and credibility to this blog. You were one of the absolute best commenters any blog has ever had.
Email me if you get a chance, I have something funny to tell you on an unrelated topic.
Drunk on a Sat night and commenting on PP. Just unreal!
Lol what a no life
Videla gets drunk & comments here almost every night. I’ve written a post drunk after coming home from a bar, & I’ve posted drunk from a bar.
New articles coming soon on my blog !
https://nzt49.wordpress.com/
“prior to evolution of higher morality,”
At least you understand that morality is an evolved trait to help the ingroup. It’s not any philosophical reasoning. Morality increased fitness. Nothing more. Morality for truth? Ha!
https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2016/07/11/the-evolution-of-morality/
https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2016/07/24/morality-and-altruism/