Links to Consider, 12/2

Ed West on 21st century migration; Hanania on Henrich; Clinton Ignatov on psychopathy and social media; Rob Henderson on giving advice

Ed West

writes,

in the 21s century, because of easier travel, smartphones, smuggling networks and establishment communities in the West, the sheer scale of potential migration is astronomical. Yet people often have a very 20th or even 19th century understanding of how much people are able and willing to move, which makes them vastly underestimate the potential numbers arriving.

…there are now more Turkish Cypriots in Britain than in Cyprus. In fact, not only did the majority of Turkish Cypriots move, but back in their homeland they become outnumbered by arrivals from a third, even poorer country, mainland Turkey, who are permitted to settle there.

And this sentence should perhaps fall under “Garett Jones watch”:

the Brazilianization of the US into a super-diverse society with low social capital, very high inequality and higher risk of political instability is now unstoppable

Richard Hanania

writes,

The hesitancy to talk about genetic differences or cognitive ability is somewhat ironic given that Henrich seems to make a strong case for Western moral superiority. While denouncing any suggestion that he is passing judgment on any particular culture, he in effect argues that people in Europe ended up becoming more likely to be honest, willing to treat strangers fairly, cooperate for the sake of the common good, and apply moral standards objectively. Unlike people from other countries, European diplomats pay their parking tickets, even when they don’t have to. One finding that I found particularly shocking was that people in more traditional cultures often place little emphasis on the intentions of an actor when judging his conduct and whether he should be punished for it. Sure, we can pretend that all this makes more primitive societies morally no better or worse than we are, but doing so strikes me as adopting an extreme form of moral relativism. The fact that one can make a strong case for Westerners being more ethical than the rest of the world while discussing IQ is out of bounds, even though East Asians come out on top, supports the idea that people at the deepest level consider intelligence to be the most important trait in determining the value of an individual or group.

In short, Hanania likes Henrich’s thesis that the Christian taboo against cousin marriage helped shape western culture, but he faults Henrich for ignoring the literature on IQ and economic success.

Clinton Ignatov

writes,

Do psychopaths suddenly become empathetic and caring when they “actually” encounter others? They weren’t actually psychopathic before their “virtualization”?

…Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People is the epitome of psychopathic know-how. It doesn’t tell you how to be a friend, it provides you the steps anyone can follow to simulate friendship adequately—or, dare I say it, virtualize your identity as performed for others.

He is questioning Jordan Peterson’s use of the phrase “virtualization enables psychopathy.”

But perhaps what Peterson means by virtualization is something different. He may not be equating virtualization with phoniness. You can be phony in person. By “virtualization” he may mean something more like “using the Internet.” Perhaps Peterson is saying that the Internet allows psychopaths to operate at scale.

If you only can manipulate others in person, there is a limit of what you can accomplish. If a Pickup Artist is steeped in the Dark Triad traits of Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy, at least he is limited to exploiting one person at a time. If a follower of Dale Carnegie convinces you to buy something that is not in your interests to purchase, that can only be repeated so often. But when a manipulator goes on the Internet to, say, run a crypto scam, he can target hundreds of thousands of people at once.

But that is a quibble—and it could be that Peterson’s use of “virtualization” is closer to what Ignatov says it is. You should read his whole essay, especially the last two sections.

Rob Henderson writes,

Listeners unconsciously sense that dominance is the goal of the unsolicited advice-giver. And then feel resentment toward them. This feeling of resisting dominance might surface in the listener’s mind as something like, “Why is this person trying to tell me what to do?” Again, this is particularly likely to be the case when the listener views the unsolicited advice-giver as someone of equal or lower social rank to themselves.

This gets to the key reason why we dislike unsolicited advice: Our desire to retain our freedom.

From Joseph Henrich, I learned to distinguish a prestige hierarchy from a dominance hierarchy. We want the advice of people to whom we attribute prestige. Henderson is saying that we resent the advice of people to whom we attribute a desire to dominate.