by Higgenbotham » Sat Sep 05, 2026 6:59 pm
This was the meat of the thing in my mind. Nothing we don't already know. The only nuance I would say is the degree or extent, which he doesn't get into, at least I didn't hear it. At the moment, and as the new dark age further tightens its grip, the extent to which systems operate this way and the extent to which they exclude individual actors who don't increases. So to my way of thinking it is an exponential function for the most part and cyclical to a lesser extent. Now the former CEO of Royal Dutch Shell around the year 1998, Mark I forget his last name but it is two words, said he cared about things like the environment, and he may have. But those kinds of individuals are transient and will be less common to these roles over time.
I think more important than this, because corporations are going to go bankrupt anyway, is the individuals who assume political control will tend to become more and more psychopathic over time. So people complain that Trump is a psychopath or more psychopathic than his predecessors (most often using different words) and that is arguable but you ain't seen nothing yet. When you get your local warlord you will know for certain that he's a psychopath.
Imagine two companies making essentially the same product. One internalizes the
1:03:33
ecological consequences of production, cleaner energy, safer extraction, better
1:03:38
labor conditions, proper waste treatment and so on and therefore produces all of
1:03:44
this at a higher cost uh you know symbolic cost. The other externalizes as
1:03:49
much of those costs as the game board permits. Right? If the market primarily
1:03:55
selects on price growth and financial return, then logically the second
1:04:01
company can become symbolically fitter precisely because somebody else is
1:04:07
absorbing part of its real cost. The atmosphere absorbs the carbon. A community absorbs the pollution. Workers
1:04:14
absorb dangerous conditions. Future generations absorb consequences that aren't represented in today's
1:04:20
transaction. Right? And then selection compounds the problem, right? The actor
1:04:25
generating the larger return acquires more resources. Those resources can uh create greater political and
1:04:31
institutional influence. They can fund law lobbying, litigation, and public relations. They can influence regulation
1:04:38
and liability structures. They can make attribution or responsibility more difficult because they control the rules
1:04:44
of the game. So over time the system can develop something functionally analogous to an immune system around successful
1:04:52
instrumental strategies right and it's not because lawyers governments and you know all of these public relations
1:04:58
departments are um inherently psychopathic they're they're not so psychopathy has its own embedded
1:05:06
positive feedback mechanism at large scales so the basic dynamic is that through
1:05:12
symbolic evolution Um the the successful behavioral strategies are encoded into the
1:05:18
operating system in legal frameworks, incentives, objective functions like productivity, efficiency and the the
1:05:25
actual um bones of the organization uh essentially gets reinforced and so
1:05:32
these objective functions and these rules become crystallized because think of profit, right? I can't go into a
1:05:38
company I want to work for and say you know what profit, right? Like I don't I don't care about profit. People
1:05:43
go to school for years to learn accounting principles that talk about profit. They learn profit. They go to
1:05:48
school for seven years. So it's not just the symbolic objective functions that are dominating here, but the the
1:05:54
symbolic infrastructure creates tentacles around the operating system
1:05:59
and it's like a solution architecture, right? And so adapting away from this
1:06:04
trajectory becomes increasingly difficult um because the objective functions get
1:06:10
crystallized. these successful behavioral instrumental behavioral strategies become crystallized because
1:06:16
they solve very specific problems evolutionary problems and so across evolutionary time of the institution
1:06:23
people coming into the game are what's being transmitted it's the game dynamics
1:06:29
it's not the norms the values and the rules or the the game dynamics actually produces the norms the values or the
1:06:36
rules of the people are surviving based on consequence avoidance right you go
1:06:41
into the company, you don't absorb all of the norms and the values of the beliefs of the company, you know, you have to hit a number and if you don't,
1:06:46
you get fired, right? So, at the end of the day, people are adapting to this game and either they adapt or they go
1:06:53
extinct and those that rise are the individuals who can adapt most
1:06:58
effectively, who are most willing to deploy these behavioral strategies and who are most willing to deploy those
1:07:04
strategies.
https://youtu.be/gVlfwKUssPg?t=3808This was the meat of the thing in my mind. Nothing we don't already know. The only nuance I would say is the degree or extent, which he doesn't get into, at least I didn't hear it. At the moment, and as the new dark age further tightens its grip, the extent to which systems operate this way and the extent to which they exclude individual actors who don't increases. So to my way of thinking it is an exponential function for the most part and cyclical to a lesser extent. Now the former CEO of Royal Dutch Shell around the year 1998, Mark I forget his last name but it is two words, said he cared about things like the environment, and he may have. But those kinds of individuals are transient and will be less common to these roles over time.
I think more important than this, because corporations are going to go bankrupt anyway, is the individuals who assume political control will tend to become more and more psychopathic over time. So people complain that Trump is a psychopath or more psychopathic than his predecessors (most often using different words) and that is arguable but you ain't seen nothing yet. When you get your local warlord you will know for certain that he's a psychopath.
[quote]Imagine two companies making essentially the same product. One internalizes the
1:03:33
ecological consequences of production, cleaner energy, safer extraction, better
1:03:38
labor conditions, proper waste treatment and so on and therefore produces all of
1:03:44
this at a higher cost uh you know symbolic cost. The other externalizes as
1:03:49
much of those costs as the game board permits. Right? If the market primarily
1:03:55
selects on price growth and financial return, then logically the second
1:04:01
company can become symbolically fitter precisely because somebody else is
1:04:07
absorbing part of its real cost. The atmosphere absorbs the carbon. A community absorbs the pollution. Workers
1:04:14
absorb dangerous conditions. Future generations absorb consequences that aren't represented in today's
1:04:20
transaction. Right? And then selection compounds the problem, right? The actor
1:04:25
generating the larger return acquires more resources. Those resources can uh create greater political and
1:04:31
institutional influence. They can fund law lobbying, litigation, and public relations. They can influence regulation
1:04:38
and liability structures. They can make attribution or responsibility more difficult because they control the rules
1:04:44
of the game. So over time the system can develop something functionally analogous to an immune system around successful
1:04:52
instrumental strategies right and it's not because lawyers governments and you know all of these public relations
1:04:58
departments are um inherently psychopathic they're they're not so psychopathy has its own embedded
1:05:06
positive feedback mechanism at large scales so the basic dynamic is that through
1:05:12
symbolic evolution Um the the successful behavioral strategies are encoded into the
1:05:18
operating system in legal frameworks, incentives, objective functions like productivity, efficiency and the the
1:05:25
actual um bones of the organization uh essentially gets reinforced and so
1:05:32
these objective functions and these rules become crystallized because think of profit, right? I can't go into a
1:05:38
company I want to work for and say you know what profit, right? Like I don't I don't care about profit. People
1:05:43
go to school for years to learn accounting principles that talk about profit. They learn profit. They go to
1:05:48
school for seven years. So it's not just the symbolic objective functions that are dominating here, but the the
1:05:54
symbolic infrastructure creates tentacles around the operating system
1:05:59
and it's like a solution architecture, right? And so adapting away from this
1:06:04
trajectory becomes increasingly difficult um because the objective functions get
1:06:10
crystallized. these successful behavioral instrumental behavioral strategies become crystallized because
1:06:16
they solve very specific problems evolutionary problems and so across evolutionary time of the institution
1:06:23
people coming into the game are what's being transmitted it's the game dynamics
1:06:29
it's not the norms the values and the rules or the the game dynamics actually produces the norms the values or the
1:06:36
rules of the people are surviving based on consequence avoidance right you go
1:06:41
into the company, you don't absorb all of the norms and the values of the beliefs of the company, you know, you have to hit a number and if you don't,
1:06:46
you get fired, right? So, at the end of the day, people are adapting to this game and either they adapt or they go
1:06:53
extinct and those that rise are the individuals who can adapt most
1:06:58
effectively, who are most willing to deploy these behavioral strategies and who are most willing to deploy those
1:07:04
strategies.[/quote]
https://youtu.be/gVlfwKUssPg?t=3808