In Psychopaths We Trust

ClubOrlov:



There is a new executive team taking over in Washington. Some people view this development with cautious optimism, others quake in trepidation, gnash their teeth, rend their garments and scatter ashes over the heads Old Testament-style. Those who expect things to be a bit different in Washington now can point to something rather specific: in his inaugural address, Trump used words never before heard in an inauguration speech: words like “bleed,” “carnage,” “depletion,” “disrepair,” “ripped,” “rusted,” “sad,” “stolen” and “trapped.” These words describe the real United States, not the fake United States concocted by politicians, the media and wealthy elites. The fake United States is close to full employment; the real United States has sidelined close to 100 million unemployed workers. In the fake United States the economy has recovered and is growing nicely; the real United States is sinking ever deeper into unrepayable debt, rushing headlong toward inevitable national bankruptcy. It would seem that Trump is interested in reality whereas his predecessor excelled in deluding himself—and others. This would indicate that perhaps the new boss won't be the same as the old boss.

But in another sense the change of command is no change at all, because all that ever happens is that one bunch of psychopaths is swapped for another bunch of psychopaths. Thanks to a multigenerational selective breeding experiment, the upper echelons of all the social machines in the United States—be they corporations, the courts, government agencies or other bureaucracies—are stocked with psychopaths. In turn, putting one's faith in a bunch of psychopaths seems like a foolhardy thing to do. In Shrinking the Technosphere, I wrote:



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