Brian Klaas’ framing feels closer to the truth for me — power doesn’t just corrupt, it attracts the corruptible. Which is why I’m wary of making this an IQ/EQ story. It feels more like a systems/selection problem — we’ve built ladders where empathy is optional, and constraints are negotiable. In that world, arrogance isn’t just a flaw — it’s a competitive advantage, and institutions quietly reward the traits that make it easier to treat people as instruments.
Kiran On Thu, 5 Feb 2026 at 14:19, sankarshan via Silklist < [email protected]> wrote: > I keep coming back to the idea that extreme wealth creates not just > distance, but ontological divergence. At some point you are no longer > “ahead” on the same map. You are operating under a different physics. > That is when comparison, empathy, and even shared moral intuitions > start to break down. > > One thing I would gently push on is whether this is best understood as > an IQ versus EQ story at the individual level, or as a selection > problem at the system level. > > In many environments we have built such markets, corporate ladders, > and political systems, we end up rewarding a very narrow slice of > intelligence. Abstraction, optimization, and dominance in zero-sum > games. They actively discount the skills required to stay human at > scale. Empathy, restraint, contextual judgment, and moral imagination. > Over time, the system does not just elevate high IQ, low EQ > individuals. It filters out those who hesitate, doubt, or internalize > second-order consequences. That is why arrogance often looks like a > personal flaw, but functions more like a survival trait. In certain > incentive structures, the ability not to perceive others as fully > human is an advantage. It reduces friction. It speeds execution. It > insulates the actor from moral drag. > > Which makes your question, “How did we become such a low EQ society?”, > especially uncomfortable. The answer may be that we did not become one > accidentally. We engineered institutions, markets, and leadership > pipelines that treat EQ as a soft nice-to-have while structurally > rewarding its absence. The uncomfortable implication is that what we > call leadership failure may actually be system success. > > This is where I think the Epstein or elite pathology you are pointing > to becomes less about individual corruption and more about unbounded > power without countervailing constraints. Past a certain point, there > is no feedback loop strong enough to force self-correction. No cost to > instrumentalizing people. No requirement to remain legible or > accountable to the human consequences of one’s actions. > > Art like Altered Carbon lands because it exaggerates the mechanism > just enough to make it visible. Immortality is a metaphor. What is > actually corrosive is insulation from consequence, from reciprocity, > and from the need to justify oneself to peers who can say no. > > The rare high IQ, high EQ leaders you are describing tend to share one > trait. They operate inside constraints they respect. Not because they > are saints, but because they remain embedded in systems that force > encounters with others as moral equals. > > Maybe the deeper challenge is not cultivating more EQ in individuals, > but rebuilding environments where EQ is not optional for legitimacy. > Where authority degrades without it, rather than being insulated from > it. > > > > On Thu, 5 Feb 2026 at 14:07, Venkatesh Hariharan via Silklist > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 12:18 PM Udhay Shankar N via Silklist < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> The state of the world, and especially the Esptein files cesspool, has > me thinking of _Altered carbon_ (the book, not the TV show). In my reading, > the core point of the book is "past a certain level of wealth, you're not > really human any more". > >> > >> The key reasons: > >> > >> * Access to wealth, opportunities, networks and bodily modifications > far beyond what anyone at a lower socio-economic stratum can access. So > much so that you're not really comparable any more. > >> * Inability to perceive other people as even being of the same species, > but only as exploitable resources. > >> > >> To be clear, this is not the only artistic work to advance this thesis > - but it is the one that has made the core point in the most memorable way > for me. > >> > >> At an even higher level of abstraction, one might argue that the point > of all art is to examine the question of what it means to be human. Which > could easily be also interpreted as what it means to be inhuman. > >> > >> Thoughts? > >> > >> Udhay > >> > > > > It seems to me that many "successful" folks become so because of their > IQ. Once success goes to their heads, their EQ becomes inversely > proportional to their IQ. Or, perhaps, they never had much EQ in the first > place. The number of High IQ/Low EQ folks that are in leadership positions > is perhaps the biggest causal factor for the sad state of world affairs. My > highest respect is now reserved for the rare breed of folks who are High > IQ/High EQ. As for the High IQ/Low EQ folks, they have a certain stink of > arrogance. Once you learn to detect them, it becomes easy to avoid them! > How did we become such a low EQ society? > > > > Venky > -- > Silklist mailing list > [email protected] > https://mailman.panix.com/listinfo.cgi/silklist >
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