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Comment by errantmind | Hacker News Reader

How is it like sociopathy?

I think you got it but for clarity: for a mind at level 4, "beyond" rely means "beyond"... and this could be sociopathic. For level 5 minds, beyond means partial beyond while still incorporating the lessons from not being relay beyond... Again and again, I can see that meta-rationality is just a modern name for wisdom, And obviously, the whole idea of wisdom is not cool because too many "wise" people preached "sociopathic ideas" to level 3 or level 4 minds.

It's funny, because while I was digesting this essay I found myself comparing the hierarchy in a perennial favorite, The Gervais Principle[0] and I was thinking that "Stage 3" seems to correspond to "Clueless" pretty well; "Stage 4" to "Losers"; and therefore "Stage 5" to "Sociopaths"*. The key to that last stage in both seems to be that you have, for lack of a better word, transcended the rules. You understand that they are mostly situational and, if not subjective, at least not pre-existing. And you therefore start to understand how to work with them as material, rather than just within them.

*: The choice of naming there is a bit tongue-in-cheek. But not totally off the mark.

[0]:https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/05/16/the-gervais-principle-...

Good stuff ;) An alternarive theory competing meta-rationality. And also complementing it a bit :) I found this part quite insightfull:

"Some freely emulate other Sociopaths. Others carve out more imaginative paths. Morality becomes a matter of expressing fundamental dispositions rather than respecting social values. Kindness or cruelty, freely expressed. Those who are amused by suffering use their powers to cause it. Those who enjoy watching happiness theaters, create them through detached benevolence."

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