Loyalty

Loyalty is an oft-touted "virtue," but is it really a virtue?

Loyalty means the blind following or favoring of an individual or group, irrespective of their actions being right or wrong. Loyalty is related to other vices like nepotism and cronyism, yet unlike these concepts, it is often given a positive connotation - why? The reason is that loyalty is an extremely useful trait to the rulers, who depend on it to exercise unlimited power, and who thus support it.

Loyalty is what enabled the Nazis and others famous for genocide and other atrocities. Loyalty is the fuel that enables lunatics to achieve their horrendous goals - that they could not achieve by themselves. Loyalty is often paired with totalitarianism, which uses fear and punishment to further strengthen loyalty (including weeding out those who ask too many questions or don't follow orders). Education and the media is used to foster group idiocy (slave mind), too, encouraging slave-like loyalty to the masters.

If loyalty is a virtue, we need to be loyal not to fallible individuals or groups, but rather to universal ethics:

• Don't kill
• Don't rape
• Don't steal
• Don't lie

These are of course 4 "red flags" stemming from the "mother" virtue of compassion.

If humankind is loyal to these universal ethics, then they will not be willing pawns to a crazy, sociopathic leader who calls for war or genocide. Leaders are fallible, just like anybody else. As human beings, we have the capability to know right from wrong, and have the responsibility to be loyal to that.

This is the right kind of loyalty that is in fact a virtue, along with faithfulness to one's partner (which is often confused with "loyalty").

Universal Ethics

The various religions and philosophies have vastly different moralities; from Christianity to Buddhism, Islam to Daoism, capitalism to socialism, Zionism to libertanianism, few share the same definitions of these complex (and changing) terms, and thus debates are usually unfruitful and meaningless, yet most of the time we focus on futilely fighting with each other.

Generally, ethics can be compared both quantitatively and qualitatively.

• Quantitatively: How many people are benefited by the morality?
• Qualitatively: In what way are they benefited?

So the quantitative part means, for this religion or philosophy, to whom are we do be kind to?
And the qualitative part means, for this religion or philosophy, how do we act in order to be kind?

And the quantitative part is simple to compare - as it is just a type of magnitude. In the quantitative sense, "more" is "better."
The qualitative part is more complex to compare, but regarding the qualitative part, generally we find that there are certain rules that appear to be universal or near-universal - our universal ethics.

A short list is:

1. Don't kill
2. Don't rape
3. Don't steal
4. Don't lie

This is thus a short list to "test" your ethics and morality - if, for example, you are killing somebody in the name of your religion, philosophy, or other -ism, you are using it to justify your committing those heinous acts.

Of the above, the 4 universal crimes are, of course, not of equal weight.

1. Killing is the worst, because it is permanent (a killed person can never be revived and is gone forever).
2. Raping is the 2nd worst, because it is sometimes permanent (can result in the birth of new life, as well as lifelong trauma).
3. Stealing is the 2nd least, because it is sometimes reversible (stolen goods can often be returned by the thief).
4. Lying is the least, because it is reversible (lies can be corrected, by the liar or even others with evidence).

In other words:
Life > Love > Value > Truth

But all of these virtues (the reverse of the crimes above) all stem from one "mother" virtue: compassion - the core attribute that we need to live harmoniously with others. Conversely, the "mother" detect is selfishness, from which apathy towards the harming of others is born.

The above list of four is simple to learn and simple to follow. Simply do not do those things. Use the list as a simple "evil test."

If evil is being committed, analyze it using the Evil Triangle.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence was popularized by author Daniel Goleman in 1995 as a counter to the then-popular IQ test for measuring general intelligence. Goleman argued that emotional intelligence was even more important than IQ for success in professional life, and those with low IQ scores were of course overjoyed to be vindicated. Today, corporations continue this same message, but if EI is more important than IQ in professional life, that perhaps is more a problematic symptom of corporate systems where politics and favor are more important than intelligence and skills.

Nevertheless, EI is an important skill to have in such environments. Unlike IQ, which is a score designed to assess general intelligence, EI is a specific subset of skills relating to emotions, which can be improved with practice (unlike IQ, which is difficult to increase). In Goleman's model, emotional intelligence involves the following skills (paraphrased):

• Self-awareness - observing one's own emotions
• Self-control - controlling one's own emotions
• Empathy - observing others' emotions
• Social skill - controlling others' emotions

The above model is reasonable and complete; however, Goleman also adds a fifth skill: Confidence - which is redundant and unnecessary, as this is part of self-control for many of us, and a character trait for a few of us. (Actually, Goleman himself removed the fifth skill in his current EI model, too.) It is also important to remember that, like IQ, EI is an ability measurement and not related to personality; both high IQs and high EIs can be used for good or for evil.

With the complete 4-Part Model, we balance two axes: self and others, and observation and control. (The observation aspects can be thought of as sense organs.) This model focuses on these aspects only, removing character traits, which should be studied separately. Thus, EI survey questions that relate to personality (e.g. enthusiasm about goals - which is related to temperament, not EI) are removed as well.

So, the burning question remains - what is my emotional intelligence score?

Use the levels below and click the button at bottom to calculate your EI score. (This is a self-evaluation, so try to be humble and objective with your answers.) Like IQs, this score is normalized to have average scores of 90-110, with higher and lower scores indicating various levels of superiority and inferiority. In addition, separate scores are given for the 4 different skills as well, so that test takers can then resolve to make individual improvements on skills found to be weaker. (Right-click the generated graph to save as an image for reference.)

I can explain my actions in detail

I can explain my strengths and weaknesses in detail

I can accurately describe my emotions as I feel them

I can accurately predict what I will do in what situations

I know how to stay calm in difficult situations

I know how to manage frustration or misery into positive actions

I know how to avoid losing my temper

I get carried away and do things on a whim

People have told me that I am a good listener

I easily sympathize with others' plights

I can easily read others' emotions

I am sensitive to the feeling of a group's atmosphere

I am good at organizing groups

I am comfortable talking to any type of person

I can predict how others will react in a situation

I am good at somehow smoothing out emotions when conflict appears

My EQ is:

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Group Idiocy

Group Idiocy is the phenomenon where people unconsciously yet voluntarily forgo their own independence of thinking and reasoning, in order to submit to and join with others; often this leads to the phenomenon of idiot mobs, the control of which are in turn are fundamental to politics (group power) and organized religion (political religion).

This idea was first described by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor who staunchly and bravely opposed the German Nazi regime, paying for his heroic acts with his life when he was hanged in a concentration camp, just 2 weeks before its liberation. Bonhoeffer simply called the condition Dummheit ("stupidity"), but here I rename it to distinguish from other forms of stupidity.

The "stupidity" referred to here is a state where reason is voluntarily given up to be replaced by groupthink. (In philosophical terms, specifically, practical reasoning ("what to do?") is discarded, while speculative reasoning ("how to do it or explain it?") is retained - the latter of which is generally activated to imagine justifications for the actions decided by the groupthink).

It is a form of stupidity unrelated to IQ or other types of intrinsic intelligence; many seemingly "intelligent" folks are group idiots - e.g. doctors, engineers, etc. who nevertheless were willing Nazis, cultists, or the like. It is thus important to distinguish group idiocy stupidity from low-IQ stupidity, as they are independent traits that should be observed separately.

Group idiocy can also be called slave mind, as such minds are effectively "switched off" for matters decided by the groupthink. People with higher extroversion and stronger group identity are higher in group susceptibility, a key risk factor for group idiocy. Conversely, those who are low in group susceptibility are more likely to have independent mind, with minds still active, objective, and independent - not (voluntarily) enslaved to some group. This form of intelligence is arguably the most important of all, far more important than IQ, EQ, or the like, in that it has a major role in preventing mass atrocities; the greater the ratio of independent minds in a population, the less chance that idiot mobs will form to wreak atrocities. (The ability to resist this anti-intelligence factor is GQ.)

The difference between slave mind and independent mind is stark and easy to see: an example is the 9-year old who points out contradictions to the adult who identifies with a religious organization - the 9-year old's mind is still undeveloped, yet his mind is already "active," curious to know why and how, while the older adult, despite having a more developed mind, has a voluntary "slave mind," active only to concoct explanations within the bounds that his organized religion has allowed him; he is unwilling to think outside of those bounds.

Some of the symptoms of group idiocy are as follows:

• Hive mind: somehow one's beliefs "coincidentally" very closely match that of their group identity.
• Strong group identity: the "us vs. them" mentality naturally leads to group idiocy; basically, the desire to belong to a group pushes one to discard inconvenient independent thought that would naturally result in differences with the group.
• Catchwords and slogans: group idiots copiously use convenient, prepared words that they parrot from their group. These allow the group idiot to remain in shallow thought, with no chance to diverge from the group by actually thinking deeply and independently.

Group idiocy is particularly dangerous in that it unfortunately cannot be reasoned with.

• Minds Switched Off: one cannot argue against it, as arguments will not be believed or just ignored; generally catchwords and slogans will be copiously thrown in response.
• Emotions Reign: as the reasoning mind is turned off in favor of bias (emotions), emotions reign and thus idiots are easily angered and goaded, especially as the rational mind that would normally seek caution is turned off. (Compare with intoxication.)
• Obliviousness: as an unconscious phenomenon, group idiots are unaware of their state and cannot be convinced of it. Unlike outright evil, people do not get a feel of unease from it; group idiocy is devious and sneaky by nature. Once the group idiocy reaches a peak and the idiot mob appears, mass violence and other outright evil ironically is unseen as the mob is blinded to it.

Introverts are less likely to become victims of group idiocy than extroverts, simply because they are less influenced by groups and thus more often remain masters of their own minds. Those who are more invested in group identity (group susceptibility) will of course be more willing to voluntarily (yet unconsciously) give up their independent thinking to bask in the "safety" of the groupthink instead. Unfortunately, those who cherish membership in the groupthink are exactly the sort of people who choose to become politicians (harnessing groupthink is the core of political skill), thus group idiocy of course becomes the norm in that class of people.

We see group idiocy in many situations:

• Corporate yesmen who find that they "coincidentally" yet wholeheartedly agree with everything the executives decide
• Political mobs whose opinions happen to exactly match with their chosen group identities
• Religious zealots whose beliefs are perfectly aligned with each other but not with their holy canon (which they don't read independently, anyway), yet nobody seems to notice

As human beings, our greatest power is the ability to reason; yet ironically the vast majority of us have voluntarily turned this power off.

In the many upheavals, massacres, and so forth of history, we consistently see mobs of people who have surrendered to group stupidity and served as the mindless tools of the powers that both controlled and goaded them. Religion is a common example of a group that easily is used for group stupidity (often leading to mass killings), but is by no means the only type. Sadly, idiot mobs are a natural form of "policing" to ensure that the group idiocy remains in power.

How can we cure society of group idiocy? It is never easy, but some methods to start are as follows:

• Knowledge: if people know what it is, they have a better chance to recognize it, which is the first step to possibly control it.
• Liberation: liberating people from the group power hierarchies that pressure them to voluntarily forego ownership of their own minds will also naturally lead to less group idiocy.

KPIs

KPIs, or "key performance indicators," are rarely actually data sets that are good indicators of performance, because such data is most often not easy to identify and/or measure. Instead, KPIs in reality are usually facile data sets chosen solely for their ease of measurement and ideation (copying whatever others use in an industry) - a more accurate name for these would be "facile non-indicators of anything" (FNAs).

They are also a symptom of data disease wherein leaders feel empowered by pretending to be data scientists, pointing to numbers and graphs, but without really grasping what data is and how it should be used. A basic concept in data science is "garbage in, garbage out" - if your original data is worthless or questionable or unrelated, then even the best analyses of said data can only be worthless or questionable or unrelated as well.

Today, KPIs pollute the minds of executives everywhere, and they remain the bane of many employees, but the word "KPI" is not old. According to Google's Ngram Viewer, the words "KPI" and "key performance indicator" only appeared in the late 1990s, starting to gain popularity from the early 2000s. Their older cousin "scientific management," however, was extremely popular from much earlier, peaking in 1913; certainly Frederick Winslow Taylor's popular book, The Principles of Scientific Management published in 1911 influenced this. Taylor mostly considered manufacturing and manual labor (e.g. shoveling), where production was easily quantified, and in these cases, providing bonuses to those who produced more predictably resulted in more production.

But scientific management had roots in another industry - slavery, which many workers compared Taylor's system with in 1911. The very popular Cotton Plantation Record and Account Book published in 1847 or 1848 by Thomas Affleck had detailed instructions for plantation owners to:

• Track cotton production of each slave (per acre, per bale)
• Evaluate the asset value of each slave ("negroes accounting")
• Depreciate values of slaves due to health or age (e.g. at middle age)
• Providing bonuses to productive slaves and dealing punishments to less productive slaves

Today, modern corporations sadly sound quite similar, but repetitive labor like cotton-picking is much easier to measure than the complex and unstructured work that modern corporations today focus on. Irrespective of what is being measured, employees' negative perception of the slave driver's whip and stopwatch has not changed.

More often than not, executives push and shove their KPIs down employees' throats, feeling as they have accomplished something - but what is the result? Certainly not increased performance.

• Moral damage: distrust of leadership, (accurate) fear that the new KPIs will be used to "catch" and punish staff.
• Motivational damage: disconnect between arbitrary KPIs and perceived actual value will foster unhappiness; simplifying people's contributions into mere numbers will also generate the perception of treating people as robots, drones, or slaves.
• Perverse incentives: KPIs very often create perverse ways of attaining "success" in the arbitrary data points chosen to define success - for example, if a writer is paid per word, then of course the writer will naturally write wordy, long-winded documents; however, wordiness is not real value.
• Material damage: increased turnover as staff decide to move elsewhere; few people enjoy being treated like slaves. Effectiveness falls as well, as executives fervently focus on the easily measurable aspects, while discarding valuable aspects that are not easily measurable, despite their importance.

It is important to remember that these methods were originally developed for managing slaves, who had no ability to quit or resist. It is also important to remember that data naturally predisposes people to focus upon it, thus overlooking information not included in the data. The ease of measuring something in no way is related to how important it is.

Evil Triangle

The Fraud Triangle (created by criminologist Donald R. Cressey) is commonly taught regarding why fraud occurs: when the three elements of pressure ("I need money"), opportunity ("I manage the company's money"), and rationalization ("I deserve it, because I work so hard") occur together, fraud occurs.

Actually, this simple concept can be expanded to apply to any kind of evil, not just fraud.

The Evil Triangle thus explains why evil acts occur. When all three of the elements of "want," "can," and "justify" occur, the restraints preventing one from doing evil acts are undone, and the perpetrator goes and steals, rapes, murders, and so forth.

• "Want" is desire.
• "Can" is ability and opportunity.
• "Justify" is making excuses.

"Want" is the simplest of the three, and is an emotional need (for love, sex, money, etc.).

"Can" is a physical ability to do the deed. Often this is from power: A school bully "can," because he is bigger and stronger than the other kids; a corporate executive "can," because he has hierarchical power over other employees. Other times it is due to skill or access: a fraudster "can," because of his access to and skill using financial systems; a cat burglar "can," because of his skill at thieving and scaling walls.

"Justify" is the most interesting of the three, and is a mental exercise to create excuses as to why the evil act is in fact not wrong, and reflects the need for individuals to think of themselves as just and not evil. (Even the Nazis thought of themselves as just and doing good deeds, as reflected in their private diaries.) (It can also be a legal exercise, which allows governments to similarly legitimize and codify evil as "good" if desired.) Ideologies, laws, and religions are often used as convenient tools in this process of justifying atrocities. Modern leniency toward religions enables many to use religion for this purpose most easily: "It is a part of my religion, thus it is okay!" (Justification is necessary for obvious crimes that everybody can see, but for individual crimes often it suffices to simply hide the crime.)

Applying the Evil Triangle

1. Understanding Evil

The Evil Triangle helps us to understand evil. For example, from history - why did Nazis attempt to eradicate the Jews in the Holocaust? Because they wanted to (antisemitism), they could (government power, power of numbers), and they justified it (nationalism, racist ideologies). Why did European nations invade and colonize the New World? Because they wanted to (desire for gold, spices, land), they could (greater military power, infectious diseases on their side), and they justified it (Christianization of the pagans). Sometimes the last aspect - justification - is even not needed, e.g. during idiot mob violence or absolute power, where people stop caring about even resembling good. However, most ideologies are usually developed in order to assuage this desire for justification.

2. Preventing Evil

The Evil Triangle is also important, because it gives us a clear path to preventing evil acts: one needs to only remove at least one of the three elements; or even better, for greater effect, we can try to remove all three.

• Want: This is most complicated to remove; as despite causing many ills, desire is fundamental and strong. The difficulty of desire is that simply increasing it ever more does not necessarily lead to happiness. Many ancient sages tackled the conundrum of desire in the past, so a good place to start is to teach philosophy, e.g. Stoicism or Epicureanism from the Greeks, Buddhism from India, or Daoism from China; a modern choice may be Positive Psychology. The world media should do its part as well, by responsibly choosing programs that focus on happiness, and avoid fostering envy ("Lives of the Rich").
• Can: The ability to do wrong should be removed. Many mitigations are straightforward, e.g. flattening power structures, restricting access to systems, etc. (Corporations already do the latter, but are still resisting the former - letting go of power is not easy for people to do.) Loopholes where one is "above the law" should of course be removed, too. For example, the best way to prevent hiring discrimination is to just make all applicants anonymous.
• Justify: The use of laws, religions, and ideologies as excuses for atrocities should be prevented. Laws should be interpreted via the "spirit of the law," and not the "letter of the law," which creates loopholes to allow heinous acts. Constitutionalism should not excuse evil acts, either - a constitution is not a holy writ, although many treat it as one - it could be (gasp!) wrong. Religion and culture should not be a "free card" for anybody; basic univeral ethics like not stealing, raping, or killing should be a litmus test of religion or culture. If a religion espouses stealing, raping, or killing - it should be treated as a dangerous cult. (Religions and cultures often espouse things like human sacrifice, headhunting, etc. - it does not make them right.) Ideologies are only caricatures of philosophies, and should be treated as such. Intoxication should never lessen the sentence of any perpetrator - as this empowers would-be perpetrators to commit those acts, knowing that they will face lessened punishments.

3. Predicting Evil

Another important use for the Evil Triangle is to predict evil acts. If you have a politician who loves illicit sex, and he is given total power over a group of female prisoners, and he also happens to follow an ideology that preaches abuse of women as holy revenge - what do you think he will do?

All three applications are linked - by understanding, we can predict, and by predicting, we can prevent (by changing the conditions that would have allowed evil to happen).