I thought I'd knock something up to explain why even if one excused numerous evil and criminal things he did, his use of controlled contrast is the bad side. This applies to others as well of course. Controlled Contrast: How Professionals and Manipulators Use It Differently Some people are trained to use violence in their work: soldiers, police, private security, anti-poaching rangers and bouncers etc. The most effective among them project both good cop and bad cop at once, sending a clear message: "Things can be nice, or things can be not nice. Your choice." This isn’t about aggression; it’s about controlled contrast, a learned skill that takes practice. Professionals use it to maintain order, while manipulators use it to control and exploit. Professionals Train for Stability For those in law enforcement, military, and security roles, controlled contrast is a tool for predictability and de-escalation. A skilled professional doesn’t need to be aggressive or theatrical; they set clear expectations. Respect gets respect. Resistance has consequences. This ability isn’t innate, it’s learned. Through structured training, mentorship, and real-world experience, professionals develop discipline and emotional control. Their goal is to maintain stability, not create fear for its own sake. Manipulators Train for Control Manipulators, including narcissists, sadists, and abusers, also refine controlled contrast but with a different purpose. Instead of using it to keep order, they use it to destabilize and dominate others. Unlike professionals who undergo formal training, manipulators self-train, learning through trial and error. They observe what works, sharpen their tactics, and, in some cases, reinforce each other. Narcissists often validate and teach one another manipulation techniques. Sadists, who actively enjoy watching suffering, gravitate toward like-minded individuals. Where professionals offer predictability, manipulators rely on unpredictability to keep their victims disoriented. Their version of controlled contrast plays out through psychological manipulation: Unpredictability instead of stability – Keeping people on edge rather than offering clear choices. Escalation for its own sake – Prolonging arguments, provoking, humiliating, or harming simply because they enjoy it. Fake kindness as a lure – Using charm when it suits them, only to twist the knife later. The Psychological Tricks of Manipulators Instead of enforcing boundaries, manipulators blur them. Some of their key tactics include: Love bombing – Overwhelming someone with affection, gifts, and attention to make them dependent. Mirroring – Copying a person’s interests and mannerisms to create the illusion of deep connection. Gaslighting – Making someone doubt their reality so they feel confused and off-balance. Perhaps the most insidious tactic is intermittent reinforcement, which mirrors controlled contrast but for manipulation rather than stability. By unpredictably switching between kindness and cruelty, manipulators keep their targets emotionally hooked. One moment, they are affectionate and charming; the next, cold and punishing. Victims are left chasing the moments of kindness, enduring the cruelty in the hope that the “good” version of the manipulator will return. This psychological push-and-pull mimics professional controlled contrast but serves an entirely different purpose: keeping people trapped. The Key Difference? Intent. At its core, the difference between professionals and manipulators using controlled contrast is intent. Professionals use it to maintain order and de-escalate conflict. Manipulators use it to exert power and create instability. Both require practice, but only one serves a legitimate function in society. The other is a finely tuned ability to inflict harm, and get away with it.
When you know history its not possible to pretend you don't know what you see. I would have said absolute indifference to outcome for others is the root of evil, but basically the same. Elon Musk to CNN: "The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit," Musk said. "There it's they're exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response." Empathy, he said, has been "weaponized." https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/elon-musk-rogan-interview-empathy-doge/index.html “ In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” -Captain G. M. Gilbert, the Army psychologist assigned to watching the defendants at the Nuremberg trials. Empathy is the foundation of cooperation, social trust, and even basic human rights. Without it, society would be transactional at best and outright oppressive at worst. Musk is not wrong that empathy can be manipulated, but the alternative, eroding it, leads straight to a society where oppression is the default.
It seems that Elon and Peter Thiel have a plan to change society globally to better fit their ideas. In Adam Curtis's documentary series The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom, he discusses how early applications of John Nash's game theory (Beautiful Mind) revealed discrepancies between theoretical predictions and actual human behavior. Specifically, when RAND Corporation analysts conducted game theory experiments with their secretaries in the early 1950s, they observed unexpected cooperation: "When they tried to play on these games with the secretaries at the RAND Corporation... none of them behaved as one predicted; they just co-operated." Instead of questioning the assumptions of game theory, some policymakers and economists chose to reshape societal structures to align with these models, promoting self-interest and competition as normative behaviors. Curtis elaborates: "The fundamental assumption that Game theory brought with it was that people are self-interested... behind our everyday world are certain basic assumptions about human beings and the fundamental one is that we are... 'rational utility maximisers' and we pursue rationally what we want, and that's it." This perspective influenced economic and public policy, leading to management systems driven by targets and numbers, which, paradoxically, constrained individual freedom. Basically they changed Amercian society to fit the theory, and fairly quickly leveraging entities such as The Ad Council.
When it comes to seeing more, everybody's favourite quantum physicist Sabine, deserves an ear. Any thoughts?
It is interesting that she shows there is no difference between US and European worker productivity when adjusted for hours worked. Europeans just work fewer hours as W-L balance / mental health is valued more. Of course there are parts of Europe who outperform the US even with far less hours worked. This supports the idea that quality is more important than quantity quite often. The only place I have personally encountered stateside where I felt that workers were seriously hard-core in average, made me feel pushed to keep pace, was Hollywood's studio industry. It’s a rare U.S. industry where the European approach to work-life balance simply doesn’t apply. The job is the priority, and burnout is just part of the deal.