DanArmak comments on On the Power of Intelligence and Rationality - Less Wrong

13 Post author: alyssavance 23 December 2009 10:49AM

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Comment author: Jack 24 December 2009 06:26:24PM *  5 points [-]

The benefits to having charisma are obvious. I'm wondering about the benefits of being under the spell. Having a property (x) that leads people to follow you is way beneficial for survival. But how is it that humans evolved to follow people with characteristic x. Presumably it is some kind of proxy for competence in the ancestral environment. Or a side effect of something else.

Comment author: DanArmak 26 December 2009 04:02:43PM *  2 points [-]

It might be a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma. If others are voting to follow the leader, the minority who don't suffer. If the majority doesn't follow any leader, a small clique that does follow benefits.