I know, it's wild, right? I can hardly believe it. Plenty of books - including plenty of very good ones - just disappear without a trace. So I feel very lucky!
This is a genuine mystery. Violence doesn’t necessarily have bad consequences, looking at it historically and logically. You may correctly calculate that it is to your advantage to be violent.
I suspect there is a difference in effect between socially sanctioned violence and antisocial violence. Very hard to say, because the probability of becoming a beat cop or combat soldier (or kickboxer) is entangled with ability, since that affects your set of alternative careers.
Two thoughts. First, the claim isn't that smart people are never violent; it's that they're less often violent. So, maybe smart people do sometimes calculate that violence is advantageous.
Second, I wonder to what extent the pattern is a result of modern societies organizing themselves in such a way that violence is less often a good move - and of smarter people being better able to navigate that social structure.
Wow. An entire conference devoted to your book!?!
Pretty awesome.
Most writers get barely any recognition at all.
I know, it's wild, right? I can hardly believe it. Plenty of books - including plenty of very good ones - just disappear without a trace. So I feel very lucky!
This is a genuine mystery. Violence doesn’t necessarily have bad consequences, looking at it historically and logically. You may correctly calculate that it is to your advantage to be violent.
I suspect there is a difference in effect between socially sanctioned violence and antisocial violence. Very hard to say, because the probability of becoming a beat cop or combat soldier (or kickboxer) is entangled with ability, since that affects your set of alternative careers.
That's a very interesting point.
Two thoughts. First, the claim isn't that smart people are never violent; it's that they're less often violent. So, maybe smart people do sometimes calculate that violence is advantageous.
Second, I wonder to what extent the pattern is a result of modern societies organizing themselves in such a way that violence is less often a good move - and of smarter people being better able to navigate that social structure.