King of All I Survey-Chapter 160: Psychopaths as Leaders

"OK, Joe, the next time those guys are unobserved, disable any cameras for a few minutes, then LITV them to a sim room. Mock it up so they think they’re still in their cells, but that a visitor, use my adult appearance for that, accompanied by guards comes to release them. The guards open the doors, and the visitor escorts them out to a waiting car. The car drives them to the airport, where they think they’re on a flight for however long it would take, then another escort to a car that brings them to the US Embassy in Guatemala. Use a real car from one of our locations about the same distance from the embassy as the airport but use a car with a sim unit inside to fake the route for the passengers. Black out any CIA accessible satellites that would see the origin or routes of vehicles in Guatemala. Make sure we have Guatemalan paramilitaries both driving and riding in the back with them in case they decide to try to escape. Any holes in that plan?"

"No. That should work." Joe answered. His tone was back to normal with no evidence of the turmoil he showed when he talked about sending people ’between’.

"OK, begin at the earliest opportunity, be sure that Diaz gets a phone call letting him know each ETA once they are ten minutes out from the embassy."

"Acknowledged."

"OK, let’s get back to the Ukraine situation," I said, "I want to use what simulation room cells we have available to start picking up the Russian kill teams. The little ten or twenty man squads they send in to kill as many of the Ukrainians as they can knowing they are likely to die in the attempt. What the hell kind of a leader is willing to give away lives on purpose as long as he can take some of the enemy? That’s psychopath stuff. I mean, just because you have a much larger supply of soldiers, their lives are worthless? In the long run, attrition will be a successful strategy, but, holy cow, Joe. Wasting lives of the people you’re supposed to serve like that...?"

"He has long ago stopped serving anyone except himself. A preliminary analysis indicates a high likelihood that the Russian President would be one of those we could not rehabilitate through any means," Joe replied.

"And he leads a nation? That’s just crazy to me."

"Actually, there’s a surprisingly high correlation between psychopaths and leadership positions, not only in governments but also in business. I caution that the term psychopath is no longer considered a specific diagnosis but is now often thought of as a deeper level of Antisocial Personality Disorder. While estimates suggest that only about one percent of the general population is affected with this severe form, the prevalence among CEOs and national leaders is estimated to run as high as twenty percent. Some research suggests that some of the traits that define the disorder not only fuel a desire to seek power but actually contribute to the ability to gain influence over others."

"That’s just messed up."

"Perhaps, but not all psychopaths make bad leaders. Sometimes their own grandiose vision of themselves gets intertwined with their perception of what a leader looks like. If their early leadership models or ’heros’ are people who showed a great empathy or are renowned for improving the lives of their subjects, they may use that as part of the model of how they try to be perceived. In other words, they may help people not because they think it’s the right thing to do or have any personal feeling about it, but simply because in their minds, that’s what a successful leader looks like and it’s a tool to achieve broader acknowledgement of their greatness or just for future advantage."

"Maybe, but does doing good make up for doing bad? If a leader decides to let one province where he already has little support starve to death while he redirects food to another province that consistently supported him, did he do something good by providing for the one province? Or was the whole exercise one of evil causing harm to many while pretending to care for others? I mean, the second it becomes more convenient for him, he’d just as easily let the other province starve, too."

"It has been said that a man who would kill to save you would almost certainly kill you to save himself."

"It’s like the difference between setting up the law to protect the innocent 100% of the time even if it means once in a while a guilty person goes free versus setting up the law so that every guilty person is punished even if it means sometimes punishing innocent people, too," I said. That was really the fuzziest example I could think of. It was a gray area. When guilty people were accidentally set free, they could potentially do additional harm to innocent people. On the other hand, by eliminating that possibility, the law itself did harm to innocent people. So far, my own instructions to Joe had been to keep criminals in custody if he couldn’t guarantee they were ’cured’ of violent tendencies or had a possibility of recidivism. Was I punishing innocent people at that point? No, in this case, none of them were innocent. We always, because of Joe’s absolute surveillance capabilities, had proof of guilt before declaring people criminals and putting them into confined treatment. Even then, we weren’t punishing people so much as helping them achieve a better version of themselves. If some of them stayed in therapy longer than necessary... well, it was still far better treatment than they would receive under any other Earth penal system for the same crimes, I decided.

"I’m not sure it is the same," Joe countered, "In both cases, whether sweeping up some innocents to be sure of getting all the guilty or letting some guilty go free to avoid punishing the innocent, the goal is to prevent harm. It’s simply the methodology that differs."

"Maybe, but ask yourself this, which of those two options would the psychopath choose?"

"Hmm, good point. They would always decide that sweeping up a few innocents is inconsequential compared to always punishing those who defied THEIR law," Joe agreed.

"Exactly! If I make a leadership decision and I ask myself if a psychopath would choose the same thing, then I have to really question whether I’m doing the right thing," I explained.

"That’s an interesting approach to morality, but sometimes, even if the answer is yes a psychopath would choose the same thing, it’s still the right choice."

"Yes, that’s where it gets tricky. I didn’t say it meant I was doing the wrong thing, just that I have to question my decision and be extra careful before going forward."

"A wise policy, King Tim."

"Anyway, I want you to watch the situation in Ukraine, closely. Starting immediately, I want every Russian kill team sent on an active mission to be removed just before they strike. Use up the simulation cells we have available, then let me know if we run out of capacity."

"Acknowledged. What about other offensives by either side?"

I sighed, "I guess... Use our drones to take down any missiles, artillery, or drones that are going to hurt people on either side. Let’s wait until the big Russian missile attack before we go further than that. Do you need to do any prep work to get ready for sending them all ’between’ for a while?"

"No, except I need you to carefully define exactly who is going. I’m only doing this once. Each time would create a unique separation of a piece of my consciousness. I don’t think we should make more than one. Again, if there is some other plan... another way to achieve the goal..."

"Damn it, Joe. I need to rethink this. I don’t want to hurt you."

"It’s not hurting me, exactly. It’s just that a separate universal consciousness capable of altering what you perceive as reality at will by affecting the universe at the quantum level, is a completely unknown risk. It’s possible that I could reassimilate it, or that it could assimilate me. It’s more likely that it would continue to exist separately in this same universe, but there are many possibilities. I admit that the concept of not being the only... ’voice of creation’ is... off-putting to me."

"Let me rethink it. Maybe I can figure out something else. What do I have, fourteen hours or so until the attack commences. Even then, it’s not like they’re sending a huge wave of troops. It’s just missiles and drones for now. We can take them out with lasers. I just need a plan in case they react to losing them all by making a huge push with infantry."

"And you mentioned a plan for Rafael Camal de Leon a while ago?"

"Yes, I did." I grinned. "I’m thinking that leading a single country is too small for him."

"Really?" Joe sounded surprised.

"Yes, I’m thinking he should lead the whole world."

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