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Lex AI Julia Shaw

2:48:50 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

Evil is not a type of person but a continuum every one of us sits on.

  1. Calling someone evil ends the inquiry that prevents harmShaw refuses the word because labelling a person evil removes the need to understand what led them to the act.
  2. Most murders are overreactions, not predationReal stated motives are a $4 debt or a stolen bike, and homicide recidivism runs only 1 to 3%.
  3. Fantasy and rehearsal are protective, not warning signsAbout 70% of men and over 50% of women have fantasized about killing someone, and thinking it through is how we decide not to.
Executive Summary AI
  • Criminal psychologist Julia Shaw explains the dark tetrad — psychopathy, sadism, narcissism and Machiavellianism — as four scales on which everyone scores somewhere, mostly subclinically, rather than a binary label of monster or non-monster.8:40
  • Asked whether she would go back and kill baby Hitler, she says no, because she does not believe people are born evil and because the word evil itself others people and ends the conversation we need for prevention.10:35
  • She cites deception-detection research, including Aldert Fry's, showing that lie detection is unreliable and that police and investigative interviewers are no better than chance while remaining highly confident, which drives wrongful accusations and, in relationships, jealousy.21:46
  • On murder she says most killings are fights that get out of control over stupid reasons — a person owed me $4, this person stole my bike — not planned serial predation, and homicide recidivism is only 1 to 3% while fraud, elder abuse and sexual violence are the high-risk crimes.45:03
  • Turning to sexuality, she describes Alfred Kinsey's 0 to 6 scale from his 1940s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, where about half of men and about a quarter of women fell somewhere in the middle, and argues visibility is what stops bisexual and kinky people being dehumanized.1:11:25
Key Quote
“The question is why we don't do those things rather than why we do do those things quite often.”
— Julia Shaw12:51
Key Quote
“The idea being that evil is a label we place onto others.”
— Julia Shaw14:55
Key Quote
“Very few people want to murder.”
— Julia Shaw46:37