I have one criticism of the argument that coup-proofing prevalence is evidence for personality factors.
To be clear, my argument was more like “coup-proofing prevalence doesn’t seem like strong evidence against personality playing an important role”. I.e., I don’t think that it should reduce our belief that personality plays an important role.
It is true that I think I’d see these behaviours as evidence for personality playing an important role. But I’m not sure, and I’m not seeing it as key evidence.
While I agree that many people would not commit inter-elite violence as the first leader, I suspect a much larger number would as the 5th leader. So an argument for point B.
I’d agree that a much larger number would as the 5th leader than as the 1st leader, in the scenario you describe. And I think this is a valuable point.
But, in line with your final paragraph, I’d still bet that many people wouldn’t; I think many people would simply step down, flee, or accept radical changes to the nature of their regime.
And perhaps more importantly, I think personality influences whether someone tries to become a leader in the first place, and whether they succeed in that. So I expect a lot of people to not want to “do horrible things”, recognise that pursuing this leadership position may require them to “do horrible things” along the way or to stay in power, and thus just not pursue those positions.
(That said, I did say “I’d be willing to bet that a very large portion of people wouldn’t engage in violent coup-proofing, even if they were in a situation where doing so would help them keep power.” So there’s a valid reason why you focused on how people would behave if they somehow landed in the leadership position, rather than how likely they are to enter those positions to begin with.)
To be clear, my argument was more like “coup-proofing prevalence doesn’t seem like strong evidence against personality playing an important role”. I.e., I don’t think that it should reduce our belief that personality plays an important role.
It is true that I think I’d see these behaviours as evidence for personality playing an important role. But I’m not sure, and I’m not seeing it as key evidence.
I’d agree that a much larger number would as the 5th leader than as the 1st leader, in the scenario you describe. And I think this is a valuable point.
But, in line with your final paragraph, I’d still bet that many people wouldn’t; I think many people would simply step down, flee, or accept radical changes to the nature of their regime.
And perhaps more importantly, I think personality influences whether someone tries to become a leader in the first place, and whether they succeed in that. So I expect a lot of people to not want to “do horrible things”, recognise that pursuing this leadership position may require them to “do horrible things” along the way or to stay in power, and thus just not pursue those positions.
(That said, I did say “I’d be willing to bet that a very large portion of people wouldn’t engage in violent coup-proofing, even if they were in a situation where doing so would help them keep power.” So there’s a valid reason why you focused on how people would behave if they somehow landed in the leadership position, rather than how likely they are to enter those positions to begin with.)