The Light Triad | Frankly 85
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 551 Ratings
🗓️ 14 February 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
(Recorded February 12th, 2025)
Deception and self-interest seem to be increasingly prevalent in our modern cultural reality. From the highest levels of power to the cultural metrics of what is considered 'success' for individual humans: the Dark Triad traits of Narcissism, Sociopathy, and Machiavellianism have become disturbingly normalized. But is there an antidote? Could an opposing "Light Triad" of traits - if nurtured and protected - offer a path toward a society in service of life rather than power?
In this Frankly, Nate explores the concept of Light Triad personalities and their struggle against the Dark Triad forces shaping our social, economic, and ecological landscape. He examines how social media amplifies manipulation, why individual goodness is often outmatched by structural incentives, and whether strong, cooperative groups might hold the key to shifting the balance. Importantly, he questions whether the Light Triad can ever truly compete - or if it must evolve new strategies to stand a chance in service of life.
How many people does it take to shield a Light Triad individual from Dark Triad manipulation? Will these competing traits become more or less dominant as we move into the downslope of the Carbon Pulse? And can someone with a Dark Triad personality ever truly change, or are they hardwired for self-interest?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Greetings. Before we jump into this week's frankly, I would like to remind everyone of a little |
| 0:05.9 | project we have, which is to have you submit videos up to three minutes of how you are responding |
| 0:12.7 | to the great simplification, either in your own life and behaviors or your job or your community |
| 0:18.1 | or the broader world. We're trying to create a montage of those and share |
| 0:23.1 | them with you to look at the diversity of listeners and the diversity of responses to what we're |
| 0:29.0 | learning on this journey on the Great Simplification. And here is this week's, frankly. So a couple |
| 0:35.8 | weeks ago, I was in California for some meetings and I was at one conference |
| 0:42.8 | where someone who I've met before said that their organization has developed a tool in |
| 0:49.9 | their interviewing to look at flags for dark triad and signposts to represent light triad. |
| 1:01.0 | And he said this to a bunch of us. |
| 1:04.6 | And then some conversation ensued. |
| 1:08.4 | And among my friends, one of them were like were like oh light triad is the opposite of dark |
| 1:13.8 | triad and another one of my friends thought instantly that light triad was the same categories as dark |
| 1:21.2 | triad just less pronounced and i being the empiricist thought at at the time, well, maybe there is actually something |
| 1:28.8 | called the light triad, and that's what they're referring to. |
| 1:31.3 | And then the conversation went on. |
| 1:35.5 | Until yesterday, I saw someone in my LinkedIn feed did an essay, which will link in the comments, |
| 1:48.9 | about contrasting dark triad and light triad. |
| 1:57.9 | Dark triad, for those who need a refresher, is the combination of personality traits that are narcissism, sociopathy, and Machiavellian behavior. |
| 2:03.5 | And if someone has all three of those, they possess a dark triad behavioral trait. |
| 2:08.1 | There's actually something called dark tetrad, which is those three plus sadism or feeling pleasure |
| 2:17.2 | from other people's pain. |
... |
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