I don’t see any reason to expect a reflectively endorsed preference for torture
Yep, I agree that in as much as someone has an active preference for torture instead of hatred for specific people, I agree this becomes much trickier. That wasn’t what I was talking about here, since it’s much rarer.
I currently think those psychological predispositions are extremely rare, even among people in powerful positions of authoritarian states. The belief they are common is pretty centrally downstream of propaganda (I encourage you to search for reports of this, and then to start digging, and almost always you can trace it back to propaganda). Like, I do think it exists, mind space is deep and wide, but they are not common (like, I would put the probability of Putin having those traits at like 3%?)
Yep, I agree that in as much as someone has an active preference for torture instead of hatred for specific people, I agree this becomes much trickier. That wasn’t what I was talking about here, since it’s much rarer.
I currently think those psychological predispositions are extremely rare, even among people in powerful positions of authoritarian states. The belief they are common is pretty centrally downstream of propaganda (I encourage you to search for reports of this, and then to start digging, and almost always you can trace it back to propaganda). Like, I do think it exists, mind space is deep and wide, but they are not common (like, I would put the probability of Putin having those traits at like 3%?)