# The Roark–Quirrell Effect

Originally published: 2016-09-14
Canonical URL: /2016/Sep/the-roark-quirrell-effect/

Education increases altruism up to a point (as you increasingly understand that other people are real too and have moral value for the same reasons you do even if you don't experience it from the first person), until you accumulate so many seemingly unique insights that the entire rest of the world looks _so abominably stupid_ that you no longer want to waste a single precious dollar or minute on the concerns of these _creatures_ that can't even see the Really Obvious Thing.

(Or, maybe this is just a form of mental illness specific to high-[psychoticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoticism) males that can be cured with the appropriate drugs. We'll find out!)