Mortals pursue their own individual interest. With some exceptions, their own short-term and immediate interests.
Mortals have a restricted value schedule. It's beating up his neighbour. Having more money, having a hotter wife or more wives, having more friends, having more followers. Occasionally, literally punching him in the face. Inspiring Envy is the whole game.
Mortals are not nearly as stupid as they pretend to be. They do genuinely know their own immediate interests. Having already decided what he's going to pursue, he makes up whatever bullshit he thinks will make you do what he wants.
In the modern age, they don't need to make up anything new. Homestuck principle: whatever bullshit you need already exists, you merely pick it and pretend you totes believe it.
Mortals don't really cooperate. Perhaps this wasn't true in the distant past, but in the present, homo sapiens is a herd creature. He moves in the same direction as those with the same incentives as him, because he was going to do that anyway. Camaraderie is a myth. There are only fellow travellers. E.g. having picked your bullshit, you signal you have the same interests as everyone who picked the same bullshit. It's in their interest to direct their fire at competitors rather than fellow travellers. You're not coming to an agreement and reinforcing each other, you're merely assured of not getting shot in the back as long as they have someone else to shoot and they believe you're shooting along with them.
Mortals are not usually stupid, but they are stupid about the lure of the possibility of betraying their fellows. The bullshit only works on autists, who have historically been irrelevant except as punching bags. Nevertheless, the eternal promise of bullshit is that you'll trick the king into working against his interests - even though you can't trick your daughter into working against her interests.
Bullshit is competitive, but only because, if you can come up with bullshit that's better at inspiring Envy, you will get [[converts]]. Their interests don't change, so their ideas don't change, they change the decorations, and get bigger herds. E.g. a skilled red pill guy teaches how to tell the lies sluts want to tell their girlfriends they banged. Incel Envy and femcel Envy. E.g. someone can hack the rules to make you appear richer through a fork strategy; to deny your increased apparent wealth, they would have to dig up a pillar of their own proof of Enviousness. "I'm rich because I can beat you," vs. "I'm so rich I can afford to donate to someone I can beat up." To deny the latter is more Envious is to suggest your expensive wealth displays shouldn't be Envied.
Secondly, some bullshit gets to the same place with less effort. If a brutalist hellblock can inspire as much Envy as an intricately carved statue, you do the former. Plus you can charge rent.
Science is inherently autistic. Only autists need to cut the bullshit. "Has this replicated? No? Fuck off." A real scientist assumes the other guy is going to pursue his interests, and ignores whatever he says about it.
Note that a mortal could have done and can do this at any time, but of course it cuts off the strategy of using bullshit himself.
E.g. hitler did a good job. For germany as a whole to do better, hitler would have had to sacrifice his own well-being for germany's, which was never going to happen. Anyone else hired for the same job would have seen the same incentives. Any difference in behaviour would be differences in how well they understand the incentives. How best to maximize Envy.
E.g. when someone has a legal justification, they say it's in the court's interest to side with them, so you can't use the courts to beat them up. Legal justifications aren't legal. It's the poolitics of the court's incentives.
E.g. putin wants russia 'united' because that means they'll pay more taxes and he can brag to modi or khameni that lots of individuals are doing what he tells them instead of seeking their own idiosyncratic bullshit. He doesn't give the tinest shit about what's good for russia - and indeed you're more Enviable if you get rich at your country's expense rather than in harmony. "They couldn't fend off my bullshit."
E.g. jinping hates corruption not because it's bad for china, but because he told you not to and then you disrespectfully did it anyway. "Who dares!" Occident translation: "Insolence!"
E.g. the modern game is to pretend to be softer than warm butter in a form of handicap Envy. Competing to be the most sheltered greenhouse flower. "I'm more yielding than fresh snot and I'm still not dead. I never had to harden up in the slightest!" Being that weak is very expensive, and since you're that weak, you certainly didn't pay for it yourself.
Whenever anyone claims anything that isn't about supporting their own solipsistic interests, it is corruption. They're plain lying to you. (If you're an allist you already know this, but pretend otherwise to avoid nuking your own corrupt speech.)
I don't count as part of the homo genus because I have an interest that isn't Envy.
Speaking of sociology, all the most 'advanced' and 'profound' systems of ethics reduce to solipsistic hedonism.
E.g. christianity is that god's happiness is what matters, because he'll hurt you if you upset him. His narcissistic rage will be boundless if you don't play out the role he's assigned to you, and you won't like that. Pleasure, pain, nothing else.
Buddhism is the idea that the only problem is pain and the purpose of Existence is to learn not to hurt.
Hinduism proposes the Kali yuga isn't worse than being bored.
Stuff like nationalism is the idea that losing wars hurts, so you should do whatever it takes to win the wars you end up in.
Why shouldn't you be a wirehead, a lotus eater, a heroin addict? Why not get into the VR pod and stay there? Because it hurts more in the long run...and that's it. That's the argument.
Literal hedonism, "Fuck it, we ball," is merely the straightforward version of the other stuff.
If virtue is virtuous because the gods decree it, then it's a subordinate virtue. It's only [virtuous] because some dude will punch you in the face if you don't do it, meaning the primary, hyperdivine good is not being punched in the face.
If gods are gods because they embody a virtue, then what makes it virtuous is that you like it, much as you like not being punched in the face.
In all cases, [[morality]] is merely avoiding self-destruction.
Homo sapiens is an inherently immoral natural kind because its core value is encouraging others to self-destruct. Every true homo is a mini Satan.
In short, it is impossible for lightsiders to study sociology. Luckily sociology is braindead easy and hardly needs to be studied.
No society can talk about sociology as it would make Envy and betrayal more difficult. Universally counterproductive.