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This is a blog by a parent raising a he has identified as a psychopath. The description of his son's behaviors is both interesting and chilling. http://raising

by earl 17y ago

This is a blog by a parent raising a he has identified as a psychopath. The description of his son's behaviors is both interesting and chilling. http://raising-a-psychopath.blogspot.com/ http://raising-a-psychopath.blogspot.com/

tonystubblebine 17y ago
Wow. That's a fascinating read. Thank you for sharing.
scotty79 17y ago
Citation from the blog: We offered Lucas $20 for taking out the garbage each week. Twenty dollars for five minutes of work, an extreme amount, just to see of our instinct was accurate. He seemed excited by the prospect of all that money and the first week eagerly took the garbage out. We immediately paid him the $20 he had earned. The following week I ended up taking the garbage out. Even though the $20 offer was still in effect, Lucas had no interest. It simply wasn’t worth it him to do something he didn’t want to do. We could have raised the offer to $100, or $1000 and it wouldn’t have mattered. Question: Does any one know how to alleviate motivational problem described above? Not in psychopath but in otherwise almost normal person.
- BigZaphod 17y ago
  I'd love an answer or discussion about this, even if only for myself! Promise of money has never successfully motivated me to do anything. In fact, try as I might, I don't know what motivates me - and by all accounts, I'm a pretty introspective person! At least I know money by itself isn't enough - I guess that's a start, but I've been stuck there for years now. :/
  - techiferous 17y ago
    Certainly you end up making many decisions and doing many things each day, even if they are small things like brushing your teeth, right? So at least for some activities you've got motivation. What are the kinds of activities that you get stuck on?
    - BigZaphod 17y ago
      Ironically, the teeth brushing thing is a good example - it's the simple routines that I latch on to; going to the same places each day at the same times, etc. Not obsessively, but just automatically. I don't even know how some habits began. Sometimes the things I do aren't even that enjoyable by themselves. (Why do I bite my fingernails? I certainly don't enjoy that but I can't seem to stop doing it and I've tried several techniques.) I feel like I program because I need to and I need to because I feel like it. Or something. There's a logical loop here that I can't seem to break out of - but it makes it hard to get me to do things I don't want to do and it's even worse when I know there's something I need to do that I don't want to do because I'll put it off as long as possible (and sometimes slightly longer). What's weird (to me) is that the trait will even infect the things I enjoy - like programming. If there's a certain "big" thing I need to do (maybe it's a bunch of boring boilerplate or adapting old code to some new use-case) in order to progress on the part that I consider to be the real problem that I'm working on, I'll put it off and comment on Hacker News instead - sometimes for days. I feel terrible about it and it nags at me the whole time, but I still do it. Why?! :P
      - scotty79 17y ago
        If you ever successfully hack your motivation please let me know how you did it. I have same problem as you but I fail to develop even simplest routines myself. I do things periodically only when there is outside pressure to do them periodically. Like going to school or to work. Otherwise I do things only if they bother me directly or I have spark of enthusiasm to try something out or straighten something out. I could just sign last paragraph of your comment with my name.
        techiferous 17y ago
        For developing a simple routine, I've found the Seinfeld calendar to be a nice tool: http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-se...
      - techiferous 17y ago
- balding_n_tired 17y ago
  What motivational problem, exactly? I thought HN was full of people that don't want to do what they don't want to do?

by earl 17y ago

tonystubblebine 17y ago

Wow. That's a fascinating read. Thank you for sharing.

scotty79 17y ago

Citation from the blog: We offered Lucas $20 for taking out the garbage each week. Twenty dollars for five minutes of work, an extreme amount, just to see of our instinct was accurate. He seemed excited by the prospect of all that money and the first week eagerly took the garbage out. We immediately paid him the $20 he had earned. The following week I ended up taking the garbage out. Even though the $20 offer was still in effect, Lucas had no interest. It simply wasn’t worth it him to do something he didn’t want to do. We could have raised the offer to $100, or $1000 and it wouldn’t have mattered. Question: Does any one know how to alleviate motivational problem described above? Not in psychopath but in otherwise almost normal person.

BigZaphod 17y ago
I'd love an answer or discussion about this, even if only for myself! Promise of money has never successfully motivated me to do anything. In fact, try as I might, I don't know what motivates me - and by all accounts, I'm a pretty introspective person! At least I know money by itself isn't enough - I guess that's a start, but I've been stuck there for years now. :/
- techiferous 17y ago
  Certainly you end up making many decisions and doing many things each day, even if they are small things like brushing your teeth, right? So at least for some activities you've got motivation. What are the kinds of activities that you get stuck on?
  - BigZaphod 17y ago
    Ironically, the teeth brushing thing is a good example - it's the simple routines that I latch on to; going to the same places each day at the same times, etc. Not obsessively, but just automatically. I don't even know how some habits began. Sometimes the things I do aren't even that enjoyable by themselves. (Why do I bite my fingernails? I certainly don't enjoy that but I can't seem to stop doing it and I've tried several techniques.) I feel like I program because I need to and I need to because I feel like it. Or something. There's a logical loop here that I can't seem to break out of - but it makes it hard to get me to do things I don't want to do and it's even worse when I know there's something I need to do that I don't want to do because I'll put it off as long as possible (and sometimes slightly longer). What's weird (to me) is that the trait will even infect the things I enjoy - like programming. If there's a certain "big" thing I need to do (maybe it's a bunch of boring boilerplate or adapting old code to some new use-case) in order to progress on the part that I consider to be the real problem that I'm working on, I'll put it off and comment on Hacker News instead - sometimes for days. I feel terrible about it and it nags at me the whole time, but I still do it. Why?! :P
    - scotty79 17y ago
      If you ever successfully hack your motivation please let me know how you did it. I have same problem as you but I fail to develop even simplest routines myself. I do things periodically only when there is outside pressure to do them periodically. Like going to school or to work. Otherwise I do things only if they bother me directly or I have spark of enthusiasm to try something out or straighten something out. I could just sign last paragraph of your comment with my name.
      - techiferous 17y ago
        For developing a simple routine, I've found the Seinfeld calendar to be a nice tool: http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-se...
    - techiferous 17y ago
balding_n_tired 17y ago
What motivational problem, exactly? I thought HN was full of people that don't want to do what they don't want to do?