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I am not qualified to speak authoritatively on this matter, but here's how I see it: Psychopaths are mutant parasites. They lack certain abilities that enable t
by castle-bravo 9y ago
I am not qualified to speak authoritatively on this matter, but here's how I see it: Psychopaths are mutant parasites. They lack certain abilities that enable them to integrate well into human groups and would not survive well in the paleolithic. With increasing population densities in the neolithic and in the modern age, it became possible for psychopaths to survive and pass on their genes. I think that psychopaths are still rare for a few reasons: the mutation may be recessive, or high population density is too recent for the mutation to have spread widely, or psychopaths may be more likely to die by violence, or they may invest too few resources in their children. In any case, I think increasing numbers of psychopaths would pose a long-term existental threat to human civilization. As far as productive uses for psychopaths go (if we can identify them before maturity), I have no suggestions; it is not wise to put guns into the hands of heartless people who would turn them on us if they perceived any advantage in doing so; one need only look at the example of Mexican cartels founded by special forces to see this.
- warent 9y ago> Psychopaths are mutant parasites. They're not literally parasites or any more/less mutated than the next person whose genes are different from their ancestors. Hyperbole like this is really destructive and close-minded. Consider if you lived in a world of psychopaths and you were the rare empathetic one. If the greater population openly regarded you as a mutant parasite, would this alienation inspire you to behave in a pro-social way or an anti-social way?
- sterlind 9y agoExcellent, open access genome-wide association study here: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0045086#pone.0045086.s004 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... No SNP was significant, nor any single gene. MAO-A (the "warrior gene") is ruled out. However, many genes showed strong association with Anti-Social Personality Disorder, with multiple alleles working together. My read is that these behavior patterns emerge in certain brain phenotypes, combinations of which were advantageous in antiquity. But much of that genetic information was stored as allele distribution, and we've lost a lot of that data with generations of assortative mating.
- willvarfar 9y agoWhy would psychopaths not do well in the paleolithic? The family raise a child who is a psychopath. The child then does what psychopaths do, and the family are in an abusive relationship with the child. The child can be charming to outsiders etc and can find partners to procreate with. Can't spot why they would not survive well in the paleolithic.
- robotbikes 9y agoIf you are referring to hunters and gatherers, they rarely lived in nuclear families but instead extended family groups. They also socially impose the norm of egalitarianism and are in constant contact with each other. I suspect the original author saw these in direct conflict with sociopathy.