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This is a really horrible way to put things -"psychopaths are society's ultimate catastrophic re-insurance, the last resort". It's indulging itself in grandiosi

by aje403 9y ago

This is a really horrible way to put things -"psychopaths are society's ultimate catastrophic re-insurance, the last resort". It's indulging itself in grandiosity and dumbing down a richer picture than that with more gray area. Referring to someone as a psychopath is quite similar to people calling you a hacker because you majored in computer science then asking you to fix their computer. Outside of the dramatics, it is true that leaders tend to exhibit typical psychopathic qualities. Things like diminished empathy, cutthroat competitivity, predatorial cleverness, selfish rationality at the cost of emotion, and the ability to project the right mask at the right time are usually needed in high business and politics. At the same time, you can't lump Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates into a group with the high school shooter kids. It's not really an adaptation considering humans evolved into empathy - psychopathy, physiologically, refers to part of the brain being underdeveloped leading to these characteristics being formed as an individual progresses through life. Of course, it seems like individuals who go through traumatic events or extended drug use often develop at least a subset of these behaviors separately. I'm not a psychologist so I'll stop myself. Either way, it is a much broader picture than you're painting - the humans and the "evolved" psychopaths.

nwatson 9y ago
The grandparent to your post here, the one referring to "author of ZeroMQ", links to an interesting article by that "author of ZeroMQ" ... and that article is a "layman's rejection" of the notion that you lay out, that "psychopathy, physiologically, refers to part of the brain being underdeveloped leading to these characteristics [of non-empathy, etc.] being formed as an individual progresses through life". I was playing along with that contention, seems to make sense to me, that perhaps some people just inherit traits or predispositions to lack-of-empathy. I also don't know the psychology or neuroscience, and I imagine there's still some debate -- "is it a neurological disorder, or is it an adaptation?"
- aje403 9y ago
  Didn't read - I've had enough run ins with people that I don't need any help spotting them. Maybe will glance over if its short. Part of what I was trying to argue, if I didn't word it well - is that if you're we can't distinctly tie the list of characteristics we've contrived as being psychopathy to something like a malformed amygdala, and we instead refer to it nebulously as this genetic aberration, we might as well go back to calling people witches as well (which, I suppose our species tends to enjoy looking for).

by aje403 9y ago

nwatson 9y ago

The grandparent to your post here, the one referring to "author of ZeroMQ", links to an interesting article by that "author of ZeroMQ" ... and that article is a "layman's rejection" of the notion that you lay out, that "psychopathy, physiologically, refers to part of the brain being underdeveloped leading to these characteristics [of non-empathy, etc.] being formed as an individual progresses through life". I was playing along with that contention, seems to make sense to me, that perhaps some people just inherit traits or predispositions to lack-of-empathy. I also don't know the psychology or neuroscience, and I imagine there's still some debate -- "is it a neurological disorder, or is it an adaptation?"

aje403 9y ago
Didn't read - I've had enough run ins with people that I don't need any help spotting them. Maybe will glance over if its short. Part of what I was trying to argue, if I didn't word it well - is that if you're we can't distinctly tie the list of characteristics we've contrived as being psychopathy to something like a malformed amygdala, and we instead refer to it nebulously as this genetic aberration, we might as well go back to calling people witches as well (which, I suppose our species tends to enjoy looking for).