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And actual sociopaths sleep perfectly fine at night after scamming widows and kicking orphans. What I'd like to know is what the evolutionary reason for this i

And actual sociopaths sleep perfectly fine at night after scamming widows and kicking orphans. What I'd like to know is what the evolutionary reason for this is.

tejtm 5y ago
A sadly passed HN denizen wrote the "The Psychopath Code" which I strongly recommend to everyone. First to recognize the Hollywood villain you describe is not the typical case and that an appreciable fraction of the population will be blind to various hues of of the emotional gamut most of us (I hope) are aware of. The evolutionary pressure is to not cycle through hundreds of complex, cascading emotional states before deciding to act. [0] https://hintjens.gitbooks.io/psychopathcode/content/ https://hintjens.gitbooks.io/psychopathcode/content/
wahern 5y ago
The real question is why sociopaths aren't more common. Bonobos and naked mole rates are often described as eusocial, but their "communities" are built around matriarchies of sisters, which means there's a strong and simple genetic affiliation. Other proposed examples invariably turn out to have similar orthodox--from a genetic viewpoint--explanations. Humans are an exceedingly peculiar species. But we really understand very little about the origins and fundamental dynamics of our sociality. Our understanding is pre-scientific--lots of analogies, metaphors, and rationalizations, which can get you pretty far, but very little in the way of concrete, biological science that explains how empathy, guilt, etc emerge and are maintained pervasively evolutionarily.
- spiritplumber 5y ago
  Maybe that'll be an use for a proper AI. Maybe a human cannot take a dispassionate look at humanity and we'd need an eye with an outside perspective. We are afterall made out of meat.
  - DiggyJohnson 5y ago
    > Oh my god, they're made out of meat. Hate to admit that this has appeared in some of my social bios before... Anyways, what would the objective of this dispassionate perspective be? Is it possible to have an objective, dispassionate perspective without it being so constrained as to be useless, or optimizes the wrong thing?
otikik 5y ago
> the evolutionary reason for this Tribes without sociopaths get killed by other tribes' sociopaths.
- wahern 5y ago
  That's called group selection, which despite 50+ years of effort is an unproven theory that doesn't fit well (though isn't necessarily contradictory) with Darwinian genetic evolution. Every time someone proposes a case example, someone else invariably identifies a simpler, genetic explanation. Humans, of course, are still an enigma.
- spiritplumber 5y ago
  Sadly you may have a point
dandanua 5y ago
Natural selection within a group of animals. Male cats can kill kittens of other cats, so their genes have better chances to exist in the future.

And actual sociopaths sleep perfectly fine at night after scamming widows and kicking orphans. What I'd like to know is what the evolutionary reason for this is.

tejtm 5y ago

A sadly passed HN denizen wrote the "The Psychopath Code" which I strongly recommend to everyone. First to recognize the Hollywood villain you describe is not the typical case and that an appreciable fraction of the population will be blind to various hues of of the emotional gamut most of us (I hope) are aware of. The evolutionary pressure is to not cycle through hundreds of complex, cascading emotional states before deciding to act. [0] https://hintjens.gitbooks.io/psychopathcode/content/ https://hintjens.gitbooks.io/psychopathcode/content/

wahern 5y ago

The real question is why sociopaths aren't more common. Bonobos and naked mole rates are often described as eusocial, but their "communities" are built around matriarchies of sisters, which means there's a strong and simple genetic affiliation. Other proposed examples invariably turn out to have similar orthodox--from a genetic viewpoint--explanations. Humans are an exceedingly peculiar species. But we really understand very little about the origins and fundamental dynamics of our sociality. Our understanding is pre-scientific--lots of analogies, metaphors, and rationalizations, which can get you pretty far, but very little in the way of concrete, biological science that explains how empathy, guilt, etc emerge and are maintained pervasively evolutionarily.

spiritplumber 5y ago
Maybe that'll be an use for a proper AI. Maybe a human cannot take a dispassionate look at humanity and we'd need an eye with an outside perspective. We are afterall made out of meat.
- DiggyJohnson 5y ago
  > Oh my god, they're made out of meat. Hate to admit that this has appeared in some of my social bios before... Anyways, what would the objective of this dispassionate perspective be? Is it possible to have an objective, dispassionate perspective without it being so constrained as to be useless, or optimizes the wrong thing?

otikik 5y ago

> the evolutionary reason for this Tribes without sociopaths get killed by other tribes' sociopaths.

wahern 5y ago
That's called group selection, which despite 50+ years of effort is an unproven theory that doesn't fit well (though isn't necessarily contradictory) with Darwinian genetic evolution. Every time someone proposes a case example, someone else invariably identifies a simpler, genetic explanation. Humans, of course, are still an enigma.
spiritplumber 5y ago
Sadly you may have a point

dandanua 5y ago

Natural selection within a group of animals. Male cats can kill kittens of other cats, so their genes have better chances to exist in the future.