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"These people tend to have a very low incidence of drug use because they are less capable of feeling thrills and fears." Are you talking about dark triad style

by htss2013 3y ago

"These people tend to have a very low incidence of drug use because they are less capable of feeling thrills and fears." Are you talking about dark triad style psychopaths? This is the only personality type I've ever known to be both risk seeking and averse to drug use. Every other risk seeker I've ever known applied the same risk seeking attitude to drug use.

austin-cheney 3y ago
No. Psychopathy is very different. In some ways psychopaths fail to process inhibitions that prevent them from revealing deceptions under high stress conditions. Its not clear what difference in the brain allows that behavior in that context as it eliminates several forms of standard processing, but it is known that psychopathy is a neurological disorder directly aligned with extreme narcissism. People with a natural ability to process naturally through high fear stimulus still feel fear. Unlike psychopaths these high risk people still exhibit all the same physical symptoms of a stress/fear response. The difference is that they lack just the emotional inhibition associated with that fear response. In normal people a fear stimulus drives us to halt, pause, and evaluate our options. This processing takes time and when it becomes crippling its called anxiety. People capable of processing through extremely high risk are not so inhibited. Either they are powering through the risky scenarios intentionally as a means of learning something new or because they have weighed their options and found the high risk approach to support an outcome with value that exceeds that severity and and incidence of associated risk. Here is an example. Imagine deploying as a military service member to Afghanistan at the height of that conflict knowing rockets and bombs land on bases that hurt people. This sounds high risk, because you certainly don't encounter this ever driving to work in the US. Evidence will indicate, though, at that time a person was 10x more likely to die from a traffic accident driving to work or from being shot by police in the US than they were to die from any reason while serving in Afghanistan. Most people are not capable or appreciating that. Now apply that same line of critical thinking to modifications of your daily routine. A for a high risk person this is common and boring while for everybody else its extremely challenging and quite stressful. These are not the kind of people tempted to explore drug use.
- htss2013 3y ago
  I don't see how the final sentence follows, that hyper logical low emotional response people would not be tempted to explore drug use. If you're going to be hyper logical about it, there are some drugs that give you rewards that outweigh the risks, at least if done in judicious way. Eg, some stimulant drugs can give you an edge in any number of endeavors with very low risk. Other types of drugs can give you an edge if you need to endure physical pain. Even plain alcohol makes you less logical and less controlled and could give you an edge in the same way poker players benefit from using a "crazy man" strategy. If absolutely nothing else, you'd think this type of person would at least experiment. If they can mitigate risk, which is very possible, then it makes perfect risk/reward sense to find out if any drugs could be useful tools you keep in your back pocket.

austin-cheney 3y ago

No. Psychopathy is very different. In some ways psychopaths fail to process inhibitions that prevent them from revealing deceptions under high stress conditions. Its not clear what difference in the brain allows that behavior in that context as it eliminates several forms of standard processing, but it is known that psychopathy is a neurological disorder directly aligned with extreme narcissism. People with a natural ability to process naturally through high fear stimulus still feel fear. Unlike psychopaths these high risk people still exhibit all the same physical symptoms of a stress/fear response. The difference is that they lack just the emotional inhibition associated with that fear response. In normal people a fear stimulus drives us to halt, pause, and evaluate our options. This processing takes time and when it becomes crippling its called anxiety. People capable of processing through extremely high risk are not so inhibited. Either they are powering through the risky scenarios intentionally as a means of learning something new or because they have weighed their options and found the high risk approach to support an outcome with value that exceeds that severity and and incidence of associated risk. Here is an example. Imagine deploying as a military service member to Afghanistan at the height of that conflict knowing rockets and bombs land on bases that hurt people. This sounds high risk, because you certainly don't encounter this ever driving to work in the US. Evidence will indicate, though, at that time a person was 10x more likely to die from a traffic accident driving to work or from being shot by police in the US than they were to die from any reason while serving in Afghanistan. Most people are not capable or appreciating that. Now apply that same line of critical thinking to modifications of your daily routine. A for a high risk person this is common and boring while for everybody else its extremely challenging and quite stressful. These are not the kind of people tempted to explore drug use.

htss2013 3y ago
I don't see how the final sentence follows, that hyper logical low emotional response people would not be tempted to explore drug use. If you're going to be hyper logical about it, there are some drugs that give you rewards that outweigh the risks, at least if done in judicious way. Eg, some stimulant drugs can give you an edge in any number of endeavors with very low risk. Other types of drugs can give you an edge if you need to endure physical pain. Even plain alcohol makes you less logical and less controlled and could give you an edge in the same way poker players benefit from using a "crazy man" strategy. If absolutely nothing else, you'd think this type of person would at least experiment. If they can mitigate risk, which is very possible, then it makes perfect risk/reward sense to find out if any drugs could be useful tools you keep in your back pocket.