4 ms·
Programmers (me included) are intrigued with psychopathy: we like the idea of pure thought, unencumbered by guilt, untainted by emotions, conventions and niceti
by southpawgirl 13y ago
Programmers (me included) are intrigued with psychopathy: we like the idea of pure thought, unencumbered by guilt, untainted by emotions, conventions and niceties. But paradoxically we overromanticise it in the process: I am pretty sure that living day-to-day with such condition kinda sucks, and that it seldom leads to notableness or notoriousness, let alone self-improvement or any kind of refinement. A serial offender petty criminal is probably more representative of the 'average' psychopath than the author of this post, I am afraid.
- theorique 13y agoIf I understand correctly, the IQ distribution in psychopaths is not different from the population as a whole. So, the 130 IQ (+2 sigma) psychopaths are probably intelligent and self-aware enough to hold their "evil" tendencies in check and to succeed. On the flip, the 70 IQ (-2 sigma) psychopaths probably do not have the self-insight to understand "why" they feel the way they do. Their impulse control will be much smaller, and they are much more likely to indifferently hurt people, commit crimes, and act on impulse.
- southpawgirl 13y agoQuoting from Wikipedia: 'Additionally, studies suggest inverse relationships between psychopathy and intelligence, including with regards to verbal IQ' (but later it's stated that such correlation is not unanimously accepted). I think we mostly are in agreement; I think the impulsive and antisocial tendencies of the psychopath are often self defeating and only the very intelligent navigate life successfully. We end up having a selection bias because we are likely to cross paths only with the latter subtype, so we end up believing that all psychopaths are superintelligent and verbally dazzling, while probably the majority of them is badly dull.