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Sociopaths are one of the fundamental threats facing humanity today. Such traits may have been beneficial in times past as group conflict was so prevalent, but
by dfraser992 13y ago
Sociopaths are one of the fundamental threats facing humanity today. Such traits may have been beneficial in times past as group conflict was so prevalent, but if global issues like getting into space, climate change and the prevention of economic chaos are to be dealt with effectively, humanity is going to have to learn how to cooperate more effectively. And that means preventing sociopaths from getting into positions of power.
Unfortunately, society does not seem to have yet evolved the mechanisms to deal with these parasites effectively. The law is hardly a useful tool, given how "flexible" and corrupt it is, and how money aka power is so important in manipulation of the law versus "truth". Economists aka amateur sociopaths are finally beginning to realize an obvious truth - that most humans are not rational actors strictly concerned with profit and loss but that decisions are based on emotion much more than they'd like to admit and so this has a significant effect on economic behavior.
All this does matter because ask yourself - what of the effects these people have on the lives of those they exploit? what sort of setbacks do the good people end up facing and how much of a drain is it on their lives and their efforts to -contribute- to society as a whole? I see so much waste because of the unnecessary chaos the sociopathic introduce to society as a whole. They are a threat and capital punishment is a logical response, because they can not be rehabilitated. But given how society is organized, rich white people are never going to be executed, or even prosecuted, for their crimes unless they're so egregious they can't be ignored.
Even then, the case of Jimmy Savile (in the UK) is an example of how humanity still is little nothing more than talking chimpanzees who respond more to and are controlled by instinctual behavior patterns versus the ability to cogitate like "we" think we are able to. Jimmy was a sociopath, everyone knew he was a pedo, but nothing was done because no one wanted to speak up because of the social cost. Things are better these days, of course, so maybe in another 100 years, there will be a test toddlers are given to track whether they are likely to be sociopathic, and more effort will be put into preventing the development of such evil monsters. It is like the Head Start program in the States - prevent issues down the road by ensuring children have the best psychological foundation established as early as possible.
- aianus 13y agoSounds scarily like thoughtcrime to me.
- ekkehardt 13y agoIt's nothing like thoughtcrime. Personality is not about "thoughts" it's about behavioral traits.
- Havoc 13y agoWell good luck with your witch hunt.
- ekkehardt 13y agoYou personally won't be executed. But your type will either be controlled, annihilated, or humanity as a whole will cease to be. Psychopaths aren't parasites. A parasite doesn't threaten the life of the host, because the parasite's life depends on the host's life. If psychopaths were just parasites they would not be an issue. When society uses competitions to pick leaders, many of the leaders will naturally be psychopaths because psychopaths will go to lengths that good people won't go to in order to win. It's that simple. You have a contest. The winner gets a huge prize and becomes a leader of humanity. Good person could murder or blackmail to win the contest, but good person won't do that because he's not a psychopath. Psychopaths will do that, they win the contest, they take control of humanity and then run humanity into the ground because a psychopath only cares about satisfying their petty lusts. All human problems right now are caused by the fact that our competitive systems of picking leaders always pick psychopaths. If we murdered all the psychopaths when they were toddlers, today we would have a proper response to climate change. We would have a proper response to mass poverty. Corporations wouldn't look like they are actively TRYING to make our species go extinct.
- dfraser992 13y agoWhy is the global witch hunt against terrorists (excuse me, Muslims) acceptable, but bringing people like the bankers at HSBC, who enabled drug lords and the like for over a decade, not? HSBC's actions were far more detrimental to society than any terrorist attack, yet no one will ever be punished for their actions - not anyone involved in the crash of 2008. Both are clearly wrong, but given how hypocritical Western society actually is, it is obvious one can get away with anything as long as you're part of the upper echelons / in group. And abstract stuff like financial crimes are not so emotionally tinged as concrete crimes, like murder. And federal prosecutors are lazy sociopaths who haven't got the stomach to prosecute powerful people anymore... This probably explains why people get more conservative as they get older - they see how screwed up the world is and retreating into pseudo-authoritarianism makes sense, emotionally. But conservative values these days are just cover for the authoritarians. I guess I am complaining about the fundamental lack of integrity of Western society that is so obvious anymore. On that note, I just picked up "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" which looks like a good read.