3 ms·

Maybe sociopathy is adaptive in the modern world.

• dllthomas 12y ago
  Only if we let it be.
  • spindritf 12y ago
    That's not really true. There's a very serious collective action problem and limits on what humans (can) find genuinely attractive. Which is why I added "in the modern world." In a tight-knit community sociopathic traits are probably much less beneficial than in an atomized, largely anonymous society.
    • dllthomas 12y ago
      We address some collective action problems, with varying degrees of success (certainly, some things we fail horribly at are collective action problems). My statement wasn't meant to say, "Oh, it's simple, we just X!" Just that it's not necessarily outside the realm of things we could address. In particular, "adaptive" - when it comes to humans - is only relevant at time scales of many generations. Much changes over those time scales.
• fooaway 12y ago
  The traits are definitely overrepresented in the executive suite.
• IvyMike 12y ago
  This was the main message of American Psycho.