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Worst Roommate Ever

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Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#31

Post by throwaway_4321 »

danielvf wrote: post #12

The author of ZeroMQ wrote a book on recognizing people like this, and more importantly how to get yourself out of prison they’ve put you in. The action plans have helped me. The lucky ones in the NYmag article here did many of the things he recommends. Free PDF here, look for the hard to find “read” button. https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens/psychopathcode/details

I'm sure this will be unpopular, but:

I once had a psychopath like this turn up in my life. Like a lot of these stories, it escalated slowly, one creepy / inappropriate thing at a time. There really is a frog in hot water effect in play here. If you haven't experienced it, it might be hard to understand why someone let themselves be in that situation at all.

What I don't understand, however, is why people don't deal with it decisively once they realize what's going on. When the person harassing me tried to cross an un-crossble line, I beat them within an inch of their life and then drove them to the hospital. I stuck around to talk to the police if they showed up, but they were never called.

I stopped in the hospital the next day to make sure this person wasn't going to bother me again. While I don't revel in this -- I see it more as more instinctual than intellectual -- the person literally shit in their hospital bed when they saw me in the doorway. Putting someone in a position where they have lost control has a profound psychological effect -- it works on psychopaths as well as their victims.

Yes, there was a chance that I could have gone to jail or this person could have tried to retaliate. But I accepted those possible outcomes and did it anyway. People risk their lives / well being all of the time for things a lot less important than their lives and well being (BASE jumping anyone?). I don't regret it one iota and I'd do it again.

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#32

Post by itronitron »

simen wrote: post #23

It's crazy how people who were terrorized by this guy blame themselves for the fact that he turned out to be a murderer, and couldn't take the punishment. Must have been a master at gaslighting.

i think this is due to two human traits/biases, 1) seeing something wildly out of the norm leads to doubts about one's perceptual abilities immediately after the fact (in other words, did I just see that happen, I know I saw it, but that can't have been what just happened...) and unless you write down careful notes immediately you will doubt that it actually happened. 2) people want to be right because it makes them feel safer that the world they know is the world they live in, hence people will hold out hope that all the weirdness can be explained away (and sometimes it can).

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#33

Post by warent »

castle-bravo wrote: post #27
nwatson wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the pointer to the book, quite interesting so far. The author talks of psychopathy as an "adaptation" and not a "brokenness" in an individual ... but the adaptation so far mentioned is only in the sense of "the relatively small number of psychopaths is adapted to prey on other humans". I suppose that having too many psychopaths would render human trust very frail and would make a society prone to failure (…

I am not qualified to speak authoritatively on this matter, but here's how I see it: Psychopaths are mutant parasites. They lack certain abilities that enable them to integrate well into human groups and would not survive well in the paleolithic. With increasing population densities in the neolithic and in the modern age, it became possible for psychopaths to survive and pass on their genes. I think that psychopaths…

> Psychopaths are mutant parasites.

They're not literally parasites or any more/less mutated than the next person whose genes are different from their ancestors.

Hyperbole like this is really destructive and close-minded. Consider if you lived in a world of psychopaths and you were the rare empathetic one. If the greater population openly regarded you as a mutant parasite, would this alienation inspire you to behave in a pro-social way or an anti-social way?

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#34

Post by kstrauser »

throwaway_4321 wrote: post #31
danielvf wrote: post #12

The author of ZeroMQ wrote a book on recognizing people like this, and more importantly how to get yourself out of prison they’ve put you in. The action plans have helped me. The lucky ones in the NYmag article here did many of the things he recommends. Free PDF here, look for the hard to find “read” button. https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens/psychopathcode/details

I'm sure this will be unpopular, but: I once had a psychopath like this turn up in my life. Like a lot of these stories, it escalated slowly, one creepy / inappropriate thing at a time. There really is a frog in hot water effect in play here. If you haven't experienced it, it might be hard to understand why someone let themselves be in that situation at all. What I don't understand, however, is why people don't deal…

Sadly, that's all some people seem capable of reacting to. Those who say that violence never solves problems have never had to live around a sociopath.

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#35

Post by quickthrower2 »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #24

I just lived for my last semester of undergrad with two people like this who really got on each others' nerves (all three of us just needed a semester of housing to finish school). They'd both brought their own toasters and just wanted theirs out and the others in a cabinet. I think they had less than 5 conversations in person, instead putting all their incredibly minor complaints in a group text so I'd have to see i…

That's nothing like what happened in the article.

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#36

Post by siddharthdeswal »

throwaway_4321 wrote: post #31
danielvf wrote: post #12

The author of ZeroMQ wrote a book on recognizing people like this, and more importantly how to get yourself out of prison they’ve put you in. The action plans have helped me. The lucky ones in the NYmag article here did many of the things he recommends. Free PDF here, look for the hard to find “read” button. https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens/psychopathcode/details

I'm sure this will be unpopular, but: I once had a psychopath like this turn up in my life. Like a lot of these stories, it escalated slowly, one creepy / inappropriate thing at a time. There really is a frog in hot water effect in play here. If you haven't experienced it, it might be hard to understand why someone let themselves be in that situation at all. What I don't understand, however, is why people don't deal…

Dude you seem to have a problem. Beating folks into one inch of their life looks to me a significant overreaction.

I understand your frustration, I've wanted to behave similarly many times in life, but actually doing it is a different thing altogether.

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#37

Post by zasz »

throwaway_4321 wrote: post #31
danielvf wrote: post #12

The author of ZeroMQ wrote a book on recognizing people like this, and more importantly how to get yourself out of prison they’ve put you in. The action plans have helped me. The lucky ones in the NYmag article here did many of the things he recommends. Free PDF here, look for the hard to find “read” button. https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens/psychopathcode/details

I'm sure this will be unpopular, but: I once had a psychopath like this turn up in my life. Like a lot of these stories, it escalated slowly, one creepy / inappropriate thing at a time. There really is a frog in hot water effect in play here. If you haven't experienced it, it might be hard to understand why someone let themselves be in that situation at all. What I don't understand, however, is why people don't deal…

Welllllll, most people are way more pacifistic than you are. I can't think of anyone I personally know who's beaten someone else up. For most people, once they've ruled out violence, they've left themselves with no good options.

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#38

Post by rdlecler1 »

nwatson wrote: post #21
danielvf wrote: post #12

The author of ZeroMQ wrote a book on recognizing people like this, and more importantly how to get yourself out of prison they’ve put you in. The action plans have helped me. The lucky ones in the NYmag article here did many of the things he recommends. Free PDF here, look for the hard to find “read” button. https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens/psychopathcode/details

Thanks for the pointer to the book, quite interesting so far. The author talks of psychopathy as an "adaptation" and not a "brokenness" in an individual ... but the adaptation so far mentioned is only in the sense of "the relatively small number of psychopaths is adapted to prey on other humans". I suppose that having too many psychopaths would render human trust very frail and would make a society prone to failure (…

In evolutionary nomenclature they call this frequency dependent selection. Some trait can have a selective advantage and low frequency but the selective advantage is lost as the frequency of the trait increases in the population. Also, I think you analysis is spot on. This trait is preserves at low frequencies because it has been benefited from positive selection in the past.

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#39

Post by 3131s »

throwaway_4321 wrote: post #31
danielvf wrote: post #12

The author of ZeroMQ wrote a book on recognizing people like this, and more importantly how to get yourself out of prison they’ve put you in. The action plans have helped me. The lucky ones in the NYmag article here did many of the things he recommends. Free PDF here, look for the hard to find “read” button. https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens/psychopathcode/details

I'm sure this will be unpopular, but: I once had a psychopath like this turn up in my life. Like a lot of these stories, it escalated slowly, one creepy / inappropriate thing at a time. There really is a frog in hot water effect in play here. If you haven't experienced it, it might be hard to understand why someone let themselves be in that situation at all. What I don't understand, however, is why people don't deal…

> cross an un-crossble line

And what line was that? Are you exaggerating the description of the beating or not? Not sure if you actually know what it looks to actually see someone getting beaten to death, and I'm not sure what justification there could be to do that to someone unless they continued to pose a threat to you until the very end of the fight.

Re: Worst Roommate Ever

#40

Post by QML »

Maybe the United States does have a mental health issue — maybe we should pay attention more to how college-aged men and women mature.
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