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Letter From A Psychopath

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Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#131

Post by squigs25 »

gelutu wrote: post #113
squigs25 wrote: post #82

Many of the best venture capitalists and entrepreneurs have psycopath-like tendencies. Think about the similarities. A good entrepreneur/venture capitalist should be: -Ruthless, selfish, unsympathetic -Capable of manipulating, good at acting, great at selling a concept and convincing others to drink the kool-aid -Unfazed by negative outcomes -Unaware of (or at least, unfazed by) social norms and the status quo -Creat…

Psychopaths are devious not creative.

I guess I consider those traits to be one and the same at their root, one just has a negative tone.

In my mind, everyone who is devious is creative, but not the other way around.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#132

Post by rch »

ambiate wrote: post #110
rch wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that the operating system generated the comments. Terry reads between the lines as well.

You've noticed that too? Completely lexical followed by C:\AMBIATE\INTRODUCTIO~1.TXT This__-you__are__ will believe _- you __that_this_then_ if and only if _generated_text from _some_thing.

I watched a video demo of the OS, in which he shows how he generates the text. In all likelihood the parent I responded to was referring to parts of the comments that do not appear to be generated, just troubling.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#133

Post by badman_ting »

VladimirGolovin wrote: post #102
Pompky wrote: post #99

I think psychopaths are incredibly boring, unidemensional people who hopelessly, endlessly intellectualize and play mind games because there is no depth to them. It is only mind machinations without the depth and nuance of a fully feeling and emotionally alive human being. I had psychopathic parents and studied psychopathy as a PhD criminal forensic psycholovist encountering many serial killers, cons and the like. Wh…

> I think psychopaths are incredibly boring, unidemensional people. I met at least two. Both were extremely vivid people, and deeper contact with them, when they turn off their cloaking field, was baffling: it was a bit like communicating with an alien. In any case, these people were really, really far from being dull.

Yes, this idea that they are hopelessly boring strikes me as wishful thinking. Everything would be so much easier if that were truly the case.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#134

Post by Pompky »

Pompky wrote: post #112
Pompky wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is true. This is a very manipulative and actually non substantive, shallow piece of writing. It smacks of the superiority complex and has the shiny flawless gleam of the narcissist in the psychopath. It is just too slick and seamless. That is what gives away the fact of his psychopathy. In fact he is one of the worst forms of psychopath I think, which are those that actually believe what they are telling other…

In fact, why this young mans treatment likely exacerbated his psychopathic acumen, is because it gave him an entirely knrw language to dissimulate with. Why the psychopath is untreatable, is because it is a "lying" disorder. The essence of psychopathy is profound dishonesty. It is an inversion of meaning, an inversion of the order, where good becomes bad and bad becomes good. Where kindness is reformulatrd through th…

...continued due to mobile phone limitations endogebous dishonesty. He is intrinsically incapable of telling the truth. Thus he cannot accurstely self assess He can nevet formulate a truthful thought due to this profound mental perversion that is the hallmark of this disorder. He has only acquired more slick, refined and better labguage to dissimulate others as s "treatment success." Thats why so many of you were duped into feeling enpathy for him. He is simply pullung for ut in you, but he has no empathy for you. It is alk just a gane for him. There is nothing genuine about his letter. Feelibg empathy for a psychopstg is a fools gane. Thst is luje having the profoubd mental perversion that is the hallmark of this pernicious disorder. He only coopts ndw slicker, more refined language as a "successfully therspized

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#135

Post by ctdonath »

beaker52 wrote: post #32
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to meet this person. No, no no no no. No you would not. Not unless you mean it like "I'd like to meet a serial killer, just for the experience." Maybe it'd be interesting to get their point of view, sure, but you are far better off without them in your life. And certainly without having any form of relationship with them. One of the main reasons this guy wrote this letter was probably self-aggrandization…

Love is the kindest and most valuable thing we can spread in this world and your reply offered none to this individual. He is no less deserving than any other. We all have the same life sentence. We're all trying to do our thing, he, you and I included. More love, less hate. Please.

Sometimes the best love you can offer is benign neglect.

Timothy Treadwell was very loving/caring toward bears. Then he got eaten by one. Some people will do the same to you. Keeping a respectful safe distance is not hateful.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#136

Post by mcguire »

anovikov wrote: post #28

The more i read about phychopaths is that they are normal guys/girls and it is the society's problem to 'treat' them (because they are too strong competitors and shall be neutralized) rater than their own.

Keep in mind: if you don't know who the patsy is, you are the patsy.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#137

Post by ehum »

mikeash wrote: post #74
peterwwillis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, in their mind, they're not rambling. They believe they are saying something intelligible. They have thoughts, sometimes mixed up, and feelings, and try to express them - but something in the delivery smashes it to bits. So the interesting thing to me is how you can read these ramblings and actually extract feelings and intentions from them, even though they make no sense. Usually it's very sad and lonely.

There is a fascinating internal logic underneath it all. I had a schizophrenic guy send me regular e-mails for about two months. For reasons still unknown to me, he decided that I was the one person in the world that he could trust. The first e-mail was very short and looked like spam. It was a brief note about how the death of some professional wrestler wasn't an accident. Then they got longer and longer, and finall…

being back on his meds is codeword for taken care of by the secret police you know?

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#138

Post by selmnoo »

pndmnm wrote: post #125
vectorpush wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's all prattle on about the guy as if he isn't an active member of this forum. The man can read you know, most developers can. I'm not trying to censor discussion but it just seems a little odd to publicly deconstruct this guy in every mental health thread like he's some type of lab specimen. It is indeed possible to read comments while hellbanned.

If you'd like to read a community actually interacting with him rather than hellbanning him under the rug, check out this Metafilter thread: http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Son... Long, but worth the read.

And here he is asking us for help and being ignored: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1782800

Actually just go through the his submission history and randomly click a few links: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=losethos

You can actually see his condition gradually getting worse over months and years. I wonder if he would have turned out differently had we embraced him - and helped him?

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#139

Post by michaelt »

berntb wrote: post #38
simonh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purely as a matter of opinion, the way to think about this is not as an advantage for an individual, but for as a gene pool. Mostly a human gene pool's survival and prosperity is best served by community co-operation, mutual support and self sacrifice for the good of loved ones and other community members. Sometimes though, the group as a whole has had it and the route to the survival of any of the gene pool is for o…

I'm not going to rule out that psychopathy can have been a good thing in some society roles, but they do look more like shirking parasites? (An evolved strategy that is turned on sometimes, depending on environment.) [Edit: Afaik, psychopathy is not turned on after someone reaches adulthood. An evolved strategy for catastrophes would be turned on at e.g. hunger or stress.] I especially wonder if warfare is a good exa…

Well, communities have subgroups. Even if someone is a net drag on the larger community, they could contribute to a subgroup.

For example, a leader might be good for their country at the expense of the international community. Or a senator might be good for their state but bad for their country. Or an activist might be good for his community but bad for society at large.

Such a person probably wouldn't be popularly seen as a shirking parasite. The subgroup that benefits would probably say they were doing a super job.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#140

Post by philwelch »

simonh wrote: post #24
Yhippa wrote: post #12

At one point in our evolution was there some advantage that being a psychopath conferred?

Purely as a matter of opinion, the way to think about this is not as an advantage for an individual, but for as a gene pool. Mostly a human gene pool's survival and prosperity is best served by community co-operation, mutual support and self sacrifice for the good of loved ones and other community members. Sometimes though, the group as a whole has had it and the route to the survival of any of the gene pool is for o…

You're looking at it the wrong way I think. Human culture (yes, even including warfare) only works with instincts towards cooperation. But once that culture exists, individual actors can succeed by essentially hacking those instincts to their own benefit. Evolution doesn't work to the collective benefit of entire gene pools--it works to the benefit of an individual's own genes. Within a population, divergent strategies can both be successful.
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