Earlier quoted context omitted.
Glad you wrote this. I was often wondering whether it is possible to communicate with a psychopath. Communication requires trust, i.e. that the person you are speaking with isn't lying. With non-psychopaths this is achieved by the complex play of empathy, guilt etc. However, given that psychopaths lack these feeling the mechanism just doesn't work. It's an epistemic and, actually, quite terrifying problem: You have t…
Yea that's a great point. I think you can communicate with high functioning sociopaths as long as your goals align. Note that your goals are by default subordinate to mine but that sometimes near term ones can be the same. It's generally the case that it's better to build a coalition of people who have shared goals than just manipulate people into doing what you want. If your goals are misaligned, you'll likely come…
Wouldn't the goal of most "high functioning" sociopaths be near identical i.e: health, happiness and survival? (ofcourse one can debate on how that is to be achieved, but that's another debate)
Anyway, I can identify with a lot of what you put in your parent post. There appears to be a key difference in the way I'm a sociopath. I seem to have became one. For example for me death is an anticipated event that will happen to everyone. I have probably "greaved" over the death of most people who are close to me and are now alive so that when it actually happens it does not catch me off guard. So now I have to feign some grief when it actually happens, so that I do not come across as a sociopath.
And on the topic of death - I have done my own little bit, since I do not think it is entirely inevitable. Being a "sociopath" and having a high degree of objectivity go hand in hand.