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Letter From A Psychopath

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Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#201

Post by prawks »

mcguire wrote: post #123
jseliger wrote: post #16

If you're interested in what life for such a person is like (or if you might be one!), check out M. E. Thomas's Confessions of a Sociopath . I wrote about it here: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/summary-judgment-co... and Tyler Cowen wrote about it here: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/con... and elsewhere. FWIW, from what I've read ( http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/10/08…

You might also want to note that there are many different versions of [staying] out of trouble .

Exactly what I thought. Especially given the above quote:

researchers could study only the psychopaths’ behavior, in most cases through their criminal records

It's a fascinating disorder, really, in that the most severe cases are difficult to detect so long as they do not make mistakes.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#202

Post by philh »

selmnoo wrote: post #178
diminoten wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that our responsibility, to save a man from mental illness? I don't feel it is.

Is it our responsibility to help people who have down syndrome from hurting themselves? Is it our responsibility to help people with physical handicap? Is it our responsibility to help people suffering from depression? I'm offended by the thought and the idea that we should just ignore our ill. What if the person suffering from the mental illness was your brother or sister? Think about if it was you, and no-one reach…

"Responsibility" is one of those words that makes it really hard for people to talk to each other.

If a person does not go out of their way to do the things you listed, I do not consider that a moral failing on their part. Especially if the cost to them is more than the benefit to the other person.

If you keep jumping on bullets, sooner or later you run out of flesh.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#203

Post by BellsOnSunday »

throwaway83294 wrote: post #173
southpawgirl wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect if it's one thing that scares a psychopath, it's being found out No, that's a narcissist. Afaik psychos aren't attaching that much emotional involvement to their public persona. They might be annoyed if sussed out, but that's about it.

You might be right. I must admit the "fear" I thought I detected was subtle at best, and the word "fear" is just my attempt to assign a word to a response I hadn't seen in him before. I think a better way of describing it is he showed he was "unsettled" at a deeper level than I'd seen before, since generally nothing phases him. Edit: BellsOnSunday: I'm responding in an edit because for some reason HN doesn't allow me…

Comparing

> There was only one emotion he showed when I revealed I knew, and it was terror. Deep, deep terror he was struggling to conceal.

with

> I must admit the "fear" I thought I detected was subtle at best

you seem to have got a bit carried away in the telling of your story (which sounds to me like a rather standard one of someone taking advantage of another in a business situation).

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#204

Post by Taek »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #11
Fuxy wrote: post #3

Interesting. I would like to meet this person. I find it very helpful to surround myself with people that have a different way of seeing the world.

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…

This is over cautious, and you use your own experiences as too much of an example of "this is what will always happen."

If you think of people like psychopaths and serial killers as fire, and your experience of getting burned (whether it was in your control or not), you might acknowledge that circumstances could be set up where a meeting with a psychopath could happen in a safe and protected way.

People who are very different from you (even dangerous) probably share traits with you that are much more exaggerated in themselves. Their experiences have analogs to yours, and even though they are fundamentally different from you they can still teach you a lot about yourself.

I would relish the opportunity to meet a serial killer. Would I meet him in a dark ally with no law enforcement or witnesses? Of course not, if I had any control I would avoid that scenario. If I had the opportunity to let a psychopath become an integral part of my family, I would reject that as well (not everybody has the luxury, I understand). But if we are meeting for coffee in a reasonably populated restaurant, I think the conversation could be very beneficial to myself.

Dangerous does not guarantee disastrous.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#205

Post by vanderZwan »

undoware wrote: post #198
DanBC wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your position is that all convincing self-accounts by psychopaths are themselves only convincing because the psychopath is somehow 'tricking' you, then you can take that statement and s/psychopath/any group you care to name/ and you'd never know the difference. Don't believe me? Try substituting various bogeymen of the twentieth century: crack dealers, pedophiles, etc. You see what I mean? It always works: You s…

So is being any sort of successful criminal. A pedophile, for example.

I'm not sure if I would lump in "successful criminal" - which implies doing something criminal - with a mental sickness (sexual attraction to children) that may or may not actually be acted upon.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#206

Post by criswell »

kristofferR wrote: post #31

Everybody should turn on showdead in the settings and check out losethos' comments here. Psychopathy is really interesting and fascinating, but so is schizophrenia. It boggles my mind how anyone can write such nonsensical rambling comments while at the same time coding a 64 bit operating system from scratch.

I haven't been this fascinated by something in a while.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#207

Post by Havoc »

jseliger wrote: post #16

If you're interested in what life for such a person is like (or if you might be one!), check out M. E. Thomas's Confessions of a Sociopath . I wrote about it here: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/summary-judgment-co... and Tyler Cowen wrote about it here: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/con... and elsewhere. FWIW, from what I've read ( http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/10/08…

Be warned though ME Thomas' book is not particularly well written, so unless you are specifically interested in this I'd stay clear. The style is similar to the letter from this thread.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#208

Post by Havoc »

jseliger wrote: post #16

If you're interested in what life for such a person is like (or if you might be one!), check out M. E. Thomas's Confessions of a Sociopath . I wrote about it here: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/summary-judgment-co... and Tyler Cowen wrote about it here: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/con... and elsewhere. FWIW, from what I've read ( http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/10/08…

>no therapies or treatments that reproducibly help psychopaths

This depends largely on one's idea of "help". Nobody is going to cure psychopaths any time soon, but I'd be surprised if one can't (reproducibly) help them channel their drive into something productive.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#209

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway83294 wrote: post #128
hootener wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's brilliant about this letter is how easily I stepped into it. C admitted to possessing the abilities to be a master manipulator and exploiter of weakness; and I still let C manipulate me into thinking exactly the way he/she wanted me to by the end of the letter. It was the literary equivalent of the cup-and-shell game. I saw the con happening right before my eyes and still got duped. Brilliant writing. (Note: I…

You have no idea. I was "friends" with someone for years, who at the time I didn't know was a psychopath (over time I realized they met literally every item on the psychopathy checklist). The manipulativeness, the ability to lie completely sincerely (I bet a lie detector test would show absolutely nothing), and absolute and utter lack of remorse is terrifying, in a way. The most striking thing, in retrospect, is the…

[deleted]

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#210

Post by berntb »

michaelt wrote: post #139
berntb wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

I was discussing the period when we humans evolved. Not so large groups then. Evolutionary pressure creating psychopaths from a group evolutionary basis seems unlikely (these generally need quite specific circumstances to work).

(Your argument also miss that psychopaths manipulate and damage the direct environment around them most.)

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