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Letter From A Psychopath

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Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#221

Post by pwm »

tomstokes wrote: post #92

Perhaps the most fascinating part of this letter is observing people's reactions to it. In the letter, the author goes so far as to admit that s/he is and always will be a psychopath without a sense of guilt or remorse toward others and a keen ability to recognize and exploit weaknesses in others for his/her own gain. Judging by the comments here, the letter has done just that. One comment below notes that "Jeez, tha…

One thing I find interesting about this topic is that as far as I know conventional wisdom says psychopathy is incurable, and comments here implicitly or explicitly seem to agree on this. Neuroplasticity, at least in my interpretation, says that there is an observable feedback loop between the biological structure of our brain and our thoughts/feelings/actions, ie. our "mind". If someone with characteristic of psychopathy, or any mental disorder labelled as incurable for that matter, consciously decides that he/she want to change his/her behavioural patterns then theoretically it is possible. Now, in a way all I did was rephrase my question into how conscious are we regarding our behaviour? Conscious enough to change it? :)

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#222

Post by Havoc »

JonSkeptic wrote: post #15

>It is also the case that, being 'normal' takes a degree of energy and conscious thought that is instinctive for most, but to me is a significant expenditure of energy. I think it analogous to speaking a second language. Sounds about right. I thought it was pretty 'normal' to feel this way sometimes...

>I thought it was pretty 'normal' to feel this way sometimes...

I'm guessing you're an introvert, right? It seems to me that most introverts experience social situations as "draining".

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#223

Post by wrongc0ntinent »

DanBC wrote: post #184
undoware wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to logic-chop a civilian (i.e. someone who didn't waste their youth in an analytic philosophy department studying ethics) but here we go. 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 beli…

> 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…

Guess which paradox applies here.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#224

Post by Arnor »

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 still have no idea what you're trying to say. I don't have an abundance of trust for psychopaths, pedophiles, or crack dealers. I've worked very closely with psychopaths (one was also a pedophile) in an institutional setting in the past. I had to assume that every interaction was a manipulation. Even being extremely careful, it was easy to get caught from time to time particularly when I was understaffed (i.e. 1 staff to 3 clients).

Reading the top parent of this thread was very interesting because he was thinking in exactly the way I had been conditioned to think at that time in my life.

When a person in your life lies to you or manipulates you, you will certainly begin to question the value of other interactions from that person. Once you have confirmed that the person has a personality type that makes them particularly likely to lie or manipulate (compulsive liars, psychopaths, criminals, what have you), you must be careful about your interpretation of any communication. But here's the real difficulty: If a psychopath is trying to manipulate you and knows that you are conscious of it, the manipulations morph. They adapt to your particular defense. In the institutional setting, they're in it for the long haul so they don't mind missing a couple times. In fact, getting caught is often part of the manipulation.

I wandered off my initial topic here so I better wrap it up.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#225

Post by southpawgirl »

theorique wrote: post #152
southpawgirl wrote: post #58

Programmers (me included) are intrigued with psychopathy: we like the idea of pure thought, unencumbered by guilt, untainted by emotions, conventions and niceties. But paradoxically we overromanticise it in the process: I am pretty sure that living day-to-day with such condition kinda sucks, and that it seldom leads to notableness or notoriousness, let alone self-improvement or any kind of refinement. A serial offend…

If I understand correctly, the IQ distribution in psychopaths is not different from the population as a whole. So, the 130 IQ (+2 sigma) psychopaths are probably intelligent and self-aware enough to hold their "evil" tendencies in check and to succeed. On the flip, the 70 IQ (-2 sigma) psychopaths probably do not have the self-insight to understand "why" they feel the way they do. Their impulse control will be much s…

Quoting from Wikipedia: 'Additionally, studies suggest inverse relationships between psychopathy and intelligence, including with regards to verbal IQ' (but later it's stated that such correlation is not unanimously accepted).

I think we mostly are in agreement; I think the impulsive and antisocial tendencies of the psychopath are often self defeating and only the very intelligent navigate life successfully. We end up having a selection bias because we are likely to cross paths only with the latter subtype, so we end up believing that all psychopaths are superintelligent and verbally dazzling, while probably the majority of them is badly dull.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#226

Post by southpawgirl »

tomstokes wrote: post #92

Perhaps the most fascinating part of this letter is observing people's reactions to it. In the letter, the author goes so far as to admit that s/he is and always will be a psychopath without a sense of guilt or remorse toward others and a keen ability to recognize and exploit weaknesses in others for his/her own gain. Judging by the comments here, the letter has done just that. One comment below notes that "Jeez, tha…

> I'm still amazed at how effective it is at garnering empathy from the reader and cultivating a sense that the author is an impressive individual who has triumphed over adversity after a great struggle.

You might be right, but you seem to accuse the writer of a hidden agenda because he tries to gain the sympathy of the reader. If he didn't try at all, would you see callousness and cold detachment (and therefore a psychopathic trait) in this? What would constitute for you a honest, non-manipulative account of the same facts described in the post? How should it have been written to be consistent with the 'psycho no more' scenario?

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#227

Post by alan_cx »

DanBC wrote: post #184
undoware wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to logic-chop a civilian (i.e. someone who didn't waste their youth in an analytic philosophy department studying ethics) but here we go. 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 beli…

> 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…

Hmmm, no. One of the elements of being a successful human being is being a convincing liar.

"Does my bum look big in this"? "Hi, wow you look great...."

And so on.

Humans lie. If they didn't, they'd be in constant conflict.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#228

Post by [deleted] »

tomstokes wrote: post #92

Perhaps the most fascinating part of this letter is observing people's reactions to it. In the letter, the author goes so far as to admit that s/he is and always will be a psychopath without a sense of guilt or remorse toward others and a keen ability to recognize and exploit weaknesses in others for his/her own gain. Judging by the comments here, the letter has done just that. One comment below notes that "Jeez, tha…

[deleted]

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#229

Post by rtpg »

Taek wrote: post #189
selmnoo wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm finding most of these posts to be deeply unsettling. Psychopathy is a mental disorder -- you guys are writing off psychopaths en masse as 'bad people', who cannot contribute to society at all. Consider if the submission piece is genuine: a guy with a mental disorder sought out help to curb any harm he might have otherwise done to others. That's a happy ending isn't it? Be cautious, sure, but let's not just take t…

This whole thread strikes me as having a very strong 'us vs. them' mentality. The guy in his letter makes a plea that 'Psychopaths are just people.' and the general feeling of these comments is to completely throw this away and view psychopaths as a dangerous and scary group of people. Psychopaths look at the world differently than we do, they are highly rational and self motivated, but that doesn't need we need to f…

We don't need to fear a subset of people who subvert trust so willngly , destroying the base from which all social contracts are formed?

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#230

Post by thaumaturgy »

krapp wrote: post #142
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.

The relationship between this community and losethos seems very strange to me. Perhaps because this is the first community i've been involved in where hellbanning was a feature. Any other site would have banned him outright for his own good but the hellban encourages him to continue posting. The result is almost as if he's treated like a mascot, or some brilliant but obstinate child being actively ignored at the adul…

HN as a community exhibits a lot of sociopathic traits (which makes this whole thread a little bit funny, but not funny-haha).
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