Letter From A Psychopath • Hacker News Board

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#341

Post by ekkehardt » Mon, Dec 23, 2013, 7:11 AM UTC

aianus wrote: post #141

dfraser992 wrote: post #106

Sociopaths are one of the fundamental threats facing humanity today. Such traits may have been beneficial in times past as group conflict was so prevalent, but if global issues like getting into space, climate change and the prevention of economic chaos are to be dealt with effectively, humanity is going to have to learn how to cooperate more effectively. And that means preventing sociopaths from getting into positio…

Sounds scarily like thoughtcrime to me.

It's nothing like thoughtcrime. Personality is not about "thoughts" it's about behavioral traits.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#342

Post by dave_sid » Mon, Dec 23, 2013, 10:30 AM UTC

RamiK wrote: post #265

theorique wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the inner workings of different human minds are not of interest to hackers. Why shame?

Shame might be too hard, but I agree with OP. It's a general human interest piece that has little place in a dedicated technical news forum. Mind you, I feel similarly about most NSA submissions and while I would very much like to have a dedicated mews aggregator \ Groklaw'esque blog-forum dedicated to the NSA\Snowden revelations, I don't try making HN into one.

Thanks for backing me up a little. I seem to have lost karma points for expressing my opinion also.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#343

Post by dave_sid » Mon, Dec 23, 2013, 10:31 AM UTC

theorique wrote: post #154

dave_sid wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't believe this story is at the top of the front page. Shame. Shame on you.

Because the inner workings of different human minds are not of interest to hackers. Why shame?

I lost 2 karma points for expressing a valid opinion? It just confirms to me that HN is not what it used to be. I'll find somewhere else to find real actual tech discussion from now on and the community here can keep their karma points and carry on with their chat about the human condition.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#344

Post by dave_sid » Mon, Dec 23, 2013, 10:34 AM UTC

theorique wrote: post #154

dave_sid wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't believe this story is at the top of the front page. Shame. Shame on you.

Because the inner workings of different human minds are not of interest to hackers. Why shame?

Just read the original post, and realised it didn't sound as jokey as I'd intended. I'll add a smiley next time. But I was serious about the topic however. Come on... that story was at number one on the front page! :-)

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#345

Post by eurleif » Mon, Dec 23, 2013, 10:35 AM UTC

dave_sid wrote: post #343

theorique wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the inner workings of different human minds are not of interest to hackers. Why shame?

I lost 2 karma points for expressing a valid opinion? It just confirms to me that HN is not what it used to be. I'll find somewhere else to find real actual tech discussion from now on and the community here can keep their karma points and carry on with their chat about the human condition.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

>Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site.

>Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#346

Post by Guvante » Mon, Dec 23, 2013, 10:23 PM UTC

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #191

Guvante wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, he is specifically pointing out bits of information that are designed to lead you a certain way, he is not just saying don't believe him. Thus you can't debunk him just by saying "Don't believe him because he is a psychopath is insufficient". If you want to pin all of his logic on that baseline theory (which would be stretching it), then your replacement no longer works, as crack dealers aren't known for…

additionally crack dealers and pedophiles are probably more likely to be sociopaths. i'd guess most groups gain 'distrusted' status because of the influence of sociopaths within them.

Orthogonal to my point, and I would guess that your assumption is incorrect. Well known cases are probably sociopaths, due to the combination making them more interesting.

But we are both just conjecturing :).

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#347

Post by dfraser992 » Wed, Dec 25, 2013, 7:13 PM UTC

Havoc wrote: post #214

dfraser992 wrote: post #106

Sociopaths are one of the fundamental threats facing humanity today. Such traits may have been beneficial in times past as group conflict was so prevalent, but if global issues like getting into space, climate change and the prevention of economic chaos are to be dealt with effectively, humanity is going to have to learn how to cooperate more effectively. And that means preventing sociopaths from getting into positio…

Well good luck with your witch hunt.

Why is the global witch hunt against terrorists (excuse me, Muslims) acceptable, but bringing people like the bankers at HSBC, who enabled drug lords and the like for over a decade, not? HSBC's actions were far more detrimental to society than any terrorist attack, yet no one will ever be punished for their actions - not anyone involved in the crash of 2008. Both are clearly wrong, but given how hypocritical Western society actually is, it is obvious one can get away with anything as long as you're part of the upper echelons / in group. And abstract stuff like financial crimes are not so emotionally tinged as concrete crimes, like murder. And federal prosecutors are lazy sociopaths who haven't got the stomach to prosecute powerful people anymore...

This probably explains why people get more conservative as they get older - they see how screwed up the world is and retreating into pseudo-authoritarianism makes sense, emotionally. But conservative values these days are just cover for the authoritarians. I guess I am complaining about the fundamental lack of integrity of Western society that is so obvious anymore. On that note, I just picked up "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" which looks like a good read.