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Letter From A Psychopath

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Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#71

Post by TausAmmer »

jerf wrote: post #42
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.

If that were true, we'd all simply be psychopaths, the genes would have long since won. There are important reasons why humans are empathetic, have guilt, concern for others, etc. It is unlikely that psychopaths could ever form a civilization on their own, for instance; one could make a utilitarian argument in favor of behaving the proper way, but without the shortcut of having your brain simply wired to work that wa…

Take stick and poke anthill so it gets rebuilt.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#72

Post by calinet6 »

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 implore you—do not willingly bring a psychopath into your life.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#73

Post by sillysaurus2 »

Fuxy wrote: post #67
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually the central reason I was so torn up over my experience, and one of the reasons the whole thing sometimes still haunts me. Because the only possible way out of my situation was to completely cut ties, and shut off the love. I'm a loving person and it absolutely tore me up for a long time. Eventually I came to terms with the fact that if I wanted to lead a life without torment, it was a necessary evil.…

You're personalty can't handle a psychopath mine can. I'm not loving nor forgiving and although I do poses empathy and remorse can contentiously suppers it. Everything has to be earned with me. This applies to everybody including my own parents. I grew up around manipulative people i know how to deal with them. I actually instinctively distance myself from them. I'm not saying I would be his friend but i find his poi…

Mm, well, best of luck. It was more a warning for people without your unique skillset, though.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#74

Post by mikeash »

peterwwillis wrote: post #40
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.

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 finally he started writing his messages out by hand, scanning them, and e-mailing me the scans.

This revealed something really interesting. He was scanning these things at work. He had what appeared to be a regular 9-5 office job at a large company, and he managed to keep a lid on things enough to hold down that job while writing pages and pages of paranoia to me and scanning them on the office multifunction machine.

The most interesting/amusing/sad part of all of this was a single handwritten page sent a day or two after one of the multi-page manifestos. It said, paraphrased, "I screwed up when I sent you that last e-mail. After I scanned the note, I tore it up as I always do, but this time I wore my glasses. I believe they read it." Evidently, this fellow believed he was under such pervasive surveillance that they (whoever they were) could see things through his own glasses. The elaborate procedures he went through to send me notes were apparently worked out to circumvent this stuff, but they required good operational discipline which he couldn't always handle. Or something like that! It clearly made perfect sense to him.

After a couple of months, I tracked the guy down with the help of some friends and got in touch with the local police so they could check on the guy, as he was clearly getting worse and I didn't think he'd be safe. I didn't hear anything after that until a couple of months later when a brief e-mail arrived from a relative that basically said, "Sorry about him hassling you, he's back on his meds now."

So, a happy ending, I guess. And certainly one of the most interesting things that's happened to me online.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#75

Post by calinet6 »

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.

That may be the most efficient and logical way to treat them, but it doesn't mean they're "normal" in any sense of the word.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#76

Post by ghotli »

vectorpush wrote: post #70
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.

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.

This. A billion times this.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#77

Post by enkephalin »

Yhippa wrote: post #12

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

robert sapolsky has some very interesting things to say, regarding the societal benefits of conditions like schizophrenia and ocd. this video of one of his lectures is quite fascinating:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEnklxGAmak

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#78

Post by habosa »

vectorpush wrote: post #70
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.

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.

+1. He can read these comments. I don't care what your mental state is, seeing it discussed on Hacker News is never going to help.

Re: Letter From A Psychopath

#80

Post by wrongc0ntinent »

michaelochurch wrote: post #49
Yhippa wrote: post #12

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

At one point in our evolution was there some advantage that being a psychopath conferred? Yes, and there still is. Evolutionary survival is not about living long; it's about passing on genes. Psychopaths are great at reading people and exploiting emotional weaknesses. Humans are not naturally monogamous, and psychopaths are perfectly equipped for high-frequency sexuality. They've had Game for millions of years.

Absolutely. Not only this, but in many of our power structures (ones where human potential is not a metric) there are obvious benefits to being a psychopath, thereby maximizing exposure and potential gene transmission.
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