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To be or not to be a psychopath?

Would you choose to be a psychopath? l

  • Yes

    Votes: 4 14.3%
  • No

    Votes: 24 85.7%

  • Total voters
    28

SolitaryWalker

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Instead of attacking the intellectual that pokes holes in your beliefs, you idiots, attack these shits. Get rid of them. Then look at yourself, and clear your shit up.
'

Easier said than done when these "shits" are well-respected professionals.
 

Coriolis

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None of the above, I have a conscience. Though I bet that if I did not, I'd be 10 times as good at my job and all other intellectual tasks I pursue. However, for better or for worse, I prefer not to be a moral degenerate.
Even more than a conscience, for the kind of success you describe, one needs self-discipline. Yet most descriptions of psychopaths I see include irresponsibility, impulsive behavior, and even narcissism, counterproductive only in that it leads to an unrealistic assessment of one's abilities. To me, this is their achilles heel, and the main reason I would not choose this path.
 

SolitaryWalker

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et most descriptions of psychopaths I see include irresponsibility, impulsive behavior, and even narcissism, counterproductive only in that it leads to an unrealistic assessment of one's abilities. To me, this is their achilles heel, and the main reason I would not choose this path.

The most irresponsible of them end up behind bars and the less so at the helm of corporations or in the highest offices of government.
 

baccheion

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'

Easier said than done when these "shits" are well-respected professionals.

Well-respected? Expose them. Make up some shit if you have to, though that's often not necessary. This thread aside, I writhe around in pain as I watch shit like these get actively defended by the very people that want to be rid of them, or when all the BS imposed on every by these people get placed on someone else, because they aren't "nice" (I've never seen more idiots become suckers for the charm and blah blah blah than these people that like ridding the world of shit and injustice). Sometimes I think the entire system is rigged, and if the entire thing was brought down, these people would do everything to bring it all back.

The most irresponsible of them end up behind bars and the less so at the helm of corporations or in the highest offices of government.

This is a J vs. P difference. The ones behind bars tend to be the ESTPs (need instant gratification, anti-authority, etc), and the ones "high up" tend to be ESTJs (doesn't need instant gratification, constantly BS'ing to get more power).
 

Coriolis

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This is a J vs. P difference. The ones behind bars tend to be the ESTPs (need instant gratification, anti-authority, etc), and the ones "high up" tend to be ESTJs (doesn't need instant gratification, constantly BS'ing to get more power).
First, MBTI is supposed to describe healthy individuals. To the extent that someone has a clinical diagnosis like psychopathy, they fall outside these limits.

Second, from what I have read, that need for gratification in the moment (impulsivity) is part of the psychopathic profile. If you are good at resisting that, does it make you simply a higher-functioning psychopath, or disqualify you from that diagnosis entirely? This points more to the idea of a continuum, as with other "disorders". If someone is close enough to one end, they meet the threshold for diagnosis. If not, they have some of the traits, but not in sufficient measure to be considered impaired.
 

SolitaryWalker

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If you are good at resisting that, does it make you simply a higher-functioning psychopath, or disqualify you from that diagnosis entirely?

It makes you a high-functioning psychopath.
 

Rail Tracer

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Second, from what I have read, that need for gratification in the moment (impulsivity) is part of the psychopathic profile. If you are good at resisting that, does it make you simply a higher-functioning psychopath, or disqualify you from that diagnosis entirely?

I would like to call it, the reward is greater at the end. You can control that impulsivity for something greater down the road.

Think about the difference between a bank heist and a bank owner.

The person doing the bank heist is more than likely bad at controlling his impulse for money.

The bank owner that develops a bank, and gets millions of dollars later on, gets the government to bail him out, and later says how stupid people were to give him free money is (sadly) really good at controlling his impulses. You later find out this person is a psychopath good at controlling himself.

What I'm describing is probably the difference between a white collar criminal and a "regular" criminal.
 

baccheion

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First, MBTI is supposed to describe healthy individuals. To the extent that someone has a clinical diagnosis like psychopathy, they fall outside these limits.

Second, from what I have read, that need for gratification in the moment (impulsivity) is part of the psychopathic profile. If you are good at resisting that, does it make you simply a higher-functioning psychopath, or disqualify you from that diagnosis entirely? This points more to the idea of a continuum, as with other "disorders". If someone is close enough to one end, they meet the threshold for diagnosis. If not, they have some of the traits, but not in sufficient measure to be considered impaired.

Certainly MBTI is to describe healthy individuals, but if you ever see psychopaths and are good at typing, then you'll notice the distinction. There's the organizer and there's the impulsive. I think the psychopathic profile is a bastardization and a blending of these two personality types (ESTJ and ESTP) and more insight could be gained from separating them. Not all psychopaths are impulsive, those are mainly the perceiving thrill-seekers, and not all psychopaths are organized and methodical, those are more the judgers. To say the absence of one of these things makes someone a high function psychopath brings to life my greatest fear of the essence of what these shits are being eroded away due to the noise that is the "formal" definition of psychopathy. ESTJ psychopaths end up in management (ESTPs do as well, certainly, but not as much) and you can tell that's what they are, and ESTPs end up in get rich quick schemes, sales, and other BS, to generalize. An ESTJ psychopath will instantly notice an INTP is "on to them" and will quickly try to get rid of them, whereas an ESTP would try to charm, and wouldn't be immediately concerned. When their BS doesn't work, then they'd get angry, as an ESTP would, and they would start down that path they have no problem taking because of how F'd up they are.
 

Cellmold

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The negative side of psychopathy is that they don't experience the joys of deep interpersonal relationships with other people, that's about all I can think of.

So I am basically a psychopath but without any of the benefits.
 

Mole

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Special Pleading

None of the above, I have a conscience. Though I bet that if I did not, I'd be 10 times as good at my job and all other intellectual tasks I pursue. However, for better or for worse, I prefer not to be a moral degenerate.

They say that fascism is more efficient than democracy, but this is but special pleading.

And I believe that saying, you would be ten times better at your job if you didn't have a conscience, is also special pleading.
 

SolitaryWalker

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They say that fascism is more efficient than democracy, but this is but special pleading.

And I believe that saying, you would be ten times better at your job if you didn't have a conscience, is also special pleading.

It is my understanding that special pleading is a form of a double standard, whereas one party or side of the argument is subjected to rigorous standards of evaluation and another is not. The connection between sociopathy and fascism is tenuous at best, you can't infer that fascism is more efficient than democracy from the premise that psychopaths are more efficient than non-psychopaths.
 

Mole

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Reason and Emotion

It is my understanding that special pleading is a form of a double standard, whereas one party or side of the argument is subjected to rigorous standards of evaluation and another should not be done. The connection between sociopathy and fascism is tenuous at best, you can't infer that fascism is more efficient than democracy from the premise that psychopaths are more efficient than non-psychopaths.

This is true, but perhaps you are overlooking the guilt by association between fascism and sociopathy.

I freely admit association is not causation.

But consider, by associating fascism and sociopathy, I am making an emotional attack on your position.

And further consider, you have responded to my emotional attack with reason.

Can reason defeat emotion? Probably not, for emotion is fleet footed, will attack without rhyme or reason, and leave reason flat footed.
 

Coriolis

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Can reason defeat emotion? Probably not, for emotion is fleet footed, will attack without rhyme or reason, and leave reason flat footed.
Reason does not need to defeat emotion; it needs only to ignore it.

 

Mole

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Reason does not need to defeat emotion; it needs only to ignore it.


Both reason and emotion are tools of persuasion.

Nobody has a gun on Central, not even the Americans, so all we can do is persuade.

And to persuade we engage in conversation using reason, emotion and humour.
 

Lark

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The romanticising of the psychopath by contemporary society is not simply because many of the overlords are psychopaths or behave that way but because the emotional turmoil of many in the present day makes the apparent lack of emotions, in particular guilt, enviable.

Since the society generates the social character and the social character reflects what society needs I would suspect there will be more of this kind of thing.

The challenge is instead not to be or not to be a psychopath but to be or not to be a human being and to challenge the structures which have perrenially obstructed and inhibited that.
 

Mole

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The romanticising of the psychopath by contemporary society is not simply because many of the overlords are psychopaths or behave that way but because the emotional turmoil of many in the present day makes the apparent lack of emotions, in particular guilt, enviable.

Since the society generates the social character and the social character reflects what society needs I would suspect there will be more of this kind of thing.

The challenge is instead not to be or not to be a psychopath but to be or not to be a human being and to challenge the structures which have perrenially obstructed and inhibited that.

I couldn't agree more.

We live in a society that increasingly humiliates the vulnerable to control them.

And it works because the vulnerable internalise their humiliation, become disempowered, and so easy to control.

So we need more people like Lark, beating against the current, and challenging us to be a human being.
 

Coriolis

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Both reason and emotion are tools of persuasion.
Of the two, emotion is more easily ignored.

We live in a society that increasingly humiliates the vulnerable to control them.

And it works because the vulnerable internalise their humiliation, become disempowered, and so easy to control.
Do we really have more humiliation of the vulnerable now than in past ages? Compared with just a few centuries ago, significantly fewer people are enslaved, women have more freedom, the world has fewer autocracies, literacy is much more widespread, etc. This doesn't excuse the oppression that remains, but indicates the practice is decreasing, not increasing.
 
G

Ginkgo

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I voted yes, but only if I lived by a code of morality not governed by emotion.
 

Lexicon

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I voted yes, but only if I lived by a code of morality not governed by emotion.

Everyone knows psychopaths code of morality is governed by the Wheel.

 
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