I think you may have misunderstood me, I am not saying that all sadists are high IQ psychopaths. Rather, that high IQ psychopaths are more likely to be sadists than low IQ psychopaths, but there could be non-psychopathic sadists and quite a few sadistic psychopaths them may have a low IQ.
Kevin Dutton documented various studied showing that high IQ psychopaths are more empathetic than their low IQ counterparts and they are able to use their empathy to derive gratification from the suffering of their victims. That's tantamount to Sadism, is it not?
I don't see how anyone can describe a psychopath's life as fulfilling.
Psychopaths certainly miss out on the joys of intimate emotional connections with others, but are their lives truly less fulfilling than that of most normal people? I voted "no" on my own poll because I found my niche and have satisfying relationships, but who am I to say that most people can achieve a fulfilling life the way I did? Divorce rates are through the roof, close friendships are becoming increasingly less common, professional milieus are rife with conflicts or underlying tensions between staff members, familial ties are weakening and lifelong friendships tend to disappear as we rely more on technology and increase the geographical distance between ourselves and our childhood friends. As we are becoming increasingly more work-focused as a society, we invariably neglect our relationships as by nature, we become more adversarial, self-centered and egotistical. If the main advantage that we have over the psychopaths is that we are able to enjoy deep interpersonal relationships and that is being jeopardized now, what do we have to show for? What is it that an average person has that a psychopath should envy? On the other hand, the psychopath has plenty for the average person to envy including freedom from anxiety, in many cases status, wealth and ability to take on new adventures that are often richly rewarding.
The condition entails blunted affect which necessarily entails a blunted feeling of fulfillment, even if their relationship issues did not.
A sizable portion of our population lives in a state of constant dread, shame, anxiety and deep uncertainty. Part of this is caused by the excessively rigid norms of conventional or religious morality, the precarious nature of the economy and the instability of interpersonal relationships. Psychopaths are much more immune to all of these feelings and generally handle uncertainty better. What good is it to not have blunted feelings when most of the feelings that normal people tend to experience are predominantly negative. These overwhelming sentiments drive a considerable percentage of Koreans and Japanese to suicide and many Americans are beginning to feel the strain of excessive pressure at work, overwhelming responsibilities to their families and other conditions that make their lives seemingly intolerable. What about the psychopaths? They either cope with these uncertainties better or they are at the helm of government agencies and transnational corporations that make life difficult for many ordinary citizens.
I think being "pathologically risk-averse" and pathologically risk-seeking are both undesirable states.
That is true, but pathological conditions are always defined within the context of a society where the alleged patient resides. In our society, pathological risk-aversion is more serious of a deficiency than pathological risk-seeking. The psychopaths are currently better adapted to our society, whether or not that may change in the future is another topic.