[sethg]

As I understand it, psychopathic traits are very good for getting what you want in the short term. If this author’s interview subjects had appreciated the long-term consequences of their antisocial behavior, they wouldn’t be behind bars.

[michaelochurch]

Effective psychopaths never end up behind bars. They climb the corporate ladder. I've seen them in action and, as bad as they are for the companies they work in, you can't come away from seeing one in action without thinking, "Damn, he's good".

The violent ones are the lower class of psychopaths, and most prisoners aren't psychopaths. The smarter, high-class psychopaths are the corporate back-stabbers. They learn how to "manage up" because the ROI is so high.

[berntb]

>>most prisoners aren't psychopaths

"In a typical prison population, about 20 percent of the inmates satisfy the Hare definition of a psychopath, but they are responsible for over half of all violent crime."

http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html

Your claim is true but it is an oversimplification. There is at least a factor of ten over representation, since 1-2% of the total population are psychopaths.

Edit: Considering the large incarceration rates in the USA (more than 1% of the adult population), 10-20% of the total number of psychopaths should be in prison there... Oh my!

Edit 2: Consider 50% of all violent crime committed by 1-2% of the population... Everything else pales.

[michaelochurch]

Your claim is true but it is an oversimplification. There is at least a factor of ten over representation, since 1-2% of the total population are psychopaths.

Many HN posters (including myself) have a genetic trait that makes them about 10 times as likely to commit a violent crime: the Y chromosome.