[selmnoo]

I'm finding most of these posts to be deeply unsettling. Psychopathy is a mental disorder -- you guys are writing off psychopaths en masse as 'bad people', who cannot contribute to society at all. Consider if the submission piece is genuine: a guy with a mental disorder sought out help to curb any harm he might have otherwise done to others. That's a happy ending isn't it? Be cautious, sure, but let's not just take them as 'evil people'.

Anyway, reading these comments I'm reminded of a friend, -- Jake, shall we call him. Jake has severe autism, but he is an incredibly smart guy and an excellent programmer. He's of old age now. He's completely broken... and he says the reason he's broken is no-one ever saw him as a friend, only as a worker they could use. Every other business person saw him as a tool that could write good code, and not complain about a shitty (or no) salary. I got to know some of the people who'd employed him... they were... well, just normal people, they were not psychopaths. I'm betting that a lot of people who're right now commenting on this article, and calling him are evil are possibly the people who'd use Jake just like psychopaths supposedly use mentally normal people. The power differential of a normal, average human being and Jake is comparable to the power differential of a psychopath and a normal, average human. Psychopaths see the weaknesses that can be exploited in normal people; normal people see emotional weaknesses in Jake - and they realize they can make him do whatever they want to, and he'll be helpless and voiceless in the end with you having gotten what you'd wanted from him.

[throwaway83294]

It's easy to either over-demonize or underestimate the nature of actual psychopathy if you've never encountered it. By definition, a pure psychopath feels absolutely no remorse, no guilt, and has an unshakable egocentric view that does not change. They're effectively intelligent rational agents without the natural mammal-evolved desire to benefit the group -- they only seek to benefit the self. They would stab you in the back both figuratively and literally without the slightest hesitation or emotional reservation, so long as they know the benefits to them sufficiently outweigh the risks.

You can no more teach a psychopath to be caring and empathic than you can teach someone with autism to implicitly understand social context and facial expressions. However, a psychopath will be thrilled to find someone who thinks they can "convert" them, because they can use this to their advantage.

On the other hand, I say some people over-demonize psychopaths though because they assume they're all on the extreme end of the spectrum and all with the same traits. For example, some autistic people can recognize facial expressions masterfully, but fail at other things. Similarly, not all psychopaths are alike or have the same motivations or methods.

If you read my post again, you'll note that I am admitting to the possibility that psychopaths can contribute positively to society, but only in as far as society arranges a cost/benefit system where positive contributions are rewarded more than negative ones.

However since there is really no scientific evidence a psychopath can truly change, you should not find it unsettling that we hold a non-scientific, subjective, anecdotal, and self-reported essay of change on the part of a psychopath with pessimism and doubt.

[chrischen]

If they're rational agents, then they should understand the results of the iterated prisoner's dilemma, and understand that screwing people over doesn't pay, remorse or no remorse.

[stormbrew]

Aside from the fact that life isn't a restricted theoretical game theory puzzle and rational doesn't mean educated (thus aware of prisoner's dilemma), this would assume that the people they're screwing over are also rational actors and are capable of cooperating.

[chrischen]

You don't have to be aware of the iterated prisoner's dilemma. My point is that as a psychopath screwing people over, you should realize that this strategy is suboptimal. You will lose out to people who do cooperate.

[JanezStupar]

Oh, psychopath will play your prisoners dilemma. He WILL be the one to talk you into cooperation.

He will not attack you in public unless he has public on his side. Thats what makes a psychopath so horrible.

He will fuck you over then he will convince everybody else that you fucked him over.

Psychopaths are Varelse in emotional sense.

[chrischen]

He fucks you over and that is eventually a non-cooperation in an even bigger iterated prisoner's dilemma game.

Unless you willingly let him fuck you in the ass again, then his psychopathic strategy will no longer work on you, and you will at least not cooperate, and possibly retaliate resulting in a net loss. In fact, this is extremely likely because it's in your incentive now to disincentivize him from further fucking you because you want to send the proper signal.

[im3w1l]

Iterated prisoner's dilemma is a highly idealized model.

[chrischen]

How so?

[im3w1l]

For starters, it is a two player game. Secondly it will not always be crystal clear that you chose "defect" to your coplayers in the real world, since actions are subject to interpretation. Third, the real world is not a game of perfect information.

[chrischen]

It is clear that you chose "defect" in the real world.. over time. It is in fact theoretically impossible to escape this consequence as time approaches infinity. Think about it, you are constantly leaving traces of you "defecting" and not leaving traces of not defecting. Eventually this catches up. This is also an example of the principle of karma, aka cause and effect. You can't escape fundamental effects of causes forever.

[Houshalter]

I know it's not their fault and that they were born with it, but it still disturbs me. They don't have empathy or morality and I would consider that the definition of evil. Someone can still be a bad person through no fault of their own.

[Taek]

This whole thread strikes me as having a very strong 'us vs. them' mentality. The guy in his letter makes a plea that 'Psychopaths are just people.' and the general feeling of these comments is to completely throw this away and view psychopaths as a dangerous and scary group of people.

Psychopaths look at the world differently than we do, they are highly rational and self motivated, but that doesn't need we need to fear them, hide from them, avoid them, or try to lock them up. There are more ways to deal a person like this.

[rtpg]

We don't need to fear a subset of people who subvert trust so willngly , destroying the base from which all social contracts are formed?

[lemonberry]

Highly rational and and self-motivated are not the only distinguishing features of a psychopath. And those are not the features, or the only features, that people are afraid of.

[collyw]

We do need to fear them when they get into positions of power.