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Re:Letter From A Psychopath by anovikov on Friday December 20, 2013 @09:12AM (#6941444)
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.
Re:Letter From A Psychopath by jerf on Friday December 20, 2013 @09:24AM (#6941499)
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 way it's going to be an uphill battle.

(Which goes back to one of my drums I beat here with some frequency, which is that while the rationality of humans is often overstated, so is their irrationality... many putatively irrational things like "guilt" or "empathy" in fact exist for reasons, or if you prefer, have significantly more positive effects when considered holistically than a naive analysis might indicate.)

Re:Letter From A Psychopath by TausAmmer on Friday December 20, 2013 @10:08AM (#6941690)
Take stick and poke anthill so it gets rebuilt.
Re:Letter From A Psychopath by saalweachter on Friday December 20, 2013 @11:15AM (#6942096)
Defectors must be punished.

A lot of nice things in society depend on cooperating actors not taking advantage of each other. Psychopathy is defecting on society.

Re:Letter From A Psychopath by psychosurvivor on Friday December 20, 2013 @12:26PM (#6942596)
What you say is true only if you believe in amoral survival-of-the-fittest. Psychopaths are unconcerned with notions of truth, justice and fairness.
Re:Letter From A Psychopath by calinet6 on Friday December 20, 2013 @10:17AM (#6941736)
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 by mcguire on Friday December 20, 2013 @12:10PM (#6942460)
Keep in mind: if you don't know who the patsy is, you are the patsy.
Re:Letter From A Psychopath by michaelochurch on Friday December 20, 2013 @09:30AM (#6941519)
That's exactly how they see it, too.

(I'm not trying to be pejorative. It would be my job to prove that you're objectively wrong, and I can't.)

I think psychopathy, like all of these disorders, has a spectrum. But if it's a natural condition, it doesn't deserve the moral weight affixed to it. Not all (natural) psychopaths do bad things, and most people who do bad things are not psychopaths.