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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's hard though to differentiate true psychopaths from those who simply share a few traits. When I read about psychopaths, I tend to find common traits within myself. I can't tell if I'm a psychopath or not. Are those who desire power, control, and inflated egos always psychopaths? Or do psychopaths just happen to always have that in common? Regarding myself for example, I may dream big and make promises that take time to meet, but I'm not a liar and I don't actively manipulate people for selfish gain; and I do crave power, control, and prestige, but not for the sake of it; I just know that those three characteristics are required to make some kind of real impact on the world that truly improves lives; and I've come to realize that if I want something to be done, I can't always rely on others to do it, so being in a respectable position of power and control is almost certainly required. Does that make me a psychopath?
When a normal person gets into a dispute, they worry about saving face and moral obligations, instinctively comfort (or maybe attack) the other person, etc, in an "I-Thou" situation. But a psychopath just sees a dispute as an "I-It" situation, like seeing a puddle on the sidewalk, something to casually (or carefully) navigate around, or (in the worst case) plow through and brush off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_and_Thou http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber
No. I, and I suspect most ambitious people, also desire power, control, and have inflated egos to some extent. Psychopaths are still human (though broken) and also have these traits, but since they lack other traits like compassion, generosity, etc., the former tend to show through more.
One thing you can say about the human mind is that there's nothing binary about it.
No, that's a narcissist. Afaik psychos aren't attaching that much emotional involvement to their public persona. They might be annoyed if sussed out, but that's about it.
Edit: BellsOnSunday: I'm responding in an edit because for some reason HN doesn't allow me to reply directly to your post.
"Deep, deep terror" does not imply "strong, outwardly expressed terror." By "deep" I meant it was well concealed, deep rooted, and rarely encountered whatever it was. If you replace the word "terror" with "unsettled loss of composure", the sentiment remains the same. The latter is perhaps more accurate, the former takes less words and is what first came to my mind when initially describing it.
> There was only one emotion he showed when I revealed I knew, and it was terror. Deep, deep terror he was struggling to conceal.
with
> I must admit the "fear" I thought I detected was subtle at best
you seem to have got a bit carried away in the telling of your story (which sounds to me like a rather standard one of someone taking advantage of another in a business situation).
Everyone is afraid of something. Psychopaths are still people. If you believe someone is fearless, it's a safe assumption they either hide their fear (when they feel it) extremely well, or you simply haven't encountered it yet.
That is, are they less afraid of car crashes and drowning, or just less afraid of pissing people off (because they don't care about other's personal needs, and because they can easily "fix" a relationship with the advantages of deception)
Did you think about telling anyone or did you even tell anyone, so that maybe others don't have to go through the same thing you did?
It is insane how memories can be overwritten. I can write at length on this, I learnt it from videoing her talking to me. They have total frame control and will keep switching subjects away from facts.
I never confronted her to tell her that I knew who she was, but she did warn me indirectly. She showed the 'psychopath face', if that means anything to anyone...
> "Don't mess with me."
I heard this exact phrase, he said it right to my face. I didn't think at that moment that I'm posing any threat. Perhaps the guy overestimated me.
To me, it's far more dangerous to confront someone who is a master manipulator and expert at knowing how to do so subtly and undetectably, versus someone who throws around angry threats. The latter is almost harmless, unless it's backed up by the former.
Apart from his feelings he didn't have feelings? I appreciate you telling your story and I realize you were taken advantage of, and he treated you unquestionably bad, but painting this person as completly unhuman is not very helpful.
It seems to me that the things you describe here is an extreme end of human nature, but in way outside human nature. The best laws of physics are the one that are valid from all perspectives, so it is with the laws of human nature. Having a completly ad-hoc theory for someone elses behaviour is not emphatic or useful.
The most striking thing, in retrospect, is the manipulative talent they have, and how relentlessly and patiently they are to go for the "long con".
In my case, I happen to be very talented at programming and computer science. The psychopath (who has no particular scientific talent) I refer to found me, and basically befriended me and over time convinced me to work some 100+ hour weeks on an entrepreneurial project building prototypes. This would ordinarily be fine if the profit was split evenly, but only in retrospect did I realize the disparity of my persuaded reality from their distortion field versus actual reality -- i.e. this person took 100% credit for my work, and was sure to leave no evidence that I did anything so there was nothing I could do.
But that's not even the persuasive part. The persuasive part was when I brought this up with my "friend", saying "hey so I noticed you're taking complete credit for this with no mention of me" or something of that sort. I don't even remember the details, but this person masterfully diverted attention in such a way that I found it not important, and thought about other things.
Ultimately over time, I noticed all the little disparities (lies, deception, hints of absolute lack of remorse) and had a pretty good suspicion that this person was a psychopath. It was only when I caught him in a completely undeniable lie that it all exploded.
The excuses given when confronted were pretty impressive at the time, but I'm not stupid, and it was pretty clear he was struggling to come up with answers when confronted. The strangest thing though was despite me having hard and undeniable evidence, to this day he would refuse to admit the lie, and in fact tried to convince me to apologize for slandering him (despite him knowing very well I have conclusive evidence).
Then I let on I knew he was a psychopath. The change in personality was dramatic, creepy, and like something out of a horror movie. You don't know this person, but normally he has a very persuasive, seductive (in a non sexual way), and extremely socially charming and polite personality. When you're around him, he makes everyone feel good about themselves (part of his strategy to get people to follow him and do what he wants is making them addicted to feeling good about themselves around him).
But after he knew I knew, things were different. The attitude DROPPED completely. He had a stone cold expression, no emotion in his voice, and the coldest eyes and voice tone you could imagine. There was only one emotion he showed when I revealed I knew, and it was terror. Deep, deep terror he was struggling to conceal. This made the situation all the more creepy, because this person is characterized by being completely fearless (as is typical of psychopaths), but I suspect if it's one thing that scares a psychopath, it's being found out -- which btw is why this article from the OP is so remarkable (though no doubt it's just an attempt at manipulation, if you know anything about psychopaths). But beyond the terror you could see, there was nothing -- just pure cold and calculating rational self-serving thought. He immediately terminated a multiple year "friendship" without even a thought, and distanced himself from me after he realized I could not be persuaded and distorted into thinking I was wrong and imagining things.
Since then we've crossed paths only a few times, and you can tell he's still afraid of being revealed. He's doing well though in business as you would expect of a psychopath, climbing the social ladder very quickly to a future of possible fortune.
I should add that it is indeed a common misconception that psychopaths are cold blooded killers. The reality is in some ways much more scary. The stupid ones perhaps kill, but they eventually get caught. The smart ones are leeches on society, who have no regard for anything but their own animalistic desires of power, control, and inflated ego.
Also, having been "friends" with a psychopath gives an interesting perspective on other well-known figures. Though I never met him, I am convinced Steve Jobs is pretty high on the psychopathy spectrum. What's interesting is that Jobs accomplished something valuable to society, though not without leaving a trail of damage in his wake. The psychopath I met also has a strong motivation to make an impact in the world, to be known almost as a hero, no doubt to satisfy desires of ego and power. So perhaps society's social structure can work for good and turn the desires of a psychopath towards good (but unfortunately it can also work in reverse). So in a way, I think psychopaths aren't all inherently leeches on society if what they accomplish is positively impactful to it.
But you see... the scariest part of having encountered a psychopath is it's sometimes very difficult to know if that last thought is my own, or something I was persuaded to think.