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High level psychopathy: An Introdumaction
You can think of psychopathy as "absence of a certain noise". Mammals evolved 'empathy' as a way of improving cooperation: empathy is an inconscious sub-routine that helps us "click" with others' perceived emotions, but it does so by emulating them in our mind
You see someone crying, a tiny emulation of sadness runs in your brain. (Empathy is a wobbly concept but it'll do for now)
I once walked by a funerary and half-heard a woman cry. I instantly knew shit was fucked, before realizing I was in front of a funerary: what I'm trying to convey with this is how developed is our empathic mechanism.
Feels are extremely efficient for co-op, yet noisy, very disrupting.
For psychopaths, this subprocess is absent, although it can be supplemented rationaly (i.e. you can use neocortex to do the math, instead of the PCB: orbitofrontal, mirror neurons, who knows)
For psychopaths, this subprocess is absent, although it can be supplemented rationaly (i.e. you can use neocortex to do the math, instead of the PCB: orbitofrontal, mirror neurons, who knows)
In our increasingly complex, fragmentary societies, you get insane advantage if you don't have that "noise" of feelings, yet you still can make others believe you do.
IMO, the key charactheristic of psychopathy is _perceiving the other as a thing_. What does this mean?
I have a backpack. Sometimes I'm angry and beat it around. Sometimes I drag it to the floor. I'd feel very displeased if my backpack was hurt, sure. But I'm biologically unable to feel for my backpack like I'd feel for my brother.
If I see some stranger on the streets crying, I biologically respond to their pain. Even more: I can't scam some poor mf even if I never see his face, bc I relate to the pain I'll cause him. I represent him as a non-thing, a human, w/e.
I can manipulate, like psychopaths do, sure as hell can. But when I manipulate someone, I know they're not a thing, the entire process changes, even if the results look the same.
I CAN shoot strangers if we're in war, I can steal, I could even scam, but the important part is that my brain is wired to react differently to things & to humans.
When I move my backpack around, I'm utilizing it, I don't have any special relationship to it, & this is how psychopaths relate to humans. Psychopaths, for example, can't really "hate" people: they simply feel an intense anger when the thing doesn't do what they want,
like when you get angry at a shitty laptop or something. You don't hate "the" laptop, you're just angry at what's happening.
Psychopathy is hard to outline. The DSM records "Antisocial personality disorder", caracterized (basically) by
>Disregard for others' "rights"
>"Low moral sense of conscience"
>Impulsive & aggressive behaviour
etc.
>Disregard for others' "rights"
>"Low moral sense of conscience"
>Impulsive & aggressive behaviour
etc.
The problem is that the first 2 are useless, and the 3rd one is false in cases of high-lv psychopathy: they are extremely patient and highly sociable. There is no mention of "psychopathy" in the entire book, and this entry only covers low-lv.
As usual, books written by Associations are never to be trusted.
In a nutshell: Low lev psychopathy=dumb, high lev=smart
Maybe its hard to delimit psychopathy. Maybe it's a bunch of psychopaths who wrote the book. Cf. @BPD_GOD
In a nutshell: Low lev psychopathy=dumb, high lev=smart
Maybe its hard to delimit psychopathy. Maybe it's a bunch of psychopaths who wrote the book. Cf. @BPD_GOD
How does psychopathy "feel"? What does it smell and taste like? There's a masterful, succint resume in Nabokov's "Lolita", H.H.'s experience with shrinks:
"I discovered there was an endless source of robust enjoyment in trifling with psychiatrists: cunningly leading them on; never letting them see that you know all the tricks of the trade; inventing for them elaborate dreams, pure classics in style...
(which make them, the dream-extortionists, dream and wake up shrieking); teasing them with fake “primal scenes”; and never allowing them the slightest glimpse of one’s real sexual predicament. By bribing a nurse I won access to some files and discovered, with glee,
cards calling me “potentially homosexual” and “totally impotent.” The sport was so excellent, its results — in my case — so ruddy that I stayed on for a whole month (...)
A psychopath (even low lv) will always give you what you want.
(Is H.H. a psychopath? Dunno. Not a pure exemplar, in any case. As with any psychological categories, pure cases are very rare IRL. But let's not further digress)
Two axioms: You can't ever beat a high-lv psychopath in their game, if you're not a psychopath. If you think you're winning, you're losing even harder. Never play that game if you don't have the genes. Like tennis.
You can never distinguish a high-lv psychopath if they don't out themselves. They can perfectly emulate non-psy + manipulate your perception.
I don't know or care if these are true but I derive conclusions as if they were.
I don't know or care if these are true but I derive conclusions as if they were.
