[knuththetruth]

It’s touched on obliquely, but psychopaths are impulsive and in constant need of stimulation, which, because of their diminished emotional responses, they largely derive from anti-social behavior. Its adrenaline inducing response is one of the few ways they can “feel.” High functioning psychopaths will often pursue long-term relationships because they provide a consistent source of this kind of stimulation, while also allowing them to modulate and practice the “masks” they use to deceive others.

The interviewee more or less admits this in speaking about how her “friend” would frequently ask if she was unwelcome around the interviewee, despite her not doing anything explicit to suggest this. It’s a typical psychopathic lapse into bragging about one’s ability to manipulate or inspire fear in others, albeit under the guise of the ability to “feel concern.” I guess it’s kind of a clever manipulation within the context of the interview itself, if again, it wasn’t so remarkably predictable. Few psychopaths can seem to go very long without slipping in examples of their inherent superiority or delighting in some prior act of sadism.

[anothergoogler]

The authoritative tone of your comments bothers me. What are they based on? The claim that psychopaths pursue long-term relationships doesn't jive with the antisocial nature of this condition. I'm also troubled by your view that any engagement with a psychopath is wasted. Psychopathy does not exclude reason. A premise of your views is that you are able to unambiguously diagnose psychopathy in others, and that it is appropriate to treat those people radically differently based on your casual diagnosis.

To be frank, I feel like I'm reading paraphrases of Pieter Hintjens' self-help book "The Psychopath Code" which is quite popular with this website's users. The book is no longer open source, but I read a fair bit of it when it was. It struck me as a dangerous work that teaches how to perceive your foes as psychopaths, and then to cut them out of your life. I can see how the practice is empowering, but it irresponsibly elevates the armchair psychologist reader.

I think your comments should be be composed like the opinions they are, and not made to sound like objective truth.

[XorNot]

The much more interesting version of this article was the neurology researcher who scanned his own brain and found it matched exactly the structure of criminal psychopaths who he was studying.

The guy otherwise had a wife, children and positive social environment, so it was something of a surprise discovery to him. It was much more introspective and informative on the possible nature of the condition - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscien...

[baza89]

Just thinking out loud: As for long term relationships, they provide easily accessable sex for instance, so no hassle in constantly looking for partners. Also having someone always around is consistent source of other forms of (anti)social stimuli.

But I generally very much agree with you, (m)any of the psychopathy traits listed in the article can be, or even are to a certain degree, present in everyone. So there is real danger in stigmatazing just about regular people.

And sure interaction with a psychopath doesn't need to be destructive for everyone, that'd have to be some kind hard working super villain to be able to hurt everyone around them.

And to emphasize, antisocial behaviour or just put plainly being a bad person is something everyone is guilty of.

So if this psychopath term is to be considered real it would just mean that psychos do a certain combination of (bad) things to a much higher degree than everyone else.

But if it all comes down to a degree, it makes me wonder if there really is no therapy for these people? Can they really not change? Can they really not learn to accentuate wider spectre of emotions?

Regular people can change their behaviour albeit it can be really hard, and they need to want it. Thus I'm not really buying the whole it's a fixed thing, it's brain chemistry-morphology whatever narrative.

[dfraser992]

His comments are reflections of all the extensive reading I've done, though he explains things better than I ever could. So I didn't have a problem with his authoritative tone - in general, I never have a problem with an "authoritative tone" when there is actual content and it matches up with what I know for myself, or it looks like it can be double checked (and is).

I guess for me I find it easy enough to ascertain the emotional drivers behind what someone is saying (or I think so). From that you can tell where they're coming from and what their motivations really are. A useful skill one gets in spades once you've dealt with an actual psychopath...

[knuththetruth]

>The authoritative tone of your comments bothers me. What are they based on?

A moderately extensive reading of the popular and professional literature on psychopaths. I know this is an internet message board, so it’s best to doubt such claims, but that’s the answer.

>The claim that psychopaths pursue long-term relationships doesn't jive with the antisocial nature of this condition

You’ll notice that I prefaced that with “high functioning.” High functioning psychopaths often come from financially and emotionally stable families/backgrounds, which help inhibit what we’d think of as overtly anti-social behavior (e.g. violence). And as you say, psychopaths are not without reason. Given a set of sufficiently pro-social developmental circumstances, some can learn to delay their “gratifications” to obtain greater “rewards,” just like anyone else.

>I'm also troubled by your view that any engagement with a psychopath is wasted.

It’s not so much wasted, but about reducing your exposure to harm. And it’s not my view, you can find the same stated in the work of people like Hare, Stout, and Babiak.

>A premise of your views is that you are able to unambiguously diagnose psychopathy in others, and that it is appropriate to treat those people radically differently based on your casual diagnosis.

I claim no such ability. I’m speaking only to a fuzzy heuristic intended to reduce my own exposure to psychopaths after damaging experiences with people who quite consistently match their patterns of behavior.

>To be frank, I feel like I'm reading paraphrases of Pieter Hintjens' self-help book "The Psychopath Code" which is quite popular with this website's users.

I’ve never read this book, so I can’t speak to it. Again, you’re well warranted in your skepticism because it’s the internet.

[dnomad]

> It’s touched on obliquely, but psychopaths are impulsive and in constant need of stimulation, which, because of their diminished emotional responses, they largely derive from anti-social behavior. Its adrenaline inducing response is one of the few ways they can “feel.”

Another way to look at this is that psychopaths seek and respond to different kinds of stimulation. They have little interest in gossip, hanging out or generalized bonding rituals. Instead they may be drawn to competitive, "results-oriented" games where individuals or groups have a clear objective. They may also, on the whole, be more drawn to "high-stakes" games because they perceive less downsides and more potential upsides to such games. Again, this doesn't suggest any real malicious intent. Psychopaths are just using different risk metrics. While some people may shy away from high-stakes status games because they are very sensitive to the potential loss of status, to a psychopath, "loss of status" isn't a thing and so such games can be perceived as pure upside.

> It’s a typical psychopathic lapse into bragging about one’s ability to manipulate or inspire fear in others, albeit under the guise of the ability to “feel concern.”

Again you seem to deliberately attributing some kind of malign intent without justification. This woman is trying to explain how she relates to others and why. There's no reason to think she is lying or that she cannot actually feel concern.

[serversytem]

How can loss of status not be a thing to psychopaths when they are narcissistic?