[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.