baza89's comments

>In simplest terms psychopaths are people who do not "get" the particularity of human relationships.

Well now, I'm pretty sure you can't use this as a definition for psychopathy, as many other types of disorders fit this definition.

In my comment I was thinking of the definition given by this article, and the list of traits it provides.

So going by that definition I have to disagree with your argument: "...that people might think is a big deal but is really not and eventually will just be sort of normalized."

If someone checks all the boxes from the points raised in this article I would really hope that that sort of behavior never gets normalized because these traits are the exact opposite of what people should strive for in their lives.

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.

Ex poker player here (never particurarly a good one but still a winning one).

My first point is stress:

Poker is extremely stressful - you have to think hard and deep to outsmart your opponents, you need to learn a lot (as mentioned in the article) and constantly improve. However what you make in a particular hour, day, week or month is never completely in your control.

Certainly it can be fun to a beginner but being a pro and playing upwards of 5-6 hours a day is extremely tough while you try to make best decisions possible constantly and being constantly punished by luck is not entertaining at all, yet this will happen every day.

It's quite easy to lose a couple of big hands in a row, having a losing day is give or take a coinflip and a loosing week is nothing special.

If you only play live tournaments you will have loosing years! (just a matter of number of tourneys you can possibly play and the variance involved in tourneys [you can check the odds with some online variance calculators]).

Hope that paints the picture of the bruising your psychology will endure even if you manage to get yourself to the level needed for making a decent living out of it as far as finaces go.

Statistics also shows that vast majority of people are losers in this game via rake and other players being better. See for yourself by getting some hands database from online poker sites. Rake can even make certain games unplayeble for everyone!

My second point is poker marketing:

Yep, this is how marketing for poker works they sell you the image of (supposedly) successful pros making money and an image of a game of skill. (I mean a freaking scientist is telling you that you can make money, it's gotta be real!)

-Even though most people lose money and are just gabmling. -Even though being a poker pro is an extremely difficult profession. -Even though it is not especially fun for anyone involved and is at best an emotional roller coaster. -At worst leads people to losing everything they have (like in any other form of gambling), or ending up in debt. And even winning pros turn to losing pros with time because others catch up to them. -Oh, and yes, as mentioned we can't actually know if this woman is making money since losses at live tourneys aren't tracked by poker results tracking sites. -Oh oh and major poker sites, including the one mentioned in the article, are raising the rake making even more people lose money, people who previously were winning and were considered professionals.

To conclude, this is just a disguised marketing article for a gambling site, featuring a PR officer of the site. (english translation for "sponsored poker pro")

It's just a gross misrepresentation of the reality aimed at serving the gabmling industry.

Oh oh oh and AI did beat best poker players in the world. So professional online poker has no future really. Live then I guess? Well it's safe to say that there is no way to input chips stacks and bet sizes into a computer, that kind of device has not been invented yet!

(And for those saying only HU by AI, wouldn't be so sure. Poker snowie was able to make money at 6-max midstakes, there are non AI poker solvers that are considered even better then it. Thus be sure that winter is coming for poker and that the non living will conquer poker, even before the magical living AI come in 2030 [if the prophecies are to be trusted])

Just a few years ago these guys had the main mediums of information covered, sure there was internet, but up until now it wasn't in palms of everyones hands.

And this new medium tends to be decentrilised, cheap for everyone to access and anyone can be the creator of content.

And on the issue of quality of information, sure it can be shit. Memes, number of character restrictions etc, forum moderators being biased, thumbs ups and downs do seem like we are going back to coloseum times, boos and hoorays, instead of stating our arguments in words. It kind of does seem like we are going backwards.

However big media is full of shit too, is censored in one way or the other, and is highly susceptible to corruption.

Truth (the whole truth and nothing the truth) cannot be presented in 2000-3000 words. Those people at CERN take petabytes of information to be sure what is truth, on the stuff that is real and measurable. And even when they come up with an answer they say "We are 5 000 000 to 1 sure that this particle exists".

And what we are mostly talking here about are abstract philosophical concepts and social sciences like economy, law, ethics, psychology etc. Unmeasurable things (at least pretty far from accurately and completely).

These philosphical, wordsy, matters are thus super easy to manipulate with.

Fake news, flops, deepfakes, resonating echo chambers.....All I see is big media being scared of loosing their power.