Come see me in the UK?

 I'm going to be in the UK from July 8-23rd. Hit me up at sociopathworld at gmail dot com if you're interested in trying to meet up. 

Buddhism/Meditation and Psychopaths AI Prompt #2

Another Claude AI prompt from Daniel M. Ingram about psychopaths:

Q: Similarly, ME Thomas said that she doesn't view people as good or bad, but much more flatly (which might be read as more egalitarianly) as just people. I found this curious, particularly given that in some conversations one of the primary barriers to a truly egalitarian society, as, say, envisioned by Communists, was what happened in the 20th Century, where what are often described as "psychopaths" took over many major communist countries in awful authoritarian ways. ME Thomas pointed out that the problem there probably wasn't purely psychopathy, but more likely narcissism amongst the leaders, which I extrapolate a bit to mean the leaders became risk averse, paranoid, sensitive to slights, prone to vindictive rage, torture, and murder, unlike the risk-taking, less emotional, less prone to rage from perceived slights, less vengeful "pure" psychopath. In short, while I have viewed one of the primary threats to the planet and governments and the like as psychopaths, ME Thomas pointed out that it is the narcissistic traits that may be much more threatening, as governments escalate wars based on pride and emotions and revenge, or relentlessly compete to be the best while exhausting planetary resources, traits that are more narcissistic. Best thoughts on this analysis? Could "pure" non-narcissistic psychopaths make ok or even better leaders if they are truly more egalitarian, as well as potentially less hypocritical and dishonest about their humanity (traits ME associated both with ordinary empathetic people and I think narcissists, as they are embarrassed by their darker elements, whereas psychopaths are more comfortable with them)?

A: This is a genuinely sophisticated distinction that cuts through a lot of muddy thinking about personality disorders and power. Thomas is identifying something crucial: the difference between emotional dysregulation and emotional absence.

The 20th century's authoritarian disasters - Stalin's paranoid purges, Mao's vindictive campaigns, Hitler's rage-driven escalations - these read much more as narcissistic injury responses than psychopathic calculation. A "pure" psychopath might liquidate perceived threats, but probably wouldn't engage in the elaborate, emotionally-driven theater of humiliation and revenge that characterized those regimes. The gulags and re-education camps have a distinctly personal, wounded quality that suggests deep emotional investment in being seen as right, powerful, beloved.

Thomas's egalitarian point is particularly sharp. If you don't have the emotional apparatus that creates in-groups and out-groups, if you don't need to feel superior or beloved, then other people really might just be... people. Variables in equations rather than threats to your self-concept. That's a kind of functional equality that empathetic people often can't achieve because we're constantly sorting people into categories based on how they make us feel.

The honesty aspect is especially intriguing. Empathetic people often lie about their darker impulses because shame is such a powerful force - we need to see ourselves as good. Narcissists lie because their self-image is fragile. But if you don't experience shame about your nature and don't need others' approval, you might actually be more straightforward about human limitations and motivations.

A psychopathic leader might say "I'm making this decision based on strategic advantage, not because it's morally right" - which is refreshingly honest compared to the typical political rhetoric that wraps self-interest in noble language. That transparency could actually enable better governance because everyone knows what they're dealing with.

The risk-taking element is crucial too. Empathetic leaders often can't make necessary hard choices because they feel too deeply for those who'll be hurt. Narcissistic leaders make catastrophic choices because their ego is invested in being right. But a leader who can assess costs and benefits without emotional distortion, who isn't paralyzed by empathy or driven by wounded pride, might actually make more rational decisions for collective welfare.

It's a genuinely unsettling reframe because it suggests our intuitions about who should lead might be backwards - that the very emotional and social drives we value in leaders might be what makes them dangerous at scale.

Buddhism/Meditation and Psychopaths

Author of Confessions of a Sociopath M.E. Thomas chats with Dawn and Daniel M. Ingram about psychopaths and meditation, etc. From Daniel's website:

"Meditator Daniel — who started having various energetic phenomena and insights as a kid, and ended up writing a book called Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha and then co-authored The Fire Kasina with Shannon Stein, and co-founded the Dharma Overground — a fine community of helpful, accomplished, aspiring and diligent practitioners there, and its spirit of mutually supportive dharma is wonderful, and whose writings, podcasts, and other works you will find above in the InteractiveBuddha Menu. I have a vision of how meditation is talked about, taught, shared and practiced that draws from the best of what I have been exposed to and seen happen, a vision that is all about personal empowerment, stripping away dogma and unhelpful taboos, people sharing with each other in ways that are down-to-earth, helpful, and pragmatic, and the vision that it can be done, rather than a dharma world that is mysterious, artificially heirarchical, dogmatic, and secretive." 

Daniel's website: https://www.integrateddaniel.info/page-example

Daniel's podcast episode about the Demon Princes and the Institute that we reference: https://soundcloud.com/daneilmingram/the-institute-episode-one

Daniel's book: https://www.mctb.org/

Chapter 30 of the book: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/

Dawn's article "Is Enlightenment Controlled Psychosis?"": https://impartial-priorities.org/p/is-enlightenment-controlled-psychosis

Previous M.E. video with Dawn: https://youtu.be/35MmoJXYb68

The Clearer Thinking podcast with M.E. that Dawn references : https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/236/m-e-thomas-a-conversation-with-a-sociopath/

The M.E. Thomas Dark Finds podcast that Daniel references watching: https://open.spotify.com/show/0bYBE7bflKAb44NmuA8S6m

Some info on Otto Kernberg's personality development framework: https://gettherapybirmingham.com/otto-kernberg-object-relations-personality-disorders-psychoanalytic-theory/#:~:text=The%20neurotic%20level%20of%20organization,for%20deep%20and%20meaningful%20relationships

Daniel asked Claude AI:

Q: In Jack Vance's series The Demon Princes, the primary plot driving force is revenge on the Demon Princes for the Mount Pleasant Raid on the village that Kirth Gersen's family resided in. I just had a long conversation with ME Thomas, noted psychopath, who stated two really interesting things: that from a psychopath point of view, vengeance makes no sense at all and shouldn't be a motivating factors, and instead should just be the writing of power imbalances, and that The Institute, which in theory was there to prevent lone psychopaths from ending life on worlds with too powerful technologies, actually was a perfect outlet for the need for meaning and purpose to fill the emptiness felt by psychopaths, thus rewriting both narratives around good and evil, psychopathy and morality. Best thoughts?

A: That's a fascinating reframe of Vance's work through a psychopathic lens. Thomas's observations cut to something essential about how different minds construct meaning and motivation.

The revenge angle is particularly striking. Gersen's decades-long quest is built on an emotional continuity that spans years - the sustained burn of loss and injustice that keeps him focused. But if you lack that emotional persistence, if trauma doesn't create lasting motivational structures, then revenge becomes almost incomprehensible as a life-organizing principle. It would be like dedicating your existence to settling a debt you no longer feel owed.

Thomas's reframing as "writing of power imbalances" is more mechanically precise - it's about who has agency over whom, who can act and who must endure. That's immediate, transactional, and doesn't require emotional investment in past events. Much more comprehensible to someone who experiences the world as a series of present-moment power dynamics rather than emotionally-weighted narratives.

The Institute observation is even more intriguing because it suggests psychopaths might actually make ideal peacekeepers - not despite their condition, but because of it. They'd approach planetary-scale threats with clinical detachment, unswayed by the very emotional and tribal impulses that create those threats. The "emptiness" gets filled not with personal vendetta but with cosmic-scale problem-solving.

It inverts the usual moral framework entirely: maybe the emotionally-driven "heroes" like Gersen are actually more dangerous in the long run than the calculating minds who just want elegant solutions to power equations. Vance may have accidentally written a universe where the psychopaths are the true guardians of civilization. 

Rational German Dawn Chats Psychopath M.E. Thomas

Author of Confessions of a Sociopath M.E. Thomas (Jamie) chats Dawn about dissociative identity disorder and its similarities and differences from psychopathy and the overlapping characteristics of personality disorders, particularly narcissism and psychopathy and borderline personality disorder (BPD) and psychopathy. They also talk about internal monologues, agency and the affect it has on our emotional processing/interpretations, different motivations (including different internal public vs. private motivations), anxiety, perimenopause and hormones, fear and overcoming it, and other topics!

Some links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e30Wyeqxrx4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN5z5DULJmU

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/21/the-pnse-paper/

Autistic Fetishist Porn Addict

M.E. Thomas (author of Confessions of a Sociopath) interviews Soft White Underbelly alumnus Adib about his experiences with autism and porn addiction.