Showing posts with label manipulation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label manipulation. Show all posts

Friday, July 20, 2012

Fun seduction idea?

One of my work acquaintances has apparently been ostracized by a mutual friend of ours because the fiancée thought that she dressed like a whore at a Halloween party and was worried that her man would stray because of it?  (My impressionable self has picked up inappropriately placed question marks from reading Twitter feeds).

I want to mess with her, but mainly just because she has revealed a weakness (relationship insecurity) that seems too delicious to pass up.

My plan is to "confess" to her in a simulated drunken overshare.  I'll tell her that I have often wondered if I could "also" seduce her fiancé.  Depending on how much she has had to drink and her current level of paranoia, I may have to wait just a bit to let that thought have its full effect on her (which given his varied and prodigious sexual history should be a pretty easy sell).   After she has let that marinate for a while, I will then try to seduce her myself while she is (hopefully) vulnerable from the thought that her fiancé is cheating on her with all of his smarter-than-she-is-work-friends.

Thoughts?

I think chances of it succeeding are pretty low, but chances of it increasing her insecurity are pretty good if she's so thrown off by a Halloween party "sexy third world slave" outfit, that's she's basically prohibited him from ever seeing this woman again.  (I wasn't there and there apparently isn't any photographic proof of whether or not a third world slave costume could be considered "sexy" without seeming really grossly imperialistic and in poor taste -- this is just what I've been told).

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Sidetalking sociopath

The thing I like most about the existence of Dexter as a television show is that it is so widely-liked. This makes talking about sociopath issues without outing yourself very easy. I understand that some sociopaths are incognito, even amongst their friends and family. I myself am pretty out, and am always looking for others to bring into my inner-circle, which is why I am so happy about Dexter. It makes the perfect feel-someone-out-about-how-they-would-feel-knowing-that-their-friend/significant-other/family-member-is-a-sociopath conversation starter. After someone has told you they like it, you can query relatively harmlessly why they do. They may say that they love Dexter the character, or have respect for him, and you can follow up with what exactly it is about Dexter that makes him so likeable. Obviously he does bad things and at the very least has bad tendencies that he has to deal with. Does the way he deals with those tendencies somehow make up for his deficiencies? You can ask if they think he is an accurate portrayal of everyday sociopaths. Does this person believe that sociopaths like Dexter live in real life? Why or why not? If they are doing well so far, maybe ask, do they think that they have ever met a sociopath and not known that the person was a sociopath? If they start getting suspicious, back off. If they start asking you why you like Dexter, say, "Oh, just the same reasons you said." There is a lot of information to be gleaned by sidetalking about sociopathy this way. I'm trying to think of what would be a good analogy in a non-sociopath realm... being in the mafia and talking to people about the Sopranos? Being a spy and talking about Burn Notice? Being gay and talking about Queer as Folk? Being an ex-African warlord and talking about Hotel Rwanda?

Sunday, July 8, 2012

How to read people like a sociopath

A reader writes:
I'm sure you've heard your empath male friends talk about "psycho chicks" or "crazy chicks", and your female friends have probably complained about the opposite.

Do sociopaths have a knack for spotting imbalanced people, and know to avoid them, or if you're so inclined, are they just a fun game to kill time with?

Also, I've heard that sociopathic people are natural-born people readers. If this is true in your case, have you ever thought about writing a book on the subject? "How To Read People Like A Sociopath" would probably be a runaway hit, and if paying the bills is a part of the game.... lol

Thanks,
My response:
Interesting question. I've been giving it some thought. I have been told I am unusually insightful, and I feel like I do have a knack for spotting imbalanced people, but I wonder whether I'm any better at it than any normal person. I may be spotting some imbalanced people that you aren't and vice versa. For example, I have a hard time dealing with homeless people. I always start out treating them like any other person and then I am always sort of surprised when they start yelling obscenities at me or making inappropriate hand gestures. Even though I realize in my mind that homeless frequently = crazy, for some reason every time I see a homeless person, I always treat him like I would anyone else. It's almost as if I don't recognize these people as being in the category "homeless," and consequently a little mentally unbalanced. Instead my brain just thinks "stranger."

But there are a lot of seemingly normal bad guys that I can clearly see are egomaniacs or control freaks or extra-manipulative, or whatever else is their M.O. Sometimes I think it frustrates my friends -- I can be summarily disapproving of their other friends or the people they date. It's like I am a dog that just happens to hate a seemingly innocent guy, always barking and growling when he is around. Even I sometimes don't understand what it is about a person that is triggering my spidey sense, but almost always there is a lack of genuineness about the person -- inconsistencies in a person's actions vs. their alleged motivations.

I'll try to think more about how it is exactly that I spot these people. My first thought is that I am just so used to wearing masks myself that it is easy to see myself in other mask wearers. I wonder if that is a skill that can be taught. But if there is enough money in it, I certainly can try to fake it. 

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Interruption

A follow up from yesterday's posts, another piece of power behavior we can learn from our friend Oliver North -- interruption.


One source of power in every interaction is interruption. Those with power interrupt, those with less power get interrupted. In conversation, interrupting others, although not polite, can indicate power and be an effective power move, something noted by scholars in a field called conversation analysis. Men interrupt others more frequently than women, and doctors seldom listen to their patients for very long without interrupting. In each instance, patterns of conversation reinforce differences in power and status derived from other sources such as general social expectations and expert authority.

Watching the Oliver North and Donald Kennedy hearings illustrates this phenomenon. North on one occasion stops an interrogator’s anticipated interruption by holding up his finger and saying, “Let me finish.” He refuses to be interrupted and in several other instances talks over the lawyers and legislators questioning him. By contrast, at one point Donald Kennedy requests permission to continue speaking, asking, “Can I continue?” and thanks the congressman when permission is granted.

I can't stand it when people ask "can I continue?"  They are trying to shame the other person out of interrupting them.  Like most attempts to take the moral high ground, though, I find that it just comes off as whiny and ineffectual.  It's victim behavior.  Its message, at its core, is "I have been wronged, you have wronged me."  But it's very difficult to make victimization work for you as a power move.  I think most people look at victims and don't think "powerful" but "weak." Especially over something so small as interrupting and especially for a proceeding in which the ostensible aim is the truth, the overall effect of this type of behavior is to make the person seem overly defensive and like they are trying to hide something.  

I've actually seen a lot of people be taken down in the comments section via this weakness, trying to enforce false rules of engagement on others like good sportsmanship or good grammar or however it is that they think this gentleman's game of warfare should be played.  Courts use a certain degree of formality and adherence to rules, but in the court of public opinion I have found that being overly rigid in following any sort of "rules" just makes you look like you are trying and failing to play a game of smoke and mirrors.  There's a reason why everyone hates lawyers.  

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Learning to be sociopathic (part 1)

A reader asks:

I’d like to raise a topic that I don’t believe has been discussed in full depths on your blog as of yet. I think it’s fair to say in all probability that ‘sociopaths’ can’t learn how to be ‘empathetic’, but can ‘empaths’ learn how to be ‘sociopathic’?

I first stumbled across your blog around 18 months ago, and I really was mesmerised. I scrolled through the pages until I had read every single blog post. Identifying similarities in the traits you discussed with my own. At last I had found the answer, I’d found who I was; I finally knew why I had always felt so different from other people. And it was that online epiphany that changed my life. The struggle I once had with myself; the internal fight I had every day to decipher which decisions to make was no longer there. I no longer undertook the mundane task of choosing between my impulses and what society had told me was ‘the right thing to do.’

I quickly learnt the advantages of manipulation, and I loved it. I manipulated the people around me, not because I wanted the things that they offered, but because I loved the thrill. The constant excitement of just seeing how much you can get out of people, while still having them worship the ground you walk on. On the occasional days I didn’t have evening company; I’d sit in the nearby orchard alone and think about the things I had accomplished, laughing for hours to myself at how ridiculously blind people really are. As crazy as it sounds, to me at that moment, I was God.

Since that initial epiphany all those months ago, a lot has changed in my life. I’ve achieved everything I could have only dreamt of before. I’ve made a successful business from nothing, climbed to the top of the social ladder, and married the girl I’ve been fascinated by since the age of 12. Yet I can’t help but ask myself, at what cost?

I’m going to be the first here to admit, I was a fake. I honestly don’t even know if ‘sociopaths’ even exist. But from the definitions found on this blog, I knew I wasn’t one, even if I liked to believe I share the same traits. At the time of finding your blog, I was in a low place, I had no friends, and I didn’t have a good job. My life was worthless and meant nothing. Then via reading the posts on this blog and finding fake similarities within myself, I was able to willfully delude myself into the belief that my life could mean something. That I could be who I wanted to be, do anything I wanted to, and most importantly just not care what others thought (which had always been what had held me back from achieving beforehand.) So I consciously learnt how to act like a sociopath, and how to shake off (dilute) the remorse and guilt for my negative actions towards others. It got easier and easier, and day by day I got better at it. It really was exhilarating; the most amazing internal experience of my life. Did I learn how to be a sociopath? But now I sit here wondering if I can ever get back what I lost in that pursuit? Will I ever feel my own empathy as I did before? And if I could, would I even want to?



Friday, April 27, 2012

Manipulation: movies and music

In a comment regarding aspies and auties, "jane" says:
Also, I've found that aspies can be made to feel an emotional understanding through music or movies. They do so love their movies.
Okay, yes, I think this applies at least in part to sociopaths too. We all know that music and movies with music are manipulative. Case in point, even though I am generally cold-hearted, I can frequently be moved by certain films, sometimes so much so that I have a crisis of identity and wonder, do I have the full spectrum of emotions after all? But it seems like not really, because only movies and music reliably trigger it. How do they do it? Tap into our primal psyches to produce some sort of behavioristic response? Like when our eyes water when we see other people's eyes tearing up? Or like how yawns are contagious? Do chimpanzees do the same? Does that mean sociopaths are closer evolutionarily to chimps than humans? Ha.

Also Jane says in response to my advocacy of neurodiversity rights for sociopaths:
I suppose I just feel that trying to put us on the same page as aspie's is the namby-pamby way out when there's much more fun to be had simply remaining unidentified rather than accepted as defected.
Too true, Jane. Particularly because if we, for whatever reason, needed to be "out" or part of an acknowledged acceptable neurodiversity "minority," we could just masquerade as aspies by toning down the charm, playing up the social awkwardness, and pretending to be obsessed with something bizarre like '80's action movie music scores. Right aspies?

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Quote: War = deception


All warfare is based on deception.
When able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
Hold out baits to entice the enemy.
Feign disorder, and crush him.
To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.
-- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

Thursday, February 23, 2012

How to be more charming

Under the headline "Top 10 Charming Gestures," this Ask Men article suggests:


We’ve all met them, haven’t we? People who just get along effortlessly with everyone -- those incredible individuals who seem to glide through life on a permanent high. These are the people we are all slightly jealous of because they are always doing something interesting or they always seem to have another amazing adventure to share. We can’t stay jealous, though, because they are just too damn likable. When other people discuss them, they always use that word: charming.

If you asked anyone what makes someone charming, the vast majority of people would have no idea. It would be some vague, intangible quality that doesn’t help us in developing that desirable characteristic. But help is at hand; part of our raison d’etre is to break these things down, so that you too can develop these life-enhancing social skills. Being charming is not as difficult as it may seem, and can be hugely rewarding: You get invited to more parties, you make more friends, you get more business opportunities, and important people are more likely to remember you. Above all, you have more fun. Sound good? Then get ready for these top 10 charming gestures.  

The article goes along to suggest some obvious and not so obvious tips, including the effective use of touch, believable flattery, accepting others' flattery graciously, including less social individuals into the conversation, using people's names, and always finding a way to turn conversations back to the other person.

Of course I credit a lot of my charm to a perfectly disarming smile.  I happen to have dimples (seen in some cultures "as a sign of attractiveness and veracity," according to wikipedia), which make me seem much more harmless than I really am.  The smile combined with a too-intense gaze is like coffee with cigarettes -- very complementary.  I do use people's names a lot, as the article suggests, but once it's clear that I can (or should) know their name, I refer to them by their title instead.  You can also do this if you have forgotten someone's name.  The Ryan Gosling character in the film Crazy, Stupid, Love did this to good effect ("fancy face," among others).  Other than that, I think the formula for charm is essentially  an utter confidence that makes you seem superior to others, but an accessibility and approving attitude that makes people feel comfortable in your presence.  Like all formulas, the devil is in finding the right ratio of one thing to the other.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Relationships

I am currently in the longest serious relationship that I have been in for approximately the past decade.  I used to not be good at any long term relationship.  Even family relationships would have blow ups and times of estrangement.  I got sick of the drama so I started learning little ways to keep the ship righted.  Now I resolve small issues before they become big issues and I ensure that I am always a net positive in their life.  I basically just channeled my efficiency obsessed self into it, and I am quite good at it now.

The things I have been thinking about recently is what is the proper role of manipulation in a relationship?  I have always said that everyone wants to be seduced (trademark pending?  I feel like that should be the sequel to "Everyone Poops").  With this current relationship, I performed the seduction perfectly.  To use a baseball analogy, it's been my no-hitter.  It was not easy and it was not always clear that it would turn out so well.  (I almost think that it was because I felt no expectations about the relationship being anything but a fun distraction.  I felt no performance pressure, so I performed nearly perfectly.)  I'd tell you about it, but like a baseball no-hitter, the story of a perfect seduction is actually sort of boring.

My question is, now that I have a relationship that seems like it could last and I am interested in exploring that option, do I keep seducing?  Or actually get real?  Well, that's sort of not the question anymore because I have already gotten at least a more real as the relationship has progressed.  I guess it's more like, stay real?  Or step back in and "fix," seduce, or manipulate when the situation warrants it?  Or I guess that's not really the question either, because framed that way the answer would of course be step back in.  I think the question is more like, when would the situation warrant it?  Should it be a most of the time thing?  Or only part of the time?

Things I think:

  • If people could be manipulated/seduced into being happy without knowing that is the source fo their happiness, they would typically choose that (ignorance is bliss, blue pill over the red pill, or everyone wants to be seduced).
  • Some people would feel betrayed if they ever did find out that they were being "managed."
  • People find things out eventually, or things have a way of being found out.
  • Small fixes sometimes just mask bigger problems that don't have such easy "fixes".  
  • I tend to respect people less in proportion to the amount that I manipulate them.  
  • Manipulation is turning down an opportunity to try to find a real mutual understanding on an issue.
  • Mutual understanding usually means the other person is getting better at pleasing me, i.e. reciprocating the seduction/maintenance.  
Other than that, I really don't know what to think.  And yes I realize how funny it is for me to be asking you for relationship advice for a change.  


Friday, November 18, 2011

Mass manipulation (part 4)

I am manipulative and intentional about the way I write the blog. I never respond to comments or questions in the comments. Part of it is the Taylor Swift tactic of not trying to defend yourself but rather allowing others to make your arguments for you. Taylor Swift didn't have to confront Kanye West--people rushed to her defense to do it for her and it was infinitely more effective that way. Similarly, I never feel like I have to defend or justify myself or anything I say. People frequently defend my positions, or if they don't it doesn't matter. It costs too much to try to defend yourself (or even clarify something you've said), and there is no point I would want to make or image of myself that I would want to project that would be worth the potential fallout.

Another part of not replying in the comments (or anywhere publicly) is that I want to be able to speak to individuals how they want to be spoken to, without fear of alienating others in the process. I can be very friendly or very mean in email exchanges with people--from sycophantic to menacing. I don't want side effects of those conversations spilling over into other interactions because it will limit my future ability to convincingly be whatever I want in any particular situation.

Finally, I don't reply in the comments because I feel like it chills discussion. If I was active in my own comments section, fewer people would comment. They would be waiting for someone else (me) to say their thoughts for them. Some might be afraid to say something and have me contradict them or disagree. If I have something to say, I say it in a post. Otherwise I don't want anybody waiting around to hear my opinion on something. As it is, other sociopaths are ruthless with the people who (they think) put too much stock in things I say. It would be much worse if I interfered with the comments section as well. I don't want issues I discuss on the blog to always degrade into a war of personalities. Plus, I have found that silence is one of the best ways to elicit information. And I think part of the reason the blog is appealing is the diversity of very freely expressed opinion.

I selectively disclose information about myself for strategic reasons. For instance, I never talk about my gender or even strictly about my ethnicity or other demarcating personal characteristics. I hope by doing so that I will be a blank slate and people will be able to project their own ideas onto me. I want to be like Kim Jong-Il or Obama, a figurehead, a receptacle for people's hopes, dreams, fears. I want people to directly relate to the blog--to think of the sociopaths they love in their lives or the sociopaths they hate. If I got too specific about anything, the illusion would be broken. Instead I stick to generalities (like Kim Jong-Il and Obama) and let people fill in the blanks in whatever manner they feel inclined. When people write to me and say that I seem to describe perfectly their own experiences, either as a sociopath or as someone who has known a sociopath, I know I have been successful.

I am pretty good at choosing a particular featured photo for each post to set the mood. Sometimes they have an underlying meaning or reference to the blog post, sometimes they're random but I use them anyway to give the illusion of something deep but unstated.

I know people like to criticize or rally so sometimes I publish something for the sole purpose of galvanizing readers or provoking discussion/fights/ridicule. It keeps people blood thirsty and/or engaged.

As anyone noticed anything else?

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Mass manipulation (part 3)

From Vice Magazine, Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu about the trade off between having power and giving up power to a "trusted" entity, and how many (most?) would rather give up power than have the responsibility that comes with that power.


It would be foolish to assume that anything is unbiased, that anyone can operate without some conflict of interest. The problem now, as our tools become ever more essential to everyday life, ever more pervasive, and ever more complex, is being able to even detect those biases.

But here’s another conundrum to punch into your question-answering sites: do we even care about this? As long as we’re able to make our cheap phone calls, send our free emails, watch our free videos, and get our free content, why should we bother? Why regulate for “network neutrality” if the system works fine the way it is?

The question is hard to answer because we don’t have a way of calculating how much “free” really costs. And, as Wu argues, as much as we like to talk about freedom, we also really like other things like convenience, speed, and comfort. Our technologies and the companies that make them are really good at providing the latter. It’s not so clear, he says, where the former fits in.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Mass manipulation (part 2)

I was reading a New Yorker article about Taylor Swift's masterfully orchestrated rise to fame (again, apologies that it is not publicly available). The key seems to be authenticity.
Swift is sometimes called a twenty-one-year-old 2.0--the girl next door, but with a superior talent set. She has an Oprah-like gift for emotional expressiveness. While many young stars have a programmed, slightly robotic affect, she radiates unjaded sincerity no matter how contrived the situation--press junkets, awards shows, meet and greets.
***
The car door opened, and Swift got out to chants of "Tay-lor! Tay-lor! " Easing herself onto the sidewalk, she proceeded to the base of the stairs, and struck a pose before a phalanx of cameras: a sultry, fierce expression, one hand on her hip, her eyes narrowed, her head cocked back. She seemed to age ten years.
***
She is in the midst of her second world tour, and every show begins with a moment in which she stands silently at the lip of the stage and listens to her fans scream. She tilts her head from side to side and appears to blink back tears--the expression, which is projected onto a pair of Jumbotron screens, is part Bambi, part Baby June.
***
"Swift is a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture that . . . calls to mind Swedish pop gods Dr. Luke and Max Martin," Jody Rosen wrote in Rolling Stone. "If she ever tires of stardom, she could retire to Sweden and make a fine living churning out hits for Kelly Clarkson and Katy Perry."

Like Parton, Swift writes autobiographical songs, a technique that, in the Internet era, is a clever marketing device.
***
Swift is tolerant of her fans' interest in her love life, as she is of gawkers who approach her on the street. "It's human nature!" she told me. While she doesn't talk about dating in interviews, she helps amateur sleuths along, using capital letters to spell out coded messages throughout the lyrics in her liner notes that indicate which boyfriend the song is about. Swift has an affinity for codes and symbols. Onstage, she shapes her fingers into a heart--"I did it at a concert one time, and people screamed, so I just kept doing it," she said--and appears with her lucky number, 13, written on her right hand in Sharpie. More recently, she has been scrawling lyrics, such as U2's "One life, you got to do what you should," on her left arm; deciphering the references has become another fan activity. Swift's ability to hold her audience's interest reflects, in part, a keen understanding of what fuels fan obsession in the first place: a desire for intimacy between singer and listener. She told me that the best musical experience is "hearing a song by somebody singing about their life, and it resembles yours so much that it makes you feel comforted." Her Web site includes video journals and diary-like posts to her online message board, which Swift does not outsource. Her fans, who call themselves Swifties, respond with passionate testimonials--"i would drink her bathwater"--and confessions about their own crushes: "Jake. Jake.Jake. Jake. I can't say it enough. I just love the sound of his name."
Laughing all the way to the bank

Swift's aura of innocence is not an act, exactly, but it can occasionally belie the scale of her success. She is often described using royal terminology--as a pop princess or, as the Washington Post put it recently, the "poet laureate of puberty." In the past five years, she has sold more than twenty million albums--more than any other musician. And, in an era of illegal downloading, fans buy her music online, too. Swift has sold more than twenty-five million digital tracks, surpassing any other country singer, and she holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest-selling digital album, for "Speak Now." Forbes ranked her as last year's seventh-biggest-earning celebrity, with an annual income of forty-five million dollars--a figure that encompasses endorsements, products (this month, she releases a perfume with Elizabeth Arden, which is estimated to generate fifty million dollars during its first year of sales), and tickets. Her concerts, which pack both stadiums and arenas, regularly bring in some seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars a night.
I do a lot of consulting. Each time I show up at a new place, everyone is suspicious of me, looking for reasons not to like me or see me as a threat. It takes a while to build up a rapport with them. At first I am very straightforward, efficient, and professional. I don't want to seem presumptuous, but nor do I want to seem overly available, as if they are on my same level. Because I am talented at what I do, they quickly start respecting me. People become interested in me as a person--what makes me so good at what I do. They develop little crushes on me, which I feed with the selective disclosure of more and more personal information--that I am a musician, that I have a unique background, little stories in which my modesty prevents me from name dropping, but from which it is apparent that I have unexpected credentials/experience/connections. I am never explicit about anything, I make people work for it--draw their own (unavoidable) conclusions, which makes the information seem all the more authentic and valuable to them. Less is more, but I also don't want to seem standoffish. As long as they ask, I will disclose some interesting tidbit to continue to whet their appetite for M.E.

Now if I had shown up on the first day of my consultancy touting my credentials, talking about my personal life, nurturing people's crushes, it would be disastrous. Every once in a while I forget and make a joke too early, show familiarity too soon, and have to immediately back off again with a renewed period of neutrality, but I've gotten better. Now it's like cooking an old familiar recipe.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Mass manipulation (part 1)

Recently I attended an "air your grievances" work meeting. I was only tangentially related, but was called in out of an abundance of caution or some other nonsense reason. People started asking questions and within minutes were erupting in angry accusations. Although each person's grievance wasn't much on its own, the sheer number of them surprised everyone there. People were incensed against management who remained heedless to the most pressing concerns (albeit other people's concerns), rigidly refusing to adapt any of their policies. Everyone left riled up with grievances that they never knew they had before. I thought this was absolute idiocy. I can't imagine a meeting being run more poorly. The idea that if people could only get together they could come to sort of an agreement is absurd.

When I have little insurrections in projects that I run, I target the biggest complainers individually. I schedule a meeting or write them a quick email saying things like, "I noticed that you seemed really frustrated by x." I let them talk for as long as they need, commiserating with them without necessarily committing to any particular position, i.e. not trying to overly justify or entrench myself in any particular position nor agree with their own position. As part of the commiserating, though, I focus on their feelings, "that must be so exhausting," or, "I understand, it's very demanding." I try to use words that sound sympathetic but also make the problem sound either surmountable or something that should be expected from such an important/valued position/employee. I figure that most people just need to vent, but I am also trying to subtly shame them, implying that they are being a crybaby and that they should toughen up. By isolating the potential instigators and stealing their thunder, I never give them the chance to speak publicly and gain support. Without a chance to speak publicly, everyone else is left knowing only about their own particular struggles, assuming that it may have more to do with their own personal failures than a larger institutional failure. Assuming that maybe theirs is an isolated incident, they don't divulge their shameful failure to their colleagues and the mutiny never reaches the necessary tipping point of participants.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

I, Robot

This is an interesting article about therapeutic robots that are designed to look like adorable animals such as baby seals and interact in comforting ways with individuals like the senile elderly. I think you'll enjoy the parallels:
Paro is a robot modeled after a baby harp seal. It trills and paddles when petted, blinks when the lights go up, opens its eyes at loud noises and yelps when handled roughly or held upside down. Two microprocessors under its artificial white fur adjust its behavior based on information from dozens of hidden sensors that monitor sound, light, temperature and touch. It perks up at the sound of its name, praise and, over time, the words it hears frequently.
***
After years of effort to coax empathy from circuitry, devices designed to soothe, support and keep us company are venturing out of the laboratory. Paro, its name derived from the first sounds of the words “personal robot,” is one of a handful that take forms that are often odd, still primitive and yet, for at least some early users, strangely compelling.
***
But building a machine that fills the basic human need for companionship has proved more difficult. Even at its edgiest, artificial intelligence cannot hold up its side of a wide-ranging conversation or, say, tell by an expression when someone is about to cry. Still, the new devices take advantage of the innate soft spot many people have for objects that seem to care — or need someone to care for them.

Their appearances in nursing homes, schools and the occasional living room are adding fuel to science fiction fantasies of machines that people can relate to as well as rely on. And they are adding a personal dimension to a debate over what human responsibilities machines should, and should not, be allowed to undertake.

But if there is an argument to be made that people should aspire to more for their loved ones than an emotional rapport with machines, some suggest that such relationships may not be so unfamiliar. Who among us, after all, has not feigned interest in another? Or abruptly switched off their affections, for that matter?

In any case, the question, some artificial intelligence aficionados say, is not whether to avoid the feelings that friendly machines evoke in us, but to figure out how to process them.

“We as a species have to learn how to deal with this new range of synthetic emotions that we’re experiencing — synthetic in the sense that they’re emanating from a manufactured object,” said Timothy Hornyak, author of “Loving the Machine,” a book about robots in Japan, where the world’s most rapidly aging population is showing a growing acceptance of robotic care. “Our technology,” he argues, “is getting ahead of our psychology.”
***
Dorothy Marette, the clinical psychologist supervising the cafeteria klatch, said she initially presumed that those who responded to Paro did not realize it was a robot — or that they forgot it between visits.

Yet several patients whose mental faculties are entirely intact have made special visits to her office to see the robotic harp seal.

“I know that this isn’t an animal,” said Pierre Carter, 62, smiling down at the robot he calls Fluffy. “But it brings out natural feelings.”
***
”When something responds to us, we are built for our emotions to trigger, even when we are 110 percent certain that it is not human,” said Clifford Nass, a professor of computer science at Stanford University. “Which brings up the ethical question: Should you meet the needs of people with something that basically suckers them?”

An answer may lie in whether one signs on to be manipulated.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Lies, lies, and manipulation

A reader asked: "Why is it that sociopaths are natural manipulators and expert liars? How can an everyday person acquire such skill?" My response:
Interesting. I posted a little about this a few weeks ago. I think the main skill in lying is to discover how people are able to determine what is truth and what is lie and always make your lies look more like truth and less like lies. I guess that sounds simplistic, but what I mean is that there are certain tells, certain aspects of a lie that alert the listener to be suspicious. If you could figure out what these things are and give the listener more what they are expecting to see when someone tells the truth, then you are a good liar, right? It's the same with any lie detection system -- find out how it works, then game the system. For a polygraph system you know that it establishes a baseline of stress levels and then looks for spikes. The game that most people try to play with a polygraph is to keep your stress levels high when telling the truth, thereby establishing a high baseline level of stress and making the lies more difficult to detect. I think sociopaths are particularly expert at lying because they are very used to being what is expected of them, particularly in wearing masks to become someone or something else in reaction to what people want to see.

Manipulation probably works the same way -- you read people, you really learn what makes them tick, and then you adapt in such a way that they are almost compelled to do what you want them to do. But everyone is a natural manipulator, not just sociopaths. We learn it when we are babies. As babies we fussed for the things we wanted, sometimes we were honestly upset, but sometimes we did it just to make people jump. Look at this site for a hilarious explanation of that.

I don't know whether sociopaths are necessarily better at manipulation than all of the other natural manipulators. If they are maybe it it just because they have had more practice. Sociopaths use manipulation because it is quick and easy and they can't see any reason why not -- they do not have the same respect for personal boundaries and individual autonomy that neurotypicals do.

I personally try to avoid it. I feel like particularly in interpersonal relationships, it is not worth the distrust and bitterness that are its byproducts. I guess in some ways that makes me like an industrialized nation version of a sociopath. When I was younger I was more like China, undeveloped and eager to get an edge anyway I could, even if it meant polluting my sky and water sources. Now I am more like Hong Kong -- at least willing to consider some of the negative externalities that my actions produce, partly because I have the luxury to do so (I have sufficient resources and stature to get what I want without getting my hands dirty all of the time), and partly because I at least half believe that polluting my relationships is probably not in my best interest.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

On empaths controlling/manipulating sociopaths (part 2)

A reader writes (cont.):
The method is quite simple. In fact, it employs many of the same methods that sociopaths use to manipulate empaths. The first key is to realize an essential fact: everything - and I mean absolutely every single thing - the sociopath says is suspect (particularly things of any significance regarding the future). (This is why I remain skeptical about your true nature, and extremely so of your supposed intentions regarding your site.) What do I mean by this? In short, I mean: I always figured his words were very likely total bullshit. I always had my guard up. I stopped believing in the authenticity of everything that came out of his mouth, of all his actions, of all his feigned emotions. I maintained the artificial pretense (sound familiar?) that I felt authenticity out of him and out of his supposed intentions. This actually required much less acting than I initially thought it would, because more than anything it simply required a "freeing up" of my typical emotional responses (which wasn't all that hard to do). I would have to feign an air of nervousness in his presence every now and then, because I knew this satisfied him and made him feel in control.

Step 2: I engaged in subtle, subtle, subtle forms of flattery. You sociopaths are more prone to flattery than you would like to believe (and no - he is not a narcissist...not worth my time explaining how I know, but I am quite certain). In fact when I came across a blog post on your site (I haven't read that many) where you stated that one way to control a sociopath might be through flattery, I literally laughed out loud.

Step 3 (the last step): I acted and planned constantly with the awareness that what he craves most is control and power. This awareness allowed me to devise situations that would appear to him as if they would lead to more power/control for him in his life (especially toward his peers), when in fact I engineered them to end up in him sacrificing something to me. You may notice that this is basically the same thing you do to empaths in relationships with them: you create a pretense of situations that will lead to more emotional security, fulfillment, sympathy, etc. because this is precisely what many empaths crave, whereas I create the pretense of situations leading to more power/control because this is what sociopaths crave.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

On empaths controlling/manipulating sociopaths (part 1)

A reader writes:
Hello, m.e.,

I've been reading about sociopathy for many years now but only recently came across your site. I am an empath. In fact, I am perhaps a bit "more" empathetic than most empaths would be.

I believe I have developed a method for controlling, even manipulating, sociopaths: that is, beating them at their own game. I will not post my entire story yet because 1) I remain, and probably always will remain, unconvinced that you are a sociopath until I can observe you in person (this is my skeptical nature) and 2) I'm not sure that you would be interested in hearing many of the details. You'll have to respond to let me know.

The story, in brief: about six years ago I discovered the sociopathic nature of a male friend very close to me. In short, he briefly successfully conned me out of hundreds of dollars (not that serious, but unpleasant) to fund an affair (he had another long term girlfriend then) I had no idea he was having. Even though he was able to guilt me into not accusing him of failing to repay me, I quickly became very suspicious. I began to notice an almost inhuman detachment in his facial expressions. When he smiled, I would often notice that the smile was emotionally vacant. This may sound strange, but the smile felt subtly slower to me. I am very adept at picking up facial cues and intuitively knowing what people around me are thinking, how they're feeling - even what their true intentions are. It is nearly at the level of a psychic ability (though I am a strict materialist and do not believe in that). My Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ (the same as Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, and supposedly/theoretically Jesus Christ) and is often attributed an uncanny ability to see straight through to what people are thinking/feeling.

Back to the story, I began researching sociopathy and similar disorders online. I was completely certain that what I had on my hands was a full blown sociopath - and certainly one of the more impulse controlling varieties (a college grad and actually quite motivated and hard working). At this point, I became really excited. I could not wait to see what I could do to him - in short, to see if I could actually beat him at his own game. (This statement may give you the impression that I might be a sociopath. I am not. I sometimes cry during those infomercials about feeding African children and so forth. I could not list the number of times I've cried on someone else's behalf.)

Monday, December 28, 2009

Sociopaths: pitiable?

I confess to never having had the patience to read The Sociopath Next Door all the way through, but I did find this psychologist's review of it interesting because it gets at the core of what many have accused this blog of trying to accomplish -- manipulating people to pity us:
"The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy."

The pity play or attempt to appeal to the sympathy of others was also addressed in research conducted by the Minnesota Department of Corrections and The Hazelden Foundation (2002). There, researchers concluded that criminal thinkers most often attempt to control others by portraying themselves as a victim, turning to fear tactics only when the victim stance fails to get them what they want.

The act of eliciting pity from another unequivocally makes the elicitor something to be pitied, a victim, per se. It is human nature to aid the pitied. Hence, the pity play, or victim stance, stands to get the Sociopath what he or she wants easily and without being found out as a bad guy. This is manipulation. Manipulation is the tool of choice for smart criminal thinkers and, according to Dr. Stout, the Sociopaths amongst us. She says, "Sociopaths have no regard whatsoever for the social contract, but they do know how to use it to their advantage. And all in all, I am sure that if the devil existed, he would want us to feel very sorry for him."
I sort of don't understand this argument, perhaps not surprisingly. Does the devil not deserve pity because he doesn't meet the criteria (i.e. not pitiable enough)? Or does he not deserve it because it wouldn't mean the same thing to him (i.e. wasted on him)? Or is it because, as the author suggests, there is something wrong with your pity being used for a purpose (i.e. getting you to think about something from another's point of view) rather than just functioning as one of the empath's favorite self-indulgent pastimes? I really want to understand, and I know some of our readers are very smart with strong feelings about this subject, so let's have at it. For once and for all, let's discuss all the reasons why this blog is manipulative and sociopaths aren't worthy of pity, etc. etc. And just for fun, let's try to use arguments that wouldn't apply equally to some other more "acceptable" variants of humanity.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

It's alarming how charming I feel (part II)

I could go either way on this letter (link here). It might have been written by a sociopath, or it may have not. But I always think it's an entertaining exercise to look at other people's communication in a critical way, trying to strip it of all your prejudices and preconceptions.

I think the letter is definitely manipulative. There is a certain lilt to it, a certain charm. There is a relatively good cadence, it is interesting to read. There's not really one point made, and though there is an apology, it's not for nothing specific. The apology, to the reader, could be interpreted as an apology for everything and anything that the reader believes the writer did wrong. This was clever, because the writer may truly be sorry for only one thing ("not behaving better") or may not even know what to be sorry for, so instead keeps things vague and lets the reader fill in the blanks. (Or perhaps doesn't feel any real guilt at all.)

I obviously don't know anything about the target of the letter, but I know it was effective because the reader has reunited with the writer. The letter seems clearly designed for one purpose, and that it accomplished that purpose leads me to believe that despite certain prejudices of mine about what I think people want or do not want to hear, this was obviously what the reader wanted to hear. The most interesting thing about it, though, is that although it is what the reader wanted to hear, the writer doesn't actually say much. Instead, the writer relies on the order, the structure, the format, the very cadence and rhythm of the words to lead to what were probably almost unavoidable logical inferences for the reader.

The writer hits hard with phrases like "I loved you" -- phrases that are sure to stand out in the reader's mind much more than the follow-up qualifiers of the love being selfish or narcissistic. The letter seems like an illusion, relying primarily on misdirection rather than outright deceit. The writer knows that he has to be honest, and has to come clean (so to speak) by actually including the various qualifiers and self-effacing statements he includes. That the reader wants to think he/she is reading honest responses is also apparent by the included phrase, "It's funny that after telling you virtually nothing, now I just want you to know the truth." We have talked before about how good lies typically contain a good deal of the truth, and the writer seems very careful about keeping the letter realistic (e.g., it sounds like these two did not know each other well enough for the reader to believe that the writer genuinely loved him/her, which is why the writer says "of course it was, I barely knew you"). The writer seems to be trying to reestablish a shared reality between the two of them, but a reality based primarily on rewritten history.

Going back to the phrase "I loved you," the past tense of the word loved is curious, but it seems purposeful, perhaps wanting to instill a sense of fear of loss or actual loss in the reader. Also it suggests that the writer is harmless, impotent -- because he/she no longer loves, he/she no longer has an incentive to "behave [poorly]". This seems designed to assuage any fears or misgivings the reader has about letting the writer back into his/her life, all while piquing the reader's interest --wanting the reader to not just think it is harmless to allow the writer back into his/her life, but actively wanting the writer back in his/her life.

The letter is also a Trojan horse, however. It promises love and eternal devotion, but those very promises are designed to guilt the reader into some sort of a response -- the writer's desired goal. The writer says, "It feels like you never really gave me a chance," followed by "I loved you." There are also the recriminations: "I feel like you have given me abandonment issues that I never really had before. I've gained a touch of paranoia. I second guess myself, even second guess the world." This is not only a plea for sympathy but a pointed finger of look-what-you-have-done-to-me-what-did-I-ever-do-to-deserve-this accusation. If the reader sees his or herself as a good, open-minded individual, he/she may have misgivings about his/her actions after reading this.

There is a suggestion that if they start over things will be different ("I guess I just wish that I had known it was coming"), but no direct promises or even a direct suggestion that it would have made any difference to the writer to know that the reader was leaving him/her. Finally, there is a plea to vanity: "I know I'll get over you, but I don't want to." I feel like that must work like a charm with empaths, if only because it sounds like a sappy movie line to me.

Our reader who sent this letter is right to be suspicious, I think. Even if the writer is not a sociopath, I am sure the friend has a very different understanding of the contours of their proposed renewed relationship than does the writer of this letter. Not only that, I believe that was the writer's exact intention.
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