Good intentions not good enough

The other day I was with a group of my relatives. One of the children is a quirky guy, probably could be diagnosed somewhere on the autism spectrum but his parents seem to worry about stigmatizing him with any sort of label. Another adult relative grabbed him in sort of a roughhousing way and the child screamed bloody murder. We were in a crowded place and everyone turned to look at what could possibly cause such a reaction. There should be nothing unusual about a child who does not like to be grabbed by surprise, but I guess a lot of children like it? So people do it and basically expect all children to like it; if they don't they're often labeled "too sensitive" or some other label that shifts the blame on them for their reaction, rather than it staying on the perpetrator where it belongs. Watching this scene, I couldn't help but think about how much I distrust good intentions (I write about it here, the tendency to self-deceive about good intentions here, and the inherent paternalism or one-size-fits-all hubristic approach of many good-intentioned behaviors here).

I'm not saying that the guy who grabbed the child was "wrong", largely because I don't care about the moral rightness or wrongness of such actions (even if morality plays a part in some decisions, I believe that most things in life have no moral implications at all). What I am saying is that the last thing in the world that my little relative wanted to have happen was to be grabbed in that way. The adult of course apologized, but I've also seen people in similar situations defend their position, as if trying to convince the victim that they should toughen up, or that the treatment is good for them (see above re paternalism and hubris), or often the perpetrators seem to honestly believe that the victim actually does like that treatment, but is just being intentionally difficult as a form of politicking or emotional manipulation. Whatever the reason, the violators in these situations (the persons who impose their own will on another person, ignoring the that person's autonomy and volition) often excuse their own behavior or believe that they are not responsible for the consequences of their own actions because that is not what they intended. And that is the most dangerous thing about them.

I really like this quote from C.S. Lewis from his essay anthology "God in the Dock" (1948):

My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be 'cured' against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

This is a major reason why I am libertarian -- people are bad enough about this without giving them the authority and power of the state to use. 

Child sociopath? Surviving Newtown

One of my associates told me the story of the one child who survived the Newtown massacre when everyone else in her class died. How? By playing dead, aided by the blood of her classmates. She waited until everything had died down and then got out of there, in fact she was apparently one of the first people to leave the school. How was she capable of accomplishing this incredible feat? God, says some Pastor.


In an interview with ABC News, Pastor Jim Solomon said the girl laid among her 15 other classmates covered in blood until she felt it was safe to leave, "She ran out of the school building covered from head to toe with blood and the first thing she said to her mom was, 'Mommy, I'm OK but all my friends are dead."

Her quick decision truly shows her wisdom and ultimately saved her life. The Daily mail reported that she was the first person to run out of the school building, "Somehow in that moment, by God's grace, [she] was able to act as she was already deceased." Pastor Solomon added, "What did she see in there? Well, she saw someone who she felt was angry and somebody who she felt was mad. "He continued, "How at 6 and a half years old can you be that smart, that brave? I think it's impossible outside of divine intervention. She has wisdom beyond her years."

Now, I'm not saying it wasn't God, and I'm not saying that she is a child sociopath... But she behaved in a way that you would expect a child sociopath to also behave -- keeping her cool, calm and clear headed under pressure, exploiting an opportunity without little regard for her fellow students, all while seemingly knowing exactly what she was doing. Just another reason why having a child who may be a sociopath may not be the worst thing in the world.

Opportunism

I often tell people that sociopaths are not necessarily malicious. They wonder what I mean by that and I have always struggled a bit to try to explain. While on this recent trip, however, something happened that I thought was a perfect example of what I mean.

I was sitting eating lunch, including some apples and bananas. I was caught up in conversation with a friend and we weren't paying attention when a monkey jumped into our eating area, grabbed the fruit and ran. It was pretty hilarious. My friend freaked out. The monkey didn't get my food only because I acted quickly to throw my jacket over it.

Ever since then she's been totally anti-monkey, considers them devious creatures. She always says things like, "They're staring me down. They're looking for weakness."And she's probably right. But it's not like they are out to get her because of who she is as a person or are even intending to take her stuff for the purpose of depriving her of her property or harassing her. All they want is her food. They are focused only on themselves. The point is not to hurt her. In fact, the effect that their actions have on others is an unintended consequence. If they could get the fruit in a way that did not hurt her, they would probably do that as often as the stealing. They just are looking for opportunities and when they see them, they quickly act upon them with no hesitation, compunction, or regret.

So too sociopaths frequently act based on a spirit of opportunism. They are not necessarily trying to hurt the people they exploit or victimize. They just see an opening and act on it. That's what I mean about a lack of maliciousness.

Cultivating luck

Sociopaths are known for being charming, but they also seem to lead a charmed life.  I have had such unusual success in my profession that people often wonder what exact deal had I made with the devil and whether he is still looking for business partners.  It's not that I am not qualified, I am (but that is another story heavily influenced by luck).  It's more that my profession is one of those that is heavily influenced by luck.  I happened to have had a truly unique idea and was lucky enough to have been able to act upon it.  I do acknowledge that it was a lucky break, but there were also things I did to make my own luck.  Similarly, this was an interesting article in the Telegraph from psychologist Richard Wiseman about some of his research on what distinguishes the lucky from the less fortunate:


Take the case of chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not. I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such opportunities.

I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the photographs, whereas the lucky people took just seconds. Why? Because the second page of the newspaper contained the message: "Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper." This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than 2in high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.
***

Personality tests revealed that unlucky people are generally much more tense than lucky people, and research has shown that anxiety disrupts people's ability to notice the unexpected. In one experiment, people were asked to watch a moving dot in the centre of a computer screen. Without warning, large dots would occasionally be flashed at the edges of the screen. Nearly all participants noticed these large dots.

The experiment was then repeated with a second group of people, who were offered a large financial reward for accurately watching the centre dot, creating more anxiety. They became focused on the centre dot and more than a third of them missed the large dots when they appeared on the screen. The harder they looked, the less they saw.

And so it is with luck - unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and as a result miss other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for.

My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.



He then talks about how he wondered if those principles could be learned by the unlucky:

One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80 per cent of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier. While lucky people became luckier, the unlucky had become lucky. 

Other "lucky" traits that seem particularly prevalent in the sociopath community: mixing up routine and remaining optimistic.  And it wasn't explicitly stated, but I think being willing to take risks often makes someone seem lucky.  It's like the pickup artist community -- if you play enough numbers, you're bound to have one pay out.