Sociopaths and anarchists

This is sort of an interesting blog post from an anarchist criticizing the comparison between sociopaths and anarchists that Robert Hare draws in his book "Without a Conscience". The anarchist is insulted to be compared to sociopaths and actually refers to sociopaths as an anarchist's "natural enemy", but only for the same reasons that sociopaths would be a natural enemy to anyone who considers themselves a potential victim.

The article is sort of interesting and sort of wrong, but has a certain charm to it because it is written from the point of view of one abnormal mentality regarding another abnormal mentality, in a way that Pakistan criticizing North Korea's nuclear policies might seem charming. The gist of the argument:

So once we realize that, we must examine legalism both from the aspect of outer rules and from the aspect of inner rules. The Anarchist rejects only part of the former, but the sociopath rejects both. Seen from that perspective, the sociopath is seen to correspond perfectly to the concept of atomistic individualism: an individual who lives as if he is in a vacuum, making decisions in complete disregard of society or any part of society.

It's an interesting distinction to make. I don't know anything about the anarchy movement so I can't comment on that part of it, but I think he is trying to say that anarchists still have internal moral beliefs and sociopaths don't. This assertion is not quite right unless you define "moral beliefs" quite narrowly, not just excluding little rules of thumb like "eat breakfast when you can," which sociopaths definitely can have, but also excluding certain value judgments, e.g. preferring strength over weakness, which sociopaths also seem to have to some extent. And I don't think you can have a principled definition of morality that excludes those types of value judgments unless you simply define morality as "everything that I innately believe and nothing else."

My favorite part of the article, though, is this mini review of Hare's book:

I wasn’t exactly bowled over by the book itself. Many conclusions were unsupported and obviously were only adopted by Hare because they are more conducive to him getting money. There are also some logical gaps. All in all, it’s a spotty piece of writing.

He makes that comment about money as if it were a bad thing. I myself don't mind being a cash cow for psychologists, in fact if Hare gave me kickbacks or otherwise paid me off, I would stop writing this blog today and/or jump on the Hare bandwagon. Hare, if you are reading this, I can be bought. For cheap. Cheaper than you might think. Unlike anarchists, I apparently don't have any inner rules or sense of morality to prevent me from doing so.

Craigslist killer

A reader asked what I thought about the Craigslist killer (apparently there was a "Lifetime" made for television movie about him this week). I really didn't know much about him or the movie, so I read this review of the movie and was charmed by these sections:

The film delivers the story as a conventional narrative. It might have been more compelling had it been told from inside the head of either the killer or his fiancée, but Mr. Markoff, at least, apparently didn’t leave much of an explanation for his behavior.

“I’m a straight-A medical student,” he tells the police during the initial interrogation after his arrest. “I’m getting married in a month. I mean, would you guys care to explain to me why I would go around and shoot prostitutes in hotel rooms?”

They don’t have an answer, and the filmmakers don’t either; cheesy sound effects are all they can come up with to signal his switch from perfect-man mode to psychopath.

The film’s most compelling moment comes courtesy of William Baldwin, who plays the lead detective on the case. “Used to be able to tell who the bad guys were, right?” his character says to a colleague. “Now it’s all texts and e-mails and Web sites. Creeps are hiding in our own houses, and we don’t even know who they are.”

I think it is hilarious that (at least in the movie) they are blaming this on the internet rather than trying to take a serious look at possible abnormal psychology reasons for his behavior. It reminds me of the time-honored tradition of blaming bad things on demons or evil spirits rather than admitting what Joseph Conrad understood, that "[t]he belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary: men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." We have already met the enemy, we just keep forgetting about it.

Aspie sex

This is a pretty funny article about aspie sex. It's worth reading in its entirety. There are some amusing commonalities between aspies and sociopaths in this area (as in most areas). Here is my favorite vignette:

I tried having lesbian sex. I answered an ad. Picture her: The professional ballet dancer who had just quit, and to celebrate, she got breast implants. And me, the aspiring professional beach volleyball player.

She spent the whole evening talking about how smart I am and how many books I’ve read and how strong I am.

I spent the whole evening talking about how hot she is.

I did not realize that this exchange meant that I had to be the aggressor in bed.

I said, “Are we going to kiss now? We can’t do this whole date and not kiss.”

She said, “I need you to seduce me.”

I said, “What? Are you kidding? Just take your clothes off. How are we going to have sex if we keep putting it off?”

She said, “It’s not like that. There has to be a game or something.”

I said, “Okay. You do the game. What should we do?”

She pouted. I did not realize it was part of the game.

I told her that we were really ineffective together and I thought we needed some guy there with us to run the show. We never did that. We never did anything.

Aspies, you are hilarious. Thanks for being you!

Lots of love,
m.e.

Sociopath song: Runnin' out of fools

New year's resolutions

Every year when people ask me my new year's resolutions I tell them the same thing -- watch every episode of the Simpsons. It gives them a bit of a laugh and it gets me out of answering the question truthfully, the truth being that I never make resolutions. What's the point? I have to con and incentivize myself to do pretty much all the good things I currently do and use all of my willpower to keep my worst impulses in check. There is no room in my fully-leveraged life for trying to give up bad habits or gain new ones. In fact, I'm ecstatic if I manage to not gain any more bad or lose any good in any particular year, entropy being the universal force that it is.

This year I had a bit of an epiphany, though. Everyone makes resolutions. I'm losing out on a lot of "normalcy" points by not making a resolution list. I should just make a fake one and leave it out where people can see it and read it. For those of my intimate associates that do read it, it will make me seem even more transparent/open/normal. Right? What do you think of this for a sample list:

1. Budget better.
2. Learn to count to 10 in a new language.
3. Floss twice (!) a day.
4. Give two compliments for every criticism.
5. Laugh more.
6. Get to sleep before midnight.
7. Take a junior college intro to statistics class.
8. Exercise weekly
9. Eat more vegetables.
10. Stop grinding teeth.

Right mix of banal and aspirational? Any other suggestions? Or real resolutions?