Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Are libertarians sociopaths or vice versa?

First let me out myself as being libertarian, but with a little bit of a Burkean twist. for the uninitiated, libertarians are essentially socially and fiscally liberal -- kind of a "don't tread on me, laissez-faire" attitude regarding government interference. I'm a libertarian because my main fears are mob mentality and idiots having power. I think my fear of mob mentality is directly linked to my perception that i am an "other," i.e. sociopath, and a very unpopular one at that. I think a lot of non sociopaths could be afraid of idiots in power and naturally want to decrease the power of government in general, but I don't know.

There has been a lot of rubbish written about libertarians all being sociopaths, but fewer people suggest that all sociopaths are libertarians. I find the first suggestion ridiculous -- there are many reasons to be a libertarian without necessarily being a sociopath. Although if you want to read an infuriating discussion about this, look here. Just a snippet:

Libertarians to make moral judgements, they error on the side of freedom. THAT IS A MORAL JUDGEMENT.

Nonsense. Liking freedom is NOT a moral judgment. This illustrates the point of the study exactly. Sociopaths want to be free to do whatever they want, regardless of the harm they do to other people. All Libertarians are sociopaths, but NOT ALL sociopaths are Libertarians.
The commenters go on to indicate that many other political parties seem to appeal more to sociopaths than libertarianism, e.g. socialism, fascism, communism, and other forms of totalitarianism. Thoughts? Are sociopaths represented in every political belief system? Are they only at the extremes?

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Sociopath quote of the day

I've done the vilest things, the foulest things, but I've done them superbly.

-- June Miller, from Henry and June

Friday, January 9, 2009

How to fight a sociopath -- and win!

A book like that would be an instant bestseller. If you figure there are 50 million sociopaths in the world and every one of them knows about 200 people, that's ... that's a lot of people who would be buying the book. It seems like most empaths can't tell how to spot a sociopath, so you go reading all these books and looking at all these websites purporting to tell you how. The problem with those sources is that they may be have some valid information, but they're about as useful as a book about becoming a millionaire. Maybe some of those methods would work with some empaths looking for some sociopaths some of the time, but there is no surefire method. That's why you have all those books and websites.

Still, I sympathize with your position, empaths. You're creeped out that there are these otherworldy beings wandering around making your life miserable for their own sport.

The truth is that sociopaths are largely harmless. Just ask Andrew Bird. Sure, we may play with your minds a bit, but with me it's more like teasing than anything else. Let's say you had a younger sibling who you liked to give a hard time. Or when you're out and about and you see a little girl dressed up like a princess or a little boy dressed up like a pirate, what do you do? You say, "Wow a princess!" or "Oh no, a scary pirate!" You play along with the kid because you can. It's sort of fun and you get to feel like you are being superior and nice at the same time -- so superior that you can afford to condescend to their ridiculous level and play along with their little fantasies for a while. Empaths are for the most part harmless too, so why not go along with their make-believe? Meet an empath who thinks he's beautiful or smart or talented? Feed that belief. That's pretty much all the sociopath interactions you'll see in your lives. All we do is tell you the equivalent of "Santa is real." Is that really so bad? Those of you who are smart probably realize it's just for your own good.

But with that said, I can predict situations in which you might want to beat a sociopath at his own game. What next? Well, as mentioned in earlier posts, one of the sociopath's main tools is mimicking human emotions. How do they know what to mimic? By watching you. How do you trick them? By feeding them false information. A sociopath's ability to act normal is only as good as the information he has available to him about what you expect. When you feed him false information, it ends up like one of those dry British farces where misunderstandings and confusions abound. But you're not confused because you know what's going on. And then you've beat him. That's all there is to it.

Congratulations, you fought a sociopath -- and won! Was it worth the effort? How about a nominal charge for a bestselling book of the same name?

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Sociopaths, mimicry, and blank slates

"I pick up on accents." That's what I always tell people when they ask where I get my accent from. When I hear someone speaking with a distinctive accent, I adopt it for my own, at least for that moment while I'm with them. It can get particularly offensive or dicey when I adopt the accent of someone of a different race or class from me and they think I'm making fun of them. I do it very naturally and the result, like that of many aspects of having a personality disorder, is that I don't really have the accent of my nationality or place of birth -- the default. What I have instead is a hodgepodge where people assume that I'm foreign, but no one can quite put a finger on where I might be from.

For sociopaths, mimicry is their metier, their bread and butter.
Hare once illustrated this for Nicole Kidman, who had invited him to Hollywood to help her prepare for a role as a psychopath in Malice. How, she wondered, could she show the audience there was something fundamentally wrong with her character?

"I said, 'Here's a scene that you can use,' " Hare says. " 'You're walking down a street and there's an accident. A car has hit a child in the crosswalk. A crowd of people gather round. You walk up, the child's lying on the ground and there's blood running all over the place. You get a little blood on your shoes and you look down and say, "Oh shit." You look over at the child, kind of interested, but you're not repelled or horrified. You're just interested. Then you look at the mother, and you're really fascinated by the mother, who's emoting, crying out, doing all these different things. After a few minutes you turn away and go back to your house. You go into the bathroom and practice mimicking the facial expressions of the mother.' " He then pauses and says, "That's the psychopath: somebody who doesn't understand what's going on emotionally, but understands that something important has happened."
I think mimicry is interesting, and I think a lot of empaths think it's freaky. What I find more freaky is what constant mimicry suggests -- that you have no baseline "you," that you are always just reactions to outside stimuli.

I have a good friend who was initially very frustrated that I didn't seem to have defaults: no default understanding of right and wrong, no default beliefs, no default personality even. Everything had to be reasoned, everything had to be constructed anew. It can be frustrating for me too. It's time consuming. And sometimes it disturbs me how impressionable I am. Being a blank slate, sometimes I can surprise even myself with non sequiturs or unpredictable behavior. It's sort of scary.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Interviewing tips from a sociopath

I had an interview today for something I want. Sociopath skills are never so useful as they are during an interview, but I imagine uber-empaths can be very good at them as well.

Interviews are interesting in general because the interviewee is clearly looking for the "right" answer. When they keep looking at you expectantly, you keep talking. If it is a double interview you keep talking until the two interviewers make that knowing eye contact with each other. Sometimes you'll get a real amateur who is checking things off his list. Most of the time, though, you have to do what sociopaths do best -- tell people what they want to hear.

Do they know I am pandering to them? Do they know that I am essentially recreating that scene from Being John Malkovich where you just say anything and everything until you get some sort of response:

CRAIG
How about this, if I can guess your
first name within three tries, you
have to come out for a drink with me
tonight.

MAXINE
Why not?

CRAIG
Great.
(watches her face as he guesses)
Buuuhhppaahhhhnnn. . . . .
Muhhhahhhhh. . . . . ahhhnnnaaa. .
nollltuuukkkaaaaralllll. . .
tashabararassssssuuuuusaaaaaaa. . .
nnnnnnnaaaaaannnnnnnnncccccceeeeeee
Mwaaaaaa. . . . .Mahhhhhkkkkk. . .
sssseeeeeen. Maxine?

MAXINE
Who told you?

CRAIG
I'm right?

MAXINE
Who told you?

CRAIG
That's incredible! Nobody told me!
I swear! It's kismet. Maxine!
It's a beautiful name. There's a
psychic connection. Don't you see?
It was meant to be! Maxine! Maxine!
Maxine! I will shout it from the
rooftops!

MAXINE
Somebody told you.

CRAIG
Oh, Maxine, nobody told me. Maxine,
Maxine. It just came out of me like
a song, Maxine. A beautiful crazy,
song, Maxine. Maxine. Maxine!
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