Sunday, January 18, 2009

Friday, January 16, 2009

Misreading the signs

In this post I talk about successfully sparring with sociopaths using emotional misdirection. I got the following response dismissing the effectiveness of that tactic:
Just because one person feeds you indirect or false information does not mean they will win. What about the other hundreds of people observed before? A sociopath doesn't learn when they've done something wrong because they either gain pleasure from it or honestly see no wrong in it, but this does not mean that they simply do not learn.

Lying to a sociopath and thinking you will win is stupid. What has the sociopath been doing his or her entire life? Lying. Unless they end up falling into a highly-narcissistic lifestyle, they are going to recognize a liar and will immediately trump them due to their amount of comfort and experience with lying that an empath would not have.

Your "battle tactics" seem more like a way of defeating you rather than sociopaths as a whole.
Right, that last sentence is probably the most true. But am I really so alone in that? I mean, other empathy challenged individuals like aspergers and autistics also frequently misinterpret emotional cues and are easy to trick. I make emotional/social errors like that in the weirdest circumstances. For instance, this conversation with a friend:
Friend: Why do black men always scream at me? Like, whenever in the street? It's a weird social thing, no?

M.E.: They scream at you?

Friend: Well, like, at the grocery store today, I walk past this black man who was just buying groceries and he starts yelling: hey girl? shopping? shop til you drop, I know you can! And on and on until I got into the store. And this happens a lot. It's a weird racial thing, no? The whole yelling thing. Black men do this.

M.E.: I guess they do. I just always felt like they were my friends, but thinking back on it now, they were strangers.

Friend: The screaming black men?

M.E.
: Yeah

Friend
: No, strangers.

M.E.
: Yeah, I don't have any male black friends then. That's too bad.
EDIT: not like I ever thought these people were friends or acquaintances. I mean that there was an emotional/social illusion such that I forgot they were strangers yelling at me.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Drugs, eating disorders, and burn victims

I regularly cull through photos of drug addicts, anorexics, and burn victims (let's be honest, bulimics, you're not horrifyingly skinny enough). My drug addict of choice is the crystal meth user and his rotting-out-of-his-face teeth. These pictures are the result of no one stepping up to help a drug addict, and it’s hard to look away.I think everyone likes to stare at the macabre, even empaths. They're all images of human destruction, of course: the drug addicts show the effects of a demon, the eating disordered show the effects of a mental weakness, and the burn victims reflect our own inhumanity back at us.

But I do feel like I get a unique pleasure from gazing upon them. I think I like the notion that I can easily understand how bad their lives are. If sociopaths like me can understand their pain, then they and the similarly afflicted may be the only people immune to a sociopath's exploits. They're so bad off even a sociopath can feel sorry for them, somewhat. At least they have that to cheer them up!


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
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