Saturday, March 26, 2011

Going places

From a reader:
I just wanted to thank you for writing your blog. I've only read a handful of posts so far but it helps to know someone out there has ASPD and is willing to write about it. Not those guys who think they are badass and have no feelings. You really understand the disorder as do I, also your post on sociopaths loving helped me realize I'm not crazy and other sociopaths do love just like I have.

The briefest way to explain my story would be that ever since I can remember I never felt like everyone else did. I remember being a child and watching people in real life or tv shows always with real people trying to mimic the way they react to certain situations. I understand complex human emotion fairly well and can mimic it perfectly at times I just don't feel it. In fact i'm so good at it sometimes I stop and think to myself, wow do I really feel that and the answer is always a slight chuckle and a no. I'm only 20 so I'm young but I know if I don't start doing something with my life now I never will and it really doesn't bother me. I find I lack motivation I mean yeah it'd be great to have a job and go back to college and get a career and have a sucessful life but I don't really care. These things get people nowhere I think they just don't see that because they are driven by emotion. I do what I have to to survive beyond that why bother.

I just know that I will benefit from going somewhere in life.
I said:
I think it's harder for us in part because we see the pointlessness of certain typical endeavors like being an office drone for the rest of our lives. On the other hand, there are certain things that it actually does help for us to try to do or be better about, so I understand your desire to go somewhere in life. Did you see this post? It's what has worked for me. Other than that, I would say just try to use your skills of manipulation on yourself--incentivize yourself, trick yourself, make a game of life, that sort of thing.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Jealousy

Conversation with a friend:
Friend: Is he trying to manipulate me? In some sociopathic way?

M.E.: I don't think he's socio, if it's true what he said about feeling jealous during group sex with his ex-girlfriend.

Friend: Really? Are all socios not jealous? That can't be true, can it? Because jealousy can be about ego, largely, no?

M.E.: Ego, maybe, if a favorite of the sociopath seemed to prefer someone else, a sociopath might see that as a personal affront, but there's no real jealousy sexually -- no hang ups about seeing someone you like having sex with someone else if you know they like you better. It's just sex.

Friend: Well, he was specifically upset that she seemed to like giving oral sex to his friend. I can see how it's very different than just sex because she's actively doing something.

M.E.: Eh, I still don't think he's socio, and a lot because of the sex thing.

Friend: Do all socios hate sex?

M.E.: No, they don't hate sex, they just don't love the things about it that most people love. It's like golf.

Friend: Heh

M.E.: A lot of waiting for other people to finish . . .

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Science of Heartlessness

From the book "Quirk," by way of Salon, discussing the role of oxytocin in empathy:
[S]tudies are finding that oxytocin can increase the amount of money people will donate to a charity. One study in particular lent credence to the time honored method charities use to pull money from magazine readers: Feature a woebegone child in your advertisement. In the study, researchers had subjects watch a tearjerker film of a father talking about his son's brain tumor. They sampled subjects' blood before and after the film. Following the film the blood was awash in oxytocin, and their donations to charity rose 47 percent, compared to those of subjects who saw a film of the same father talking about a trip to the zoo. The tearjerker technique was more effective on women than men. Experiments wherein people sniff oxytocin to bolster the chemical in their brain show that the chemical may work in two ways. It may operate first by dampening our natural fear of one another. Oxytocin is very active in the amygdala, which monitors the world for danger. Extra oxytocin fights fear. Then, with that terror out of the way, perhaps it's easier to read another person's emotions and relate to them. People dosed with oxytocin make more direct eye contact, and they are better at describing the emotions portrayed on another's face. So extra oxytocin also helps us to empathize.
I found this description of mother vs. baby refreshingly frank, although it certainly is nothing new:
[A] mother -- every mother, whether snake, skunk, or sheep -- has biological aspirations above and beyond an infant. In her DNA she dreams of launching not one, but a dozen offspring down the river of time. And to do that she has to watch out for her own health and welfare.

All mothers and their infants engage in a battle over this issue, from the moment of conception. It is in the offspring's best interest to drag every nutrient and calorie it can absorb out of its mother's body. It is in the mother's best interest to hold something back so that she can raise future offspring. This battle continues after birth. An infant denied the opportunity to nurse does not quit without a fight. She'll let loose wails that in earlier times could attract deadly predators.

But no matter how sympathetic a mother might be, the infant won't gain the upper hand in this contest. Starvation remains a real threat to humans today, and the photographs that come out of refugee camps testify to the importance of motherly selfishness. Still strong enough to walk, mothers embrace their dying children. I'm sure they wish they could nurse their children, but evolution has outfitted them with bodies that will not permit it. When a female's body fat drops below a certain point, she can continue to empathize with her child's pain, but her body refuses to sympathize: Her body stops producing milk. And how could it be otherwise? Why would evolution reward a body that would give its last calorie to an offspring, then die and leave the offspring to starve alone? The offspring of such sympathetic mothers don't survive, and neither do the genes that would make a person so disastrously generous.

But neither could evolution produce mothers who would abandon an infant at the first sign of hardship. Evolution rewards those mothers who invest in their existing offspring but guard their ability to have more children in the future.
***
Why would that be? Why does evolution perpetuate both the pushovers and the pushers? Well, a personality that's low in sympathy or empathy is not a heartless block of stone. She just isn't so quick to assume the feelings of others. She does a better job of maintaining her boundaries and keeping a steady eye on her own future. Undistracted by life's melodramas, she's more likely to focus on facts and figures.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Famous sociopaths: Elon Musk?

People frequently ask me whether there are any "good" sociopaths or "famous" sociopaths, meaning any sociopaths that people might know and respect without necessarily knowing and respecting that they are a sociopath. Of course it's all guessing games because even if that person was aware that they were a sociopath, there is no reason why they would out themselves (just to be socially ostracized and professionally second-guessed). If you read between the lines, though, there are plenty of sociopaths out there doing things, like Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal, Space Exploration Technologies (which contracted with NASA to basically replace the Space Shuttle in servicing the Space Station), and current CEO of Tesla Motors. In a dated New Yorker article, which is unfortunately unavailable without a subscription, the following sociopathic characteristics or quotes are revealed (all are quotes from the article, the text in quotation marks are from Musk unless otherwise indicated):
  • "We're like a giant parallel supercomputer, and each of our brains runs a piece of the software" contrasted with "Most people don't know much."
  • "The people who know me generally have a good impression. Generally, if I didn't fire them, then they have a good impression."
  • He fell silent for two minutes, processing. Then he announced, "I'm going to call Dan Neil and say, 'What the fuck?' Starting with a negative conclusion and backiflling the facts is a classic dickhead move--and a classic human fallacy." Humans!
  • [H]e believes it's the duty of the intelligent and educated to replicate, "so we don't devolve into a not very literate, theocratic, and unenlightened future." As part of his program for Homo sapiens, the beta version, he reminds unfruitful employees,"You should have, on average, 2.1 kids per woman."
  • [Tesla Chief Technology Office J.B. Straubel] says, "As the company has matured, it has become more of a worthy adversary for Elon. He constantly wants everything we're doing to be really difficult, but he works really hard to make sure it's not impossible. He almost won't let us fail." Justine Musk observes, "I like to compare him to the Terminator. He sets his program and just . . . will . . . not . . . stop."
  • At times, between meetings, Musk finds himself daydreaming about building a supersonic electric airplane, or a double-decker highway.
The quotes suggest certain sociopathic traits, the overall tone of the article suggests even more, including an inability to commit to projects for more than 3-5 years, an aggressive risk-seeking that keeps Tesla simultaneously on the brink of bankruptcy and the cutting edge of the auto industry, and a narcissistically grandiose sense of "duty to save the world." Of course, he may not be a sociopath at all, but it is a good example of how sociopathic traits might be very good for someone's professional exploits and--as long as you value cheap and clean electric automobiles, transferring money easily via the internet, or efficiently supplying the space station--very good for everyone else.
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