Monday, July 2, 2012

Literature: Interview with the Vampire (part 2)

The other selections from Interview with the Vampire that I thought were interesting included this one about apparent inconsistencies, particularly with regard to being able to feel but also being detached:

You ask me about feeling and detachment. One of its aspects, detachment with feeling, I should say, is that you can think of two things at the same time. You can think that you are not safe and may die, and you can think of something very abstract and remote. And this was definitely so with me.

I think this accurately describes sociopaths as well.  Sociopaths are notorious for holding two inconsistent views at the same time.  I believe this is due to their exceptional ability to compartmentalize.  This ability to compartmentalize also manifests itself in the way sociopaths feel and express feelings -- sometimes there, sometimes not really there at all, sometimes an inappropriate emotion.

I realize that normal people are also quite capable of being grossly inconsistent, but for some reason I feel like there is a difference there.  I believe that people who do that successfully are employing extensive amounts of self-deception, whereas a sociopath is more likely to see every distinction collapsing in on itself at a certain level of abstraction and so there is no such thing as "inconsistent."

Another quote was from a vampire about his choice not to exercise the influence he naturally would have had being the eldest among them:

If I exercise such power, then I must protect it. I will make enemies. And I would have forever to deal with my enemies when all I want here as a certain space, a certain peace. Or not to be here at all. I accept the scepter of sorts they've given me,but not to rule over them, only to keep them at a distance.

This was also brought up in the book "Power", this issue of whether and when people choose to cultivate power.  Sometimes I would read things in "Power" and think, yes, I guess that is a form of power to take over the planning and production of a charity event, but for what purpose?  Maybe some people (control freaks) would choose to take on thankless, go nowhere jobs for the sake of power, but I don't tend to be one of them.  It's the same reason why I don't really think most high profile politicians are sociopaths but more likely narcissists.  I believe there is too much thankless work required to achieve power as an elected public official.  Unelected political officials (shadow players, as one of my friends used to call them) are an entirely different story.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Fingerprints

I had to get fingerprinted recently. The technician told me that although it is true that everyone's fingerprints are unique, making them a prime identification tool for law enforcement and otherwise keeping tabs on the general populace, a few people in the world have no fingerprints. These fingerprint-less people have a little bit of a rough time passing background checks for employment, etc., but other than that society leaves them alone -- this despite the fact that fingerprint-less people have every reason to exploit the weaknesses of the fingerprinted majority. Fingerprint-less people walk among us unnoticed, doing who knows what untold horrors. They are evil and they prey on the weak. They can't help themselves, it's just too tempting for them to wreak havoc when they have little to no incentive not to. If you ever are able to identify one of them, beware! Yhey will tell you whatever lies they think you want to hear. they pull the persecution card -- "different doesn't necessarily mean bad, bla bla bla." Don't listen to them! They can't be trusted! The fingerprint-less are god's mistake. Our only hope is to smoke these people out and lock them up, or better yet drown them at birth. Nothing else is keeping all those fingerprint-less babies from growing up and going on a stealth, murderous crime spree.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Nothing to lose

I was reading a NY Post feature on comedian Adam Carolla.  Some may have heard of it because he controversially alleged that women are not funny.  What I found more interesting (and relevant) was his discussion of his carefree early life of chaos, and how that has changed for him now that he has gotten successful:

Q: While working construction in LA, you once had to talk down a guy with a gun. What went through your mind?

A: If you don’t have that much to lose, you don’t really worry about that. Now that I have a nice house and some cars and a family, the notion of being in a situation like that is horrifying. But if you’re heading downtown to get some free government cheese, then going back to watch your black-and-white TV, and you’re an alcoholic, you don’t wanna get shot, but it’s almost a lateral move.

This idea of the inherent freedom in having nothing to lose reminded me of something that Hervey Cleckley said in his book Mask of Sanity:

By some incomprehensible and untempting piece of folly or buffoonery, he eventually cuts short any activity in which he is succeeding, no matter whether it is crime or honest endeavor. At the behest of trivial impulses he repeatedly addresses himself directly to folly. In the more seriously affected examples, it is impossible for wealthy, influential, and devoted relatives to place the psychopath in any position, however ingeniously it may be chosen,where he will not succeed eventually in failing with spectacular and bizarre splendor. Considering a longitudinal section of his life, his behavior gives such an impression of gratuitous folly and nonsensical activity in such massive accumulation that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that here is the product of true madness - of madness in a sense quite as real as that conveyed to the imaginative layman by the terrible word lunatic.With the further consideration that all this skein of apparent madness has been wovenby a person of (technically) unimpaired and superior intellectual powers and universally regarded as sane, the surmise intrudes that we are confronted by a serious and unusual type of genuine abnormality.

I started thinking, maybe this nothing-to-lose principle is one of the reasons that sociopaths traditionally self destruct after a certain degree of success, in addition to other more obvious things like need for stimulation. Maybe they don't like success because it means they have more to lose, and so less freedom in a way.  Interestingly, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen has suggested that companies who have made it big on innovative technology typically fall behind because they are unwilling to take the same sorts of risks that characterized their initial successes.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Sociopaths in literature: Our lady of pain

This is quoted in Hervey Cleckley's "Mask of Sanity" (available in full here), in reference to a woman who manages to cause pain and destruction wherever she goes without ever seeming touched by it herself:


She hath wasted with fire thine high places,
She hath hidden and marred and made sad
The fair limbs of the Loves, the fair faces
Of gods that were goodly and glad.
She slays, and her hands are not bloody;
She moves as a moon in the wane,
White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy,
Our Lady of Pain.

A. C. Swinburne
"Dolores"

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Modeling the success of cheaters

It was hilarious to me reading some of the responses to the just world fallacy post.  A lot of people really struggled with the gross inaccuracy of the phrase "cheaters never win." I stumbled upon this Forbes article which concisely explains with mathematical modeling how it is that cheaters win:


I want to make sure I say that there is a more elemental reason why meritocracy produces a corrupt ruling class and it is this:

Cheaters may almost never win but, given equal opportunity and a large enough competition, the winners are almost always cheaters.

Why?

Well, no one cheats because they think if that even if they get away with it they will be worse off. No, they cheat because if they get away with it they will be better off. Cheaters are taking a gamble.

Even if the system is pretty good and the odds are stacked against the cheaters, if there are enough players then some of the cheaters will get away with it, nonetheless.

When they do they will gain an advantage. Now, imagine that life is a series of such competitions played over and over again. Each time some people will cheat and some will get away with it. Each time some will gain an advantage.

If the competition is immense, say it encompasses a country of 300 Million or a global population of 7 Billion, then by the Law of Large numbers some cheaters will be lucky enough to get away with it every single time. This means every single round they gain an advantage and slip ahead of the pack.

After enough rounds the front of the pack is completely dominated by cheaters.

That doesn't necessarily mean that cheating will always mean cheating will always pay off.  As the Forbes article concludes, "Lottery players almost always lose, but society’s biggest winners will almost always have made their money in the lottery."



Join Amazon Prime - Watch Over 40,000 Movies

.

Comments are unmoderated. Blog owner is not responsible for third party content. By leaving comments on the blog, commenters give license to the blog owner to reprint attributed comments in any form.