Sociopath Community

Dragoonback said: 

Turncoat said: 

Maybe, like Einstein, they just need the right environment to cater to their needs.

I think the "right environment" part is possible, but I don't think Einstein is a particularly good example for it. It risks turning the argument into an exceptionalist "hidden genius who just needs to be recognized" narrative. Having an environment that accommodates someone's particular strengths can obviously affect how well they develop, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's some exceptional ability waiting to be unlocked. 

The guy would spend days in his room by himself, working, while his wife delivered food under the door. Without that space he'd likely have lost what he's otherwise found. 

Schizophrenia runs in Einstein's bloodline, he could have gone off the rails like his son did. 

Golden_Eagle said: 

 That's why you're hard of learning. You want to talk about what you dislike about others instead of the input. There you are suggesting what I say is "potentially harmful" lol. Guy I'm too rough for you. You should probably mingle with a softer crowd who place political correctness above all else. As for my output. It holds true, no matter how ugly one finds the truth.  

You're still not distinguishing between discussing you personally and discussing what you've actually said. Your “input” consists of the claims and arguments you've made, so explaining why those claims are false, unsupported, or potentially harmful is directly responding to the input.

You also haven't actually answered any of the points I made. “You're hard of learning” is just another personal attack, and “I'm too rough for you” is more self-congratulatory posturing. Neither one establishes that your reasoning is correct.

And I didn't say your arguments are harmful merely because I dislike them. I said some of your arguments can be potentially harmful, which is a substantive claim about their implications. Laughing at the word “potentially” doesn't refute that.

“People who place political correctness above all else” is also a strawman. Criticizing bad reasoning and personal attacks has nothing to do with demanding that you be politically correct or “soft.”

Finally, “my output holds true” is not an argument. Truth isn't established by insisting that your statements remain true regardless of how ugly you think they are. You still have to demonstrate that they're true. Otherwise you're just declaring your own conclusions immune to criticism.

This subject isn't about me though. 

Turncoat said: 

The guy would spend days in his room by himself, working, while his wife delivered food under the door. Without that space he'd likely have lost what he's otherwise found. Schizophrenia runs in Einstein's bloodline, he could have gone off the rails like his son did. 

That shows that Einstein benefited from having the space to work in that particular situation, but it still doesn't establish the stronger counterfactual that without it he would've “lost what he found.” That's speculation about an exceptional historical figure.

The schizophrenia point is even more speculative. The fact that Einstein's son had schizophrenia doesn't establish that Einstein himself was destined to develop it, or that his secluded working environment prevented that from happening. You're chaining together a family-history observation with a hypothetical medical outcome and then using that hypothetical to support a claim about his optimal environment.

My original point was simply that the right environment can help someone develop their existing strengths without implying that everyone has some extraordinary “hidden genius” waiting to be unlocked. Using Einstein as an example makes it especially easy to slide into that exceptionalist narrative.

Golden_Eagle said: 

This subject isn't about me though. 

Yeah, I know. I already said the subject isn't about you. I'm responding to what you said about the subject, along with the personal attacks you added to the discussion. Those aren't the same thing as making the subject itself about you.