Ah, but it doesnt sound as "cool" as SWAG though Lucifer.
Id roll my eyes, but the little bastards broken my "eye rolling" muscles.
Ken and Margaret have a lot to answer for !!!!!!!!!!!
by JayI can't watch the vid now. I agree with what's said here about ppl with high testosterone, I tend to deal with them and am one myself, but why the fuck do you equate that to psychpaths. Not everyone with high testosterone is one, I already said this and I'll say it again. Psycho/Sociopaths have some other shit that defines them: they lack a conscience, can't form emotional bonds with ppl, are unable to love/feel guilt, can't empathize, are selfish.
Also: "Testosterone makes a dude bigger", "Testosterone is notoriously tied to agression, poor behaviour control, impulsiveness." and then "These same traits are selected for in our leaders." is kinda stupid. Maybe it used to be like this some milion years ago, but certainly not now...Look we've gone over this a few times, there is a link that you're just not seeing. To really understand this you have to see that psychology isn't a static field, you seem to think of psychopathy and narcissism the way you think of cancer and a cold, but mental disorders are not like that, they are not concrete things because the human mind is maleable and constantly changing.
So you admit that psychopathy/narcissism are "mental disorders" but still think psychos/narcs are the leaders of our race? Aren't disorders disorders because having them sucks?
Labels like psychopath or narcisist are not static concrete things. They are traits. People can be "PRONE" to certain behavior it does not mean that IS their behavior where as a person with cancer either has it or they don't.
If you would read some actual literature on psychology you would see that the ruling is still out. We know that people of certain genetic makeups can be more prone to agression (nature) but the vast majority of the psychological identity of a person comes from their life experiences. as such people are for the most part programmed to behave however they behave. If you believe this concept then people can also very much be unprogrammed. therefore the concept of a psychopath/sociopath are very much maleable and transit.
There's an entire debate if the personality traits that make up a psychopath are there from birth or aquired. I don't think that's relevant to our conversation.
You are locked in this mindset that certain people do not feel emotions. that psychopaths are by their nature evil, you associate hitler with sociopath and great leaders with something else. (that actually goes into a totally different topic of perception and how the winner writes history, but I won't go there) Your flaw is in thinking in black and white while there is no black and white... its all shades of grey...
No, I don't think psychos don't have feelings. This was actually one of the first things I asked when I arrived here (not a good idea, that), and after thinking things through and observing/paying more attention to ppl I consider psychopaths, it's obvious they do have them. Their emotions are shallow and short-lived, and restricted to a smaller range than a normal person's. I'm not making this shit up, "flat affect" is in the DSM as well. We talked about this in the past. Sociopaths don't experience what normal ppl call love, remorse, anxiety, fear. It takes more to elicit emotion from a psychopath than it would take from a normal person.
and another common problem is you think that because you've heard about psychopaths from popular culture, then they must be how they were first portrayed to you... but it's not like that, again we fall on a spectrum of behavior someone could be prone to displaying. Psychopath that was originally used to justify the incarceration of people that were a menace to society. It has since evolved from that.
There is no such thing as a monster unable to empathise, if sociopaths were like that, they would be unable to manipulate their victims, quite the contrary sociopaths are excellent at mirroring emotions because they CAN empathise, They ARE capable of understanding the emotions of their targets to a very high degree.
Again, we have talked about rational empathy vs emotional empathy in the past. I know what you mean, I was refering to emotional empathy. Psychopaths don't have that, there's no way around it. It shows on the MRI and shit. Their brains are different.
In the end the thing you need to understand is humans like to be able to put things in nice neat little boxes, boxes that we can label. Psychopath/Sociopath is a box originally created for people who were capable of disassociating themselves from humanity to do things that are not accepted within our society. It was a box used for psychologists and judges to figure out a person. It is an imperfect system that is still not completely understood (even by the so called experts)
The truth is we are all capable of these sociopathic traits. some with high testosterone alpha male mentalities are even more prone to many of them... and those WITHOUT direction in life tend to be labeled as such and incarcerated...
For the last time... We are all capable of SOME of these traits, but you have to have enough of them to even mention psychopathy. Otherwise it makes no sense to link yourself to the "psychopathic spectrum". Borderlines have some of those traits too, why the fuck don't we talk about the borderline spectrum. Or the histrionic spectrum. If anything, I have a lot more histrionic traits than psychopathic, I've already admitted this.
Linking all alpha males to psychopathy spectrum is stupid. Man is a social animal, and the leader in a group needs more than the animal qualities of being the most aggressive or whatever. That's why man developed a CONSCIENCE, a part of the brain that deals with EMOTIONAL BONDS, EMPATHY, ALTRUISM. I feel those in myself, while psychopaths themselves say they don't. When I see another person in danger or in a tough spot, I feel like helping them, even if I gain nothing. There are people I have and would risk my life for. There are causes I'd die for. People around me trust me, look up to me and know they can count on me if in need. A leader that really bonds with his/her group, wins a kind of loyalty that psychos who only pretend/fake their interest don't.
I've noticed this first hand. I had to deal with a few psychopaths and their own groups. None had the kind of loyalty they thought they had. When they ended up in shit, like the psychopath that brought me to this site, their group left them. Some even felt relief. People closer to psychopaths invariable notice something's off about them at some point. The mask thing is cheesy and overused, but I think no one can fake their nature all the fucking time.
You're saying what you're saying because you idealize psychopathy for some reason. I think you said somewhere that it's a common attitude among the brits, and since it's been pointed out I keep noticing your use of British English. And yet, you claim to be an American living on the East Coast. Are you a Brit who settled in the USA?