Letter From A Psychopath

I think psychopaths are incredibly boring, unidemensional people who hopelessly, endlessly intellectualize and play mind games because there is no depth to them. It is only mind machinations without the depth and nuance of a fully feeling and emotionally alive human being. I had psychopathic parents and studied psychopathy as a PhD criminal forensic psycholovist encountering many serial killers, cons and the like. Why do they do what they do? It is no great mystery as I used to think. They dismember people psychologically and physically for the simple reason that they enjoy it. They derive pleasure from the destruction of victims to their power dominance orientation. They are boring stupid people who ate not the least bit interesting. They are pathetic. They choose people smaller and weaker than them that they can pick them off out of the herd of humanity. They are sad expressions of the human genome and dont deserve near the hype and fascination they get. Once you figure them out, it is very easy to remain quite detached from their mental gyrations to seduce and ensnare. It becomes annoying actually. I for one am over it. I do recommend that you not allow one at your hearth or into your bed. You will pay dearly. One cannot allow emotional involvement or any attachment to such people as a regular person is want to do with other humann beings. Get rid of them, they will destroy your mind, spirit and your life. Take it from one who knows from a very young age.

Everybody should turn on showdead in the settings and check out losethos&#x27; comments here. Psychopathy is really interesting and fascinating, but so is schizophrenia.<p>It boggles my mind how anyone can write such nonsensical rambling comments while at the same time coding a 64 bit operating system from scratch.

If you&#x27;re interested in what life for such a person is like (or if you might be one!), check out M. E. Thomas&#x27;s <i>Confessions of a Sociopath</i>. I wrote about it here: <a href="http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/summary-judgment-confessions-of-a-sociopath-m-e-thomas/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;jseliger.wordpress.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;08&#x2F;08&#x2F;summary-judgment-co...</a> and Tyler Cowen wrote about it here: <a href="http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/confessions-of-a-sociopath.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;marginalrevolution.com&#x2F;marginalrevolution&#x2F;2013&#x2F;06&#x2F;con...</a> and elsewhere.<p>FWIW, from what I&#x27;ve read (<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/10/081110fa_fact_seabrook?currentPage=all" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newyorker.com&#x2F;reporting&#x2F;2008&#x2F;11&#x2F;10&#x2F;081110fa_fact_...</a>) there were (at least) no therapies or treatments that reproducibly help psychopaths:<p><i>The psychiatric profession wanted little to do with psychopathy, for several reasons. For one thing, it was thought to be incurable. Not only did the talking cure fail with psychopaths but several studies suggested that talk therapy made the condition worse, by enabling psychopaths to practice the art of manipulation. There were no valid instruments to measure the personality traits that were commonly associated with the condition; researchers could study only the psychopaths’ behavior, in most cases through their criminal records.</i><p>And now there are, at least in the sense of reducing criminal behavior:<p><i>In a landmark 2006 study of a specialized talk-therapy treatment program, conducted at a juvenile detention center in Wisconsin, involving a hundred and forty-one young offenders who scored high on the youth version of the checklist, Michael Caldwell, a psychologist at the treatment center and a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, reported that the youths that were treated were much more likely to stay out of trouble, once they were paroled, than the ones in the control group.</i><p>But note that the linked article is from 2008. Perhaps things have changed since.

I&#x27;m generally viewed as a &quot;nice guy&quot; but once when I was younger met a psychopath who viewed my &quot;niceness&quot; as a weakness and took it upon himself to destroy me. I retreated from that battle, but from then on learned to identify such people and try to match wits with them. I&#x27;m very competitive and couldn&#x27;t stand losing to them. I out-witted several of them over the course of my life and they would usually leave me alone when they knew I would fight back. Fortunately, there are not a lot of true psychopaths running around. However, I finally met my match recently later in life, in a former prison inmate who ran had run his cell block, who had intelligence, charisma, and a breath-taking ruthlessness. He had fooled everyone on his release that he was reformed and had obtained employment where I worked. I did battle with him and lost because I was not willing to go his lengths. Good does not always over Evil, as we all know. I had to get as far away from him as I could. The experience was traumatic in some ways, and I say all this to recommend you avoid psychopaths whenever possible. It&#x27;s not worth it. A true psychopath is beyond redemption.

Programmers (me included) are intrigued with psychopathy: we like the idea of pure thought, unencumbered by guilt, untainted by emotions, conventions and niceties. But paradoxically we overromanticise it in the process: I am pretty sure that living day-to-day with such condition kinda sucks, and that it seldom leads to notableness or notoriousness, let alone self-improvement or any kind of refinement. A serial offender petty criminal is probably more representative of the &#x27;average&#x27; psychopath than the author of this post, I am afraid.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of this letter is observing people&#x27;s reactions to it. In the letter, the author goes so far as to admit that s&#x2F;he is and always will be a psychopath without a sense of guilt or remorse toward others and a keen ability to recognize and exploit weaknesses in others for his&#x2F;her own gain.<p>Judging by the comments here, the letter has done just that. One comment below notes that &quot;Jeez, that&#x27;s the single most interesting, insightful, and well-written piece I&#x27;ve read on the internet in a long time.&quot; Others are expressing a desire to meet the author or expressing how they can identify with the author. It&#x27;s incredible to see just how effectively this letter resonates with the people who read it.<p>Don&#x27;t get me wrong: It&#x27;s both impressive and admirable that the author was able to not only admit that he needed therapy but to press on long enough to make therapy work for himself in an effective manner. I don&#x27;t want to downplay his accomplishments. However, it is still interesting to dissect and observe all of the persuasiveness of the letter and the fluidity with which the author transforms psychopathy from a very difficult personality disorder into somewhat of a super power that the reader can&#x27;t help but envy by the end of the letter.<p>As you read the letter and experience strong feelings of empathy for the author, consider his own poignant words at the end: &quot;In the end, psychopaths need to be given that very thing everyone believes they lack for others, empathy.&quot;<p>The letter begins with the psychopath distancing himself from the traditional destructive psychopathic traits in the most admirable and self-aggrandizing way possible: He went against all odds and admitted himself into treatment, where he claims the health agency had never seen someone of his nature walk-in before and he was too incredible of a case for anyone but the highest-ranking therapist to handle.<p>He continues by setting up various straw-man caricatures of psychopathy (&quot;cartoon evil serial killers&quot; and the CEO who prizes profits over people) and knocking them down one-by-one, leaving the reader feeling guilty of possibly embracing those stereotypes at one point. With the reader feeling a bit guilty, empathetic, and as if the author&#x27;s condition is simply misunderstood, the author has set the stage to rebuild the reader&#x27;s view of psychopathy in a way that benefits the author.<p>Toward the end, he even goes so far as to put words in the reader&#x27;s mouth just so he can turn around and undermine the very caricature of a psychopath he suggested you might hold : &quot;Such as statement <i>might tempt you to say</i> &#x27;well obviously you&#x27;re not a real psychopath then&#x27;. As if the definition of a psychopath is someone who exploits others for their personal power, satisfaction or gain.&quot;<p>The rest of the article explains the author&#x27;s psychopathy the way the author wants you to view it: As &quot;a highly trained perception, ability to adapt, and a lack of judgment borne of pragmatic and flexible moral reasoning.&quot; He goes on to say that he &quot;enjoy[s] a reputation of being someone of intense understanding and observation with a keen strategic instinct.&quot; At this point, the author has completely distanced his psychopathy from the purely negative caricature he painted in the first half of his letter. Who wouldn&#x27;t be envious of such incredible, valuable, and morally-neutral abilities as he described them?<p>I&#x27;ve read the letter several times over, and I&#x27;m still amazed at how effective it is at garnering empathy from the reader and cultivating a sense that the author is an impressive individual who has triumphed over adversity after a great struggle. And it&#x27;s true that overcoming your own objections to seek, and stick with, treatment for such a severe personality disorder is both impressive and admirable. His points about the general public&#x27;s misunderstanding of true psychopathy are equally true, although he crucially omits any and all explanations of how psychopathy can <i>actually</i> be dangerous and destructive to others. It&#x27;s an incredible piece of writing, and incredibly persuasive and manipulative in a way that I&#x27;m sure PR and marketing teams everywhere would be jealous of.

Many of the best venture capitalists and entrepreneurs have psycopath-like tendencies.<p>Think about the similarities. A good entrepreneur&#x2F;venture capitalist should be:<p>-Ruthless, selfish, unsympathetic<p>-Capable of manipulating, good at acting, great at selling a concept and convincing others to drink the kool-aid<p>-Unfazed by negative outcomes<p>-Unaware of (or at least, unfazed by) social norms and the status quo<p>-Creative, capable of thinking radically differently than everyone else<p>I&#x27;ve seen this comparison a few times, and now I can&#x27;t seem to find any of the articles that I have read.

... Am I the only one who interprets this letter as an attempted sympathy exploit&#x2F;attack on people being properly on guard against psychopaths?

I&#x27;ve sometimes wondered if the presence of psychopaths in powerful organizations leads to sociopathic behavior on the organizations part, even though most members are &quot;normal.&quot; I&#x27;m thinking of situations like the outlandish behaviors of major investment banks defrauding their customers, knowingly selling them &quot;toxic&quot; mortgage back securities.<p>A small population of actors, inclined to gain power, and ruthless in conduct forces all members of the community to act in concert, lest they be cast out entirely.<p>This might also explain the disconnect of an organization like the NSA, made up of mostly decent, sincere people, engagin in profoundly anti-social, if not downright illegal, activities.

I come from a rather unstable and violent corner of the world, and I&#x27;ve met plenty of psychopaths growing up. I have a hypothesis that early childhood traumas and violent environment can trigger the development of psychopathic tendencies, but I&#x27;m not entirely sure how much role does genetics play in this process.<p>Some of the commenters on this topic seem to ascribe superhuman rationality and brainpower to psychopaths. I don&#x27;t think that&#x27;s a correct way to look at it. They can be very smart, but they suffer from the same set of biases and blind spots and Dunning-Kruger type of phenomena as other people. I think the defining characteristic is the complete lack of empathy and the willingness and ability to manipulate people (practicing the skill from early childhood, hence very good at it).<p>I was just looking up one of the smartest and most pronounced psychopaths I&#x27;ve met in recent years. Apparently he got his MBA and started an offshore private equity fund, seems to be doing well for himself. The guy had monumental talent for manipulating people. I wonder how far will he go before people catch on to his true nature...

Sociopaths are one of the fundamental threats facing humanity today. Such traits may have been beneficial in times past as group conflict was so prevalent, but if global issues like getting into space, climate change and the prevention of economic chaos are to be dealt with effectively, humanity is going to have to learn how to cooperate more effectively. And that means preventing sociopaths from getting into positions of power.<p>Unfortunately, society does not seem to have yet evolved the mechanisms to deal with these parasites effectively. The law is hardly a useful tool, given how &quot;flexible&quot; and corrupt it is, and how money aka power is so important in manipulation of the law versus &quot;truth&quot;. Economists aka amateur sociopaths are finally beginning to realize an obvious truth - that most humans are not rational actors strictly concerned with profit and loss but that decisions are based on emotion much more than they&#x27;d like to admit and so this has a significant effect on economic behavior.<p>All this does matter because ask yourself - what of the effects these people have on the lives of those they exploit? what sort of setbacks do the good people end up facing and how much of a drain is it on their lives and their efforts to -contribute- to society as a whole? I see so much waste because of the unnecessary chaos the sociopathic introduce to society as a whole. They are a threat and capital punishment is a logical response, because they can not be rehabilitated. But given how society is organized, rich white people are never going to be executed, or even prosecuted, for their crimes unless they&#x27;re so egregious they can&#x27;t be ignored.<p>Even then, the case of Jimmy Savile (in the UK) is an example of how humanity still is little nothing more than talking chimpanzees who respond more to and are controlled by instinctual behavior patterns versus the ability to cogitate like &quot;we&quot; think we are able to. Jimmy was a sociopath, everyone knew he was a pedo, but nothing was done because no one wanted to speak up because of the social cost. Things are better these days, of course, so maybe in another 100 years, there will be a test toddlers are given to track whether they are likely to be sociopathic, and more effort will be put into preventing the development of such evil monsters. It is like the Head Start program in the States - prevent issues down the road by ensuring children have the best psychological foundation established as early as possible.

&gt;It is also the case that, being &#x27;normal&#x27; takes a degree of energy and conscious thought that is instinctive for most, but to me is a significant expenditure of energy. I think it analogous to speaking a second language.<p>Sounds about right. I thought it was pretty &#x27;normal&#x27; to feel this way sometimes...

I find that it is hard to distinguish between psycopathy and narcissism. This person seems like a pathological narcissist not a psychopath. This person is ego tripping by self identifying with something they find powerful. A psychopath may have similar hangups but they don&#x27;t believe in their own bullshit and would not waste time with self reflection or therapy. Psycopathy is like depression; psycopaths do crazy shit because they can&#x27;t feel.

&gt;psychopaths hate weakness they will attempt to conceal anything that might present as a vulnerability [...] ability to rapidly find weaknesses in others, and to exploit it<p>There seems to be confusion about what constitutes &#x27;strength&#x27; and what constitutes &#x27;weakness&#x27; in regard to human personalities (or &#x27;hard&#x27; vs &#x27;soft&#x27;)<p>For example, compulsively manipulating other people is more properly regarded as a <i>weakness</i>, I think. Whereas getting up on a stage and being open and vulnerable in front of a crowd, that&#x27;s <i>strength</i>. It can inspire people and produce lasting change.<p>People with heavy streaks of psychopathy, or narcissism, or whatnot, are on a different path to the rest of us. It&#x27;s better to avoid them where possible, tempting though it is to hope they will eventually acknowledge their faults and apologise. However, not having access to various feelings is going to create straightforward problems in their lives which can in principle lead to private acknowledgement and progress being sought. So I refuse to regard them as incurable cases

Jeez, that&#x27;s the single most interesting, insightful, and well-written piece I&#x27;ve read on the internet in a long time. Imagine what things are capable when &quot;being different&quot; causes you - and enables you - to reflect deeply and thoughtfully on what being normal really means.

&quot;the director of the agency finally took me on herself, and to our mutual surprise we got along extremely well.&quot;<p>Birds of a feather?

I have a very pragmatic view that psychopathic traits are just one specific set of algorithms of the many possible sets of algorithms our personalities can exhibit to connect and interact with other personalities or more generally speaking our environment. Looking at the state of the world, at least a subset of these behavioral algorithms seems to be quite efficient (as the letter shows) and various subsets&#x2F;traits seem to be very common and even desirable. Obviously the manifestation of the overall set which you would define as &quot;psychopathy&quot; varies from psychopath to psychopath, hence the image of the &quot;cartoon evil serial killers&quot;, the &quot;CEO&quot; and many more in between these two. I guess in the end it depends on the balance of influence between three factors: the other sets of algorithms which make up your personality, the personalities you interact with and your environment.<p>I personally think we should look into what we can learn from this set of behavioral algorithms (the good, the bad and the ugly) and how you can balance it to leverage its benefits while not suffering from its drawbacks. That&#x27;s at least how I deal with it.

Brilliantly articulated. I think this might be useful for everyone :<p>&quot;The test of their self-superiority is their ability to rapidly find weaknesses in others, and to exploit it to its fullest potential.<p>But that is not to say that this aspect of a psychopaths world view cannot be modified. These days I see weaknesses and vulnerabilities as simple facts - a facet of the human condition and the frailties and imperfections inheritent in being human.&quot;

I have extensive experience w psychopaths. They have almost destroyed my life given my vulnerability to them because of a mother who is a psychopath and a father who had major psychopathictraits. I had to seek nurturance from a snake and learn how to feed it and placate it while trying to stay alive.

Interesting.<p>I would like to meet this person.<p>I find it very helpful to surround myself with people that have a different way of seeing the world.

At one point in our evolution was there some advantage that being a psychopath conferred?

Interesting read, but about half-way through I realized he could be manipulating me into thinking he was decent person, just misunderstood.<p>Anyways, it is scary to realize that there are lots of powerful people out there like this.<p>Actually, I think there are many powerful CEO&#x27;s and political leaders that are psychopaths.<p>How else could they convince people to give them the power, money, and influence they have?

Interesting article on a clear psychopath:<p><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2013/12/linda_taylor_welfare_queen_ronald_reagan_made_her_a_notorious_american_villain.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.slate.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;news_and_politics&#x2F;history&#x2F;2013...</a>

Jon Ronson&#x27;s audiobook version of The Psychopath Test is the Daily Deal today on Audible.com for 2.95

This is a very good article. Thanks for this.<p>This explains - What makes a difference, if someone diverts their energy doing something Positive. As they say - It&#x27;s not who you are, but what you do that defines you.<p>&gt;Serial Killers &amp; Ruthless CEOs exist - Voldemort does not.<p>Excellent ending to a great article.

The more i read about phychopaths is that they are normal guys&#x2F;girls and it is the society&#x27;s problem to &#x27;treat&#x27; them (because they are too strong competitors and shall be neutralized) rater than their own.

Who here is aware of the fact Oskar schindler was a psychopath? He sold all his business and fortune to save hundreds of lives. All we hear is psychopaths who fit the stereotype, not those who do not. Cognitive dissonance.

Given the number of people here who say have have met or interacted w&#x2F; a psychopath, one would think that every other person out there is one.

Amazing and fascinating. His state of consciousness is so very different from ours. It is <i>his</i> reality. I&#x27;m so happy he shared this.

&quot;I hope that it can remain confidential for the time being, seeing as it is quite personal.&quot;<p>Dang who is the one exploiting weakness here?

Great read. Thanks for sharing.

Can someone paste it on gist? Work proxy is blocking the site =&#x2F;

Can two psychopaths fall in love with each other?

Are psychopaths ticklish?

I think I&#x27;ve come in to the wrong forum. I thought this was HN.