Empath vs Sociopath - classic battles

Good point.

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Yeah. Both of these scenarios are more what I meant. Even if they aren’t actively engaged with the creep, those types of people like to make a mess however they can :x

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Many psychiatrist believe psychopathy had a evolutionary benefit for the group and helped a group survive. That it helped us as a species to make it this far but the modern world doesn’t have a place for them to fit into anymore and will someday be breed out of our gene pool in a distant future.

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many is a thoroughly convincing number of psychiatrists.

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If you think about it and look into the theory it makes a lot of sense and has a strong basis.

In our early hunter-gatherer days when the world was a much more dangerous and less hospitable place the psychopath would have had a benefit to the group it was in and helped their survival. The lack of empathy for the groups competitors could have meant that they could provide a valuable service to the group. In protection and in procuring needs.

Their is a similar theory for things like ADHD where at one time it might have been a desirable quality that meant they were more alert to their surroundings and better hunters and protectors. The traits have just lost their benefits and cause problems at this stage of our history.

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If you say so. May be.

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You seem to take it so personal.
Christ it’s just an interesting theory and possible explanation. Sorry to bother you with topical discourse.
Thought possible explanations to try and better understand things was a good thing. Guess I was wrong.

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It’s an evolutionary “Just So” story. They’re very popular.

The problem with this explanatory mode is that people are innately good at making up stories*, so it can explain nearly anything as a natural evolutionary development, including all kinds of things that aren’t true or didn’t happen - the “explaining too much” fallacy. The evolutionary story approach as a whole doesn’t seem to generate much in the way of verifiable predictions or falsifiable theories, so it seems reasonable to me that @AcerPlatanoides is generally skeptical of it.

Being skeptical is not a personal attack, BTW. As far as I’m concerned, skepticism is a good thing in general, especially when it comes to claims on the Internet, and I try not to take it personally if people are skeptical of some insight I offer.


Going further meta and looking at this thread from an operational level, its communicative purpose is about a distressing personal situation someone’s in, They’re looking mostly for a place they can feel safe talking about it, for such personal support as one can get online, and possibly some advice from experience. (That’s why TailOfTruth immediately stopped playing with gifs once they realized it didn’t fit, and why I’ll be dropping this line of discussion now.) An abstract theory doesn’t really feel responsive to that.

* Maybe we evolved to tell stories due to evolutionary pressure! It could be a survival trait because it would keep talented story-tellers fed and they’d get laid more often and… oh never mind.

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Skepticism is fine. I agree on that.
Much of what you say is true, but the mechanism for the theories have proven useful as well. They do serve a purpose.

I’d postulate that the psychopaths would be useful for their own survival, but not anyone else’s. They’d push a competing tribe member into the path of a hungry wild cat; they’d bully others to attempt to ford a river, they’d hoard food etc.

They’d damage group-work, interaction, social cohesion, and the overall benefits of working together.

Yes, they’d rise to the top. But they’d do it by consistently killing off competition to their dominance. And community working together is competition to that dominance.

Edit: and community working is the smartest, most effective way of doing things. But long term I also think genetic mutations will kick up all variants of humanity - so until we stop breeding, we will never be clear of sociopaths. Have I expounded yet on why and how it is that artificial intelligence will decide humanity must die?!

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No problem here. Have a good day, new user who registered the same day this conversation started!

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Don’t you need some sort of pressure to breed a trait out of a species?

Without making survival and procreation any more difficult for psychopaths than for the rest of us (and I fail to see that happening), why would the trait ever become less prevalent, let alone vanish entirely?

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Agreed. Not trying to protect the psychopath in society to wreak havoc. The pressure is there and for good reason at this stage.

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Good points. The psychopaths tendencies though keep them looking out for number one. If the relationship of them and their group is mutually beneficial there would be a tendency for them to play along. They certainly would cause some problems in the group as well but all people cause some problems and the group mitigates them.
There is lots of historical evidence for this. Take the ideas of berserker warriors in the Viking and Germanic cultures for example.
The psychopaths low numbers and the groups understanding of what they were capable of would mean they could be kept in check. The group would have to be hash on them to keep a fear in them but could use their propensities to their advantage outside the group. Their nature being allowed to be expressed on other competing groups and species.

It just needs to fail to reproduce. That’s why it’s wonderful for sociopathic genes to be twinned with charm, charisma and allure.

Who wouldn’t fall for them? And not even today do we recognise the full extent of them until they’re adults.

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From what I’ve seen, being able to pull off “charming” is pretty much part of the sociopathic template. It’s part of what makes them scary as fuck.

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That fava beans and a nice chianti.

It’s incredible. It works so well, I have to look as they talk, and keep repeating to myself “this is all a tissue of lies”. I need a rosary, or pin to stick myself with, to stay on track. And I’m not catholic for that rosary either. Just - anything to bridge me to reality.

Never be alone.

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I’m instinctively repulsed by and wary of ‘charming’ people. If that’s a genetic trait, I has a sad that you didn’t get it. I sincerely hope you can either get out of this situation, or diffuse the psycho’s interest in you soon. This thread has been absolutely harrowing to read.

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