What are genuine psychopath traits and are they useful?

betterdeadthanbeta · 2016-06-19T22:37:58+00:00

It's more accurate to say TRP is attempting to emulate a specific type of psychopath - the slick talking, charismatic Ted Bundy or Charles Manson type who is able to disarm, charm, and eventually dominate women.

When you have no emotions it's easy to fake a personality - generally, whatever personality your intended victim is attracted to. Weak, vulnerable, neurotic, or naive women are easy marks - they have strong emotional needs, and if you make them think you're able to fulfill those needs... that you'll be there for them, care for them, in ways the other abusive men in their life didn't... then they become desperate to buy into the ruse. They'll overlook all the warning signs and fall deeply for the fake you.

Then, you can do whatever you want to them.

Whisper · 2016-06-20T22:28:57+00:00

Then I began to hear conjecture that many of the world's most successful CEO's, businesspeople and politicians were themselves psychopaths and this shocked me, I simply dismissed it as lefty nonsense designed to create a narrative of the wealthy and powerful as evil people, much like lizardman conspiracy theories but slightly less far-fetched.

That's because you are used to thinking "psychopath = evil twisted deviant who does horrible things".

No. Most psychopaths are not serial murderers.

A psychopath is simply someone with

Diminished or absent capacity for empathy.
Diminished or absent capacity for remorse.
Disinhibited or bold behaviour patterns.

To this, the DSM adds "a pattern of antisocial behaviour", but that is circular reasoning:

"Psychopaths are antisocial because the guys exactly like this who aren't antisocial... well, we just don't call them psychopaths. Or True Scotsmen."

There are plenty of psychopaths out there functioning in neutral or prosocial roles. Steve Jobs was absolutely a psychopath. A majority of the surgeons I have met are psychopaths. And so on, and so on, and so on.

Psychopathy is necessary for certain kinds of antisocial behaviours, but it is not sufficient for any kind of antisocial behaviour.

alreadyredschool · 2016-06-19T21:22:07+00:00

They are useful (to the individual) when paired with higher executive function and future time orientation. Realistically, most psychopaths aren't interesting anti-heros, they commit crimes and burn bridges. Most have poor impulse control and get caught.

One thing people don't realize about sociopaths is how utterly bored they are most of time. That why so many of the become addicts and thrill seekers. It's not like social anxiety is replaced with how most people experience "happiness". Most of them are more bored than you could ever be sad or scared.

Heathcliff-- · 2016-06-24T02:26:06+00:00

Psychopathy is a label attributed to people who won't act or think in the way society demands of them.

Man murders his wife and children with no remorse? Psychopath.

Woman commits paternity fraud on her husband and divorce rapes him for mad alimony? Psycopath,.

Man stops giving a shit of what the world thinks of him and commits himself to improving his own situation at all means, being an asshole and destroying all his previous relationships along the way. Psycopath.

The problem is, we at the TRP realise that the way society expects or demands us to behave is to keep us docile, complacent and working for another person. Western society wants us to be happy, sedated slaves, following the narrative and working for the man.

When we reject this, when we stop treating women with the adoration we've been told, when we start following career paths that are dangerous and high risk, when we start communicating with people in more aggressive or straightforward ways; people label us psycopaths.

I've come to the conclusion that the label of psychopath is attributed to anyone who has firmly rejected authority and will act in anyway to improve their life and situation; regardless of whether it harms or benefits those around them.

And so of course the world's psychopaths are the ones who rise to the top. You NEED to have the power to break rules and reject authority, you NEED to have the power to treat people like shit and not bend over backwards for them. You need to have no empathy when it comes to getting what you want, because all it will do is hold you back.

Psychopathy is not some outside affliction that just hits you and you wake up being a crazy person. No, it's a way of thinking, you think different, you're programmed different. You think yourself into a psychopathic mindset over years of struggle and hardship. You have rejected the programming the world tried to instil on you, and have reprogrammed yourself.

Psychopathy is not giving a shit in every sense of the word, you don't care with so much intensity that it benefits you in ways that a subservient person would never achieve.

So of course you need to be a psycopath to rise high in the world, you need to reject authority to become authority, you need to have the power to just not give a shit and take what you want.

Psychopathy, another blue-pill way of saying "this person is powerful and dangerous.... he must have a mental illness".

Yes, if my brain is wired in a different (and better) way to you, I must be mentally ill. Of course.

vandaalen · 2016-06-19T21:50:43+00:00

I've seen many on TRP talk about the positive outcomes associated with the adoption of traits displayed by psychopaths and this intrigues me.

That gets spewed around TBP so much, but it's actually not really true. There is some glorification of the dark triad from some people, but it's far from being the majority.

That said, the biggest benefit of being a sociopath is also the achille's heel.

By being able to observe social situations, dynamics and people's behaviour stonecold sober and acting without being influenced by empathy nor remorse, you are able to act much more strategicaly.

Psychopathy also often comes with a much lower receptiveness for fear and a higher willingness to take risks (or even with having an affinity).

The crux is that in order to emulate expected behaviour, you need to observe it first and preferably multiple times. So extreme situations, like maybe a bereavement in the family, pose the threat of getting "caught". Sociopaths tend to behave strangely off the norm in any way in those situations.

Also their narcissism can stand in their way, since they ten to overrate their own capabilities and underrate those of "normal" people.

Let aside what happens if psycopathy is paired with sadism.

alreadyredschool · 2016-06-19T23:31:06+00:00

The idea I conjured in my mind was one of a disorganised maladaptive creature to be pitied and locked away, less to punish or reform, but to ensure the safety of the general public.

That's a sociopath.

Psychopaths are very different, as you noted in your post. They're good if you want to take over the world, wage war without mercy and gain ground etc. We have benefited from psychopaths in the past.

But if we want a more just, fair world, the last thing we want are psychopaths captaining the ship.

The problem is that most people are followers and most people are swayed by emotion, and that is how psychopaths get in.

funchy · 2016-06-20T00:19:33+00:00

Someone who is truly a psychopath has got to be diagnosed by seeing a qualified mental health professional. So the first problem in discussing psychopaths on the Internet is that almost none of you are psychologists or psychiatrists.

One: you can't teach yourself to have a mental illness. Anything you are doing is just acting

two: it's called an illness because it's seen as disease that impairs a person's ability to function successfully in society and achieve ones own goals. True psychopaths tend to end up in prison, mental hosptials, or long term therapy. Real life is not like a tv show.

Five_Decades · 2016-06-20T03:04:36+00:00

I wouldn't put a lot of stock into TRP people who think the dark triad is something to emulate. You have to be so desperate to get laid that your morals are all fucked up to believe that. Just hire a hooker if you are that desperate for sex (not you OP, I'm talking about people who genuinely believe dark triad traits are good if they help you get laid).

There are some good sides of psychopaths. Aside from not feeling remorse or guilt, they also generally do not feel fear or anxiety. They really don't feel anything. Supposedly psychopathy is a disorder due to the fact that the cognitive parts of the brain do not have good communication with the emotional parts. A psychopath can feel emotions, but they are shallow and the psychopath can turn them on and off at will via concentration.

Psychopaths, from what I know of them, tend to lean libertarian. Plus I doubt they'd be as racist because racism requires you identifying with one group against another group, and psychopaths generally do not identify with groups.

winndixie · 2016-06-20T05:07:36+00:00

an to hear conjecture that many of the world's most successful CEO's, businesspeople and politicians were themselves psychopaths and this shocked me,

It shouldn't. But at least you're learning.

Yes "psychopathic traits" garner more success. We live in a western society where we see "psychopathic traits" as baddies and now that term is used to villify because it appeared on some pop psychology magazines. Eastern mentality assumes that EVERYONE has these psychopathic traits, SHOULD have it, and we should all work together and have boundaries and rules to have the least conflict.

The truth? The truth is everyone including women, have psychopathic traits for their own gain. Yes, even you (points finger). BPers continue to perpetuate the myth that women are innocent creatures and trusting them wholly will lead to strong relationships, and not opportunities for them to branch swing and deceive.

[deleted] · 2016-06-20T16:12:54+00:00

Psychopaths are (mostly) men of action. They rarely procrastinate, and they do not hesitate out of feelings for others. In times of great crisis they are cool under pressure, almost robotic. For people like Special Forces soldiers, surgeons, and CEO's (lots of psychopaths in these professions) those traits can be very beneficial. Those are the high functioning ones.

Low functioning psychopaths will get fucked up on drugs, steal things and kill people, most times with no remorse. They are a plague to our society.

It is a double edged sword.

Most RP guys see them as "bad asses" and they want more than anything to be seen as a bad ass, so they copy what they don't really understand.

Madness20 · 2016-06-20T16:25:11+00:00

but also very little capacity for discipline and long term

Quite the contrary. Many psychopaths end up being CEOs, politicians, and others, because they have little moral codes and are functionally some of the best "managers" a group can have in capitalistic terms. They don't hesitate being harsh to their workers, firing them, cutting their salaries or demand more productivity, etc. Also, they are the ones that are more likely to sabotage co-workers reputation in order to climb the social ladder. They're also more likely to engage in illegal or immoral activities, like traffic, corruption, influences, as a typical mobster.

impossibleworlds · 2016-06-20T21:11:10+00:00

I think the indifference would be really useful, so long as it wasn't indiscriminate. A lot of people waste a lot of energy on emotions surrounding interpersonal issues that are insignificant in the long run. Being able to selectively detach yourself from dramatics/emotional bullshit would be convenient.

Unfortunately for psychopaths (and those around them) it doesn't usually end up being selective detachment.

[deleted] · 2016-06-19T21:06:57+00:00

Detaching yourself from your emotions are almost always good on a superficial level or relationships with people that aren't intimate.

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[deleted] · 2016-06-20T02:45:11+00:00

The fearlessness.

Mentathiel · 2016-06-20T21:27:15+00:00

Not particularly interested in TRP claiming ridiculous things. Following that logic, we could adopt many characteristics of mental illnesses and call them useful. These characteristics arise with specific surroundings and referring to a mental illness is referring to these characteristics and these surroundings, but they pick out the stuff that could be good in some situations and use the word psychopathy to sound edgy.

Then I began to hear conjecture that many of the world's most successful CEO's, businesspeople and politicians were themselves psychopaths and this shocked me, I simply dismissed it as lefty nonsense designed to create a narrative of the wealthy and powerful as evil people, much like lizardman conspiracy theories but slightly less far-fetched.

Actually, this isn't leftist nonsense, 4% of CEOs are estimated to be psychopaths (study has a credible sample and the best methodology we have for measuring psychopathy, which isn't all that accurate since it was based on prisoner psychopath characteristics, so the number might be even higher).

But the reason that it spread into popular culture is that scientists who were working on it were actually pushing this propaganda. Robert Hare and this other guy whose name I keep forgetting. You can find a documentary they're interviewed in, Psychopathy and Society or something like that on YouTube and see for yourself what kind of scare mongering they were going for with that. It was ultimately for a good cause, they tried to manipulate people into being good, but it was manipulation nonetheless.

I accidentally found it researching psychopathy for a paper, it's so ridiculous when you find sources of these pervasive cultural myths.

[deleted] · 2016-06-21T06:13:51+00:00

In the short run depending on composition of society they might be. But in the long run they are extremely unuseful. Else there would be far more than 1% of clinical psychopaths - it would actually be an adaptive strategy. Overall when psychopaths get more common people learn to detect them and not to be a sucker. Then psychopaths suffer severe disadvatages because they cannot send honest signals of cooperation.

ALexusOhHaiNyan · 2016-06-21T06:30:33+00:00

You found two patterns I noticed too OP. The prevalence of psychopathy as virtue in Red Pill mentality.

Also, I've thought for sometime that the Lizardman conspiracy theory was just a sort of visceral, uninformed expression of something that very well may be true - psychopaths are in control. I think you'd really enjoy this article.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/05/beware-the-psychopath-my-son/

I also dismissed 'lefty nonsense' messages because of the messenger. Then I dug into Chomsky. Truth is manipulating people is a skill, and one that psychopaths master, of course it's going to help get you laid and 'manage' women. The issue here for me is ethics. Where do you draw the line? Psychopaths don't necessarily. If your a normal healthy person I would say let your empathy guide you Ie: "I do good I feel good, I do bad I feel bad".

Lastly. It's important to remember that psychopathy is the end of a continuum made of empathy. Too much worry? Is neurotic. Too little is psychotic. So it comes in shades. Some are more grandiose, some are colder, some are more charming, some aren't. For instance my friend who was the son of a diagnosed narcissist (or 'Psychopathy Lite' if you will) and probably one himself was increasingly racist. So much so that he stopped listen to the rap music he loved because he acknowledged the contradiction ( I guess the next step was listening exclusively to Agnostic Front and classical like any newly minted white supremacist) . You might say he considered everybody beneath him (aside from select few) but black folks more so.

Non Anecdotal Evidence :

http://www.academia.edu/9172278/Is_there_a_relationship_between_psychopathic_traits_and_racism

AceFlashheart · 2016-06-22T09:56:28+00:00

High functioning psychopaths likely make up the core of our political and business elite.

Having a high IQ and no human sympathy are a powerful combination if you don't let on what a monster you are. See: Bill Clinton.

alreadyredschool · 2016-06-19T21:02:52+00:00

You can't emulate a lack of conscience/empathy and that insatiable need for validation. That leaves you with pretty much all the positive aspects of a psychopath.

Which is stuff like focus on self, charm, not caring about rejection...

Title	What are genuine psychopath traits and are they useful?
Author	yo_radical_one
Upvotes	14
Comments	51
Date	June 19, 2016 8:29 PM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/4ov1b0/what_are_genuine_psychopath_traits_and_are_they/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/what-are-genuine-psychopath-traits-and-are-they.274291 https://theredarchive.com/post/274291

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