[BritishShivans]

The only treatment for psychopaths and sociopaths is extermination.

Oh hi, ****dick. Stop treating sociopaths as if all of them are teh Deebil and are evil forever. By the way, would you like if I advocated killing you and your family? Advocated ostracizing and torturing you, just because you lack something I have?

If you think that people should be treated that way, just because you don't like them, it is YOU who needs to be exterminated. But if you want to go ahead with your little eugenics episode, I'll be more than happy to shoot you. Dead. Hopefully, that'll never happen.

Now go sit in the corner and think about the implications of what you just said. Hopefully, you will learn something from this. And hopefully, you will realize that the "solution" does not consist of "kill people I don't like to the last man.", and more "Help establish better mental health facilities and better mental health service availability". 

[Lorric]

The only treatment for psychopaths and sociopaths is extermination.

Oh hi, ****dick. Stop treating sociopaths as if all of them are teh Deebil and are evil forever. By the way, would you like if I advocated killing you and your family? Advocated ostracizing and torturing you, just because you lack something I have?

If you think that people should be treated that way, just because you don't like them, it is YOU who needs to be exterminated. But if you want to go ahead with your little eugenics episode, I'll be more than happy to shoot you. Dead. Hopefully, that'll never happen.

Now go sit in the corner and think about the implications of what you just said. Hopefully, you will learn something from this. And hopefully, you will realize that the "solution" does not consist of "kill people I don't like to the last man.", and more "Help establish better mental health facilities and better mental health service availability". 

They are evil. How can you defend them? They have no redeeming qualities.

[General Battuta]

That's probably not true at all. Sociopathy isn't even a clear on/off.

[Lorric]

That's probably not true at all. Sociopathy isn't even a clear on/off.

Well it would have to be blatantly obvious if we were going to start killing people. And I think a "nice" sociopath, if there is such a thing, would never show up as one in the first place.

[Flipside]

I say again, there is good in bad people, there is bad in good people.

It's strange because I had a discussion in another Forum about the Second Amendment that could almost have been the child in that article. I'm not saying that in a ridiculing matter, merely that any opinion that differed from his own made that person a '****ing idiot' or a 'moron', and that nobody outside the US understood the 'American Dream' or 'Freedom', and we were just jealous of the US etc..

Sadly, he ended up much more a figure of pity than derision in my eyes.

[MP-Ryan]

Well it would have to be blatantly obvious if we were going to start killing people. And I think a "nice" sociopath, if there is such a thing, would never show up as one in the first place.

There is a large group of personality traits that can be labelled sociopaths/psychopaths.  These people are typically characterized by an inability to feel sympathy/empathy - they understand society's rules, they simply don't care.  It's strongly correlated with narcissism.

With that broad group, you have pro-social psychopaths/sociopaths, and anti-social psychopaths/sociopaths.

The anti-social bunch are what are thought of as psychopaths/sociopaths in popular media.  Clinically, these people can be diagnosed with ASPD (anti-social personality disorder).  They make up a small proportion of the general population, and are responsible for a fair chunk of the crime rate.  They typically end up incarcerated or dead early in their lives; if they do survive long-term, they tend to retain the personality traits throughout their lives but their willingness and ability to act on them typically diminishes after their late 40s.

The pro-social bunch are paramedics, firefighters, doctors, police officers, and a small subset of the military, who function easily within society's rules because they choose to do so.  They retain the core diagnostic traits of a psychopath/sociopath, however.

Never confuse psychopathy/sociopathy with anti-social personality disorder.  Two different things.  There are a lot of people employed in the emergency services in particular (it produces the 'high'/gratification that psychopaths/sociopaths typically seek through their behaviour) who do a lot of good, yet are clinically-diagnosable as psychopaths/sociopaths.

Further reading:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763410000795
https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/556047

[Apollo]

The only treatment for psychopaths and sociopaths is extermination.

Oh hi, ****dick. Stop treating sociopaths as if all of them are teh Deebil and are evil forever. By the way, would you like if I advocated killing you and your family? Advocated ostracizing and torturing you, just because you lack something I have?

If you think that people should be treated that way, just because you don't like them, it is YOU who needs to be exterminated. But if you want to go ahead with your little eugenics episode, I'll be more than happy to shoot you. Dead. Hopefully, that'll never happen.

Now go sit in the corner and think about the implications of what you just said. Hopefully, you will learn something from this. And hopefully, you will realize that the "solution" does not consist of "kill people I don't like to the last man.", and more "Help establish better mental health facilities and better mental health service availability". 

They are evil. How can you defend them? They have no redeeming qualities.

You can be a bad person without being a horrible piece of crap that lacks any good qualities whatsoever. However, I will concede that some people fit that description.

Nonetheless, executing them is still bad because (1) executing someone because of their personality is wrong, and (2) allowing the government to do that can only lead to tyranny.

[Lorric]

Well it would have to be blatantly obvious if we were going to start killing people. And I think a "nice" sociopath, if there is such a thing, would never show up as one in the first place.

There is a large group of personality traits that can be labelled sociopaths/psychopaths.  These people are typically characterized by an inability to feel sympathy/empathy - they understand society's rules, they simply don't care.  It's strongly correlated with narcissism.

With that broad group, you have pro-social psychopaths/sociopaths, and anti-social psychopaths/sociopaths.

The anti-social bunch are what are thought of as psychopaths/sociopaths in popular media.  Clinically, these people can be diagnosed with ASPD (anti-social personality disorder).  They make up a small proportion of the general population, and are responsible for a fair chunk of the crime rate.  They typically end up incarcerated or dead early in their lives; if they do survive long-term, they tend to retain the personality traits throughout their lives but their willingness and ability to act on them typically diminishes after their late 40s.

The pro-social bunch are paramedics, firefighters, doctors, police officers, and a small subset of the military, who function easily within society's rules because they choose to do so.  They retain the core diagnostic traits of a psychopath/sociopath, however.

Never confuse psychopathy/sociopathy with anti-social personality disorder.  Two different things.  There are a lot of people employed in the emergency services in particular (it produces the 'high'/gratification that psychopaths/sociopaths typically seek through their behaviour) who do a lot of good, yet are clinically-diagnosable as psychopaths/sociopaths.

Further reading:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763410000795
https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/556047

The pro-social set are the more dangerous to me. Obviously if they aren't doing anything wrong, fine. If they truly can exist that way, then great. Their sociopathy may even give them an advantage in those fields. But if they do decide to do bad things to people, then they can do so without being detected. At least the anti-social type people can identify and be wary of, but the pro-social type somehow manage to function in social circles even better than regular people, so they go unsuspected, leaving a trail of victims in their wake. You could imagine the doctor being a good doctor most of the time, but quietly killing or misdiagnosing the odd patient for kicks on the side. "No, it wouldn't be Mr. X..."

[MP-Ryan]

You didn't do any of the further reading, did you?

If you're basing all your information on what you've seen on TV and in the movies, you know less than nothing about this subject.

James Fallon might be a good starting point for you to learn more:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I12H7khht7o

[Flipside]

Some Firefighters do fall foul of things like 'Hero Syndrome', however, the problem is not so much with the illness as the treatment of it. The Narcissism is a big factor, because a Narcissistic person is likely to react for more expansively to negative situations.

I, for example, have a problem with making mistakes. Everybody feels stupid when they do something wrong, but the ability to get 'over' that error and pull yourself back into the game is highly dependent on self-image, and strangely enough, the higher the level of Narcissism, the longer it takes, because the more you beat yourself up over it, trying to justify yourself.

[Lorric]

You didn't do any of the further reading, did you?

If you're basing all your information on what you've seen on TV and in the movies, you know less than nothing about this subject.  Do a YouTube search for James Fallon.

The first link doesn't work for me. The page comes out wrong. The second one I didn't really understand.

However, I have done plenty of sociopath research, though I admit it's all about the damage they do, I haven't come across anything to suggest they can be good.

The way I see it is if a sociopath does choose to be good, it is only because they want it to be so, for whatever reason. If they want to do bad things, and they can, then they will do so without a second thought. They would kill someone if they could get away with it even if they were just mildly curious to see what it would be like. And they often really enjoy inflicting pain, both emotional and physical. As far as I can tell the only emotion they can feel is anger, and they have no conscience.

[swashmebuckle]

Speaking for the group with consciences, it is our duty to rid society of those lacking consciences because at least we'll be able to feel bad about it afterwards. Awesome plan right?

[MP-Ryan]

Just... no.

Psychopaths and sociopaths are two names for the same thing:  people characterized by lack of remorse/empathy/sympathy, impulsivity, and often a lack of regard for safety of self/others.  They typically are very charming/charismatic, self-centered, and are usually emotionally-detached (though the pro-social bunch can successfully fake emotional attachment).  This is not an exhaustive or exclusive list because their isn't one - the terms have been dropped from the DSM altogether in favour of the harmful variant of it, ASPD.

Criminals of this personality type are diagnosable with ASPD, of which the first three traits I listed are considered among the diagnostic criteria.  ASPD diagnosis actually focuses on criminality, because it is well-acknowledged that not all the people who fall into the psychopath/sociopath umbrella are criminals.

>The way I see it is if a sociopath does choose to be good, it is only because they want it to be so, for whatever reason.

This is true of everyone in society.  We all have that choice, and jails the world over are full of people who chose not to play by society's rules and yet aren't psychopaths/sociopaths.  Similarly, emergency services have a documented tendency to collect people with these personality types who aren't criminals.

>If they want to do bad things, and they can, then they will do so without a second thought.

Not unique to psychopaths/sociopaths, either.  This is true of pretty much everyone.  Given opportunity, motive, and means, literally anyone is capable of breaking social rules.  Ever driven faster than the speed limit?

>They would kill someone if they could get away with it even if they were just mildly curious to see what it would be like.

Citation required.  Psychopaths/sociopaths do not kill because of these personality traits; rather, the traits enable them to kill when they have sufficient motive under circumstances where a non-psychopath/sociopath may be hindered by a 'conscience.'  That motive can be nothing more complex than self-gratification though inflicting pain (sadism), but there are plenty of sadists who are not also psychopaths/sociopaths.

>As far as I can tell the only emotion they can feel is anger, and they have no conscience.

See, everything you're writing says to me that your research is popular culture and not academic reading.  Psychopaths/sociopaths are emotionally impaired in a general sense - usually described as they simply do not 'care.'  Even about things that would make a normal person angry.

Fun fact of the day:  The greatest mass murderers in history weren't necessarily all psychopaths and sociopaths, but every single one of them is a narcissist.  In terms of danger to society at large, narcissists are a much greater risk - mostly because ASPD is typically detected early in life, pro-social psychopaths/sociopaths avoid detection as they cause no harm and indeed have a net benefit to society, while narcissists are the people most likely to occupy positions of power and influence and therefore effect change and policy direction.

Not to Godwin the thread, but Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were both narcissists.  Whether or not they were psychopaths/sociopaths has not really been established as the phenomenon wasn't even really identified, nevermind studied, until the mid-1900s.

By proposing the extermination of psychopaths/sociopaths, you're proposing we wiped out 1-2% of the human population, most of whom never have and never will actually do anything to justify that extreme action.  That shows a serious lack of understanding on your part.

Again, James Fallon.  Look him up.

[Lorric]

“Just... no.

Psychopaths and sociopaths are two names for the same thing: people characterized by lack of remorse/empathy/sympathy, impulsivity, and often a lack of regard for safety of self/others. They typically are very charming/charismatic, self-centered, and are usually emotionally-detached (though the pro-social bunch can successfully fake emotional attachment).”

This is highly dangerous to the rest of us though. Why should we suffer this danger?

“This is true of everyone in society. We all have that choice, and jails the world over are full of people who chose not to play by society's rules and yet aren't psychopaths/sociopaths. Similarly, emergency services have a documented tendency to collect people with these personality types who aren't criminals.”

Yes. But it’s different with sociopaths/psychopaths, which you pretty much admit later. Even monsters sometimes have standards of right and wrong, lines that should not be crossed (like hardened criminals drawing the line at crimes against kids) but there’s nothing to stop a sociopath/psychopath, they have zero respect for the rights and desires of others.

If you have anything about the emergency services being full of sociopaths and psychopaths, I’d like to read that.

“Not unique to psychopaths/sociopaths, either. This is true of pretty much everyone. Given opportunity, motive, and means, literally anyone is capable of breaking social rules. Ever driven faster than the speed limit?”

I’m not talking about social rules, I’m talking about clearly defined, ingrained right and wrong that the majority will abide by. I don’t drive, but most people break the limit, so for me, it’s not a social rule when most people disobey. A normal person wouldn’t destroy someone just for kicks.

“Citation required. Psychopaths/sociopaths do not kill because of these personality traits; rather, the traits enable them to kill when they have sufficient motive under circumstances where a non-psychopath/sociopath may be hindered by a 'conscience.' That motive can be nothing more complex than self-gratification though inflicting pain (sadism), but there are plenty of sadists who are not also psychopaths/sociopaths.”

You’re going to have to dig around for your citation, and I don’t know if you’ll even find it. I have some things bookmarked for sociopaths. I’ll just dump them:

http://www.keswickhousepublishers.com/Keswick%20House%20Publishers/Blog/18CEC69B-BCE7-4069-A74B-377987C51E2D.html

http://www.keswickhousepublishers.com/Keswick%20House%20Publishers/Blog/2CE641CA-9DED-495D-BE46-47ABE8225E48.html

http://www.keswickhousepublishers.com/Keswick%20House%20Publishers/Blog/91B3234A-FD5C-4399-AA8D-5535FB209B8A.html

http://www.lovefraud.com/

http://www.sociopathworld.com/

http://www.sociopathworld.com/p/forum.html

That last one, sociopath forum with sociopaths. I only went in there once, and came out feeling contaminated and chilled to the marrow. Most of the topics when I went in had had their content censored or deleted, only recent posts I could see, but it was enough. Oh look what we have here. Might be one to keep an eye on…

Oh, somehow the url stays the same. There was a topic called “Worst thing you’ve done” second from the top.

Anyway, would a normal person, even if they did enjoy inflicting pain, inflict pain for no other reason than their own enjoyment? I’m sure I wouldn’t.

“As far as I can tell the only emotion they can feel is anger, and they have no conscience.”

From what I remember, it’s the only undiminished emotion.

Anyway though, I’ve certainly heard the word “narcissist” thrown around a lot with sociopaths and psychopaths, enough that I kind of thought the two went hand in glove. Even without it though sociopaths and psychopaths are still extremely dangerous. But it sounds like the narcissists need to be exterminated either instead of or as well.

Fallon, you wanted me to look him up because of him having the psychopath traits, right?

[Nuke]

Psychopathy is notable because it expresses so distinctly in children and appears so highly (though not totally) driven by genetic or prenatal factors. Psychopathy is a constellation disorder and the individual components may have separate underlying etiology. It is not a product of poor discipline, and trying to treat it as such would be disastrous.

Schizophrenia usually manifests later in life, and arises out of a combination of genetic predisposition and stressful life events. Like psychopathy it cannot be treated as behaviorally curable; to do so would be to condemn both the patient and those around him to profound danger.

as i understand it my family has been insane to some degree for many generations. moms schizo, my sister is bipolar, my brother gets panic attacks (that pussey), grandma is a little nuts. i hear stories about a few long dead aunts who were in an asylum. the sad thing is when i took psyche 101, we were told that insanity isn't genetic at all. i know this is not the case, but damn. 

[The E]

Lorric: You are now officially off this thread, unless you can start arguing in a more rational way. The links you have posted so far to support your arguments show a distinct lack of understanding regarding simple things like how to do research.

Also, linking to a forum for self-identified sociopaths and citing it as evidence? That's a blatant an attempt at grasping at straws; as GIF theory will undermine anything in there that is actually legit information.

[Lorric]

Lorric: You are now officially off this thread, unless you can start arguing in a more rational way. The links you have posted so far to support your arguments show a distinct lack of understanding regarding simple things like how to do research.

Also, linking to a forum for self-identified sociopaths and citing it as evidence? That's a blatant an attempt at grasping at straws; as GIF theory will undermine anything in there that is actually legit information.

I don't know what to say to that.

What is GIF theory?

I can guess though, I expect you're saying that there will be fake/poser/wannabe sociopaths on the forum distorting things. But it shouldn't just be disregarded either because of that. It's a forum for sociopaths. There will be sociopaths there.

[Lorric]

Psychopathy is notable because it expresses so distinctly in children and appears so highly (though not totally) driven by genetic or prenatal factors. Psychopathy is a constellation disorder and the individual components may have separate underlying etiology. It is not a product of poor discipline, and trying to treat it as such would be disastrous.

Schizophrenia usually manifests later in life, and arises out of a combination of genetic predisposition and stressful life events. Like psychopathy it cannot be treated as behaviorally curable; to do so would be to condemn both the patient and those around him to profound danger.

as i understand it my family has been insane to some degree for many generations. moms schizo, my sister is bipolar, my brother gets panic attacks (that pussey), grandma is a little nuts. i hear stories about a few long dead aunts who were in an asylum. the sad thing is when i took psyche 101, we were told that insanity isn't genetic at all. i know this is not the case, but damn.

As for you Nuke, panic attacks have nothing to do with being weak.

[headdie]

Psychopathy is notable because it expresses so distinctly in children and appears so highly (though not totally) driven by genetic or prenatal factors. Psychopathy is a constellation disorder and the individual components may have separate underlying etiology. It is not a product of poor discipline, and trying to treat it as such would be disastrous.

Schizophrenia usually manifests later in life, and arises out of a combination of genetic predisposition and stressful life events. Like psychopathy it cannot be treated as behaviorally curable; to do so would be to condemn both the patient and those around him to profound danger.

as i understand it my family has been insane to some degree for many generations. moms schizo, my sister is bipolar, my brother gets panic attacks (that pussey), grandma is a little nuts. i hear stories about a few long dead aunts who were in an asylum. the sad thing is when i took psyche 101, we were told that insanity isn't genetic at all. i know this is not the case, but damn. 

I am not saying one way or the other here but one thing to consider when dealing with families is to separate genetic from environmental because a huge part of a child's development environment is the parent's state of mind which may promote similar conditions or other developed conditions, for example both Bipolar and Panic attacks may develop from experiance of events, especially in childhood or my be the result other factors such as genetic predisposition/conditions.

[Mika]

Thanks, MP-Ryan, for posting in. You did have some new information for me as well there. From what I have understood, it may just be a bit of brain chemistry that is somehow off that allows the violent form to manifest itself, I recall reading a rather chilling account of a person who did the shootings from a tower some decades ago about succumbing to his violent impulses as he was not allowed to medication in time. The point is, there really is nothing that the person could do to help himself if this happens even if he wanted to, the only way to help is medication, and that helps only if the person is willing to use it.

From the description of the mother in your link, it sounds to me that the boy would not only have difficulties in controlling his impulses, but could also be heading to a divided personality. For a disclaimer, I don't have any psychological education, so I may not be using the right terms here. My understanding is that the reason for the brain chemistry to dysfunction can be social, but genetical as well. Long term social difficulties might bring the body to a state where this just happens. I'm not sure about how many hormones control the thought patterns in the brain, but I do believe that sociopathic behavior can be awakened in every single one of us if some hormones are just blocked. This is also probably what happens when people become enraged by drinking strong alcohol. Some limitations are just lifted, and a petty little thing can make you very very angry so that you cannot be spoken out of it.

However, I never thought emergency people could be sociopaths, but that might well be true. The difference could indeed be that they just agree to follow the rules. Supposedly this has something to do with age, and understanding something about yourself and being able to cope with it? I do recall higher functioning autists saying that as they grew older, they just started to understand things differently, and finally became integrated to the rest of the society? Maybe that is the same?

However, how does it go according to the current understanding? Is the opposite of a narcisstic brain actually an autistic brain (especially higher function autists)? What I didn't know that the school shooters could be determined to be narcisstic, I have classified part of them to be autists at some level, but they may have turned to narcisstic after something really integral to them broke down. This is just what I thought it could be, I can't really say for sure. I do recall reading a later life account of a teased person who could be said to be autistic in the beginning, ending up with thought patterns of what was called white rage, where all emotion is removed and the person starts to plan the demise of other persons for years ahead which sounds more sociopathic to me.