# Would you like to be a Psychopath?



## reptilian (Aug 5, 2014)

You may have some other definitions and intuitions of what a psychopath is. Lets not fight about them and just follow the arguments.

You are not necessarily antisocial or asocial. Psychopaths lack certain emotional ability (sensing danger) and that is why they become "bad". No more social anxiety, no more depression. Only cold apathy with occasional pleasure seeking, and irritability that sometimes turns into rage.
You keep your reasoning abilities, but lose certain memories, or better yet, they lose the emotional meaning behind them. You lack shame, guilt, compassion and have no need for a deep connection with someone.

Yes or no, and why. I know some here are on the spectrum already, some are more autistic, others schizoid. But I doubt a real psychopath will spend time on forums like these, maybe reading, but not contributing, unless there are specific motivators such as asking someone a specific question.


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## cherriesnwine (Nov 22, 2018)

I would say yes, mostly 'cause I think everything would become easier to handle, but at the same time I'd rather not to because life without emotion seems dull and pure non-sense to me


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## sarek (May 20, 2010)

I would say being a psychopath means you are losing out on one of the defining qualities of what it is to be human, ie the ability to be emotional and feeling.


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## Mephi (Jun 10, 2015)

No. As annoying as emotions are sometimes, they serve a purpose. At the very least it can help me in certain social situations and alert me to problems. I guess maybe I enjoy my current experience of me and dont wish for it to change.


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## Highway Nights (Nov 26, 2014)

No. 

Have you ever seen an actual psychopath? Not the "cool" asshole TV characters people are into for some reason, but a legit psychopath? Most of them have no control over their lives whatsoever and have a complete inability to learn from their mistakes. It's absolutely pathetic. Precisely because of the traits that make them a psychopath, they can't function in life for any extended period.

Most of them are not Dr. House or Sherlock, they're the people etching profanities on bathroom stalls and getting arrested for public urination.


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## reptilian (Aug 5, 2014)

Rebelgoatalliance said:


> No.
> 
> Have you ever seen an actual psychopath? Not the "cool" asshole TV characters people are into for some reason, but a legit psychopath? Most of them have no control over their lives whatsoever and have a complete inability to learn from their mistakes. It's absolutely pathetic. Precisely because of the traits that make them a psychopath, they can't function in life for any extended period.
> 
> Most of them are not Dr. House or Sherlock, they're the people etching profanities on bathroom stalls and getting arrested for public urination.


This has nothing to do with my hypothetical question, but I agree, the IQ distribution is still the same or maybe even lower in antisocials, especially the ones that have had brain trauma and became more psychopathic like.


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## richard nixon (Sep 14, 2017)

I'm not an NT, but yes I wish I were a psychopath... they don't suffer depression and anxiety and they're generally smart.


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## Blazkovitz (Mar 16, 2014)

Rebelgoatalliance said:


> No.
> 
> Have you ever seen an actual psychopath? Not the "cool" asshole TV characters people are into for some reason, but a legit psychopath? Most of them have no control over their lives whatsoever and have a complete inability to learn from their mistakes. It's absolutely pathetic. Precisely because of the traits that make them a psychopath, they can't function in life for any extended period.
> 
> Most of them are not Dr. House or Sherlock, they're the people etching profanities on bathroom stalls and getting arrested for public urination.


The capacity for self-control differs among psychopaths. Satan Hussein was one of worst psychopaths who ever lived, yet I doubt he would urinate in public. For him power was the most important goal, he knew he has to suppress some urges to enjoy sadistic domination on a grand scale. 

What defines a psychopath is complete egoism. He is in fact, the complete opposite of a saint. We all can be placed somewhere on the axis from saint to psychopath. But we should at least try to be saints. So, my answer to the OP is No.


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## Handsome Dyke (Oct 4, 2012)

No, primarily because I don't want to be so much more likely to hurt someone. I also think it would be tragic to completely destroy any hope of my having a good relationship given how much I have lacked them so far.


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## lilysocks (Nov 7, 2012)

Rebelgoatalliance said:


> No.
> 
> Have you ever seen an actual psychopath? Not the "cool" asshole TV characters people are into for some reason, but a legit psychopath?


*applauds*

i know two people i genuinely consider to be psychopaths - as in, not just as a flip, facile little assessment because somebody cut me off in traffic or ate my muffin, but after being exposed to them both for a period of time and giving the question sober and serious thought. one is a first-degree relative, and the other is not related but has been attached like a leech to a different relative for some 20-plus years by this point.

it's pretty specious to judge either of their lives by my own value system, because the most duh-flavoured fact about them both is that they don't live by my value system. and it's pointless too to try and project myself into their skin because to say i don't understand how they think is . . . beyond understatement. but with that said, and based on a kind of black-box observation of both of them:



richard nixon said:


> I'm not an NT, but yes I wish I were a psychopath... they don't suffer depression and anxiety and they're generally smart.


both of the two that i know are off-the-charts smart, sure. in a technical, clinical sense. they're also _crafty_ beyond any measure of what you or i would waste time and energy on trying to be. but you're wrong if you think they don't 'suffer' depression and anxiety. i'd say that their version of that emo pairing is 'self-pity and vigilance'. nonetheless, both of their lives seem to me to be absolutely driven by these two things. they're _obsessed_ with their own selves. i assume that's because there's no empathy or real interest in other people to distract them. 

their lives don't 'work', if that's of interest to you. i think people do put together this mythical picture of the cool-minded controller who doesn't care very much and who gets everything that he wants and whose life runs on rails because there's no conscience etc to get in the way. but in practice, that's not how it works. when you have a conscience you can relax. on some internal level, you know that you're in more-or-less sync with your species and you can just go ahead and do you . . . because your species will, basically, hold you up and carry you along with it. 'my' two psychos don't have that. they are always, relentlessly 'doing the math' about where they are on the matrix between their own feral wants and the collective contract. 

and you know what, it just doesn't work. both of them are complete train wrecks by any objective measure out there. and they're both so predatory and harmful in different ways that nobody is going to step forward or lift a finger for either of them.


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## isaac_a15 (Feb 14, 2018)

No. I have no interest in losing my sense of right and wrong. I've been around one to my knowledge, and being near that person would give me a sinking sense in my stomach and make the hair on my body stand on end. :numbness:


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## lilysocks (Nov 7, 2012)

reptilian said:


> This has nothing to do with my hypothetical question


true, but given that, i think the label 'psychopath' is fairly irrelevant. you're just asking 'would you like to live your whole life in a state of cold apathy broken by occasional blah blah'.

the answer to that would be no. nothing to do with social conscience or the psychopathy add-on, even. just 'cold apathy' is not a viable way of getting through 60 to 80 years on the planet. _apathy_ is not viable, forget the coldness.


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## Maveris (Nov 27, 2018)

From the stuff I know about them, yes, sounds nice. But I cannot presume to know what it's like to be one, so, I can't give a realistic answer.


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## Maveris (Nov 27, 2018)

There are differences between psychopaths and antisocials, though. Clinicians differentiate between the two. APD is more impulse, affect-based, whereas Psychopathy proves less amygdala activity and higher manipulative traits. Psychopaths are basically more deliberate, calculated. I can see someone with APD urinating in public, but I have a harder time imagining a pure psychopath attracting that sort of attention on themselves.


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## great_pudgy_owl (Apr 20, 2015)

From what I understand, psychopathy is characterized by a lack of fear/empathy and appropriate response to danger or punishment. 

Regardless, emotions are chemical, physiological reactions that alert us of our own and others' homeostasis. They serve a purpose and not having them would be like a factory running with no gauges or meters. 

I mean, I could live without them, like I could live life red-green colorblind, but I'll always lack some non-academic information about other people. Nevermind that I may not have an interest in the little things in life that don't offer bigger dopamine rushes.


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## Blazkovitz (Mar 16, 2014)

Maveris said:


> There are differences between psychopaths and antisocials, though. Clinicians differentiate between the two. APD is more impulse, affect-based, whereas Psychopathy proves less amygdala activity and higher manipulative traits. Psychopaths are basically more deliberate, calculated. I can see someone with APD urinating in public, but I have a harder time imagining a pure psychopath attracting that sort of attention on themselves.


So Saddam was a psychopath, while someone who cannot hold a job for two weeks, hits his mother with a shoe and vandalizes Wikipedia with crude penis jokes is an antisocial?

Or to put in shorter, would the equations below be accurate?

Psychopath = Demon.
Antisocial = Arsehole.


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## lilysocks (Nov 7, 2012)

come to think of it . . . what i would actually like to be is a neat freak :tongue:


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## Hexigoon (Mar 12, 2018)

To me that's sorta like asking would you like to be a paedophile? a narcissist? a rapist? serial killer? criminal in general?

Hell no I wouldn't. Lacking empathy for most (if not all people) would be such a debilitating, destructive condition to be cursed with.
Empathy is very important, it develops your morals / principles, allows you to form genuine relations with people (thus enabling actual self-development) and helps keep your more animalistic emotions in check which limits dangerous impulsive behaviors. (Impulsivity being something psychopaths are known for; so you could make the argument you'd be more of a slave to your emotions / darkest desires as one).

If I saw a parallel universe version of me as a notorious psychopath I might actually want to destroy him because of how disappointed/horrified I'd be (especially if I found out psycho me had abused or killed animals, children, vulnerable peoples, etc.)


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

reptilian said:


> You may have some other definitions and intuitions of what a psychopath is. Lets not fight about them and just follow the arguments.
> 
> You are not necessarily antisocial or asocial. Psychopaths lack certain emotional ability (sensing danger) and that is why they become "bad". No more social anxiety, no more depression. Only cold apathy with occasional pleasure seeking, and irritability that sometimes turns into rage.
> You keep your reasoning abilities, but lose certain memories, or better yet, they lose the emotional meaning behind them. You lack shame, guilt, compassion and have no need for a deep connection with someone.
> ...


Are you saying that the attributes in red are in some way desirable traits? A psychopath is limited in their ability to respond to external interaction. I want to feel everything possible in life, what's the point of living if we're stunted in our ability to experience everything life has to offer? 

I've personally had to overcome some amount of sociopathic tendencies to get where I am today, and I'm glad I did. Intimacy may be messy, but it is far preferable to being so indifferent one doesn't have any idea what they are missing.


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## pwowq (Aug 7, 2016)

No.


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## Blazkovitz (Mar 16, 2014)

LonelySpaceEmperor said:


> I don't, nor would I say I am. I was simply pointing out that you can learn to at will dissociate yourself from the emotions which are hindering you from doing some thing, like fear, empathy, remorse, sadness, and still be able to feel emotions like love and bonding; unlike a psychopath who completely lacks those sorts of emotions.


It's impossible. If joy is the emotion of achieving something you value, then sadness is the emotion of losing it. One cannot exist without the other. If there was no sadness as we know it, there would be a feeling one could call "lack of joy" and we would call it sadness.


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## Seeking Serenity (Dec 3, 2018)

Not only would I not want to be one, it would be a complete nightmare to me! I dated a narcissist (every psychopath fits the diagnostic requirements in the DSM-V for NPD) and I'm an INFP. To never be able to feel the emotion of music, or see beyond the superficial horrifies me. My world is vast, and amazing, although it's often in nature I find the world great again. I spent four years with a covert narcissist and I have a degree in psychology (I'm a life coach now) and they scientifically have been proven through brainscans, and psycopaths have the same results, there is no activity in the region of the brain that houses emotional empathy. They have barely visible activity in cognitive empathy. So, they have a hard time even learning how to empathize. The lack of activity actually makes the brain look like they are missing grey matter! 

Psychopaths fascinate me and so do sociopaths, and contrary to the new definitions, there is a distinction. If you were to place Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer side-by-side... there's your difference. 
A sociopath cannot distinguish between right and wrong, therefore, according to our very own laws, cannot be jailed. Charles Manson knew this and was trying to use everything he knew to try and convince the world that he was a sociopath not a psychopath. Sociopaths have empathy but it's malfunctioned. They mourn their victims. They believe that the victim loved them, by sharing their most intimate moment with them. Their death. Plus sociopaths are horrible planners and psychopaths are harder to catch because they typically plan for everything. Much like narcissistic rage, if something goes wrong, they rage and get sloppy.

Anyway... no, I actually wouldn't want to be any of the dangerous or predatory personality disordered types.


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## LonelySpaceEmperor (Jan 4, 2018)

RoseTylerFan said:


> It's impossible. If joy is the emotion of achieving something you value, then sadness is the emotion of losing it. One cannot exist without the other. If there was no sadness as we know it, there would be a feeling one could call "lack of joy" and we would call it sadness.


If you have access to the full spectrum of emotions (i.e. a healthy human being) then yes you will of course experience them. In the case of a neurotypical who wishes to practice Machiavellianism, he must learn to be evil and therefore conquer the emotions that prevent him from doing so. By dissociating I meant being able to put them aside and not have them influence your decision making, or turning them down like a volume knob.


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## BenevolentBitterBleeding (Mar 16, 2015)

The OP make it sounds pretty great. Hmm... yes. Though I think by keeping the reasoning skills, the recognition of absolute loneliness due to it nature at some point would become a constant drag. But does is it _really_ a bother? Hmm... maybe in bursts like with pleasure seeking. Or rage.


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## X A N A (Jun 21, 2018)

I never really identified with the human experience to begin with, I wouldn't mind surrendering it to experience life without emotional drawbacks. I already get called a sociopath anyways.


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## Paradise (Apr 14, 2011)

No, I don't think so, for a few reasons. First, when I put myself in the shoes of such a person I imagine life being less dimensional, less interesting, and with fewer possibilities. Life would be simpler, but *more boring*. Every single thing you do, especially with other people, has exponential ways it could play out simply because of that complex layer of human emotions that would be lost in such a bargain. A pain in the ass sometimes, yes, but I don't think I'd like living a life without it.

Secondly, such behavior traits seem likely to get me into trouble and I'd prefer to be less noticeable and *stay out of jail* (freedom, baby). 

Lastly, how can you *find the truth* of things if you don't have a chance to get at and look into all areas of humankind and the world? Without the total human experience or drive of connection, and its accompanying emotions, you'd be missing out on some major information. As imperfect and varying humans we are already incapable of experiencing every single thing that is human, some of us more than others, but to actively _choose_ to turn away the experience and the knowledge would not interest me. Not today anyway.


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## Introvertia (Feb 6, 2016)

No, I pity them.


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## UltimaRatio (Jan 31, 2019)

The term itself is very manichean... But it is no more a medical term. Etymologically, it means _psychological pathology_. At the beginning, psychopathy described many behavioral disorders. 

Most of people confuse _narcissistic _and _dyssocial_. The second is defined as such by a need to actively transgresses laws. Both are non compassionate.


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## NotAMeme (Mar 7, 2019)

God no, absolutely not.
In my group of friends I take pleasure in making sarcastic jokes, taking shit too far and making memes. 
Seeing a pleasurable smile from my friends and peers keep me going. If I become detached, would I become numb to the feeling of entertaining others?


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## Eren Jaegerbomb (Nov 13, 2015)

No. I don't want to be callous, and I don't want to become a walking shell with a parasite. i.e not human.
View attachment 819923


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## Eren Jaegerbomb (Nov 13, 2015)

reptilian said:


> You may have some other definitions and intuitions of what a psychopath is. Lets not fight about them and just follow the arguments.
> 
> You are not necessarily antisocial or asocial. Psychopaths lack certain emotional ability (sensing danger) and that is why they become "bad". No more social anxiety, no more depression. Only cold apathy with occasional pleasure seeking, and irritability that sometimes turns into rage.
> You keep your reasoning abilities, but lose certain memories, or better yet, they lose the emotional meaning behind them. You lack shame, guilt, compassion and have no need for a deep connection with someone.
> ...


Are you a hybrid?


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## Marshy (Apr 10, 2016)

reptilian said:


> You may have some other definitions and intuitions of what a psychopath is. Lets not fight about them and just follow the arguments.
> 
> You are not necessarily antisocial or asocial. Psychopaths lack certain emotional ability (sensing danger) and that is why they become "bad". No more social anxiety, no more depression. Only cold apathy with occasional pleasure seeking, and irritability that sometimes turns into rage.
> You keep your reasoning abilities, but lose certain memories, or better yet, they lose the emotional meaning behind them. You lack shame, guilt, compassion and have no need for a deep connection with someone.
> ...


Yes of course. I'd love to be a psychopath. It looks really awesome in the movies. I'd also like to be schizophrenic and have anxiety too! O polio o polio wherefore art though polio! Also I saw some guy in a wheel chair with his tongue drooping out the other day and he didn't even have to walk! Sign me up for severe mental retardation! cut my legs off too I don't need em! 

SHOWWWWWWWWW ME THE AUTISM FOR 500!!!!!! Mmm. Maybe some mood disorders on the side


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## Drecon (Jun 20, 2016)

Oh hell no. Having this big part of emotions and such missing and seeing how other people are handling it and not being able to share in that? Seems like a horrible time. I don't think being a psychopath is all it's cracked up to be.


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