Slightly off topic. Perhaps some of the confusion over psychopathy arises from the fact that there are neurotypicals with very low empathy: narcissists. Although I think it should be easy to distinguish the two, perhaps too much focus on empathy as the key distinguishing element causes confusion.
I think it is also important to remember that low empathy happens often in normal situations. It is why people can bully others in groups and no one thinks that there is anything wrong with it. Once normative humans have a target, their empathy often disappears.
Yes, and no amount of historical education about previous genocides seems to remove that from humanity. I just read more on the fresh mass graves in Ukraine.
People always think that they would never do something like that. It is someone else, someone evil, that did that terrible thing. When you point out that it wasn't one person, but an entire society that participated, they will just say something like, "they didn't know". Maybe true for some people, but most people know and either do nothing, or they participate.
Recently an intercepted call from a Russian woman to her husband was translated. She was telling him to rape as many Ukrainian woman that he wanted. Just use protection, and don't tell her about it. Amazing to me how many people assume that they are wonderful and good, but the moment the opportunity arrives they want to make strangers suffer. Even more amazing is that it was Russia that invaded a sovereign nation without provocation, and apparently some of the citizens of the country in the wrong want to make the victims suffer more at their hands.
The Russian media (the only media left there now is state-controlled) are telling listeners all sorts of stuff, the Ukrainians are Nazis (in spite of their Jewish President), the Ukrainians were committing genocide upon Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine... lots more. Stuff to "justify" brutality, perhaps. It is a different society too though; I'm not an expert... one might say, the "social contract" is somewhat different from here and perhaps especially toward out-group members. Being part Polish, I read about Russia some. Excellent cakes! But anyhow, historically they did similar things to their neighbors. Here, people mostly need to see a darker skin color to attack, there they don't so much; Stalin was not the first. Again I'm not an expert.
Not that there aren't many similarities to what humans do in other nations! Including people in our own country. There's a lot of that polarization going on too, that can loosen people's inner restrictions on how they treat the "others". The connection is denied. Then the actual atrocities happen but are denied often too. Many people keep wanting to feel they are wonderful and good, as you say! One must justify stuff real hard then.
It seems that humans tend to be terrible to one another. It is better to put into the world what you want out of it, but many people seem to have yet to learn this lesson.
Your score from primary psychopathy has been calculated as 2.3
Your score from secondary psychopathy has been calculated as 1.9
You score for primary psychopathy was higher than 57.99% of people who have taken this test.
You score for secondary psychopathy was higher than 20.5% of people who have taken this test.
"
After reading this article and overall your blog i think i start to understand why the concept of "testing" for psychopathy is so much flawed (or at least - really hard to do properly):
- there might be barrier of understanding and/or interpretation of the question.
- doing test today most likely will yeld different result that doing test some time later - it may depend on so many factors (mood, bad/good day, particular event that happened recently and many more).
- knowledge in this matter (and to some extent inteligence) may influence the results a lot. Some questions are just... obvious. Of course i tried to answer as acurate as possible (simply because i was curious) but this will happen only if I am interested in getting the results. If someone else is testing me for the results and i would want to pretend (for whatever reason) - it should be easy to do.
- people (as group of people) jump to conclusions really fast (which are very often wrong) and take actions based on those conclusions. I am guessing that this is similar mechanism to something like: "it is berry, it is red so it is edible." (which obviously is not always the case but saves thinking and decision time).
And it would not matter at all if there were no consequences behind results of such tests - but sadly as you point out in this article - there are.
Indeed, the online tests like the Levenson are definitely something that people can game to get the result that they want. Why some people consider it a "diagnosis" and then claim psychopathy is beyond me.
Interesting to hear. Long or short term con games? Did you use sympathy stories to gain people's trust in you to get them to more easily pay out? Just curious as last year I got talking with somebody on Discord/on a gaming community who told me (and others before me) she had terminal cancer and (yeah I know you advise others not to do this but for somebody like me it's far easier said than done) so initially I gave her some benefit of the doubt. Others mentioned she lied a lot, but I considered she might just be misunderstood. Over time though, I couldn't help but find certain things she said suspect. She never actually outright asked me for money, but did claim to be in a bad financial situation while living in a big house. I had to wonder at the time if the goal was to make me feel bad for her so I'd offer financial help (though I didn't)!
I did it when I was a teenager. It wasn't anything elaborate, but it was effective. I took advantage of men that would like to have me as a mate. I wasn't interested in that, but was always happy to have things given to me for the simple fact of my existence.
hey Athena!! Today you write "its my sub-stack"- LOL. So I went to substack.com:- It has ALL your prior posts!!! WoW!! Great to know! (I missed this post: Let's take a test)
How is SS for you? There are some Twitter people, now leaving, who are moving to SubStack.
On their bio, handle, they say "subscribe to my SubStack".
One of our friends, wrote today, he does not feel fear. Please don't answer for me: I asked "how would you know that?" But I mean: "How would I know that?"
Maybe I felt it a long time ago and just stopped feeling it? Certainly I experienced fear at some point?
I think maybe I just didn't like it and turned it down or off.
-smiles- Thanks for your great work. The things you bring up are really meaningful and important to so many of us.
It appears nicely positioned for more members: The big stars and journalists of Twitter seem to be fleeing: many of them here. I have very few Twitter followers, less than one thousand. But, if you want I can promote your sub-stack there? Others of us would too.
Perhaps you prefer to grow more organically? I don't really subscribe to any one else. Your material causes me to look at myself. That has to be the best things anyone (you) can do for anyone else (me). it is the type of thing I can't repay you for.
I know that I don't know what I don't know. There are plenty of things I cannot understand, and one of them that I have seen many times in my life is that everything happens the way it is supposed to. Why is that? No idea, maybe there are guardian angels, maybe there is a benevolent God, maybe we are characters in a video game, maybe this is a computer construct that we are all living in (which really just goes back to the "God" notion as that means that there is indeed a creator), or something else.
yes. A person may not "believe" <mental ascent> in God (god?) but it is entirely another thing to rule out possibilities, starting with these you present.
It appears you live your life with more faith than me. That makes me smile. I hope you find it interesting.
BTW: on fear: I've had nightmares: Certainly I felt the terror -scared 'shitless" and screaming.
Slightly off topic. Perhaps some of the confusion over psychopathy arises from the fact that there are neurotypicals with very low empathy: narcissists. Although I think it should be easy to distinguish the two, perhaps too much focus on empathy as the key distinguishing element causes confusion.
Yes, that is very true.
Narcissism is definitely 1 possible reason on why some neurotypicals have extra reasons. There are others though, I get the idea, as mentioned here: https://psychcentral.com/lib/why-do-some-people-lack-empathy#Causes-of-low-empathy
I think it is also important to remember that low empathy happens often in normal situations. It is why people can bully others in groups and no one thinks that there is anything wrong with it. Once normative humans have a target, their empathy often disappears.
Yes, and no amount of historical education about previous genocides seems to remove that from humanity. I just read more on the fresh mass graves in Ukraine.
People always think that they would never do something like that. It is someone else, someone evil, that did that terrible thing. When you point out that it wasn't one person, but an entire society that participated, they will just say something like, "they didn't know". Maybe true for some people, but most people know and either do nothing, or they participate.
Recently an intercepted call from a Russian woman to her husband was translated. She was telling him to rape as many Ukrainian woman that he wanted. Just use protection, and don't tell her about it. Amazing to me how many people assume that they are wonderful and good, but the moment the opportunity arrives they want to make strangers suffer. Even more amazing is that it was Russia that invaded a sovereign nation without provocation, and apparently some of the citizens of the country in the wrong want to make the victims suffer more at their hands.
Youch.
The Russian media (the only media left there now is state-controlled) are telling listeners all sorts of stuff, the Ukrainians are Nazis (in spite of their Jewish President), the Ukrainians were committing genocide upon Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine... lots more. Stuff to "justify" brutality, perhaps. It is a different society too though; I'm not an expert... one might say, the "social contract" is somewhat different from here and perhaps especially toward out-group members. Being part Polish, I read about Russia some. Excellent cakes! But anyhow, historically they did similar things to their neighbors. Here, people mostly need to see a darker skin color to attack, there they don't so much; Stalin was not the first. Again I'm not an expert.
Not that there aren't many similarities to what humans do in other nations! Including people in our own country. There's a lot of that polarization going on too, that can loosen people's inner restrictions on how they treat the "others". The connection is denied. Then the actual atrocities happen but are denied often too. Many people keep wanting to feel they are wonderful and good, as you say! One must justify stuff real hard then.
It seems that humans tend to be terrible to one another. It is better to put into the world what you want out of it, but many people seem to have yet to learn this lesson.
Very true.
Agreed, definitely easy to distinguish the two.
A lot of your responses were just straight up funny. I mean, not the content itself, but the deadpan way they were stated
Excellent
I any personality test worth taking?
The Levenson isn't dreadful. It's certainly not reliable for a diagnosis, but is all right otherwise.
So i did the Levenson out of curiosity.
"
Your score from primary psychopathy has been calculated as 2.3
Your score from secondary psychopathy has been calculated as 1.9
You score for primary psychopathy was higher than 57.99% of people who have taken this test.
You score for secondary psychopathy was higher than 20.5% of people who have taken this test.
"
After reading this article and overall your blog i think i start to understand why the concept of "testing" for psychopathy is so much flawed (or at least - really hard to do properly):
- there might be barrier of understanding and/or interpretation of the question.
- doing test today most likely will yeld different result that doing test some time later - it may depend on so many factors (mood, bad/good day, particular event that happened recently and many more).
- knowledge in this matter (and to some extent inteligence) may influence the results a lot. Some questions are just... obvious. Of course i tried to answer as acurate as possible (simply because i was curious) but this will happen only if I am interested in getting the results. If someone else is testing me for the results and i would want to pretend (for whatever reason) - it should be easy to do.
- people (as group of people) jump to conclusions really fast (which are very often wrong) and take actions based on those conclusions. I am guessing that this is similar mechanism to something like: "it is berry, it is red so it is edible." (which obviously is not always the case but saves thinking and decision time).
And it would not matter at all if there were no consequences behind results of such tests - but sadly as you point out in this article - there are.
As always - good reading - thanks.
Indeed, the online tests like the Levenson are definitely something that people can game to get the result that they want. Why some people consider it a "diagnosis" and then claim psychopathy is beyond me.
"34. I have conned people to get money from them.
Sure have."
Interesting to hear. Long or short term con games? Did you use sympathy stories to gain people's trust in you to get them to more easily pay out? Just curious as last year I got talking with somebody on Discord/on a gaming community who told me (and others before me) she had terminal cancer and (yeah I know you advise others not to do this but for somebody like me it's far easier said than done) so initially I gave her some benefit of the doubt. Others mentioned she lied a lot, but I considered she might just be misunderstood. Over time though, I couldn't help but find certain things she said suspect. She never actually outright asked me for money, but did claim to be in a bad financial situation while living in a big house. I had to wonder at the time if the goal was to make me feel bad for her so I'd offer financial help (though I didn't)!
I did it when I was a teenager. It wasn't anything elaborate, but it was effective. I took advantage of men that would like to have me as a mate. I wasn't interested in that, but was always happy to have things given to me for the simple fact of my existence.
hey Athena!! Today you write "its my sub-stack"- LOL. So I went to substack.com:- It has ALL your prior posts!!! WoW!! Great to know! (I missed this post: Let's take a test)
How is SS for you? There are some Twitter people, now leaving, who are moving to SubStack.
On their bio, handle, they say "subscribe to my SubStack".
One of our friends, wrote today, he does not feel fear. Please don't answer for me: I asked "how would you know that?" But I mean: "How would I know that?"
Maybe I felt it a long time ago and just stopped feeling it? Certainly I experienced fear at some point?
I think maybe I just didn't like it and turned it down or off.
-smiles- Thanks for your great work. The things you bring up are really meaningful and important to so many of us.
****
From Vanity Fair on the Blue Check Exodus:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/11/elon-musk-twitter-media-blue-check?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=VF_Hive_110422&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bea11e524c17c6adf1ccb65&cndid=54166745&hasha=b39e0588ae74e5ae0ea8c3625365fc53&hashb=9c151d02eecc801d98ef92b15b0399d89b3b6647&hashc=75b36e3d37493e4c26b6bf64b66e7ee1b1f122866e595d031f9bc575e70ff96d&esrc=hivenlpg&mbid=mbid%3DCRMVYF012019&source=EDT_VYF_NEWSLETTER_0_HIVE_ZZ&utm_campaign=VF_Hive_110422&utm_term=VYF_Hive
I like Substack, it's enjoyable.
It appears nicely positioned for more members: The big stars and journalists of Twitter seem to be fleeing: many of them here. I have very few Twitter followers, less than one thousand. But, if you want I can promote your sub-stack there? Others of us would too.
Perhaps you prefer to grow more organically? I don't really subscribe to any one else. Your material causes me to look at myself. That has to be the best things anyone (you) can do for anyone else (me). it is the type of thing I can't repay you for.
If you want to promote it, you have my blessing, but no pressure from me. I figure that my work is found when it is needed.
what a perfect answer!! "Found when needed" -smiles-
<There are love, hope and faith>
If I didn't know better, your answer seems an expression of faith!! Let me have my fantasy!! haha
I know that I don't know what I don't know. There are plenty of things I cannot understand, and one of them that I have seen many times in my life is that everything happens the way it is supposed to. Why is that? No idea, maybe there are guardian angels, maybe there is a benevolent God, maybe we are characters in a video game, maybe this is a computer construct that we are all living in (which really just goes back to the "God" notion as that means that there is indeed a creator), or something else.
yes. A person may not "believe" <mental ascent> in God (god?) but it is entirely another thing to rule out possibilities, starting with these you present.
It appears you live your life with more faith than me. That makes me smile. I hope you find it interesting.
BTW: on fear: I've had nightmares: Certainly I felt the terror -scared 'shitless" and screaming.