I think psychopaths are incredibly boring, unidemensional people who hopelessly, endlessly intellectualize and play mind games because there is no depth to them. It is only mind machinations without the depth and nuance of a fully feeling and emotionally alive human being. I had psychopathic parents and studied psychopathy as a PhD criminal forensic psycholovist encountering many serial killers, cons and the like. Why do they do what they do? It is no great mystery as I used to think. They dismember people psychologically and physically for the simple reason that they enjoy it. They derive pleasure from the destruction of victims to their power dominance orientation. They are boring stupid people who ate not the least bit interesting. They are pathetic. They choose people smaller and weaker than them that they can pick them off out of the herd of humanity. They are sad expressions of the human genome and dont deserve near the hype and fascination they get. Once you figure them out, it is very easy to remain quite detached from their mental gyrations to seduce and ensnare. It becomes annoying actually. I for one am over it. I do recommend that you not allow one at your hearth or into your bed. You will pay dearly. One cannot allow emotional involvement or any attachment to such people as a regular person is want to do with other humann beings. Get rid of them, they will destroy your mind, spirit and your life. Take it from one who knows from a very young age.
> I think psychopaths are incredibly boring, unidemensional people.
I met at least two. Both were extremely vivid people, and deeper contact with them, when they turn off their cloaking field, was baffling: it was a bit like communicating with an alien.
In any case, these people were really, really far from being dull.
Agree. It's a rocky ride to attempt closer contact with a psychopath: there's nobody home, and you discover eventually that you were relating to a 3-D, Technicolour magnified mirror more than to another human being. And, at the same time, the mirror is almost painfully alive. I never saw so well my own strengths and flaws, never had to doubt even the most basic assumptions like when in a 'friendship' with such people.
Those tho, were high functioning, highly educated people. I don't think that psychopathy tells the whole story about anyone - there's more to one's personality than psychopathy or absence of, and that one shouldn't be tempted to generalise such experiences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist, and before that, a very strong gut feeling. Too many things click together: the overall toxicity of a person, his desire to belittle / denigrate many people around him (a waitress in a cafe, contributors to an internet community project, a non-psychopath competitor etc.), his grandiose self-image (he literally designated himself as 'elite'), threats of violence and criminal leanings, always hogging the spotlight in social settings, "friendships" that change to enmity overnight, et cetera et cetera.
