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Psychopathic Criminals Have "Empathy Switch"

dryriver writes "Psychopaths do not lack empathy, rather they can switch it on at will, according to new research. Placed in a brain scanner, psychopathic criminals watched videos of one person hurting another and were asked to empathise with the individual in pain. Only when asked to imagine how the pain receiver felt did the area of the brain related to pain light up. Scientists, reporting in Brain, say their research explains how psychopaths can be both callous and charming. The team proposes that with the right training, it could be possible to help psychopaths activate their 'empathy switch', which could bring them a step closer to rehabilitation. Criminals with psychopathy characteristically show a reduced ability to empathise with others, including their victims. Evidence suggests they are also more likely to reoffend upon release than criminals without the psychiatric condition."

347 comments

  1. With the right training, huh? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Funny

    How about we hold their eyes open and force them to watch horrific, violent videos, preferably multiple at a time.

    1. Re:With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      They'll be cured all right.

    2. Re:With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, great movie.

    3. Re:With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      listening to Mozart, with eye drops in order that their eyes won't wither ? Sorry Dude, It's been already tried ...

    4. Re:With the right training, huh? by Immerman · · Score: 4, Informative

      Isn't the whole point the fact that they can turn off empathy/have it off as a default state? Without empathy what would be the point of horrific imagery other than discouraging them from turning it on, and maybe give them a thrill if they get off on violence?

      It seems to me the whole idea of "rehabilitation" here is shaky at best - as a general rule our society rewards psychopathy quite readily with power, wealth, and sex. So what's in it for the self-interested psychopath you want to rehabilitate? It may be that they can learn to "turn on" the switch for sustained periods to get themselves cleared as rehabilitated, but unless the switch were somehow magically locked in place why wouldn't they just "turn it off" again once they were free?

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    5. Re:With the right training, huh? by Type44Q · · Score: 3, Funny

      How about we hold their eyes open and force them to watch horrific, violent videos, preferably multiple at a time.

      I doubt that would've caused them to vote differently yesterday...

    6. Re:With the right training, huh? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      Drawing obvious parallels for humor isn't the same as making a cogent point. Chill.

    7. Re:With the right training, huh? by draconx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      listening to Mozart, with eye drops in order that their eyes won't wither ? Sorry Dude, It's been already tried ...

      Nobody's tried Mozart; only Ludwig van Beethoven.

    8. Re:With the right training, huh? by Githaron · · Score: 2

      That is what I was thinking. There are a lot of both emotional and logical reasons to turn the emotions back off. This is especially true if they have already killed, murdered, and/or raped people. Why feel guilty or sad when you don't have to?

    9. Re:With the right training, huh? by sribe · · Score: 1

      listening to Mozart, with eye drops in order that their eyes won't wither ? Sorry Dude, It's been already tried ...

      No it hasn't, Mozart would be much more soothing ;-)

    10. Re:With the right training, huh? by jason.sweet · · Score: 5, Funny

      Holy fuck YOU'RE dense. Were you born without the ability to comprehend humor?

      He probably switches it on and off at will.

    11. Re:With the right training, huh? by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      Indeed. We seem to have entire professions; like the legal system and upper management, dedicated to sociopathic individuals.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    12. Re:With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      psycho/socio paths are very chill.

      re-education experts have been dispatched to your location.

      please remove jewelry, shoes, belt, and wait in the foyer.

    13. Re: With the right training, huh? by MickLinux · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Nonetheless, empathy training does work.

      When one of my children got caught bullying -- and that is one psychopathic behavior that MANY practice -- I searched for the right response, and came up with a book called "Small criminals among us: how to recognize and change children's antisocial behavior, before they explode."

      The methods -- and there are multiple -- are all about empathy training.

      My experience? Between that, and allowing a heavy use of the (Catholic) confessional, and a focus on the Christian aspects, that child is much improved. The book was very helpful.

      --
      Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
    14. Re:With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what, ride of valkyries is wagner

    15. Re:With the right training, huh? by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      Because we also reward them with jail.

      Approaching the level of a psychopath is beneficial, crossing into is not (in general).

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    16. Re: With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nonetheless, empathy training does work.

      In your specific case. With a child. And accompanied by a lot of supernatural carrot/stick stuff.

    17. Re:With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If we cured all the criminals, the people running prisons would be out of a job.

    18. Re: With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      Shouldn't you have just taken him to the edge of town and stoned him?

    19. Re:With the right training, huh? by qbast · · Score: 2

      Because we also reward them with jail.

      Approaching the level of a psychopath is beneficial, getting caught crossing into is not (in general).

      FTFY

    20. Re: With the right training, huh? by Immerman · · Score: 2

      A fair point, and a good reason to further study empathy so it can be effectively promoted in our children and ourselves*. But I'm not sure how applicable it is to psychopathic criminals. It sounds like you used a behavior-modification technology backed by social and mythological indoctrination to help deflect a malleable still-forming mind onto a more empathic path. Fine, the tools and goals may change but that's what every culture does - children by and large accept our word on how the world works, so we can make up whatever damnfool story we want to try to shape them in a direction we want our society to go. But once a psychopathic mind has matured and acclimated to just how effective ruthlessly self-interested behavior masked behind a charming empathic personae is, then how do you propose to "inflict" empathy on them beyond what they find useful in the moment?

      * Though actually I worry about the flip side as well - how many governments in the world do you suppose would be tempted by the ability to install an empathic "off switch" in their military and police forces, and what atrocities would that enable? One would presume that the ability to manipulate that switch to inflict empathy on an unwilling psychopath would at the very least provide a great deal of foundational research on how to do the opposite as well. Heck, you could possibly even do the same thing to your entire populace - empathy seems to be linked to our ability to cooperate effectively, a psychopathic populace might be considerably easier to control.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    21. Re:With the right training, huh? by Immerman · · Score: 2

      But we don't - we only jail those psychopaths who (A) cross the line into violent crime, since white-collar crimes generally fund extremely effective legal defenses, and (B) get caught.

      And neither violence or stupidity are directly linked to psychopathy itself, though without empathy violent appetites may find more fertile ground than in most minds.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    22. Re:With the right training, huh? by AvitarX · · Score: 2

      We are only talking about the ones getting caught, right?

      And they are quite likely to get caught again right?

      That's how I read the summary at least.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    23. Re:With the right training, huh? by jythie · · Score: 1

      And part of the reason they hit that switch is there is significant social advantage to OTEHR people being empathic but the individual not. One thing that tends to get left out of discussions about psychopathy is that the vast majority of such people are not criminals or engage in illegal acts. They do tend to do pretty well in life though.

    24. Re: With the right training, huh? by Hatta · · Score: 0

      * Though actually I worry about the flip side as well - how many governments in the world do you suppose would be tempted by the ability to install an empathic "off switch" in their military and police forces, and what atrocities would that enable?

      All of them, and all of them. Dehumanization has been part of warfare since humans have existed.

      Heck, you could possibly even do the same thing to your entire populace - empathy seems to be linked to our ability to cooperate effectively, a psychopathic populace might be considerably easier to control.

      How else do you explain Republicans?

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    25. Re:With the right training, huh? by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Watch it? They live it!

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    26. Re: With the right training, huh? by Nyder · · Score: 0

      ... Between that, and allowing a heavy use of the (Catholic) confessional, and a focus on the Christian aspects, that child is much improved. The book was very helpful.

      Ya, nothing like a catholic priest to give some "empathy" your kid.

      But seriously, what the fuck does a Catholic confessional have to Christian aspects? The 2 are about as far as you can get from each other based on the same book.

      Oh, I get it. Christian aspects. "Spare the rod and spoil the child". So you are beating the bully out of your kid now in the name of god? That should go well.

      --
      Be seeing you...
    27. Re: With the right training, huh? by StormReaver · · Score: 1, Troll

      Between that, and allowing a heavy use of the (Catholic) confessional, and a focus on the Christian aspects, that child is much improved.

      So the cure for childhood bullying is to abuse the bullier into blind obedience?

    28. Re: With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. Deuteronomy 21:18-21, Proverbs 19:18.

    29. Re: With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How else do you explain Politicians?

      FTFY

    30. Re:With the right training, huh? by davester666 · · Score: 5, Funny

      So why don't we do that instead of electing them to public office or making them executives in the banking industry?

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    31. Re:With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or IRS Auditors or Democrats?

    32. Re: With the right training, huh? by sjames · · Score: 2

      They've been trying to turn off empathy in soldiers since forever. In recent decades they've gotten somewhat better at it, which is why more soldiers end up with PTSD once empathy reasserts itself.

      I wouldn't be too down on the church. For all it's faults, perhaps it's why we weren't overrun with psychopaths before and it's waning position in society may be why we have such a problem with corporate psychopathy now.

    33. Re:With the right training, huh? by sjames · · Score: 1

      The dumb ones get rewarded with jail. The smarter ones are rewarded with fat performance bonuses and a golden parachute. The very smartest ones are 'too big to jail'.

    34. Re:With the right training, huh? by ArhcAngel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You're missing the point. It's important that these scientists do the research because it provides a reason to beg for funding for the research. That is essentially the only possible benefit from this train of thought...

      While I am of the same cynical cloth you seem to be cut from there is the possibility they could discern what chemical process happens in the brain to turn it on and synthesize a serum that the psychopath would then be induced to take once released to prevent the switch from turning back off. I'm sure many pharmaceutical firms would fund that research.

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    35. Re:With the right training, huh? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So why don't we do that instead of electing them to public office or making them executives in the banking industry?

      Because there is evidence that psychopaths actually make better leaders. There was an article about this a couple months ago in the Economist. By ignoring the suffering of individuals, psychopaths are able to focus on bold action for the greater good. This is especially apparent in war time, where compassionate leaders are often dithering and indecisive, leading to a prolonged war and many more deaths and wounds than needed.

    36. Re:With the right training, huh? by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure (from the summary) it's not about those you speak of.

      Also, MOST of those people are the ones on the edge, but not fully into psychopathy.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    37. Re: With the right training, huh? by ImprovOmega · · Score: 1

      But I'm not sure how applicable it is to psychopathic criminals. It sounds like you used a behavior-modification technology backed by social and mythological indoctrination to help deflect a malleable still-forming mind onto a more empathic path.

      By the time they're actually full blown criminals, maybe it is too late. But it has been found that the incidence of psychopathy varies by culture. Some studies show as much as 4% of people in the United States, down to as little as about 0.5% in places like Thailand with a strong cultural bias against psychopathic behaviors. This study about it being a switch that can be turned on and off makes sense in that context. More psychopaths choose to leave it on in a society where there are strong negative consequences for having it off. In America we reward psychopathic behavior in business (sure you financially ruined thousands of lives, but here's a cool million as a bonus for cost saving!), and only truly come down on it when it involves direct violence against other people.

    38. Re: With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And then make him a priest. I only wish I were kidding; I've met that priest (many of them). Fits in with the (unsolicited) comment from a friend who had been physically abused all his childhood and then became a cop. When I asked why, he replied, "Now I'm the one with the stick."

    39. Re: With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cure your child of mental illness... with brainwashing!

    40. Re:With the right training, huh? by sjames · · Score: 1

      The summary and most of the talk about psychopaths focus on the first group, primarily because they have no money or power to speak of.

      The latter two groups are by far the more harmful (by orders of magnitude). Note that not everyone who has a golden parachute is a psychopath, but it is much more likely than for a random person picked out of a crowd.

    41. Re:With the right training, huh? by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      This is especially apparent in war time, where compassionate leaders are often dithering and indecisive, leading to a prolonged war and many more deaths and wounds than needed.

      The nuclear bombs at the end of WWII were unnecessary. They were merely a demonstration to the newly perceived threat of the USSR, rather than anything needed for winning the war in Japan, or the old canard of "saving allied lives".

      Give me the compassionate leader rather than the psychopath any day.

    42. Re: With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullying != a psychopath.

      Read any of the literature on psychopathy and you'll realize that it's almost universally accepted that it can't be cured. There's even a special school in Florida that takes in those children. Eventually the founders realized that all they really are is a holding pen.

      Psychopathy cannot be cured. Even if they can turn on empathy at will, it doesn't matter. The purpose of "always on" empathy is to provide a check against our rational self-interest. If it takes a rational decision to turn on empathy, it's useless. That same rational decision making process could be used to decide not to commit the crime in the first place--so that you won't get caught, etc. There are lots of psychopaths who aren't violent. The vast majority, in fact, aren't violent. Clearly the ones who are violent have other problems predisposing them to violence.

      The authors are basically saying that they can use free-will to check psychopathy. Please! How well is that working out for national obesity? The only way to control these things is by external socialization.

    43. Re:With the right training, huh? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      The nuclear bombs at the end of WWII were unnecessary.

      So we should have instead continued incinerating Japanese cities with conventional firebombs? That was killing far more people than the nukes. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, beginning on August 9th, also killed far more Japanese than the nukes. That might have been prevented if we had used the nukes a few weeks earlier.

      They were merely a demonstration to the newly perceived threat of the USSR

      How many lives were saved by sending a clear message to Joseph Stalin? The history of Manchuria, as well as Europe, might have been very different. Prior to the dropping of the nukes, Stalin was pushing for the Soviet Red Army to participate in the occupation of Japan, including Hokkaido and northern Honshu. That could have ended in a "north" and "south" Japan, just like we have today in Korea.

    44. Re:With the right training, huh? by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      Only if your 20/20 hindsight can discern that the Japanese threat continue the fight until no Japanese was left living to fight was nothing more than simple rhetoric. With the current internal debate in Japan about the direction their military might be going and the fears this invokes in the minds of some Japanese people today, I think the evidence is still there to say that it was not an empty threat. And, given the way the war was going, many more Japanese lives would have been lost than American had the fighting continued. Many more Japanese lives would have been lost by continuing the conventional war than were lost by dropping the bombs.

    45. Re: With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My experience? Between that, and allowing a heavy use of the (Catholic) confessional, and a focus on the Christian aspects, that child is much improved. The book was very helpful.

      Ah yes, Christianity.

      How could you correct a child if it wasn't for the Lord's true words? Without the Bible there is of course no hope and no morality.

      A pity you didn't have the strength within you to do your job as a parent without subjecting your offspring to the mental abuse of your religion.

    46. Re: With the right training, huh? by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      or John 8:7 but then you might have to actually learn exactly what Christ taught during his mortal life.

    47. Re: With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't be too down on the church. For all it's faults, perhaps it's why we weren't overrun with psychopaths before and it's waning position in society may be why we have such a problem with corporate psychopathy now.

      Yes, thank goodness for the church. Humanity would never have crawled out of the primordial soup were it not for the clear direction of the church, that bastion of morality and Humanity.

      So you look at the world today and the problems it faces and your conclusion is that we need MORE church? You even postulate that that the church has stemmed the tide of psychopaths that would have otherwise overwhelmed the sinful, sinful population of humans around the world?

      You are an absolute fucking moron.

    48. Re: With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, it's all about submission to a higher power.

    49. Re: With the right training, huh? by sjames · · Score: 1

      Says the Anonymous Coward who was apparently raised by wolves.

    50. Re:With the right training, huh? by godel_56 · · Score: 1

      The nuclear bombs at the end of WWII were unnecessary.

      So we should have instead continued incinerating Japanese cities with conventional firebombs? That was killing far more people than the nukes. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, beginning on August 9th, also killed far more Japanese than the nukes. That might have been prevented if we had used the nukes a few weeks earlier.

      They were merely a demonstration to the newly perceived threat of the USSR

      How many lives were saved by sending a clear message to Joseph Stalin? The history of Manchuria, as well as Europe, might have been very different. Prior to the dropping of the nukes, Stalin was pushing for the Soviet Red Army to participate in the occupation of Japan, including Hokkaido and northern Honshu. That could have ended in a "north" and "south" Japan, just like we have today in Korea.

      The second bomb was unnecessary as surrender talks were already underway. The sticking point was that the Japs wanted to retain their emperor whereas the US were demanding unconditional surrender. The US nuked Nagasaki then allowed them to retain the emperor anyway.

      Some believe people within the military just wanted to try out the plutonium bomb just to see if it would work. Remember that the first two nukes were technically simpler uranium designs.

      There was little need to demonstrate anything to the Russians as their network of spies had kept them fully informed of the work at Los Alamos

    51. Re:With the right training, huh? by Tom · · Score: 1

      Because our current political and economic culture selects for psychopaths. I've worked with top-level executives for years and I've seen what their jobs consist of. You more or less have to be a psychopath to be good at that and still be able to look at yourself in a mirror.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    52. Re:With the right training, huh? by david_thornley · · Score: 2

      Surrender talks were stalled, not underway. The Japanese hardliners had not yet decided to back off from their position (no change in government, Japan is not occupied, Japan tries its own war criminals, and Japanese troops are evacuated back to Japan by Japanese on a Japanese schedule). The US had already said that, if the Japanese people wanted to keep the Emperor, they'd keep the Emperor.

      The Trinity blast was plutonium. The US wasn't going to drop the first implosion bomb on the Japanese, since they weren't completely sure it'd work. The Hiroshima bomb was just "bash the uranium together", nice and simple. The military knew the plutonium implosion bomb would work before the Hiroshima drop. Remember also that "some believe" some pretty weird stuff.

      While Stalin was kept informed on the nuclear bomb program, the US didn't know this.

      However, while I have seen evidence that the Nagasaki bomb was instrumental in the Japanese surrender, and that the US dropped the bombs to force Japanese surrender, evidence for other speculations seems thin at best.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    53. Re:With the right training, huh? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Heck, as far as I can tell, more Chinese lives would have been lost by delaying the end of the war a month or two than were lost to the nukes. Let's not forget what was going on in China, Indochina, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    54. Re:With the right training, huh? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      The second bomb was unnecessary as surrender talks were already underway.

      This statement contradicts everything I have ever read or watched about WWII. There is no support for this on Wikipedia (which clearly states that the emperor interceded after the second nuke), or anywhere else that I can find. Do you have a citation for this claim that "surrender talks were already underway"?

      In July, the Japanese had tried to enlist the Soviets as an intermediary to negotiate an end to the war. But no talks were started because the Soviets were already making secret plans to abrogate the friendship pact and attack the Japanese in Manchuria and Sakhalin.

      Even after the second nuke, a majority of the Japanese cabinet supported continuing the war. In his memoirs, Mitsumasa Yonai, the Japanese naval minister and close adviser to the emperor, described the bombings as a "divine gift" because they gave the emperor a face saving way to end the war. He felt that otherwise the war would have otherwise dragged on, with disastrous consequences for the Japanese people.

    55. Re:With the right training, huh? by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      More like, with the right training, we can help them become much better....criminals.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    56. Re:With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Next story from the Economist: Only the best, most loving parents rape their children, and murder is often a good way to relieve stress.

    57. Re:With the right training, huh? by Macgrrl · · Score: 1

      Only if we play Beethoven at the same time.

      --
      Sara
      Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
    58. Re:With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But only when the tech support tells him to.

    59. Re: With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I went through something similar as a kid. It taught me to learn what responses people wanted and how best to fake it. And bullying is far from psychopathic, it's just kids fighting for dominance. It's not abnormal, it's human. Almost any kid with a spine who finds himself lower in the group will do whatever he can to get higher.

    60. Re:With the right training, huh? by Maritz · · Score: 1

      The music that makes him sick in that show is Beethoven's 9th, Ode to Joy.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    61. Re: With the right training, huh? by Maritz · · Score: 1

      From what I've read, psychopathy is neurological in nature. It's interesting (though utterly unproven as yet - one study only gets your so far) that they may be able to 'turn on' empathy but as others have said, what is their motivation to do so in our society?

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    62. Re: With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nonetheless, empathy training does work.

      When one of my children got caught bullying -- and that is one psychopathic behavior that MANY practice -- I searched for the right response, and came up with a book called "Small criminals among us: how to recognize and change children's antisocial behavior, before they explode."

      The methods -- and there are multiple -- are all about empathy training.

      My experience? Between that, and allowing a heavy use of the (Catholic) confessional, and a focus on the Christian aspects, that child is much improved. The book was very helpful.

      That is a problematic approach. You cannot diagnose a psychopath until adulthood because below that age they almost all show psychopathic traits. There is a question of how much is natural (genetics) and how much is environment (apparently you can make psychopaths).

      The problem with the term psychopath is it describes a scale not a state. Everyone is on the scale and there are violent people throughout, for varying reasons. Psychopaths are useful people who can do good or bad as much as the next person. They just suffer less conflict in their decisions.

    63. Re: With the right training, huh? by Maritz · · Score: 1

      I was about to reply and say more or less exactly this. The whole institution of the military and of military training is to override human empathetic instincts. Like Joker said in Full Metal Jacket: "The Marine Corps does not want robots. The Marine Corps wants killers. The Marine Corps wants to build indestructible men, men without fear." ;)

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    64. Re: With the right training, huh? by Maritz · · Score: 1

      And yet I find myself idly wondering just how many bishops, popes etc have been psychopaths down the centuries.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    65. Re: With the right training, huh? by Maritz · · Score: 1

      It could also be straight up natural selection at work. I suspect there's a complex interplay between altruism and selfishness. Though of course, it's not quite 'natural' selection as it's happening in the context of human culture/society.

      It's easy to see how selfishness (e.g. psychopathy) can work in favour of an individual in a highly altruistic/cooperative environment. And of course there could be severe penalties for being 'outed' as a bit of a bastard. In pre-historical societies I expect this ended badly for the accused; whether it results in death or exile.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    66. Re:With the right training, huh? by Maritz · · Score: 1

      It depends on your income level and the kind of collar on your neck. In politics and high level management it appears to be a fucking pre-requisite.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    67. Re:With the right training, huh? by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Most of them are smart enough not to do illegal stuff, in general. So it depends what you mean by 'getting caught'. They'll lie, manipulate people, marginalise people, etc - these are all perfectly acceptable behaviours from a law point of view, by and large.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    68. Re: With the right training, huh? by sjames · · Score: 1

      Possibly a few, but their damage limited by the structure they worked within.

    69. Re: With the right training, huh? by swalve · · Score: 1

      Based on my experience, nearly all kids start out with their empathy switch turned off. Part of raising children is teaching them how to empathize. Even if you watch animals raise their young, you can see the young ones testing out their strength and bullying abilities, and the mother or father animal has to swat them when they cross the line from play to meanness.

    70. Re:With the right training, huh? by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      So we should have instead continued incinerating Japanese cities with conventional firebombs? That was killing far more people than the nukes. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, beginning on August 9th, also killed far more Japanese than the nukes.

      Your analysis assumes that the number of people killed by those 2 nuclear bombs is the only important factor. Rather than realising a Pandora's box was opened. One which could have and may yet kill us all.

      How many lives were saved by sending a clear message to Joseph Stalin?

      Unknowable. And the number might have the opposite sign from what you assume.

    71. Re:With the right training, huh? by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Only if your 20/20 hindsight can discern that the Japanese threat continue the fight until no Japanese was left living to fight was nothing more than simple rhetoric.

      Not at all, Japan had offered to surrender months before the nuclear bombs under the condition they could keep their emperor. The US refused and called for an unconditional surrender. Then after the nuclear bombs and the unconditional surrender of the Japanese, they let them keep their emperor anyway. It was stupid waste of human life, and the opening of the nuclear Pandora's box - for nothing.

    72. Re:With the right training, huh? by Sabriel · · Score: 2

      Not this again. Psychopaths do not make better leaders, and they do not "focus on bold action for the greater good", because psychopaths don't have a greater good: by definition, they are antisocial, having "a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others". Any benefit to the greater good as a result of their actions is game theory in action, survival camouflage.

      Let's take the example given in that Economist article you cite: "there are five railway workmen in the path of a runaway carriage. The men will surely be killed unless the subject of the experiment, a bystander in the story, does something. The subject is told he is on a bridge over the tracks. Next to him is a big, heavy stranger. The subject is informed that his own body would be too light to stop the train, but that if he pushes the stranger onto the tracks, the stranger's large body will stop the train and save the five lives. That, unfortunately, would kill the stranger."

      The experiment exists in a metaphorical vacuum. In the real world, we have to consider the thought processes and context:

      Utilitarian: "what serves the greater good?"
      Psychopath: "what's in this for me?"

      That is why you don't want psychopaths as leaders - civilian or military - unless you like everyone being utterly expendable for someone else's personal aggrandisement. A utilitarian general will lose a winnable battle to save his country (sacrifice one to save five); a psychopathic general will win or lose the same battle based on which works out better for himself - the country being ruined doesn't matter so long as the increase of his own power is assured.

    73. Re:With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think studies actually agree with that, it's not a huge hindrance, but the most effective (as in personally successful) are close to, but not quite all the way sociopaths.

    74. Re:With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they should try d-lysergic acid diethylamide. "Mescaline and lysergic acid are drugs that disorganize the psychic integration of a person."
      the clinical stuff from the 1960's was not like the crap they have out now. back then, the good stuff DID change the way people thought. it's when a consciousness of ecology came into fashion and meat eating became frowned on. plainly said, it's why the flower children were so full of Love.
      NO wonder they made it illegal! can't have people going around Caring! that'd change everything wouldn't it? i.m.o. don't bother with the junk they call acid now-a-day, it's not the same stuff at all.

    75. Re:With the right training, huh? by zipn00b · · Score: 1

      And the movie was tame in comparison to the book..........

    76. Re:With the right training, huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like a sales job. Remember Custer at the Little Big Horn? That guy was Nucking Futs. Only someone without empathy could lead men into such a set up.
      I think it was the last major battle won by the Native Americans. Wiping out the buffalo and introducing smallpox wiped out way more than were killed in battle. Our history is a freak out.

    77. Re: With the right training, huh? by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      I'm all for believing in what you want to believe, but shouldn't religion be offered as a belief, and not a band-aid?

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    78. Re:With the right training, huh? by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      There's nothing wrong with being one, it's only a problem if you then do something society doesn't like.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    79. Re:With the right training, huh? by Andtalath · · Score: 1

      It saved a whole bunch of american lives.
      It might even have saved a bunch of Japanese ones as well since they weren't close to surrendering.

    80. Re:With the right training, huh? by Andtalath · · Score: 1

      Actually, associative conditioning is EXTREMELY effective.
      There is a whole branch of psychology entirely based on just tricking someone with pleasant experiences mixed with bad ones.

      Also, every victim of rape will have problems with sex due to it (some get over it, many don't).

      However, it only works against particular things.
      Learning a person to be moral through associative conditioning is possible, most people understand morals (even psycopaths, they just don't get why it's important), and through indoctrination you could probably learn a psycopath to feel bad about not following a particular set of morals.

      Rehabilitation isn't the right word though, that assumes a base level to return to.

    81. Re:With the right training, huh? by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      So was the propaganda of the time. And exaggerated in later years.

      The "not close to surrendering" is just plain false. They would have surrendered months earlier on condition that they could keep their emperor. It only continued on the American insistence that it must be an unconditional surrender. And then they let them keep their emperor anyway. A pointless waste of many thousands of lives.

  2. A Clockwork Orange by nicoleb_x · · Score: 2

    Where have we seen this before...

    1. Re:A Clockwork Orange by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you mean to imply that when a malchik viddies a baboochka getting the ol' in-out, that maybe some Ludwig Van would provide an appropriate soundtrack? (sorry, comment went off the rails, dystopic Rusglish is hard...)

  3. Sounds kind of like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A Clockwork Orange. Just strap them in and pry their eyes open.

    1. Re:Sounds kind of like... by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      Well, like shocking a kid with a cattle prod, who keeps slapping himself, it works. It's just considered unethical. At least they poked fun at both sides in A Clockwork Orange, unlike Cukoo's Nest.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  4. Would this training work... by NickDanger3rdEye · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...for politicians?

    1. Re:Would this training work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No, this still requires a somewhat functional brain.

    2. Re:Would this training work... by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They already know how to turn empathy on and off. When campaigning, turn empathy on. When legislating, turn empathy off.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    3. Re:Would this training work... by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      While I see this as a joke.

      The problem with Politicians and Empathy is that often they deal with issues that are more complex then the average Political internet ranter can rant about.

      For example: Tax the rich 90%. That sounds good to me, it should solve a lot of problems... However... if these people are taxed too much they will move to more tax friendly areas, move jobs out of the area, and in general make things worse in the long run. Trickle down doesn't work when you give the rich more money. But it does work if you take it away from them. Then you have issues of what should and shouldn't be tax exempt. If you say nothing is Tax exempt, then you go well what about donations to charity...

      Now the good Politician will actually try to find the right balance. But that takes smart people to work that out. Politicians are People-People, they are actually not so good about thinking but dealing with people. So chances are they will stick with the party lines, where the party may support the science that only backs up their main line.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    4. Re:Would this training work... by Digital+Vomit · · Score: 4, Informative

      For example: Tax the rich 90%. That sounds good to me, it should solve a lot of problems... However... if these people are taxed too much they will move to more tax friendly areas, move jobs out of the area, and in general make things worse in the long run.

      Funny...that's exactly what happened after we reduced the tax burden from the rich down from 90%.

      I was going to say you sound like you've fallen for some propaganda, but then you said the following and now I don't think you know what you're talking about at all:

      Trickle down doesn't work when you give the rich more money. But it does work if you take it away from them.

      Trickle-down economic policies don't work, but they do work when you don't implement them???

      --
      Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
    5. Re:Would this training work... by internerdj · · Score: 2

      For the constitutional scholars libertarians profess to be; they seem to regularly forget the difference between taxation and governmental theft that led to the constitutional protections of personal property from seizure by the government.

    6. Re:Would this training work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Retar... I mean, Republican, huh? And I'll bet you're not one of the high earning taker assholes, you're one of the sheeple tricked into voting against their own interests by red meat issues.

      Posted as AC because I don't want you following me home.

    7. Re:Would this training work... by Firethorn · · Score: 2

      Funny...that's exactly what happened after we reduced the tax burden from the rich down from 90%.

      Only because during the time that the tax rate was 90% there was not only far more exemptions, so nobody actually paid 90%, but we were effectively a closed economy - You couldn't just move somewhere else and maintain(most) of your wealth.

      With the development of alternate economies, globalization, etc... Moving your wealth is easier than ever, so reducing the tax rates works to slow the bleed, if not completely stop it.

      Personally, I'd settle for a flat tax system. With the current tax system the ultra-rich($10M+) end up paying a lower percentage than the upper middle class (~$100k), thus at high levels our tax system is actually regressive. My fix would be simple: Make some rules about leveling capital gains, and tax progressively using the same scale we use for earned income.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
    8. Re:Would this training work... by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As long as you make sure that gone is gone, that is, they don't get to leave and still do business here, the vacuum left by their departure becomes an economic opportunity for the rest. It's not as if these people are the only ones who possess the ability to run a business and employ people.

    9. Re:Would this training work... by ultranova · · Score: 1

      When campaigning, turn empathy on. When legislating, turn empathy off.

      That's not quite fair. Politicians have plenty of empathy, it's just directed at the poor, struggling megacorporations and ultra-rich.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    10. Re:Would this training work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "For example: Tax the rich 90%. That sounds good to me, it should solve a lot of problems..."

      And will create a lot of them too.

      90% tax means basically that people are slaves of government, government has all the money, the monopoly over capital spending, the monopoly in pensions(you need to save for your own retirement and yo are "rich" by the way). Only government has capital, so monopoly in jobs creation and destruction.

      I lived that in a Soviet Union satellite and was HELL. You disagree with the government on ANYTHING, your brother, son or mother will have worse jobs as the gobertment has the monopoly over them, so nobody will risk anything.

      You will see society going backwards and could do nothing.
      Everybody was rich them, when the gobertment wanted to take their possessions. There was not limit what the gobertment wanted to take for you as things got worse.

      It seems odd that kids that lived in freedom all their lives(free to own property, freedom of capital, freedom of expression) are willing to lost it, only because they believe "rich is everybody else, every body else pay for me, I won't pay anything".

    11. Re:Would this training work... by khallow · · Score: 1

      Trickle-down economic policies don't work, but they do work when you don't implement them???

      It's a well known aspect of designing in engineering. I'm used to the phenomenon in space industry. For example, the Ares I rocket (which was part of the mid 2000s NASA program called Constellation) was determined to be the best possible approach. They even cheated on some of the criteria in order that the correct choice be chosen.

      Nine billion dollars and one launch of a stunted prototype later, they dropped the whole thing. The paper rocket flew great, the real rocket not at all.

      While the original poster may have some other idea in mind when he typed those words, my experience has been that ideas unblemished by any exposure to the real world work great.

    12. Re:Would this training work... by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      But you lived in a backwards country... We in America are so much smarter than you backwards East Europeans that we will implement it properly.

    13. Re:Would this training work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Moving your wealth is easier than ever": only because of the illegal complicity of the big banks, like Credit Suisse, of accountants, lawyers, etc.. It should be easy to break up. If you make tax evasion a crime, then only criminals will practice tax evasion. That's as it should be.

    14. Re:Would this training work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Turning empathy off when legislating can be a good thing. Otherwise all horrible "save the children" and "god protect us from terrorists" bullshit laws which don't help anyone get passed without a rational critical thought.

    15. Re:Would this training work... by Firethorn · · Score: 1

      Because the AC misunderstood: All actions I referred to are technically 100% legal. There are illegal methods available, but with the assistance of lawyers and accountants it's possible to move yourself AND your wealth to another country 100% legally excepting the occasional paperwork snafu that's the equivalent of 'Your handrail is 1/2" too high/too low".

      I tend to use the terms "Tax Evasion" to mean illegally evading taxes, with "Tax Avoidance" to be the completely legal equivalent, deliberately shaping your income/investments to minimize tax liability.

      In the USA you don't actually have that much wealth transfer to avoid taxes because 15% is already far lower than most of the rest of the world. There's some evasion, of course, but with the cracking of the Swiss they've lost a major shelter.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
  5. There's only one empathy switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It turns on the electric chair.

    1. Re:There's only one empathy switch by OakDragon · · Score: 1, Funny

      It turns on the electric chair.

      I first read this as "It turns on the electric car ." ... I thought "This must be the most bizarre thread derailing to environmental feel-goodism I've ever seen." Then I remembered this is Slashdot.

    2. Re:There's only one empathy switch by Gilmoure · · Score: 2

      It recycles or it gets the hose!

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
  6. Worth the investment and risk? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    So, you have someone with a high degree of risk to reoffend. I have three options:

    1) Terminate. I don't believe this has a place in today's society. Most expensive option given our appeals process. Highest safety for public
    2) Treat and release. High expense with dubious benefit and high probability of re-entering the prison system. High risk for public.
    3) Keep in a cell for life. Not quite as high expense. Safe for public.

    Which option is the best?

    1. Re:Worth the investment and risk? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Perhaps offer affordable mental heathcare to people?

    2. Re:Worth the investment and risk? by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 1

      There is no known treatment for Psychopathy. It may not even be a mental illness. It not something that can be fixed by throwing doctors at it.

    3. Re:Worth the investment and risk? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Psychopaths with modpoints angry that you suggested they shouldn't just go around killing people to make themselves feel good.

    4. Re:Worth the investment and risk? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The last sentence is not a statement that anyone is qualified to make.
      The first seems like you're trying to say retraining psychopaths to use more empathy is pointless because "There is no known treatment for Psychopathy." Whereas this would be an attempt to make that statement not true.

  7. normal people can probably do it too by iggymanz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    kind and good normal people have been known to turn it off under certain conditions, too fight or defend against that which they believe "evil"

    maybe studying that reaction could help with the psychopath problem

    1. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So there's hope for those of us who suffer from too much empathy?

    2. Re:normal people can probably do it too by quenda · · Score: 0

      kind and good normal people have been known to turn it off under certain conditions, too fight or defend against that which they believe "evil"

      Anders Breivik ?

    3. Re:normal people can probably do it too by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 1

      One can sympathize with the victims of one's actions, and yet still consider the actions to be necessary to prevent a greater harm.

    4. Re:normal people can probably do it too by RCL · · Score: 1

      Maybe normal people just have that switch broken - the same way as we lost controls over our ears :)

    5. Re:normal people can probably do it too by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      kind and good normal people have been known to turn it off under certain conditions

      the euphemism is "political sophistication".

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    6. Re:normal people can probably do it too by RCL · · Score: 1

      Well, uncontrollable empathy sounds dangerous. E.g. people who survived the war tend to be ones who were the meanest, not ones who had the most empathy towards their enemy (my personal impression after reading war veteran memoirs). Granted, war - which is "race to the bottom" empathy-wise - is not considered to be a "normal" condition anywhere except Freeciv...

    7. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      kind and good normal people have been known to turn it off under certain conditions, too fight or defend against that which they believe "evil"

      maybe studying that reaction could help with the psychopath problem

      +1
      A brilliant, inspired post. You sir are seeing reality as it is! Empathy must indeed be a switchable feature. Explains how concentration camp folk could throw babies into the ovens, to name just one example.

    8. Re:normal people can probably do it too by buchner.johannes · · Score: 1

      It starts by de-humanising people by calling them something inferior (cockroaches, rats, ...), and scapegoating. Then you don't emphasize with how they are treated and their suffering, because they are not like you, and probably deserve it.
      Be aware if you want to prevent the next Holocaust ...

      --
      NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
    9. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mmm. You think? I bet empathy is binary: on or off.

    10. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      war - which is "race to the bottom" empathy-wise - is not considered to be a "normal" condition anywhere except Freeciv...

      And Washington, DC

    11. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's probably more of a battle between human nature (empathy) and the propaganda they've been taught their entire lives (the "us vs. them" or "team" mentality which is the first prerequisite of all war). Human nature tells them it's wrong to kill a non-aggressor, but authority tells them that there are only winning teams and losing teams, and that every individual must be on one.

      After all, if a normal (sane) soldier truly views a non-aggressor as independent of any team, then he could not bring himself to kill that individual. The killing is justified by assuming that individuality is impossible, and that only teams exist, just as the propaganda teaches him.

    12. Re:normal people can probably do it too by DigitalReverend · · Score: 2

      The difference is that for "normal" people the default position for the switch is on and it requires effort to turn it off.

      For psychopaths, the default switch is off and it requires effort to turn it on.

      --
      I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
    13. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So there's hope for those of us who suffer from too much empathy?

      Yep! It's called "being inevitably backstabbed by someone to whom you showed empathy"! I know it worked for me!

      Several times!

      By numerous people.

      Numerous... hurtful people.

      Painfully.

      Painfully.

      But now all that pesky empathy's been replaced by bitterness and cynicism, as well as deep personal regret that I ever trusted anyone in my life in the first place! Now I have all sorts of time available to plot my entirely justified "gratitude" towards those same people for the opportunity they gave me to remove that useless part of my brain! Hooray!

    14. Re:normal people can probably do it too by nine-times · · Score: 1

      Good point. It seems like we must all have the ability to empathize, or else we couldn't understand anyone's motives. We must also have the ability to turn it off, or we would be constantly overwhelmed by empathy, and I would suppose we'd be much less violent.

      It seems like, in a general way, we sort of divide people into "us" and "them", feeling empathy for "us" and not so much for "them". Maybe psychopaths are just very restrictive in who they include in "us"?

    15. Re:normal people can probably do it too by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think this is mainly to do with tribalism, which is a very very ancient set of instincts (we share them to a large degree with the other apes, just look at how chimp tribes behave towards each other). People are built to fit themselves into kin groups, which works pretty well when you're talking about relative small societies of a hundred or a few thousand individuals. Essentially it is an "us vs. them", "friend vs. stranger" recognition system.

      If someone is seen as a stranger, they are a potential threat, and actions can be taken against them that one would not take against a member of one's own kin group or society (this is why murder of a relative or close friend is still seen in most societies as a much higher crime than murder of a stranger or an acquaintance). Through the ages demagogues have been able to manipulate this basic tribal instinct to group people based upon relationship to further all sorts of atrocities. Whether it's persecution, exile, slavery or genocide, once you've convinced a populace that your desired target group is somehow alien, you can convince that populace to do almost anything.

      It's as the old story goes (and time for the Godwin); Hitler convinced an entire nation made of up people who adhered to a religion whose basic tenet was "love thy brother" that persecution and ultimately murder of millions of members of ethnic groups (Jews and Roma in particular) was perfectly fine, and yet even Hitler was a vegetarian who loved his dogs.

      Whether this "empathy switch" in psychopaths is related to that I don't know. Obviously even in normal people there is a way to trigger the dehumanizing of groups if they can be convinced that they are alien threats. Mind you even look like genocides like the Jewish Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide, there was long standing prejudice and mistrust against the targeted group, so it's not as if appeared out of nowhere.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    16. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean - what one has convinced oneself would be a greater harm in order to justify that which one fully intended to do anyway

    17. Re:normal people can probably do it too by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      Breivik had convinced himself (well really, it seemed that a small group of far right wing whackos of which Breivik was the most extreme member) that socialists and leftists had sold out Europe and that the only way to save the situation was to commit an atrocity against innocents which would, somehow, spark a holy war in which Christian Europe threw out all the Muslims. I would also reference Timothy McVeigh, another individual who managed to desensitize himself and allow himself to be able to commit mass murder.

      Again, I don't know whether this is related to the alleged "empathy switch" in sociopaths or not. It's also possible that Breivik and McVeigh were themselves sociopaths who masked their pathologies under the guise of extremist beliefs. But I tend to believe that, whatever their psychological issues, they were not sociopaths. In both cases they seemed to genuinely believe what they were doing was for the greater good (in McVeigh's case, it was in part revenge for the Branch Dividian disaster in Wako, suggesting that he empathized with Koresh and his followers a great deal).

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    18. Re:normal people can probably do it too by davidwr · · Score: 1

      One can sympathize with the victims of one's actions, and yet still consider the actions to be necessary to prevent a greater harm.

      True, but for some it's emotionally easier to de-humanize or otherwise stop empathizing whoever you are hurting.

      The witness testifying against an alleged murderer may think "I'm sorry I have to testify against you, but telling the truth and ensuring justice is done is for the greater good even if it means you will get life in prison" or he may think "you worthless scum, I hope you never see daylight again." In the short term at least, the second reaction probably takes less mental effort.

      --
      Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    19. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Time_Ngler · · Score: 0

      Your situation is one of the few where I think seeing a therapist is a good idea.

    20. Re:normal people can probably do it too by hazah · · Score: 0

      Seek therapy. Now.

    21. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. The "us vs. them" or team mentality is a primitive instinct which (as coercive authority discovered thousands of years ago) is easy to exploit. Soldiers don't need to be convinced that killing is right. They merely need to be convinced that individuality is impossible, and only teams exist.

    22. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Granted, war - which is "race to the bottom" empathy-wise - is not considered to be a "normal" condition anywhere except Freeciv...

      It is considered normal condition on Freeciv? Then I must have played the game wrong. I usually win by avoiding war, concentrating on research, and getting a space ship up.

      Granted, were the AI a bit more intelligent, it would wipe me from the map as soon as I start building a space ship. It's not as if my defence was very strong to begin with ...

    23. Re:normal people can probably do it too by mevets · · Score: 1

      Do not stop on your quest. It looks like there are a few more useless bits to ferret out.

    24. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Bengie · · Score: 1

      I just read something that talked about violence among tribes and on average, intra-tribal violence was about 400% higher than inter-tribal. Turns out war and fighting is a very uncommon state between tribes, but shows up commonly with larger societies.

    25. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quote I read someplace from a World War II era American Army basic training drill instructor: "You can make an 18 year old kill. You can make a 28 year old kill, but you can't make him like it."

    26. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      I'll assume you have at some point seen some videos of factory farms. Do you eat meat? I think the typical person has no trouble turning off their empathy towards animals, but if asked to imagine the pain the animals feel, then ey could probably get some extra parts of eir brain to light up.

    27. Re:normal people can probably do it too by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      many of my relatives are in agriculture; have been to slaughterhouses and meat packing plants and of course even seen farm animals killed in the back yard for dinner. Besides I've gone hunting myself, and for example shot, gutted and chopped up Bambi's long-eyelashed mother (protip: Doe meat tastes better)

      I still love steak, bacon, poultry, sausages, etc.

    28. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Prune · · Score: 1

      Citation needed.

      --
      "Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
    29. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's as the old story goes (and time for the Godwin); Hitler convinced an entire nation made of up people who adhered to a religion whose basic tenet was "love thy brother" that persecution and ultimately murder of millions of members of ethnic groups (Jews and Roma in particular) was perfectly fine, and yet even Hitler was a vegetarian who loved his dogs.

      Not an entire nation, no. And even if you discount the Resistance, I'd say quite a few Germans regarded Hitler's anti-Semitism with something between indifference and repugnance. I'd venture to guess that most Germans were a lot closer to Albert Speer than Heinrich Himmler.

      (Whether that obviates their collective guilt in any way is another, entirely different story, of course...)

    30. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      Therapists will only make that kind of a problem worse. The goal of most therapists is to make people feel better. Even if that is feeling better about being cruel destructive sociopaths.

    31. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's time to acknowledge that what we call "psychopaths" are far more widespread than has ever been officially recognized. They're not some kind of deviants - they're an alternative version of normal. It's curious that we've come so far in accepting different races, and gays, but we still attach this stigma to people whose minds work slightly differently in the 'empathy' dimension.

      Of course there are good reasons for that - psychopaths, if unrecognized, are bloody dangerous. But what if we encouraged them to come out of the closet? There are lots of jobs in our society that are far better done by psychopaths than by regular people. Insurance investigators, for instance. Actuaries. Coroners. Political analysts. Border security guards. The military needs a certain percentage of psychopaths, because who else would ever be willing to launch a nuclear weapon? Industry needs a proportion of them, because they can fire people like no-one else, and that's a valuable skill.

      So let's stop labelling them as monsters, and acknowledge them as people. And put them to work.

    32. Re:normal people can probably do it too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Basically, you are arguing that there isn't one empathy switch, but there is an empathy filter or empathy mask. That layer of perception is saturable too. Empathy wears out when it is asserted too many times in short period. There are numerous examples among military and medical personnel, clergy, farmers, ... even Mother Theresa.

      I'd even venture into speculation and hypothesize that there could be a single "empathy burn-out" event in early formation of each "natural born" psychopath, perhaps being given sympathy-inducing fiction content, "for kids", but inappropriate for their specific age at the time. It is like some people are given strong order to suck it up and stay that way indefinitely. Perhaps they loath their own empathy and fight it by performing sadistic experiments until they shut it down completely. It leaves them devoid of a major supply of dopamine (making others happy and receiving some of their happiness through empathy) normal people possess so they turn to indulging themselves to make up for the deficiency.

      captcha: maniacal

    33. Re:normal people can probably do it too by RivenAleem · · Score: 1

      I have always thought that Psychopathy was a necessary element in our society. You need that person who cool look objectively and see that person X is bad for their society, and cave his skull in. It also would suggest why we don't mind so many psychopaths running our businesses and country. We still believe that they are the type of people we need running the society.

    34. Re:normal people can probably do it too by cavebison · · Score: 1

      kind and good normal people have been known to turn it off under certain conditions, too fight or defend against that which they believe "evil"

      Why is a statement like that, without any citation, modded 5 Interesting?

      My guess is they don't switch it off, they just defer it and suffer for it afterwards. I'll wager there's more evidence for that in the armed forces than being able to turn empathy off. Even in the Milgram Experiment, which is often spoken of as evidence of the "inner psycho" in everyone, the participants - half of whom "killed" their human subjects - were very disturbed afterwards, troubled by dreams, some weeping by the end.

      I saw an interesting doco following up of the participants, can't remember what it was called. They all spoke of how deeply it affected them. Some to the point of seeking help, one was inspired to study psychology I think. Those aren't the reactions of people who "turn off empathy".

  8. In the light of this and the latest episodes... by pep939 · · Score: 1

    Puts a new perspective on Dexter's character, I guess.

    1. Re:In the light of this and the latest episodes... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Dude, spoiler alert!

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:In the light of this and the latest episodes... by kannibal_klown · · Score: 1

      Not really.

      Even in prior seasons users have commented that Dexter has changed and was starting to demonstrate empathy.

      As opposed to the Pilot, where he says his beard-girlfriend appears to have feelings for him and he casually says "I think that's nice" but otherwise doesn't care.

      Then later seasons, he emotes more.

      And NOW the shrink is commenting on it.

  9. knowledge is power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Conversely, knowing there's an empathy 'switch' ...non psycopaths may seek to engage it so that they can find the strength to carry out their will.

    1. Re:knowledge is power by somersault · · Score: 2

      I've read before that people who seem without empathy, sometimes are actually naturally very highly empathetic - they have just learned to turn it off as a defence mechanism.

      I've wondered that about myself sometimes. Sometimes I let myself get absurdly upset over things that hurt people (or animals) that I don't even know. Sometimes even just from pain that fictional characters are experiencing. But sometimes I ust get burned out and don't care any more.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    2. Re:knowledge is power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But sometimes I ust get burned out and don't care any more.

      5 minutes of reading a certain technically-oriented web site tends to do that.

      *Cue rimshot.*

  10. "they can switch it on at will" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is it possible that they can simply pretend to experience empathy, to the point where the scanner is fooled?

    Various 'areas of the brain lighting up' are bandied around as though there were a precisely determined one-to-one mapping between this and individual thoughts, somehow I think it might be more complicated than that.

    1. Re:"they can switch it on at will" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TFA covers that:

      "It's dangerous to look at brain activation and say that it means they're empathising. They are able to generate a typical neural response, but that doesn't mean they have the same empathetic experience," Prof Viding told BBC News.

    2. Re:"they can switch it on at will" by swalve · · Score: 1

      Isn't all empathy pretend? One imagines what the other person is feeling, the same way they imagine anything else. The difference is whether they let it control their actions. I've always thought the empathy definition of psychopathy was flawed. It seems too simple, almost as dumb as "they hate our freedoms", to imagine that the only problem with psychopaths/sociopaths is that they don't have the capacity to care.

  11. How would you know by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 1

    How would you know if they have been rehabilitated? If they can control it at will then they can just turn it on in the sessions. When they are out of prison they can go back to living how they want.

    1. Re:How would you know by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, if they don't want to go back to their seat in congress after the treatment, they're better.

    2. Re:How would you know by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      Exactly. But then the fluffy rehabilitation brigade are pathalogically wedded to their arrogant almost religious belief that everyone is a good person at heart and can be rehabilitated given the right circumstances. They simply won't accept that some people are born evil and need to be locked up for life or executed for the safety of the public. And many people have paid the price for that arrogance.

    3. Re:How would you know by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      They simply won't accept that some people are born evil and need to be locked up for life or executed for the safety of the public.

      That's hardly the majority of those incarcerated, however. In fact, the kind of person you're talking about is the dominant lifeform in charge of the very system that we're supposed to be able to rely on to deal with them! How effective...

    4. Re:How would you know by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They simply won't accept that some people are born evil and need to be locked up for life or executed for the safety of the public. And many people have paid the price for that arrogance.

      You dismiss religious absolutism, but you're willing to accept the idea of someone being unavoidably "evil"? Do you realize how subjective that is? How hypocritical? Not everyone who disagrees with you does so because they are incapable of compromise, sometimes it's because you are.

    5. Re:How would you know by omnichad · · Score: 0

      But it is the majority of incarcerated psychopaths. But I thought that sociopaths were the ones that had no empathy. Psychopaths just have no remorse.

    6. Re:How would you know by Type44Q · · Score: 0

      Unless I'm mistaken, psychopaths are psychotic sociopaths.

    7. Re:How would you know by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 1

      Let's not get hung up on nature vs nurture vs God's will. There are people, often easily identified at a young age, who are widely known to be trouble and nobody is surprised when they rape/rob/kill others. Whether it was nature, nurture, or God's will is beside the point. The point is that for whatever reason they commit terrible crimes. One can acknowledge that they are simply incapable of ever not hurting others when it suits their needs. Get rid of them. If you aren't willing to kill them find a cheaper way to implement life in prison. But get them out of society for the rest of our sake. I'm reminded of this nature video where a group of bison isolated a wolf and had him surrounded. Now wolves will kill young bison, but rather than kill the wolf they let him go. That is stupid behavior yet we see our society do it time and time again. So few bad apples make for so much trouble. We need to get better at removing them.

    8. Re:How would you know by dkleinsc · · Score: 2

      How would you know if they have been rehabilitated?

      That's easy: Make them sit on the Group W bench and fill out a form with the following words:
      "KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?"

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    9. Re:How would you know by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And, we've discovered that certain kinds intervention before age 18 is really effective at decreasing crime rates among these people. And notably, in spite of the fact that we have all these awesome criteria, less than 10% of those who meet our best criteria ever really do anything wrong. NOVA had a fascinating documentary about it. (I'm at work and can't verify that's the right video). If we could trivially split people into categories of "future murderer" and "non-murderer" it wouldmake life easier, but we cannot.

    10. Re:How would you know by DexterIsADog · · Score: 1

      Much better than the Clockwork Orange reference! Mod parent up!

    11. Re:How would you know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Alice's Restaurant?

    12. Re:How would you know by rwise2112 · · Score: 1

      That's easy: Make them sit on the Group W bench and fill out a form with the following words: "KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?"

      What? With the mother rapers, father stabbers and father rapers! That's just cruel!

      --

      "For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
    13. Re:How would you know by sjames · · Score: 1

      Then there's those who just enjoy the idea of punishing someone. Anyone. They seem to be running the prisons today. They would have us believe that even someone who got caught with a little too much weed in his pocket is public enemy number 1 and if he ever gets out of the system he'll become the next Hitler.

    14. Re:How would you know by Capt.DrumkenBum · · Score: 1

      "KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?"

      You have a lot of damn gall to ask me if I have rehabilitated myself!

      --
      If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
    15. Re:How would you know by Xaedalus · · Score: 1

      What happens when that bad person is your own son/daughter? Or brother/sister? I can see making the decision for aunts/uncles/cousins/etc, but I've read some harrowing blog entries about families with a sociopathic child and the terror those people endure. They love their child, they know they're raising a monster, and they're caught between love and necessity. It's a horrible place to be, and most of them err on giving their child the benefit of the doubt. Because otherwise, they'd have to condemn their child to a living hell... and very few people have the stomach for it.

      --
      Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
    16. Re:How would you know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like you might be a fan of Eugenics.

    17. Re:How would you know by swalve · · Score: 1

      And interestingly, neither of those is an actual psychiatric diagnosis.

    18. Re:How would you know by swalve · · Score: 1

      Giving these little shits the benefit of the doubt is what creates them. Teach the little 3 year old that he just has to do something cute and charming to get out of trouble, and guess what, you've raised a future bad actor in society.

  12. why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why would anyone ever voluntarily suffer on behalf of another?

    1. Re:why? by dj245 · · Score: 1

      Why would anyone ever voluntarily suffer on behalf of another?

      That is a question that hundreds of very smart people have studied for at least a 150 years. In fact, Charles Darwin struggled with it because it was a big hole in his theories. And it is not limited to humans or even mammals.

      The simple answer is that it always seems to benefit the individual, somehow.

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
    2. Re:why? by njnnja · · Score: 1

      Human nature? Free will?

      Human behavior is complex enough that our current state-of-the art is not sufficient to fully measure or model it from a reductionist viewpoint. And yet holistic explanations based on simple observation have proven fairly successful over the centuries. I don't mean to be flippant, but you will get a better understanding of the motivations of man from great literature than you will from science and economic textbooks (and this is likely to be the case for another hundred years or so).

    3. Re:why? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      And yet holistic explanations based on simple observation have proven fairly successful over the centuries.

      You call them "explanations", but are they really explanations in the same way that a successful "reductionist" model would be?

      but you will get a better understanding of the motivations of man from great literature than you will from science and economic textbooks

      You get case studies from great literature. What they mean is something else entirely.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    4. Re:why? by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Not a parent, are you? Probably never had a girlfriend either.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    5. Re:why? by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The answer is, populations with the compulsion to sacrifice themselves on behalf of the group are more likely to reproduce themselves and abide, while populations without this compulsion are more likely to see their population decline and cease to exist.

      The existence of human beings is a testament to this. We, ourselves, are a culture of cells that work together and sacrifice themselves for the good of the culture. When they stop doing so, the composite being that we are dies, and ALL the cells that make us up also die.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    6. Re:why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ever heard of a little thing called love?

    7. Re:why? by Digital+Vomit · · Score: 4, Informative

      Because that sort of behavior has evolutionary advantages for the species.

      --
      Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
    8. Re:why? by steelfood · · Score: 1

      Enlightenment.

      No, seriously.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    9. Re:why? by Bengie · · Score: 1

      What we see as illness in an individual and seems a bad survival trade, is sometimes a good survival trait for the entire DNA family. You can't look at a person as ask how it benefits their DNA's propagation, but how their DNA may help the DNA of their blood relatives propagate.

    10. Re:why? by timeOday · · Score: 1
      Amplifying your point, read Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. (It's not about some gene that makes people selfish). It makes the case that the basic unit of evolution is a gene - not one copy of the gene, or even 10^14 copies living together (a human), but rather the information content of the gene.

      Like you said, destroying a few copies of a gene in the process of making many more is a net gain.

    11. Re:why? by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      Because we're social creatures. A single human, even with a crude club or spear, would quickly get eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. A bunch of humans, working together, would kill and eat the tiger.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    12. Re:why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      because suffering makes you stronger. You want to be strong don't you?

    13. Re:why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hilarious. My god, the irony.
      A Slashdot sociopath unable to understand why anybody would suffer on behalf of another - just incredible...

      Watch this, it might make you cry (ooh, scary!):

      The Joy Of Giving : Narayanan Krishnan at TEDxGateway
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WPOEXZNEgg

       

    14. Re: why? by quantaman · · Score: 1

      Populations can compel sacrifice through social means but I don't think there's really a genetic mechanism, from what I understand group selection just isn't that good.

      There's a powerful motivation for empathy which is cooperation and alliances. I don't want to ally with a psychopath since they're very likely to betray me, the only way I'll trust them is if they deceive me into thinking they're not a psychopath. This is a high risk strategy, maybe it's a little easier to pull off in modern society where there's a lot more minor relationships, but certainly in tribal society it's hard to be a psychopath and remain trusted.

      Empathy makes it easy to play a long game and build trusted relationships because you're rewarded for playing a long game instead of a short one.

      --
      I stole this Sig
    15. Re:why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bad analogy. All the cells in your body have the same DNA. Mutual cooperation in your body is trivial to explain using genetic evolutionary models.

      Group selection has so far evaded explanation. Your reasoning may or may not be correct. There are lots of conjectures out there, but no solid, predictive model.

      My guess? Group cooperation is completely random. It's like the peacocks tail--it arose randomly as a sexual preference selection which was subsequently self-enforcing and in only some cases able to withstand countervailing genetic pressures. I bet if you look at it across different species (but not bees, ants, etc, with simple Darwinian genetic selection phenomena) it's randomly distributed. Some apes are "social", some aren't. Some cats are social, some aren't. Some canines are social, some aren't.

    16. Re:why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This was the answer I came up with at the age of 5 (worded much more appropriately, of course): If my suffering is more tolerable than another's suffering, I will gladly suffer for them.

      All people handle things differently. My parents thought it very strange that I never cried when close relatives died, even though I was visibly sad. If I can take the brunt of an emotional blow for someone who is less capable of handling it, I will do so.

    17. Re:why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would anyone ever voluntarily suffer on behalf of another?

      Love stories have been written about this. Used to be popular.

      Ever hear this quote? "Greater Love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friends" Commitment and bonding used to be promoted.
      I watch youtube videos like "The Century of the Self" but still don't understand the change.

    18. Re:why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is not only suffering. Empathy helps sharing positive feelings too. I could do without a little bit of something that makes me happy if I in return get my share of the happy for helping you get something.

  13. Not a chance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here in USA, we would never make the mistake of rehabilitating our criminals. They might eventually become productive members of society. That would be awful.

  14. Pacemaker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Stimulate the area artificially and see what happens.

    1. Re:Pacemaker by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Basically, you're saying that the traditional American electric chair has the electrodes in the wrong places?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:Pacemaker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The area in question is one which causes feeling someone else's pain. If you constantly activate it, the person will feel someone else's pain no matter whether that other person actually has pain or not. It might even have the unwanted effect that the stimulated person kills the other person out of mercy, to relief that person from that apparently eternal pain. Or it might lead to suicide for no longer being able to bear all the pain constantly around.

  15. That reminds me of by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 3, Insightful


    ...how soldiers can kill people without remorse and then still be good dads

    Is being a "psychopath" really just an old term that means "sociopath" and is apparently 1 in 200 men? -often ruthless and in leadership positions?

    Trailing thought, are internet trolls like this?

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
    1. Re:That reminds me of by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Military killing depends a lot on dehumanizing foes. Battlefield terminology for foes almost always takes the form of a very non-human noun, whether it's "targets", "hostiles", or "alpha", the words that are used are never words that inherently imply personhood. There's a well-researched book about how this corresponds to good people being capable of terrible things.

    2. Re:That reminds me of by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 1

      Is being a "psychopath" really just an old term that means "sociopath"

      Yes they are both old terms that mean the same thing that describes people who wind up in prison.

    3. Re:That reminds me of by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Or "pedophiles". Or "terrorists". All designated "non-human" and so good targets for death we are told. Even if most child abuse happens in families.

    4. Re:That reminds me of by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...how soldiers can kill people without remorse and then still be good dads

      Depends on what you mean with "good dads" I guess.
      A sociopath and/or soldier will probably have no problem providing for their child and give them a safe and stable upbringing.
      That doesn't mean that he will teach his child to be a free thinking individual that will stand up against wrongdoings or willingly break unjust laws.

    5. Re:That reminds me of by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      Having a lack of sympathy for people who commit terrible crimes doesn't necessary have a corresponding lack of empathy for them as human beings.

    6. Re:That reminds me of by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Replace the words terrible crime with sin and you'll likely get an entirely different answer round here.

    7. Re:That reminds me of by i+kan+reed · · Score: 0

      Replacing reality with fiction changes the nature of a statement? Fascinating, do tell me more.

    8. Re: That reminds me of by MickLinux · · Score: 1

      I take your meaning to be psychopaths like the Jean Valjean?

      (btw, in re another post of yours, go see my first post, with a link to amazon. It's an eye opener.)

      --
      Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
    9. Re:That reminds me of by hodet · · Score: 1

      I don't think internet trolls are like this. I think that has more to do with a feeling of powerlessness. Beta status individuals now on an equal footing letting out some steam. Well that's my hypothesis anyway, I have never proven or dis-proven it.

    10. Re:That reminds me of by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had no idea Merriam Webster's thesaurus is a fiction book.

    11. Re:That reminds me of by Bengie · · Score: 1

      I can be sympathetic to their up-bringing that contributed to their bad choices, but it doesn't mean I'll feel entirely sorry for a murderer that had a bad up-bringing.

      One of those "maybe in another life time, we could have been friends", but not in this one.

    12. Re:That reminds me of by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Replacing reality with fiction changes the nature of a statement? Fascinating, do tell me more.

      No. It changes the reaction of other people to that statement.

    13. Re:That reminds me of by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

      Military killing depends a lot on dehumanizing foes.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Op1zjd7KKE&t=1m28s
      That's not dehumanizing, that's conditioning.

      Variations on "Kill kill" has been the mantra of bayonet training for decades.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    14. Re:That reminds me of by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      One does not preclude the other.

    15. Re:That reminds me of by couchslug · · Score: 1

      Since when is seeing a part of a GLOBAL population as an enemy "sociopathic"?

      The definition of "society" is subjective, and if ones own is specific and not general, it's hardly "pathological" for them to kill enemies with no remorse.

      If a band of chimps attacks a competing band, is that "sociopathic"?

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    16. Re:That reminds me of by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interestingly enough, the only internet trolls I've known have all been alpha status individuals. Betas are typically too busy to troll; alphas who have everything handed to them at a whime tend to get bored with that and have to instigate trouble to create interest in their own lives.

    17. Re:That reminds me of by swalve · · Score: 1

      Depends what kind of music they play.

  16. I wonder what a scan of: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    the average politician would show... would the group of people called "politicians" show up as psycopaths?

    How about the personnel of the NSA?

    Police SWAT members?

    Police in general?

    1. Re:I wonder what a scan of: by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      How about we make people pass this test to screen for psycopaths? You're flagged positive, you can't hold any job that will give you power over anyone. No politics, no police, no health care, no teaching, etc.

    2. Re:I wonder what a scan of: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's the tricky thing about Psycho and Sociopaths... when they want to see for themselves, they will put the honest answer to the tests. When they want something that requires a Psych test they KNOW the answers they have to choose to keep from flagging. Just enough quirks to show that they are normal...but not even close to enough to get them flagged.

      My mother-in-law did this to get her foster-care license just a few months after pulling a gun on one of her own daughters. One incident in a stream of abuse that this woman performed on her own blood...

      I'm so glad the bitch is dead.

    3. Re:I wonder what a scan of: by Xaedalus · · Score: 1

      Plus if you did succeed in doing this then you'd have a rapidly amassing army of psychopaths, exiled from mainstream society, with nothing to lose. That's a REALLY bad thing.

      --
      Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
    4. Re:I wonder what a scan of: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "How about we make people pass this test to screen for psycopaths?"

      The fact that people ask this question shows that most people really have no idea how insidious/evil/manipulative psychopathy is and how much the psychopaths in charge would manipulate and greatly benefit from such a test. The psychopaths that run society would very quickly co-opt such a system, and use it to ruin non-psychopathic rivals and paint those rivals as the evil psychopaths and themselves as the virtuous heroes protecting society. You'd be surprised to learn how often a psychopath will falsely charge/ruin someone else with the very actions that the psychopath themselves actually committed...and how giddy it makes a psychopath feel to do so.

      These psychopaths with positions of power (especially in government) are completely OK with invading innocent countries, killing tens of thousands of innocents, tearing people away from their families and putting them in prison (at enormous financial cost to society) just for growing/consuming a plant that makes them feel happy, using spy agencies to spy on our private lives, and all sorts of other evil stuff. And you think THIS is where they'd draw the line? A test that would out them and demonize them to all of society? "Well I've authorized all this terrible stuff to be done to innocent people but a test that would out me? No way, I would never touch/manipulate/control THAT".

    5. Re:I wonder what a scan of: by swalve · · Score: 1

      These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them....maybe you can hire The A-Team.

  17. Yeah, right. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >[...] it could be possible to help psychopaths activate their 'empathy switch'

    Why would a psycopath want to do that though? They don't care about other people. If they have such a "switch", and it actually make them 'feel like normals' and they learn to control it conciously, it'll only be used to further their own agenda. It's what psycopaths do.

  18. Selective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, empathy itself is selective in nature. The amount of paint felt by birds vs. dogs? Those who don't own pet birds (or rats) think they are "valued" same as insects. Dogs represent "humanity".

  19. Ted Bundy is an example of this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    He even said so himself, he could be perfectly normal one moment, which is why he could be so charming and personable, but then he could go hard killer with ease, to the point where he believed his whole identity changed. Even smells were different to him. I wonder if it was engaging a brain switch on his part?

    1. Re:Ted Bundy is an example of this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I used to love that show, the kids were so funny!

    2. Re:Ted Bundy is an example of this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pychopathic sadistic killers often probably have a form of brain damage I believe, so yes. Many have a history of head trauma so it fits.

    3. Re:Ted Bundy is an example of this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong Bundy....dolt.

      (No, the joke was not lost on me. Just very non-funny IMO. Much like "Married with Children..." was once I grew out of it.)

  20. Fixing the will by operagost · · Score: 1

    The team proposes that with the right training, it could be possible to help psychopaths activate their 'empathy switch', which could bring them a step closer to rehabilitation.

    But why would they want to? It's far more advantageous for them to continue pretending they care about others.

    --

    Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    1. Re:Fixing the will by sribe · · Score: 2

      But why would they want to?

      To stay out of prison.

      They may never be nice people. They might always be aggressive arrogant jerks. But maybe they can be simply a jerk rather than an actual criminal.

      Although I suspect that has much more to do with impulse control than empathy, and so this could indeed turn out to be completely worthless, it does seem at least worth investigating.

  21. Which could bring them a step closer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...to election.

  22. Banking executives by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We need to try this with big banking executives. And maybe large corporate executives. If we could turn on their empathy switch, we would live in a better world for all !!

  23. Rehabilitation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Rehabilitation? What kind of commie nonsense is this? Extract your pound of flesh in a for-profit prison. 'Murcia!

  24. It's actually very normal for humans: Othering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's actually very normal for humans to turn off empathy as needed and desired. Much of social conditioning is used to do this, either by design or due to environmental pressures.

    "Othering", the enemy, homeless, other races, gangs, neighborhoods, city-states, etc. etc. etc. lepers, sick people in general (although there is also a built-in revulsion for physical deformity.)

    The thing with psychopaths, born or bred, is that their empathy switch is very strongly set to "off", for the average person the switch is somewhere between on and in-between.

  25. Interesting by bigsexyjoe · · Score: 4, Informative

    Robert Hare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Hare is an expert in psychopaths. He said that was asked to work on therapies for psychopaths to get them to rehabilitate. He said he wanted to develop a program that appeals to their self-interest to not engage in criminal or bad behavior. If they do have an "empathy switch" that would be a good thing. You would have to convince the psychopath that it is in their best interest to leave it on.

    1. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another must read on the topic (via eliciting bullying behavior in randomly chosen individuals) is The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo. His "normal" subjects were quite able to flip their switches off, given appropriate social support. Frightening book.

    2. Re:Interesting by bigsexyjoe · · Score: 1

      Yeah. And the one guy behind a lot of it, Charles Graner, probably is a sociopath. But the book kind of doesn't really go that way. It's theme is really that anyone could be do the wrong things. It really blames circumstances more than genetics for what a person does.

    3. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As someone who has met what could best be described as sociable sociopaths, this article is correct, but misses a key detail. The most sociopathic people I have met have the most thorough natural capacity for empathy. A degree of empathy that would be full-on crippling if they didn't find a way to ignore it.

      Sociopathy is not a lack of empathy, it is a psychological defense against an innate vulnerability to the pain of others. Or at least one sort of sociopathy is, as with so many "conditions" that psychiatrists have labeled, causality is nearly impossible to hypothesize and the label may partially overlap many different causes.

  26. This is how they fool lie detectors by erroneus · · Score: 1

    It's funny that the slant here is about rehabilitation. It seems to show how they can fool those doing the rehabilitation long enough to get back out in the world to screw it up some more.

    1. Re:This is how they fool lie detectors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No they fool lie detectors because lie detectors are bullshit and require you to get nervous. By anecdote I've seen some psychopaths lie lie lie,, and keep lying even if it only delays their exposure for SECONDS. (like you already opening the door to a room full of stolen shit "Is all that stolen shit in here?"... "no.. . well yes"

  27. the converse??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Hmm, that's really interesting. So they're not without the ability to feel empathy, they just have to work at it...

    I'm the converse (possibly because of surviving some pretty sick emotional abuse in childhood, I don't know, whatever, it is what is). Anyway my default is highly empathetic, but I can, if I try, turn that off. It's not just suppressing the experience of another's pain, it is literally a disconnect where I no longer feel it at all, and in my experience it does actually feel like flipping a switch. It comes in very handy in 3 situations: emergencies, where it allows me to focus on rational decision making; when I realize that someone is trying to take advantage of me, where putting aside their feelings helps me focus on "escape"; and, finally, comforting someone in distress.

    Yeah, you might find that last one very counter-intuitive. But empathy is not perfect, it's a mix of literally feeling someone else's pain based on facial expressions and so on (how we develop "theory of mind" is fascinating stuff, BTW), and the overlay of our own reaction to our own experience of such pain. In other words, it is always and necessarily contaminated by how we would feel. The ability to feel that, then turn it off and use my mind to really listen to what the other person is saying without distraction from how I would feel about the situation, helps to respond to the other person's feelings rather than my own.

    I know this was a bit of a ramble, but the ability to experience empathy is not simply on-or-off, where each person either can or cannot.

  28. Relevance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is this relevant to Slashdot? Den of psychopaths? What next? How to beat your wife or how to shoplift?

  29. Was't this the plot for an episode on ST Voyager? by ethanms · · Score: 1

    They "cured" the murderous criminal guy with the defective empathy switch in his brain...

  30. I am sorry, but not only criminals. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    120 deaths of civilians in => Meh ... Old news.
    Fireman manage to save little cat from sewer in => Ohhhhh thank $deity . It's a little miracle.

  31. At least LaGuerta is gone. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 0

    Well, this knowledge is too late to help Dexter now. He's approaching the endgame with his life bursting out of control.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  32. Interesting idea... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After playing "Where is my water?" on the iPad, on some levels where the liquids go around in circles, and then spending my next hour wondering why my computer monitor keeps swirling in places, there may be something in this "right training".

  33. Training for politicians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe this is a good idea for training our representatives.

  34. TV Doesn't Know by MacGyver2210 · · Score: 1

    This is really going to put a damper on all that 'science' going on in Dexter.

    --
    If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
  35. Obligatory by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Data: Captain, I believe I am feeling... anxiety. It is an intriguing sensation. A most distracting...
    Picard: Data, I'm sure it's a fascinating experience, but perhaps you should deactivate your emotion chip for now.
    Data: Good idea, sir.
    [beep]
    Data: Done.
    Picard: Data, there are times that I envy you.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  36. Switches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Funny how the horniness switch just stays on.

  37. Or Room 23 by omnichad · · Score: 1

    We are the causes of our own suffering

    THINK ABOUT

    YOUR LIFE

    1. Re:Or Room 23 by JeanCroix · · Score: 1

      Jacob always did love you best...

    2. Re:Or Room 23 by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      "We are the causes of our own suffering..."

      I don't know about that, really. I am pretty sure I can trace most of my suffering directly back to the action of others.

    3. Re:Or Room 23 by omnichad · · Score: 1

      First, woosh. Second, hope this helps you:
      http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Room_23

      The phrase is based on Buddhism if that's really relevant.

    4. Re:Or Room 23 by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      The phrase is based on Buddhism if that's really relevant.

      Not really.

      But this is one of those cases in which I can hardly be embarrassed by a "whoosh" moment. It doesn't bother me in the slightest that I was not a "Lost" fanatic.

  38. Did they test lawyers? by coldsalmon · · Score: 2

    A lot of occupations require a suspension of empathy. I would be interested to see if "non-psychopaths" have a similar "empathy switch" ability regarding tasks associated with their daily occupation.

    1. Re:Did they test lawyers? by johnny+cashed · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I was going to say that bank managers are good at this. They can not give a shit about your problems, but can't imagine their home life is the same.

    2. Re:Did they test lawyers? by DexterIsADog · · Score: 1

      You bet they do. I worked at a company where they made money by taking back payments to medical providers on any pretext at all; slightly incorrect treatment code, less than ironclad medical necessity, etc. The asshole VP encouraged the staff to come up with any creative scheme to examine claims data to justify taking back 100% of the payment so the company could get their 5% commission. And he blocked every request by the CLIENT to give advice to the providers on correcting their mistakes because as he said, "I want them to keep making the mistakes - I just want the money."

      Presumably he doesn't treat his family like objects when he's done bloodsucking every day.

    3. Re:Did they test lawyers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Medicine is famous for this. I worked 5 years in an Emergency Room, and if you don't learn to disconnect emotionally at times (and then learn another trick: how to re-access those emotions later and process them) you WILL go mad from the things you do the help people and save lives.

      My friends really like me for (among other things) my emotional presence and honesty, except when we visit hospitals (sick friends, etc.). I've been told on a number of occasions people don't like me in hospitals because I go "cold"; old habits are hard to kill, I guess.

    4. Re:Did they test lawyers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > do the help people and save lives

      typo: do to help people and save lives

  39. Test for psychos? by JDG1980 · · Score: 1

    Is there a reasonably reliable medical test that can determine whether or not someone is a psychopath? Maybe a fMRI or something like that? While it would be nice if we could somehow cure sociopaths, I think just identifying them would be a good start. Maybe we could even prohibit them from running for public office or holding executive positions in publicly traded corporations...

    1. Re:Test for psychos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist

    2. Re:Test for psychos? by harvestsun · · Score: 1

      While it would be nice if we could somehow cure sociopaths, I think just identifying them would be a good start. Maybe we could even prohibit them from running for public office or holding executive positions in publicly traded corporations...

      Excuse my bluntness, but this is a terrible idea. Living in a free society means that we should be free to be psychopaths if we so choose. And not all psychopaths are criminals; in fact, many are highly successful members of society (surgeons, CEOs, lawyers, journalists...).

      I think at its core, psychopathy is the presence of a strong conscious will; one that is capable of overpowering emotions, fears, doubts. I don't see why this should be viewed as an inherently "bad" thing; personally it's something I admire. It's these kinds of people that can change the world, for better or worse.

  40. Healthy people have that switch too by davidwr · · Score: 1

    20 year old woman gets knifed on the street - we all feel bad for her.

    20 year old woman convicted of torturing her kids gets knifed a few weeks into her lifetime prison sentence - many of us think "good, she got what she deserved."

    The take-away is that some, perhaps most, psychopaths can be rehabilitated AND some, perhaps most, non-psychopaths can, through brainwashing, Stockholm syndrome, or just being in the wrong environment (e.g. being a prison guard or soldier in a despotic regime) see their empathy for others in certain situations erode to the point that they will do unspeakable things without feeling guilty about it.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  41. In defense of psychopaths by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 1

    I looked over the article and abstract, and note that they compared criminal psychopaths with non-criminal non-psychopaths.

    The study seems to equate psychopathy with criminality; ie - they didn't compare non-criminal psychopaths with non-criminal normals, nor did they compare criminal-psychopaths with criminal-normal.

    I strongly believe that psychopathy by itself is not a problem; only the immorality, and then only when the immorality leads to actions that hurt others. Psychopaths could learn and practice ethics through upbringing and/or training and would have few issues with society. Studies show that many corporate leaders score high on "psychopathic" behaviour.

    There's a little-known aspect of people called mob mentality which causes people en-masse to act completely differently from their typically rational, self-interested way. People in mobs have been known to charge cannons and guns with no concern for their own well-being. This could be the empathy/mirror neurons acting to bring crowds of people together as a single organism.

    A psychopath would be immune from this effect - they would be able to step back, assess the situation, and question the actions of the crowd. Possibly even stop the crowd or redirect it. A psychopath would be the one, lone voice in the lynch mob who shouts "why are we doing this? This is not who we are!" and possibly redirect the actions of the crowd.

    Psychopaths may be important in society simply to keep our mirror neurons in check and make sure that society acts rationally (note: rational != ethical).

    For reference, consider this guy. Admittedly brave as hell, but I wonder where he would score on the "psychopathic tendencies" spectrum.

    1. Re:In defense of psychopaths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice try, psychopath.

    2. Re:In defense of psychopaths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This looks to me like a matter of availability. Criminal psychopaths have been publicly identified. Non-criminal psychopaths are still protected by doctor-patient confidentiality and quite likely don't want to be outed or haven't been identified.

  42. Empathy isn't always good by PPH · · Score: 3, Insightful

    People with Aspergers (ASD) display limited empathy with others. Not the psychopaths' ability to switch it on and off. It is just lacking.

    Fake empathy is often used by con artists and sociopaths to manipulate people. And in some cases, people with Aspergers are more able to see through such social engineering than other people. There is an interesting story in The Big Short about an investor/fund manager who saw through the Wall Street bullshit surrounding mortgage backed securities and shorted them, making millions of dollars for himself and his clients.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:Empathy isn't always good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The role of Aspergers in that story wasn't about him being able to see through "social engineering". It's that he obsessively poured over SEC reports from the Edgar database. And he could do that because repetitive behaviors are soothing to people on the autism spectrum. So he no doubt took some kind of comfort in that otherwise mind numbing task.

      The moral of the story was that the truth and facts were completely out in the open, but most people were too lazy to bother to assemble the primary sources to spot it. One of those people had Aspergers, but not all of them.

      Also, you're confusing a failure to _display_ empathy with a lack of empathy. Some people on the autism spectrum may truly have impaired empathy, but most simply have a problem with displaying empathy, just like they have a problem with all sorts of forms of communication. Kill an Aspergers kid's parents and they're gonna be really sad, whereas a true sociopath wouldn't care so much as mourn the loss of his financial upkeep.

    2. Re:Empathy isn't always good by PPH · · Score: 1

      The role of Aspergers in that story wasn't about him being able to see through "social engineering".

      In part , it was. Burry didn't buy into the brokers' sales pitches for CDOs. He'd ask them for data to back up their product and when they tried the smooth talk, he didn't bite. Then, he went to the SEC data and figured these things were a good thing to short.

      Also, you're confusing a failure to _display_ empathy with a lack of empathy.

      Not necessarily. Aspergers individuals don't pick up on social cues. Not acting on a cue that you recognize (particularly if it results in discomfort to others) is just being an asshole. I suffer from that. I'm a pretty keen observer of others' emotions. But sometimes, particularly in professional settings, you've got to get past making people happy and give them the bad news that Lithium Ion batteries do tent to catch fire from time to time and probably are not a good idea on passenger aircraft. I don't care whose company the boss has stock options in.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    3. Re:Empathy isn't always good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong. People with Aspergers have limited empathy control. Sometimes it's way too much. Sometimes it's too little.

      Hey, I have an idea. Let's treat all this as mental illness. You're different. Therefore you must be fixed.

      People with Aspergers don't need fixing. It's a world that can't tolerate difference that is broken :(.

    4. Re:Empathy isn't always good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People with Aspergers (ASD) display limited empathy with others. Not the psychopaths' ability to switch it on and off. It is just lacking.

      I'm not so sure about that. I have a good friend who has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. I noticed that when emotion shows in someone's face the emotional response in his face is immediate. On that level his capability for empathy seems to work just fine. But it takes time for him to understand what's going on when that happens. Once he understands his capacity for feeling for others is above average rather than below. To me it seems that he is highly capable of both affective (instantly feel what you see someone else feels) and cognitive empathy (understand who is feeling what), but that the processing needed to reach that understanding takes more time and energy than it takes "normal" people.

  43. evolution by Connie_Lingus · · Score: 1

    this totally makes sense in an evolutionary way...its easy to imagine how important an adaptation like this would be in a species that for 10's of thousands of years lived in a permanent state of war where you had to be bathed in blood and kill everything on week and then chill at court and amuse the kings and females.

    how else could people reconcile this?

    --
    never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
    1. Re:evolution by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      Constant war like that is a new invention though. Before agriculture there was much less need to defend any particular piece of land and people moved around too much to claim resources. (Random source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/23/1225878/-Study-of-Hunter-Gatherers-Shows-War-Not-Inherently-Human )

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    2. Re:evolution by Connie_Lingus · · Score: 1

      really?? you actually believe that mankind hasn't been killing each other for scarce resources and sexual conquest since the dawn of time?

      it sure is something i would *like* to believe, like santa claus or the easter bunny, but irregardless of the current trend in anthropology to claim homo sapiens were a gentle, non-warlike species back before civilization i just haven't seen much definitive proof of it. FTA

      It shows us that societies that are closer to bare subsistence were unlikely to war over resources

      well, right...because why kill and steal from a group that actually has much less then you do?

      --
      never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
  44. Too easy to train people to pass by davidwr · · Score: 1

    How about we make people pass this test to screen for psycopaths? You're flagged positive, you can't hold any job that will give you power over anyone. No politics, no police, no health care, no teaching, etc.

    BAD IDEA - DO NOT WANT.

    If there is a test for psychopathy with an acceptably low false-positive rate and it's used for such high-stakes as you propose, sooner or later someone will figure out a way to train people to test "negative."

    It's already possible for many if not most people to learn to "defeat" a polygraph. It's just not worth most people's effort because outside of careers needing security clearances and some other highly-sensitive jobs, most people don't find themselves in a situation where not taking one or failing one would cost them anything.

    You're flagged positive, you can't hold any job that will give you power over anyone.

    That's just about any job. Even if my job is to clean up trash in the park, my boss doesn't expect me to be perfect. I have the power to do things like spending more effort in low-traffic areas than high-traffic areas, thereby making tomorrow's visitors' experience less enjoyable, or to focus on high-traffic areas to make their experience more enjoyable. If you say that's not having power over someone, you are mistaken. It's petty power, but it is power.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  45. Psychopaths DO lack empathy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    More junk from Slashdot.
    Man is an intelligent species. Man can observe a thing, understand a thing, learn a thing, and copy a thing. A psychopath (or sociopath which means the same) has no difficulty aping the empathic behaviour of those around him/her if he so wishes.

    The sociopath does NOT lack the ability to appear to show empathy. The sociopath lacks the ability to inhernetly experience empathy.

    A sociopath can, with no significant effort, learn the benefit of society's moral codes and ethics, and follow these instructions on trust. This is how most non-evil sociopaths operate. Indeed, one of the tiny elements of benefit found in organised religion is the concept of rules you obey even when those rules do not come from within. Organised religion is actually designed to 'speak' to sociopaths.

    Full empathy is missing from most people. This does NOT make most people sociopaths. Most people function with PROJECTION not empathy, and think it the same thing. "I wouldn't like this if it were happening to me" is NOT a statement of empathy (as most people mistakenly think) but a statement of projection.

    People with full empathy embrace a plural society, where others exist with the greatest possible variation of Human mindset. A society based on full empathy has maximum freedom, and the absolute minimum of laws and enforcement- no more than is required to protect that society.

    A society based on projection (like the UK and USA) does not respect the rights of people to be different. They have laws and enforcement that assume everyone is some form of sociopath, and must be held in rigid place by harsh conditioning methods. Such a society seeks one set of rules its masters will proclaim as 'IDEAL' and all citizens are expected to fundamentally worship this single rule set.

    Those that rule you consider empathy to be the ultimate soul disease. In the UK, for instance, Tony Blair created the organisation Common Purpose to actively seek out semi-impressive psychopaths (at school or already in some position of power) to become his mid-level 'managers' in all areas of UK society. Blair created the Academy School system to best hone young psychopaths, while allowing them to be identified at a suitably early stage (Academy Schools are 'Enders Game' made reality).

    The psychologists and psychiatrists that work with serious criminals are notorious for becoming their friends and frequent lovers. They allow the worst offenders to most easily gain parole, where they offend again within months. Google "the grey man" for a truly disgusting story of a child killing serial killer, and the famous New York psychiatrist who worked to ensure he had his freedom to kill.

    1. Re:Psychopaths DO lack empathy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You make a lot of claims but I don't actually see any citations to back them up. Please, spin more imaginary yarn and weave it into a lovely tapestry of bullshit.

  46. why would they bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they have the best of both worlds, the ability to convincingly pretend to care when it is to their advantage, and the ability to stop caring when they need to "get shit done"

    these people aren't defective, they are homo superior and we "normals" are afraid of them because they have powers that we don't

    -----

    People hate it when you are honest with them. Instead they want you to conform to their expectations and get mad when you don't. They want you to lie to them because the lie is comfortable and the truth is difficult to deal with.

    We are trained in it early as kids. Being told to apologize for things we aren't sorry for. We make the socially acceptable gestures without meaning them all of the time in order to maintain our relationships with other people. We ask "how was your day" when we are expected to but we really don't care and resent the other person for actually telling us. To our families we parrot "I love you" when they say it to us first even if at that particular moment the words are hollow.

    The sociopaths just take it to the next level, they not only lie convincingly but they get pleasure out of the power the lies give them.

    Instead of trying to give these people empathy we should work on identifying those who take pleasure in expressing power over others. Then kill them because these people are parasites who only exist to create misery.

    1. Re:why would they bother? by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      I think these brain scans prove that they are not pretending. At least not any more than anyone else.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  47. Mod parent up. by bussdriver · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Furthermore, psychopaths NEED to be identified as mental cases and not criminal cases! We lock people up in an overly simplistic system that fails to work with the real world; we never address the root problem: The criminal system needs to deal with mental illnesses (that includes addiction) as disease and not as debts to be paid to society. It is not business nor should it ever be thought of like a business. Pedophiles for example, should be put into mental hospitals and NEVER released until safe... not automatically released after their "debt" has been paid.

    1. Re: Mod parent up. by MickLinux · · Score: 1

      Read Small Criminals, mentioned elsewhere in this story. It isn't mental illness, it is a criminal outlook. That said, it is possible to train people to care.

      --
      Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
    2. Re:Mod parent up. by Artifakt · · Score: 2

      I agree that paedophilia is a consequence of some sort of mental illness, but that "NEVER" is difficult to quantify - it would seem the only way to achive it is to keep the person in for life. Would it change your opinions any to know that back in the 1960's there were a number of programs to treat paedophiles in prison and then monitor them long term after release, and what sort of numbers they produced. These were studies in the US and Canada, involving in total over 10,000 subjects that were in the prison systems for child molestation at the time.

      Several programs produced a tremendous 'cure rate' : For hetero molesters who had a related child as at least one of their victims, the percentage who did not repeat offend even after 20 years after release was 78%. The worst percentage was for homosexual molesters who targeted unrelated children, and a. that 20 year did not reoffend number was still 57%, and b. the programs tried to 'cure' the homosexuality as well, which probably made treating the paedophilia aspect much harder (or at least most of the psychiatrists that were involved with these programs have concluded that was a problem in retrospect).

      Therapy, particularly focusing on how the paedophile feels incapable of the demands of more adult relationships and massivly incompetent at such things as dating and even making casual conversation with potential adult partners, shows a better success rate than attempts to rehabilitate either economic criminals or violent offenders. One big reason you hear the claim that paedophiles cannot be rehabilitated is that some of these therapy programs used psychoactive drugs under an individual psychiatrist's control (and yes, the patients were informed the programs might involve them being asked to take psilocyben or ketamine or even LSD). When many of these drugs became illegal, the US DoJ asserted they had no theraputic value even under the strictest physician control, and when these programs were mentioned, DoJ representitives made an amazing outburst of claims that paedophiles NEVER reformed. This message was hammered into the media as part of a US government media campaign claiming that various psychoactives needed to be classed as Schedule 1 Narcotics, and there was apparently no actual science behind the claim. In other words, it was a lie, 'justifed' by the need to add the psychoactives to the war on drugs.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    3. Re: Mod parent up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Antisocial Behavior != Psychopathy

      Any psychologist will tell you that a psychopath/sociopath CANNOT be cured. They have a disorder that's fundamentally biological, though not entirely genetic.

      Psycopathy/sociopathy is a subset of antisocial behavior, but it's a subset that in practice is treated completely different... because it can't be cured. A psychologist doesn't treat a psychopath, he simply keeps track of what he's doing in case he needs to intervene.

      Also, most psychopath's aren't violent. Empathy is not what prevents you from being violent. There are myriad other mechanisms which suppress violence. The function of empathy is social bonding and development of trust relationships; it overrides our instinct for rational self-interest to promote communal behaviors, and it does that by _forcing_ you to put yourself in someone else's shoes and _feel_ their pain or happiness. A psychopath is not forced to feel sympathy for anybody or anything; they're always and only driven by their own self-interest. They're almost like robots that way. But like any robot, unless there's a fault in its logic circuit--or a weird circumstance--violence is rarely logical. (Unfortunately, psychopathy is uncorrelated with intelligence, so there are lots of stupid psychopaths (half "below average"). Add in other random defects with violence suppression, and that's why psychopaths are overrepresented in prison.)

      It's cruel to tell parents that psychopathy can be cured. It can't. If a child is truly a sociopath, there is no hope. Period. There's a mountain of literature on the subject, and it's uniform on the salient aspects, notwithstanding the dubious conjecture in the Slashdot article. Try reading this, for starters: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html

    4. Re:Mod parent up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Furthermore, psychopaths NEED to be identified as mental cases...

      Doesn't psychopaths having full\greater degree of their emotions, suggests they're actually the sane people while the rest of us lot are the crazy ones?

      If anything, people convicted of crimes while found to be psychopaths should just be executed. Their rational is impeccable so no amount of incarceration will suffice in changing their conjuncture. If anything, automatic execution will adjust the risk-reward better.

      On the other hand, those psychopaths found to be law abiding citizens, should probably be given political office or some degree of responsibility and management. We need a few cool headed, logically driven moral leaders. Not the usual mix of either repressed homosexuality and fanatic devotion to god, king and country, or a sense of entailment and an ego so great as to self justify political and financial corruption and fraud.

      Then again, I HAVE been seeing way too much Dexter lately so I'm emotionally biased...

      Captcha: maniacal

    5. Re:Mod parent up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But according to this study, psychopaths do have the ability of empathy, they just choose not to use it. Furthermore, even without empathy they were aware that their actions were illegal. I don't see have the ability not to feel regret could excuse someone of breaking the law.

    6. Re: Mod parent up. by bussdriver · · Score: 1

      If you can't "fix" them then they NEVER get out; however, measures could be found to "patch" them up in some way, such as a monitoring device or actually effective drugs... A cripple gets devices to help them function in society, a mental "cripple" may also someday have devices that help them function in society.

    7. Re:Mod parent up. by bussdriver · · Score: 1

      "NEVER" could be absolute. If you can't be 100% sure they will not repeat you could lock them away from society for life. One could attempt to fund cures and consider acceptable failure rates in those cures; however, in that topic society doesn't (at least openly) have any acceptable failure rate for pedophile cures. This is why political officials will never openly support 99% effective release programs.

      "NEVER" could mean they never have to be treated. They could simply be placed into a gated community or some big-brother like monitoring scheme (which isn't jail or being institutionalized but it is not full freedom.) Their lives do not have to be horrible; it's like punishing a retard for their low IQ. We just don't vilify low IQs (but we could, you inherit your cultural attitudes.)

      The real issue is this SICK attitude our culture of punishment and vilifying people who are mentally handicapped in some way; it can even be biological making it rather obvious, but we still treat them as "evil". Punishing a lion for biting off your arm is just foolish. Let them be and keep away. I'm not against treatments, but I'm far more conservative about trusting them - and if they are not mistreated (being caged) then the lack of "cures" is a smaller problem.

    8. Re:Mod parent up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/11988/20120907/science-pedophilia-sexual-orientation.htm

      http://gawker.com/5941037/born-this-way-sympathy-and-science-for-those-who--want-to-have-sex-with-children

  48. Re:Was't this the plot for an episode on ST Voyage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here you go: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Repentance_%28episode%29

    It was an interesting episode that compared a murderous psychopath who had been given empathy and remorse by Seven's nanoprobes to Seven herself and her guilt about her participation in the atrocities committed by the Borg.

  49. Throwing babies into the ovens by davidwr · · Score: 2

    That may not be the best example: Some of the horrors of Nazi Germany were so bad that killing someone before they were old enough to form lasting memories might have been the most merciful thing a conscripted prison guard could do.

    The question becomes:
    Did the guard kill the baby out of mercy for the baby? That's mercy-based action.
    Did the guard do it out of fear of his own life, wishing to God he could think of another way out? That's fear-based action.
    Did the guard do it "because it was his job." That might be Stockholm Syndrome, resignation to one's fate, escaping into an emotional shell, or something else that doesn't indicate that the person is evil as much as just being unable to handle the circumstance he was in.
    Did the guard do it because he enjoyed it, a la Joseph Mengele? That's either a severe mental illness, evil, or some combination of both.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Throwing babies into the ovens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did the guard do it because he enjoyed it, a la Joseph Mengele?

      Actually, even with enjoying it, I think there are still two levels:

      1. Just enjoying the cruel action, considering the pain it causes "irrelevant".

      2. Enjoying specifically the other's pain.

      I guess the most dangerous person is not the one who has the empathy switch off when it should be on, but the one who has the empathy switch on because he enjoys feeling the pain of others.

    2. Re:Throwing babies into the ovens by blackest_k · · Score: 1

      I suspect because it was his job may be the strongest reason. An ex-soldier told me that being in combat was just part of doing his job while the enemy was just dong his, there was no personal investment just professionalism so you could go from being under fire and quite possibly having friends injured and dead to bandaging the wounds of the same guy who shortly before you shot him was doing his level best to kill you.

      You spend years training , drilling so you can calmly carry out your job.
      I could be mistaken but that is how it was explained to me an actual soldier would have to say if I've understood properly or not. Maybe its a common thing in professional jobs after all a doctor needs a clear head to carry out the actions needed to save your life.

      The only personal experience I care to relate was with a factory accident where a man got caught in a machine there was a lot of people stood but doing nothing but I got over there and took charge and freed the guy all the time while that was happening the guy was screaming his head off. Did what was needed as quickly as possible and as calmly as possible.

      Afterwards felt very emotional and shocked but by then there was nothing else I needed to do, cigarette and a coffee and back to work. The fella was ok after just broke his finger I think what really surprised me at the time was the lack of people taking action but that's normal my actions were abnormal but i'm glad they are you can't just stand by and do nothing. Not very professional on my part hard to control that adrenalin rush.

      One more thing I've worked in a chicken factory which goes from live bird to your dinner with various stages of dismemberment. The first day its body parts after that its just stuff .You move beyond thinking about what your dealing with and just do your job.

  50. Most parents would gladly suffer for their kids by davidwr · · Score: 2

    Why would anyone ever voluntarily suffer on behalf of another?

    Why? Love.

    A vast majority of parents in Western cultures (and possibly world-wide) would gladly give their life to save the life of their child.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Most parents would gladly suffer for their kids by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A vast majority of parents in Western cultures (and possibly world-wide) would gladly give their life to save the life of their child.

      Given the violent way that some parents react when their kids are brought into it, I'd be willing to bet the 'love' switch is pretty close in function to the 'psychopath' switch.

    2. Re:Most parents would gladly suffer for their kids by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A vast majority of parents in Western cultures (and possibly world-wide) would gladly give their life to save the life of their child.

      I don't think they would do it gladly. I'm pretty sure they'd usually prefer to save the life of their child without losing their own.

  51. A Doomed Zeitgeist by Baldrson · · Score: 1
    Cosmopolitan society selects for psychopathy due to a phenomenon called, by evolutionary medicine, horizontal transmission. Horizontal transmission evolves virulence. Horizontal transmission occurs when a pathogen is transmitted between hosts without regard to lineal descent of the hosts (peer-to-peer rather than parent-to-child). Horizontal transmission evolves the greatest virulence when the host can infect peers without the host being healthy.

    When viewed as group organisms, societies, corporations, etc. can become "infected" by "pathogens" that can go from peer-to-peer -- and indeed tend to do so -- when the just-infected host has become nonviable.

    The zeitgeist of cosmopolitan society is that borders ate the epitome of evil. "The Politics of Exclusion" is up there with child molestation in the hierarchy of sins. This zeitgeist produces virulence in the human genome -- virulence such as the ability to turn off empathy when it pays off for the selfish genes of the individual.

  52. slashdot, fix yer damned scripts by anyaristow · · Score: 4, Informative

    Way OT but I'm really sick of this...

    A script on the fsdn domain is causing command-click on links to load both the new tab and the original tab with the destination URL. Both firefox and safari.

    1. Re:slashdot, fix yer damned scripts by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Confirmed in Chrome also.

    2. Re:slashdot, fix yer damned scripts by Nimey · · Score: 1

      Happens for me too.

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    3. Re:slashdot, fix yer damned scripts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chrome on Windows as well. Middle-clicks cause it to happen. Right clicking and then clicking "Open in new tab" does not, but I don't want to do that. Super annoying when sites have scripts that do this, one of my other frequent visits recently had an overhaul and also added such a "feature".

  53. useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The whole idea of this is useless, people spend thousands of dollars in school to become MBAs, lawyers or on management training courses to turn this switch off.

    Want to turn it on?

    Make them spend a year working for another one.

  54. Explination by Bengie · · Score: 1

    Explains how many companies, like Verizon, Comcast, RIAA, etc seem to not care. They're just all psychopaths that turn off their empathy switch while doing business.

    1. Re:Explination by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Friends are friends, but business is business."

      "The secret to business success is sincerity: once you can fake that, you've got it made."

      You gotta be crazy, you gotta have a real need
      You gotta sleep on your toes, and when you're on the street
      You gotta be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed
      And then moving in silently, down wind and out of sight
      You gotta strike when the moment is right without thinking.
      And after a while, you can work on points for style
      Like the club tie, and the firm handshake
      A certain look in the eye, and an easy smile
      You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to
      So that when they turn their backs on you
      You'll get the chance to put the knife in. - Gilmour/Waters aka Pink Floyd "Dogs"

  55. Its not a switch... by 3seas · · Score: 1

    ... its an act.

  56. Pyschopathy by Firethorn · · Score: 1

    I agree. It's more a matter of degree. For that matter, I figure there's far more non-criminal psychopaths out there than criminal ones. I figure that 'most' end up figuring that even though they don't actually care about their fellow humans, it's too much hassle to kill them. It takes somebody broken in yet another way to become a serial killer.

    It could be a bit like some cancers that take multiple mutations to become really dangerous. Mutation A isn't deadly by itself, nor is B, but add them together and they're greater than the sum of their parts.

    --
    I don't read AC A human right
  57. The job market awaits by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    With very little training, they can go on to lead successful lives as car salesmen, patent lawyers, and politicians.

  58. Huh, interesting. by seebs · · Score: 1

    I do that. Only I'm told by a shrink that what I have isn't "really" empathy, because I am thinking about other people's feelings, not experiencing them immediately without consciousness of them.

    It's useful. Empathy is a really good first approximation of a way to make people be nice, but it also makes people do really shitty things because they are Trying To Help and can't stop to consciously think through their actions and their effects. Since I conveniently happen to care whether people are happy or unhappy, for reasons other than empathy, I am more effective at making things better than people who are constrained by the limits of an unconsidered intuition.

    --
    My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
  59. The answer is still rehab... by Firethorn · · Score: 1

    Even if the problem is 'criminal outlook', and it's not that simple, it's still possible to 'fix' criminal outlook with the proper rehab. By this I look at the recidivism rates of various countries - criminal systems that concentrate on rehab, while not 100% successful, largely succeed in preventing their tenants from committing further criminal acts upon release. Jails and prisons that don't spend any effort on reform are largely revolving doors - the criminals don't stop coming back until they're dead.

    I question how we, as a society, can afford to have non-reforming prisons. If you can confine somebody in a reforming prison for 1/3rd the time with 1/3rd the expectation they'll come back afterwards as a non-reform prison where they often come out WORSE than they went in, as a libertarian and fiscal conservative* I can't help but become upset. Sure, a reform prison is a touch more expensive per year. But running it properly results in smaller government - fewer prisons, fewer court cases, etc...

    Heck, I remember reading that in the USA several of the founding fathers ran rather progressive criminal reform systems. In one case each inmate was assigned a 'counselor' who basically had full control over the inmate's progression through the system. Recidivism was under 10% afterwards, however the program eventually ended due to cost/complexity. It was tough finding qualified counselors and expensive to keep them, as each counselor only had 1 inmate to care about and the position part time.

    *IE balanced budget, low taxes, programs have to be able to justify their cost.

    --
    I don't read AC A human right
  60. Standing before tanks = Psychopath? by Firethorn · · Score: 1

    I'd say a better example would be this guy, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, in a picture you should all recognize.

    Besides this incident, Loan was known as a non-corrupt officer that advocated for hospitals, had 5 kids, ran a pizza shop after the war, etc...

    --
    I don't read AC A human right
  61. I takes one to know one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No no no, I smell bullshit. The empathy switch is subconscious in 'pyscopaths'. A switch can be forced and they they become vulnerable to empathetic attacks.

  62. Turn it on the head - what created the switch? by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

    It would be even better to track down the history of the individual to see what may have caused the switch to appear in the first time. Was it a traumatic childhood?

    Not that it may apply to everyone, but some persons may have used the empathy switch as a means of survival.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  63. Everybody, everywhere by Dripdry · · Score: 1

    Well I guess that makes me a psychopath?

    Look, I think this research is dangerous. Anyone knows that unless we actively decide to think about someone else's pain we have a mechanism that helps shield us from that. This is a dark road to labelling almost anyone a psychopath. Hooray for drug comapnies!

    --
    -
  64. NICE TYPO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Scientists, reporting in Brain

  65. Didn't you forget something? by Dogtanian · · Score: 2

    How about we hold their eyes open and force them to watch horrific, violent videos, preferably multiple at a time.

    They'll be cured all right.

    Inspector: Dr. Brodsky, that boy you were treating... I have to inform you that he's just killed another man and committed serious assault and sexual violence against a further twelve people.

    Brodsky: What?!

    Inspector: Even worse, he told us that he'd really enjoyed the treatment, and that all those films you showed him got him "ready for a bit of the old ultraviolence".

    Brodsky: What? This can't be... we forced him to watch acts of bloody sadism and violence for a fortnight.

    Inspector: You *assured* us that the association of violent and sexual images with the unpleasant and traumatising effects of the serum would cause permanent avoidance of such behaviour in future and render him safe. What the blazes happened, woman?!

    Brodsky: (Trying to remember something) Serum, serum... oh, you mean the fear-inducing drugs. Damn... I *knew* there was something we'd forgotten. My bad!

    --
    "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
  66. hi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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    Read more at... www.bay92.Com

  67. More bullshit from 'experts'... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The team proposes that with the right training, it could be possible to help psychopaths activate their 'empathy switch', which could bring them a step closer to rehabilitation."

    Yes, sure, we believe you... you're the 'experts' after all, not that your JOBS depend on 'rehabilitating' these scumbags or anything like that, so you wouldn't be remotely biased...

    Give them the death penalty or life imprisonment, meaning LIFE, depending on the crime they committed. WE, the public, do not want these scumbags in OUR society, which WE built and maintain.

    If the 'experts' want to see if their charges are 'rehabilitated' or not, let the 'experts' live on a desert island with these scumbags, if they want to release them.

    Of course, most of the posters on Slashdot are sociopaths, just read your own comments about animal experiments... nary a hint of empathy...

    But I forget - apparently ALL human beings are superior and more worthy of protection from pain and suffering than ALL animals. So even the evil scumbags known as vivisectionists are somehow 'better' beings than the poor animals they torture all day for fun... sorry - for 'vital research' (LOL).

  68. Like a... truck... a machine... by Scragglykat · · Score: 1

    Beware of psychopaths wearing correctly positioned hats... their switch is off!

  69. or maybe by jameshofo · · Score: 1

    It might be more about who the person identifies with. If someone grew up to be an abuser they identify with the person doing the deed and get a rush from the hormones they would usually get. Because encouraging someone to feel bad about something just isn't going to stick.

    --
    Good leaders run toward problems, bad leaders hide from them.
  70. Suddenly... by BlackHawk-666 · · Score: 1

    ...it all makes sense. I still wish you would all die in a fire, but at least not I know why.

    --
    All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
  71. T-Bag by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone else think Theodore Bagwell when reading this. Yeah, fictional character but fits the research perfectly. He is as much a sympathetic character as he is repulisive.

  72. Peace in our time! by TiggertheMad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your opinion is that of an armchair historian, with a very different perspective than leaders at the time had.

    It could be said that Neville Chamberlain was a compassionate leader...

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
  73. DID YOU CALL ME A PSYCHO? I'LL STAB YOU FOR THAT! by TiggertheMad · · Score: 1

    empathy seems to be linked to our ability to cooperate effectively, a psychopathic populace might be considerably easier to control.

    I think you have it backward. A psychopathic population would be incredibly hard to control. The reason I don't stab you in the face and take your wallet is because I empathize with you as a person. Without empathy, you are an bag of annoying meat that has the $50 in pocket change that I want. Without empathy, people would act out impulsive behavior much more frequently.

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
  74. Re: Breivik by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Varg Vikernes' analysis of Breivik is largely correct:

    http://www.burzum.org/eng/library/war_in_europe01.shtml

    "His manifesto is vast, some 1500 pages, and he is pretty thorough in both what he says and what he did. There are a few facts that doesn't make sense to me. How can he [ Breivik ] list all the problems caused by different Jews in our history and yet fail to mention even one of them with a single word in his manifest? He attacks the symptoms of the disease Europe is suffering under, but not the cause of the disease."

  75. Re:DID YOU CALL ME A PSYCHO? I'LL STAB YOU FOR THA by Immerman · · Score: 1

    Perhaps, but I didn't say anything about making society more peaceful did I? Just easier to control. And psychopaths are less likely to be able to cooperate effectively to resist the jackbooted thugs who've come to collect your 80% government tithe.

    --
    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  76. Test heroes too. by couchslug · · Score: 1

    Test some folks who have performed heroically in combat, killing others to defend their friends.

    An "empathy disable" switch did not evolve by accident.

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  77. Re:'help'? by fascismforthepeople · · Score: 1

    The team proposes that with the right training, it could be possible to help psychopaths activate their 'empathy switch', which could bring them a step closer to rehabilitation

    - so they are trying to fix something that is not broken... sounds like various treatments for many other non-issues.

    Just because psychopaths are a key demographic for expanding your religious movement doesn't mean they are good for society in general.

  78. Psychopaths only ...? by david614 · · Score: 2

    So, these people were diagnosed as psychopaths in advance ...

    --
    ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
  79. Re: Breivik by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    That's one helluva guy you're citing there. Breivik's pagan alterego.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  80. I can turn off empathy on demand... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I do it quite frequently since most people are degenerate morons and don't deserve empathy. I guess i'm a psychopath then lol

  81. On Jews: Please explain why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Jews were kicked from Egypt, Spain, Poland, Germany: They all nazis too? Do you know WHY they were?? Ever been to Europe to ask THEIR people??? I have. They pull swindles enmasse on others endlessly is why. Same with Gypsys/Romany (jews too). Case in point example I was told how they operated: Say your family were bakers for centuries. Handed down father to son, doing well locally in that timeframe. Jews from other areas would set up a competing bakery, and underwrite costs of their bakery to price the native competitor out of business and then raise their prices to usurious levels, shylock style. They were told nearly a year in advance (but your books don't say it, since the publishing houses and media are jew owned) to leave Germany and they would not. What happened to them was a result of their own stupidity, greed, and their natures. You cannot turn a crocodile into an eagle. Now, before anyone feeds me any bullshit, why would all of those nations do that? They're all nazis or insane, right? Yea, ok "right" (sarcasm). Too much evidence is against them on that account from too many nations. They aren't allowed to rip one another off, and view others (goyim) as cattle. Look into their talmud, see what they feel is "ok to do" (such as rape a 3 yr. old little non-jew girl. I imagine once that cat got out of the bag, every father in said nations wanted them the FUCK out. I know I would). Don't get me wrong either: I have pals that're jews. They're generally decently educated and interesting to speak with because of it, however, I know 1 thing: They'd cut my nuts off for other jews. It's just how they are. It is all they have and they stick together like glue. That is also why they're JEWS first, citizens of the nation they are in, second (a distant second). I know them from the inside on that account. I asked one of my pals about the Talmud and she said "You don't want to know what's in there, it will piss you off". So I did some research. She was right. What backs me up? History and many other nations reacting the same way to them over time immemorial. They are truly their own worst enemies at times. In my opinion they're doing the same to the USA. It's just how they roll. After WWII, they were put into palestinian lands (stolen from the natives) to attempt to isolate them. Give them a chance too, being humane. What'd they do? Migrate to other areas to keep their crap up, because they are not allowed to burn other jews. They made Israel a very "international" state, but again, why? To fill it with victims (goys) to usuriously abuse. Again, they're nature is so transparent, it does them in, all thru history. Too bad they are not strong enough to overcome it since it does them in every single time. "God's Chosen People"? Sure - when you wrote the book, of course you'd call yourselves that. Seems the way they act to others and their talmud's laws (Baba Necia and others) are more from Satan than the God I know. I've had racism directed my way. I resist using it. I detest it. However, I can't argue with facts and actual sources that lived through some of what I noted above from Europeans.

  82. Thought maybe it was just me... by RedBear · · Score: 1

    Way OT but I'm really sick of this...

    A script on the fsdn domain is causing command-click on links to load both the new tab and the original tab with the destination URL. Both firefox and safari.

    I thought maybe it was just me. Happens in Firefox 21.0 on Mountain Lion. Seems like it started happening about a week or two ago. The funny thing is the links still open in a new tab, but the current tab also goes to the same link, forcing me to click the back button to get back to the Slashdot article. Half the time I wind up back at the top of the page and have to scroll back down and find my place again. That gets real old real fast. So what exactly is the point of this attempted Command+Click hijacking and/or blocking script? Why the hell did some jerkface even bother to write the code that does this?

    The only other website (that I can think of) that does this to me is SportsmansGuide.com. Both here and there all this script really seems to do is make it extremely obnoxious to use the site.

    I expect much better from a supposedly geek/tech oriented website. Silly me, right?

    Fix it, Slashdot. Fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it FIX IT!!!!ONE!!!

    1. Re:Thought maybe it was just me... by chihowa · · Score: 1

      I expect much better from a supposedly geek/tech oriented website. Silly me, right?

      This is the site that still doesn't have complete unicode support and only got the support it has very recently.
      This is the site that still doesn't use HTTPS.
      This is the site that still doesn't use IPv6.
      This is the site that actively blocks Tor connections.

      I know I'm forgetting a few things, but yes... you're expecting too much. The subject matter may be geeky, but it seems like it's run by a bunch of PHBs (not enough cloud for that, maybe). :(

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  83. Re:DID YOU CALL ME A PSYCHO? I'LL STAB YOU FOR THA by Maritz · · Score: 1

    Yes. We've enough psychopaths, thanks. I basically see them as humans with all the social adaptations removed. In my opinion you simply don't want one in your life - because given the chance, they'll fuck you over and never look back. Simple as that really.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  84. Empathy switch by NewYork · · Score: 1

    Is this relevant to women?

  85. I sounds like they have the best of both worlds by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

    I sounds like they have the best of both worlds.
    It might make more sense to train "normal" people to have this advantage.

    Being a Psychopath does not make you a criminal, nor does it make you violent.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  86. Where There's A Will... by jman.org · · Score: 1

    Good idea helping a psychopath learn to turn on empathy. So long as it's on they would be more 'normal'.

    Not sure though how it would work in practice.

    Anyone remember Crichton's "The Terminal Man"?

  87. Re:DID YOU CALL ME A PSYCHO? I'LL STAB YOU FOR THA by TiggertheMad · · Score: 1

    The jackbooted thugs wouldn't stand a chance in a society of psychopaths. A police state doesn't fundamentally work, unless fear overcomes the impulse to fight back and as mentioned impulse control isn't a trait that a psychopath has in abundance. You don't need to organize to fight authority, if everybody is fighting authority.

    You would send out a couple of thugs to go collect someone in public to try to put some fear in people, and they would get murdered, because they irritated the wrong person on the way.

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!