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The subject of psychopaths comes up frequently on Soylent in many contexts, so this story caught my eye:
How do you think a psychopath can be affected despite all that has been written about the psychopath being so devious etc.? I am sure there are weaknesses which one can dig into to break him 'psychologically'. I read somewhere that they are basically people who are very insecure and they love to control people so that they feel they have a power within themselves.
I know of a psychopath who insists on people doing what he wants and anyone defying him will see his vengeful self lashing out. But I am sure there must be something that can break such a psychopath. How about belittling or bring him to shame?
The first part of the answer is to be able to distinguish a narcissist from a psychopath:
I agree with the other post that points out that the person described is a narcissist, not a psychopath. Psychopaths are very secure and they to not seek control for the sake of feeling powerful, nor are they vengeful or spiteful. You could say that psychopaths are very practical, they want pure gain for the sake of the gain (e.g. money, a sexual favor, special access to something such as convince) rather than the ego stroke or prestige. A smart psychopath would probably keep things as low key as possible, as to maximize potential gain and minimize the danger of being caught. They are cool and calm, unlike the person described who lashes out for personal reasons.
Read the rest of the article for the takeaway.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Tuesday November 15 2016, @06:00PM
Given their habit of abusing that power and wealth to the great detriment of others, as a society we're better off incorporating training in how to recognize one and block their rise to power. We do NOT need more Enrons. We don't need another chainsaw Al [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Tuesday November 15 2016, @06:32PM
We don't need another chainsaw Al.
I misread that lowercase "L" as an uppercase "i," and briefly thought that somebody had given an AI control of a chainsaw drone. [youtube.com] It would be on-topic, assuming that nobody gave HAL<9000 empathy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:01PM
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday November 15 2016, @07:13PM
The Palo Alto Chainsaw Massacre has quite the appeal
Hey guys, I found one; khallow is a sociopath! BURN THE WITCH! Internet psychiatrist/judge/jury/executioner, to the rescue...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @09:33PM
You should read his comment history.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 15 2016, @09:50PM
How do you know he is a witch?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday November 16 2016, @12:10AM
[What makes you think he's] a witch?
Well, he turned me into a gewg_!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 15 2016, @09:31PM
I thought he meant Al Pacino from the movie Scarface in '82 which might predate him a bit. It was a classic 80s action movie. Probably couldn't politically be made today. Oliver Stone was on coke when he was directing it, which makes a weird kind of sense.
In case you kids on my lawn ever wondered why first person shooters inevitably have a chainsaw as a weapon, you can see its first application in "Scarface".
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday November 15 2016, @11:59PM
Scarface doesn't even predate The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Evil Dead, let's not pretend it's the first use of a chainsaw as a weapon. Also, it came out in '83. Dear old people: Millenials often remember the pop-culture media of your middle-age better than you do, in part because we were exposed to it more recently. You can stop talking down to us about shared cultural legacies any day now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @09:18PM
The problem is that we have a lot of laws that aren't well-considered. If you construct laws on the basis that people will ignore a reward because getting it would involve immoral actions or the expectation that they'd get caught, then you're going to have people that do it anyways.
The trick is that we shouldn't be punishing bad behavior in most cases, we should be rewarding good behavior. Psychopaths are mainly a problem when their real or perceived self-interest conflict with other people. Psychopaths don't particularly care about right and wrong, they care about whether or not they're going to get what they're looking for.
Sociopaths, OTOH, are a completely different problem and by and large don't live in society without causing problems. You can't really negotiate with them as they're just in it for the lulz. Psychopaths can usually be negotiated with if you haven't already pissed them off the the point where all their interested is your head on a platter in a literal sense.
But, as for the topic, you're not likely to get one up on a psychopath unless you yourself are one.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 16 2016, @05:17AM
But, as for the topic, you're not likely to get one up on a psychopath unless you yourself are one.
That's why my suggestion. Most of the games psychopaths play involve having enough people fooled that they can turn them against you. If nobody is buying in, they're powerless.