what happens when there is a quick test to determine who is a psychopath?

[bobby85]

Hi new to the board. Been lurking for a while. I think forum etiquette dictates i should post a little about myself but not sure if there is a dedicated thread for this so i will just jump into my question in the meantime.

When rather than if medical science is able to provide a quick and easy diagnosis of psychopathy how do you see the world changing? Given that it is said 1-4% of the population has this condition and also given that these people are said to end up in positions of great power in politics and industry how would an unmasking of these people change/affect the world?

I had a quick search through the forum to see if anyone posted anything along these lines before but came up with zero...

look forward to discussing

 

[Jacques]

Hi bobby85 ,

Welcome to our forum. :)

We recommend all new members to post an introduction in the Newbies section telling us a bit about themselves, how they found the cass material, and how much of the work here they have read.

You can have a look through that board to see how others have done it.

 

[curious_richard]

When rather than if medical science is able to provide a quick and easy diagnosis of psychopathy how do you see the world changing?

I think the psychopaths would find ways to bend the testing. They would try to corrupt the test methods or the people doing the tests. They would try to use the tests as a weapon against their enemies. They would falsely identify regular people as psychopaths, and later reveal those errors to "prove" the tests are wrong and harmful to society, and to cast doubt about those psychopaths who were correctly identified.

I think it would be difficult and dangerous to fight psychopaths in open combat.

 

[Woodsman]

I think we're seeing the answer to your question.

Psychopathy is being elevated to a position of respect; "evolutionarily advanced people equipped with superior skills for success!", (or some such tripe). I've seen this several times presented in different ways in the media, I think as a pre-emptive maneuver as the condition becomes increasingly recognized by the public.

I also think it is very likely that testing would be corrupted, especially starting out with the level of societal rot we live within today. Those in positions to mandate and oversee it would be among the first to be singled out by it, and so they would work hard to prevent it from happening effectively. I'm sure the Secret Team would have its fingers all over it. Testing is the sort of thing which would have to be included as a primary pillar within a fresh new society, which in combination with regular education, would serve to keep such a society clean of pathologically deviant individuals.

But then, every possibility exists in some dimension somewhere, so someplace they got it working under the worst conditions possible. But not this one. And realistically, I don't think we've got the time or inclination to make it happen one way or another. I think the universe is going to be doing its own Spring cleaning without any need from its human inhabitants!

 

[bobby85]

When rather than if medical science is able to provide a quick and easy diagnosis of psychopathy how do you see the world changing?

I think the psychopaths would find ways to bend the testing. They would try to corrupt the test methods or the people doing the tests. They would try to use the tests as a weapon against their enemies. They would falsely identify regular people as psychopaths, and later reveal those errors to "prove" the tests are wrong and harmful to society, and to cast doubt about those psychopaths who were correctly identified.

I think it would be difficult and dangerous to fight psychopaths in open combat.

the scary thing that i infer from your reply means that there is some sort of shadow state/conspiracy at work. Of course these people wouldnt want to be found out and exposed but i wonder if people who obviously never want to be found out actually acknowledge each other for what they are and work together to forward their 4% minority agenda. Would not surprise me I guess..

 

[go2]

The following article is receiving wide attention on the internet. Google loves it. I excerpted the relevant paragraph below and the bold is what caught my eye. The authors state one characteristic of psychopaths is that they do not learn from negative reinforcement. Well, who would learn from negative reinforcement in operant conditioning?

There are genetic markers for people who do not learn well from negative reinforcement. Why has this marker become a routine feature of genetic testing?

Could behavioral modification specialists of the education, prison and drug rehabilitation industries label activists, rebels, non-conformists, or just plain bull headed people psychopaths because they do not learn to conform by negative reinforcement. In fact, those very people are the ones most likely to confront injustice and exploitation. Are the psychopaths influencing the literature and methods of behavior modification practiced in schools, prisons, and mental facilities?

Those who do not learn from negative reinforcement are natural stoics, who have great spiritual potential following the method of conscious labor and intentional suffering. Perhaps, the abuse of the science of psychopaths is being prepared as an attack on the individuals and families with DNA markers that do not make submissive slaves.

The two defining characteristics of psychopaths, blunted emotional response to negative stimuli, coupled with poor impulse control, can both be measured in psychological and neuroimaging experiments. Several studies have found decreased responsiveness of the amygdala to fearful or other negative stimuli in psychopaths. They do not seem to process heavily loaded emotional words, like “rape”, for example, any differently from how they process neutral words, like “table”. This lack of response to negative stimuli can be measured in other ways, such as the failure to induce a galvanic skin response (heightened skin conduction due to sweating) when faced with an impending electrical shock. Psychopaths have also been found to underactivate limbic (emotional) regions of the brain during aversive learning, correlating with an insensitivity to negative reinforcement. The psychopath really just doesn’t care. In this, psychopaths differ from many people who are prone to sudden, impulsive violence, in that those people tend to have a hypersensitive negative emotional response to what would otherwise be relatively innocuous stimuli.

 

[Nienna]

When rather than if medical science is able to provide a quick and easy diagnosis of psychopathy how do you see the world changing?

I think the psychopaths would find ways to bend the testing. They would try to corrupt the test methods or the people doing the tests. They would try to use the tests as a weapon against their enemies. They would falsely identify regular people as psychopaths, and later reveal those errors to "prove" the tests are wrong and harmful to society, and to cast doubt about those psychopaths who were correctly identified.

I think it would be difficult and dangerous to fight psychopaths in open combat.

the scary thing that i infer from your reply means that there is some sort of shadow state/conspiracy at work. Of course these people wouldnt want to be found out and exposed but i wonder if people who obviously never want to be found out actually acknowledge each other for what they are and work together to forward their 4% minority agenda. Would not surprise me I guess..

Since psychopaths gravitate to positions of power, you will find that the government, military, police, teachers and professors, doctors, psychiatrists, etc., are all loaded with psychopaths. Since they are in positions of power, they will try to subvert and control any testing methods that would come out. That is why you are finding a lot of psychiatric reports coming out trying to show a "softer" version of the psychopath, or that they are treatable, or will be in the future.

From the information that has been put out in the past on psychopaths (take a look at our recommended reading list in the Books board) it is very evident that psychopaths are not treatable. They are hardwired the way they are, it is not a disease. They are a subhuman being. And they are in control of the planet. Makes it more understandable why things on this planet are going the way they are.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Well, who would learn from negative reinforcement in operant conditioning?

I don't think it's so cut-and-dried. Normal people learn from both types of reinforcement, but as always, context is everything. Remember the Cs session where spanking was brought up? Ark, for one, learned from negative reinforcement, and it's for it that we have to thank that he is not a criminal. ;) Psychopaths don't respond because they're incapable (i.e. they can't learn from experience); I think the people you're referring to don't respond because they know better. If making the right choice hurts (i.e. I am punished for it), I will make that choice regardless. Those are two different phenomena.

 

[efeuvete]

I think more or less accurate tests to uncover a psycopath can be done but, as it has been said here, the powerful positions of psychopaths on Earth will make those tests not only useless but dangerous. What I think it can be done is this:

1) Psychopath "essence" must be known to the more normal humans (ie. not OP's) as possible.
A believe a lot is being done today on this issue.
2) Psychopath catastrophic presence everywhere in society but specially in power positions, must be known too to the more normal humans as possible.
Things are being done today on this issue but still, not enough.
3) Then, normal humans must start learning that you don't need to be 100% sure that an individual is a psychopath to protect yourself; This, mainly because fighting "cleanly" with a psycopath is, at least today, useless and dangerous.

These are, in my opinion the best things to do to protect you:
a) Be well informed (That's what I say in points 1 and 2)
b) If you have a reasonable opinion that an individual can be a psychopath LIE HIM in all ways that can protect you and that don't hurts anybody; there are those ways. Lie him completely, without any kind of remorse. Just as an animal does camouflage to survive in nature.
c) Run away from him. The sooner and farther, the better.
d) If b) or c) are not possible in your situation, fight with him, but don't fight to win. Fight with him just to start LYING HIM and to RUNING AWAY FROM HIM.

Maybe if all this is being done by, let's say, X% of human beings in earth (Who knows how much is that X%), we can start constructing better ways to protect us from them but now, is still too soon.

 

[cubbex]

I think we're seeing the answer to your question.

Psychopathy is being elevated to a position of respect; "evolutionarily advanced people equipped with superior skills for success!", (or some such tripe). I've seen this several times presented in different ways in the media, I think as a pre-emptive maneuver as the condition becomes increasingly recognized by the public.

Maybe the public is recognizing the behavior of the psychopaths, with the heads of almost every human being with the illusion that material comfort is the objective of life, or that to be complet, realized and more you have to success in a material way. The psychopaths would be seen as an evolution, because this is a STS where almost everyone feeds from everyone, but the ones that feeds more are the psychopaths, and at the same time are the ones that are a success intellectually (something which for me is overrated, heart counts too) and materially.

 

[Fester]

I think I agree with everything said here so far, more or less, but particularly this:

I think more or less accurate tests to uncover a psycopath can be done but, as it has been said here, the powerful positions of psychopaths on Earth will make those tests not only useless but dangerous. What I think it can be done is this:

1) Psychopath "essence" must be known to the more normal humans (ie. not OP's) as possible.
A believe a lot is being done today on this issue.
2) Psychopath catastrophic presence everywhere in society but specially in power positions, must be known too to the more normal humans as possible.
Things are being done today on this issue but still, not enough.
3) Then, normal humans must start learning that you don't need to be 100% sure that an individual is a psychopath to protect yourself; This, mainly because fighting "cleanly" with a psycopath is, at least today, useless and dangerous.

These are, in my opinion the best things to do to protect you:
a) Be well informed (That's what I say in points 1 and 2)
b) If you have a reasonable opinion that an individual can be a psychopath LIE HIM in all ways that can protect you and that don't hurts anybody; there are those ways. Lie him completely, without any kind of remorse. Just as an animal does camouflage to survive in nature.
c) Run away from him. The sooner and farther, the better.
d) If b) or c) are not possible in your situation, fight with him, but don't fight to win. Fight with him just to start LYING HIM and to RUNING AWAY FROM HIM.

Maybe if all this is being done by, let's say, X% of human beings in earth (Who knows how much is that X%), we can start constructing better ways to protect us from them but now, is still too soon.

which I agree with 100%, and it also leads me to my point and question. My point is that IMO the only way, the only kind of "psychopath detector" that works is the intuitive one that we all born with, coupled with there being the X% of other people also doing it, the not only personal recognition of the psychopath, but also the greater societal recognition of such. This would provide the necessary reinforcement and support from family and friends of the victim (that the psychopath works to remove) because even if they did not immediately recognise the psycho, they would be much better prepared to see it because they would already believe the possibility, and recognise your recognition instead. (In short, more prepared to believe the victim instead of the psycho).

My question is: If we assume that there WILL come a time (hopefully soon!) when a large enough percentage of people in general can easily, successfully, and unmistakably identify a psychopath a (maybe a part of the "levelled playing field" that the C's refer to?); if we assume that this is possible and enough people can do it for everyone to effect a solution... What do we do with them?

Personally, I don't think that I qualify to decide on the answer, but I would definitely vote on it. I would vote for their removal. I think we should not hesitate to kill them. They wouldn't. But unlike most people who say this sort of thing, I am also prepared to get my own hands dirty. If the society that were are assuming were to exist, and there was no better way to remove the threat they pose to real humans completely and permanently, then it would need someone to carry out the necessary judgment. I would be one to step forward and say, "Well someone's gotta do it." And then do it myself.

But hopefully a better answer becomes available. Like leaving them behind in 3D while we traipse off to 4D, or something. Maybe there's a place they can't follow us.

 

[Chang]

This may be a bit off topic, but I don't care (I'm joking).

Does anyone know what the process is, to determine if one is psycho?

And if so, how do you go about getting the monster to the test site?
Does it have to be court appointed? Or do they usually wait until they've killed someone, then start the process? I'm dead serious, because I've been to court with one (actually two) and they continue to lie as if they were at a party with a brainless stranger.

Evidently courts don't prosecute liars, due to the fact that prisons are already over-crowded. Maybe its just lower courts, as I've not taken an issue any further, at least not yet.

If I were writing fiction, I could easily see myself recommending the death penalty for these creatures. I mean geez, they can't be fixed, they just mutate so that they are even more devious, to the point that they may be UNDETECTABLE!

But then again, I'm about as biased as can be.

Best,

Chang