The Lives and Lies of a Professional Impostor | Hacker News Reader

The Lives and Lies of a Professional Impostor

nytimes.com

75 pointsrmcpherson18 comments

This reminds me of a great documentary I watched a few months ago, about this guy named Frédéric Bourdin who managed to impersonate (from a jail cell in Spain) a boy who had gone missing in Texas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imposter_(2012_film)

These guys are creepy, for sure, but also fascinating for their ability to assume new personas at the drop of a hat.

Just watched that the other night. Had never heard of the case previously, but it was interesting to see how far he was able to get with such ease. It goes to show emotions can weaken your senses of reality.

There was a great New Yorker article a while back about him. I'm sure the documentary covers the same stuff as the article, but in case anyone wants to read it: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/08/11/the-chameleon-a...

The documentary is so good though I recommend going into it knowing nothing

The line about how people want to believe other people and how he took advantage of that really freaked me out.

I'm definitely thinking twice about simply listening and believing people.

Good!

Pretty interesting article. The guy's clearly quite intelligent. He could have been a successful (albeit likely sociopathic) entrepreneur or scientist if his life circumstances were a little different.

He would have ruined just as many lives.

Maybe. Considering the rest of his family sounds somewhat normal, it's possible a big reason for his behavior is a result of environmental rather than genetic causes. Perhaps with a different upbringing, he would have a different personality.

Psychopathy isn't necessarily inherited.

No, not necessarily, but in many cases it has a significant genetic factor.

Sometimes that genetic factor doesn't result in truly sociopathic behavior (perhaps just courageousness or diminished emotionality and affect) until it's combined with environmental factors. And sometimes someone without any of the known genetic factors becomes psychopathic due to a terrible upbringing. But I think there's evidence of a genetic component for "true" sociopaths/psychopaths in a significant proportion of cases.

This guy seems to tick most of the boxes on the Psychopathy Checklist: [1]

Facet 1: Interpersonal

Glibness/superficial charm - needed to be an imposter with this much success, for so long

Grandiose sense of self-worth - evidence of this in spades in the article

Pathological lying - definitely

Cunning/manipulative - as an imposter, definitely

Facet 2: Affective

Lack of remorse or guilt - none whatsoever

Emotionally shallow - seems to be the case

Callous/lack of empathy - look at the way he treated his family!

Failure to accept responsibility for own actions - boasted nobody knows who he really is, doesn't care about what he did to his victims

Facet 3: Lifestyle

Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom - pretty self-evident, look at what he was doing!

Parasitic lifestyle - the very definition of an imposter of this nature

Lack of realistic, long-term goals - definitely, went from victi to victim, got caught, did jail time, went straight back to it

Impulsivity - pretty obvious I'd say

Irresponsibility - highly!

Facet 4: Antisocial

Poor behavioral controls - obviously!

Early behavioral problems - detailed in story, early larceny and violent crime with a crossbow

Juvenile delinquency - as above

Revocation of conditional release - yup

Criminal versatility - absolutely!

Many short-term marital relationships - no evidence of this, but used Angela K. Stamm

Promiscuous sexual behavior - no way of knowing

---

In short, this is a very dangerous guy and I'd say he has no prospect of rehabilitation. It's not often you read a story of someone who satisfies every criteria and partially matches one, with the final one uncertain without delving into their past deeply.

I'm a believer in restorative justice, but in this case, for the good of society, it would be best not to let him out for a very, very long time. I'd very cautious of accepting his contrition because it was qualified and it is almost certain he doesn't care about the terrible things he put his victims through.

Psychopaths know how to manipulate, and there is definitely something wrong with them. They literally have no conscience!

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_Checklist

I know I shouldn't comment on being downvoted, but I'm genuinely curious as to what is so wrong or offensive about this post!

It went from 2 to now 0, so evidently there are people who agree with me.

I didn't vote but generally speaking I have no patience for distance diagnosis of psychopathy by armchair psychiatrists. It doesn't make for an interesting contribution, in my estimation.

That's a fair and reasonable view :-)

Also, the terms "psychopath" and "sociopath" are deprecated. They are no longer in clinical use and I don't believe you can find them in the DSM (though you can find "Anti-Social Personality Disorder.")

The terms "psychopath" and "sociopath" are fundamentally meaningless. They have no more meaning than typical insults and profanities like "dickhead" or "douchebag."

I'm glad that these terms are deprecated for several reasons:

1. The term "psychopath" is a bigoted term. If you look up the Greek roots of this word (psyche + pathos) you find that it literally means a "suffering of the soul." To call a person with ASPD a "psychopath" is the equivalent of calling a mentally disabled person a "mongoloid." Its just needless name-calling and bigotry.

2. The popular conception of the "psychopath" presupposes that "psychopathy" is some kind of immutable condition, one that is inherent in the person to whom the term is being applied. Yet all studies point to the importance of both genetic and environmental factors in the development of what we call "psychopathy." Just as people can be victims of cancer, people can be victims of "psychopathy." Therefore it makes little sense to point the finger at the victim.

TL;DR "Psychopathy" is a bigoted and outdated term

Actually, in medicine, pathos is actually interpreted more as "disease", as in pathology which means the study or science of disease. And psyche as a medical term doesn't refer to the soul, but to the self or conscious personality of a person, or to quote William James: "Psychology is the Science of Mental Life, both of its phenomena and their conditions". [1]

I therefore have to respectfully disagree with you that it's a bigoted term, because a more nuanced view might consider that the term Psychopathy can also be translated as "disease of the mind".

The issues around psychopathy that were addressed in the DSM-V, from what I can see, were that the DSM-IV took a categorical approach to diagnosing the illness, whereas the DSM-V takes a dimensional approach, which addressed a number of problems with diagnosing the condition.

1. http://psychology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/cacioppo/jtcre...

Stopped reading halfway through.. made my stomach sick. More specifically, the part where he tranfers his hosts SSN in court through forged documents while he was staying there.

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