Comment by GhotiFish | Hacker News Reader

Comment by GhotiFish | Hacker News Reader

I've always viewed psychopaths as a sort of social predator, Something that would naturally spring up in any kind of environment subject to evolution. If you had a planet of sheep, you're going to eventually get sheep that eat other sheep. Morality is never involved in a strategy to survive. Likewise in a social environment, preying on others is effective.

With no moral aversion to such behaviour, I had basically assumed all psychopaths would establish some kind of predatory behaviour in their lives. Manipulation, plagiarizing, discrediting, blackmailing, ect.

On one level, it's not surprising to me to see an outlier such as Mr. Fallon, but I can't shake it. When you have those tendencies as part of who you are, then the question really becomes "why didn't you act on them?" Oh your mother loved you a whole bunch? I see. The human spirit is just indomitable isn't it? Uh huh.

I suspect the simplest answer is: "he did."

It would raise my spirits to know that pro-social psychopaths exist. Seeing as the incidence of psychopathic symptoms on average is about 1/100 people. I've also learned not to believe something because I wish it to be true.

I fall on the nature side of the debate. It's a scary world.

if morality is never involved in a strategy to survive... why do you think it exists?

Imposing morality on others is a survival strategy, but obeying morality yourself only becomes one once everyone else is imposing it on you.

i disagree. i think there's some morality hard-wired in most people.

Many survival strategies are hard-wired.

To the extent that humams can see the extent to which other humans have morality, genuinely having morality is a very important survial strategy. Cooperation is important in hunter gatherer bands but unlike with farmers it's fairly straightforward for people who feel imposed-upon to sneak off and start their own band. Being seen to be immoral is a good way to end up dead, either killed or from dieing along the next time you become injured or sick.

Morality can be involved in strategy to survive. First and foremost, morality is just specific behavioural patterns. Behavioural patterns can be encoded in DNA, e.g you could have a genetic variation that leads you to feel maximally rewarded when you fight back after some slight on your character.

Then you might wonder, "why does/doesn't every member of the species have that variation?". A suitable answer as I have come to understand is, it depends on whether it is evolutionary stable for every one to have the variation or not have it. Plus you can expect some error margins.

For example, while every one can farm, every one can't be pillaging, a society of all pillagers cannot be stable. You can also see that in a society of all farmers, a randomly introduced pillager will have a blast while not necessarily upsetting the balance. But start introducing more pillagers and the stability will break down at some ratio of pillagers to farmers.

Please note that this is not "selecting what is good for the species", that is only a consequence.

also worth noting that a society of all farmers is also not stable!

Just like how honey bees produce an abundance of honey. The moment you have any kind of abundance, something will be created to take advantage of that abundance. Nature tries everything.

Indeed, I did not make that clear.

All farmers - Not nihilistic, Not stable

All pillagers - Nihilistic, Not evolutionary stable

Some ratio of pillagers:farmers - Not nihilistic, Evolutionary stable

Where nihilism means that the society is very self defeating that it collapses instantly. And evolutionary stable means that the society can maintain it's general composition for a long enough time period.

P.S: There is probably a better word than nihilism for what I have chosen it to mean.

I think you underestimate the benefit of collaboration, which would hinder the apparition of "sheep-eating sheeps". There lies the benefit of morality.

Which is why the successful ones are good at hiding.

When they can optimize their success only by hiding so well that antisocial behaviour hardly ever occurs, where's the problem?

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