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Comment by trhway | Hacker News Reader

>For example, surgeons tend to lack empathy. People who are too empathetic would have a hard time cutting into someone. They would be too squeamish.

lacking and having control over are 2 different things. Former makes a psychopath, latter - a good surgeon.

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There's nothing inherently wrong with being a psychopath. The problem is that they tend to be extremely manipulative and selfish. Of course, if someone identifies "self" with some larger social project or humanistic goal, then manipulating people into achieving this goal can be an incredibly valuable skill.

"Of course, if someone identifies "self" with some larger social project or humanistic goal"

Such people can be the worst of all. They would have no compunction against mass slaughter. Utopianism in general has led to great evil because it is inherently unrealistic, and because it defines itself as the paramount good, surpassing all other goals, it can be used to rationalize very evil acts.

The important part is to identify psychopaths so that you can interact with them as if they were an ideal game-theoretic agent.

My understanding is that doctors tend to lack empathy, not control it. A quick google brings up this article which agrees with that understanding: http://news.legalexaminer.com/study-finds-doctors-lack-empat...

Your suggestion simply does not fit with anything I have ever seen or heard. I would be happy to see data suggesting that your idea is true instead. Care to cite a source?

I think it is even worse than that; becoming a surgeon destroys empathy.

That's interesting. I read a while back that psychopaths are not people who are completely devoid of empathy. Instead, they were defined as people who can control empathy. They can turn it on or off. They can turn it on when it suits them and turn it off when it would get in the way of achieving goals.

I would call those people borderline rather than full-blown psychopaths, but I'm not a psychologist.

I doubt that. They may turn on and off the appearance of empathy. But real empathy* would not serve a psychopath too well.

I have an ex husband with some less than lovely personal traits. Genes being what they are, he passed a few on to our children. So I have long had a keen interest in understanding constructive uses for less than lovely traits.

My ex was a soldier who served his country for more than 2 decades and was honorably discharged. He is an honorable man. But he's not very warm-fuzzy.

* "Empathy has many different definitions that encompass a broad range of emotional states, including caring for other people and having a desire to help them..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy

Sounds like a lack of sympathy.

Apparently you haven't read "The Wisdom of Psychopaths" s'good book

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