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I'm extremely competitive too. I mostly come to this website because I want to essentially conquer people. I want to outsmart them. I want to learn to become smarter than them. I want to appear more empathetic than them too. I want to compete to be the most logical, empathetic appearing person on this website...and that's been my main motivation for posting here since the beginning. I've been looking for progressively more clever people to compete with too. I want to appear wise as well. I want to have all the wisest answers to questions.
I have run into a lot of crazy people in my life. Some are crazy violent, some are just crazy. I don't find crazy behaviour interesting, just disturbing.
So...I found this extremely interesting. This is a video of a neurologist who does not commit major crimes, who was apparently a pretty well-behaved child who has similar inactive areas of his brain related to morality and other areas as many serial killers and psychopaths.
This is the first person I've seen talk who's personality type doesn't confuse me. Just like me...he gets along better with strangers than people he knows well. Just like me, he has a great deal of interest in the idea of assisting the world in general...but not so much interest in individuals. Just like me saw what might be seen as an alarming discovery to many people as interesting. If I am a pro-social psychopath, I am interested and mildly pleased by that...not alarmed.
I've read articles about this guy. One of them says he's extremely competitive but that he'd rather beat people in a debate or discussion than beat them up. I'm extremely competitive too. I mostly come to this website because I want to essentially conquer people. I want to outsmart them. I want to learn to become smarter than them. I want to appear more empathetic than them too. I want to compete to be the most logical, empathetic appearing person on this website...and that's been my main motivation for posting here since the beginning. I've been looking for progressively more clever people to compete with too. I want to appear wise as well. I want to have all the wisest answers to questions.
In addition to the drive to compete, my instincts also strongly push me to play games other people would probably be confused by, and tell people about my ideas. An example of the type of game I would like to play would be, I'd like to pretend to suicidal, or an alien, or think up various other creative lies and watch people's reactions to those lies for entertainment and as a personal challenge...a game to see if I could convince people to believe me. A large part of me has wished other people wouldn't be hurt by that sort of thing. I've learned that most people are far more easily hurt by that sort of thing than I am. I don't understand what that feels like, but I can see it. My ideal Citi-Data would be filled with trolls. Figuring out who's lying and who isn't could be another game.
Now...why I don't engage in all that lying is because I don't understand the emotional ramifications that would have on most people, and I like to be very careful when I don't understand how people will react. I don't like feeling distrusted. I have very weak emotional ties to individuals. I do not react negatively to harm that comes to others in any major ways...but I like feeling trusted by people. I want to engage in games of lying...but not if other people don't want to. I'd like to act bizarrely around people to watch how they react as an experiment...but not if other people would be worried by that, rather than laugh at it. I know they'd often be worried by that.
He shares his brain make up with some very violent ancestors starting with a relative hanged for killing his mother in 1667, and including Lizzy Borden. He attributes the fact he avoided their fate even though sharing their brain structure, to his childhood and how he was brought up. It seems like importantbfindings for understanding killers and nature vs nurture.
This was interesting thank you!
I guess what I would be curious about is what of career you ended up in. Have you found having some psychopathic tendencies to be an advantage at work? Also what is dating like for you? Can you fall in love? What does it mean for you to be in love? When you are dating someone and they are starting to talk about developing feelings for you what is going through your mind? Why aren't you violent? I mean if you aren't feeling fear nor guilt, what actually stops you here?
I've thought in the past that I might be a sociopath, because I almost never feel empathy when I read about issues like homelessness, addiction, abuse, war, or peaceful protesters getting gunned down, but hearing this guy's story tells me I'm probably not. I'm not competitive at all, and in fact I strongly dislike conflict or having "winners" and "losers" in debates. Sometimes I even come to the defense of someone I don't agree with in an argument just because I don't want them to be "on their own", and I've gotten in trouble this way.
Maybe I'm just used to hearing about these social issues, so it's hard for my brain to activate an emotional response to another story, or they're so abstract and general that it's hard to place myself in the shoes of an individual victim.
I am also mostly of the belief that actions, not thoughts, separate good people from the rest of us. If someone is making other people's lives better, even if it's just to boost their own status or recognition or because they've been explicitly conditioned to do so, then they are doing good.
Bret Weinstein has this really interesting video where he argues that there is range of sociopathology and we all have it to some degree or another. If you get a chance You might really enjoy this video.
I'm extremely competitive too. I mostly come to this website because I want to essentially conquer people. I want to outsmart them. I want to learn to become smarter than them. I want to appear more empathetic than them too. I want to compete to be the most logical, empathetic appearing person on this website...and that's been my main motivation for posting here since the beginning. I've been looking for progressively more clever people to compete with too. I want to appear wise as well. I want to have all the wisest answers to questions.
In addition to the drive to compete, my instincts also strongly push me to play games other people would probably be confused by, and tell people about my ideas. An example of the type of game I would like to play would be, I'd like to pretend to suicidal, or an alien, or think up various other creative lies and watch people's reactions to those lies for entertainment and as a personal challenge...a game to see if I could convince people to believe me. A large part of me has wished other people wouldn't be hurt by that sort of thing. I've learned that most people are far more easily hurt by that sort of thing than I am. I don't understand what that feels like, but I can see it. My ideal Citi-Data would be filled with trolls. Figuring out who's lying and who isn't could be another game.
I've met some crazy people (especially online); and while I have no idea if it's 'benign psychopathy' (per the thread) or not, I'd say your lack of empathy (while wanting to appear empathetic) and your emotional investment in getting strangers to believe you - is a huge start. Then again, per your post, this simply could be yet another 'try to get them to believe I'm a psychopath or an alien' post. Either way, it is not 'creative', 'competitive', 'smart' or 'entertainment'; it doesn't hurt anyone else (as emotionally healthy people don't care what strangers think). Experiencing empathy when we recognize despair, insecurity, depression, jealousy and so on is normal (though we are all more skeptical online); if it's a lie you've told, so what? How does that hurt anyone, but you? Why would anyone care?
So...I found this extremely interesting. This is a video of a neurologist who does not commit major crimes, who was apparently a pretty well-behaved child who has similar inactive areas of his brain related to morality and other areas as many serial killers and psychopaths.
This is the first person I've seen talk who's personality type doesn't confuse me. Just like me...he gets along better with strangers than people he knows well. Just like me, he has a great deal of interest in the idea of assisting the world in general...but not so much interest in individuals. Just like me saw what might be seen as an alarming discovery to many people as interesting. If I am a pro-social psychopath, I am interested and mildly pleased by that...not alarmed.
I've read articles about this guy. One of them says he's extremely competitive but that he'd rather beat people in a debate or discussion than beat them up. I'm extremely competitive too. I mostly come to this website because I want to essentially conquer people. I want to outsmart them. I want to learn to become smarter than them. I want to appear more empathetic than them too. I want to compete to be the most logical, empathetic appearing person on this website...and that's been my main motivation for posting here since the beginning. I've been looking for progressively more clever people to compete with too. I want to appear wise as well. I want to have all the wisest answers to questions.
In addition to the drive to compete, my instincts also strongly push me to play games other people would probably be confused by, and tell people about my ideas. An example of the type of game I would like to play would be, I'd like to pretend to suicidal, or an alien, or think up various other creative lies and watch people's reactions to those lies for entertainment and as a personal challenge...a game to see if I could convince people to believe me. A large part of me has wished other people wouldn't be hurt by that sort of thing. I've learned that most people are far more easily hurt by that sort of thing than I am. I don't understand what that feels like, but I can see it. My ideal Citi-Data would be filled with trolls. Figuring out who's lying and who isn't could be another game.
Now...why I don't engage in all that lying is because I don't understand the emotional ramifications that would have on most people, and I like to be very careful when I don't understand how people will react. I don't like feeling distrusted. I have very weak emotional ties to individuals. I do not react negatively to harm that comes to others in any major ways...but I like feeling trusted by people. I want to engage in games of lying...but not if other people don't want to. I'd like to act bizarrely around people to watch how they react as an experiment...but not if other people would be worried by that, rather than laugh at it. I know they'd often be worried by that.
Location: As of 2022….back to SoCal. OC this time!
9,297 posts, read 4,584,857 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Clintone
I mostly come to this website because I want to essentially conquer people.
I want to appear more empathetic than them too.
In addition to the drive to compete, my instincts also strongly push me to play games other people would probably be confused by, and tell people about my ideas. An example of the type of game I would like to play would be, I'd like to pretend to suicidal, or an alien, or think up various other creative lies and watch people's reactions to those lies for entertainment and as a personal challenge...a game to see if I could convince people to believe me.
I want to engage in games of lying..
This all sounds scary & like online harassment.....& cyberstalking.....do you play these games on different sites too or just this forum....? Should anybody be afraid you *want to conquer them*?
I've thought in the past that I might be a sociopath, because I almost never feel empathy when I read about issues like homelessness, addiction, abuse, war, or peaceful protesters getting gunned down, but hearing this guy's story tells me I'm probably not. I'm not competitive at all, and in fact I strongly dislike conflict or having "winners" and "losers" in debates. Sometimes I even come to the defense of someone I don't agree with in an argument just because I don't want them to be "on their own", and I've gotten in trouble this way.
Maybe I'm just used to hearing about these social issues, so it's hard for my brain to activate an emotional response to another story, or they're so abstract and general that it's hard to place myself in the shoes of an individual victim.
I am also mostly of the belief that actions, not thoughts, separate good people from the rest of us. If someone is making other people's lives better, even if it's just to boost their own status or recognition or because they've been explicitly conditioned to do so, then they are doing good.
Sounds pretty normal to me (caveat: I'm not a psychology or psychiatric professional, just a layman C-D poster).
Humans don't fit into little boxes too well. A lot of people are "neutral" thought, which likely shouldn't be confused with sociopathy. Bums, vagrants, addicts, wars, people being shot up are mere abstractions. On the mean streets of Kirkland (my home, median income about $120K) that crap just doesn't happen either. Yes, there is a murder every couple years: 1 in 2019, town of 88,000 (suburbs of Seattle), zero prior few years.
Those things don't affect me, I'm neutral more than contemptuous. The latter implies feeling *something* vs. *nothing*. Feeling ambivalence <> sociopathy, IMO.
Committing violence against those groups sounds pathological, though. Making a kind outreach, an opposite kind of pathology (a "good" act). Just walking off = nothing. Words and feelings vs. deeds.
This all sounds scary & like online harassment.....& cyberstalking.....do you play these games on different sites too or just this forum....? Should anybody be afraid you *want to conquer them*?
Don't worry...he can't conquer anyone with a mind of their own.
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