Is Your Boss a Psychopath? 878
Dogers writes "Robert Hare, creator of the Psychopathy Checklist, has recently been applying his test 'Is your boss a psychopath' to businessmen and has found some disturbing results. From the article: 'Why wouldn't we want to screen them? We screen police officers, teachers. Why not people who are going to handle billions of dollars?'. Citing Enron and Worldcom management as an example, it seems a reasonable argument. The same source also has a quiz (magazine produced it seems) which allows you to test your own boss, too!"
You would *have* to be a psychopath.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Quiz? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is he a con artist or master manipulator? Who would have guessed!
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:5, Insightful)
> have got you far. You'd likely be expelled
> from a society or likely killed.
I'd think the psychopaths would probably be the ones doing the killing.
Not only business (Score:3, Insightful)
Now I'm out of the academic world, and with perspective I can see what a shithole that place was.
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:3, Insightful)
Before you RTFM take the quiz (Score:3, Insightful)
[1] Is he glib and superficially charming?
[2] Does he have a grandiose sense of self-worth?
[3] Is he a pathological liar?
[4] Is he a con artist or master manipulator?
[5] When he harms other people, does he feel a lack of remorse or guilt?
[6] Does he have a shallow affect?
[7] Is he callous and lacking in empathy?
[8] Does he fail to accept responsibility for his own actions?
Now RTFM, and see what they scored. Honestly, I feel that any "good" businessman will tell you that without all of these traits, you cannot succeed in this world we call America. I'm not saying that I agree with the attitude, but really look at it, it seems obvious that a lot of bosses have this attitude. It's almost a "must".
Why psychopaths exist... (Score:5, Insightful)
Much of our history has been dominated by violence, and our ancestors are those who survived violent episodes. Either by being very smart, very cute, or very evil.
Psychopaths are overwhelmingly male and psychopathic behaviour is generally evidenced by the ability to hurt and harm others without the usual remorse and empathic pain that most people feel.
The reason why only a small fraction of people show this behaviour is because (a) it's quite counterproductive in stable societies, so quickly gets pushed into marginal genepools (the bad boys of any village), and (b) it has a large component of environmental triggering, meaning that many people (mainly men, again) can exhibit psychopathic behavour given the right circumstances.
Why are psychopaths so charming? Partly because it works well in conflict situations. Partly because it acts to deflect attention. Selection works at the gene level, and the charming psychopathic genes have survived civilisation much better than the pure violence ones.
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Definitely. No other [wikipedia.org] ideology [wikipedia.org] in history [wikipedia.org] has produced [wikipedia.org] so many psychopaths [wikipedia.org].
Re:Politicians (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, it seems like an extension of the "survival of the fittest" meme. People who can manipulate others and use influence to benefit their own ends usually wind up getting more wealth, beautiful women attracted to such, etc etc. Think of the elite hunter-gatherers, who had a ton of food and was attractive to mates due to their cunning and ability to provide, thusly spreading their genes further.
Trudeau knew it too (Score:3, Insightful)
You reminded me of one of my favourite Pierre Trudeau quotes (for those who don't know [wikipedia.org], one of Canada's most famous Prime Ministers).
Trudeau knew what Adams knew. The quote during his election campaign:
CBC Reporter: How badly do you want to be Prime Minister?
Trudeau (not missing a beat): Not very badly.
Imagine a politician today having the balls to say something like that... I'll end with another one:
"It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from there."
I think theres a better question (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the system itself? (Score:3, Insightful)
The most dominant social system of our time is, by definition, psychotic. It is hardly surprising that individuals "become psychotic" as they work for these organizations. Indeed, if they did not, their jobs would quickly end: if sanity were to prevail when weighing social responsibility against profit, the decision--by corporate by-law a bad one--would damage shareholder value, and be grounds for immediate dismissal. The system guarantees that the inmates will run the asylum (and be praised all the way to the bank for doing so.)
All that is exceptional about Enron and Worldcomm is their excesses were exposed, not that their excesses occured.
this is just stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
i'm certain bosses could have just as many checklist items of what to worry about psychologically in their geeky employees
the point is, taking the stereotypical and the shallow seriously is a hallmark of you having the problem
now i could be accused of not having a sense of humor, except i don't see a big monty python foot next to the article here
which means somebody is actually taking this claptrap seriously
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:4, Insightful)
What about politicians .....? (Score:5, Insightful)
or does that occupation render them immune?
The problem is that most folks have a natural inclination to disbelieving that sort of thing, especially if it involves their own fearless leader.
The unbeleivability factor of it is perfect camoflage.
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dictators are psychopaths, go figure. As for Che, revolutionnairies are usually psychopaths as well.
I like the direction... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't be so quick to judge (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they come off to casual observers as being glib and superficially charming. But that is because when they are campaigning they are meeting literally hundreds and thousands of people a day. Try doing that and not acting glib. I saw an example of this last night. One of the people in our group complained about a recent decision by the city council. How many times have they heard this? I am guessing at least 10, maybe 20 times a day. Anyway, the one gal gives the canned, practiced response. How many times had she given this? At least as many times as she heard the complaint. It was a reasonable response, but you had to think about it for a while to understand the real issues. But to the casual observer, it was glib, superficially charming, and meaningless.
Politicians aren't generally liars or grandiose. Those are the ones you see on TV and read about in the paper. The vast majority of politicians only show up when it's election time, and they have to attempt to manipulate you to vote for them. All of them must make this rite of passage. The only ones that don't are those who are in appointed positions.
As far as callous and shallow, this is again a trait that the minority has. The vast majority, on both sides of the aisle, really care about what they doing and are pouring their heart and soul into their work. They can't care about everything, though. They can't even know about everything. So while you may see one at a funeral who isn't touched, remember that this is probably the third funeral of the week, and that they probably don't know the guy personally or at least to the point where they have become emotionally attached. After all, it's only politics, and if you become emotionally attached to people prepare for serious heartbreak when they endorse your opponent or turn on you after a bad decision.
Lack of remorse or guilt, and a failure to accept responsibility... I think you have to really get to know them and see the problems from their perspective. Sometimes, they knew there would be fallout, and they are prepared to accept the bad parts because they want the good part. So when those who are affected by the fallout come to complain, they are going to seem callous. Or would you rather have them say, "I knew this was going to happen, and you would be affected this way, and I made the decision regardless. It was a tough decision, but it was the best damn decision I could've made. And basically you weren't here to show us a better decision and it's water under the bridge now. I know you won't care about what I have to say because you can't see past your own problems, so I won't bother explaining. Just get it out of your system and let us move on to more important things."
But another thing you will see is that politicians, at the end of the day, are used and abused by their constituents. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people support a candidate only to turn on them moments later, only to support them moments later. It's a roller coaster ride, and the only way politicians can cope is to stay emotionally detached in their work. If there's crying to be done, it's done very privately on the shoulder of their spouse or very. very close and trusted friends. Otherwise, emotion can't enter into it. If it does, they will quickly become psychopathic.
I want to emphasize that there are a few psychopaths in politics, on both sides of the aisle. They probably aren't who you think they are and a few of the ones who you think aren't probably are. You will find them somewhat equally distributed throughout all levels of politics. Use the criteria, but apply it individually. And you must take the time to get to know the candidate personally. I tell you from experience that the local newspaper is abou as trustworthy as the pious gossip at your local church. If you base any of your opinions on what you see or read second- or third-hand, prepare to be misinformed.
Re:Why psychopaths exist... (Score:4, Insightful)
If there were no psychopaths in our society you'd have a story about how they're weeded out. If society were made up entirely of psychopaths you'd have a story about how psychopaths have what it takes to survive. And if there were a small proportion of psychopaths you'd give the story you've just given. When you don't back up your claims by actual figures and real predictions then what you are doing has as much validity as scholastic theology and only serves to give evolutionary biologists a bad name.
Re:"Sociopath", not psychopath (Score:5, Insightful)
She seems to think most politicians are APD. She claims that it's what makes them good politicians. She cites Jimmy Carter as someone who's not enough of a sociopath.
If you think about it, that explains an awful lot.
We are still serfs (Score:4, Insightful)
Anthropologically speaking, before about 6,000 years ago, ultimate authority resided in the nuclear family. Mom, and Dad, could independently decide what to do. Other people in the tribe, likely to be part of your extended family, could offer advice, and even beat on you if things really got hairy, but ulimately, they couldn't force you to do something that you really didn't want to. In some remote places this is still the case -- I recommend reading Napoleon Chagnon's work with the Yanomamo if you want to get a good idea about life with no ultimate authority to execute justice.
Then, once you have agriculture and food you can store and transport, you have people submitting to a stranger as an authority, pledging their life to them, and accepting their judgement as ultimate justice -- because if you don't, off with your head. These priest kings thought they were divinity on Earth, and the fact that they ruled over people was just the natural course of things, as surely as the sun moves across the sky. For reference, see the decription of any god-king. God-Kings got their place through the military, either rising to rulership, or usurping some family member in the throne. The person who would do best in this role is a psychopath.
Fast forward to modern democracies. Government isn't the domain of military leaders anymore, but supposedly more enlightened speakers who rule with the consent of the masses. Those psychopathic people now see their opportunity in business, where they can bully people in the privacy of offices and meeting rooms, and underlings live as undignified yesmen. Again, the people who do best as bosses are psychopaths.
Now, I'm not saying that all bosses are bad, or that all jobs suck. There are good bosses and enlightened companies, but the best bosses are psychopaths, and the companies that do the best are headed by people who can get their underlings to knuckle and do whatever they're told.
I've had two bad bosses in my short (15 years) time in the workplace -- after several fuckups and yelling matches, I've found out that these two bosses both believed that the rules didn't apply to them. One would berate us employees for not doing a good enough job following up on delinquent accounts, complaining about customers who refused to pay us, while he had creditors calling us constantly for his *own* delinquent accounts. As the company was running out of money, and we confronted him about late and bouncing checks, he told us it wasn't our place to call him on it. He believed on some deep level that it was very wrong for other people to owe him money -- but if he owed other people money, he should be allowed to slide. The rules just didn't apply to him.
Advice from 18th Century Japan (Score:2, Insightful)
Replies are scarier than the story (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is becoming more clear as I read the replies and see what is happening daily. We want ethical treatment but if the other person is acting unethical then heck, I should too. To those who would claim I am misguided, I would say they are. That it is just the way things work in the real world is because of people who go quietly into the dark, seeking nothing but protection for themselves at the expense of others.
That is what some of the executive who went to prison missed. They made a lot of people a lot of money, and most of them were probably not asking about the details. (For example, most of the get tough laws promised and passed by Congress were never enacted.) However, ethics is not something you do, it is something you are and it is binary choice. You cannot be "sort of" unethical or immoral. That is not to say you cannot make mistakes, humans do. However, to excuse behavior as a long series of mistakes makes you an accessory, not an observer. Part of the problem.
Double edged sword (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, as an employer and in the interest of fairness, it occurs to me that the same test could be applied to determine which of my employees are psycopathic with equally shocking results!
Let's just face it, the world is a wild and wooly place no matter which side of the fence you're on...
cheers.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't judge systems by their performance in powerpoint slides, judge them by their performance in the real world. Capatilism remains the least bad system precisely because it counts on corruption. If there is a better sysytem, it will also assume that greedy psychopaths are in charge, or it will fail the same was that Communism always does.
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:4, Insightful)
As a matter of fact, none of those individuals you described match the "psychopath" profile described in the article as far as I can see. They are more reminicent of the "Productive Narcissist" described in the later portions of the article, in that, regardless of the actual effect, their motivation was to improve the lot of the people in their society by creating a new system of living. They didn't just go in and selfishly plunder what was there for their own ends and skip out without paying the cheque, they invested their whole lives in the systems they created and derived their self-worth from them. Ruthless but selfless.
None of which is to say that they weren't evil or sadistic. But it sure seems to me that they were a bit too attached to something outside of themselves to meet the definition of psychopath as I understand it.
That's been my experience as well (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I actually job shadowed a state senator for a day, sat in on a couple meetings and the general assembly... and I realize that they aren't (for the most part) psychopathic or plotting...
They're just... average.
And then I realized that the horrible state of legislation was not the result of malice, but of the pure incompetent that infects the entire society. These were the C students in high school who had the right connections, or just the right interests. They were the masses that I have spent my entire life trying not to disdain because they do not comprehend most complex issues as quickly as my "gifted" friends.
Heinlein once said (paraphrased) than an elected official, ideally, represents a slightly above average member of his electorate. I realized that day that when I consider my opinion of most people I meet, I am not surprised at all at what comes out of the capital. It is no hand-picked best of the best representatives, nor a oligarchy of vile schemers, but simply a vaguely representative group of the more affluent members of our society.
Unfortunately, I think that this realization made me expect even less out of government. An intelligent psychopath at least acts intelligently in his own interest, as opposed to blindly herding in whatever direction is popular today.
Re:Not only business (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Psycho in Chief (Score:3, Insightful)
Bush is a psycho right now, wreaking havoc with our country, and on our country, every day. We'll probably never get over it, like we've never really gotten over Nixon and Vietnam. And probably shouldn't get over it, since we certainly haven't learned from it: we keep doing it again. Partly because of the glib, grandiose, pathological bullshit like "get over it" that Bush worshippers spout whenever that psycho is nailed.
Re:You would *have* to be a psychopath.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You have a nerd. He's smart. He wants to do what he wants to do, and what he wants to do is almost never go through the bug-list and fix bugs. He wants to do new and clever things which may or may not be of any value to anybody but the nerd.
You have a boss. He berates and exploits the nerd to get him to do his fucking job, which is maintaining and supporting the application he wrote which has a bug-list as long as his arm.
If you don't want to work in a structured corporate environment where you have a boss, and maybe a boss's boss, then quit and start your own business. Except if you do, I should warn you that you'll soon start to understand where your boss was coming from as you discover than people are, by and large, lazy and ungrateful shits.
In the microcosm of business, you need slaves and you need taskmasters. Being a slave sucks, and the taskmasters are sucky, but the cotton isn't going to pick itself.
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:2, Insightful)
I am not entirely convinced that this type of behavior has a genetic component as far as the behavior itself is concerned. I think that the potential for such behavior has a genetic component, and this potential is shared by all humans. In other words, this is the soil in which the seed is planted, or the cell that the virus infects (this type of behavior has very much in common with a virus, or cancer, or other systems of "unsustainable growth.")
The seed/virus, I believe, comes from interacting with other power-seeking humans. These interactions are typically "abusive" in some sense, with a clear "dominator" and a clear "victim." From these types of interactions, the victim comes to believe that "terrain denial" and dominance through brutal strength is the proper way to interact with others.
The "victim," wishing to overcome his/her feelings of inferiority that were spawned by interacting with the dominator, then seeks to dominate others, thus further spreading the "seeds" for this type of behavior.
I do not know where, exactly, this type of behavior came from. Many argue that the animal kingdom behaves in a similar fashion, but I only agree with this to a point. While there is clearly a certain form of competition among members of the animal kingdom, there still exists a balance and an almost symbiotic relationship between "predator" and "prey," not at all unlike the relationship between the shepherd and the flock.
For modern humans, however, mutually destructive behavior results in wild growth of unsustainable power systems. On the individual level, you get interactions like the example given above. On the social level, you get despotic dictatorships. The seed is the same for both scales: notions of absolute value (inferiority/superiority in an ultimate sense) that are first applied to the "self," and from thence to the "Other."
Consider that each human mind is like a "node," or a neuron, and that the entirety of humanity is one "mind," and human interaction is the firing between the neurons. Our belief systems are like the filters that allow only certain signals to pass through, and in a way, they are almost alive, since they can be transmitted from one person to another through their effects on human behavior.
Right now, many of us have that "terrain denying" belief. There are a lot of different kinds, but in the past few thousand years or so, this has been a very "predatory" and successful one. There is another, however, that might be relatively more "beneficial" to us and the environment in which we live: mutual uplift. Think of how different parts of a cell come together to form a whole, how cells come together to form organs, how organs come together to form beings, how beings come together to form planets, and how a planet is something like a cell. Each part is a unique individual, but it works in a mutually uplifting fashion with its counterparts. The only "central authority" they follow vents downward, on this scale, from sun to planet to individual: that which sustains them.
Food for thought, anyway.
Re:What about politicians .....? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My experience (Score:3, Insightful)
I know exactly what you are talking about. She didn't target him because he was fat and sloppy. She just targeted him because he was an easy target. I have seen this many times. It gives the psychopath a lot of power when they target someone and bring them down. People fear them and don't cross them because they have seen thier power. It is working on you. Not pointing fingers because I have been guilty of letting it go too. There really isn't anything you can do.
Re:Douglas Adams knew why (Score:5, Insightful)
The key problem is bosses ARE screened
Worst problem with American CEO's is they are hired by boards that are basically a good ole boy crony network. They all golf together, are members of the same country clubs, go to the same parties, and were in the same partying fraternities in college. They tend to not evaluate CEO's with a critical eye they are just hiring their friends, with the understanding that the people hire will in turn do favors for them and serve on their boards.
Then the problem extends downward. The CEO in turn hires good ole boys as President and VP's who in turn hire good ole boys in training to be middle management.
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:3, Insightful)
The nature of the sociopath or psychopath is such that he is favored to be an early winner in any competitive situation since he is unencumbered by the moral and ethical constraints that shackle the rest of us.
That being the case, the sociopath is likely to breed earlier and with a larger number of partners than the norm. So any genetic contribution to sociopathy is likely to spread widely through a population (since societies tend not to kill off their young until they've done something really, really, bad and sociopaths are not likely to do that until after they have reached breeding age).
I think sociopathy is probably more a product of environment than of genetics.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
A rather wise man once told me... (Score:2, Insightful)
The first place is in the sanitarium.
The second is in the boardroom.
Are your government leaders psychopaths? (Score:2, Insightful)
Questions taken from the Slashdot story: Is your boss a Psychopath [fastcompany.com]?
How do you rate George W. Bush and Dick Cheney? -- Questions for Questions:
Q: When he harms other people, does he feel a lack of remorse or guilt? A: Does killing people [iraqbodycount.net] qualify as harming them?
Q: Does he lie habitually even though he can easily be found out? A: Does lying to start a war [downingstreetmemo.com] qualify as lying? A2: Does pretending [doonesbury.com] that you have reduced the violence in another country, rather than increased it, qualify as lying?
Q: When he's exposed, does he still act unconcerned because he thinks he can weasel out of it? A: Does saying it's all fine [cnn.com] qualify as being unconcerned?
Q: Is he concerned about himself rather than the wreckage he inflicts on others or society at large? A: Does worrying only about election results [nytimes.com] qualify as being concerned only about oneself?
Q: Does he use his skill at lying to cheat or manipulate other people in his quest for money? A: When both Bush and Cheney have a long history of oil and weapons investments among family and friends, does starting a war in the world's second most oil-rich country qualify as a quest for money?
Q: Does he cruelly mock others? A: Does George W. Bush calling his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, "turd blossom" [guardian.co.uk] qualify as cruelly mocking him? A2: Does giving people disrespectful nicknames [wikipedia.org] qualify as mocking them?
Q: Is he callous and lacking in empathy? A: Does taking habitual risks with the lives of other people while driving qualify as lacking in empathy? A2: George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest [futurepower.org] A3: George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest [futurepower.org] George W. Bush was arrested 2 other times in his life, also, for stunts that were not something a sober person would find interesting. A4: Dick Cheney DUI, record of 1st arrest [futurepower.org] A5: Dick Cheney DUI, record of 2nd arrest [futurepower.org]
--
If your government chooses killing as policy, expect others to choose the same.
Excuse me? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you the same group of people posting links to the EFF, and complaining about violations of privacy?
This might be surprising to some of you, but being a sociopath is not illegal. Nor should it be grounds for not getting hired into a job. Being a sociopath does not mean you will become a serial killer either, despite what hollywood tells you. 3% of all men, and 1% of women are sociopaths. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopath/ [wikipedia.org]
If someone has the intellegence and ability to do the job, who cares if they won't cry when someone else gets burned? As long as they are a law abiding citizen, they should be able to live a normal life.
(Unless anyone with "mental disease" should be locked away)
Re:New Record (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:4, Insightful)
It depends on your read of capitalism. The psychopaths the articles describe thrive in large organizations that have a strongly top-down power structure.
To me, capitalism is about empowering individuals and small groups to make their own decisions about what's best for them through free trade and free association. Many large corporations are capitalists only on the outside; on the inside they're feudal monarchies. And externally they strive for the same sort of utter dominance that they have inside.
Corporations like that internally quash and externally seek to subvert the driving engine of capitalism, the open marketplace. I don't see them as real capitalists at all, whatever their PR departments say.
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, more likely yet, you'd become the alpha of the group.
Re:easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Because people are not machines and if you fail to understand how people really work, you will invariably be a bad manager. You really think that the guys at Enron did a good job? Billions of dollars were stolen from investors.
I've known a few of these people. I knew one manager who emotionally tortured a twenty-year old woman he was attracted to, as part of his plan to seduce her. This is the kind of guy you want to hand billions of dollars to?
Handling billions of dollars requires someone who has higher principles, not no principles. Enron is a perfect example. If you never feel remorse, why not steal? If you have no compassion for those you will hurt, there is no reason why you shouldn't operate in a purely selfish manner.
Corporate officers have to act on behalf of other people, the stock holders. They also have a responsibility to the people who work for the company, because, contrary to what seems to be taught at most business schools, in todays economy, the talent and dedication of your employees is worth as much or more as the capital you have to work with. If you hire people who are incapable of relating to other human beings and who are completely self-involved, they will invariably destroy the company.
It isn't being soft or wishy-washy to want sane and rational people working in top management, it's just good sense.
Sociopaths (Score:1, Insightful)
1) failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
2) deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3) impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
4) irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
5) reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6) consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
6) lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another
Now consider the conduct us US VP Dick Cheney:
1) (a) criminal conflict of interest (moving from industry to politics and securing massive contracts for the company he was just CEO of) (b) criminal incompetence and criminal negligence in conducting the war leading directly to avoidable deaths of US servicepeople and Iraqi civilians
2) lying about Iraq being the most likely "nexus of terrorists and WMD", lying about the existence of WMD, lying about Iraq being part of the war on terrorism when it is in fact the distraction from the war on terrorism
3) There was no plan for security in Iraq, everything was looted and now neither US forces or the Iraqi people have security or even reasonable levels of basic services such as electricity and water
5) Reckless endangerment of US troops and Iraqi civilians in the poorly planned war in Iraq.
6) Rationalizing the justification for the war.
Re:What about politicians .....? (Score:5, Insightful)
Narcisists are very beneficial to a company. Psychopaths will sell it and the shareholders up the river as soon as it benefits his self interest. And even more scary, psychopaths LOOK for those oppertunities because it thrills them.
Re:Are your government leaders psychopaths? (Score:5, Insightful)
2) You can take nearly any previous president: ask the same questions, and get similar responses. Clinton is an easy target, but even revered leaders (Washington, Lincoln, and certianly presidents of the last century) can be vilified using the same techniques you are using to vilify President Bush.
Your claim that Bush is a psychopath is unconvincing. He may be to a certian extent, the question of how severe a psychopath he is remains unanswered. Were that question answered it wouldn't necessarily cast light on his suitability for presidency.
Nice propoganda, though. You should be in PR - a good place for psychopaths.
-Adam
Re:I know what Borderline Personality Disorder is (Score:3, Insightful)
A number of psychologists really dislike working with such people because of this tendency to bolt, and also because some of these people will make it their lifes mission to make the life of the therapist who unmasks them a living hell.
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:2, Insightful)
We need many things - the true failing of most totalitarian/communistic societies is too much focus, not enough breadth. We do have people working on the whole "get along with each other" thing. In fact, in many ways our society is best of class in that reguard - but most of these tings only work internally, not with people outside the country.
Holy crap! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about politicians .....? (Score:1, Insightful)
I read the quiz, and I thought to myself, "That sounds a lot like Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh".
Re:Sociopaths (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this remind anybody else of high school, or is it just me?
Re:Don't be so quick to judge (Score:5, Insightful)
Governments, whether democratic or dictatorships, tend to be hierarchical structures in which people compete for dominance. Sociopaths seem to have advantages in that struggle, especially where there is information scarcity and they can cover up bad behavior.
I've observed three sets of populations where high sociopathic scores seem to confer an advantage:
a) law school b) the US presidency c) the ghetto.
I got interested in Robert Caro's biography of LBJ, and have been reading dozens of books about who gets to be president and how. It looks like LBJ was a sociopath, as were Joe Kennedy and Bill Clinton. I haven't read enough on FDR to say, but he's also worth looking into. So that this doesn't look partisan, I would also say that the Bush dynasty - Prescot, George I, W, would score high. See also Nixon.
Law school rewarded people who were smart, hard working, and completely lacking in a conscience. That seemed to be a deliberate part of the training - people would come in full of idealism and leave as hired guns. I now how to deal with these people as lawyers for the state, who put winning above doing the right thing or obeying their oath of office. They could use this quiz instead of the bar exam, and get similar results.
I am a poor but honest lawyer, so I live in the hood. A lot of my neighbors are crackheads or alcoholics. Substance abuse seems to turn people into sociopaths, ready to lie or cheat or steal to get a quick fix, with little thought to the long term damage to their reputations.
The solution, if there is one, to dealing with sociopaths, is information management. Their strategy of ruthlessless has short term payoffs,
at the cost of long term damage to their reputations, if and when the truth comes out.
'Wuffie' is cory doctorow's term for reputation capital. In http://www.craphoud.com/down [craphoud.com] Down and out in the Magic Kingdom, he outlines a future economy based on post-scarcity, open source, and reputation capital.
Applying that to the now, open a dossier on your boss, or local tyrants, if you see sociopathic tendencies. Collect information, be ready to make it public anonymously once a critcal mass is reached. Sooner or later, these types tend to shoot themselves in the foot.
how convenient (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, it would be great if we could identify dangerous people before they can do harm. But centuries of experience with that have shown that giving government and society the power to label and lock up people in that way is even more dangerous than the people themselves.
Re:If you support CAFTA/FREE TRADE (Score:3, Insightful)
I expect people to save up for themselves. Why do we feel entitled to retire at age 65 whether we have the means to survive or not? Social security was started at a time when most people didn't live to be 65 and very few lived much longer than that. I had a friend who's grandfather was still farming at age 80. He did it because he enjoyed it as well as that he needed the money because he refused to let the government pay for something that is his responsibility. I would rather keep my money and use it the way I feel I should. And that way is not social security, especially not its current design.
expect the government to spend itself into debt,
If you want the government to pay for all your expectations (and by the sound of it, you do) how do you want them to pay for it? To make up money out of thin air? To tax us all out the roof? I think a lot of programs need to be cut, and the budget needs to be balanced and the debt needs to be payed off. But we do that by reducing government, not spending more.
expect the cost of healthcare go continue to go up forever until you cannot afford it,
Insane. If we can't afford it, then who will pay for it? The upperclass? Fine I suppose. And then eventually healthcare providers will realise that there is a lot of money to be made by selling it to the middle class. And the trend will continue. But then, maybe you just read the news that is all doom and gloom. I see a lot of people in the medical field doing things for the poor. I believe in humanity, not the news-worlds view of it. At my University there was a group that just back from somewhere in South America which performed free dental services for thousands of people for free. Where was that in the news? It was in our daily campus newspaper, but didn't even make it into the local newspaper. It happens. I volunteer on occasion. Do you? If so, great. If not, shut up!
expect the poor to be tossed in ghettos and left to die, all around the world.
I'm looking at the poor here in the US and thinking, wow. I am technically considered poor by the standards here. I don't feel that way. I have food on my table and a roof over my head. When the rich get richer, the poor do NOT get poorer. There is no finite pie in economics. When the rich pay for things, who are they paying? The middle class. When they pay for things, who do they pay? The poor. So where does the money of the rich go? To the poor. Eventually. And as I aluded to before, some people donate their money and their time. This trend is seen in the US a lot. There are truly poor people here in the US, yes. There are much poorer people in other countries. I spent a month in the jungles of Vietnam back in May. Those people are very poor by US standards. They don't act like it though. they work. Hard. They have food on their tables and a roof over their heads, and it is NOT their communist (read socialist) governments fault that they have this. Quite the contrary. It is the governments fault they are hindered and held back.
Again, if you are actually doing something to reverse the trend, then I applaud you. If you are just sitting back and ranting then get off your high horse and shut up. The world is in a much better state than some may let on. There is a lot, and I mean a vast amount of a lot, of things we can improve upon. But rants like yours make it sound like we are in worse shape than any time on earth. Some things are bad. Let's improve it. Not just rant and complain.
Re:Psycho in Chief (Score:3, Insightful)
[1] Is he glib and superficially charming [googlefight.com]?
(Bush: 98.7K:33.5K; 75:25%)
[2] Does he have a grandiose sense of self-worth [googlefight.com]?
(Bush: 585:212; 73:27%)
[3] Is he a pathological liar [googlefight.com]?
(Bush: 21.4K:9.19K; 70:30%)
[4] Is he a con artist or master manipulator [googlefight.com]?
(Bush: 229:88; 72:28%)
[5] When he harms other people, does he feel a lack of remorse or guilt [googlefight.com]?
(Bush: 23:4; 85:15%)
[6] Does he have a shallow affect [googlefight.com]?
(Bush: 157:41; 79:21%)
[7] Is he callous and lacking in empathy [googlefight.com]?
(Bush: 89:27; 77:23%)
[8] Does he fail to accept responsibility for his own actions [googlefight.com]?
(Bush: 26.8K:10.4K; 72:28%)
The winner, once again, by a landslide in every category: George W. Bush is a psychopath! Kerry, not so much.
It's a silly fight. Bush is clearly a psychopath; this survey merely confirms how obvious it is to most people that he's like other psychopaths. And Kerry, whether or not a psychopath, is just another Senator from Massachussets. He doesn't carry around The Button. And he obviously doesn't lie the US military into invading Iraq, creating a complete catastrophe, in addition to leaving Afghanistan a catastrophe, instead of finishing that relatively straightforward, justifiable job. Hey Bush, you psycho, and all your psychotic worshippers, WHERE'S OSAMA? Maybe he's hanging out in your rubber room, swapping psycho stories with you.
Re:That's been my experience as well (Score:2, Insightful)
Cheers,
-- RLJ
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:3, Insightful)
The line between needs and wants is arbitrary - and says a lot about what the line drawer wants to impose on others...
Re:You would *have* to be a psychopath.. (Score:3, Insightful)
In the microcosm of business, you need slaves and you need taskmasters. Being a slave sucks, and the taskmasters are sucky, but the cotton isn't going to pick itself.
I'll give you a counter example. You have a company where everyone has task assigned to their job. The company has a very nice profit sharing plan and a benefits package including stock options. Bugs are filed by customers and engineers and divvied up among the engineers for fixing. Development is also customer driven and then divvied up by the engineers. Each person works hard, not because their boss is exploiting them, but because they have a personal stake in the company doing well enough to keep paying them, give them a big profit sharing bonus, and make their stock options worth something.
There is no reason to have slaves if employees are treated well. You also get a lot more real work out of an employee when they are working for themselves and their own self satisfaction as well. You claim people are lazy and need to be forced to work. I think you're dead wrong. I've worked with plenty of brilliant engineers who could have been making twice as much somewhere else and retired earlier. Most of the cream of the crop developers do it because they want to more than for the money. If they are laid off they work on an open source project or pet research project until they find a new job. They come in at 2AM on a saturday when they have a good idea because work is closer to the bar and they want to type something up before they forget. If a company treats employees well and provides them with incentives based upon how well they and the company do, employees don't need to be treated like slaves. I'm sorry the places you work suck so badly. It sounds like a really shitty place to work, the kind of place that can make you dread coming in. Please understand, that is not the only way.
Re:If you support CAFTA/FREE TRADE (Score:3, Insightful)
Is the "poor" class not growing larger while the middle class gets smaller? And, as another poster pointed out, money doesn't "trickle down" when it ends up going to other rich people who invested in stocks (which the poor cannot afford to do).
Re:Bought the t-shirt but didn't read the Che book (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, the guy could be more honest about his thoughts, because he didn't have to care about PR, but it's exactly the same thing, there are no substantial differences.
The US military bombed Baghdad, where inocent people lived, and now die. Just because they did it to "fight the terrorism" or "liberate iraq", and CG talked aout killing civilians to "free the people", it doesn't make the method any better. Kiling civilians is bad, of course, but it's very common, and most militaries, US included, do it strategically.
Re:My experience (Score:2, Insightful)
Use your opponents strengths against them, make them your advantage.
Find an ally that feels just like you do. There's one there. I gaurantee it. Get them in on the game. One of you has to become the "mark" that the other starts feeding info about to the evil director.
She will start to create uncertainty and obstacles for the mark, she will try to get the mark removed. Make sure she has what she believes are a factual basis for doing so. The mark is mis-representing his metrics or doing something financially squirrely for instance.
Very Important! The mark but be SQUEAKY CLEAN in regards to the thing being used. AND be able to prove it un-equivocably.
When the evil director makes her move be sure the mark is ready with the real facts.
Think Michael Douglas in Disclosure...
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with you for the most part, though.
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If you support CAFTA/FREE TRADE (Score:2, Insightful)
Reducing government is a great idea. Let's start by reducing government's power to concentrate wealth into the hand of a few, by revoking or greatly limiting the issuance of corporate charters, land deeds, inheritance rights, resource rights, copyrights, and patents. (Actually before that should be ending government's power to criminalize consensual behavior like drug use and prostitution, but let's stick with economic issues for the moment.)
The "social spending" that the right would like to slash is just an (inadequate) governor on the engine of state capitalism. Breaking the government power that enables the L-curve [lcurve.org] is a necessary prerequiste for eliminating these governors.
Which is the problem with economics - it does not correspond to reality.
All natural resources, and all human resources, are finite. Land or gold or the services of a skilled physician that I own, reduces the amount available to the rest of you.
Until economic theories that accept that we live in a finite world come to greater prominence, we're screwed.
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:2, Insightful)
Proto-socialist communism failed in Eastern Europe and Asia for many reasons, but it certainly wasn't because ideological communism fails to take corruption into account whereas capitalism does. Capitalism encourages each individual to selfishly pursue their own interests--and that's pretty much what Soviet and other communist leaders did. The reason why this kind of corruption was able to take place in high level government was because the early communists sought political change before cultural change, therefore they had to resort to subjecting the majority of the population to the communist ideals with a heavy-handed rule rather than democratic means. There's no inherent reason why a communist democracy would have any more corruption than a capitalist democracy.
From a capitalist's perspective communism is excessively idealistic because it assumes that people can cooperate with each other to achieve common ends and act out of altruism instead of selfishness. This may very well be true in a capitalist culture because people are taught, and even encouraged, to be selfish and indifferent to the needs of others. But these are consequences of culture, and not necessarily something true to human nature.
One false assumption that capitalism makes that socialism/communism does not is that there exists equality of opportunity. People equivocate democracy and freedom from oppression/discrimination to equality of opportunity. But any rational human being would realize that freedom of opportunity doesn't exist, and never will. Some people are born into well-off families, and others into poverty. Some individuals are born more intelligent than others. Some individuals suffer more misfortunes than others. The fact is, capitalism justifies selfishness based on premises that don't exist in reality, and that's why most developed nations have adopted socialist policies in education, healthcare, and other areas of public policy.
Re:The question is why do they exist? (Score:2, Insightful)
Guevara lead insurrections to free the indigenous peoples of South America. Sure people were harmed or killed, but the racist/classist system that he tried to help overthrow was exploiting/killing/harming much more people. Revolution is seen as the only option for desperate marginalized people. If the privileged classes of society had remedied the social problems in each of their respective countries through their democratic imperative, then a violent revolution would not have been necessary. But they didn't, they continued to exploit and marginalize the poor instead.
Guevara didn't start insurgencies for his own personal gain. Saying that simply because he imprisoned people and killed people in war that he is akin to Hitler is like saying that U.S. involvement in WWII is just as criminal and unethical as what the Nazis did.
If you ask the editors of The Economist, Bush administration, or the rich minority of Venezuela what they think of Hugo Chavez, they'd likely say that he is also a ruthless dictator. But to the majority of the underprivileged Venezuelan population which had been living in poverty and oppression for the most part of the last 5 centuries, Chavez is the first democratically elected president they've had. He's a dictator to the rich, but a liberator for the poor. Che is undoubtly loathed by those who benefited from the status quo he overthrew, but to most people in South America he was a hero.
Re:I'm not sure you have to be either (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, Enron and Worldcom also had other standards to live by. These include Securities Law, Generally Acceptable Accounting Practices, etc. and they broke these standards. It is under these standards that people like Ebbers and Fastow are brought to justice even. So yes, for corporations we have these standards and they can be enforced.
But any standard of ethics can only be enforced after the fact. If you aren't caught, then what?
Since the also God given, absolute moral and ethical laws, (such as the Ten Commandments) have been thrown out by the modern relativism, it becomes a real problem to determine whose ethics and morals should be chosen to be enforced and by whom.
Not really. The Bar Association, various accounting associations, and other professional associations also have standards of ethics that professionals are expected to adhere to.
Ethics is a difficult field* as you have pointed out. IMO, it is not enough to claim divine origin for your ethics code. Instead one needs to have a serious discussion about the field of ethics and start be defining a framework for approaching these issues. Once we can agree what this code is supposed to protect us against, we can develop a code of ethics which fills that purpose.
* Ethics is a field of philosophy which attempts to define "Good." IANAL, but I see Law as a field which inherently deals with Ethical questions. This is not to say that because something is legal that it is ethical or vice versa, however. Rather law is our attempt to approach the structure of society from a perspective of an Ethicist.
Will the standards be what the majority thinks?
I hope not. I think that the only redeaming value of democracy is that it is supposed to protect us from our leaders. Even here, we have to have a set of codified rights to make it work. I.e. even if the majority wants you arrested for burning a flag, that that is your right.
Unborn children are considered fetuses, rather than persons with rights of their own. The mother is allowed to decide over life and death thereof even after 6 months and that is perfectly legal.
Look, many of these questions are tough questions and a line has to be drawn somewhere. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decided to look at the conflicting interests of protecting the life of unborn children and protecting privacy and control over things like medical care. It is easy to say that one right should *always* trump the other, but what then? If I am terminally ill, should the interest of the government to preserve my life trump my wish to die in privacy? Until we can all acknowledge that these interests are both real, and will compete in many areas, we will never be able to have an intelligent discussion about abortion or death with dignity, and any real attempt to formulate an ethical framework for these issues will be trampled over by the forces of emotional reaction. Which is exactly what you seem to be afraid of in your post.
Jews and certain others in Nazi Germany were not considered human. Many, though not all Germans were of that opinion and many of them did wrongly accuse Jews with the result that they were shipped off to the execution camps.
For the record, German Nationalists were often shipped off to execution camps in Nazi Germany too. The horrors of the holocaust were by no means limited to any single group.
Part of the problem of the Nazis was that they were lead by a group of psychopaths (Hitler and Himmler were probably the worst) who honestly believed that
Re:I'm not sure you have to be either (Score:3, Insightful)
But this did not extend to the basic structure of government. To my knowledge, the Senate was a Roman institution, for example. And our courts are based on old Anglo-Saxon principles which although they have much in common with the classical cultures of Greece and Rome, has some differences as well.
In Europe the idea was that the rulers had divine rights and the people got whatever rights the rulers might have condescended to give them.
This was not the case in Rome until at least the time of Julius Caesar, and is likely derived from the (Hameto-Semetic) Egypitian concent of Ruler-as-God.
The founding fathers had the idea that ALL people had divinely bestowed inalienable rights. They codified these rights in a document called the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
See what Thomas Jefferson (author of the Declaration of Independence) wrote about Christianity. Among other things he said that it had no redeeming value, and that there would come a time when the stories of Jesus would be regarded along with those of the Greek Myths. Jefferson was a Deist and this would probably put him closer to Islam than mainsteam Christianity except that his concepts of good governance were clearly taken from Classical sources (Aristotle, Plato, etc) while Islam as you describe attempts to formulate a code of law based on divine scripture.
Hint: Neither Aristotle nor Plato were followers of a Judeo-Christian religion (though I have argued that many Christian theological concepts are clearly derived from the works of Plato).
In the same way, human societies stop funtioning well if there is no external, unchangeable reference of what is good and what is bad.
Your reading of the Bible is much more along the lines of the Koran than anything else.... As in Islam, you seem to feel that the only real source of good governance is God through timeless and unchanging scripture.
The one point I will agree with you about is that a tradition of law must be conservative, i.e. it must look to the past and to past models and change slowly only as necessary. But the same holds true with any engineering discipline-- that the smallest, most conservative changes are usually the best ones (back to Occam's Razor: "One Should Not Unnecessarily Multiply Entities"). This seems to be a lesson largely unlearned in American society where both the Right and the Left are pushing hard to enforce certain types of change on our society often without really thinking them through. And it is part of the reason why an independant (Ivory Tower, even) judiciary is so important.
I follow a religion which is in part my own attempt to reconstruct the pagan religions of my Indo-European ancestors. To me, the reference to what is good lies in the study of the stories of the gods and heroes that our ancestors told. I think (as I think the Framers thought, and yes, they may have been monotheists, but they were also *highly* influenced by pagan traditions) that Good must ultimately be a question of structure, and that any religion which espouses a single God will be ultimately unable to grasp this structure because while monotheism is very good at discussing issues of personal virtue, abstract social (and structural) concepts such as justice are fundamentally unapproachable within that framework without either going the route of the Koran (and establishing a set of Divine Laws) or simply deferring the matter to God.
In contrast, the collective works of the myths of our ancestors *do* provide a framework for approaching these topics. It was on this basis that the Roman Republic was founded, those of the Greek City-States (some of which also had a Republic-like form of government), the Germanic kingships, and the Celtic tribes, etc. People like Georges Dumezil have written volumes on the correlations between liturgical/poetic/iconograph