<story><title>Wisdom from Psychopaths?</title><url>http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wisdom-from-psychopaths</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dkarl</author><text>I was expecting to read an article about understanding human nature without morality and respect clouding your judgment.  Instead I read that psychopaths are clever at thinking up nefarious schemes to get what they want.  I don&apos;t buy it as &quot;wisdom.&quot;  Anyone can think of evil ways to get what they want, as long as the situation is  hypothetical.  Just yesterday I posted a comment describing how if I ran a dating site I would screw over my customers by giving them the exact opposite of what was good for them because it would be more profitable for me [1].  Most people have fantasized about violence from time to time, and half the internet seems to advocate being a psychopath as the best way to get laid.  It&apos;s the reality of a situation that stops people from being as &quot;wise&quot; as a psychopath, and, I would argue, there&apos;s no loss, because in a practical situation there&apos;s no point in seeing solutions that you won&apos;t execute in real life.  Did the author&apos;s friends use the asbestos solution?  I think not.  It would be awkward to explain to friends, they would have moral scruples, and it might very well be illegal.  If a non-psychopath and a psychopath both limit their imaginations to plausible options, the psychopath isn&apos;t any more wise for seeing options the non-psychopath doesn&apos;t.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5015068&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5015068&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Wisdom from Psychopaths?</title><url>http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wisdom-from-psychopaths</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Xcelerate</author><text>I find psychopaths incredibly interesting.  Probably because I recognize that I am about the furthest thing from one.  I incessantly worry about the future and the consequences of what I&apos;m currently doing.  I always wonder what people are thinking, what they are thinking about others, and what they are thinking about me.  It takes me 50 minutes to type a short email because I&apos;m constantly playing out the scenarios of how it comes across to others in my mind.  In fact, I&apos;d say I edit almost all the posts I make on HN multiple times after I&apos;ve posted them.  And finally, I have a tendency to become really sad upon hearing sad news.  I avoid the news for this reason.  And although I love reading about startups, I could never imagine myself leaving a secure, stable job unless I had very high confidence that my startup would succeed.&lt;p&gt;This sort of thinking has obvious negative drawbacks.  Social interaction becomes a chore because you think you&apos;re never going to come across positively, so why interact at all?&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve always wished that for just a day, I could have a psychopathic personality -- just to see how things work out differently.  (Realize that psychopathy is not the same thing as evil or immoral by the way).</text></comment>