What is a sociopath's weakness?

I think the young sociopath's biggest weakness is trusting in the power of logic and reasoning. In this post I talked about how high functioning sociopaths (more than empaths) realize that it is not the content so much as the context of a message or belief that is important. It hardly matters if you are speaking the most precious pieces of wisdom ever uttered, some people will just not care or not listen or will misinterpret what you say. People who realize the importance of context over content can go on to be great leaders. People who do not realize this go on to be great scapegoats -- often much later in history to be labeled martyrs.

Punishment comes to two types of people: those who deserve to be punished, and those who are punished to send a message to everyone else that the ruling party is powerful and should not be toyed with. The first can lead to the second as long as the punishment is well-publicized. The second sometimes coincides with the first, but not always. Sometimes people get stuck on the wrong/losing side of an issue by chance and they end up being made-an-example-of through no fault of their own. Examples could be well-meaning Nazis in pre-World War II Germany, American Confederates in the Civil War, etc. These type of people end up getting castigated not because what they did was "wrong," but as a signal to others that the winning party is strong and will not tolerate disobedience. Everyone should be worried about both scenarios happening to them, but the "innocent" should be especially worried about the latter.

I have always been something of a hothead -- always trying to overthrow little dictators as I encounter them. I loathe incompetence and obsess over efficiency, so I'd typically rather just oust those who offend my tender sensitivities than put up with them to any degree. Of course one need supporters to stage coupes. This is where I've sometimes succeeded, sometimes failed. Sometimes my charisma has been enough to gain a critical mass of followers, or in some cases the popularity of the leader was so low that his enemies quickly became my friends. When the incompetence has been less obvious, however, or the leader was popular, I've consistently failed and have even been vilified for my troubles.

Because of my love of efficiency, I've always wanted to be as direct as possible. I'd think that surely the people would understand if I just present the arguments and let them judge for themselves. But people are stupid and blind and doubt anything that contradicts what they "know" to be true (actually, conveniently, one of the reasons why sociopaths can remain undetected so well). It took me a long time to learn that indirect attacks often were much more effective than direct attacks. To this day, I am still more frightened by an angry mob than anything else. As Galileo learned, there are many victims of the inconvenient truths they espoused. And to the mob -- question the origin of your beliefs, lest you be a puppet to an unknown puppeteer.