Schizoid (part 1)

From a reader:


I just found your blog today and while I probably won't come back, I read a lot of what you wrote for several hours and found it really interesting. I just wanted to send you a message of appreciation or something? I don't know, I just found that you seem really intelligent and what you write seems really logical.

I find human interaction to typically be pretty weird and bad. And I can relate in a small way to a lot of things you wrote. Anyway, I really think people misunderstand sociopaths. And actually really misunderstand many things about humans and life, but I'll try not to talk about something irrelevant.

I mean for example, I see tons of people talking about how sociopaths are automatically acting purely in self-interest, and that self-interest is intrinsically evil, and that because one is acting in self-interest without appealing to emotion, that they are always inclined to being evil. I think this is a huge misunderstanding of motivation, what is right/wrong, and how people in general operate.

Everyone acts in their self-interest. "Neurotypicals" do it all the time. They do things that hurt other people all the time. Their emotions drive them to do irrational things. They try to control others all the time. Look at how normal romantic relationships end up, each person is so high from their emotions that they viciously require the other person to do what they want (i.e. don't have sex with other people! don't go out with friends more than me! tell me you love me every day!). They also appeal to emotion for what is "right" to do. And objectively, this is unjustified. Anyone who has learned about philosophy knows this.

I have an intuitive approach to what is right/wrong to do and what to do. Obviously what is right to do is what seems like it will produce the best outcome. It doesn't take empathy to understand what the best outcome is. I'm sure most people who have high empathy don't even consider the outcome when they do something they think is "right". Isn't that equally selfish to not feeling any? They do what they think is right because it makes them feel good. How is that a good thing?

It seems somewhat coincidental that some of the things that people empathize about are the logical things to do. This makes sense I guess, because what is logical to do is to work for a "better" state of affairs overall, and I'm sure people don't think being dead / suffering is a better state of affairs. Although, in addition to being coincidental, it's probably also because what is simply better for people aligns with them having the ability to reproduce (unfortunately), and so... this is a favored trait.


I sort of wanted to ask if I'm correct in a particular perception of sociopaths which I think most people are way off about: Is it really more beneficial for someone to act in a way that does "good" things for others, and do most sociopaths understand this? I currently believe that to be the case. I mean, it's obviously not an absolute rule, it's just a general rule that even when acting in total self-interest, it's better overall to do what is also optimal for everyone else, because one has to live with them anyway, and each person's reactions to action of someone else affects (can affect?) their life. I.e. if someone decides that they want to steal from their family, this is, overall, probably bad for them because eventually the results of this will be worse for them than if they had not done so. I think the only reason it wouldn't work is for people who are essentially "co-dependent", for lack of better words? But for example if I keep allowing someone to do something to me that I really don't want them to do (like living in my house without paying), and then I blame them for taking advantage of me, is it really their fault? I don't think so, I think I would be providing them with the ability to do this behavior.

So what I am trying to say is that effectively, I think sociopaths should be able to operate fine in a society where there is freedom, because of how the interests of all agents would interact with each other. And I think that typically people "defend themselves" enough that it's not optimal for oneself to take advantage of others. I mean it's the same kind of thing that should allow capitalism to work in theory. A company -can- take advantage of its customers if it wants to, but this is not optimal for the company, because the customers (if they aren't stupid) will stop coming back and the company won't have any money/ability to do anything more.