Working as a consultant to senior Wall Street executives some years ago, I read "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths go to Work" (co-authored by Hare; c. 2006) Their observation in that more specific work was that ~5% of people in financial services were clinical psychopaths and that the number increased the further up the pyramid one observed. My conclusion, based on experience, was that his estimate was conservative.
Excellent article and book tip! I'd make 2 points: First, I agree with you that "sociopath" and "psychopath" are synonymous and interchangeable. Many years ago, when I was in medical school, our Prof. of Medical Psychology pointed out that "sociopath" was coming into use in an attempt to "soften" the impact of a term that had come to be used for violent criminals. But the psychopathology is the SAME and the results vary primarily because of parenting, training and policing. In other words, many sociopaths "learn" that certain extremes of their self-centered behavior will have results that are "not worth it!" Or you might say they differ in the degree of their impulse control. But they all start out fundamentally the same and have the same characteristics. Some are naturally endowed to be better at the "charisma" part, resulting in them being able to "get away" with more! Second point: I think "1%" underestimates the frequency of this pathology.
PS: looking up the incarceration rate in the US, it's 0.7%. Since virtually 100% of criminals are psychopaths, the prison population alone almost comes up to 1%. The vast majority of those with this pathology live out their lives without ever being tripped up by the law.
Dear David: This post reminded me of a disturbing fact I learned from a former Senator who sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee (may not be the exact current name). One of the issues they inquired about was the high costs incurred by the drop-out rates of recruits during basic training. Approximately one out of every seven recruits is rejected due to “issues of character and morality.” As you know the conditions of hunger and lack of sleep during basic training allow military instructors to determine who will likely be unfit to serve in combat due to stress or cowardice. But another flaw they are alert for is thievery: usually stealing another recruit’s food due to constant hunger. The code that “one will not lie, cheat or steal nor will I tolerate anyone who does so” is vital for maintaining troop morale and their being able to resist inducements to betray their fellow soldiers if held in enemy captivity. The Senator told me that one seventh of the recruits seemed to be devoid of any moral character and would be caught stealing or lying or otherwise acting in a way that would undermine team morale. One out of every seven! But these seven are those who had clean criminal records and who seemed psychologically fit for service! This implies that there is a larger proportion (more than one in seven) of amoral people of low character in our population at large! I found as a college instructor how many of my students were guilty of academic dishonesty but those were only the ones I caught.
do you think we'll ever get any honest reporting on those same "press" properties acknowledging that there is no pathogenic virus of any kind and that multiple millions of people are already dead from the jabs or worse, very damaged and suffering and achieving the destruction of the dollar (not that the fed needed any help).
No, we cannot get honest reporting under a system in which the mainstream media get so much of their income from pharmaceutical companies. Even the "conservative" press, it seems, has no interest in continuing to ask the big questions: what was Fauci and his NIAID doing developing a bioweapon with the Chinese in China? Were hospitals incentivized to specifically kill only "unvaccinated" patients with Remdesivir & ventilator protocols just to provide the illusion of a "pandemic of the unvaccinated"? And so on and so forth. I have a whole series of COVID-related articles). Regarding the destruction of the dollar: inflation has been used since time immemorial to sucker idiotic populations out of their hard-earned cash. The fundamental problem here is that the average person is stupid, and so there is no reforming him or stopping the psychopaths in charge from ripping him off.
I like the story of when the usual suspects had developed a machine to shave off < mm thicknesses all around all of the coins they handled. I guess that was what provoked the textured edges of coins we've always known. Seems that was one of the more than one thousand times that one of more than one hundred countries kicked the whole tribe of the usual suspects out of said country. It seems there were some executions as welll. Seems to me that country was England. Maybe that's why the usual suspects are so mean to the english people. You've contributed to helping me to realize that I shouldn't be angry with my ignorant gullible siblings. I'm working on not feeling sorry for them. I guess I need to see it as not too serious, that a life is a thing that we get back, as many times as we need one until we get it right. I guess that's why the usual suspects want to control that. They want to live forever cause they're in charge, they probably want us to live forever so that we can be eternal slaves, but for the moment they'll have to settle for killing us to maintain that control and hope to keep us alive forever next time.
But maybe they've already got it worked out and what looks to us like them killing us is actually them capturing our souls eternally in some sort of shitbox that we'll want to get out of and won't be able to.
It is interesting getting older and gradually realizing that the world is a much darker place than I imagined it in my earlier years. Of course, it seems that the universe is in general an extremely violent an "dark" place, one where black holes annihilate and swallow entire galaxies. So I guess we shouldn't be imagining ourselves (or our souls) as being particularly important to anything or anyone.
Fame and fortune, like that of P-diddy, lure the unsuspecting to believe that the person has been ‘vetted’ to some degree. High profile. What really gets me is how they can operate for so many years without being exposed. It makes me want to buy books for everyone I know and love. Thanks, David!
My book Top 40 Honeypot is about a cabal of psychopaths in Top 40 Radio in the 1970's. It's a Me Too story told from the psychopath's points of view. Available now on Amazon, B & N, and Kindle Unlimited. Check it out!!!
Working as a consultant to senior Wall Street executives some years ago, I read "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths go to Work" (co-authored by Hare; c. 2006) Their observation in that more specific work was that ~5% of people in financial services were clinical psychopaths and that the number increased the further up the pyramid one observed. My conclusion, based on experience, was that his estimate was conservative.
Excellent article and book tip! I'd make 2 points: First, I agree with you that "sociopath" and "psychopath" are synonymous and interchangeable. Many years ago, when I was in medical school, our Prof. of Medical Psychology pointed out that "sociopath" was coming into use in an attempt to "soften" the impact of a term that had come to be used for violent criminals. But the psychopathology is the SAME and the results vary primarily because of parenting, training and policing. In other words, many sociopaths "learn" that certain extremes of their self-centered behavior will have results that are "not worth it!" Or you might say they differ in the degree of their impulse control. But they all start out fundamentally the same and have the same characteristics. Some are naturally endowed to be better at the "charisma" part, resulting in them being able to "get away" with more! Second point: I think "1%" underestimates the frequency of this pathology.
PS: looking up the incarceration rate in the US, it's 0.7%. Since virtually 100% of criminals are psychopaths, the prison population alone almost comes up to 1%. The vast majority of those with this pathology live out their lives without ever being tripped up by the law.
Dear David: This post reminded me of a disturbing fact I learned from a former Senator who sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee (may not be the exact current name). One of the issues they inquired about was the high costs incurred by the drop-out rates of recruits during basic training. Approximately one out of every seven recruits is rejected due to “issues of character and morality.” As you know the conditions of hunger and lack of sleep during basic training allow military instructors to determine who will likely be unfit to serve in combat due to stress or cowardice. But another flaw they are alert for is thievery: usually stealing another recruit’s food due to constant hunger. The code that “one will not lie, cheat or steal nor will I tolerate anyone who does so” is vital for maintaining troop morale and their being able to resist inducements to betray their fellow soldiers if held in enemy captivity. The Senator told me that one seventh of the recruits seemed to be devoid of any moral character and would be caught stealing or lying or otherwise acting in a way that would undermine team morale. One out of every seven! But these seven are those who had clean criminal records and who seemed psychologically fit for service! This implies that there is a larger proportion (more than one in seven) of amoral people of low character in our population at large! I found as a college instructor how many of my students were guilty of academic dishonesty but those were only the ones I caught.
Wow. Interesting. I'd never heard of this!
Well it is further confirmation of what you are saying. Thank you for the book recommendation.
Excellent!!
do you think we'll ever get any honest reporting on those same "press" properties acknowledging that there is no pathogenic virus of any kind and that multiple millions of people are already dead from the jabs or worse, very damaged and suffering and achieving the destruction of the dollar (not that the fed needed any help).
No, we cannot get honest reporting under a system in which the mainstream media get so much of their income from pharmaceutical companies. Even the "conservative" press, it seems, has no interest in continuing to ask the big questions: what was Fauci and his NIAID doing developing a bioweapon with the Chinese in China? Were hospitals incentivized to specifically kill only "unvaccinated" patients with Remdesivir & ventilator protocols just to provide the illusion of a "pandemic of the unvaccinated"? And so on and so forth. I have a whole series of COVID-related articles). Regarding the destruction of the dollar: inflation has been used since time immemorial to sucker idiotic populations out of their hard-earned cash. The fundamental problem here is that the average person is stupid, and so there is no reforming him or stopping the psychopaths in charge from ripping him off.
I like the story of when the usual suspects had developed a machine to shave off < mm thicknesses all around all of the coins they handled. I guess that was what provoked the textured edges of coins we've always known. Seems that was one of the more than one thousand times that one of more than one hundred countries kicked the whole tribe of the usual suspects out of said country. It seems there were some executions as welll. Seems to me that country was England. Maybe that's why the usual suspects are so mean to the english people. You've contributed to helping me to realize that I shouldn't be angry with my ignorant gullible siblings. I'm working on not feeling sorry for them. I guess I need to see it as not too serious, that a life is a thing that we get back, as many times as we need one until we get it right. I guess that's why the usual suspects want to control that. They want to live forever cause they're in charge, they probably want us to live forever so that we can be eternal slaves, but for the moment they'll have to settle for killing us to maintain that control and hope to keep us alive forever next time.
But maybe they've already got it worked out and what looks to us like them killing us is actually them capturing our souls eternally in some sort of shitbox that we'll want to get out of and won't be able to.
I guess we'll find out eventually.
It is interesting getting older and gradually realizing that the world is a much darker place than I imagined it in my earlier years. Of course, it seems that the universe is in general an extremely violent an "dark" place, one where black holes annihilate and swallow entire galaxies. So I guess we shouldn't be imagining ourselves (or our souls) as being particularly important to anything or anyone.
Fame and fortune, like that of P-diddy, lure the unsuspecting to believe that the person has been ‘vetted’ to some degree. High profile. What really gets me is how they can operate for so many years without being exposed. It makes me want to buy books for everyone I know and love. Thanks, David!
as george carlin said, the average person is stupid, and half of them are even stupider than that.
My book Top 40 Honeypot is about a cabal of psychopaths in Top 40 Radio in the 1970's. It's a Me Too story told from the psychopath's points of view. Available now on Amazon, B & N, and Kindle Unlimited. Check it out!!!