The interesting question to me is, are sociopaths ever useful to have or are they inherently destructive and malign? You used the analogy of an anglerfish, and I don’t think there are many better comparisons you would want to make if your goal is to show something at the furthest (negative) edge of what we consider aesthetically pleasing—one of the most obviously hostile-looking creatures on the planet. To me that certainly seems intentional.
There are sort of three definitions of “sociopath” that get used here, and they often overlap, or perhaps are sort of assumed to be the same. One is the traditional definition of sociopath—someone who basically lacks morals and empathy—and the others are some combination of the Gervais Principle Sociopath and the Chapman Sociopath. The Gervais sociopath seems to be someone who actually is capable of doing good things sometimes, because they are the only ones with both the creative vision and the charisma to organize and convince a bunch of people to do stuff, but they often lie and cheat and create delusions in order to get there. The Chapman kind is similar, but is also someone who comes into social groups just to prey on people and feed their own ego or whatever it is they really want. And they usually cause destruction, which is different from the kind of sociopaths that create value to society or an economy or something like that.
But with respect to community building, or Effective Altruism, the question is, given that your group will invariably eventually become composed of various personality types, some geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths, is your primary goal to filter this pool down—let’s say by making it hard for sociopaths to find their way in—or just by making it so that everyone’s objectives are in some way aligned with the overarching goals, without removing anyone?
By the way, this question does not at all apply to your choice of how to write your posts. I think if you want to write in a way that acts as a high-fidelity signal but not be the brightest beacon possible, that makes perfect sense for personal writings.
The interesting question to me is, are sociopaths ever useful to have or are they inherently destructive and malign? You used the analogy of an anglerfish, and I don’t think there are many better comparisons you would want to make if your goal is to show something at the furthest (negative) edge of what we consider aesthetically pleasing—one of the most obviously hostile-looking creatures on the planet. To me that certainly seems intentional.
There are sort of three definitions of “sociopath” that get used here, and they often overlap, or perhaps are sort of assumed to be the same. One is the traditional definition of sociopath—someone who basically lacks morals and empathy—and the others are some combination of the Gervais Principle Sociopath and the Chapman Sociopath. The Gervais sociopath seems to be someone who actually is capable of doing good things sometimes, because they are the only ones with both the creative vision and the charisma to organize and convince a bunch of people to do stuff, but they often lie and cheat and create delusions in order to get there. The Chapman kind is similar, but is also someone who comes into social groups just to prey on people and feed their own ego or whatever it is they really want. And they usually cause destruction, which is different from the kind of sociopaths that create value to society or an economy or something like that.
But with respect to community building, or Effective Altruism, the question is, given that your group will invariably eventually become composed of various personality types, some geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths, is your primary goal to filter this pool down—let’s say by making it hard for sociopaths to find their way in—or just by making it so that everyone’s objectives are in some way aligned with the overarching goals, without removing anyone?
By the way, this question does not at all apply to your choice of how to write your posts. I think if you want to write in a way that acts as a high-fidelity signal but not be the brightest beacon possible, that makes perfect sense for personal writings.
The distinction between these types of “sociopath” is quite important, thanks for making it explicit.