Aspies For Freedom

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Chosen 1 Wrote:

They know they're different.They act "normal". They think and feel different and they hide it.Hmmm.Sounds familiar.
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You're just intentionally pretending to be stupid.  I've got news for you, it has been my observation that EVERY SINGLE PERSON has done this at one time or another.  Hell's bells!  You've just describe the typical behavior of ANY cultural minority when in the presence of the dominant culture.  Of course, nobody (well, almost nobody) reading this would be dim-witted enough to believe that this sort of behavior is a sign of sociopathy.

One set of criteria include the following:

Callous unconcern for the feelings of others--not inability to figure them out.

Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules, and obligations--note, ATTITUDE and DISREGARD, not inability to understand or comprehend.  VERY DIFFERENT from the spectrum.

Incapacity to experience guilt and to profit from experience, particularly punishment.

Marked proneness to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behavior bringing the subject into conflict.

GnosisRoads Wrote:
I remember a story of a Auschwitz guard who nursed injured animals through the winter yet sent Jews to the gas chamber without any qualms.


There are people who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars more on a horse (that is not going to be used for any potential monetary gain) than they would ever think to donate to charity.

GnosisRoads Wrote:

DogBrain Wrote:
There are people who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars more on a horse (that is not going to be used for any potential monetary gain) than they would ever think to donate to charity.


Not giving money to charity and sending people to gas chambers are two different things


By matters of degree.  The only thing that evil needs to thrive is that men of good will do nothing.

Letting someone starve to death and running him through are different, too.  Some poor schmuck still dies, either way.  The difference is probably no comfort to the dead guy.

Yes, I do give, when I can.  I don't have the hundreds of thousands to spend on playtime--heck, I don't have any money to spend on playtime right now.

Aliengirl, emigrating from where to where?

Watching movies like Sicko make me ashamed to be an American, and if I wasn't born and raised an American to parents born and raised American, on principle I'd go be a Canadian, British, or French citizen.....

I do think we can learn from the European Union......  coalition military operations, expanded use of non-hydrocarbon energy (France has nuclear, Iceland geothermal, windmills elsewhere), better concept of democracy.....
better mass transit I forgot

Oh, and trading with Cuba..... American government still sulks over Cuba's government like an ex girlfriend

Chosen 1 Wrote:

I wasn't pretending to be stupid.I just seem to have a strange sense of humor.



"You're a racist. Ha ha, just kidding."
"You're a sociopath.  Ha ha, just kidding."

Chosen 1 Wrote:

DogBrain Wrote:

Chosen 1 Wrote:

I wasn't pretending to be stupid.I just seem to have a strange sense of humor.



"You're a racist. Ha ha, just kidding."
"You're a sociopath.  Ha ha, just kidding."

Thats more like itTongue


My second son does stuff pretty much like that and then gets upset when people pound him for it.  I keep trying to remind him of the rule that "I was just joking." does not erase a consequence or response.  If it would be hurtful without saying "I was just joking." then it will be hurtful even with "I was just joking."

Lili Marlene Wrote:
I also think it is interesting that the step-father was a compulsive gambler and a smoker. People who have the extrovert personality trait are especially sensitive to rewards from their environment, which is why they tend to have more sex, travel more and socialize more. A similar hyper-sensitivity to rewards is often given as an explanation for addictions such as drug abuse and problem gambling. One cluster of traits found in psychopaths has been found to be correlated with extroversion, and the psychopath type personality is more likely to be involved with drugs and promiscuity.


Hmm.  I'm an introvert, but I have a highly addictive personality...

M Wrote:
Apparently some terrorist are not sociopaths or psychopaths but just normal people who do terrible things.  I just can't understand it all.


Dostoevsky went so far as to posit that terrorists were under the throes of demonic possession.  It's, of course, not nearly so romantic.  It's very easy to take monstrous acts "for the greater good".  After all, it's what prenatal testing and places like Rothenberg amount to.

atypical Wrote:
Edit: so sorry about the typing issues/spelling
I started to read his book (Dostoevsky) Crime and punishment, weeks ago and just could not go thru with it.  The main character was so devoid of redeeming qualities, it was so pathetic and daunting to look thru those eyes.


The odd thing is that I saw so much of Raskolnikov in my fellow classmates when I read the book.  Many were so eager to do the monstrous thing "for the right reason", even if that "right reason" were merely popularity.

WatsonSword Wrote:
If he really is a narcissist, than the only thing he'll do in response to that is blame you for the failure of the marriage. Then he'll try to get you to do more things for him.
Infants believe that because their perspective comes from behind their own eyes, and not from behind anyone else's, that somehow their perspective is central, and that all others are tertiary. This makes them, in their mind, more important than anyone or anything else.

Narcissists are never able to grow out of that.


I would note that very often Aspies have trouble (as well as unwillingness) seeing the perspective of others.

For example, usually I can only show empathy if I have had firsthand experience with something; other than that, I can't put myself in anyone else's shoes.

Blue from Pokemon has a lot of psychopathic tendencies.

I don't think she is a psychopath though.

...

micgrace Wrote:
All aspies that I know, including myself are well aware they make continuing social errors. This is NOT the case for sociopaths / psychopaths who think their behaviour is normal.

No, that would be wrong. It's aspies who may believe their behavior is normal. Psychopaths simply don't give a *** -- or when they do, only because they gain on it.

If you want to simplify: aspies behave non-normally because they don't understand the norms, or can't apply them properly, and psychopaths behave non-normally because they don't care about norms or other people, even if they know it's against the norm. (Both are, as said, simplifications.)

There are at least two kinds of empathy: affective empathy and cognitive empathy. Here, have a quote:

Quote:
Empathy broadly refers to our reaction to the observed experiences of others. Previous investigators and theorists have taken two main approaches to the study of empathy. The first approach emphasizes ‘‘cognitive empathy’’, which can be defined as the process of understanding another person’s perspective. The second approach emphasizes ‘‘affective empathy’’, defined as an observer’s emotional response to the affective state of others. Recently, researchers have adopted a more multi-dimensional approach, acknowledging that both components are an integral part of empathy. This approach views the cognitive and affective components of empathy as two separate, but related constructs.


And another:

Quote:
Empathy is a lay term that is becoming increasingly viewed as a unitary function within the field of cognitive neuroscience. In this paper, a selective review of the empathy literature is provided. It is argued from this literature that empathy is not a unitary system but rather a loose collection of partially dissociable neurocognitive systems. In particular, three main divisions can be made: cognitive empathy (or Theory of Mind), motor empathy, and emotional empathy. The two main psychiatric disorders associated with empathic dysfunction are considered: autism and psychopathy. It is argued that individuals with autism show difficulties with cognitive and motor empathy but less clear difficulties with respect to emotional empathy. In contrast, individuals with psychopathy show clear difficulties with a specific form of emotional empathy but no indications of impairment with cognitive and motor empathy.


Psychopaths have trouble with affective (also called emotional) empathy, autists have trouble with cognitive empathy (related to theory of mind) and maybe also motor empathy (which has to do with mirroring of actions, etc.)

So psychopaths may be quite adept at understanding norms but will nonetheless break them. On the other hand, people on the autistic spectrum will break them because they don't understand them, don't understand the justification or are unable to apply them.

(Maybe you can tell I've taken some interest in this lately; I wrote a rather long blog post about this recently, but it's in Norwegian, so I suppose it won't be readable to you folks.)

micgrace Wrote:
Siemen I'm writing from my own personal experience and not from studies by others. There could be quite a divergence from the overall "norms". I had the very unwelcome opportunity to study a psychopath up close and personal. these are my observations.

Make no mistake this one really thinks whatever he says is real and shows no emotion that a normal person or an aspies for that matter may show when telling a monster lie even when caught out.


Oh, I don't mean to dismiss your personal experiences. I do, however, think that generalizations are better if they are based on research that includes many people. Larger sample size, more scientific rigor, etc.

If science can't study them, neither can you. But science can and does study them. The articles I linked to probably has many references to the literature where you can see that psychopaths are studied and how.
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