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do you know one when you see one?

A quick review of the psychopath landscape...



Remember: one in twenty people dedicated to making your life miserable.

A lot of info packed into 38 minutes. Found at there are no sunglasses.

This is the information people need to cultivate, the skill set they need to hone and develop, to be able to spot these people very quickly. Because there are lots of them, and they have many, many ways to rig the system, so many ways, and it is exceedingly unlikely that we will ever be able to whip documents out of our purse and PROVE to anyone when somebody is a lying piece of shit, especially someone who has the resources to hide behind wealth and lawyers and privilege and prestige. But that does not mean that individual human beings can't discern such things. We certainly can. And we have great confidence in that sort of knowing.




houseofkittyblog.com


Comments

Hei Hu Quan said…
One word... perfection. Massively brilliant find AP, I've just finished viewing it and recommend this top-shelf video to all wholeheartedly. A genuine must-see for the masses, and take notes, for this is not entertainment, it's an imperative survival lesson. The breakdowns, the personality examples all cleverly compiled and easily digestible content-wise.

Do yourself, family, friends, neighbours and loved ones a favour and watch or share this with them immediately. Just doing this simple thing will cover miles of ground and prepare one to expose those who would have this planet reduced into a living hell.

Cheers.
A. Peasant said…
i'm really glad you liked it HHQ. i thought it covered a lot of ground also. it would take many many pages of writing to convey all this, so the video is very well done.
Anonymous said…
Good video. Psychopaths tend to dominate institutions such as the military and schools as well as big corporations.

- Aangirfan
Timster said…
In a word..."horseshit". Or is that two words?
I have heard this crap for years and I am truly over it. I'm sorry if I am raining on a parade here...and I don't mean to be "psychopathic" about it, but IMHO this theory implies that the "demon seed" people simply cannot help themselves...they will spring from nowhere...they are inhuman, and should be studied by dum-dum-de-dum...psychiatrists! That wonderful group of people that can cure none of their patients.
PsyCHOpathy(mispronounced in this sorry film) is an out. A catch-all phrase for those people raised incorrectly...or the chemically challenged. If you raise your children by lecture and deed, NOT to have remorse...they WILL have none....and so on through the myriad of anti-social traits that this film trots out. Yes, it would be nice to pigeon-hole people that have faulty rearing and absolve them and their parentage of all responsibility...but give me a break. Why do people always cling to simple explanations? I smell a rat. And it stems from DSM-IV...and we know from whence this comes. Personality disorder? I beg to differ with this psycho-babble hokum. Some people are assholes...they were raised to be assholes...they have found that being assholes gets them far in this, the talmudic West, that is run by people with a"psychopathic" religion and now a "disease" to absolve their sins. Oh please...
Anonymous said…
I can spot pathologicals if I have a couple of minutes to observe them, listen to them talking or better yet, to interact/talk with them.

Over time I have developed a feeling for them and I sometimes have a "hunch" about people whom I meet for the first time, and I will from then on observe that person with more interest until I can either confirm my suspicion or the hunch about that person turns out to be wrong.

Anybody can develop their own "psycho-radar": Attend sessions of Parliament or your city council, go to pre-election events, watch MSM news, watch series such as "desperate housewives", watch red-carpet shows and interviews with stars and starlets, interact with military and police officers, doctors (not nurses), lawyers, bank (and corporation) managers, attend religious services of any denomination. Interact with institutionalized people. One population segment which is replete with pathologicals are the jews, so if you have access to some of them check them out, and other cults like evangelicals, mormons, bahai, hindu, ... should also be worth your attention, especially the upper rungs of such organizations.

Very important is to keep yourself informed about the theoretical side of the phenomenon, to read existing literature about psychos and check up some good blogs about the issue. Good (IMHO) opinion starting points are sott.net, sociopathworld.com or pathwhisperer.wordpress.com. Also important is to speak with other people with similar interests and exchange information and experiences.

After several years of doing this, you will be able to spot pathologicals almost on the fly if you are pay attention to what goes on around you.

Have fun and before all stay safe - the targets of your curiosity are dangerous.
A. Peasant said…
well Timster, i suppose you have a point about the psychobabble and the DSM-IV and all that, but i don't argue that these "poor" people can't help themselves and need to be in therapy and we should feel compassion for them blah blah blah. and i don't think the video does that either. anyway, you are just pigeonholing them too but you have a different definition: it's poor upbringing. but surely you have met families where everyone is lovely except brother X? what is the explanation?

anyway, i'm not here to argue the fine points of psychoanalysis or how to define whether people are "merely" assholes or have some clinical definition to match. for my experience, i was raised to trust everyone, to believe that such people are rare. this is not true. these people are not rare, and the point of this is to blast through that mind-barrier of naivete where people think that everyone is good inside etc. no. i don't think you and i really are far apart but you don't like the psycho terms for things because you (rightly) see psychoanalysis as an area of great suspicion. however whether you call them assholes or pschopaths is not really the point, the point is CAN YOU RECOGNIZE THEM or WILL YOU IGNORE THE SIGNS because you've been brainwashed into thinking all people are essentially good inside. that is the bigger crime IMO, that particular type of pigeonholing. it doesn't matter so much *how* people turn into assholes, only that we are willing to recognize them as such *before* they use us as doormats. and i think anonymous left good instructions to that end.

i've read at sociopathworld. it's quite a thing to read their unfettered musings. it's creepy as shit for an "empath" to read for the first time, and to then understand how many people are like this, and how they really think. it's sobering. and that's all we are really hoping to achieve here, to crack through that mental block about it.
james said…
Timster, you'll be interested to know that "psychopath" is not covered in DSM 1V. It was taken out years ago and replaced with "sociopath" and the diagnostic criteria was changed and tailored to match prison populations and exclude corporate populations.

In other words, it focusses on those that break the laws totally ignores those that make the laws. Which I'm sure you'll agree are the real problem.

So I believe this puts us on the same side of the fence regarding "psychiatrists" in general and particularly their professional leadership.

Psychopaths are addicts. Their behaviour is compulsive. And while they still have choice despite the compulsion, they see no reason to not behave as they do. So they are untreatable. In fact, often 'treatment' helps them hone their skills and so is to be avoided.

But what should never be avoided is recognising they are the primary danger to mankind and that they need to be contained in any way they can be for everyone's safety.
Dave said…
Thanks for the video - well worth watching

If you have to deal with these creeps, then
shunning, marginalizing or making them
irrelevant when possible can be a less violent
approach.

Can't remember where I heard the advice "Don't
give headspace to assholes" - but it's so right.

Dave
A. Peasant said…
hi Dave, that is good advice packed tightly.

what i have noticed over time, and i thought it was well covered in the video, is how they spend the first minutes meeting someone by sussing them out for their weaknesses: flattery, money, sex, etc., and then they work the handle. but if you don't have a handle for them to manipulate, they lose interest. so in effect they don't find that sort of prey tasty. it's kind of like shunning except the flip side of it -- you help them conclude that they actually want to stay away too. i guess it's a win win haha...
Timster said…
AP - Points well taken, and I agree we are on the same page, basically. What I disagree with in the vid and the books I have read on the subject is the "in-human-ness" quality with which they always describe these people. As if they are some secret society from another planet. If there is one thing we don't need it is yet ANOTHER group to be wary of. Yes, I have experienced the "black sheep" thing. But if someone were to take the time to really investigate such anomalies of seeming normal families, they would find either a neurological reason for such behaviour, or a key point in early development that effected them negatively, IMHO.
No...I do not believe that all people are essentially good inside. That is as ridiculous as this vid. However, to me this whole theory reeks of trying to identify yet another group of people...I have never been a big fan of that...it just doesn't work. Humans are too complex for such simplicity.
I know an asshole when I come across one...Hell, I could be judged thus...especially using that huge list of personality traits that this guy lists. The terms used in this theory are subjective and all encompassing. Anyone could fit into one or more of his classifications. I hate seeing this kind of speculative BS junk being passed off as medical knowledge in its fear-mongering by the uneducated. It is not what we need. But that's just my opinion.
I didn't mean to come off as a troll on your site...but this kind of thing gets my goat. Thanks for listening. Love yours site!
Penny said…
perfectly timed as I have just begun yet another book
The sociopath next door, martha stout.

I like the premise of the book in being able to identify persons who may be psycho or sociopaths and thusly protecting oneself from them.

I realize there are shortcomings to be found in that concept, but, in reality shortcomings can be found in all situations.
Always.

That said, should we not be aware that psychopaths are around and they do prey on others?

I think it is in our best interests to be aware of such predators and act accordingly

Dave "If you have to deal with these creeps, then
shunning, marginalizing or making them
irrelevant when possible can be a less violent
approach."

Good approach

Timster: you make some very good points in your comments

"the "in-human-ness" quality with which they always describe these people."
perhaps they are described as inhuman because that is the way they come off?

inhuman simply means lacking in human qualities specifically mercy and compassion are mentioned.

If this is the case, perhaps these people are best shunned?

Anyway, thanks for the video.
synchronicity AP?
Who knows?
When I have more time I will watch it all
thanks again
A. Peasant said…
hi Timster, no worries. i value your opinion very much and i'm glad you said your peace. i agree that humans are very complex, and they come in all different qualities. some people are higher quality than others. to me it is a measure of their human-ness, or humanity (oh the humanity), or whatever you want to call it but it is precisely the measure of qualities such as compassion and generosity and courage that come to mind which make someone a high quality human being. some people seem to have zero of those qualities, for whatever reason. some have 5%, so maybe a guy is not a total, unmitigated disaster of an asshole, maybe he likes dogs, so we'll give him that. i've heard of people that are absolute beasts but they love their pets. whatever. it's not specifically quantifiable how people vary in their fucked-up ways, and it's true that we all have some demons to battle, but after you've had close encounters with true assholes (the ones that don't bother to fight their demons they simply embrace them) and you've been screwed, you might be able to say Joe is a bigger asshole than Frank, and Larry is worse than both of them, from personal experience. but unfortunately, a lot of people learn such things the hard way, and they tangle with a lot of assholes before they wise up. i myself was raised by naive people, so i can vouch for the learning curve of being gullible to many types of assholes due to my upbringing. what if your well-meaning parents trained you to be a doormat, do you think you would learn about all the different sorts of assholes? i assure you, you would. if you were not raised by naive people, or if you are one of the people who was born street smart, consider yourself lucky. i am frequently amazed, though i shouldn't be, at how readily people ignore red flags, but it is part of human variability and part of their training and social engineering. as pt barnum said, "there's a sucker born every minute," a phrase denied -- see wikipedia, that social engineering narrative sanitation facility. oh no he said there's a *customer* born every minute. sure. sure that's what he said. that's why the barnum family hired clair george after his illustrious CIA career to spy on their critics who might think pt barnum could say such a thing.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.obituaries/browse_thread/thread/b5bcfb3c2ba0a4e7?pli=1

http://www.eringer33.com/2011/08/clair-george.html

i suppose i'm digressing but the point is that there are people who see the world as it really is, and there are people who live in lala land. and the people in lala land tend to get screwed, and after a time they see the world as it really is, which is better, even though it's worse, if you know what i mean. and they could save themselves *and the rest of us* a lot of trouble if they could just get real before we all have to suffer through some new catastrophe of biblical proportions. if we weren't all connected it might be different, but we are connected, so we have to do what we can. i'm sorry you don't find the video helpful, but i also trust that you know that we *do* find it helpful precisely because we have come by our life experiences via different paths. we came up through the gullible territory, so we know about that sort of thinking. and i say to you again, if you were lucky enough to avoid that, thank your parents. and i love your blog too btw. and i love you. so there.
A. Peasant said…
hi Pen, thanks for hopping in here. you have a great eye for all manner of asshole shenanigans, of the geopolitical variety and otherwise, and i say cheers to you, respects, and namaste.
KiKi said…
Psycho babblers are educated derelicts and Freud was a big horndog cokehead pervert. I love to tweak psycho babbler derelicts by telling them to go to a chalkboard and draw up a psychology equation. Hahah! If no one challenged the status quo the earth would still be flat. BTW that Hello Kitty bag is sharp as a pistol. Fender guitar company has an entry level division called Squier and they make a Hello Kitty acoustic and a Stratocaster! =^..^=
james said…
Timster, I don't think psychopaths are 'yet another group to be afraid of' at all. “Psychopathy” identifies the characteristics of the worst of all the 'other groups' including the group you blog about exclusively.

“Psychopathy” helps to make some sense of all these harmful groups including our governments. And TPTB, through the American Psychiatric Association as I indicated above, are trying to suppress this knowledge for this obvious reason.

Psychopathy can be summarised as having no empathy for other human beings; as having NO (nada, nyet, nix, zip, zero) sense of remorse, guilt or shame for their behaviour no matter what the cost to others. So from this it is obvious that they have no conscience. These are the traits that people expect to be present in everyone to greater and lesser degrees. In other words, these qualities are seen as part of being 'human'.

What few people are prepared for, or prepared to believe, is that people can exist and function very successfully in our society without ANY of these qualities. Yet clearly there are people who have NONE of these qualities to ANY extent. You cannot account for the seamless, consistent behaviour of Stalin or Bush or Clinton or Netanyahoo without concluding that they feel nothing for other human beings, no conscience. That they can order the deaths of tens of thousands, even millions, and not bat an eyelid is testimony to that.

These people without conscience see others as nothing more than resources which they are entitled to use for their own purposes without restraint. And you read and write about some of them.

So people who have suffered torture, for instance, at the hands of those who enjoyed harming them will describe their torturers as “inhuman” because they demonstrably showed none of the qualities that we identify “humanness” or “humanity” with. These qualities are implied in the terms “humane” and “humanitarian”, for further illustration. Authors on the subject of psychopathy use the word “inhuman” because that is the word the victims consistently use when describing their abusers. Perceiving this “inhumanity” can be a terror in itself.

It seems you have not had that experience and I'm pleased you haven't and hope you never do. But, respectfully, you are not in a position to argue against the experience of those that have.

Apart from anything else, that is trying to prove a negative and I think you would know that logically this can't be done.
Timster said…
AP - I love you too.
James - You make a good point. "Psychopaths" as you describe them within the group of a psychopathic cult or religion can indeed be termed inhuman. For seemingly nothing they do accounts for the decency with which you and I are familiar. Conscience, remorse...etc. And I cannot argue a negative. You are correct. But how much of this psychopathic behaviour is enabled by the group to which they belong? And how much is "in the blood" as this theory that you and the video espouse?
What I can say is that this whole classification is dangerous. You are incorrect in that you say I haven't experienced "psychopathy" first-hand. I grew up around one. He eventually became a serial rapist and served most of his adult life in prison for his lack of conscience and his ability to manipulate. It often struck me however, that I too could manipulate...without conscience. And that it was just a matter of degree between he and I. And it is. I spent most of my adult life manipulating through management. A skill taught me. Conscience...to a degree...is not allowed in that arena either. So, through the definitions supplied by the video...I could be classified as a psychopath...sociopath...whatever. My point being that these thin definitions are entirely subjective and as all jewish/psychiatric labels defining the human condition, used as separators. They do it for money. We fall for it and spend our time trying to classify right along with them. It is BS and dangerous and shallow...IMHO. But that's just me. And I may BE a psychopath...who knows.
questioning said…
Timster, just the fact you are asking yourself and tangling with these questions shows you aren't a psychopath. Just about everyone can "shut off" their emotions if needed. what is unique about psychopaths is that they never had them to begin with. There are lots of categories and the like from psychopath to sociopaths to narcissists etc. The main point is the lack of EMPATHY. Consciousness is about feeling what another feels. That is something I believe very few normal humans would want for all the riches in the world. For psychopaths, they were born without empathy as well as any sort of emotional life, for sociopaths, they are trained due to culture or other factors to lose all or a great deal of their empathy, which may well destroy their emotional life. Narcissists have "true" feelings, but see all others as simple automatons, not valid beings in their own right so they lack empathy. Though they, like the others, begin to "burn-out" in intensity in their later years.
Anonymous said…
AP, another thing about psychos which seems to not have called the attention of anybody yet. Have you noticed how anti-sexy they are? At least to me, they are a turn-off. Look for example at Condi Rice. Judging by all pics I have seen, she has a beautiful body. But the full person is just repulsive. Look at Angela Merkel. Even in pics as a twenty-something she is a frump to the degree where I wonder how she even managed to get laid. Check out Tzipi Livni, same thing to me. Even men (I am not attracted to men) whom I suspect of being psychos I find repulsive - just look at the uncountable creeps from politics from all countries ann you'll know - there is something about these people even in pics as youngsters that makes them unsexy or anti-sexy, in a word unattractive.

I have BTW met many politicos in several countries in person, men as women, and it is that same feeling where I just stand asking myself: how do these people manage to reproduce?

Is it just me who has that feeling or can somebody else corroborate?
james said…
Timster,
this is long and in two parts, I'm afraid.
Thanks for your response and may I say i'm sorry you had that experience when growing up. It seemed to me that you had not had close contact with a person of no conscience, shall we say, because you seemed to reject the notion of them acting and being perceived as 'inhuman'. But i've misunderstood your position. In response to your openess about your experience, I can say that I have been abused by psychopaths in my childhood who were intent on making me as they were. They were professionals at this. But they failed, thank God.

My purpose in commenting was to make the points that there are indeed people out there with no conscience and that they come across as being inhuman. I think now we are agreed on these points though we may differ as to labels and the usefulness and relative dangers of catagorising people. I also wanted to make a distinction between someone with some remaining vestige of conscience and someone with absolutely no conscience, though I didn't elaborate on why. (see below)

I agree if you were to look at that list of personality traits that are proffered for recognising psychopaths, you could make an argument for a lot of people being psychopaths who weren't at all but, rather, pretty average people. In defense of the author though, he makes the point that not all psychopaths will have all those qualities and many of the criteria will be found in many people who aren't psychopaths. It has also been said many times, and for good reason, that once you are given a label in the mental health system, you're stuffed. Any categorisation of people will blind the observer to the individuality of the labelled person. In the medical and particularly the mental health systems, treatment is directed at the symptoms that fit the label and other symptoms and more importantly, the person, are ignored. Healing is very problematical in these circumstances. So, I am fully sympathetic with your views on slicing and dicing humanity into neat little squares.

However, we are still faced with dealing with people with no conscience who are determined to destroy humanity in one way or another and we need a defence against them. The first prerequisite is to be able to recognise them. Clearly, ticking boxes on a list is not the definitive way to do this. I see the box ticking as a way of checking or confirming an instinctual decision you might make after either suffering at the hands of someone like this or from observing them doing the same to others consistently over a period of time.

Martha Stout, the author of the book “The Sociopath Next Door” that Penny mentioned, advocates the 'rule of threes' as a good shorthand guide to recognising someone who might be a psychopath (or sociopath in her book). If you are lied to or mislead by someone three times, then it is time to avoid them. I don't think anyone can go too far wrong following this simple piece of advice.

I can't remember if the author of the video states that people are born with psychopathy but he certainly implied it, at least. I was careful not to get into that area as I was primarily concerned, as I said earlier, with establishing whether they exist or not; that they have no conscience and that they come across as inhuman and why they do. I'll give you my thoughts now on this which you might consider useful. (continued below)
james said…
I start from the position that there is a God and that he made us all with free will and the point of life is to use that free will to choose between life, love and God, on one hand, and exploitation, destruction and death on the other hand. So given that, I see choice as being present in everyone's life.

We have the phenomenon of seeing this lack of conscience being apparently hereditary too. Recent cellular biology research has established that we can change our DNA through our choices and we can pass this changed DNA down to the next generation. This leaves the next generation with a susceptibility to whatever it is. But still, choice is needed to activate this particular DNA strain. So that's 'Nature'.

'Nurture' is pretty easy to envision and you describe that well. But I maintain there is still choice involved. It was my experience and the experience of others I know who were in a similar position to me. This is not to judge others by because none of us are in a position to do that. But I mention it to establish that choice is involved always, if you can believe me in relating these experiences, that is.

There is the case of people being trained generally in our society (which is psychopathic in my view and 'Talmudic' in yours – same same) to be psychopaths to further the system and people do take it on to survive and further their own interests. The video author calls these people “secondary psychopaths”. We both agree this happens. I would divide this group further into two classes; those that choose by way of the proverbial 'carrot' for power over others for gain; and those that choose by way of the 'stick' out of fear and the drive to survive. This second group will capitulate when the system changes or they are given some other opportunity. The first group will not.

The reason is human nature and the nature of the choice taken. If we make a choice freely we will defend that choice to ours and others detriment. To be able to do this consistently, one has to destroy or irrevocably cut oneself off from one's conscience. So there is nothing now to appeal to to bring about a change in behaviour. On the other hand, choices made under coercion are readily reversed.

I'll make a prediction. The US Army will NEVER institute a military draft again. The reason is that they lost the Vietnam War because the conscripted soldiers mutinied. They were able to mutiny because they were very aware that they did not choose freely to be in the army and all that goes along with that. So that is one of the reasons the economies in Britain and the US are being run into the ground. It provides the context to coral young men and women into join the army 'voluntarily'. Because these recruits think they have made a free choice, they will stay the course even though it will likely kill them and even though they follow instructions to kill innocent people. To behave in a psychopathic way, in other words.
(continued below - again!)
james said…
However, if these young people were alerted to the game that is being played on them before they they make that choice and sign up, many of them would not do so. And of those that do, many of them would know they were subjected to economic coercion and will change their choice the moment they can and will not be the enthusiastic killers the army would like them to be in the meantime. They will be able to change because, in my opinion, they will not have found it necessary to kill their conscience. They will repeatedly act against it till they can resolve the situation through mutiny, in one form or another, or madness, in one form or another.

So this is the value of pointing out to as many people as possible the existence and nature of these business, religious and political leaders without conscience and the system they are employing against the rest of us.
So I'll go with whatever labels or descriptors that will best facilitate that education.
A. Peasant said…
oh sorry to be away from this great comment thread for a stretch, and now the storm is arriving in my area so we'll see how things go.

KiKi, so glad you like the HK bag (the sunhat is the bomb), i do too and i would really like to have one and whip some official documents of proof someday right outta the thing. that would be grand. and a guitar too if i knew how to play one. i bought a hello kitty t-shirt yesterday but i gave it to my daughter, though i might borrow it from time to time.

questioning -- you did not go into spam!! finally the booger gods have left you be...

anonymous, ooh i am intrigued in what capacity you would have met all these people but i won't pry. i think what you describe reflects the reality of inner beauty, that beauty really does come from within and therefore a pretty shell with an empty core is not attractive to a human who can sense and desires inner beauty. that said, some people don't care about such things and are more interested in money and power, and they tend to congregate together and that's how they reproduce.

in person i am highly attuned to this sort of thing and am not "impressed" by people in the ways that various paths typically operate, using flattery charm beauty money power etc. and my God do they hate it when people don't succumb to their manipulations. but it's always my fault, you see, for not reflecting back properly. that's how the game is played and many people, to avoid the guilty feelings being projected onto them, will be sucked into the game of giving these people what they want. and also out of fear, fear of crossing them or going against them. lots of mind-fucking.

Timster, i absolutely could not do a better job than James explaining any of this stuff. i appreciate everyone who weighed in on this. what a great thread.
Timster said…
James - Again, you make excellent points! And yes, we are on the same page here, I think. Interesting discussion that really cuts into some unexplored prejudices that have been fostered by the tribe. Perhaps I will write a piece over at howdarei on the subject. I had no idea how deeply this "psychiatric" prejudice goes in the Western mindset. I would love to debate it over there with you and anyone else that cares to chime in...and we can let AP get on with her great blog.
james said…
When writing long comments on posts (which i am want to do!), I often get the feeling I'm trying to write "War and Peace" on the back of a matchbox :)

Naming or putting labels on things and people gives a sense of knowing or understanding them when it is often not the case at all. And, of course, this is often done deliberately. So that is a very important point you make.

This is particularly the case with psychiatry in the twentieth century after Freud capitulated on his early work and was subsequently promoted by TPTB. But perhaps more on that if and when you write about this area.

Thanks for stimulating my tired old brain, Timster. I hope you do write more on it and I look forward to reading it.