Child Psychopaths

[Lava]

(Syracusa's quotes take from the hardest job in the world thread.)

Originally posted by syracusa, I did get your point about "it is possible to hate your kids". Yes, those 1% psychopaths Lava was talking about. Ok. But ooops - too bad, it's yours, it is your responsibility and you're supposed to love the little monster anyway - because YOU wanted to have one.

I think that is what society believes, but I've come to see it differently. I have seen just what its like to be within spitting distance of a child psychopath on a destruction rampage, and its seriously nasty.

Society automatically portrays the child as the victim, but I have concluded this is not _always_ so. Psychopaths can be incredibly destructive for no sensible reason. They can be treated well, brought up in a loving family, etc, but, they are psychopaths, and to psychopaths _any_ care and concern for others is something they just dont get. Once they work out how to damage people, when they get a silly reason to, they will. They can tear families apart, or target and destroy organisations in some cases, normally for some very childish reason. Some kiddy hackers are an example of this. They can hoax the emergency services for their own entertainment, whatever, the damage they do means nothing to them.

Due to our society's trusting preconceptions they can even get a parent jailed occasionally with false allegations.

We tend to blame the parents, but really there's nothing we know of that a parent can do to make a psychopath behave normally, morally, or with any consideration at all for others' wellbeing. Nor have we any idea what could cause a child to be psychopathic in the first place. Its therefore a cop-out to blame the parents in such cases.

When they get going they are truly nasty, truly dangerous, and they show not the slightest care for the wellbeing of their parents. I do not see how a parent can honestly be _expected_ to love a child that treats them like that. Yes, there is the exceptionally strong parental bond, but really with a child like that, any reasonable parent could be entirely understood for just gagging for the day they leave.


> 1. When you made your kid, you made a choice.

You have to honour that choice to feed clothe and house them. You expected to love them too, but I guess life just doesnt work out in 100% of cases.

Would you love a vicious abusive dangerous manipulative horror? Would you love your son when he commits murder at age 11, gets convicted beyond all doubt, and casually tosses into the conversation one day that basically if you dont meet all his childish ego-centred expectations he'll tell the police you were part of it? How would you feel? Would you judge a person harshly for saying they cant love such a child?

Our society imho is in the midst of a period of considerable unreality around psychopathic children, and especially teenagers, who have sufficient life skills to inflict appalling damage on other people's lives without the slightest care in the world. Whats scary is that society can in fact help them to do so, by assuming they are victims, rather than appalling victimisers. Thus the real victims, the parents, can in fact be victimised by society's support structures in such cases.

Sadly, such people are a reality. As they say, life is a gift with no guarantees, and things can go very wrong indeed. Occasionally they do.


Lava!

[syracusa]

Lava,

I have to agree with this one too.

If you are JUST talking about psychopaths - that 1% or so - than absolutely, you are right.

If I had the terrible misfortune to give birth to something like that...I probably wouldn't be able to love that kid. I would maybe force myself to, out of duty, I would try to fix the problem, because this is what we are expected to do, but I will probably not be able to love that thing.

But then again, you got unlucky...you know. Just like some people get lucky when they buy a lottery ticket. You can only pray that it will not happen to you.

I used to be an "idealistic liberal" (now I am just a more down-to-earth one, with some conservative beliefs sprinkled here and there for good measure :) ). So I used to love that type of "Dead Man Walking" movies...oh, if only we were good, loving and merciful, then we would be able to bring out the hidden goodness in ANY human being.

Bullshit. I was wrong. Shamefully wrong and I admit it.
As a matter of fact, I think there is more hidden nastiness than hidden goodness in human beings, generally speaking. But some are much nastier than others.

Since then, I have looked deep into the actions and even beliefs of people (stated anonymously, like some do it with no remorse or excuse on this forum); and today I HAVE NO DOUBT in my mind and my heart that some people are simply born with an evil gene.

Don't ask me to define evil using all kinds of logical crap, bookish definitions and useless medical terminology.
I "feel" evil when I am faced with it. It smells and feels and tastes in a way that sends shivers down my spine and creates boiling bubbles on my brain.

Like you said, anybody who gives clear signs that they have absolutely no concern or mercy for the life of another human being and they would purposefully harm them, tread on them, or fail to help them in times of terrible struggle - is PURE EVIL period.

You can just get close, open your eyes, look at it and smell it - and you will SEE it. I would have no problems turning the electric chair switch on that kind of evil simply to make it disappear.

- I think that all inherent bullies have a seed of evil in them.
- Those dudes who decapitate a human being when he/she is pleading - is evil.
- By the same token, those dudes who say they do not care if they tread on the "weak"on their way to making fortunes for THEIR OWN families - are evil. Like you said, those who have no concern for the well-being of others and push them into misery simply because they CAN (see your comments about why the working poor cannot strike)... especially if those kinds of actions are only to advance their own well-being and interests to the dtriment of others - THOSE are pure evil too.
They won't admit it is to the detriment of others, but they know very well it is true.

It is not enough to dress this kind of behavior with the word "capitalism" and automatically assume it is OK and right because it's just "human nature"; and then point at decapitations and dress them with the word "islamism" - and you're done.

Both types of behavior are EVIL. The latter is in your face, the former is more subtle. Make no mistake about it - the terrorist decapitators are not the only evil in this world. I have seen tons of it right here in the US, even right here on this very forum.

That psychopath Bob moved on the Butterface section , who was equating "poor, unhealthy, ugly...or tenured academics!!!!!!!!!!!" with "bad and undeserving"; and "entrepreneurial, healthy and good-looking" with "good and deserving" ...that guy is PURE EVIL too. Without a doubt. This kind of perverted thinking used to be called Nazism.

I am only afraid that such rotten minds will come out again from their dark holes and will eventually attempt to take over again - because being a nasty, self-righteous, compassion-less bully IS in their blood and they will have to act on that urge sooner or later.
You don't need to actually decapitate somebody to show your evil colors and what you would be capable of if society let you reach that extreme.

But, belive me, I understand exactly what you mean with the child psychopaths. They become tomorrow's psychopaths. You see them more often than you thought you would see them.

I vividly remember one kid like that from my childhood - a boy. Most of the times, they ARE boys. I don't know why. (And no, I don't hate men, I have nothing against testosterone - so much the better, you will be able to protect me, the weak female - and I am not a feminazi).Testosetrone is not evil.
But the reality is thagt a lot of unmerciful, bully psychopaths are simply males. Not sure why.

Now ...this boy was literally hitting hard with big hard objects any kid who was getting anywhere close to his designated territory - the whole block. He enjoyed putting immense fear in other kids, he had developed a reputation in the entire neighborhood and he LOVED making them suffer beyond belief.

Obviously, I didn't know much intellectual and theoretical bullshit as a kid - but I swear I KNEW that kid was DIFFERENT and that it had SOMETHING DARK in him.

Solution? I don't know...
Pre-emptive strikes? ...Poison?...I am all for it.

[Suburbanite]

So you conclusion is that there is no reason for it? Of course there is!

[Lava]

Originally posted by Suburbanite, So you conclusion is that there is no reason for it? Of course there is!

I know I never said theres no reason for it. But the reason remains unknown.

If someone eats x and gets cancer from it, if we know that eating x causes cancer, theyre responsible. But if no-one has the first idea about it, you cant say its their fault.

There is also no reason to believe it is parental behaviour that produces psychopaths. The cause is a complete unknown.

Lava

[castille]

I think we should shoot them. Regardless of how "nice" we want to be, better to lose 1 psycho life than 10 innocent lives.

[Samildanach]

Its just crappy psychopathic circuitry, unfortunately psychopathic behaviour is a great survival instinct from the old days when cooperation wasn't as necessary. I am betting a lot of psychopaths could easily have been tribal leaders because of the sheer brutality they are capable of. Take people like genghis khan etc....psychopathic? Quite possibly.

[castille]

Depends on what "kind" of psychopath. Hitler was a psychopath, but he never killed anyone (apart from doing his duty when he was a soldier). Similiarly, a psychopath without notions of reality could not survive even during anarchy of tribal times, simply because they do not understand leadership.

And Genghis Khan wasn't psychopathic - in those days, everyone, including the Europeans, Indians, etc were quite prone on mass murder. Genocide wasn't a crime back then, it was normal.

[Lava]

Originally posted by castille, I think we should shoot them. Regardless of how "nice" we want to be, better to lose 1 psycho life than 10 innocent lives.

I think the world is here for them too, so long as they dont commit anything nasty, but we should be a lot more aware of them, and any serious crimes and they should go away pronto. They are _very_ hard to discipline, maybe even impossible, I dont know.

Killing someone because you label them with a mindset strikes me as way out there. I know one guy that got labelled something different by each shrink he saw. To put it another way, mental diagnoses can be unreliable - especially when done with a standard of carelessness all too common here.


Lava

[Suburbanite]

Originally posted by Lava,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Lava,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-Suburbanite, So you conclusion is that there is no reason for it? Of course there is!

I know I never said theres no reason for it. But the reason remains unknown.

If someone eats x and gets cancer from it, if we know that eating x causes cancer, theyre responsible. But if no-one has the first idea about it, you cant say its their fault.

There is also no reason to believe it is parental behaviour that produces psychopaths. The cause is a complete unknown.

Lava[/b][/quote]

The reason is a combination of the structure of their mind (genetic) and how they were raised, and how those two things acted on one another. What the particulars of both are I don't know, but with research, it seems like a very solvable case.

[Lava]

Quote by: Suburbanite, There is also no reason to believe it is parental behaviour that produces psychopaths. The cause is a complete unknown.

The reason is a combination of the structure of their mind (genetic) and how they were raised, and how those two things acted on one another. What the particulars of both are I don't know, but with research, it seems like a very solvable case.[/quote]

Perhaps you could point us to the proof of or evidence for this?

Lava

[PatrickHenry]

This topic concerns me greatly. I have some friends, a generous loving couple with two sons. Their older child(10 years) is well behaved, quietly humorous and well-regarded by everyone. The younger boy is a terror. He has a sweet side, too, but he hits, has tantrums, breaks things and is very willful. The parenting of the children is essentially identical, a modern couple who are faithful to each other, gentle with the kids and have good values.

My concern lies in this: The younger boy(three and a half) has a look on his face sometimes that is sorta frightening. He doesn't take discipline well. And I wonder if noted sociopaths had their "cute" moments as children, too. Did their moms understand what they had birthed?

Did Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Mao have their days of innocence, too? Were there warning signs that all was not well? If so, what were they? In short, I am concerned that my little friend may be transforming before my eyes into a monster... :(

[Lava]

Originally posted by PatrickHenry, My concern lies in this: The younger boy(three and a half) has a look on his face sometimes that is sorta frightening. He doesn't take discipline well. And I wonder if noted sociopaths had their "cute" moments as children, too.

According to many writers, psychopaths are particulrly good at charming people. Door to door sales is a profession that attracts and suits psychopaths.

Did their moms understand what they had birthed?

How many people today understand that 1% of the population is psychopathic? I dont think most get the whole psycho thing.

Did Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Mao have their days of innocence, too? Were there warning signs that all was not well? If so, what were they?

Great illustrationsof the point: Hitler was so popular he was elected by the german people.

Presumably some saw or guessed at what he really was, but the majority voted him in, didnt want to hear it.

Psychopaths have a vague reputation for being very dangeous people, and they are, but the ways theyre dangerous are not understood by much of the populace. Rather than being crazed violent scary looking people, they in fact appear to fit in, are good at gaining peoples confidence, and have not the remotest hesitation about committing appalling and destructive crimes, and doing so without any sign of being bothered about them. Their prime danger lies in their ability to mingle among us undetected and unsuspected.

Ask the average person if they know a psychopath, and they will say no. But at 1%, most of us do, we just dont know it.


Lava

[castille]

Originally posted by PatrickHenry, Did Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Mao have their days of innocence, too?

I believe 75% of people, when given a position of absolute power, will easily become the next Hitler. After all, is there ever such thing as a truely kind dictator?

Hell, judging by your posts, I wouldn't be surprised if you started a genocide if given absolute authority.

[PatrickHenry]

Why, castille, just because I find YOU offensive? You are the psycho, not me. Here's the evidence. http://www.volconvo.com/forums/index.php?s...?showtopic=2018

I wonder about you. I'll bet you can be very charming when you want to take advantage of somebody.

If you and I met, we would likely annihilate each other like matter and anti-matter...

[Suburbanite]

Originally posted by Lava, Perhaps you could point us to the proof of or evidence for this?

www.google.com

[Suburbanite]

Originally posted by castille,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (castille,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-PatrickHenry, Did Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Mao have their days of innocence, too?

I believe 75% of people, when given a position of absolute power, will easily become the next Hitler. After all, is there ever such thing as a truely kind dictator?

Hell, judging by your posts, I wouldn't be surprised if you started a genocide if given absolute authority.[/b][/quote]

the better question is can ther be a truly kind dictator? Or ruler of any kind for that matter.

[Lava]

Originally posted by Suburbanite, I believe 75% of people, when given a position of absolute power, will easily become the next Hitler. After all, is there ever such thing as a truely kind dictator?

There was an experiment done at a university on this, I dont remember the keywords so wouldnt nkow where to find it. The volunteers were divided in 2 groups, jailors and prisoners. These were just ordinary people. Anyhow the upshot was that left to their own devices what unfolded mirrored nazi style abuse. The jailors spent their time thinking up and carrying out more and more abusive acts, including humiliation, physical torture, sexual abuse, degradation, violence etc, and the whole situation deteriorated so badly the experiment had to be prematurely stopped.

Another example of the same phenomenon was Germany during nazism. A huge amount of abuse came out of what were previously ordinary people, or at least believed to be.

While I dislike what Suburbanite says above, experience seems to indicate that a surprising percentage of the population would indeed become highly abusive.


Lava

[Suburbanite]

I didn't say that..... you quoted the wrong person, castille said it

[Lava]

i stand corrected.

[castille]

I can't remember that experiment, but another experiment that springs to mind was the electric shock experiment.

Participants (random people selected from a college crowd) were given buzzers. When pressed, the "victim" would be given an electric shock.

The participants asked the victims questions, and if the victims answered wrong, they were allowed to shock them. Apparently, the parcipants were quite liberal with the electric shocks.

(In reality, I think the victims were just actors pretending to be shocked, but the parcipants thought they were really being sent electrical jolts).


People are pretty sick, eh? Here's to the poor fools who wonder why communism and any utopian social theory failed.