Per usual, here's a video up for discussion, I'll post my thoughts on it after a few people have replied. I feel like not doing this tends to bias the replies (they tend to be in response to the view of the OP rather than the content of the videos).

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Last edited by Psyshell on Jan-01-2013 at 12:02

I would stab them to death with a rusty steak knife, watch the train run them over, then go home and have an extra rare cheese burger.

I guess I'm a psychopath, because I really don't think I'd have a problem pushing the guy over.

And really, what if you just did it so quickly and without really thinking about it? Can people not purposely shut the emotional centre off to make a shitty choice without being labelled a psycbopath?

Where my neuroscientists at??

I think that video is the biggest load of bullshit ever. He even mentions utilitarianism in the video, and yet then goes on confuse it with psychopathy. Thinking for the good of the whole doesn't make you a psychopath in the slightest; certainly not in moderation. The whole idea that the more individualist you are the less psychopathic you are just looks like stupid right wing propoganda. There's probably now thousands of 15 year olds who think they're psychopaths just because they're ok with the whole being more important than the singular. I hope this guy's university revokes whatever degrees they gave him for making such a bullshit video and then having the audacity to post it on youtube.

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Originally posted by Miss Pie Where my neuroscientists at??

It's not a neuroscience question, it's a philosophical one (to state the obvious). Dickheads who can't tell the difference shouldn't be making youtube videos and then getting them uploaded to "bigideas".

People like whoever made the video is part of the reason why I hate psychology sometimes. Sometimes a question involves politics and philosophy (which are opinions, not fact). Don't use factual terms and act like it's not an opinion when things are in fact philosophical and or political (unfortunately in this case it's both). All it does is bring the "science" of psychology into disrepute (and it's mostly full of bullshit like this anyway).

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Last edited by Psyshell on Jan-01-2013 at 17:25

quote:

Originally posted by Psyshell Dickheads who can't tell the difference shouldn't be making youtube videos and then getting them uploaded to "bigideas"

Good, keep refraining from doing that

Really, I don't even want to be harsh, but you're the one mixing everything up.

Quite possibly, but I still think the main crux of his argument is just plain wrong. For the video to not mention the potential for political bias is just plain stupid.

The trolley gets covered in part 1 and 2 of this series of lectures



And at no point does he say "by the way, all the utilitarians are psychopaths" nor does he say anything even remotely along those lines; and for good reason. It's a bit of a leap to jump from "psychopaths tend to be utilitarians"^* to utilitarians tend to be psychopaths.


^* citation needed so badly as well. This isn't even necassarily true, the correlation may actually go the other way. Who's more of a psycho? John Stuart Mills or Ayn Rand? According to the video's logic the answer isn't ayn rand

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quote:

Originally posted by Psyshell It's not a neuroscience question, it's a philosophical one (to state the obvious).

You are so clueless that it is almost pointless to explain to you how clueless you are. It's staggering. I had problems with the video's over-simplification of psychopathy but he pretty much gets the gist of it down which, in essence, was the point of over-simplifying it. To suggest that questions regarding psychopathy are only resolved philosophically is vaguely relevant absurdity when there is abundant research indicating its neurobiological features.

Furthermore, this suggestion that anyone is capable of pushing Fatboy onto the tracks to save the lives of five strangers is only answerable in the academic sense. Would you (or anyone) be able to do that in the heat of the moment? The suggestion that the psychopath could push the person onto the tracks of an oncoming train does not indicate that the psychopath would (another problem I had with the video).

The purpose of the ethics hypothetical is to provide a rough analogy for how the psychopath lacks empathy; a capacity that, for a normal, well-adjusted human-being, will intervene in the impulse to push someone in the path of an oncoming train. If one of the five people were the psychopath's wife, who he'd just taken out a $1,000,000 insurance policy out on, chances are the he is perfectly willing to let the train run on without any "heavy-weight" intervention.

But fuck, you are one fucked-up individual.

Your conclusions from the video are so off-base because you don't know jack shit about psychopathy and yet you presume to know an awful lot. You really don't. You see this very small amount of information and, out of complete ignorance as to the totality of its origins, make absolutely asinine inferences concerning its legitimacy.

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Since you've posted a lot of detail about what I've said, care to reply to miss pie's question?

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Originally posted by Miss Pie Can people not purposely shut the emotional centre off to make a shitty choice without being labelled a psycbopath?

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Originally posted by EddieZilker But fuck, you are one fucked-up individual.

I might be clueless, but personal insults aren't necessary to get your point accross.

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Originally posted by EddieZilker The purpose of the ethics hypothetical is to provide a rough analogy for how the psychopath lacks empathy; a capacity that, for a normal, well-adjusted human-being, will intervene in the impulse to push someone in the path of an oncoming train. If one of the five people were the psychopath's wife, who he'd just taken out a $1,000,000 insurance policy out on, chances are the he is perfectly willing to let the train run on without any "heavy-weight" intervention.

Fair enough, perhaps I need to do more research on the subject. I never claimed to be an expert, merely that I think the video is stupid and shouldn't exist.

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Originally posted by EddieZilker You see this very small amount of information and, out of complete ignorance as to the totality of its origins, make absolutely asinine inferences concerning its legitimacy.

I question the video's legitimacy not the concept of psychopathy.

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Originally posted by EddieZilker Your conclusions from the video are so off-base because you don't know jack shit about psychopathy and yet you presume to know an awful lot.

Also, this thread is about the video, not so much about psychopathy's legitimacy. I was merely saying that the video has such crappy logic that it qualifies as pseudoscience and not science. I assume the video is aimed at people not already highly knowledgeable about what psychopathy is... so I'd like to claim that you're prior knowledge makes it more difficult for you to watch the video from a more blank slate sortof perspective. You even agree with me in the oversimplification part of what I said. I was saying that merely namedropping the word utilitarianism and then showing what it is and calling it psychopathy is more than a little silly. See Jennypie's question which is similar to one I was thinking about asking... are people who make hard decisions about life and death psychopaths? If the video is to be believed yes. I actually agree with most points you make in the post; but the simple fact is, your post is not a part of the video that was posted.

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Originally posted by EddieZilker you presume to know an awful lot

Incorrect

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Last edited by Psyshell on Jan-01-2013 at 19:01

quote:

Originally posted by Miss Pie I guess I'm a psychopath, because I really don't think I'd have a problem pushing the guy over. And really, what if you just did it so quickly and without really thinking about it? Can people not purposely shut the emotional centre off to make a shitty choice without being labelled a psycbopath? Where my neuroscientists at??

Not a neuroscientist, but I do have to study some neurostuffs in my field.

Now, you can "shut the emotional centre off" in the sense you do something opposed to what your feelings would otherwise tell you to (so you're not shutting it off completely, you're just overriding it). That wouldn't make you a psychopath - some people do choose to push the fat guy in the trolley problem anyway. What would be troublesome, and raise some red flags, is if your emotional centre (let's call it that way) didn't even activate. In this case, you wouldn't even have anything to shut off, a symptom of psychopathology.

This being said, I suspect the weight of the pushee may be influencing your answer (I remember you hate fat people), and your emotional centre would light up all the same. Imagine Jimmy was next to the rail tracks, and the trolley was en route to killing some important people who you know would reward you if you saved their lives. Would you push him onto the tracks so you could get the reward?

I suspect you wouldn't. A psychopath most likely would.

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Originally posted by Lira Not a neuroscientist, but I do have to study some neurostuffs in my field. Now, you can "shut the emotional centre off" in the sense you do something opposed to what your feelings would otherwise tell you to (so you're not shutting it off completely, you're just overriding it). That wouldn't make you a psychopath - some people do choose to push the fat guy in the trolley problem anyway. What would be troublesome, and raise some red flags, is if your emotional centre (let's call it that way) didn't even activate. In this case, you wouldn't even have anything to shut off, a symptom of psychopathology.

That's for the most part what I was attempting to get at, but in much better words than mine.

Also, have any of you guys had a look at the rest of the videos on this channel? There's a lot of junk on there, hence my point. This channel looks like the rejection bin for ted talks.

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Originally posted by Psyshell Since you've posted a lot of detail about what I've said, care to reply to miss pie's question?

Pie's a nurse by occupation. Her profession requires emotional detachment and it's to be expected that she already has the capacity to dissociate herself from her patients enough to administer their care; some of which can be quite unpleasant. As it was said, in the video, psychopaths lack the function of the amygdala, entirely. Empathy is not something that needs to be repressed, for the psychopath, because it simply does not ever enter into the equation. For the non-psychopathic nurse, it does and it should - to a degree. It is something that needs to (or at least should) be both present and repressed in the healthcare professional.

If I were in the emergency room, I wouldn't want a psychopath in control of my pain management regimen. I also don't want a nurse who is crying and constantly offering their sympathy because I lost a foot. He or she shouldn't be shedding tears while they're changing my bandages because the severity of my wound resonates on an emotional level with them. While the doctor might proscribe morphine, a nurse, who intentionally administered it incorrectly, could (and, in the past, they have) do a lot of damage. A psychologically well-balanced nurse understands their patient's needs for comfort and appropriate care and makes choices with professional, clinical detachment while still remaining somewhat empathetic with regard to the patient's comfort.

If you've ever done work on a car, you're not thinking about the discomfort a car "feels". The car doesn't feel anything. Whether you're changing a tire or a timing chain, the car experiences no discomfort, what-so-ever, and while the mechanic should be careful not to break anything not already broken, he or she is never worried that the car senses pain. If you can imagine a healthcare professional who approaches a patient the way a mechanic approaches a car, you have a concept for how psychopaths regard people as little more than objects.

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Originally posted by Psyshell I question the video's legitimacy not the concept of psychopathy.

I know. I'm telling you that, apart from its very limited scope, it's still legitimate insight. While it fails at a deeper appreciation for psychopathic cognitive processes, it sums up an aspect of psychopathy rather concisely and accurately.

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quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker If you can imagine a healthcare professional who approaches a patient the way a mechanic approaches a car, you have a concept for how psychopaths regard people as little more than objects.

This reminds me of people who get angry at their computers and go on to talk about how their computer hates them. I know some of them are joking but when the ones that aren't proceed to say how "they're naturally bad at computers" that's when I just facepalm.

This leads into a follow up question I was thinking of asking earlier, what exactly is the difference between someone with extreme autism and someone with psychopathy? Don't they both view people as objects?

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker I know. I'm telling you that, apart from its very limited scope, it's still legitimate insight. While it fails at a deeper appreciation for psychopathic cognitive processes, it sums up an aspect of psychopathy rather concisely and accurately.

Ok, I do still disagree, however I still don't see how you derived from my disagreement that I claimed I was an expert in the field. I think if someone's only knowledge of psychopathy comes from that video they're going to be highly mislead. Your post seems to be a far better explanation for instance. Stick that in a video and talk about utilitarianism vs psychopathy and we've already got an improvement over that video.

The companion cube in portal^* is a rather amusing example of the concept you were explaining (afaik). Although in that case it represents overly sensitive emotional sensitivity.

^* video contains spoilers

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Last edited by Psyshell on Jan-01-2013 at 19:53