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here is an excellent article i found while looking for information and references for my university work

it makes for interesting reading about the possible future of human kind

hope you like it

http://www.criminalprofiling.com/article.php?sid=289

Amusing theory, except many of the responders at the
page's bottom pointed out its short-comings, such as
procreation, mental deficiencies, as well the the begative
affect on the society as a whole.

Psychopaths are just people who more physiological, and/or
psychological reasons, are disposed to violence, and lack
enough empathy to stop.

I have to agree with last words above.

And, from an evolutionary point, the populations are the ones who evolves, and selective pressure is over the individual. I doesn't seem that somebody whose tendency is rape an killing is selected BUT if it's the case where the hell is going the population (not using a moral point.) I mean imagine that a (let's say) tiger is highly successful predating for resources for his offspring, but before he get his couple he murdered half of the females, the population is going deep, because lack of genetic variation, mates and a adequate size to predate as a group (or escape from predators or whatever, you require some average size (ecology theory)) If you spread the tendency you are going downhill. This only mean a local situation and the possibility of extinction of the local population.

I know that humans have culture (as is pointed on the paper) but let's consider (yes little sarcasm indeed) that psychos are eliminated by the supreme alpha males of this society: the police-state. I mean the structures remind the same. (Just a disclaimer I don't bow to sociobiology ie Edward Wilson and that stuff)

Another point, there's a whole trend called game theory (not bowing again) that states that different strategies have to adequate in a balanced way, so you can think that certain type can override the others. Let's say that (just for not pointing another example, but you can find them in evo texts like dependent of frequencies selection) that a society were everybody imitates a psycho ends with red flags from others individuals (I'm following the theory mentioned) and a gun or whatever in every hand.

what do you think??

Agreed. Though I don't know much about this "game theory".

lso, notice how the theorist made the common mistake of
refering to the "goal" of evolution. Evolution has no "goal".
It's just a near-random process brought on by genetic
mutations and environmental circumstances.

Evolution has a goal. For a specimen to be perfectly adapted to its surroundings/environment. It most surely is not a random happening, in which case we probably wouldnt be here.

true...but then we are probably going to be the first species to directly affect our own evolution...

what role for instance, does the selfishness of capitalism (the gathering of wealth for ones own interests) do to the psychology of entire nations

given that the argument if from the point that pyschopathy is an extreme form of selfish behaviour...devoid of remorse or guilt

Originally posted by Magee
Evolution has a goal. For a specimen to be perfectly adapted to its surroundings/environment. It most surely is not a random happening, in which case we probably wouldnt be here.


Disagree.

"Goal" implies that there is a working towards a final step.
There is no final step in evolution.

Furthermore, it is random. If a leaf-eating species finds
itself in an area where tree branches are higher than it can
reach, it will slowly die out. If there happens to be some
among its numbers who ahve longer necks and/or can climb,
then these will survive and procreate and pass on there genes,
along with (probably) these long neck/climbimg claws genes.

The species didn't work towards attaining these characteristics,
they just happened due to some genetic mutations among some
of its members. It could very well have been the case that none
of them ever had long necks or climbing claws, at which point
they all would have died, as had happened, and continues to
happen to countless species across the world and time.

Ofcourse, if you're using "goal" in a very braod abstract sense,
then so be it, but as it is, the process of evolution itself is made
up of two factors whose character is beyond conrtol and doesn't
have a "destination": the state of the surrounding environment,
and the genetic/physical/mental characteristics of members of
the species living in that environment.

As for humans, I believe in our divine nature, so that we are not
under the same laws, unless ofcourse God tinkered with our
evolution so that we can reach the current state.

the mutations themselves ARE random...but evolution occurs when favourable mutations give benefits that give the mutated organism over its non mutated siblings...and hence gives an illusion of being "guided"

there are however, some very interesting products of nature that may make people believe in a higher intervention...take the frequency of the fibonacci sequence that occurs in nature

the fibonacci numbers being 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21...each number being the sum of the 2 previous numbers

http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibnat.html

jaden you have a point, a benevolent psychopathology will spread in a unstoppable way, and unsuspected by all the ones involved, read JG Ballard Crash where a group is obsessed with car accidents and celebrities. take as another example domestic violence that ends in murdered. OF COURSE THE "BENEVOLENT" IS THE CONTEXT OF THE THEORY AND WE DONT CONSIDER ACCIDENTS OR VIOLENCE AS GOOD THINGS. the society doesn't seems to care about this subjects and they are growing exponentially.(I'm not starting a debate about this)

abot that serie, call it self-organization, autorganization according to a natural algorithm or according to some inner rule.
KB said it all about goals, about what jaden pointed there is no immediate goal and even if some specie are in front of the desired goal this could be such a tiny local landscape that you would miss an entire kingdom of opportunities."imagine" a being that at same point "decided" to (in order to conquer the earth) to have eggs more sophisticated, and then you have reptiles, well "wrong choice" some others preferred to keep their offspring within to defeat such a novel environment and then you have "you". I mean even if you are a designer how to choose a path if you are for sure there is no backwards. What sounds great today well it could be pretty annoying later, have you seen a coco running. Just a disclaimer i am not talking about superiority here it is just a matter of design.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-evolutionary/

http://www.gametheory.net/html/applets.html

http://www.google.com/search?domains=en.wikipedia.org&num=
50&ie=iso-8859-1&oe=iso-8859-1&q=game+theory&btnG=Google
+Search&sitesearch=en.wikipedia.org

BTW 1.990.000 results at google: game theory evolution i just checked the first ones what do you think about this ?

i see where this is coming from and perhaps there is SOME validity here. But it is also a very dangerous theory. To imply that a psychopath is merely the product of evolution / genetics is to absolve that person from any responsibilty. Which actually sounds OK in theory, until it is someone YOU love that is raped and or killed by a psychopath. I happen to believe in free will, that even though these people show no remorse they are VERY aware that what they are doing is morally wrong. But they CHOOSE to do it anyway rather than find a more productive avenue for what compells them. There is always a line to be crossed, and it is a concious decision to cross it. Its like saying, oh thats just the way Joe is, he kills people, no biggie. Thats unacceptable. The same can be said of pedophiles. Generally they know what they are doing is wrong but do it anyway. Unfortunately there is no cure for either case. At this point all that can be done is to contain these people which generally means prison. While that may seem unfair if these folks do indeed suffer from a genetic 'disorder' we simply dont at this point in time have a better solution. This is one case where the greater good (society at large being protected from psychopaths) should be the priority .. IMHO

Whatever happened to just plain old 'crazy'?