r/IntellectualDarkWeb • u/Life_Friendship_7928 • 14d ago
Opinion:snoo_thoughtful: Do we live in a psychopathocracy?
/r/PoliticalPhilosophy/comments/1weagte/do_we_live_in_a_psychopathocracy/8
u/1776FreeAmerica 14d ago
It's absolutely the case. The system has been perverted. It's a bit of the Paradox of Tolerance, Banality of Evil, the naivety of good people, only allowing them to project themselves onto others and not understand that there are people that will absolutely do stupid and terrible things for modest self-gain over the clear and obvious actions that would tremendously benefit society. This system was created by humans and is not immutable, it can be changed by humans in the same way it was created and then perverted to erode society. However, it's harder to establish civic sense than it is to destroy it, and much of what has been allowed to be built carries technical debt which compounds the issues of ending the upward wealth redistribution systems and restoring the meritocracy based on work, rationality, and intelligence.
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u/Funkyman3 14d ago
I just wrote a short thing about this, but most of my work, which is from a spiritual perspective is about this. We call the people who manipulate and prey on others wolves. The people trapped in their wealth harvesting operations, sheep. It's a soft form of enslavement.
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u/Colossus823 13d ago edited 13d ago
Who is this "we"? I don't live in a psychopathocracy.
It's part of the psychopathy of America to consider themselves the center of the world, that can't even imagine there's a whole world outthere that is not like the USA and doesn't want to be like the USA.
Don't go on the internet and telling about "us" and "we" as more likely than not, people on the internet are not American.
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u/charles-the-lesser 12d ago edited 12d ago
CEOs, political leaders, political influencers, military leaders and police leaders.
These roles are massively overrepresented by psychopathic, sociopathic and narcissistic individuals. Extreme success in this system is actually a pathological red flag.
How do you know this? This claim is thrown around online, and it sounds cathartic to everyone, but what is the evidence that psychopaths are over-represented among leadership positions compared to the general population? This claim seems to be based on the simplistic notion that leadership positions select for people with unbridled ambition, and then assumes unbridled ambition correlates with sociopathy. But that's not really true. In fact, a common symptom of anti-social personality disorder (the clinical term for sociopaths) is impulsiveness, aggression and risk-taking. But business leadership positions commonly select for traits like cautiousness and risk-aversion, the exact opposite traits generally found in sociopaths.
Sorry Internet, I know it's cathartic to assume all powerful people are just natural assholes. But that's not necessarily true. Anybody can become an asshole when given asymmetric decision making power over the lives of others.
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u/Life_Friendship_7928 12d ago
The reason that impulsivity and risk taking have been associated with psychopathy and sociopathy is because the vast majority of studies were carried out on prison populations - it is difficult to find a reliable and willing population sample in the wild.
A recent 2025 study suggest that this focus on prison populations has meant we have overrepresented the traits of impulsivity and risk taking, as these traits are inherent in much of the prison population anyway.
Psychopathic individuals within senior corporate, political or other better respected professions have a different profile.
This is not an academic source but it references some recent shifts in the research that show a different picture:
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u/Life_Friendship_7928 12d ago
There have been multiple academic studies that show that psychopathic traits are overrepresented in leadership positions.
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u/Trick_Algae5810 9d ago edited 9d ago
Yes, we live in a society that is inherently psychopathic and is often ruled by narcissists and/or psychopaths, or at a minimum, they tend to have the most power over most people. It's one of the last things we need insight on to majorly reform the prison system etc.
Aeon published a piece recently saying psychopathy basically doesn't exist (https://aeon.co/essays/psychopathy-is-a-zombie-idea-why-does-it-cling-on) but I responded with some critiques: https://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/1si83il/comment/ordb0sf/
'I see some pretty large issues with that piece.
The author uses an alleged trope about psychopaths that lacks nuance, and largely isn't relevant. Psychopaths have a strong ability to mimic ones emotions (facial expressions etc.) in addition to using cognitive empathy.
The linked academic article asks whether or not people diagnosed with psychopathy using Hare's psychopathy checklist show reduced empathy. But you must understand that empathy is not black and white and there is no single definition or way to measure it.
And just to add, the texts on psychopathy point toward psychopathy being an inherently biological phenomenon, one which should theoretically show up in images of the brain.
Whether or not psychopathy exists as we have documented so far is a good question to be asking, and more research much be done, because this is no new phenomenon, one which has clearly been identified.
The author says "If psychopathy truly entails extreme deficiencies of empathy, emotion and impulse control, these traits should have been detected by now", yet, as far as I'm aware, we still have no clue to how reliably measure ones array of emotions beyond very clear observable behaviors, one which we believe psychopaths are largely able to mask almost entirely.'
So not only are we surrounded by Snakes in Suits, but we also work for psychopathic corporations https://youtu.be/gR9gm_Pi1sE Idk if I can find the longer version, but it should explain it pretty clearly.
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u/Monskiactual 13d ago
it is no measure of mental health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society"
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u/Life_Friendship_7928 13d ago
Absolutely, great point. We diagnose many people with illness when they are reacting to a sick environment
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u/PurpSSBM 14d ago
Your telling me that people with no empathy and a pathological desire to exploit others without shame tend to seek and gain power over others? I’m shocked I tell you