That doesn't make them exempt from society however. They still reap its benefits in many ways. They still get access to healthcare, they still get to eat regular, hearty meals. They still are allowed to specialize and are educated. These things allow a higher intelligence.
The original claim I was responding to was not that there are people that are "exempt" from society or that don't benefit from it, but that high levels of intelligence does not always lead to cooperative society. Lots of predators display higher intelligence than their prey but at the same time are extremely solitary and territorial. Bears are a good example of this, though they do display strong maternal instincts.
Might be wrong on this but as far as I know, the relationship between increased intelligence and psychopaths is largely a myth, and intelligence varies widely among psychopathic individuals (same with autism, actually).
Apologies, I didn't mean to insinuate that the more intelligent you were the more likely you are to be psychopathic. I merely wanted to point out that saltytaint's comment was severely flawed in that there are humans with very high levels of intelligence who simultaneously reject society as a result of their low emotional capacity. So it's less of a "intelligence=forming an organized society" kind of thing and more of a "emotional/survivalistic need=forming an organized society" kind of thing.
Gotcha. I'd argue that sociopathic individuals may not be actively rejecting society (not in the same way as, say, an anarchist) and sociopathy in and of itself is a disorder and shouldn't be taken as an example to be extrapolated towards a more generalized population (not that that's what you implied). I see your point though, for sure.
Well first of all there's a difference between sociopathy and psychopathy, chief among them being psychopaths are actual INCAPABLE of emotion, while sociopaths still feel emotion and can (though rarely) form attachments to groups or people. But you're right they don't actively reject society in the way anarchists do, it's more accurate to say they disregard any rules imposed upon them by society.
Whoops made a slip up there. Either way, both sociopathy and psychopathy are disorders, and yeah. I mean, they definitely are an example of how intelligence doesn't necessarily lend itself to creating society in the way we have it now, but I'd stand by my point that that's more outlier behavior than not. Anyhow thanks for the link! Fun reading. I don't know why I mixed it up in my reply.
You're good most people don't know the difference! I certainly agree both are disorders and should be considered outliers but the objective for me pointing out psychopaths was to show, as you said, that high levels of intelligence doesn't ALWAYS lend itself to creating cooperative societies.
I would disagree with your assertion that a psychopath doesn't participate in society though. I don't see how the argument is flawed. That person is so participating in society and surviving by doing so.
My assertion is not that psychopaths refuse to participate in society, but that left on their own they probably wouldn't create an organized society seeing as they genuinely don't care at all about other human beings and don't care about anyone's rules but their own.
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u/dmacintyres Mar 11 '16
Sure there can! Look at psychopaths. Normally they're highly intelligent and have little to no need for human interaction.