Pieter Hintjens - The Psychopath Code - Cracking the Predators That Stalk Us

Rule number two, truths are lies that are accidentally true . Every sentence you say is a potential time bomb, so telling the truth should scare you far more than making up lies. It doesn’t matter how minor. What you ate for breakfast, the city where you were born… such details are bullets in the hands of someone determined to hurt you. So as a matter of habit, learn to give nothing of value in conversations. Do not discuss your real friends, money, or significant events. Tremble and sweat all the time, lie more than half the time, about grand and yet irrelevant topics, and you’ll overload your psychopath’s senses.

Don’t do this in writing, or in front of neutral witnesses. If you’re accused of lying, deny it, shrug and change the subject. Smile and hold eye contact. After many months, you will find yourself less stressed. Eventually you may learn to lie without showing any detectable signs.

This all seems like a lot of work, even dangerous… is it worth it?

It can be hard work, yes. I believe it’s worse to let psychopaths roam free in our professional and social lives. That creates a lot more pain, even if it’s often hidden. It’s the child-in-the-cellar syndrome. Many of us are locked in cellars, so to speak. We don’t want to open that door for fear of what we might see or have to do. And the world doesn’t see us, and our pain remains private.

What I’ve learned is that climbing those stairs, pushing at that door, and confronting the brutes on the other side is the right thing to do. And "confronting" means fighting, even hurting and damaging them. It is hard work, and it can be dangerous, yet the alternative is worse. There is no peace with a tyrant. To live or work with a psychopath is to live in occupied lands. It is dismal, gray, with the constant threat of violence, and the total loss of freedom.

I’ve found, over the last years as I wrote this book and internalized its lessons, that confronting bad actors also made me generally happier in life. I’m pretty sure that psychopathy is an all-or-nothing strategy. We are all bad actors at times in our lives. Yet most of us work hard to self-correct. We’re obsessive about it. It’s enough to tell most people: "not cool!," show them an alternative, and they will stop. Psychopaths don’t self-correct. Instead they get better at not getting caught.

So understanding these two paths of human nature, one can speak to people according to what path they are on. To the good actors, one gives order and structure, power, freedom, and protection from the bad actors. To bad actors, one gives the stick.

You’re not a psychologist. How do you know this is safe?

I don’t. I’ve tried it, with abusive psychopaths, and it works. That’s my best data. I’ve discussed this approach with many people including psychologists who specialize in abuse victims. The main risk is that Mallory tends to get violent when challenged. How serious is this risk, and is it worth taking? How much violence can you absorb, and how successfully can you turn Mallory’s violence against him? For instance, are there higher authorities who will act on the documented evidence of violence you have collected? These are questions you can answer and then act on.

Do psychopaths suffer from a disorder?

Technically, yes, it’s anti-social personality disorder. In practice, there are two ways to study psychopathy. One is to look at Mallory and try to understand him by observing and dissecting him. The other is to look at Mallory’s victims, and his relationships with them. The first approach leads to "Mallory is dysfunctional and needs help." The second leads to "Mallory damages people, and they need help." These are not at all the same.

I just want to avoid dating psychopaths

Don’t look for dates on line, and don’t trust total strangers with things that are precious to you. This is how you invite dangerous people into your life. Start by making friends of your own gender. Sooner or later they will set you up. The good friend of a good friend is less likely to be a predator.

How do you get that 4% figure?

Clinical research is often biased in huge ways. Let me give you two examples from the USA. You are four times more likely [88] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15160786 to get a diagnosis of schizophrenia if you are black, than if you are white. Yet, when it comes to personality disorders, you’re less likely to be diagnosed if you’re black [89] http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/10/33 . The judicial system pushes for diagnoses that lets them lock up poorer, black men, while sending wealthier men to therapy.

So when you read figures from clinical studies, you must question the sources of data. Hare’s classic estimate is 1%. He focuses on criminal male psychopaths. Others have estimated figures for malignant narcissism as high as 10%. I double Hare’s estimate to account for female psychopaths. I double it again for the many hidden psychopaths.

Is this figure the same in all cultures?

Predator-prey ratios are not constant, they cycle over time. There is no reason to suspect cheater-altruist ratios are a special case. So the figure could be from less than 1% to above 10% depending on context. Up-down cycles will take several generations. Matching the ratio of psychopaths you’ll see altruistic behavior swing between trusting and cynical.

Do you have historical examples of this?

I’d say the period 1950-1999 in the West was one of increasing trust, causing an upswing in psychopath ratios towards the end of the century. This led to numerous financial swindles peaking in the 2009 financial crisis. This is leading to an increase in cynicism and political pressure against institutional cheats.

Can we eliminate psychopathy?

I’m not even sure that’s a sane goal. This predator-prey battle has been the main force of human evolution for millions of years. Without it, we’d be a historical footnote. We can treat the effects of psychopathy like a disease to be eliminated. Yet without constant pressure from cheats, there is no game. And without a game, humanity has no future.

What do you mean by that?

I think we’re still evolving, as we must, to overcome the limitations of our planet. We will go to the stars, or we will go extinct. Not tomorrow. Maybe in a thousand years. And while the altruists will build the spaceships and design the hibernation tanks, it will be psychopaths that provide the hunger. Every dramatic voyage of discovery is driven by false promises and lies. Most end in disaster. Some succeed, and take us forwards.

So altruists aren’t hungry enough?

They aren’t, not in that untiring predatory sense. We aim to be safe and happy. Without Mallory challenging us, we’d be a species on holiday. Yet every time we build up some capital, savings, and wealth, along comes Mallory and steals it. It forces us to work harder, be more creative, and let go of the past.

You sound almost grateful to psychopaths…

In some specific ways, yes. Yet only when I step outside my own experience, and look at the big picture. If I speak from the heart, then Mallory’s casual abuse and the sheer harm he does to others enrages me. We can hold two contradictory ideas in our minds at once, right?

What if psychopaths get too much power?

I’m optimistic that the worse it gets, the better we become. The war between altruism and cheating has been going on for millions of years. Neither side can ever win.

Are psychopaths evil?

Good and evil are terms based on a self-centered view of the universe that religion has encouraged. That view is false, and the terms are meaningless. Do psychopaths cause hurt and harm to others? Yes. Is that a question of morality and religion? No. It’s biology. It’s inevitable and has been central to our evolution as a species.