And there may be a teapot in orbit around Mercury. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. If our priors say psychopaths are less likely to give to charity - and it's a tough row to hoe if you want to say they give as much or more as the average - and we observe even weak evidence that a person doesn't, then our likelihood of the person being a psychopath must go up.
> I don't see why a psychopath wouldn't give money to charity anyway.
You don't? I was reading the blog linked elsewhere about raising a RAD kid, and lack of empathy & altruism & charity is one of the diagnostic criteria for sociopathy. I can see why a psychopath wouldn't...
> This is quite frankly the kind of witchhunt discussion that's worth avoiding at all costs.
Death to all extremists, eh... If we accept the basic statistics in the article, then there's a 1% likelihood of Jobs being a psychopath in general, and the likelihood rises the more evidence we adduce, like all the anecdotes of Jobs cheating people or brazenly lying (the Knuth story I mentioned is a good case). That's enough for it to be worth discussing, and it brings out interesting distinctions between narcissism and psychopathy - like the charity criterion I've used here. And being interesting is the chief and only virtue of discussions like these.
"If our priors say psychopaths are less likely to give to charity - and it's a tough row to hoe if you want to say they give as much or more as the average - and we observe even weak evidence that a person doesn't, then our likelihood of the person being a psychopath must go up."
In that case, I think you're a psychopath, since you've given me absolutely no evidence that you donate to charity. ;) (Don't try telling me that you donate to charity without evidence, either! That's exactly what a psychopath would do, assuming he didn't want to be exposed as a psychopath!)
"Death to all extremists, eh...That's enough for it to be worth discussing, and it brings out interesting distinctions between narcissism and psychopathy - like the charity criterion I've used here. And being interesting is the chief and only virtue of discussions like these."
Interesting. You have absolutely no emotional distaste to discussing (without sufficient evidence) whether or not some of our particular fellow human beings are psychopaths, as long as you can continue to amuse yourself. That demonstrates a serious lack of empathy. Very concerning.
Seriously though, I don't think a psychopath would have as much interest in changing the world as a young Steve Jobs did, nor would a psychopath name something after his daughter or adopt her into his family. I'm not saying there's no similarity between what we've all read about Jobs and the psychopath archetype, but there's enough differences that it doesn't quite fit.
No you don't; you think the likelihood of me being a psychopath has gone up slightly from its initially very low <1% likelihood. That's nowhere close to 50%, much less a confident 'I think [for sure]'. I don't know whether you are deliberately misunderstanding me here, despite my careful phrasing before, or just statistically innumerate.
> Don't try telling me that you donate to charity without evidence, either
Actually, I could prove it with my donations to Wikimedia, GNU, Debian, and the Internet Archive; but that's irrelevant to your point, I think.
> You have absolutely no emotional distaste to discussing (without sufficient evidence) whether or not some of our particular fellow human beings are psychopaths, as long as you can continue to amuse yourself.
Why would I feel any distaste about the discussion? Who is being hurt? What negative effects may even improbably occur?
Is amusement _per se_ wrong? Or is it just wrong when it is about something that is less than prefect & moral? Then since most entertainment is about non-utopias (such as wartime or criminals), we must condemn billions of peoples for producing said entertainment or consuming it.
> That demonstrates a serious lack of empathy.
What exactly should I be empathizing about? Should I feel what the psychopaths (don't) feel? Should I sympathize with their victims? (But I don't see how pondering whether Jobs is a psychopath is bad; in fact, victims of all people should be most interested in spotting psychopaths from afar.) I know what it means to empathize with tsunami or earthquake victims, but I'm really mystified as to what you mean that word to mean. To me, your comment looks like a rhetorical tissue of exaggerations and applause lights (http://lesswrong.com/lw/jb/applause_lights/).
> Seriously though, I don't think a psychopath would have as much interest in changing the world as a young Steve Jobs did, nor would a psychopath name something after his daughter or adopt her into his family.
These are much better points. But there are counterpoints; if we go into family relationships, we might learn from Wikipedia:
> She [Chrisann Brennan] briefly raised their daughter on welfare when Jobs denied paternity, claiming that he was sterile; he later acknowledged paternity.
"No you don't; you think the likelihood of me being a psychopath has gone up slightly from its initially very low <1% likelihood. That's nowhere close to 50%, much less a confident 'I think [for sure]'. I don't know whether you are deliberately misunderstanding me here, despite my careful phrasing before, or just statistically innumerate."
No, you missed the possibility that I'm just being facetious with you to make some other point, a point which has seemed to evade you. I do understand and appreciate Bayesian reasoning, of course, but that's not really the point here.
Comments
A lot of people donate to charity anonymously, and I don't see why a psychopath wouldn't give money to charity anyway.
This is quite frankly the kind of witchhunt discussion that's worth avoiding at all costs.
> A lot of people donate to charity anonymously
And there may be a teapot in orbit around Mercury. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. If our priors say psychopaths are less likely to give to charity - and it's a tough row to hoe if you want to say they give as much or more as the average - and we observe even weak evidence that a person doesn't, then our likelihood of the person being a psychopath must go up.
> I don't see why a psychopath wouldn't give money to charity anyway.
You don't? I was reading the blog linked elsewhere about raising a RAD kid, and lack of empathy & altruism & charity is one of the diagnostic criteria for sociopathy. I can see why a psychopath wouldn't...
> This is quite frankly the kind of witchhunt discussion that's worth avoiding at all costs.
Death to all extremists, eh... If we accept the basic statistics in the article, then there's a 1% likelihood of Jobs being a psychopath in general, and the likelihood rises the more evidence we adduce, like all the anecdotes of Jobs cheating people or brazenly lying (the Knuth story I mentioned is a good case). That's enough for it to be worth discussing, and it brings out interesting distinctions between narcissism and psychopathy - like the charity criterion I've used here. And being interesting is the chief and only virtue of discussions like these.
"If our priors say psychopaths are less likely to give to charity - and it's a tough row to hoe if you want to say they give as much or more as the average - and we observe even weak evidence that a person doesn't, then our likelihood of the person being a psychopath must go up."
In that case, I think you're a psychopath, since you've given me absolutely no evidence that you donate to charity. ;) (Don't try telling me that you donate to charity without evidence, either! That's exactly what a psychopath would do, assuming he didn't want to be exposed as a psychopath!)
"Death to all extremists, eh...That's enough for it to be worth discussing, and it brings out interesting distinctions between narcissism and psychopathy - like the charity criterion I've used here. And being interesting is the chief and only virtue of discussions like these."
Interesting. You have absolutely no emotional distaste to discussing (without sufficient evidence) whether or not some of our particular fellow human beings are psychopaths, as long as you can continue to amuse yourself. That demonstrates a serious lack of empathy. Very concerning.
Seriously though, I don't think a psychopath would have as much interest in changing the world as a young Steve Jobs did, nor would a psychopath name something after his daughter or adopt her into his family. I'm not saying there's no similarity between what we've all read about Jobs and the psychopath archetype, but there's enough differences that it doesn't quite fit.
> In that case, I think you're a psychopath
No you don't; you think the likelihood of me being a psychopath has gone up slightly from its initially very low <1% likelihood. That's nowhere close to 50%, much less a confident 'I think [for sure]'. I don't know whether you are deliberately misunderstanding me here, despite my careful phrasing before, or just statistically innumerate.
> Don't try telling me that you donate to charity without evidence, either
Actually, I could prove it with my donations to Wikimedia, GNU, Debian, and the Internet Archive; but that's irrelevant to your point, I think.
> You have absolutely no emotional distaste to discussing (without sufficient evidence) whether or not some of our particular fellow human beings are psychopaths, as long as you can continue to amuse yourself.
Why would I feel any distaste about the discussion? Who is being hurt? What negative effects may even improbably occur?
Is amusement _per se_ wrong? Or is it just wrong when it is about something that is less than prefect & moral? Then since most entertainment is about non-utopias (such as wartime or criminals), we must condemn billions of peoples for producing said entertainment or consuming it.
> That demonstrates a serious lack of empathy.
What exactly should I be empathizing about? Should I feel what the psychopaths (don't) feel? Should I sympathize with their victims? (But I don't see how pondering whether Jobs is a psychopath is bad; in fact, victims of all people should be most interested in spotting psychopaths from afar.) I know what it means to empathize with tsunami or earthquake victims, but I'm really mystified as to what you mean that word to mean. To me, your comment looks like a rhetorical tissue of exaggerations and applause lights (http://lesswrong.com/lw/jb/applause_lights/).
> Seriously though, I don't think a psychopath would have as much interest in changing the world as a young Steve Jobs did, nor would a psychopath name something after his daughter or adopt her into his family.
These are much better points. But there are counterpoints; if we go into family relationships, we might learn from Wikipedia:
> She [Chrisann Brennan] briefly raised their daughter on welfare when Jobs denied paternity, claiming that he was sterile; he later acknowledged paternity.
"No you don't; you think the likelihood of me being a psychopath has gone up slightly from its initially very low <1% likelihood. That's nowhere close to 50%, much less a confident 'I think [for sure]'. I don't know whether you are deliberately misunderstanding me here, despite my careful phrasing before, or just statistically innumerate."
No, you missed the possibility that I'm just being facetious with you to make some other point, a point which has seemed to evade you. I do understand and appreciate Bayesian reasoning, of course, but that's not really the point here.