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TheOtherDave comments on On Enjoying Disagreeable Company - Less Wrong
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I would say the most useful thing is to learn to protect myself from being exploited by sociopaths, whether I like them or not. After all, many sociopaths are genuinely likeable; I might find myself liking them without doing any of the work Alicorn discusses here. If I can do that, then liking them doesn't make them more dangerous to me than not liking them.
How do you protect yourself against a sociopath while still liking them? Also, how can you LIKE someone you know is a sociopath?
Assuming you meant that as a literal question...
I protect myself from a sociopath the same way I protect myself from a non-sociopath whose interests require that they act against mine: by determining their threat capacity, making my best guesses as to their likely strategies, deciding on a strategy to counter them, and implementing that strategy.
Whether I like them or not is in-principle-irrelevant, although of course it might affect my ability to do those things.
I like someone I know is a sociopath more or less the same way I like someone I don't know is a sociopath: by unconsciously deciding that a social alliance with them would be cost-effective. (Or, in more conventional terms: "I dunno, I like who I like.")
Your definition of "like" is apparently radically different from mine.
I could very well form an alliance with a sociopath, if necessary for some greater goal. But liking someone, as I use the word, requires you to actually respect that person and their character, and believe that the ends they seek are (basically, reasonably) worth seeking. It requires you to trust them, to engage with them without fear that at any moment they might exploit you.
I believe it was SMBC that said it best: "The enemy of my enemy is not my friend, he is my ally. The difference is you don't invite your allies out for ice cream."
So on my meaning, it is impossible to like someone you know is a sociopath; and furthermore if you like someone who is a sociopath and you don't know, you are opening yourself up to be exploited. I guess you folks are free to use some other definition of "like" that doesn't require trust or respect... but surely this is not the standard definition?
With respect to sociopaths, I mostly agree that knowing that someone is a sociopath pretty much precludes my being able to engage with them without fear of being exploited. (It doesn't preclude my ability to respect them, or to consider the ends they seek worth seeking, or to trust them in certain ways.)
With respect to the meaning of "like", I frequently find myself liking people on brief acquaintance, long before I know very much about them, their character, what ends they seek, or their trustworthiness in any particular context. And it's not uncommon for me to lose respect for someone I like while continuing to like them.
As far as I can tell from observation, other people frequently have similar experiences, and frequently use the word "like" to refer to those experiences, much as I do. So I'm fairly confident that it's the usage you describe here that's nonstandard. But I could be wrong, or it might be a regional/subcultural thing.
For example, if a friend says "I met George at a party last night; I liked him" do you really understand your friend to mean that they know enough about George to make a reliable judgment about George's character and whether it merits respect, what ends George seeks and whether those ends are worth seeking, and George's trustworthiness? I would not understand them to mean that at all.