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komponisto comments on Mandatory Secret Identities - Less Wrong
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Comments (177)
It's very easy to believe that you're being driven by something outside yourself, while primarily being driven by self-image. It's also very easy to incorrectly believe this about someone else.
Sometimes I wonder if the only people who aren't driven primarily by self-image/status-seeking are sociopaths (the closest human analogue of UFAI).
Sociopaths care a lot about status, and the most extreme sociopaths respond to attempts to reduce their status with violence. I strongly suggest Jon Ronson's "The Psychopath Test" for a highly informative and amusing introduction to psychopathy/sociopathy and its symptoms.
My understanding of sociopaths makes this seem like approximately the opposite of true. It is the drives other than seeking self-image and status that are under-functioning in sociopaths.
What then do you call someone like the Joker from Batman -- someone who cares not at all how they fit into or are perceived by human society, except as instrumental to gaining whatever (non-human-relationship-based) thrill or fix they are after?
Fictional?
Beat me to the exact one word reply I was about to make!
The reply is a non-sequitur, because even if one accepted the implied unlikely propsition that no such persons exist or ever have existed, the terminological question would remain.
I don't think so: psychiatry has no need for terms that fail to refer. (On the other hand, psychiatry might have a term for something that doesn't exist--because it once was thought to have existed.)
At the risk of stating the obvious: I did not intend to restrict the terminological question to psychiatry specifically.
But in any event: you could say the same thing about zoology. And yet we still have the word unicorn.
Unicorns were indeed once thought to have actually existed.
Your understanding of the "non-sequitur" fallacy is evidently flawed. You asked a question. The answer you got is not only a literally correct answer that follows from the question it is practically speaking the It isn't non-sequitur. It's the most appropriate answer to a question that constitutes a rhetorical demand that the reader must generalize from fictional evidence.
But you want another answer as well? Let's try:
This question does not make sense. The Joker isn't someone who doesn't care how they are perceived. He is obsessed with his perception to the extent that he, well, dresses up as the freaking Joker and all of his schemes prioritize displaying the desired image over achievement over pragmatic achievement of whatever end he is seeking. No, he cares a hell of a lot about status and perception and chooses to seek infamy rather than adoration.
Thrill seeking fix? That's a symptom of psychiatric problems for sure, but not particularly sociopathy.
Some labels that could be applied to The Joker: Bipolar, Schizophrenic, Antisocial Personality Disorder. Sociopath doesn't really capture him but could be added as an adjunct to one (probably two) of those.
Charitable interpretation of komponisto's comment: ‘If a human didn't care about social status except instrumentally, what would be the psychiatric classification for them?’ (Charitable interpretation of nshepperd's comment: ‘Outside of fiction, such people are so vanishingly rare that it'd be pointless to introduce a word for them.’)
I'm afraid the first interpretation is incompatible with this comment (because the Joker reference conveys significant information). Actually, this does qualify as a charitable interpretation of something kompo made elsewhere (grand-neice comment or something). This distinction matters primarily in as much as it means you have given a highly uncharitable interpretation of nshepperd's comment. By simple substitution it would mean you interpret him as saying:
Rather than being clearly correct nshepperd becomes probably incorrect. Many (or most) people with autism could fit that description for a start.
There was no demand to "generalize" from fictional evidence, except to recognize the theoretical possibility a sociopathic character who is indifferent to status concerns.
The intended question is whether such characters can exist and if so what's their diagnosis. Your response "fictional" would be reasonable if you went on to say, "that's a fiction; such a pathology doesn't exist in the real world." Or at least, "It's atypical" or "it's rare''; "sociopaths usually go for status." Or, to go with your revised approach, "psychopaths go for status as they perceive it, but it doesn't necessarily conform to what other people consider status." (This approach risks depriving "status" of any meaning beyond "narcissistic gratification.")
The answer, anyway, is that psychopaths have an exaggerated need to feel superior. When they fail at traditional status seeking, they shift their criteria away from what other people think. They have a sense of grandiosity, but this can have little to do with ordinary social status. Psychopaths are apt to be at both ends of the distribution with regard to seeking the ordinary markers of status.
Objectionable personal psychological interpretation removed at 2:38 p.m.
Thankyou.
That's an untenable interpretation of the written words and plain rude. (Claiming to have) mind read negative beliefs and motives in others then declaring them publicly tends to be frowned upon. Certainly it is frowned upon me.
The simplest minimally charitable interpretation of the remark seems to be saying that in a slightly snarky fashion.
His behavior is not consistent with what is generally described as sociopathy. Again, Ronson's book may help here.
So again, what would be the term for the (apparently distinct) phenomenon that I mean to refer to? Is this covered in Ronson's book as well (presumably for purposes of contrast)?
I'm not sure that your phenomenon exists to any substantial extent in the real world. Also, keep in mind that categorizing mental illness is in general difficult. It isn't that uncommon to have issues where one psychologist will diagnose someone as schizophrenic, while another will say the same person is bipolar, etc even as everyone agrees there's something deeply wrong with them. So even if your people in your like-the-Joker category exists in some form, it may be that there isn't any term for them.
Apparently distinct? What do you mean by that? "A coherent concept that can be described as part of a counterfactual reality?" Sure, it just isn't something that is instantiated in an actual human being. That's what medical science deals with and that's where the term 'sociopath' is used and definied.
You're after "literary criticism". Or, given the subject matter, TVTropes. The best term among them is probably Chaotic Evil. The Joker even gives it the tagline. Laughably Evil also works. That trick with the pencil is one of Heath Ledger's best moments.
If it does happen to be that would be a remarkable coincidence. It would be similar in nature but less extreme than Ronson happening to make comparison's to Yudkowskian "Baby Eaters".