gwern comments on Notes on Psychopathy - Less Wrong

18 Post author: gwern 19 December 2012 04:02AM

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Comment author: gwern 20 December 2012 04:52:06PM 5 points [-]

If there's a better approach to reducing murders by psychopaths than decreasing the number of psychopaths (by hindering them from reproducing), I'd opt for that.

I feel I should point out that the harms of psychopathy are only rarely covered by murder.

(eg. Cleckley in The Mask of Sanity places great and repeated emphasis on how almost none of his patients ever engaged in violence worse than beating their wife, and I don't think he mentions any murders ever, even though the case studies are otherwise a long litany of constant crime, deceit, fraud, and destruction (including a truly astonishing amount of forgery of checks).)

Comment author: TrE 20 December 2012 05:58:09PM 1 point [-]

Of course you are correct, thanks for pointing out. I responded to the "tradeoff between brain diversity and murders" without thinking myself.

Still, I don't think psychopathic individuals should be prosecuted a priori, considering that they likely make up 1% of the general population.