1. Parasites & Predators All life requires energy and resources to sustain itself. One way of gathering resources, the way adopted by the plants, is to take it from inanimate nature – water, dirt, sunlight. Another way is to take it from other living things
I wonder if talk about predation and parasitism is merely metaphorical - psychopaths only need food and water to 'sustain' themselves in existence.
This article in Evolutionary Human Sciences (2022) argues that psychopathology is a cost of the benefit of plasticity and specialisation and is therefore a permanent possibility in ancient and modern environments. It also suggests that politicians may often be psychopaths:
From experience, you really don't see it coming. But after you do see it, you can see literally nothing else and not least because they never take a night off.
The Ted Bundy example hits a personal note for me. My very devout, evangelical parents sincerely believed what Ted Bundy said about pornography being the root cause of his serial killing and used it to caution me against looking at porn and what looking at porn could turn a person into (in hindsight, it was kind of a f**cked up thing for them to say to a teenage kid).
The abundance of predators depends on the productivity of their prey, not on their abundance. Some predators are more abundant, in terms of biomass, than their prey.
Pollinators and other animals feed on plants while helping them. They are neither parasites nor predators.
In your (too frequent) criticism of Trump, you implicitly support HR Clinton - who was worse in most of the ways Trump is bad AND whose policies have far worse results.
Similarly with now rich Biden, whose gov't corruption is more psychopathic and immoral the Trump, at the more direct cost of the US taxpayers.
Trump actually did get lots of building built, including the ice rink in NYC. Doesn't mean he isn't a louse, but I continue to find him far less lousy in comparison to the others, and especially his policy results.
Politicians should be judged far more on their results than their policies, tho more on their policies than on their words or tweets.
"I think I would find it pretty hard to get a date if I was currently on trial for murdering multiple women, and even harder to get a woman to marry me after I’d been convicted of said murders."
Actually, you'd be very surprised. Counterintuitively, there do seem to be mass-murderer groupies, just like rock star groupies, who love the notoriety, love a bad boy, and also seem to have a warped feminine instinct where they believe their magic pussy could be just the thing to turn a demon into an angel.
I don't know if this is on-topic or not, but I think we could also extend the predator/prey dynamic into the sexual/romantic realm. I had a close friend when I was younger who was very much a predatory male, and he just seemed to have a sixth sense for his targets (a low-self-esteem detector maybe), and he would approach women with aggressive insults and have a pretty good success rate. Even women who seemed sharp and in control, he just seemed to know what to say to 1) make them feel both somewhat insulted and somewhat intrigued; and 2) give in to his advances.
Why did Bundy have the preference to kill other people? The evolutionary niche of stealing from others explains Trump and Holmes, but not Bundy? I think Bundy would have been a very successful salesperson/businessman or politician based on his 30 minute interview, which is concerning.
Also why do you think women like the true crime genre so much?
One noteworthy fact about Holmes: she convinced so called „tourist investors“ not professional venture capitalists.
The predators choose their prey well.
I wonder if talk about predation and parasitism is merely metaphorical - psychopaths only need food and water to 'sustain' themselves in existence.
This article in Evolutionary Human Sciences (2022) argues that psychopathology is a cost of the benefit of plasticity and specialisation and is therefore a permanent possibility in ancient and modern environments. It also suggests that politicians may often be psychopaths:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/evolutionary-human-sciences/article/specialised-minds-extending-adaptive-explanations-of-personality-to-the-evolution-of-psychopathology/EA63787E64435787ADEF5A0AC882593A#
From experience, you really don't see it coming. But after you do see it, you can see literally nothing else and not least because they never take a night off.
The Ted Bundy example hits a personal note for me. My very devout, evangelical parents sincerely believed what Ted Bundy said about pornography being the root cause of his serial killing and used it to caution me against looking at porn and what looking at porn could turn a person into (in hindsight, it was kind of a f**cked up thing for them to say to a teenage kid).
The abundance of predators depends on the productivity of their prey, not on their abundance. Some predators are more abundant, in terms of biomass, than their prey.
Pollinators and other animals feed on plants while helping them. They are neither parasites nor predators.
In your (too frequent) criticism of Trump, you implicitly support HR Clinton - who was worse in most of the ways Trump is bad AND whose policies have far worse results.
Similarly with now rich Biden, whose gov't corruption is more psychopathic and immoral the Trump, at the more direct cost of the US taxpayers.
Trump actually did get lots of building built, including the ice rink in NYC. Doesn't mean he isn't a louse, but I continue to find him far less lousy in comparison to the others, and especially his policy results.
Politicians should be judged far more on their results than their policies, tho more on their policies than on their words or tweets.
"But I do think that the people who would make the best leaders are also people who would never get elected in a million years, even if they tried."
That's rephrasing Hayek's "the worst get on top".
Every politician is a parasit to some extend. Some of the traits you mention can be recognized in many of them.
"I think I would find it pretty hard to get a date if I was currently on trial for murdering multiple women, and even harder to get a woman to marry me after I’d been convicted of said murders."
Actually, you'd be very surprised. Counterintuitively, there do seem to be mass-murderer groupies, just like rock star groupies, who love the notoriety, love a bad boy, and also seem to have a warped feminine instinct where they believe their magic pussy could be just the thing to turn a demon into an angel.
I don't know if this is on-topic or not, but I think we could also extend the predator/prey dynamic into the sexual/romantic realm. I had a close friend when I was younger who was very much a predatory male, and he just seemed to have a sixth sense for his targets (a low-self-esteem detector maybe), and he would approach women with aggressive insults and have a pretty good success rate. Even women who seemed sharp and in control, he just seemed to know what to say to 1) make them feel both somewhat insulted and somewhat intrigued; and 2) give in to his advances.
For every flame there seem to be multiple moths.
Why did Bundy have the preference to kill other people? The evolutionary niche of stealing from others explains Trump and Holmes, but not Bundy? I think Bundy would have been a very successful salesperson/businessman or politician based on his 30 minute interview, which is concerning.
Also why do you think women like the true crime genre so much?