This week I want to reach out to all of you who feel that you can no longer trust people. Imagine a world where your worst fears have come true, a world where everyone over the age of 15 is a sociopath. What would it be like to live in that world? If you only read one book this summer, I strongly urge you to read Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes by Frans de Waal. I have said before that I think the social-brain of sociopaths is similar to that of chimps. Now having read that book I am even more convinced. Chimpanzee Politics is the true life story of the relationships between individuals of the Arnhem Chimp Colony. Scientists carefully observed, photographed, filmed and …
Boredom and the sociopath
What's the relationship, if any, between boredom and sociopathy? Can we can agree, for starters, that boredom does not cause sociopathy? Otherwise most of us would be sociopaths. Can we also agree that a low tolerance for boredom, alone, does not cause sociopathy. Otherwise again, many of us with low tolerances for boredom (not that I include myself, but God, am I bored) would be sociopaths; and this isn't the case, either. That is, even most of us with low tolerances for boredom aren't sociopaths. However, research suggests that sociopaths may require higher levels of arousal to escape conditions of boredom. So apart from being prone to boredom and finding it extremely oppressive, it …