DarkMath ago

"The study showed that psychopaths have reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety."

That sums it all up right there. All I thought of the first three months was how do these people seem so impervious to emotion. I was practically dry heaving at times. It was fucking horrible.

I think what's going on is a psychopath relies on their lower brain stem way more than normal because they weren't born with all the bells and whistles. The brain has two parts, the limbic system or reptilian brain and the neo-cortex where all higher more complex thought occurs. An artist will have all the neo-cortex and then some. The empathy center of an artists brain is probably the size of a grapefruit where the psychopath's got one the size of a grape seed.

So the artists go through life and see people suffering and are so overwhelmed they write "Les Miserables" or "Hamlet" or "War and Peace" just so they can stay sane while seeing the sordid human condition in all its depraved glory.

But the psychopath sees the same anguish and suffering of their fellow man and it barely registers. An alligator would probably pick up more of the human suffering walking through Spanish Harlem or Bedford-Stuyvesant* than a psychopath would. It's fucking hysterical. Oy-veh

"*" - Before Brooklyn became gentrified which today ironically gives me the same urge to puke my guts out. It's complicated. I'm leaning towards bringing back Revolutionary War prison ships in Wallabout Bay but this time gentrify them and move all the viscous hipsters there so Brooklyn can recover. tee-hee

Piscina ago

sees people suffering and are so overwhelmed You have just described me (and I'm sure a lot of other people here) perfectly.

DarkMath ago

It's examples like this that make me think the least painful way to bring the cluster fuck down is granting immunity to all participants in exchange for the Truth. To guarantee you'd get everything you'd have to put in a clause that says:

"You're immune from prosecution for anything confessed between starting date X and ending date Y. Anything that comes out after no matter by whom if it proved you lied or withheld information then the immunity is voided."

I think ex-CIA Robert David Steele suggested this already, grant full immunity for everything. Anything less and the deal's off. That way we the people can get our heads around what happened. Immunity is starting to look like the only way we can guarantee:

1) No perp decides to check out of life early rather than deal with the temporary change of address. Watching anyone off themselves is hard to watch and it doesn't matter their guilt or innocence or even what crime they committed.

2) The country can recover from the sucking chest wound we've been carrying around for at least the past 30 years but never knew it. Yeah everyone could hear it and smell it and follow the trail of blood but no one ever found where it was. Now we know what happened but unless we find all the bullet entry wounds within our soul we're just going to get sick again.

3) The last time America had a "sucking chest wound" 500,000 people died, more than died in any other American war combined.

O_O

cantsleepawink ago

Great post. I've been looking into Blackstone as it pertains to the Child Mind Institute. I'll have to put your pieces together with that.