Beware the Psychopath, My Son

The following is largely extracted from two articles:

Twilight of the Psychopaths, by Dr. Kevin Barrett and The Trick of the Psychopath’s Trade by Silvia Cattori. Both articles are recommended. Both articles reference the book Political Ponerology: A science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes, by Andrzej Lobaczewski. Cattori’s article is longer and includes an interview with the book’s editors, Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Henry See.

I make the effort to share this information because it gives me, at last, a plausible answer to a long-unanswered question: Why, no matter how much intelligent goodwill exists in the world, is there so much war, suffering and injustice? It doesn’t seem to matter what creative plan, ideology, religion, or philosophy great minds come up with, nothing seems to improve our lot. Since the dawn of civilization, this pattern repeats itself over and over again.

The answer is that civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been built on slavery and mass murder. Psychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, cheat, steal, torture, manipulate, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse, in order to establish their own sense of security through domination. The inventor of civilization — the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed an army of controlled mass murderers — was almost certainly a genetic psychopath. Since that momentous discovery, psychopaths have enjoyed a significant advantage over non-psychopaths in the struggle for power in civilizational hierarchies — especially military hierarchies.

Behind the apparent insanity of contemporary history, is the actual insanity of psychopaths fighting to preserve their disproportionate power. And as their power grows ever-more-threatened, the psychopaths grow ever-more-desperate. We are witnessing the apotheosis of the overworld — the overlapping criminal syndicates that lurk above ordinary society and law just as the underworld lurks below it.

During the past fifty years, psychopaths have gained almost absolute control of all the branches of government. You can notice this if you observe carefully that no matter what illegal thing a modern politician does, no one will really take him to task. All of the so called scandals that have come up, any one of which would have taken down an authentic administration, are just farces played out for the public, to distract them, to make them think that the democracy is still working.

One of the main factors to consider in terms of how a society can be taken over by a group of pathological deviants is that the psychopaths’ only limitation is the participation of susceptible individuals within that given society. Lobaczewski gives an average figure for the most active deviants of approximately 6% of a given population. (1% essential psychopaths and up to 5% other psychopathies and characteropathies.) The essential psychopath is at the center of the web. The others form the first tier of the psychopath’s control system.

The next tier of such a system is composed of individuals who were born normal, but are either already warped by long-term exposure to psychopathic material via familial or social influences, or who, through psychic weakness have chosen to meet the demands of psychopathy for their own selfish ends. Numerically, according to Lobaczewski, this group is about 12% of a given population under normal conditions.

So approximately 18% of any given population is active in the creation and imposition of a Pathocracy. The 6% group constitutes the Pathocratic nobility and the 12% group forms the new bourgeoisie, whose economic situation is the most advantageous.

When you understand the true nature of psychopathic influence, that it is conscienceless, emotionless, selfish, cold and calculating, and devoid of any moral or ethical standards, you are horrified, but at the same time everything suddenly begins to makes sense. Our society is ever more soulless because the people who lead it and who set the example are soulless — they literally have no conscience.

In his book Political Ponerology, Andrej Lobaczewski explains that clinical psychopaths enjoy advantages even in non-violent competitions to climb the ranks of social hierarchies. Because they can lie without remorse (and without the telltale physiological stress that is measured by lie detector tests), psychopaths can always say whatever is necessary to get what they want. In court, for example, psychopaths can tell extreme bald-faced lies in a plausible manner, while their sane opponents are handicapped by an emotional predisposition to remain within hailing distance of the truth. Too often, the judge or jury imagines that the truth must be somewhere in the middle, and then issues decisions that benefit the psychopath. As with judges and juries, so too with those charged with decisions concerning who to promote and who not to promote in corporate, military and governmental hierarchies. The result is that all hierarchies inevitably become top-heavy with psychopaths. Since psychopaths have no limitations on what they can or will do to get to the top, the ones in charge are generally pathological. It is not power that corrupts, it is that corrupt individuals seek power.

How can we distinguish between psychopaths and healthy people? What is the portrait of a true psychopath?

Such a dangerous question has almost never been successfully asked. The reason is because we mistakenly confuse healthy for normal. Human psychological diversity is the health of our race. There is no normal because healthy humans continuously evolve beyond all normalizing standards. The terrorism of searching through hierarchies for anyone deviating from normal is no different from witch hunts or Inquisitions. You must remember that hierarchies thrive on such low dramas, torturing victims until they confess to evil beliefs. Not so long ago the church and state ongoingly acquired significant income and property through witch hunts and Inquisitions. This continued for over two hundred and fifty years. Ten generations of Europeans understood pogrom as normal life. Let us not return to that nightmare. Testing for normal is guaranteed to backfire in our face. There is no normal. But there is conscience.

We have very little empirical evidence to support the idea that true psychopathy is the result of an abused childhood, and much empirical evidence to support that it is genetic. The neurobiological model offers us the greatest hope of being able to identify even the most devious psychopath. Other recent studies lead to similar results and conclusions: that psychopaths have great difficulty processing verbal and nonverbal affective (emotional) material, that they tend to confuse the emotional significance of events, and most importantly, that these deficits show up in brain scans! A missing internal connection between the feeling heart and the thinking brain is detectable.

Psychopaths are incapable of authentic deep emotions. In fact, when Robert Hare, a Canadian psychologist who spent his career studying psychopathy, did brain scans on psychopaths while showing them two sets of words, one set of neutral words with no emotional associations and a second set with emotionally charged words, while different areas of the brain lit up in the non-psychopathic control group, in the psychopaths, both sets were processed in the same area of the brain, the area that deals with language. They did not have an emotional reaction until they intellectually concluded that it would be better if they had one, and then they whipped up an emotional response just for show.

The simplest, clearest and truest portrait of the psychopath is given in the titles of three seminal works on the subject: Without Conscience by Robert Hare, The Mask of Sanity by Hervey Cleckley, and Snakes in Suits by Robert Hare and Paul Babiak. A psychopath is exactly that: conscienceless. The most important thing to remember is that this lack of conscience is hidden from view behind a mask of normality that is often so convincing that even experts are deceived. As a result, psychopaths become the Snakes in Suits that control our world.

Psychopaths lack a sense of remorse or empathy with others. They can be extremely charming and are experts at using talk to charm and hypnotize their prey. They are also irresponsible. Nothing is ever their fault; someone else or the world at large is always to blame for all of their problems or their mistakes. Martha Stout, in her book The Sociopath Next Door, identifies what she calls the pity ploy. Psychopaths use pity to manipulate. They convince you to give them one more chance, and to not tell anyone about what they have done. So another trait — and a very important one — is their ability to control the flow of information.

They also seem to have little real conception of past or future, living entirely for their immediate needs and desires. Because of the barren quality of their inner life, they are often seeking new thrills, anything from feeling the power of manipulating others to engaging in illegal activities simply for the rush of adrenaline.

Another trait of the psychopath is what Lobaczewski calls their special psychological knowledge of normal people. They have studied us. They know us better than we know ourselves. They are experts in knowing how to push our buttons, to use our emotions against us. But beyond that, they even seem to have some sort of hypnotic power over us. When we begin to get caught up in the web of the psychopath, our ability to think deteriorates, gets muddied. They seem to cast some sort of spell over us. It is only later when we are no longer in their presence, out of their spell, that the clarity of thought returns and we find ourselves wondering how it was that we were unable to respond or counter what they were doing.

Psychopaths learn to recognize each other in a crowd as early as childhood, and they develop an awareness of the existence of other individuals similar to themselves. They also become conscious of being of a different world from the majority of other people surrounding them. They view us from a certain distance.

Think about the ramifications of this statement: Psychopaths are, to some extent, self-aware as a group even in childhood! Recognizing their fundamental difference from the rest of humanity, their allegiance would be to others of their kind, that is, to other psychopaths.

Their own twisted sense of honor compels them to cheat and revile non-psychopaths and their values. In contradiction to the ideals of normal people, psychopaths feel breaking promises and agreements is normal behavior.

Not only do they covet possessions and power and feel they have the right to them just because they exist and can take them, but they gain special pleasure in usurping and taking from others; what they can plagiarize, swindle, and extort are fruits far sweeter than those they can earn through honest labor. They also learn very early how their personalities can have traumatizing effects on the personalities of non-psychopaths, and how to take advantage of this root of terror for purposes of achieving their goals.

So now, imagine how human beings who are totally in the dark about the presence of psychopaths can be easily deceived and manipulated by these individuals, gaining power in different countries, pretending to be loyal to the local populations while at the same time playing up obvious and easily discernible physical differences between groups (such as race, skin color, religion, etc). Psychologically normal humans would be set against one another on the basis of unimportant differences (think of Rwanda 1994, think of Israelis and Palestinians) while the deviants in power, with a fundamental difference from the rest of us, a lack of conscience, an inability to feel for another human being, reaped the benefits and pulled the strings.

We are seeing the final desperate power-grab or endgame (Alex Jones) of brutal, cunning gangs of CIA drug-runners and President-killers; money-laundering international bankers and their hit-men — economic and otherwise; corrupt military contractors and gung-ho generals; corporate predators and their political enablers; brainwashers and mind-rapists euphemistically known as psy-ops and PR specialists — in short, the whole crew of certifiable psychopaths running our so-called civilization. And they are running scared.

Why does the Pathocracy fear it is losing control? Because it is threatened by the spread of knowledge. The greatest fear of any psychopath is of being found out.

Psychopaths go through life knowing that they are completely different from other people. Deep down they know something is missing in them. They quickly learn to hide their lack of empathy, while carefully studying others’ emotions so as to mimic normalcy while cold-bloodedly manipulating the normals.

Today, thanks to new information technologies, we are on the brink of unmasking the psychopaths and building a civilization of, by and for the healthy human being — a civilization without war, a civilization based on truth, a civilization in which the saintly few rather than the diabolical few would gravitate to positions of power. We already have the knowledge necessary to diagnose psychopathic personalities and keep them out of power. We have the knowledge necessary to dismantle the institutions in which psychopaths especially flourish — militaries, intelligence agencies, large corporations, and secret societies. We simply need to disseminate this knowledge, and the will to use it, as widely and as quickly as possible.

Until the knowledge and awareness of pathological human beings is given the attention it deserves and becomes part of the general knowledge of all human beings, there is no way that things can be changed in any way that is effective and long-lasting. If half the people agitating for truth or stopping the war or saving the earth would focus their efforts, time and money on exposing psychopathy, we might get somewhere.

One might ask if the weak point of our society has been our tolerance of psychopathic behavior? Our disbelief that someone could seem like an intelligent leader and still be acting deceptively on their own behalf without conscience? Or is it merely ignorance?

If the general voting public is not aware that there exists a category of people we sometimes perceive as almost human, who look like us, who work with us, who are found in every race, every culture, speaking every language, but who are lacking conscience, how can the general public take care to block them from taking over the hierarchies? General ignorance of psychopathology may prove to be the downfall of civilization. We stand by like grazing sheep as political/corporate elites throw armies of our innocent sons and daughters against fabricated enemies as a way of generating trillions in profits, vying against each other for pathological hegemony.

Nearly everyone who has been part of an organization working for social change has probably seen the same dynamic play out: The good and sincere work of many can be destroyed by the actions of one person. That doesn’t bode well for bringing some sort of justice to the planet! In fact, if psychopaths dominate political hierarchies, is it any wonder that peaceful demonstrations have zero impact on the outcome of political decisions? Perhaps it is time to choose something other than massive, distant hierarchies as a way of governing ourselves?

So many efforts to provide essays, research reports, exposés and books to leaders so they might take the new information to heart and change their behavior have come to naught. For example, in the final paragraph of his revised edition of the book, The Party’s Over, Richard Heinberg writes:

I still believe that if the people of the world can be helped to understand the situation we are in, the options available, and the consequences of the path we are currently on, then it is at least possible that they can be persuaded to undertake the considerable effort and sacrifice that will be entailed in a peaceful transition to a sustainable, locally based, decentralized, low-energy, resource-conserving social regime. But inspired leadership will be required.

And that is the just-murdered fantasy. There are no inspired leaders anymore. And in hierarchical structures there can’t be. Assuming that you can elect men or women to office who will see reason and the light of day, and who will change and learn and grow, make compassionate decisions and take conscientious actions… is a foolish, childish dream. Continuing to dream it simply plays into psychopathic agendas.

Only when the 75% of humanity with a healthy conscience come to understand that we have a natural predator, a group of people who live amongst us, viewing us as powerless victims to be freely fed upon for achieving their inhuman ends, only then will we take the fierce and immediate actions needed to defend what is preciously human. Psychological deviants have to be removed from any position of power over people of conscience, period. People must be made aware that such individuals exist and must learn how to spot them and their manipulations. The hard part is that one must also struggle against those tendencies to mercy and kindness in oneself in order not to become prey.

The real problem is that the knowledge of psychopathy and how psychopaths rule the world has been effectively hidden. People do not have the adequate, nuanced knowledge they need to really make a change from the bottom up. Again and again, throughout history it has been meet the new boss, same as the old boss. If there is any work that is deserving of full time efforts and devotion for the sake of helping humanity in this present dark time, it is the study of psychopathy and the propagation of this information as far and wide and fast as possible.

There are only two things that can bring a psychopath under submission:

1. A bigger psychopath.
2. The non-violent, absolute refusal to submit to psychopathic controls no matter the consequences (non-violent noncompliance).

Let us choose path 2! If individuals simply sat down and refused to lift a hand to further one single aim of the psychopathic agenda, if people refused to pay taxes, if soldiers refused to fight, if government workers and corporate drones and prison guards refused to go to work, if doctors refused to treat psychopathic elites and their families, the whole system would grind to a screeching halt.

True change happens in the moment that a person becomes aware of psychopathy in all its chilling details. From this new awareness, the world looks different, and entirely new actions can be taken. Distinguishing between human and psychopathic qualities begins the foundation of responsibility upon which we have a real chance to create sustainable culture.

Clinton Callahan, originator of Possibility Management, author of Radiant Joy Brilliant Love, founder of Callahan Academy, empowers responsible creative leadership through authentic personal development. Read other articles by Clinton, or visit Clinton's website.

43 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. Edwin Pell said on May 12th, 2008 at 8:01am #

    Sounds just like Hillary Rodham Clinton.

  2. Brian Koontz said on May 12th, 2008 at 8:04am #

    “One might ask if the weak point of our society has been our tolerance of psychopathic behavior? Our disbelief that someone could seem like an intelligent leader and still be acting deceptively on their own behalf without conscience? Or is it merely ignorance?”

    The weak point is that psychopathic behavior is explained away – most commonly as “self-interest” – corporations explain away their actions as “profitable”. Individuals explain their actions as “feeding their family”. In this sense the mob boss, the CEO, and the factory worker have the same motivation.

    In other words, self-interest is a justification for just about anything short of criminal. And since worshipers of self-interest write the laws in the first place, not a whole lot is criminal.

    For example, because Americans need to “feed their families” much of the 3rd world is malnourished and dies of disease and starvation. This can either be called psychopathy or it can be called self-interest.

    The secondary weak point is that a psychopathic system is one of centralized power and hence of controlled wealth. Thus it’s one that feeds greed – in a democratic system there isn’t much way to “get ahead”. In a criminal hierarchy it is possible to gain great wealth. It’s the same difference reflected in capitalism vs. socialism.

    Here’s an example of capitalism at work – food speculators have recently murdered thousands of people, probably millions, by using the free market to buy up staple foodstuffs, restricting effective supply and increasing the price which poor people pay, thus restricting their consumption, leading to in many cases their death. If murder is criminal these speculators would either be behind bars or sentenced to the death penalty. But only *physical* murder is considered criminal (and not always such, depending on the degree of power of the murderer – GWB and the Neocons for example are immune from prosecution regardless of the death count) – ALL other forms of murder are quite acceptable, even lauded by such publications as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Economic murder such as was done and is being done by speculators is called “good business” or “survival of the fittest” or “profitable” or whatever term is used next week.

    Bear in mind that under Darwin’s conception the definition of “fit” is “what survives”. That is to say, if you murder your neighbor and survive (get away with it) you are fit and your neighbor is unfit. Psychopaths are merely following Darwin’s logic.

    Darwin introduced the conception of fitness as a competitive historical reality. That is to say, he who controls life and death controls fitness itself. “Fitness” is seen as a historical end-in-itself. Modern war in part is about defining who is “fit” for the rest of history.

  3. Lloyd Rowsey said on May 12th, 2008 at 8:20am #

    Right on, Brian.

    Darwin did indeed introduce the conception of fitness, based on destruction (“red in tooth and claw”), but several decades later population geneticists modified the paradigm to include fitness based on reproductive success (“successful courting behavior”).

    I’m not sure this distinction makes much difference in the present context. Super-rich breeding colonies in time would effectively murder (read destroy) the masses while in-breeding (a successful courting behavior) just their own.

    In 2008, clearly the problem is murderousness on the part of elites.

  4. Ponter Boddit said on May 12th, 2008 at 9:08am #

    This genetic determinism is beginning to suggest that these psychopaths might be another species. in fact, read a certain way, these arguments begin to verge into tin-foil hat territory, lending credence to the Zecharia Stichin and David Icke notions of an alien reptilian race in our midst. Hm. On the other hand, it potentially sends on the path of eugenic witch hunts. Whatever their origin, there’s little doubt in my mind that we are indeed being “led” by psychopathic personalities, with at least two more, Clinton and McCain (don’t know yet about Obama) waiting in the wings for their shot at power.

  5. evie said on May 12th, 2008 at 9:11am #

    I was ready to believe until your claim “almost certainly a genetic psychopath” which is total b.s.

    There is not a lot of evidence that psychopathy is genetic – there are a lot of psycho-scientists living off grant/foundation/government funds “researching” and writing bunk and dribble about it though. Even on the brain scans healthy individuals will often show the same wave response as the designated “psychopaths”.

    I firmly believe I could take any newborn child and raise him to a productive healthy happy adult with a conscience – regardless who his genetic parents were.

    The whole premise of nature versus nurture is the white man’s way to believe he is naturally and genetically destined to superiority.

    Are “psychological deviants” just the ruling class – or do we include all liars, cheats, child abusers, domestic violence, sexual deviants, frauds, road rage, muggers, drug addicts, drug dealers, teens who gang up on classmates and upload to Youtube? Where do you get the figure for “75% of humanity with a healthy conscience”?

    However, I do agree with “non-violent noncompliance” but how do you plan to convince corporate drones and government employees and all the peasants receiving guvmint subsidy whether it’s free Ritalin for little Johnny or free nurse visits for senile mom and dad – to bite the hand that feeds them?

    And be prepared – the “psychopaths” will bite back, regardless how peaceful your attempt at “transition” may be.

  6. bozhidar balkas said on May 12th, 2008 at 9:22am #

    one, then, can conclude that amers, canadians, et al have been ruled by same people for over 200yrs.
    so, we haven’t lost anything. we haven’t gained anyting, either. except, of course, good/bad technology.
    the difference being merely technological advances betwn what went on a century ago and what goes on now.
    same or similar fears, greed, animosities, lust for power. the difference being solely that we can fly thousands km to another region; bomb it, killing children, civialians.
    justifying this by saying, Well, their fighters are hiding in among civilians.
    we’ve always had mercenary soldiers; it’s now called “serving ur country”. sothe labels change but reality does not.
    and the man on the street still doesn’t have a clue what is going on?
    thank u.

  7. joed said on May 12th, 2008 at 9:56am #

    Paleeese, give some credit to the ignorant, incurious, ovine-like regular people. if it weren’t fer them the psychopaths would be in prison.
    this is a fine article but “the People” are just as bad if not worse because there are so many of’em, they could just rise up and shake the psychopaths off like a horse shakes off dust and flies (Orwell?).
    anyway, if you want the easy way out then blame the psychopath; bush/cheney etc. But, you do know who is really to blame for this, don’t you! that’s right it is YOU,YOU, YOU.

  8. hp said on May 12th, 2008 at 10:09am #

    Extending these thoughts, these statistics, to nations as opposed to individuals may prove ‘tricky.’
    I can think of at least two nations where the national motto could easily be; ‘Psychopaths are Us.’

    The ‘people’ existing in these nations would exhibit a much higher % of psychopathic behavior (the modern name for demonic) both in government and in the general population.
    The government would likely be at least 80%-95% cretinous psychopaths, and the general populace at least 50%-75% miscreants and demonic wannabes or indifferent abettors.
    Of course, all psychos aren’t created equally. Just ask them.

    These two nations would no doubt be the most despised, hated nations on earth, though living up to their motto they would not realize this or if they did, they simply would not care…

  9. Steve said on May 12th, 2008 at 12:41pm #

    One person’s psychopath is another one’s hero.

    Darn it, shut up!

  10. joed said on May 12th, 2008 at 4:16pm #

    Steve, Re:
    “One person’s psychopath is another one’s hero.”
    seems “psychopathy” is not a desirable trait for most humans that care to live with others, (that be in society, culture, civilization).
    Ted bundy, charlie manson were psychos and they may be heros to other psychos but not to me. the current vice president of the u s, dick cheney is a psychopath, albeit a psychopath with much more power than bundy or manson, but cheney and bush are surely just as guilty of crimes against humanity, murder etc. as were manson and bundy. psychopathy ain’t relative to people wanting to live a reasonably decent safe life in the company of other humans.

  11. hp said on May 12th, 2008 at 4:26pm #

    How many people did Manson kill?

  12. moodforaday said on May 12th, 2008 at 4:44pm #

    Thank you for writing this and referencing the articles by Kevin Barrett and Silvia Cattori. This might indeed well be one of the most significant insights of our lifetime, and it will be if it gains the traction it deserves.

    At the same time, when you reference a major book like this, please take care to spell the title and the author correctly, so that interested readers may find it. It’s “Political Ponerology” (not Oenology), written by Andrzej Lobaczewski (not Andrej – the author is Polish, not Russian).

  13. joed said on May 12th, 2008 at 4:52pm #

    hi hp,
    well, fergit about manson. try bundy.

  14. joed said on May 12th, 2008 at 5:06pm #

    hp, look at this!
    a new book by the guy that prosecuited manson. WoW!
    “How many people did Manson kill?”
    How many people did Bush kill?
    they may not have wraped their slimy hands around someone’s throat but the deaths are still real and psycho.
    The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder: Vincent Bugliosi.

  15. Edwin Pell said on May 12th, 2008 at 5:23pm #

    Brian point above that the murder lives and the murdered dies is an over simplification. In the last century Europe and the US have murder prodigiously but their populations are declining (~1.5 children per couple). Where China and India have not waged wars of murder around the planet and their populations are both well over one billion and rising prodigiously. Make babies not war if you wish to win the Darwinian race.

    From the point of view of India and China as long as they are not the target of the wars “keep up the good work you kill yourselves and others both of whom would have competed against our children”.

  16. Kris Knight said on May 12th, 2008 at 6:04pm #

    The correct title of the book cited in here is POLITICAL PONEROLOGY. Quite an amazing and unfortunate typo…

  17. Don Hawkins said on May 12th, 2008 at 7:18pm #

    CU-Boulder Researchers Predict 59 Percent Chance Of Record Low Arctic Sea Ice In 2008

    April 30, 2008

    CU-Boulder researchers are forecasting a three-in-five chance that the 2007 record low for Arctic sea ice extent will be broken again in 2008 because of warming temperatures and thinning ice. Photo courtesy Jim Maslanik/University of Colorado at Boulder
    New University of Colorado at Boulder calculations indicate the record low minimum extent of sea ice across the Arctic last September has a three-in-five chance of being shattered again in 2008 because of continued warming temperatures and a preponderance of younger, thinner ice.

    The forecast by researchers at CU-Boulder’s Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research is based on satellite data and temperature records and indicates there is a 59 percent chance the annual minimum sea ice record will be broken this fall for the third time in five years. Arctic sea ice declined by roughly 10 percent in the past decade, culminating in a record 2007 minimum ice cover of 1.59 million square miles. That broke the 2005 record by 460,000 miles — an area the size of Texas and California combined.

    “The current Arctic ice cover is thinner and younger than at any previous time in our recorded history, and this sets the stage for rapid melt and a new record low,” said Research Associate Sheldon Drobot, who leads CCAR’s Arctic Regional Ice Forecasting System group in CU-Boulder’s aerospace engineering sciences department. Overall, 63 percent of the Arctic ice cover is younger than average, and only 2 percent is older than average, according to Drobot.

    Changes in Arctic sea ice — defined as the area of an ocean covered by at least 15 percent ice — is “one of the more compelling and obvious signs of climate change,” said Drobot. Continued Arctic sea ice declines likely will have negative effects on various types of wildlife, including polar bears, walruses and seals, he said.

    For humans, larger ice-free zones in the Arctic region for longer periods offer potential for cheaper and faster merchant shipping between North America and Europe, he said. The declining ice may well open up the Northwest Passage, for example, which runs through the Bering Strait, the Chukchi Sea, the Beaufort Sea and through the Canadian Archipelago to the Atlantic Ocean.

    “Based on the current sea ice conditions, aerospace engineering Research Professor Jim Maslanik said the Northern Sea Route — the shipping lane from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean along the Russian coastline — might also open up this summer. “It also is quite possible that extensive ice-free conditions could develop at or near the North Pole,” said Maslanik.

    CU-Boulder’s Arctic Regional Ice Forecasting System group — the only research group in the world currently making seasonal Arctic sea ice forecasts based on probability — receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

    In January 2008, a team led by Maslanik and involving CCAR’s Drobot, Charles Fowler and William Emery, as well as Julienne Stroeve of CU-Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and NASA’s Jay Zwally and Donghui Yi, concluded there had been a nearly complete loss of the oldest, thickest Arctic sea ice. The team calculated that 58 percent of the remaining Arctic sea ice was thin and only two to three years old.

    The researchers used passive microwave, visible infrared radar and laser altimeter satellite data from NOAA, NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as ocean buoys to measure and track sections of sea ice. They developed “signatures” of individual ice sections roughly 15 miles square using their thickness, roughness, snow depth and ridge characteristics, tracking them over the seasons and years as they moved around the Arctic.

    Last summer the CCAR Arctic Regional Ice Forecasting System group, which has been making Arctic sea ice forecasts for the past six years, correctly forecast the 2007 record minimum. Updated forecasts will be provided throughout the spring and summer. For more information visit the Web at ccar.colorado.edu/arifs.

    CU-Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, which also analyzes changes and trends in Arctic sea ice, maintains a Web site with general information about sea ice, updated images of Arctic sea ice conditions, monthly analyses and more frequent sea ice updates during the summer melt season. For more information on the NSIDC Arctic sea ice research activity, visit the Web at nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/.

    “It also is quite possible that extensive ice-free conditions could develop at or near the North Pole,” said Maslanik

    “The Times They Are A-Changin’”

  18. HR said on May 12th, 2008 at 7:47pm #

    I do not doubt that genetics plays a role, as the author suggests. So does environment. So does serendipity. I also do not doubt that there is a genetic basis for submissive behavior, which affects (afflicts?) a much larger percentage of the species, and which also can be altered to a degree by environmental factors. Religion, the worship of and submission to imaginary beings, and, by extension, to earthly power, is an example.

    I do not, however, accept the argument that it is ignorance that causes the masses to submit. From childhood, we are aware of differences in levels of aggression, levels of “leadership”, from observations of our fellows. The bully, as well as the bullied are recognizable to each of us. As we grow older, we observe that the more assertive tend to become the ones who call the shots in life, at work, at all levels of government from town councils to national governments, and in more personal interactions. Except for periodic uprisings, violent or nonviolent, when conditions have become absolutely intolerable, we tend to accept that as a fact of life, quite different from being ignorant of the phenomenon. We may harbor resentment about the situation, but most of us do little or nothing to change it, and there are lots more of us than of them. I suspect we will continue so, because it seems unlikely to me that the species will exist long enough for the herding trait to disappear naturally. Genetic engineering might make some difference, but the resulting lack of genetic variability it would introduce into the human population would only hasten the extinction of the species.

  19. Michael Passariello said on May 12th, 2008 at 10:02pm #

    Obviously, many of our imperial rulers, eg. heartless warmongering corporate criminal Vice President Cheney, don’t feel any remorse for the troops, children, impoverished people who are being exterminsted because of phychopathic materialistic policies. May the burn in hell.

  20. mary said on May 12th, 2008 at 11:36pm #

    Ditto ex UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. He fits many of the parameters described above.

    His wife, Cherie, for whom he displays many public exhibitions of affection, is lying in hospital still bleeding after a miscarriage. He and his spinmeister Campbell decide that they have to make this news instantly public because the Blair family holiday is postponed and they don’t want to arouse speculation that an invasion of Iraq is imminent. This was in the summer of 2002.

    This from her book ‘Speaking for Myself’ just published.

  21. NC said on May 13th, 2008 at 12:01am #

    Watch “The Trap” on youtube. Didn’t anthropologists discovered that the only reason we are here at all is that we helped each other during times of need, not the survival of the fittest on the individual scale but of the group. Those that were the most successful in surviving by having successful hunters (usually one sub-group) and gatherers (an additional sub-group). Then the spreading categories of skills and abilities that furthered this success until a civilization was formed. Our problems in our “Great Experiment” of democracy arose when in the early 1900’s we set our House at a number of 435. Think of it! 435 for approximately 92 million people! That same number, a hundred years later, for over 230 million! And this was done simply by a law written and passed by the House itself! Do you think that a representative from the state of Montana who represents over a million people will have his ear pressed to the mouths of the average person on the street (or ranch) or the corporation that accounts for much of the wealth of the state that may or may not be concerned over the welfare of Montana’s citizens. This is not to slander the honorable Representative of Montana, for he may be saint, but the point is is that our representatives represent far too many people to know how they feel, what they need and what they desire, but can be all too much influenced as to what the lobbyists and their clients demand. Could you know the pulse of the average size of 670,000 souls you represent if you were a Representative?

  22. American Dream said on May 13th, 2008 at 3:39am #

    I’m horrified that this article sources Laura Knight-Jadczyk without telling how problematic she is. From trafficking in reactionary and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and alien “woo”, her organization is liked unto a cult by many ex-members. Be very, very careful…

  23. joed said on May 13th, 2008 at 6:08am #

    American Dream,
    so what if Laura Knight-Jadczyk uses a ouija board to contact reptillian aliens. How else can a human contact aliens of any sort?!
    seriously, seems Ms. Laura Knight-Jadczyk is perhaps something of a nut herself. now, that doesn’t automatically negate the article but it sure, as you say, makes it “problematic” and a reader should, “Be very, very careful.
    and as i say, blaming the psychopaths for the problems of the world is the easy way out. when actually it is you and i that have allowed the psychos to take over. and, it seems, there is nothing we can do about it. the slience of good people is the cause of the state of the world today.

  24. bozhidar balkas said on May 13th, 2008 at 7:02am #

    nature being infinitely valued and we being part of it r also infinitely valued.
    we can do and do daily much evil and much good. betwn the two extremes, there r an infinite number of values.
    but even a crocodile’s brain in some areas may be structuraly similar or same as ours.
    we get angry. so do apes, snakes, elephants. do we hate as much as animals do? or do we hate more than animals?
    right to be the BOSS is also an animal trait and not just human. two monkeys or lions may fight to death because of territorial rights or the right to have control over the tribe and females.
    we do the same. we kill; expel, starve , etc., others for supremacy.
    just recognizing this would be a step inthe right direction. we can do less invading, attacking, stealing, beating, cheating, deceiving, lying, etc.
    if we cannot or don’t try to, humans will have their day. we can help each other. but not with lying, jingoism, selfpraise, blame, demonization, etc. thank u.

  25. yet another dave said on May 13th, 2008 at 12:59pm #

    Great article!

    I wonder if the concept of “kali yuga” is a reference to psychopathy. A time when the nature of man becomes vicious and immoral, rulers are a danger to their people, etc.

    I’ve been thinking of them as “type 2 humans”. You could call us normals “co-operators”, as our emotional responses kind of force us to get on with each other (the hardwired inability to lie convincingly, guilt, the desire for agreement, etc). This creates a niche for a creature that can invoke these mechanisms in others, but has no such mechanisms itself. “Controller” or “dominator” might be an appropriate term.

  26. Mulga Mumblebrain said on May 13th, 2008 at 8:44pm #

    The greatest concatenation of psychopaths is on what we euphemistically call ‘The Right’ in politics. They are motivated particularly by greed, which reaches a pathological height indicated by the hundreds of millions paid in annual ‘compensation’ to the CEOs of corporations, regardless of performance. I imagine this startling avarice probably has psychic roots in feelings of inner emptiness, which psychopaths, I would surmise, experience at some level, although they must ruthlessly repress it.
    Pathocratic rule maintains itself by a ruthless ‘unnatural selection’ where the pathocrats, or robopaths in another usage, ensure creatures such as themselves are promoted, out of self-interest in maintaining pathocratic rule. Evidence of conscience or morality are ruthlessly punished. One learns what one’s Master expects, and ‘anticipatory compliance’ rules, nowhere better evidenced than in Murdoch’s media empire, where all his editors knew that dissent over Murdoch’s urging of war against Iraq would be career-ending behaviour.
    Perhaps the pathocrats greatest disservice to humanity is their economic system, Market Capitalism. A system designed to impoverish the many to enrich the few, and which treats the environment and future generations as ‘externalities’. Witness the furious denial of climate change despite the scientific consensus. We could make a good start to eliminating rule by psychopaths if we were to punish severely those responsible, knowingly, for spreading disinformation over this life and death issue. We have already been robbed of twenty crucial years, in large part due to the lies and manipulation of Rightwing Denialists and their media mates. Locking them up for a long time, or getting some use out of them in re-forestation or environmental remediation seems to me an excellent idea.

  27. Brian Koontz said on May 14th, 2008 at 6:33am #

    Yes – deception, misdirection, disinformation, and lies should not be covered as “free speech”. Punishment should occur to the degree that the person using such tactics has power (neighbor Joe deceiving neighbor Jim should have a much lighter punishment than Rush Limbaugh deceiving millions of listeners).

    The Court of Law should be *fact-based*. Therefore, prove something is a lie and the liar is punished under the law. Right now the courts are partially fact-based, partially clever-based, and partially money-based. And of course they are political monsters.

  28. hp said on May 14th, 2008 at 11:31am #

    Perspective, Brian..
    If neighbor Joe’s deception results in the same suffering for Jim as Rush’s deception results in for millions, then the crime is still equal.
    Just ask Jim.

    The trouble is we run on a system that is like the bizarro superman world.
    Robbing one man at gun point gets you twenty years.
    Robbing ten million at pen point gets you a fine and probation.

    Also, didn’t one high court or another rule that the NYT is under no obligation, by law, to tell the truth?
    As far as a moral obligation of the NYT to tell the truth, well, am I laughing yet?

  29. Brian Koontz said on May 14th, 2008 at 3:07pm #

    In reply to hp:

    “Perspective, Brian..
    If neighbor Joe’s deception results in the same suffering for Jim as Rush’s deception results in for millions, then the crime is still equal.
    Just ask Jim.”

    Killing a single human is much less of a crime than killing a million humans, and the analogy holds for deceiving a million people versus deceiving one.

    George W. Bush and Co. are some of the worst mass murderers in history. In terms of global effect they’ve certainly killed more people than did Hitler. The number of people Bush and Co. kills is important – the number they impoverish is important. That’s not the same crime as Joe getting angry and stabbing Jim to death.

    Right now in the world power rules, not justice. That’s why noone even bothers to press charges against the Neoconservatives. No court has the *power* to try them, even though their crimes are obvious, well documented, extremely heinous, ongoing, and even *accelerating*. It would be like if Ted Bundy had immunity from law and we had to just stand by and watch him (or fight against him without substantial effect) kill, and kill, and kill, and kill. Between murders he gets on television and condescendingly “explains” the world to us. What I still don’t understand is why the left pays attention to Bush, yet they can’t stomach Hitler. Free Market Fundamentalism is hardly less damaging than Eugenics. I guess it’s the same reason the German left stomached Hitler – they were being paid by him. Those American university salaries don’t pay themselves.

    The weak exist under the rule of law. The powerful exist under their own rules, and even those don’t apply when they don’t want them to. The world will not be a good one while the powerful make up their own rules.

  30. jamie said on May 19th, 2008 at 4:27pm #

    I’m afraid that I agree with both evie and joed. THIS is the problem. We are continually projecting and deflecting. Nothing is ever the collective’s problem. Just look at the most influential industy in the entire world—-Religion. In this industry one is absolved of all responsibility for his/her actions as long as one adheres to the rules and demands outlined in the Religious doctrine. This amounts to a “free pass” mentality that is shared by millions, ney, billions of doctrine followers.

    It is evident that we are lead by psycopaths but we could have only allowed them such latitude if we, ourselves, had the same tendencies.
    So, here we have the truth out. We are ALL capable of hideous behaviour.
    Have we never questioned WHY we follow those who GIVE themselves “authority”? Could it be that we are enamoured of the prestige and affluence that is the capstone of power and “authority”?

    Could it be that we desire the very things that these psycopaths possess? Perhaps we “covet “their lifestyles, and, through this means we are dispossessed of our reasoning but most of all our ability to discern dysfunction?

    We are ALL complicit in this ‘Prison Planet’ mentality starting from the very roots of our tribal beginnings. Just take a look at our history through the writings of the Sumerians. We accept the psychology of the psychopath because we hope that by our obediance we will be rewarded in either this life or the next.

    It is a dangerous game this finger pointing and can only hinder our collective evolution.

    While I disagree with HOW we arrived at this Epoc I agree that we must stop supporting the current paradigm. It is as simple an act that one could do yet the one with the greatest impact for all humans.

  31. Terry Sneller said on July 26th, 2008 at 6:02am #

    I have, for over 20 years, been tracking one particularly powerful family that is very accurately described in this article. In fact, until today, I had a link (“… madness …”) to the original article by Lobaczewski. As is pointed out, once we understand the nature of these people, most of the “charge” that they generate is quite readily dissipated. I know this to be true for me.

    http://www.sonic.net/~taryfast/destruction.html

  32. muriel soriano said on July 26th, 2008 at 12:23pm #

    “viewing us as powerless victims to be freely fed upon for achieving their inhuman ends, only then will we take the fierce and….”

    Only if you choose to be a victim….

  33. gandalf said on July 27th, 2008 at 2:16am #

    >”The inventor of civilization — the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed
    >an army of controlled mass murderers — was almost certainly a genetic psychopath.”

    BS. How to prove such a surmise? What is the definition of civilization?

    The inventor of civilization was almost certainly a woman who talked
    with others and planted seeds.

  34. Nightgaunt said on August 28th, 2008 at 2:28pm #

    I would agree though women can by psychopaths too only fewer of them are. Still when the first tribes were organized to attack and take over the neighboring one could very well have started with one of these variant humans . Their whole mindset works best in civilizations like ours where power is concentrated into fewer and fewer people. In an anarchist society they would be nothing more than gang leaders who if they took their power games to us would risk extermination as the bulk of that population would be militarily trained and armed unlike our own.

    Also not all psychopaths are murderers and not all murderers are psychopaths. It could just be the person who is cruel to you, indifferent and even enjoys the pains of others could qualify I think. There are other types too that can follow such people.

  35. Belial said on September 1st, 2008 at 8:13am #

    Being a psychopath myself I find this.. article.. rather amusing. Essentially what is said about psychopaths is true to an extent but then again not really at all. The writer has lumped all the psychopathia traits together and assumes all the psychopaths.. or even your average psychopath is like that. This is not the case. Even though I know many other psychopaths I know none that have all the traits. I would even claim that those rare individuals that have all the traits are unstable and unlikely to live too long.

    Psychopathia isn’t about being some mystical being. It cosist of several differerent traits. Most people have at least some of those traits and since you don’t have to ‘collect the whole set’ to be a psychopath you are unlikely to find a ‘cure’ anytime soon. In my opinion stupidity is far more dangerous and if you manage to combine stupidity with psychopathia you have a real problem.

  36. Baruch said on September 1st, 2008 at 7:24pm #

    Very interesting article. Here is an additional take…

    http://www.healingmagic.org/articles/Narcissism.pdf

  37. Baruch said on September 1st, 2008 at 7:27pm #

    P.S. The article says “One might ask if the weak point of our society has been our tolerance of psychopathic behavior? Our disbelief that someone could seem like an intelligent leader and still be acting deceptively on their own behalf without conscience? Or is it merely ignorance?”

    It goes, in my opinion, beyond any of this. We EXALT psychopaths. Movies, TV, political theater, all elevate psychopaths social status. Bad education, lack of parenting skills, poor nutrition, environmental toxins, etc. etc. all contribute. To try to establish etiology is impossible. We need to each address our interactions and our pro-activeness (or lack thereof) in shaping society.

  38. Ruth Allan said on September 10th, 2008 at 3:19pm #

    This goes beyond psychological terms – the struggle has become archetypal and cosmic. All our religions, myths and prophecies speak of this time. It seems to me that psychopathy is an essentially atavistic phenomenon – these people are clever reptiles (David Icke’s lizards?!) preying on mammls who have evolved altruistic systems, and human beings who have found their souls. If, as David Bohm and others have suggested, our cosmos is more of a great thought than a great thing, then we need the insights of mystics and saints as well as those of psychologists, vital as they are.

  39. Arthur Robinson said on February 6th, 2009 at 6:31pm #

    Thoughts about the article:
    1) People who exibit psychopathic behavior definitely exist. Historically, the list is very long. An easy twentieth century example is Adolph Hitler.
    2) As of today — no methodology, machine, genetic study, or process exists that can, with 100% accuracy, determine who is predisposed to pathological behavior.
    3) If we could predict pathological behavior at birth — would an optimised environment prevent such behavior from being manifested?
    4) If we could, with 100% certainty, know who will and will not exibit pathological behavior — how should “society” react? Do we sterilize them and tattoo “psychopath” on their forehead? Do we isolate them on a distant island? Adolph thought the study of cranial shapes could be used to accurately classify humans into sub-groups. It’s entirely possible that the modern study of genetics may make these questions no longer the province of philosophers and theorists.

  40. DemonChorus said on June 24th, 2009 at 11:16am #

    You’re all clearly delusional, instead of refering to nutjobs like Barret and Labaczewski you should be refering to the real professionals like Hare and co. “Pyscho-dar” is illogical, it makes no sense whatsoever, to take it seriously is “magical thinking”. Pyschopath’s are not “magical demon beings” or “killer biological robots”, they don’t have a collective agenda, they have one agenda, their own personal one. This abberant combination of delusional fantasy and fact is disgusting.

    Hare once said: Two Pyschopaths cannot work together for long for their can be only one star.

    This is in reference to the Pyschopath’s pathological Narcissism, there can only be one in power, one Alpha to them and that is the indivual Pyschopath.

    Oh yes, stop using buzzwords. Manipulate has a meaning, it’s “control” and pathology has a meaning it is “study of disease”, pyschopathology also has a definition it is “study of mental illness”.

    The abuse of these words by lunatic fringers is disgusting, they know the words but not the meaning.

    I suggest you go to hare.org, they have a ton of links, I suggest you actually READ them and COMPREHEND them, if you want a good insight into real Pyschopathy, not the imagined “demon beings” you make up.

    Also for a glimpse into the Pyschopathic mind, I suggest you go to http://www.acolumbinesite.com/ and read Eric Harris’ personal diary. It’s like reading the personal diary of the “Joker” from Batman or “Kefka” from Final Fantasy VI.

    Recommended Topics for reading:

    Story of Narcissus
    Narcissism (From Pro’s, not Loons)
    Pyschopathy (From Pro’s, not Loons)

    Use your heads, 2+2=4, the world is round, the world revolves around the sun.

  41. Richard sievert said on December 13th, 2009 at 8:50am #

    2+2 =2 to the Psychopath And congrats on a great article I lifted it to heaven’;/
    Thank you.
    You get a star*

  42. Matthew Guy said on December 14th, 2009 at 6:33pm #

    A fine rallying cry for a witch hunt.

    While the article raises many true and important points, it progresses like a politician selling a war, who starts with an insistence that we only want peace, only to end with a demand for blood and pain.

    First, it says, quite correctly, that there is no “normal,” and that targeting the abnormal will only make things worse. It then throws out a sloppy laundry list of traits that could easily describe any number of well intentioned people who fall outside a rather narrow definition of normalcy. The remainder of the article then hammers away at the notion that these people need to be singled out and ghettoized, and that “normal” people (didn’t you say there was no such thing) should be protected from them.

    Apparently, the assumption is that, without a psychopath to lead it, an angry mob will stop short of outright lynching, and that the educated and forewarned populace will scrupulously target only the truly dangerous, and not the more harmlessly deviant. I am not so optimistic.

    I absolutely have a conscience, but fall well outside the psychological mean. If this article were taken as a guide by society at large, I would fear for my life.

  43. Aubrey Enoch said on December 15th, 2009 at 6:04am #

    If you don’t have chlorophyll you are a predator.
    A successful predator feels satisfaction in the terror of its prey as it sinks its teeth in the next meal. The greater the pain and terror of the prey the closer the predator is to that next meal.
    The concept of psychopathic behavior is a phenomena of perspective. The lion is a psychopath to the gazelle.
    Eons of successful response with layers of excitation and inhibition have produced the audience for “24”. In periods of stress such as hunger, the inhibitions fade and “The Road” behavior patterns emerge.
    The notion that predators are “them” is false. It’s in EVERYONE. The creation of “other”, the conditioning that “they” are not like “us” is the creation of prey.
    We make “them” to be absolutely not “us” and we can kill them, take there stuff and then eat them.