The dark side of Aspergers: serial killers, sociopathy

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I would suggest that the Asperger's autism may simply be incidental to their GENIUS/EINSTEIN behavior. Autistics, like anyone else, can be GENIUSES/EINSTEINS.

Yes.

Funny people couldn't see the connection. To biased here. The rare exceptions of Einstein are loved, used as important examples of potential, of Aspergers possibilities and actualities, 4 recent threads on this, 3 last month. But the same exception is true of the serial killers. They're a few, they likely, like Einstein, had some degree of Aspergers. Yet look at the posts here, from college professor 'nominalist' and others. No realization that their arguments attacking the original post studies are the same for the autistic genius arguments. Kind of funny. Didn't realize this much of bias and lack of critical reflection is going on here.

I don't know if this has been brought up already, but many professionals suspect that Cho Seung-Hui (the gunman at Virginia Tech) was autistic.

I don't think that anybody here actually believes that nobody with AS commits crimes. Nor does anybody believe that all people with high IQs have autism.

There is a lot of variety on the spectrum, so you're going to find that not everybody with this diagnosis is as unhappy about it as you seem to be. I do wonder what your aim is, frields, since you claim to have AS but the common thread throughout your posts is the disbelief that any happy, successful, high functioning person could really be an aspie. There's nothing wrong with having a bright outlook and striving to be an Einstein rather than a Kaczynski, so I am not sure why you want to attack those who feel that way. Indeed, it seems much healthier to have genius role models than to focus on one's similarities with sociopathic killers. If you find that you identify much more readily with sociopaths than with anything else, perhaps it would be a good idea to revisit a professional and see about modifying your diagnosis.

I know it isn't meant to be funny, but I had to chuckle at that. A role model rethinking is in order!

Yes. This is my point. Like speculation about Einstein having Aspergers, so speculation about Cho Seung-Hui mass killer at Virginia Tech.

I did intend a touch of irony or somesuch but it's even funnier beside the Sweeney Todd avatar.

The other thing is, there's stuff you don't know about people, because not everything about them is public. There are factors in what happened to at least one of those people, that has nothing to do with autism at all. I know this because one of my friends knows the family of one of the people being discussed. When you speculate about these people, none of you actually know the person intimately enough to diagnose them from afar. And even when someone might be autistic, there have to be other things going on in order for them to kill, and not all of those things are true sociopathy. There's a difference between doing something wrong because you're twisted up inside for some particular reason, and doing something wrong because you have no conscience. A vast difference. And it ought to be acknowledged instead of automatically branding all killers or even all serial killers as sociopaths. There are things none of you know about some of these people, things that are relevant to the diagnosis-from-afar fest some of you seem so keen on, but that always seems lost to people whose only image of someone is through sensationalist media coverage, and who are used to relying on such things for understanding a person. What you get out of that is only a tiny sliver of the facts about a person's life. And then people from all over think they know so much about them that they can even diagnose them with things that it takes knowing someone really well to diagnose. It doesn't work that way in real life, but few people want to acknowledge how little they know about these people before pronouncing all kinds of things about them that even people close to them don't know enough to know.

Edited, after all this, to add: And that applies to anyone, not just 'bad' people. Like the people who were ready to undiagnose the model with AS just because they saw her on TV and thought they knew something about her... same thing.

Last edited by anbuend on 22 Feb 2008, 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

G, I caught a wiff of Troll, too. Can someone add a \"Self Hating Aspie\" entry to Wiki?

I was addressing the posts (nearly all) in reply to my thread-start. Your statement doesn't cover people's replies to my thread-start. You seem to be speaking of what others may believe who haven't posted.



Incorrect and strange. Any evidence to support yourself or do ya like to make these repeated speculations out of your own mind. Like the first menitoned above, now this, and lets see below. And in your posts in the Alex thread where I commented, you missed my points, sorry.




Sorry you missed my point. Well my thread-start is actually 100% neutral. Then in my follow up posts I made my point. No attacks, sorry you think this, strange. I don't comment on what is BEST or what people SHOULD do. YOU only believe I'm doing so, out of your reaching mind, you stray quite far off, discipline to stay withine the topic right.



Hm the most far-reaching from your own bias, I feel sorry. No mention I made about what I identify with, you only were led to this in your own mind, far reaching well beyond anything I've written and the direct points I've made. Hm check my recent posts for my point, sorry to request this but it may help you stay within the bounds of my point, easy isn't it to stray where you WANT in a thread, discipline is needed. Love your need to prescribe medical attention, and for something you conjured in your own mind. Discipline.

Then maybe a Sweeney Todd avatar is in order? Look at me, the shameless propaganda!

On a more serious note: Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't sociopaths have an excellent TOM?

I'm no expert, although I did do quite a bit of reading about Antisocial Personality Disorder or sociopathy after an encounter with someone who appears to fit the symptoms. I don't recall coming across anything about Theory of Mind, specifically. These people can predict the behavior of others, as they study it in order to exploit vulnerabilities... but I'm not sure that means they honestly understand people. They're described as charismatic, but this charisma is not a natural desire to please and be sociable but rather a tool to aid them in getting what they want. It is the result of deliberately trying to manipulate others and seeing through experience what works or doesn't work. My understanding is that sociopaths don't understand others and so treat them as objects of their own gratification, whereas autistics don't understand others but they still desire to behave ethically toward others. Sociopaths are antisocial and destructive; autistics tend toward being asocial or socially clumsy.

I think i may of heard they have good TOM as well and very socially popular and good at deception.

On topic it is common for children with AS to be called little proffessors not so common to be called dangerous to others in a soiopathic way.

There's a problem with stereotypes and sociopaths too. Are they all charismatic charmers? Or are the ones that are more easily noticeable the social ones, which in turn feeds the stereotype?

I also think that aspies do have empathy, unlike a sociopath. They just have a different way of showing it (as other posters have said), a way that gets labeled as 'nonexistant' by NTs, mostly because they can't understand it. Sociopaths do not have empathy. They're the true non-empathetic beings, not aspies.

I don't know. I think aspies and sociopaths rule eachother out. Silva focused a bit too heavily on traits that seem similar, but it's like saying that oranges are grapefruits to me.

Another possibility is that they're actually not any more charming than the average guy, but the juxtaposition of average charm and a hidden life as a killer makes people remark "Oh, he seemed so nice." The sociopath I knew was actually not any nicer than you or I, in general, but he seems impossibly nice when you consider the fact that the same person who went out of his way to help a stranger with a flat tire is also the dude in the back shed torturing animals to death. A monster's display of niceness seems more worth mentioning because it's so hard to comprehend.