Saturday, February 13, 2010

Why aren't there more sociopaths?

1/13/10: Feeling like you don't want children is very odd. Every single person who has contributed to my genetic variation successfully reproduced so where could it possibly have come from. If you look at a "family" tree of a childless person, its a terminus on a line that actually begins at the beginning of life. Its a sad way to think about how much time you get, but the "purpose" of life is just to pass on a combination of base pairs.

The question for me lately has been:
What if I was actually a slave to my genetic legacy? Instead of just a biological sex drive, what if my actual consciousness was pre-occupied with reproduction? How many viable progeny could I have if it were my singular pursuit in life and I didn't care to follow any cultural rules, like a sociopath? I have no idea about how to calculate or even guess at this. A dozen? A hundred? A thousand? Even if all the sociopath stealing, deception, and general fast-living catches up with a hypothetical progeny maximizing person, it would still be a very successful genetic strategy. So why aren't there more sociopaths? Or even just people with a more calculated reproductive strategy? One possible explanation is that this is all presupposed on a world that is unprepared for a sociopath and that the more of them that existed, the more society would invent safety measures to protect itself from them. For instance, in a traditional society in lots of places, its pretty dangerous business to sleep around. Sociopaths in those cultures have to rise all the way to the very top of the pyramid before they can have a giant harem or whatever.