Hey FF,
You've mentioned this several times in your postings. What makes you say/think that?
IMPondering, many reasons, but mainly observations of patterns from researching sexual predators & psychopathic serial killers from the 1980s to the present.
There seems to be the common denominator of methamphetamine use/abuse. From Pastors to Politicians, seems no one is excluded. Meth seems to be the catalyst for psychopaths to act out their fantasies, and create new psychopathic tendencies in otherwise normal personalities..
Just my opinion and observations, IMPondering..
Wished some of our more studied members would contribute their thoughts on the possible Meth connection..
Blame the brain: Psychopaths are wired differently
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/science-scope/blame-the-brain-psychopaths-are-wired-differently/632
The same reward system in the brain that hooks people to drugs might also explain why some people act like psychopaths.
We know that cold-blooded criminals lack empathy and fear — and are, by societal standards, a bit odd. But new research shows that it is not the traits that psychopaths lack that make them behave badly, it’s the traits that they do have. Not only are psychopaths impulsive, they like to take risks and seek out rewards.
So-called psychopathic traits have been linked to a disruption in the dopamine reward circuitry in the brain. And it is this disruption that drives psychopaths to want money, sex, or fame, in extreme ways.
First, we got a sample of these community volunteers. Then we measured their psychopathic inventory by giving them a personality test to measure psychopathic traits [ranging from manipulativeness, egocentricity, aggression and risk taking].
We gave them speed. And used positron emission tomography, or PET, to measure dopamine levels in the brain.
The people who scored higher on the measure of psychopathic traits, showed higher dopamine levels in brain reward regions after we gave them the drug.
* What’s next?
We’d like to do a study of incarcerated psychopaths to see if they show similar brain patterns.
_From the comment section__of this Study -says it best -_____________________________
RE: Blame the brain: Psychopaths are wired differently
There's a lot more to it than that. Psycopaths (now often coyly
labelled sociopaths) are the only real persons, places, things, in
their world. The rest of us are figments of their imagination, in
effect, to be manipulated and used in anyway appropriate and
convenient to their needs. If they believe it to be ultimately useful
to their purposes to be kind and generous and considerate towards
someone, they will -- without limit, if helpful to their ends -- or
if they believe it to be more convenient to destroy someone, they
will. There is no such thing as truth or lies external to them --
which explains why such persons can readily pass lie detector tests,
for example.
A quasi-religious psychiatrist I knew said they were born without
souls. A philosopher long ago came to literally believe that there
are people in this world who are actually not really human beings,
but who absolutely emulate the real thing and are basically
impossible to recognize as non-human. I think he was trying to
explain the psychopath.