Greed, Not Good
The problem with the kind of sociopathic/psychopathic vermin who run sweatshops is that … well … they’re sociopathic/psychopathic vermin.
Apart from that, however, there’s the matter of their being so … oh, I don’t know … boring — they get their jollies, such as they may be, ‘below the waistline’ as it were. Even those who fancy themselves aesthetes and intellectuals invariably turn out to be developmentally arrested ¹ … their intellectualism and refined tastes synthetic, ersatz, for show — they play to their own reflection, desperately seeking to impress themselves more than any audience of the likes of you or me ².
Hannibal Lecter liked eating brains so much that he couldn’t stop himself and, eventually, got caught as a result. That’s not intellectual … it’s retarded — even the fattest kid in the school has the brains to keep their midnight snacking secret long enough to become fat in the first place … and to keep their peccadilloes in the realm of it won’t get me locked up in a cage with a mask over my face for the rest of my life even if I do get caught.
It’s no more sophisticated than the thug who gets his jollies from torturing animals/people. Their tastes base and animal, they’re easily satisfied, never pursuing matters to the fullest extent.
So, they have the finest private collection of Art/Literature/Music/whatever in the World.
So, they like
… collecting things — how intellectual.
My young niece has an even more impressive collection— she’s collected all the pokémon there are!
Sure, they engage in ever more enterprises that will net them more wealth and power, but that’s only because they don’t have the intellectual follow-through to maximise the return from what they already have.
Me: “You know you’re running a sweatshop, yes?”
Them: “Yes.”
Me: “Why?”
Them: “Because it’s profitable.”
Me [Goes away and thinks about it]
You: “You know you’re running a sweatshop, yes?”
Me: “Yes.”
You: “Why?”
Me: "Because I profit from others' misery — it's sweeeeeeeet!"
There is no more limit to the wealth I can generate in the process than there is to anyone else’s commercial endeavours and I take pleasure in destroying lives along the way — now that’s what I call maximising the return on my efforts.
And it doesn’t involve anything in my underwear either … doesn’t involve an involuntary speech impediment — and that’s the difference between the likes of Hannibal Lecter and an intellectual: I get my kicks above the waistline.
The so called ‘Selfish Gene’ is bunk. Not only is it anthropomorphism but it’s reification as well. Furthermore, if you stop and look at it you can’t help but notice the very obvious flaws in the concept …
If having a particular set of markings really did discourage other creatures from eating you, it wouldn’t require each and every one of those other creatures to first have a bad experience of eating one of your kind to learn that things with the same markings as you aren’t good to eat.
So, they don’t stop you being eaten — not by a predator that has not yet encountered your kind before. So, your genes don’t actually help your own offspring either. So, the principle of their selfishly self-promoting for their own survival falls at the first hurdle.
Just being poisonous is of no use either — you may kill the creature that eats you but you’re still dead yourself.
Ergo, the whole concept is flawed, as your markings don’t help you but others of your kind.
As I’ve said before, if you don’t know about The Prisoner’s Dilemma, read up on it now. There are too many other people for you to win in the long run, so your only hope of long-term success is co-operation — it’s the inexorable, inescapable, mathematical reality of Life: if you’re on your own, you’re either extinct … or something else’s dinner.
This is why the Antisocial Personality Disorder crew and the Narcissists are inherently inferior to the rest of us. Their mentality is stuck in the Stone Age, when being physically strong and fearless was all that was required for survival. Today, however, we possess the capacity to destroy our entire species, if not the entire planet, at the flick of a switch/press of a button.
The mindset that leads to that capability in the first place is self-destructive … by definition doomed to extinction and, again, by definition therefore, unfit to survive … inferior … but, no matter how or why we did it, having reached that stage in our development, there really is no room left in the World for their type.
They’re genetic and developmental throwbacks … memetic dead ends … unevolved, their time long since past, Civilisation’s equivalent of crocodiles and alligators … evolutionarily speaking, dead men walking and, before they reduce us all to just plain dead, we need to eliminate them the same way we do viruses, bacteria, germs of all kinds.
Because, make no mistake, that's what they are … a life-threatening infection that will engulf the World and destroy it, if left unchecked; if we do nothing then they will destroy us, themselves and everything else on the face of this Earth — because they aren’t intelligent enough not to.
What one needs to be aware of when it comes to a ‘Cluster B’ personality type (especially the Anti-Social and Narcissistic personality types) is that they feel no empathy (let alone sympathy), have no conscience, experience no remorse … because they are neurobiologically incapable of doing so and will almost certainly never be capable of doing so — they have no ‘better nature’ to which an appeal may be made and will never experience an epiphany that awakens them to why their behaviour is wrong.
All that matters to them are ‘I, me, my, mine’ and anyone who professes otherwise is clearly either a fool who deserves to be exploited or else a liar, because ‘Cluster B’ types know that altruism is a lie and everyone is out for themselves and that anyone claiming otherwise is just trying to pull the wool over our eyes and put one over on us — and the reason they ‘know’ this is because that’s what, and why, they do themselves.
And they live amongst us …
For every high-powered, successful Cluster B type out there … running this corporation or that government … there are many more individuals, who aren’t highly successful and powerful but do have exactly the same mentality … who behave no differently, wouldn’t want the World to be differently ordered to how it currently is and will continue to support it remaining the way it is, because they feel/think/believe it suits them to do so.
They are our leaders, employers, colleagues, neighbours, friends, family, lovers.
Do not be fooled by increasing number of books and articles on 'the wisdom of psychopaths' and 'how to use your inner psychopath'. These books/articles are written by psychopaths and/or the gullible fools who listen to their 'wisdom' and swallow it like Linda Lovelace; the premise being that not all psychopaths are bad and we could learn a thing or two from them ... that their 'talents' can be of use.
No.
What we can learn is that the reason the World is in the state it's in ... the reason why 99% of us are in the shit ... is because of them and, if we eliminated their influence, their skills would have no utility whatsoever ... zero, zilch.
There. Are. No. Good. Psychopaths/Sociopaths/(Malignant) Narcissists/Antisocial Personality Disorders.
They are the religious leaders who send fanatics to slaughter in the name of God.
They are the World leaders who send troops out to slaughter in the name of Democracy.
They are the husbands who batter their wives.
They are the mothers who let their partners torture and kill their own children.
They are the police who are as corrupt as the criminals they are supposed to catch.
They are the muggers who kill pensioners for $20.
They are the rapists who steal people's capacity to enjoy their partners' love.
They are the paedophiles who wreck lives that have barely even begun.
They are the doctors and nurses who silently kill the patients in their care.
They are the psychiatrists and counselors who abuse their clients.
They are the CEOs who order the destruction of our natural habitat in the name of profit.
They are the bullies who cause mere children to take their lives in despair before they are even old enough to leave school.
They are the hooligans who endanger lives by throwing masonry from bridges onto trains and cars full of travellers.
They are the yobs who make people afraid to walk their own streets.
They are the 'friends' who steal from and lie to us and laugh with glee as they do so.
These people are not simply ill, they are dangerously so; wrecking lives and destroying the World around them everywhere they go. They are not poor, misunderstood, lonely individuals who don’t know how to relate, they are monsters without conscience … without an ounce of empathy or remorse.
They are not Dexter … they do not wish they could feel as we do — as far as they are concerned, people with feelings are suckers whose consciences allow them to be easily manipulated … inferior … prey.
They are not so much entitled as simply uncaring (another’s tears are merely water) and no act … no behaviour … is unacceptable in their search for whatever will satisfy them, in attaining their goals. They are fully aware of what they are and what they are doing, but simply don't care; in fact, as often as not ... if not more often than not ... they take delight in the destruction they wreak on others and their lives — they will destroy others without a second’s thought, feel no remorse and sleep easily at night.
No ... there is no room for compassion in our dealings with these people ... only for the decision that we shall not sink to their level ourselves and behave as they do in our turn. These people are not simply ill, or lonely, or misunderstood, or badly brought up … they are dangerously neurobiologically disordered; wrecking lives and destroying the World around them everywhere they go.
And it makes no difference whether they act individually or in a group — there is no hope for them ... only for us.
I would wish it could be otherwise, but, it can't be—because they will not appreciate it ... will never change … will learn nothing from it but that others are foolish and easily manipulated ... will take delight in the fact that they are free to pursue their evil ends and do so at every opportunity.
There comes a point when you realise that having sympathy for the Devil will get no-one anywhere but Hell. It's all well and good having compassion for a rabid dog and saying "It's not the dog's fault: it's just in pain" ... but, if you can’t cure it, you still put it out of its misery — if you don't, it will go on to give that same pain to others ... many others.
When you are infected with a life-threatening virus, do you feel that you should have compassion for it as another living thing that doesn't understand what it is doing? Do you feel empathy or sympathy? No ... you eliminate it
Do you feel bad about your actions, afterwards? Do you feel remorse? No ... you are satisfied that you did what was necessary to ensure not only your own continued well-being, but that of others too, by nipping the infection in the bud and preventing it from doing any further harm
That's what these people are ... a life-threatening infection. They are the ones responsible for the miserable state of affairs in which not only the Human Race, but every living thing on the planet, finds itself and if we don’t stop them soon then, later, there’ll be no-one and nothing left to save anyway.
How we go about it is not immaterial; we cannot allow ourselves to indulge in nihilism at the cost of our own humanity … cannot become them ourselves. And, who knows, one day in the Future, we may yet find a way to at least treat them, if not cure them or even eradicate them from the genepool altogether … another of their kind never to be born again — at which point … whilst we might not find ourselves living in a world of make-believe (with flowers and bells and leprechauns and magic frogs with funny little hats) … we should at least be able to finally rid ourselves of lawyers.
We may not kill them ... we may not harm them ... but, one way or another, we must eliminate the danger they pose ... for that is what they are ... and all that they are.
And it’s not like it’d be that great a loss even to them … not as if they even have that good a time along the way … not like they’re even good at it, is it? They don’t even derive the maximum return on their efforts but settle for a quick and dirty, visceral, speech impediment inducing, cheap thrill.
Make no mistake, time is running short for us … it’s a matter of when, not if, some maniac(s) will launch nukes, release some bioagent, pollute the oceans one time too many, chop down one tree too many, feed one animal too many with antibiotics, something stupid nobody has even thought of yet.
We humans are the apex predator on this planet — we are top of the food chain, have no natural predators to worry about and, given time, there is nothing we won’t find a way to not simply kill but exterminate, eradicate, make extinct … not even ourselves.
Right now we are living on borrowed time — so we’d better start making some … before it’s finally too late. We have to change not only the players or even the rules of the game, but the very game we are playing itself — competition will not cut it any more … that era, like the Paleozoic, is long since well and truly over.
We have to take action and decide that the days of the Cluster B personality disorders are numbered, because … so long as we don’t … ours are — and we may not have many left.
—
¹ Clever, maybe … cunning … but not actually intelligent.
² Seriously … nobody actually enjoys classical music. opera or jazz —like those people with shelves full of leather-bound ‘literature’ they’ve never read, they’re just hoping to impress others with their pseudosophistication.
