This diary is in response to a post by Jordan, here. He lists an interesting aggregation of symptoms, but I think there's something ultimately off about his interpretation of sociopathic behavior as a "niche". That implies a certain rarity that I don't think really captures the reality of the situation.

Short of some hypothetical 100% selfless human (who would really be approaching a female worker bee and would have to have the odd genetics to match), we're all freeriders/intraspecies parasites/etc. People simply don't, as a rule, put the same effort into providing group resources as they do into providing for their close family unit. The evidence is as plain as the nose on your face. (Well, as plain as I imagine your nose to be, seeing as how we've never met in person.) It ranges from resistance to taxes at every level above the non-payer to the miniscule resources devoted to foreign aid to the percentage of income people give to charity every year according to the IRS (and that last figure is likely to be exaggerated.)

People trying to get additional slices from what, at least in the short-run, appears to be a limited pie is a commonplace. Under those circumstances, it hardly seems proper to call it an "evolutionary niche". On the other hand, it's also clearly common for other people not to be favorably disposed towards free-riders, and I'd argue that the underlying reason is precisely the same. A free-rider is taking away from the pie or pool of resources, and thus by definition limiting your own access to same. The only difference would appear to be in the matter of inputs. Leaving aside economies of scale, returns on investment, etc, the contributor puts in something which presumably corresponds to some slice of the outputs; the free-rider puts in few or no inputs but claims an outsized slice of the outputs.

So now we see the evolutionary balancing act. You try to get the largest slice you can. This can be accomplished in three ways:

A) Grab as much as you can, regardless of the inputs you provide.

B) Contribute resources along with others and, via the magic of division of labor, economies of scale, etc, voila, there's a bigger pool of outputs than would have been available otherwise.

A) and B) are not really mutually exclusive, but they do interfere with each other. The more output you grab regardless of input, the less inclined everybody else will be to put more inputs into the pool. They're not getting any return, so why bother? There are ways around this. The most obvious one is what Judith Harris refers to as the "status system". I'd argue that the system has two components. The first is a simple question of genetic fitness. If you're obviously more athletic, healthier, tougher and smarter than the other monkeys, your status climbs because you're going to look like a better potential mate. But that presumably only works for the opposite sex, for the most part. The second component would be what I'd call "intangible inputs". That is, if you're obviously more athletic, healthier, tougher and smarter than the other monkeys, you're probably going to make a better hunter, gatherer, builder, guy who plots the seasons so we can grow food, etc. Your enhanced status might mean that you draw additional resources, but the other monkeys might be willing to see it happen if you are effectively bringing more to the table than the simple tangible resources you contribute.

You can also fake it. Let's call that Option C). Say you figure out some way to convince the other monkeys that you can tell the future or control the weather or bless their hunts or something. Then you can use the status system to free-ride by extracting outputs in return for phantom inputs. You can also fake closer familial relationships of the sort that provide resources regardless of group status.

So what does this have to do with the sociopaths? Jordan argues they might be a "niche". Based on the above, I'd argue that the clinical sociopaths are merely outliers. There's resource-value to be had by contributing, because it probably returns more than keeping the resources exclusively to yourself and it encourages others to contribute to the pool, too. There's also value to be had by trying to grab as much of the outputs as you can. The balancing act is hardwired into us and then refined to our precise current circumstances via socialization. What the sociopaths are, are people that are particularly good at Option C), above. They can garner status well beyond their actual inputs by virtue of being able to fake relationships and/or intangible inputs. I'd also argue that the skills required to do this are not unique, but rather extensions of very normal human behavior. Small children have a natural tendency to lie, exaggerate, take thoughtless risks. It is only after years of child-rearing and socialization that they are mostly broken of these habits. The sociopath doesn't grow out of them in part because he doesn't have to. It's selection; most people take hits throughout their lives for continuing to act like children when they're not. But you've never met a con-man you didn't like. They don't come with waxed mustaches and Snively Whiplash eeeevil laughs. It is precisely because of their enhanced ability to get away with it, Option C), that they never grow out of it.
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The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

- H.L. Mencken

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The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

- H.L. Mencken

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The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

- H.L. Mencken

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The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer