+1
I've met people who check all the right boxes: chronic/compulsive lying, making up fantasies, charming, sometimes anti-social behaviour, careless about others... If they're like that when they're old and grey, it's probably too late, but I've actually seen someone (mostly) grow out of it due to proper family support and a willingness to change. I don't believe in the fad that there's a "psycho lurking around every corner", that it's "1 out of 25 people" and all that bullshit.

Instead, what I see are excuses. A tiny minority might indeed have some diagnosable mental 'anomaly' that makes them incapable of feeling empathy. For the most part, I'm guessing your garden-variety corporate/political psychopath is likely to have been a spoilt child who always "got away with murder" unpunished. How can people develop certain connections in their brain if they grew up never needing them??

Part of the problem as I see it, is a profit-driven medical industry that wants to define as many disorders as possible so there's something for everyone. More disorders = more drugs, more funding, more hypochondriacs, more gullible parents wanting to fix their problematic kids... more profit!

An early experimental study by Mahoney8 is a particularly striking example of how researchers’ bias can influence their behaviour. Reviewers were asked to referee manuscripts, all of which had identical methodology but reported different results. Reviewers were strongly biased against manuscripts that reported results that contradicted their own theoretical perspectives. This can have a deleterious effect as ideas that have long since been contradicted can persist in the literature.9,10 Researchers’ biases caused by preference for their own ideas can cause a serious COI when they present their own work and when they are involved in any aspect of peer review. Nonetheless, much more attention is paid to COIs owing to external influences such as money than to COIs related to researchers’ inherent biases.

->"The most important thing is that sociopaths do not "feel" remorse and cannot sympathize with the emotions of others."

I'm pretty sure that they are "wired" the same way as us and feel remorse, maybe very seldom compared to the average guy, and would never verbalize it to them self or others, that they had done someone wrong.

From personal experience I have known people that have had a bad experience in their past, either violence or abuse from childhood or in a relationship. It's like a blanked out hole in their history when you get to know them. They seldom mention this episode and only superficially, but the effect on them is always visible under the surface when you know them. Being close to such a person can be hard, as you never know them truely. They often feel that they have to cling to the little piece of unblemished self they have left and are convinced that no one would be able to like or love them if anybody really knew how dark and scared of loosing their reality they really are. You knowing about their secret will ultimately make them brake the relation as you become the personification of their hurt.

So when ever I run into one who is more show and charm than logic and coherency in arguments, I always feel a little sad about them and often you can see the fear in their eyes when they discoveres that you have blown their cover when you is not caught up in their self fantasy! It's a bummer if such a guy is your boss as you will get fired a few days after such a moment of truth.

If the sociopath is an attractive woman you are doomed, even if you know what you are getting into, Being the single follower of such a love cult will chew you up in all ways imaginable. However next time such a woman crosses your path, you will jump right in again.

food seeds, preferably things that will grow in a temperate climate.