They have no empathy in the sense of “feeling their pain.” However emotions are deeply understood. Richard Allen Davis knew exactly what he was doing when he claimed, in front of her father, that Polly Klass had begged him “just don’t do me like my Dad.” Dennis Rader knew exactly what he was doing, standing there in his nifty sports jacket ensemble, reliving his crimes in front of family members. They were twisting that emotional knife and chortling about it. It’s called cold empathy. Believe me, sympathy was not going to come their way.
Now obviously not every psychopath is so extreme. Also I don’t believe their crimes were due to their psychopathy — but their psychopathy increased their criminal skill. I agree that psychopathy is ubiquitous, I might even say that psychopaths are an integral part of life. So if psychopathy is common and has always been that way, what has gone wrong now?
It seems that without external bounds too many psychopaths have run riot — in the financial world, in the entertainment world (mind molesting our young people, if you don’t mind my saying so), in the judicial world, etc.
Comment in:
Cold empathy:
“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” – George Orwell.
The Fabian, George Orwell, was a psychopath writing how-to books, as was Aldous Huxley also. H.G. Wells of The Time Machine, with the Eloi and Morlocks, was another Fabian and a psychopath.
These books seem to understand our plight from our own standpoint, but only because psychopaths have something called “cold empathy.” They know exactly how their targets will experience their attacks, it helps them ‘twist the stiletto’.
https://pathwhisperer.info/2018/08/16/are-we-living-through-two-unrecognized-black-swan-events/
Overview, plus Marc Klaas’s reaction:
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/11/07/us/california-death-penalty-newsom-polly-klaas
