Analyzing Tweets To Identify Psychopaths 266
Posted
by
timothy
from the except-ones-who-know-of-the-model dept.
from the except-ones-who-know-of-the-model dept.
nonprofiteer writes "Researchers presenting at Defcon next week have developed a psychopathy prediction model for Twitter. It analyzes linguistic tells to rate users' levels of narcissism, machiavellianism and other similarities to Patrick Bateman. 'The FBI could use this to flag potential wrongdoers, but I think it's much more compelling for psychologists to use to understand large communities of people,' says Chris Sumner of the Online Privacy Foundation. Some of the Twitter clues: Curse words. Angry responses to other people, including swearing and use of the word "hate." Using the word "we." Using periods. Using filler words such as 'blah' and 'I mean' and 'um.' So, um, yeah."
Analyzing myself (Score:5, Interesting)
> Curse words.
Hardly any, but mostly due to many years on a MUD with strict rules. Abusing "damn" and so on, though.
> Angry responses to other people
Hell yeah.
> including swearing and use of the word "hate."
Got a bigger vocabulary, but yeah.
> Using the word "we."
Check, to a big extent.
> Using periods.
You mean, so those with no punctuation are not morons but normal people? Blah. Check.
> Using filler words such as 'blah'
See above.
> and 'I mean'
Check.
>and 'um.'
"hrm", "hmm" and "ghrmblah" (see also two paragraphs above)
So, you mean, is there any hope for me?
Re:Good-Bye Civil Rights (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:There's a rumor going around (Score:5, Interesting)
Could a certain percentage of people who commit violent crime share the common trait of psychopathy? Certainly. Do all?
Right. There are psychopaths who are perfectly fine and functional members of society. People often regard them as 'a bit off', but there is more to the psychology of a dangerous psychopath than just being a psychopath.
Check out this BBC Documentary [youtube.com] about the neuropsychology of it. The documentary turns out more interesting than would be initially expected (not going to give it away).
That said, when designer babies are feasible, I doubt anybody is going to consciously select for psychopathy. Well, outside of the dystopian scifi realms anyway.
Re:There's a rumor going around (Score:2, Interesting)
Probably don't want to hire a psychopath or marry one.
My wife loves being married to me. She did learn to tame me though, once she realized that sometimes I'm more like a beast than a man. She also has used me for protection from her family, who have dangerous criminals among them.
Plenty of women have dangerous dogs for protection with no problem to themselves. Human regularly tame animals far larger, stronger and more dangerous physically by applying fairly simple, easy to understand training methods. There is no reason why a woman can't marry a psychopath and be very happy, so long as she is prepared to dominate skillfully, rather than with the nagging, whining weakness that many men put up with. I'm much more capable than a dog, even though I require similar training.
I have defined winning the battle of the sexes as keeping my stuff, getting regular sex and in home access to my children in a world where the woman can at her whim move the battle to court and automatically remove all that. With this perspective, I am able to satisfy my emotional need to WIN by making her happy, since when she is happy she won't move the battle into court where I lose. As a friend remarked when I described this to him: "She probably doesn't even know she's losing".
I'm actually really good at pushing happy buttons. Much better than you, since I do it deliberately, consistently and with ruthless efficiency. It takes me about 30 seconds to turn the situation around if she's in a bad mood, face to face, by which I mean her throwing her arms around me in excitement. If you have a psychopath convinced that their self interest lies mainly in your happiness, you are in for a very happy life.