@fieldline

Since your search engines are broken, from Wiki:

The term "stride" comes from the idea of the pianist's left hand leaping, or "striding", across the piano. The left hand characteristically plays a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, major seventh, minor seventh or major tenth interval on the first and third beats, and a chord on the second and fourth beats. Occasionally this pattern is reversed by placing the chord on the downbeat and bass notes on the upbeat. Unlike performers of the ragtime popularized by Scott Joplin, stride players' left hands span greater distances on the keyboard.

Stride piano is highly rhythmic because of the alternating bass note and chord action of the left hand. In the left hand, the pianist usually plays a single bass note, or a bass octave or tenth, followed by a chord triad toward the center of the keyboard

Here's a good visual example of the style.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pxsq1i_hkw

@Whisper

I'm not sure why you don't generalize psychopathy -- under your definition -- to explain the symptoms of high intelligence more generically. If you think in a way similar to others, if only because you are of similar intelligence, then you will appear to be naturally empathetic. To what you are saying, if you do not think in a way similar to others, but are smart enough to fake it, then you will appear to be naturally empathetic. It is the valley in the middle that is problematic: too smart to feel it, not smart enough to figure it out.

I lose the thread when you talk about mirror neurons -- is this just a succinct way of articulating the point of "feeling your way to a successful vibe"? If so, you've kind of made psychopathy a natural consequence of intelligence. An ability to mask the symptoms doesn't make the symptoms go away.

I take an interest because this really speaks to me. It takes me an enormous amount of effort to "vibe" with others -- to the extent that I believe I have some kind of high functioning autism -- but when I get in state I am extremely socially successful. I don't know that this is due to a lack of mirror neuron function (not clear on this -- see above), it's more that there is an extra bash script bolted onto the social protocol that hogs a disproportionate percentage of the CPU.

I just wish I knew how to consistently perform. Some days are better than others. Some days I know just what to say, and how to say it, and others... not so much. I've decoupled it from physical state -- being well rested, hydrated, fed, etc. doesn't really correlate. Curious if this is something you are familiar with and/or you have some insight.

But I would say that most antisocial acts committed by psychopaths originate in loneliness, and the resentment brought on by perceived rejection, since psychopaths have the same emotional needs as others, but many low-functioning psychopaths are unable to get those needs met due to decreased mirror neuron function, which both makes them unable to successfully interact with others in certain ways, and makes them unable to feel emotional support when it is actually directed their way.

So what happens then? What is the advice you would give to such a person?

@fieldline

I agree with you about natural intelligence. It's only useful for one thing... learning. That may sound obvious, but many smart people don't realize the important implication of this... the fact that intelligence only facilitates the acquisition of relevant knowledge and expertise, it does not substitute for it.

Smart people only make better decisions when they have good information to study, and time to study it. When they are ignorant, they're as dumb as anyone else, and often functionally dumber because they do not realize they are dumb.

Also, even when they are well-informed, they can be functionally dumb in their intersection with a group, because they may have great difficult with knowledge transfer to other group members. Some of them may actually be so poor at that they increase people's hostility to their proposed course of action, effectively steering the group in the opposite direction.

The effective intelligence of a group or organization often has little to do with the sum of individual talents, and much to do with how people are wired together in the decision making process, something I learned to my great frustration while working in the Silicon Valley tech ecosystem.

This effect is even more pronounced in Washington DC.