BONUS: Are you a psychopath?

In this book, Steven Pinker presents a detailed argument that violence has significantly decreased over the course of human history. He uses extensive data and statistical analysis to demonstrate this decline in various domains, including military conflict, homicide, genocide, torture, and the treatment of children, homosexuals, animals, and racial and ethnic minorities. Pinker identifies four key human motivations – empathy, self-control, the moral sense, and reason – as the 'better angels' that have oriented humans away from violence and towards cooperation and altruism. He also discusses historical forces such as the rise of the state (which he terms 'Leviathan'), the spread of commerce, the growth of feminist values, and the expansion of cosmopolitanism, which have contributed to this decline in violence[1][4][5].

In 'The Psychopath Test', Jon Ronson delves into the concept of psychopathy, focusing on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist developed by Canadian psychologist Robert D. Hare. Ronson interviews various individuals, including those labeled as psychopaths, such as a young man who faked insanity to avoid prison and a former Haitian death-squad leader. He also examines the prevalence of psychopathy in corporate and governmental leaders and critiques the methods and implications of psychiatric diagnoses. The book raises questions about the boundaries between sanity, insanity, and eccentricity, and warns against the dangers of misdiagnosis and the influence of unqualified experts in the field of psychopathy[2][3][5].