Downvoted you. It's a big jump from "somebody, 22 yo, scammed somebody else online at least once" to "psychopath".
To be frank, I think I wish the word "psychopath" was deleted from the dictionary altogether. It's just a handy label to apply to all sorts of baddies, effectively dehumanizing them (he's a psychopath- he would do anything to you, so you're justified in doing anything to him).
I disagree. It would never have entered my mind to do such a thing at age 22.
These people rarely change; if you don't punish them severely, you're giving them an unfair advantage over honest people. We don't want to live in a society dominated by crooks.
How do you know? What's for sure is that a regime of severe punishment guarantees that they won't, whereas an opportunity to reform (a carrot appropriately seasoned by a stick if necessary) at least allows that they might.
(Also, who are "these people"? People who do something wrong? Have you never? Your misdeeds have been more minor, assuredly, but what if one of 'us' finds them offensive enough that you suddenly become one of 'them'?)
Respectfully, I cannot see that what "would have entered your mind at the age of 22" has any bearing on your argument. The experience of one person (yourself) is not a valid basis for extrapolating blanket judgements of others, whether they're positive or negative. I'm not making a comment on your attitude towards severe punishment, more on your stated reasons for holding that attitude.
I'm sure there is a reason why people behave like this: Childhood trauma, poverty, bad parenting, etc...
I can sympathize to some extent - But in a broader context, if you don't severely punish this behaviour (when caught), it becomes a beneficial attribute for people to have... Fast forward a few generations and society would be filled with such people.
Although calling someone a psychopath without access to their medical history is not literally correct, I don't agree with the spirit of your comment.
After being caught, this scammer was actively trying to be seen as a human being. That is exactly the tactics he chose and this is exactly the tactics that helped him escape any punishment so far. I would advise against humanizing scammers too much.
So you're saying that after being caught, he should have sent to the victim of his scam a picture of himself putting live cats in a blender? Just to avoid being seen like somebody that tries to look human, you know.
In other words, in your view, if he doesn't look human then he's a psychopath; if he does, this proves again that he's a psychopath. Confirmation bias?
Ah, by the way and just FYI, psychopaths and scammers are human beings.
Yes, it's entirely possible to be both human and a piece of shit at the same time. It's the scammer's job to convince everyone that he is more human than a piece of shit, and it's our job not to fall for that. The factual validity of whatever bad names we might call him is irrelevant.
(No, I don't think that calling scammers bad names is a viable anti-scammer strategy. I just don't agree with the opposing effort, which should only be expected from the scammer.)
"So you're saying that after being caught, he should have sent to the victim of his scam a picture of himself putting live cats in a blender? Just to avoid being seen like somebody that tries to look human, you know."
Why would you even bother making this post? I can't imagine there is even like .0000001% of your being that believes that this is remotely close to what the person you're responding to thinks, so what exactly is this meant to accomplish? "haha, look at me mocking a point you never came close to making..."?
> "After being caught, this scammer was actively trying to be seen as a human being."
This is what the GP posted. He was very clearly saying that the scammer was "actively trying to be seen as a human being", something that apparently in the mind of the GP he's not- or at least not completely.
Well, maybe I misinterpreted, but I read it as "the fact that he tries to look scared and repentant is a further proof that he's a psychopath" - which would be a circular reasoning, since he's assumed that he's trying on the base that he's supposedly a psychopath. In any case I don't see any hint to the possibility that he might have been genuinely scared.
So to answer your question, mine was a reductio ad absurdum: given the GP's premises, the only way not to look as a psychopath would have been to look as a psychopath.
To be frank, I think I wish the word "psychopath" was deleted from the dictionary altogether. It's just a handy label to apply to all sorts of baddies, effectively dehumanizing them (he's a psychopath- he would do anything to you, so you're justified in doing anything to him).