“The World has only one problem, Psychopaths.”
Supposedly, individuals who lack conscience and empathy, which include varying degrees of malignant narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths, only make up around 1-4% of the population.
I think that number is way higher and rapidly growing. (see the poll below, hint: you have to add C and D together)
So why is this statistic important?
Although they make up a relatively small portion of the population, they do immense amounts of damage. This is partially due to the fact that their lack of empathy makes them incredibly tenacious "survival machines" that commonly rise to positions of power and influence. They have no problem exploiting others for their own person gain, in fact, they take pride in it.
They will leech off of the thoughts, ideas, kindness, creativity, hard work, reputation, and even life force of other people, and when they feel they have siphoned enough from them, turn around and squash them like a bug.
The average person is at a severe disadvantage against someone with no empathy because they don't understand them and greatly underestimate their ability to be duplicitous. Human nature is to see ourselves in others, and we assume everyone else thinks and feels the way we do. We naively believe that, just like us, everyone else truly "means well." We can't even wrap our heads around what it would feel like to have no guilt, shame, or remorse.
But the fact is that even a very low percent of 1-4% society completely lacking these traits is a MASSIVE problem.
Some of us are just starting to wake up to the fact that psychopaths rule our world. On a more intimate level, some of us are also beginning to acknowledge we've been preyed upon by these people in our personal lives, finding others with eerily similar stories to our own, and realizing the problem is far more universal with the same dark force at the center.
Until we study, understand, and learn to recognize these individuals in our society, we are doomed to become their victims.