9/4     So I was having dinner with a friend of mine and he said at some
        point that he didnt have a conscience.  Appropriately, he acknowledged
        it was a defect, but he didnt feel bad about it.  Do any of you want
        to admit the same thing?  Know anybody to doesn't have a conscience?
        I am wondering how common this is.
        \_ do you just live in a hole?  Read the paper and scan for
           "Halliburton".  There are huge numbers of people "without a
           conscience."  And while I don't think that is a good thing,
           I do believe the whole notion of "having a conscience" is
           contrived mainly to keep people from straying their societal
           bounds.  What do you think?
           \- being a greedy bastard != no conscience. Do you think haliburton
              people dont care about their kids, for example? I think some
              of these corporate criminial should be put in "hard" prisons
              but I dont think this is an example of "no conscience" unless
              you dilute that to cover practically any criminal. --psb
              \_ I define conscience as the qualm one feels as he is about
                 to hurt somebody in some way, or to entertain such an act
                 or just the likelihood of unwittingly commiting it.  If so,
                 conscience is more a continuum than
                 the conscience one can have is more a continuum than
                 binary, and a great number of people barely have any all.
                 Having too little conscience is a handicap only if one does
                 not have the cunningness to match and conceal it.  Having
                 BTW, neither your implicit nor my explicit definition of
                 conscience equates with what a dictionary nearby says, but
                 that is irrelevant as conscience can be defined by the
                 individual.  Hitler might think he has a lot of conscience.
                 too much, however, is almost always a debilitating defect.
        \_ Yeah, your friend's defective.  It's the mark of a sociopath.
           Those are the sorts of people who kill a whole family "just to
           see what it is like."  And of course, not having a conscience,
           he doesn't feel bad about not having a conscience.  Not having
           one is a potentially fatal flaw, because everyone ELSE will
           eventually kill you because of your dangerousness.
           \_ you should read the short story "null-o", by Phillip K Dick.
              \_ You know, I did read it, but I've forgotten.  If it's
                 not too much trouble, could you remind me?  --PeterM
        \_ I heard there is a form of autism that actually entails not having
           empathy and a conscience.  It seemed very close to the description
           of a sociopath.  But I was told it was a form of autism.  --chris
        \_ Is half of the human race autistic?  If one does not have
           conscience, how does he know he does not?  This is not like
           color blindness, which can be objectively tested.
           \_ The psych department at Cal would gladly argue that it can
              be objectively tested.
              \_ the psych department wouuld convince him he's gay so
                they can have sex with him
                 \_ I see.  And how did that make you feel?
           \_ Maybe the friend is putting "conscience" in quotes. "I don't
              have what most people would call a 'conscience'. I see stealing,
              cheating, and lying everywhere, and so I don't feel bad about it.
              I don't kill or anything like that not because it's so inherently
              wrong, but because the cost of getting caught is too great."
              \_ So are any of you willing to admit you dont have a
                 conscience?  Or reveal the name of someone on soda who
                 doesnt?  This was not somebody who was obviously comes
                 across as a sociopath.
                 \_ oj@soda has no conscience.
                 \_ One of my ex'es was a sociopath. No joke, she told
                    me "I have no shame." I guess I should have dumped
                    \_ That's a long way away from being a sociopath.  Not
                       to mention probably not literally true.
                    her then.
                    \_ What is an example of something she did in this vein?
                    \_ Sounds like fun to me.
                    \_ Sorry to hear that. What happened? Did you got married?