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difference between the groups was in the more “antisocial” aspects of the syndrome: the criminals’ lawbreaking, physical aggression, and impulsivity dials (to return to our analogy of earlier) were cranked up higher.
    Other studies seem to confirm the “mixing desk” picture: the borderline between functional and dysfunctional psychopathy depends not on the presence of psychopathic attributes per se, but rather on their levels and the way they’re combined.Mehmet Mahmut and his colleagues at Macquarie University have recently shown that patterns of brain dysfunction (specifically, in relation to the orbital frontal cortex, the area of the brain that regulates the input of the emotions in decision making) observed in both criminal and noncriminal psychopaths exhibit dimensional rather than discrete differences. This, he suggests, means that the two groups should not be viewed as qualitatively distinct populations, but rather as occupying different positions on the same neuropsychological continuum.
    In a similar (if less high-tech) vein, I asked a class of first-year undergraduates to imagine they were managers in a job placement company. “Ruthless, fearless, charming, amoral, and focused,” I toldthem. “Suppose you had a client with that kind of profile. To which line of work do you think they might be suited?”
    Their answers, as we shall see a little later on in the book, couldn’t have been more insightful. CEO, spy, surgeon, politician, the military … they all popped up in the mix. Along with serial killer, assassin, and bank robber.
    “Intellectual ability on its own is just an elegant way of finishing second,” one successful CEO told me. “Remember, they don’t call it a greasy pole for nothing. The road to the top is hard. But it’s easier to climb if you lever yourself up on others. Easier still if they think something’s in it for them.”
    Jon Moulton, one of London’s most successful venture capitalists, agrees. In a recent interview with
The Financial Times
, he lists determination, curiosity, and insensitivity as his three most valuable character traits.
    No prizes for guessing the first two. But insensitivity? “The great thing about insensitivity,” explains Moulton, “is that it lets you sleep when others can’t.”
    If the idea of psychopathic traits lending a hand in business doesn’t come as too great a surprise, then how about in space? Blasting psychopaths off deep into the cosmos does not, I am sure, given their terrestrial reputation, particularly inspire confidence—and psychopathic qualities, you’d think, might not exactly be foremost among NASA’s prohibitively exclusive selection criteria for astronauts.But there’s a story I once heard that provides a graphic illustration of how the refrigerated neurology that showed up on Robert Hare’s brain scans can, in certain situations, confer real benefits; how the reptilian focus and crystalline detachment of neurosurgeon James Geraghty can sometimes code for greatness not just in the boardroom, the courtroom, and the operating theater. But in another world entirely.
    The story goes like this. On July 20, 1969, as Neil Armstrong and his partner Buzz Aldrin zipped across the lunar landscape looking for a place to set their module down, they came within seconds of crash-landing. The problem was geology. There was just too much ofit. And fuel: too little. Rocks and boulders lay scattered all over the place, making a safe approach impossible. Aldrin mopped his brow. With one eye on the gas gauge and the other on the terrain, he issued Armstrong a stark ultimatum: Get this thing down—and fast!
    Armstrong, however, was decidedly more phlegmatic. Maybe—who knows?—he’d never had time for twitchy backseat drivers. But with the clock running down, the fuel running out, and the prospect of death by gravity an ever-increasing possibility, he coolly came up with a game plan. Aldrin, he instructed, was to convert into