In the RW...

I am actually a very calm and collected person... although still a geek.

When people bug me at work I simple tell them, because of what you did or did not do, somebody in EVE online is going hate me today.

Does that make a sociopath? I would rather vent by blowing things up in make believe than show up at the office with a shotgun.

Funny Story... I told my co-workers the only thing keeping me from showing up at work with a Shotgun and blowing all you away is my ability to go online and shoot people. I got nervous laughter which i found extremely funny.

They pay for my internet connection.

As someone else wisely put it, you don't need a personality disorder, which are pretty controversial even in the real world, to be a **** in a video game.

Causing virtual harm to a person is much different than causing real harm to a person. In much the same way that virtual consequences differ from real consequences.
I think it is fair to say that most of the people ganking and performing various unsavory space acts would in fact NOT act the same way in real life if things were anonymous.

Even if anonymity were obtained in the real world, it does not shield one from real life emotions like guilt, regret, and sorrow.
For example, take service men and women around the world who are put in positions where they must kill a human in defense of themselves or their country. They have done nothing illegal in the eyes of the law, and the killing has been done about as anonymously as any killing can be done. And yet they still feel strong negative emotions concerning their actions.

Anonymity gives people freedom from consequences of their actions

Checkout the "Stanford Prison Experiment" to see how savage we all are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkmQZjZSjk4

As a borderline sociopath who happens to be able to cope in normal society without recourse to drugs or an institution (now anyway, it wasn't always the case. The drugs they give you generate some GNARLY dreams), and at least pretend to care about the feelings of others in real world encounters, I am grossly offended by the attitudes of most EvE players.

A true sociopath would not play EvE at all, it's an MMO - a social game, where the intent is to impact on other people emotionally (the pixels are just a way of keeping SCORE in this regard).

You have to actually WANT to make other people miserable to engage in ganking and PVP etc. An EvE player CARES that he/she is causing misery and distress.
A sociopath does not care, and in fact only really feels in relation to themselves.

So, eve contains few, if any, sociopaths, no matter what whiny carebears like to think/say.

AAAARGH, ******* FORUM ATE MY POST!!!!! GRrrrrrrr *throws coke at monitor*