In the annuls of those who classify and assign aetiology to the extent taxa of moral beings there exists an an edge case; defined on the undefinable - a privative - as is the vacuum to the vaporous, the precosmogonic singularity to the substrate of reality, the taste of saliva to the five flavours, the dark to the light.

Myrmidons in the ant mound of moral platitudes, the profound and fulminating moral laxity of their opportunism and nihilism is the true essence of anti-fragility. This is how they have managed to exist down the ages, possibly preceding or even originating those more purposeful taxa of humankind. They embrace chaos and thrive on it, jackals, the dogs of war, callous and unmoved by the needs of their fellow beings, sentimentality, or justice - neither corporal or numinous.

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Apprehension of their true nature comes most easily via way of analogy with extrapolation from a compilation of the lesser edge lords.

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There are those who are merely narcissistic, self centered but still reliant on others for admiration and praise, these are the grandiose; the comedians, the dictators and power mongers, politically minded and ambitious. They have loyalty and purpose, and may include those who care deeply about things other than themselves. Here we see the TV show host who will say and do anything for fame, or the politician who will do anything to further his cause, the subreddit mod who will censor and encroach in the face of reality or empathy to advance his narrative's ascension in his chosen field of lies. Loyalty to the in-group remains intact, empathy is dolled out in rations yet still exists. A false-self can form, maintained either deliberately as a facade or as a tool to force the self towards stubborn adherence to a goal. Yet here we see barely the lowest level of the stack, fodder ripe for the picking of those higher in the food chain.

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We travel further and find the sadistic and narcissistic psychopaths, they are still the slave of an audience, their false selves. Partial nature of their twisted and temporally saltatory empathy remains sufficient to provide an internal model of other people and themselves such that sadistic acts can still provide reward. Loose loyalty to an in-group or abstract principle can still be present, and tends to be self serving or mercenary in nature. Here we find the last vestiges of the impact of libido on behaviour, beyond this point it even desire for fame. Examples include the loyal executioner or torturer, the soldier of fortune or the assassin.

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Now we meet the pure and obligate psychopath, who strangely enough, has his ranks swollen by the addition of the robot. Here come the subset of autists with mental faculties intact enough to give them insight into the world of their fellow men and yet retain a profoundly dispassionate amorality . Here is a lull of sorts in the progression of sadism along the stack, for when you have no empathy for others sadism fails to provide sufficient stirring of the senses. Libido is gone at this point, although individuals may engage in sexual activity for the purposes of irony, winning internet points or earning a living. Because he lacks a set of drives to mold his image in the eyes of others in a particular direction, his lifestyle is driven by such desires as laziness and convenience, or the vacillating nature of what ever goals the internal recesses of their being come up with, be it violence, art or obsessive devotion of all resources to what seems and arbitrarily chosen goal. Examples abound, from the expert sniper who changes sides as readily as his personal obsession with improving his aim dictates; the offensive hacker who feigns loyalty with no other goal than sating his hunger for yet more taboo information; and the war correspondent's photographer who seeks to reduce martial struggle to a personal diorama of butchery.

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Finally we approach our prey, the true edge lord. Divine in the completeness of his self-congratulatory irony, he needs no other audience than his alter ego, a self that no longer needs to be false. His only master is the hierarchy upon which chooses to judge the edginess of his own jokes. Here we see he that will wander into a battlefield, lead a charge against the enemy, stop to admire the view, turn around and mow down his own allies, laugh at the shape of their agonised faces, providing of course, he is not distracted by a passing butterfly. What remnant of empathy he may retain is so convoluted and dysfunctional that he does not even maintain loyalty to his future self. He is profoundly episodic. Every waking moment he is at he whim of his desires. From the very beginning he probably vacillated between biting the teet that fed him and exploring the boundaries of his curiosity with no care in the world for consequences. If the whim takes him he will be just as self destructive as he is a hazard to others. To be this way requires a muddling of the hierarchy of drives that things like pain and the drive for oxygen and self preservation become subservient to what ever trifling morsel his curiousity or sense of humour desires. This is the man who would intentionally burn his arm because it amuses him to see his fellows gasp, or stop to scratch his balls in the middle of a knife fight only to laugh at the loss of some fingers to his opponent. His unpredictability is only matched by his uncanny ability to follow his own whims out across time. Examples are rare. Hints of his scent are seen in the Joker and Bijomaru Mogami, but even there its pure form is shrouded in these characters' adherence to their own missions.

Here lies a true freedom, a detachment from existential purpose so profound that true delight in mayhem. Blind to the zeitgeist and numb to shame or embarrassment the edge lord revels in his chosen delight.