How do we fix this?

[PopeBeanieModerator]

The evidence sways me enough to think there’s a sociological approach to mitigations, e.g. by diagnosing and treating potential mass shooters as having a disease. That’s not just a leftie’s way to excuse them (as some politically regressive idiots might say), but as a possible way to detect early which kids present the most risk, and integrate that soft science into standard counseling programs. We already accept that babies need moms. Problem in my mind is, how the counseling approach could be implemented in schools without political biases and interference.

I can personally attest to the effectiveness of therapy I’ve gotten over the past ten years or so, wishing I had gotten it much sooner, even at the age of middle school. I’ll bet that benefits to society are measurable in early counseling and therapy, at least in some kinds more than other kinds, but people have difficulty evaluating soft science, science, and statistical sources. We could use unbiased and unselfish AI here, meaning unbiased and unselfish designers and owners of said AI.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

_Robert_ wrote:

I always take these kinds of studies with a grain of salt. How can one assume child rearing is a bigger factor than genetic predisposition? Dysfunctional parents are not only bad parents but probably bad seed suppliers as well. It’s not like if you took 1,000 kids, raised them the same exact way, they would all turn out exactly the same.

LOL, this is probably true to some degree at least, but I can’t imagine developing a reasonable approach toward solutions based on genetics without first establishing genetic-naive, standardized sociological studies and experience… and in school age kids. Even if genetics could be understood to be a primary cause, genetically-challenged kids would still have to be treated with provably effective therapies.

I’m assuming you didn’t mean that genetic approaches are the most viable approaches to solutions, at this time in human history. Am I right? Jeebus, just imagining what neo-conservatives could do with that kind of “knowledge” would give me the heeby jeebies if I thought about it too much.

Sorry, rather than redact any of my initial, reactive response, I should have just emphasized that genetic components could  perhaps be addressed after the research in therapeutic approaches have been tried and documented, but only if/when human cultures have evolved to never force eugenic or racial approaches on populations. Although maybe there is some risk of some countries — China comes to mind first — motivated to shape their population’s genetics with super-human traits and taking over the planet, alongside the AI they invent and employ.

Unseen, did you have a shorter-term, possible solution in mind? 🙂

[_Robert_Participant]

I have no doubt that when we learn much more about the brain, behavior will be much more predictable. As dystopian as that may seem, there will be a real power struggle about how to apply and use that information. Surely, we will all be gone by then.

Beyond genetics there are physical diseases, defects and substance abuse factors that affect behavior. Clearly, social factors, child rearing and gun rights are inputs into “the brain system” of a potential shooter or of any criminal.

[UnseenParticipant]

PopeBeanie wrote:

I dunno their definition of “dysfunctional”. And it’s important to note that this search is “selective”, i.e. the search terms are biased toward finding studies with the word “fatherless” in them, so other causes may not be getting addressed here. (But I’d definitely start with that first study if I could, and your citing.)

And remember, when I talk about fathers preventing boys from going postal, I’m talking about reasonably good fathers, not drug dealers, wife beaters, or fathers who are absent 90% of the time.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

Dysfunctional parents are not only bad parents but probably bad seed suppliers as well. It’s not like if you took 1,000 kids, raised them the same exact way, they would all turn out exactly the same.

I don’t think you’ll find much affinity for the “bad seed” argument in sociological, psychological, or even genetic circles nowadays. Besides, you can do a heck of a lot more with nurture than with nature.

[jakelafortParticipant]

The nature/nurture dialogue is obviously not one to the exclusion of the other. Having said that i find the studies on identical twins fascinating. The old anatomy is destiny finds support here. What i would love to see is identical twins separated at birth in which one is hosed in a Muslim, Jewish, Christian fundamentalist home and culture and the other in a secular modern home.

[_Robert_Participant]

Besides, you can do a heck of a lot more with nurture than with nature.

That’s just opinion. I think the two are inseparable, as nurture is just applied to nature. Apply the same exact nurture or torture to two different individuals and you get different results. And since when does it matter what people have affinity for?

BTW, with the Texas tower shooter, they found a brain tumor. Of course, we don’t know enough about the brain to assign blame to a tumor. We don’t know shite yet.

https://thedailytexan.com/2016/07/30/experts-still-disagree-on-role-of-tower-shooters-brain-tumor/

 

[_Robert_Participant]

Take an alcoholic. We are OK calling that a disease. Alcoholics will tell you it is always there. One day at at time. The urge is real.

People from all walks of life and qualities of life exhibit it and therapy can modify one’s drinking behavior, sure. Sometimes. Unfortunately, not always. Why is that?

Is the urge to kill a bunch of strangers real? Is it a struggle to not give in?

[UnseenParticipant]

@robert

I don’t think it’s widely held that there is a brain tumor gene much less a violence gene. There do seem to be vulnerabilities that run in families but families being families they may have nongenetic ways of setting up diseases. For example, if there’s a family with a high incidence of lung cancer, maybe there’s a lung cancer gene or maybe it’s just a family where almost everyone smokes.

[_Robert_Participant]

Unseen wrote:

@robert I don’t think it’s widely held that there is a brain tumor gene much less a violence gene. There do seem to be vulnerabilities that run in families but families being families they may have nongenetic ways of setting up diseases. For example, if there’s a family with a high incidence of lung cancer, maybe there’s a lung cancer gene or maybe it’s just a family where almost everyone smokes.

Cancer does run in families, thus the whole family health-history analysis but that’s not even the point. Non-social issues like genetics or brain disorders affect behavior greatly even if xtian conservatives would have you believe that just about every societal ill is caused by the decline in the percentage of nuclear family units.

In many cases there is a single mother raising the family because the father is an arse-hole and the kids are better off without him. The xtians would have her stick it out and take abuse like a good xtian woman, screw that.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

Cancer does run in families, thus the whole family health-history analysis but that’s not even the point. Non-social issues like genetics or brain disorders affect behavior greatly even if xtian conservatives would have you believe that just about every societal ill is caused by the decline in the percentage of nuclear family units.

It seems likely that dysfunctional behavior can have any number of causes or no cause (by which I don’t mean literally no cause but rather no knowable or provable cause).

“The belief in the causal nexus is a superstition” — Wittgenstein

What this means, I think, is that all knowledge is at heart statistical. Even when a physical law seems 100% reliable, one can’t rule out the day when it turns out to be wrong. After all, it was very logical and completely comported with what we thought we knew about physics that the expansion of the universe was slowing down. Suddenly, what seemed 100% true and absolutely reliable based on what we knew…was wrong. To think we absolutely know something is a kind of superstition.

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