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At an Academic Pressure Cooker, a Setback Turns Deadly

nytimes.com

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Re: At an Academic Pressure Cooker, a Setback Turns Deadly

#11

Post by neurotech1 »

maxharris wrote: post #7

What Dr. Bishop did was unjustified, no matter what other facts we may find (excepting force initiated by the victims); justice requires her death. (Because this penalty is irrevocable, and all possible legal systems are fallible, the closest we can get to this ideal is life imprisonment.) Having said that, look at how the system worked. These guys were stringing her along for six years (or so?), while maintaining th…

I would suspect Dr Bishop has a personality disorder, such as Borderline Personality Disorder.

I find it interesting that they have a 6 year rule, when the average is around 10 years to get tenure.

I think that people missed warning signs, that she was feeling stress, and that there is a stigma against seeking help, and people often deny they have a problem.

I agree with most of your comments, except the bit about "requires her death". She was possibly suffering major depression at the time of the incident, and other mental health issues.

Re: At an Academic Pressure Cooker, a Setback Turns Deadly

#12

Post by niels_olson »

houseabsolute wrote: post #9

I find it veeery interesting that she "accidentally" killed her brother when she was twenty. Casts some doubt on that situation too.

Sounds like the circumstances of that case are more like people not having adequate respect for firearms. In fact, having killed her brother in a firearms accident, I can easily see her spending the rest of her life as a desperate overachiever, and feeling unable to take credit for her success because she "owed" it to her brother. Imagine the depression and motivation that would induce. Finally, having hit such a dramatic obstacle, her previous experience with death would lower her visceral revulsion to the idea of further death. The effects of repetitive exposure to death are well studied in soldiers and healthcare workers.

Re: At an Academic Pressure Cooker, a Setback Turns Deadly

#14

Post by maxharris »

neurotech1 wrote: post #11
maxharris wrote: post #7

What Dr. Bishop did was unjustified, no matter what other facts we may find (excepting force initiated by the victims); justice requires her death. (Because this penalty is irrevocable, and all possible legal systems are fallible, the closest we can get to this ideal is life imprisonment.) Having said that, look at how the system worked. These guys were stringing her along for six years (or so?), while maintaining th…

I would suspect Dr Bishop has a personality disorder, such as Borderline Personality Disorder. I find it interesting that they have a 6 year rule, when the average is around 10 years to get tenure. I think that people missed warning signs, that she was feeling stress, and that there is a stigma against seeking help, and people often deny they have a problem. I agree with most of your comments, except the bit about "r…

How do you "recover" from something like this? If I had done something like what she did, and I had full memory of it, I would attempt suicide - not out of some perverse sense of duty, but as a way to escape.

(I believe that the soul dies with the body, and that supernatural events are categorically impossible. So when I say "escape", I mean a completely different thing than a religious person would mean.)

Re: At an Academic Pressure Cooker, a Setback Turns Deadly

#16

Post by neurotech1 »

maxharris wrote: post #14
neurotech1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suspect Dr Bishop has a personality disorder, such as Borderline Personality Disorder. I find it interesting that they have a 6 year rule, when the average is around 10 years to get tenure. I think that people missed warning signs, that she was feeling stress, and that there is a stigma against seeking help, and people often deny they have a problem. I agree with most of your comments, except the bit about "r…

How do you "recover" from something like this? If I had done something like what she did, and I had full memory of it, I would attempt suicide - not out of some perverse sense of duty, but as a way to escape. (I believe that the soul dies with the body, and that supernatural events are categorically impossible. So when I say "escape", I mean a completely different thing than a religious person would mean.)

I don't believe she would "recover" from this. She will quite likely spend along time in a prison psych ward.

John Hinkley, Jr who shot Reagan in 1981 was sent to a psych ward and is still under the care of the psychiatric facility, even though now allowed conditional release.

Re: At an Academic Pressure Cooker, a Setback Turns Deadly

#17

Post by rewind »

amichail wrote: post #13

Why did she care about tenure? She could have just focused exclusively on the startup, making it more likely to succeed.

Just because you're successful in one area doesn't necessarily mean you should stop caring about your goals in another area. Most PhDs care about tenure. Academic and entrepreneurial goals are not necessarily compatible.

Re: At an Academic Pressure Cooker, a Setback Turns Deadly

#18

Post by colah »

maxharris wrote: post #7

What Dr. Bishop did was unjustified, no matter what other facts we may find (excepting force initiated by the victims); justice requires her death. (Because this penalty is irrevocable, and all possible legal systems are fallible, the closest we can get to this ideal is life imprisonment.) Having said that, look at how the system worked. These guys were stringing her along for six years (or so?), while maintaining th…

> justice requires her death.

All do respect, but WTF?

There's no question that what she did was horrible, but how is it `just' to kill someone in response? Perhaps revenge and barbaric `justice' in the tradition of lex talionis (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth) would encourage such a response, but I can see no benefit; it won't bring the dead back to life.

In fact, it is my opinion that the only valid motivations for punishment are: - deterrence. - protection of society and the perpetrator from each other. - rehabilitation. - moral denouncement.

These ideas are not unique to me. In fact, they're quite popular in international politics, and are part of the legal codes of certain countries. For example, The Criminal Code of Canada includes:

Purpose and Principles of Sentencing

Purpose 718. The fundamental purpose of sentencing is to contribute, along with crime prevention initiatives, to respect for the law and the maintenance of a just, peaceful and safe society by imposing just sanctions that have one or more of the following objectives: (a) to denounce unlawful conduct; (b) to deter the offender and other persons from committing offences; (c) to separate offenders from society, where necessary; (d) to assist in rehabilitating offenders; (e) to provide reparations for harm done to victims or to the community; and (f) to promote a sense of responsibility in offenders, and acknowledgment of the harm done to victims and to the community.

-- http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/C-46/page-16.html#anchorbo-ga:...

Re: At an Academic Pressure Cooker, a Setback Turns Deadly

#20

Post by maxharris »

colah wrote: post #18
maxharris wrote: post #7

What Dr. Bishop did was unjustified, no matter what other facts we may find (excepting force initiated by the victims); justice requires her death. (Because this penalty is irrevocable, and all possible legal systems are fallible, the closest we can get to this ideal is life imprisonment.) Having said that, look at how the system worked. These guys were stringing her along for six years (or so?), while maintaining th…

> justice requires her death. All do respect, but WTF? There's no question that what she did was horrible, but how is it `just' to kill someone in response? Perhaps revenge and barbaric `justice' in the tradition of lex talionis (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth) would encourage such a response, but I can see no benefit; it won't bring the dead back to life. In fact, it is my opinion that the only valid motivations…

From John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged:

"Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification — that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly, that just as you do not pay a higher price for a rusty chunk of scrap than for a piece of shining metal, so you do not value a rotter above a hero — that your moral appraisal is the coin paying men for their virtues or vices, and this payment demands of you as scrupulous an honor as you bring to financial transactions—that to withhold your contempt from men’s vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement — that to place any other concern higher than justice is to devaluate your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil, since only the good can lose by a default of justice and only the evil can profit—and that the bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices, that that is the collapse to full depravity, the Black Mass of the worship of death, the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence."

That's the moral case; note what I said in the parent comment about the practicality of capital punishment.

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