Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like this story because it illustrates that there are lots of ranges for normal and that parents often make the difference but I do want to make it clear that many mental health situations can't just simply be snapped out of.
I know.
Thinking the unthinkable
281–290 of 462 posts
Re: Thinking the unthinkable
#282Re: Thinking the unthinkable
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
This may be politically incorrect to say right now, but I think the genes associated with mental illnesses that have a tendency to lead to violence will be phased out by a future generation sometime within this century and the next. We'll soon enough try gun control. That won't stop mass killings. Then we'll try increased mental healthcare access. That won't do much because we'll struggle with the Constitutionality o…
Is "wanting to kill people" really so far from the norm as to have a gene associated with it? What would the gene be responsible for, "Propensity to give a fuck about other living beings"? Because in my mind, the line between being "sane" and killing everyone in sight is pretty fine. One's logic could go like this, "Man, everything sucks, and those kids down at the preschool are always so damn happy. Fuck Them. If I'…
Re: Thinking the unthinkable
#284> “Then I’m going to kill myself,” he said. I remember doing that. > He’s been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work. I remember that. > A few weeks ago, Michael..threatened to kill me I did that too. She forgot to mention the time(s) he threatened to run away. (I'd be surprised if he didn't.) After a marathon of transfers, expulsions,…
Re: Thinking the unthinkable
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
This may be politically incorrect to say right now, but I think the genes associated with mental illnesses that have a tendency to lead to violence will be phased out by a future generation sometime within this century and the next. We'll soon enough try gun control. That won't stop mass killings. Then we'll try increased mental healthcare access. That won't do much because we'll struggle with the Constitutionality o…
A few randomish thoughts: The U.S. (and Australia, which was a penal colony) likely has a higher than average (at least for Europe) incidence of what I will call "maverick" traits -- gene based traits that make people less able to go along to get along, for some reason. They aren't necessarily bad traits, they just aren't very conducive to "domestication". The tend to be some of the same traits necessary for activiti…
Re: Thinking the unthinkable
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
Re handwriting: If you are still into improving your handwriting, buy yourself a fountain pen. It makes it a lot of fun to experiment with new characters and drastically alter your handwriting. I've always had meh handwriting. Not horrible, but not pretty either. I've been slowly converting my scratchy characters over to smoother, more flowy characters with embelleshments, since fountain pens make it so easy to play.…
And copying characters as they appear on your monitor probably isn't a great idea. You want to see the flow, fonts generally are not cursive, and the letter aren't really how you'd want to write them (less loops and too many serifs). The 'a' in pretty much every font looks completely different to the 'a' I was taught to write. It's gonna be super weird when we get a generation which has terrible handwriting - it'll p…
Re: Thinking the unthinkable
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
This may be politically incorrect to say right now, but I think the genes associated with mental illnesses that have a tendency to lead to violence will be phased out by a future generation sometime within this century and the next. We'll soon enough try gun control. That won't stop mass killings. Then we'll try increased mental healthcare access. That won't do much because we'll struggle with the Constitutionality o…
The truth is that humans, like all other animals, have been selective breeding all the time, it's called evolution. We select our mates based on their phenotypes (like aggression, intelligence etc). It was more so in the past than now. People used to abandon infants that are born "defective" (we now have abortions). Parents selected the mates for their children because they are believed to be better judges of "good"…
Re: Thinking the unthinkable
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
This may be politically incorrect to say right now, but I think the genes associated with mental illnesses that have a tendency to lead to violence will be phased out by a future generation sometime within this century and the next. We'll soon enough try gun control. That won't stop mass killings. Then we'll try increased mental healthcare access. That won't do much because we'll struggle with the Constitutionality o…
You realize the US will likely be waging wars for the foreseeable future, and that being a soldier will likely pay more than minimum wage, certainly up to past the age of procreation (I like to think of this as the event horizon for evolution; evolution only "sees" up your youngest child; if you then die, you gave still made the right evolutinary choices). The military will have need of sociopaths and killers.
Re: Thinking the unthinkable
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
You haven't thought it through. Try to visualize how such a program would be implemented. You run into intractable problems. One: who defines what traits are undesirable? (Do you imagine this would ever be uncontroversial? Aggression, for example, is needed -- sometimes.) Two: who determines how future behavior is linked to genes; and how is it ever proved that future behavior is only and certainly genetically-based…
You're not understanding me correctly. I'm not saying it will be a government mandate or coercion of any kind. I'm saying cultural attitudes will change on their own as "genetic awareness" becomes more mainstream. I'm making predictions about the future here and you are looking through modern day eyes. Twenty years ago people would be appalled to see the kind of things we openly share on Facebook with our friends tod…
I think this is more of a boyish fantasy or the landscape of a sci-fi novel, which by the end people will inevitably reject. It's not like this is some thing that will be instituted in a vacuum.
Re: Thinking the unthinkable
#290> Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. There are crazy people in every country on earth, many (most) of which have worse "health care" systems than the US; yet only in the US do kids shoot other kids with automatic weapons. I very much doubt it has anything to do with mental health (nowhere else in the world are young children medicated for being kids to such…
When you comment on something as serious as this you should have your facts straight. Automatic weapons are highly regulated in the US, and no automatic weapon has ever been used in a school shooting to my knowledge.