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Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

nytimes.com

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Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#441

Post by josefresco »

somenameforme wrote: post #419
josefresco wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there was this: "Unraveling Havana Syndrome: New evidence links the GRU's assassination Unit 29155 to mysterious attacks on U.S. officials and their families" https://theins.ru/en/politics/270425

Do you not realize when you're reading literal propaganda? This quote is but one section from there, which I clicked to because it had a silly heading - and it delivered. --- A consensus has formed among the growing community of AHI sufferers that the U.S. government — and the CIA in particular — is hiding the full extent of what it knows about the source of Havana Syndrome. The victims offer two general hypotheses a…

Russia isn't "running around randomly". Their (alleged) actions are very targeted and deliberate.

"attacking low level embassy workers"

Do you think really they'd pick the US president as their first target on an experimental (or even proven) weapon? And I wouldn't call embassy employees "random" in any context.

>US knows this and is playing PR for Russia, because they're worried about US citizens viewing Russia negatively

As a student of history, there are hundreds of reasons and prior examples of governments hiding the true capabilities of nations they consider enemies or adversaries. This allows them time to investigate and create a defense, it also appease the public becuase telling everyone "hey everyone watch out our advisory has this super top secret weapon to which we have no defense!" is not a great idea.

The idea that the US would "play PR for Russia" is absurd.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#442

Post by cjbgkagh »

mopsi wrote: post #431
cjbgkagh wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in Ukraine doing your duty? If you are not Ukrainian they do take volunteers. Surrender is an option, none of those things is worse than death. I would not make that trade. If the Ukrainian men want to stop it they can still volunteer, so can anyone else. And it looks like they will lose the war anyway, so they’ll have to surrender anyway except now after a huge amount of death and destruction. Ukraine is hea…

Your kind of thinking leads to societal decay like the kind seen at Uvalde. Each of the 374 cops chose to prioritize their own wellbeing over collective interests, ultimately leading to 19 kids and 2 teachers getting killed despite overwhelming odds against the perpertrator. And there are many things worse than death. Do you know how Russian combat medics are trained? Instructors pick a prisoner, cut off their palm,…

I dont agree with your framing but doubt I could change your mind. Instead I will ask what is your excuse, unless you’re posting on HN from some battlefield you must have some sort of excuse as to why you are not acting on your supposedly strongly held beliefs.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#443

Post by exe34 »

juliushuijnk wrote: post #226
exe34 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i thought the "gender pay gap" was due to different jobs and amount of time worked - otherwise companies would hire only women and have to pay out way less in wages.

This assumes companies are rational actors.

they might not be rational, but nobody can accuse them of not being greedy.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#444

Post by exe34 »

danaris wrote: post #420
jajko wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market forces, spread over long enough time, are usually a strong force of rationality. So on average, across long time, yes. At least according to the level of contemporary wisdom.

That assumes that there aren't strong psychological/cultural forces acting against rationality. Like not wanting to hire non-white people. Like not wanting to hire people who are "too old"/"too young" for the field. Like not wanting to punish men who harass women. Like not wanting to make sure that your employees are well-treated, satisfied with their jobs, and healthy enough mentally and physically to concentrate on…

the market might not solve all problems, but it does follow the dictates of greed.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#445

Post by MisterDizzy »

I've said for several years that my estimation of the United States military's treatment of its enlistees makes it basically indistinguishable from psychological torture in my eyes. I'm glad there's finally research that says something essentially similar.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#446

Post by bumby »

Trow849fj wrote: post #432
jack_riminton wrote: post #404

A lot of special forces have been doing what we used to call "door kicking" in the last few wars. Lots of explosive breaches, firing weapons and throwing grenades indoors. I'm sure this is the main contributing factor. The percussive force of firing and explosives indoors is horrible and I say this as an ex artillery officer, so I'm used to chest-breaking bangs from firing big artillery guns

Any source for this? Artillery was around for 500 years and shell shock was hugely discussed for past 100 years. There is much better corellation with divorce. Soldiers returns home with PTSD, only to have their house, children, savings and pension stollen. Because they were not around to guard it! And they may get thrown into prison for being too poor! Shell shock is very convinient excuse, when victims do not get p…

From the article, they have objective evidence from studying the brains of deceased servicemembers:

"It was not chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., which is found in football players and other athletes who have been repeatedly hit in the head. It was something new.

The lab’s research team started looking for similar damage in other brains. In civilians’ brains, they did not find it. Nor was it in the brains of veterans who had been exposed to a single powerful explosion like a roadside bomb. But in veterans exposed repeatedly to blasts, they found it again and again."

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#447

Post by fwip »

Invictus0 wrote: post #418
tokai wrote: post #370

Prisoners is another population where we would find pervasive brain damage if we scanned them.[0] In time I believe we will find that a ton of destructive/aggressive behavior is due to physical issues in the brain. [0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00406-013-0403-6

And then what? Do you kill/indefinitely confine the ones with brain lesions? Can you grant them parole in good conscience?

When we learned that lead poisoning was bad for you and increased aggression, we didn't kill everybody with lead poisoning. We changed our society to reduce lead poisoning, by getting rid of leaded gasoline, lead paint, etc.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#448

Post by gunapologist99 »

erva wrote: post #427

Qualifier: Former US special operations operator that served in multiple wars. My anecdotal take is there are many ways that shock and trauma can accumulate through training and war that are far beyond the minimal effects of an M4. Firearms: While the primary weapons systems are the M4 and side arm (pistol), there are many weapons systems utilized by special operations such as sniper rifles, crew serve weapons, and n…

Thank you for your service and sacrifice, and for helping us celebrate another Independence Day.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#449

Post by webninja »

munificent wrote: post #45
vunderba wrote: post #4

This was a really well-written article. I think for years I had naturally thought that traumatic brain injury as a result of explosives basically caused the brain to rattle so hard that it smashed against the skull causing contusions, but apparently this is something different. The way it's explained in the article is that this is actually a result of the blast energy wave bouncing off of differently dense brain tiss…

This would also explain why accounts of "shell shock" and PTSD rose so dramatically during WWI but were less common in prior wars where explosions were less common.

See the first commentator’s George Carlin video on Euphemisms. None of his commentators mention it (yet) but it’s the best part of his comment IMO.

I’ll summarize the video’s transcripts here partially.

In WW1, it was called Shell Shock. That was 70 years ago. In WW2, a generation later, it was called Battle Fatigue. In the War in Korea in 1950, it was called Operational Exhaustion. In the War in Vietnam and because of that war, it has been called Post-Tramatic Stress Disorder.

The NYT Article basically concludes that PTSD has been Shell Shock all along. Progress has been hampered by Euphamisms. If the combat veterans were diagnosed with Shell Shock, we might have a solution or remedy for it 70 years later.

This problem is pretty bad. U.S. soldiers are almost 9x more likely to die by suicide than by combat, according to a Pentagon internal study ending in 2019.

According to data published by the CDC, if you’re a white male (civilian/military/all) the main thing you have to do to live to see your 44th birthday is not die by suicide. The data says that’s a lot harder than it sounds as it’s the second leading cause of death in all age brackets up to age 44. A staggering 70% of all suicides are by white males. What societal factors are disproportionately affecting them?

Maybe put out an ad campaign that says “Suicide is selfish, misandrist, and racist.” Although that doesn’t treat the underlying issue(s) and causational factors. It’s similar to when Foxconn added nets to the upper floors of their iPhone factory.

Re: Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALs who died by suicide

#450

Post by cjbgkagh »

sofixa wrote: post #437
cjbgkagh wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in Ukraine doing your duty? If you are not Ukrainian they do take volunteers. Surrender is an option, none of those things is worse than death. I would not make that trade. If the Ukrainian men want to stop it they can still volunteer, so can anyone else. And it looks like they will lose the war anyway, so they’ll have to surrender anyway except now after a huge amount of death and destruction. Ukraine is hea…

> Surrender is an option, none of those things is worse than death Being tortured, raped and beaten until you die is not worse than death? Beg to disagree. > And it looks like they will lose the war anyway Highly unlikely. Russia is bleeding men they can afford to lose for now, but don't in the long term. Russia has absolutely no way of achieving victory, so by definition Ukraine can't lose. It can't really win eithe…

Those with that concern can commit suicide instead of surrendering, maintaining a lower bound for how bad things get for them.

We disagree on the framing and likely outcomes. I doubt I could your mind so I won’t even try.

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