NOT POLITICAL OR RELIGIOUS!!!!!!!!! Why are people going to extremes?

[1958Bassman]

If anyone makes political or religious comments, please edit your post if you do it without re-reading your post.



I was watching the coverage of the Connecticut rampage while reading the news online and a thought popped into my mind- do these people buy into the talk of the end of the World? Why have they lost all sense of reason? Have they completely lost hope? Do they just not care? Are they truly insane/have serious problems that alter their mental state?

If they ARE insane/have serious problems, I hope the medical examinations reveal whether they had medications in their system. If not, I'd like to see some information about whether any of the shooters have sought help. Were they turned down? Did they start treatment and run out of money or the desire to continue? Did they self-medicate? Did they just want to be noticed or "one-up" those who came before them?

Not even a day after Connecticut, someone fired more than 50 shots outside a mall in CA, two separate shootings in Alabama- three dead+ shooter and three shot in a hospital + dead shooter.

[Steve]

1. We as a species are one hell of a lot closer to the jungle than we would like to admit.
2. Times are TOUGH for a great many people.
3. As options and opportuninty for a better tomorrow dwindle away, so does hope.
4. When you coddle your children and protect them from all the sadness, dificulty and expectations of the real world, you deprive them of developing coping mechanisms. When the cold hard realities of the real world inevitably weigh upon them, thewy don't bend, they break.
5. People expect to be able to pill every bit of bad and unhappiness away.
6. People are surrounded and soaked in all manner of violence and mayhem while society celebrates it as a conflict resolution tool rather than treating it as the horrific but sometimes necessary evil to be engaed in with great regret as a last resort only that it really is.
7. The holday season is tough on a great many people.
8. It's an excellent way to get all the attention you ever wanted but could never get before no matter how hard you tried.

9. Nobody wanted to pay for the ounce of prevention. Welcome to the pound of cure. It will get worse

[Clef_de_fa]

In order to keep our society alive you have to restrain the animal part of our humain nature ... so eliminate some instinc like violance ...

Sometime it is too hard for many reasons like Steve said.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Any social distribution is going to have fringes.

[MarkMgibson]

I really do blame a lot of this on the exposure of young children to violence. Whether it's movies, tv shows, cartoons, video games, or actual violence they witness.

There's been many studies done that show that how much violence children are exposed to before the age of 10 has a direct bearing on future behaviour. The results of these studies are in no way ambiguous; in fact they're patently obvious.

[spade2you]

We're a blame oriented society, not a solution oriented society.

[CapnSev]

Originally Posted by spade2you

We're a blame oriented society, not a solution oriented society.

Agreed. Add that to the fact that the media makes money by blowing things up into hype-overload, and there you have it.

[spade2you]

Originally Posted by CapnSev

Agreed. Add that to the fact that the media makes money by blowing things up into hype-overload, and there you have it.

'Zactly! I think I tend to be out of step with the general public because I'm more about the (boring) nitty gritty details.

Could it also be that the general public likes to be unhappy? In the SSRI thread, I think Matticus alluded to that.

[agent77]

Originally Posted by 1958Bassman

If anyone makes political or religious comments, please edit your post if you do it without re-reading your post.

If you're searching for truth why limit your responses? Regardless of your feelings of politics or religion, they play a big part of our lives, and factor into many decisions that some people make.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Originally Posted by agent77

If you're searching for truth why limit your responses? Regardless of your feelings of politics or religion, they play a big part of our lives, and factor into many decisions that some people make.

Because those responses would get the thread closed.

[jasper383]

I don't think there's any question that there is mental illness associated with the kind of mass, anonymous shooting we had in CT. As far as the others, I'm not sure.

There's no reason to think that there is more mental illness now than there has been before.

There are countries with just as many guns/person as the US, it's just for some reason we have a lot higher incidence of this kind of extreme behavior. Could be differences in treatment/reporting of mental illness/screening/social stigma..... The list goes on.

The crime rate in the US has been steadily decreasing for 20+ years now, for reasons that are for the most part unclear. Lots of competing theories, though.

[Unrepresented]

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. America has a lot of hammers.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Originally Posted by Unrepresented

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. America has a lot of hammers.

For some reason I read that and thought of Maki . . .

[Unrepresented]

Originally Posted by i_got_a_mohawk

For some reason I read that and thought of Maki . . .

He's quite the master of aphorisms.

[michael_atw]

Originally Posted by 1958Bassman

I was watching the coverage of the Connecticut rampage while reading the news online and a thought popped into my mind- do these people buy into the talk of the end of the World? Why have they lost all sense of reason? Have they completely lost hope? Do they just not care? Are they truly insane/have serious problems that alter their mental state?

The problem has always existed.

People have always been idiots, no different today. Social media and the internet along with the televised media have opened up the floodgates on the accessibility of irrational, stupid everything. However, these things have always existed just in more local forms.

The internet/social media encourages intelligent people to learn more and encourages idiots to be reinforced by their ignorance. Sad indeed.

[pbasswil]

I'm too lazy to look up the exact statistics, but here's a few wild estimates that are good enough to make a point:

~ (= "something like") 50% of Americans consider themselves under fairly heavy stress

~ 30% are raised by one parent; usually no father

~ 15% have no medical insurance.

~ 50% have chronic sleep deficits

~ poverty rates keep going up; the middle class is dog-paddling while financial currents pull them downstream

~ Americans personally owe well over a year of their income; the federal gov. owes $90,000 per working American.

~ 55% of marriages end in divorce; half of those involve child custody disputes

~ 25% of Americans will have some form of diagnosable mental illness in a given year (look it up!);
80% will suffer periods of acute emotional trauma at some point in their lives.

~ 10% (wild guess) will have lifelong mental/emotional conditions -- of which only

~ half will be under regular care & treatment.


Since ALL of the above people are guaranteed access to firearms under your constitution,
I only see one way forward:

Spend ALL your spare time caring for one another.
Find your fellow stressed, impoverished, & emotionally disturbed neighbours, and love them until they're not interested in mowing people down.

Is there any other way? Not that I can see.

[apologies for the guestimated stats]

[guy n. cognito]

Originally Posted by pbasswil

I'm too lazy to look up the exact statistics, but here's a few wild estimates that are good enough to make a point:

~ (= "something like") 50% of Americans consider themselves under fairly heavy stress

~ 30% are raised by one parent; usually no father

~ 15% have no medical insurance.

~ 50% have chronic sleep deficits

~ poverty rates keep going up; the middle class is dog-paddling while financial currents pull them downstream

~ Americans personally owe well over a year of their income; the federal gov. owes $90,000 per working American.

~ 55% of marriages end in divorce; half of those involve child custody disputes

~ 25% of Americans will have some form of diagnosable mental illness in a given year (look it up!);
80% will suffer periods of acute emotional trauma at some point in their lives.

~ 10% (wild guess) will have lifelong mental/emotional conditions -- of which only

~ half will be under regular care & treatment.

Since ALL of the above people are guaranteed access to firearms under your constitution,
I only see one way forward:

Spend ALL your spare time caring for one another.
Find your fellow stressed, impoverished, & emotionally disturbed neighbours, and love them until they're not interested in mowing people down.

Is there any other way? Not that I can see.

[apologies for the guestimated stats]

Wow. Confirms a whole society with fabricated stats!! Kudos.

[Unrepresented]

Originally Posted by pbasswil

I'm too lazy to look up the exact statistics, but here's a few wild estimates that are good enough to make a point:

~ (= "something like") 50% of Americans consider themselves under fairly heavy stress

~ 30% are raised by one parent; usually no father

~ 15% have no medical insurance.

~ 50% have chronic sleep deficits

~ poverty rates keep going up; the middle class is dog-paddling while financial currents pull them downstream

~ Americans personally owe well over a year of their income; the federal gov. owes $90,000 per working American.

~ 55% of marriages end in divorce; half of those involve child custody disputes

~ 25% of Americans will have some form of diagnosable mental illness in a given year (look it up!);
80% will suffer periods of acute emotional trauma at some point in their lives.

~ 10% (wild guess) will have lifelong mental/emotional conditions -- of which only

~ half will be under regular care & treatment.

~ 95% of all Talkbass quotes will involve snarkiness

Since ALL of the above people are guaranteed access to firearms under your constitution,
I only see one way forward:

Spend ALL your spare time caring for one another.
Find your fellow stressed, impoverished, & emotionally disturbed neighbours, and love them until they're not interested in mowing people down.

Is there any other way? Not that I can see.



[apologies for the guestimated stats]

Tough times indeed.

[Ziltoid]

I guess since were talking about a population (N) it follows a normal distribution.

[HeavyDuty]

Originally Posted by agent77

If you're searching for truth why limit your responses? Regardless of your feelings of politics or religion, they play a big part of our lives, and factor into many decisions that some people make.

Do you really have to ask this question about a thread in TBOT? We already have enough closed threads and infracted posts.