Police: Australian baseball player killed by Oklahoma teens -- just because by Niki2

Quote:
National gene pool already heavily polluted by survival of the dumbest ...

There are genetic disorders, but there has been no indication of "smart genes." There is reason to believe that every person of average genetic makeup and no preconditions has potential to be very smart or very dumb.

I have said this before, but society is not getting less intelligent. Quite the contrary. The only difference between times is our values/our focus, and how we access information.

What might be happening with this shooting is society might be becoming more susceptible to mental health problems... Or, society is being overdiagnosed... Or both, despite the seemingly contradictory nature of this - sometimes the cure causes the disease.

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Monday, August 26, 2013 2:32 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"National gene pool already heavily polluted by survival of the dumbest ...
I sure hope those boys haven't managed to contribute to it."

That's the serious version of the Darwin Award, which I always thought of as tongue-in-cheek.

But speaking of the Darwin Award, you don't hear much about it lately ...

http://www.darwinawards.com/index.chapter1.html

DARWIN AWARD WINNER OF THE CENTURY! Angry Wheelchair Man, the rashly rushing rammer who epitomizes the downfall of the human race.

(25 August 2010, Daejon, South Korea) An angry handicapped man, annoyed that an elevator departed without him, thinks it over before ramming his wheelchair into the doors (bam!) once, twice, three times in all. Success and failure combined as he gained access to the elevator, and plunged down the rabbit hole to his death. This 40-year-old man earns immortality as an irritated Darwin Award winner.

(security video of the actual event removed after some reflection)

Stress kills. Gravity kills, too. The tragic downfall of this rash rammer provides a vivid example of natural selection in action. However, natural selection just got a check: authorities traced the "problem" not to Angry Wheelchair Man, but to elevator doors that cannot withstand a large impact. Safety regulations were strengthened after the elevator was installed, to prevent accidents "such as might happen to children and drunks."

DARWIN AWARD WINNER OF THE CENTURY! Truly the downfall of humanity.

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Monday, August 26, 2013 2:39 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Byte

But here we are, in a society that's doing this to itself. It’s not like sunspots, or invaders, or hordes of locusts that visit out of the blue that we have no control over. We have control over this.

How is amassing guns the answer when the answer is to change what we allow in our very own society? Yanno - get rid of the wealthy bums who are enriching themselves by making everyone poorer and get rid of the system they use to bleed the rest of us dry, invest the extra money in improving our environment and social, technological, and physical infrastructure, create a society where everyone has an opportunity - not to get rich - but to be able to work and provide themselves and their families a decent life with a level of economic security ...

The whole paradigm that 'somehow' guns are the answer is just as propagandized into us as the idea that poor people are the problem.

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Monday, August 26, 2013 3:15 PM

Quote Bytemite, "There are genetic disorders, but there has been no indication

of "smart genes." There is reason to believe that every person of average genetic

makeup and no preconditions has potential to be very smart or very dumb."

I couldn't disagree more.

Intelligence is not only inherited, but interests and intelligence

about certain things are inherited. I've known people who are gifted

in math, for instance, & can't spell to save their life or to pass

English.

Ever hear of child prodigies? Agnesi, Mozart, Newton, Pascal, Pope, etc.

OTOH, Self-image & one's expectations for their path in life ...

very much a matter of early conditioning.

IMO, also, the Average Intelligence of people would be much higher in

any society where survival is challenging. In a society where survival

is common, almost easy, taken for granted ... it gives rise to dumb. So

I believe that people 400 years ago, with or without formal education,

were smarter on average than we are.

During hard times, surival of the fittest is decisive. Fittest may include

someone who's a street smart genius.

============================

Quote Kiki, "But here we are, in a society that's doing this to itself. It’s not like

sunspots, or invaders, or hordes of locusts that visit out of the blue that we have

no control over. We have control over this."

The handwriting was on the wall. We in the mass of our "democratic society"

chose to watch sitcoms instead of rising to the challenge to make good

choices for ourselves and our descendants. People who are this easily led

astray are either intellectually very lazy, care nothing for their legacy,

or plain stupid.

======================

All I suggest is a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. ~Paul Simon

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Monday, August 26, 2013 3:49 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"So I believe that people 400 years ago, with or without formal education, were smarter on average than we are."

It's hard to say if they were smarter or not. It's even hard to say if they had to know more. If you were a hunter-gatherer you had to know quite a bit to stay alive. But peasants, especially those in marginal areas, lived in deep poverty, were ruled by superstition and religion (which may be one and the same depending on your point of view), and had very little knowledge: it went as deep as subsistence dirt-digging, and as far as the next hill.

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Monday, August 26, 2013 4:45 PM

But peasants today, especially those in good cable areas, live on

welfare & unemployment, are ruled by superstition & religion & what's

on TV. They tend to enjoy Reality TV and believe it is not scripted.

(Please pardon the overt stereotyping.)

Survival was never that easy for the farming class, which in low-tech

times would usually be about 90% of the pop. Probably ruled more by

religion than superstition, and ruled more by the need to produce food

than by religion.

Farmers had to be pragmatic, willing & able.

As the lifestyle is so demanding, I'm sure many failed at it. While I

never thought of farmers as dumb (my parents grew up on farms),
temperament, I suspect, had more to do with their success than

intelligence.

======================

"Half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at." ~Solomon Short?

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Monday, August 26, 2013 5:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:

I couldn't disagree more.

I see.

Then, if intelligence is genetic, and various disorders are genetic, and race is also genetic...

Is it racial? IS IT? >:(

Might I remind you that you just posted this as your response to an event where two black kids and a white kid killed someone?

For some reason some people are acceptable targets and get called dumb when absolutely EVERYONE would be REALLY FRIGGIN' OFFENDED if other people are called dumb.

Your argument taken to the logical conclusion has some REALLY UNFORTUNATE IMPLICATIONS.

Your same survival of the fittest argument is sometimes used to claim that Europeans "evolved" to be "smarter" than Black people because it's easier to survive in Africa compared to colder climates. (it isn't)

Maybe it's not cool to say that intelligence is genetic and then call some people genetic waste products. Maybe I'm a FRIGGIN' MISANTHROPE and yet even I have to DRAW THE FRIGGIN' LINE.

And maybe there's absolutely no FRIGGIN' EVIDENCE FOR IT, and the only people who study that kind of crap and reach positive conclusions about it? ARE THE RACISTS. Such studies have inherent questionable bias.

In short: don't apply principles of evolution where they don't belong. That's called "social darwinism" and it has been disproven for a very long time.

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Monday, August 26, 2013 5:11 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Not sure intelligence had a lot to do with it - I spent a fair bit of time looking up the status of serfs in various countries. They weren't independent problem-solving entrepreneurs trying to increase their margins. For the most part they planted what the nobility wanted planted, lived on the plot of land where they were allowed to live, in the style of dwelling the nobility approved (something that didn't use a lot of the nobility’s resources - something, like perhaps mud and straw), and got whatever the nobility saw fit to leave them. They weren't considered assets - they were more like vermin and were tolerated only to the extent they could enrich the nobility. The life and death of peasants was of no concern to the lords. Peasants were extremely disposable and there was no effort to provide anything to them - kind of like the cheap labor that makes our stuff today. Life was cheap and survival random - a cold winter, a poor crop, a draining military feud, a demanding lord, ergot infested grain, a cut that became infected, the flu ... there were many ways to die that had nothing to do with intelligence or diligence. My grandmother, who was a serf in Europe, left home during the reign of her second-stepmother - both her mother and first step-mother died quite early deaths. My father, who was a free peasant in Europe, was raised by his siblings as his mother had died when he was 3.

If you have the chance read "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", not just for the story of how HeLa cells became the first immortal cell-culture line, but for the description of the life of share-croppers in the deep South - and the unbelievable ignorance that humans managed to survive.

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Monday, August 26, 2013 5:55 PM

^ I'm loaded with books, Kiki.

I just don't try to read them anymore.

Most of what I know about Farmers would span about 1850-1950.

Comes from my parents, aunt, grandmother. From a lot of stuff

I read during 10 years of family history hobby.

As a kid, I did read a book about mideval life. Dunno if it was

accurate, but all I recall was the part about being apprenticed

to a local professional, such as a blacksmith or harness maker,

and how very long one had to work just to make Journeyman.

A great opportunity, that!

Then there was watching my Mom make a vegetable garden in the

backyard ... I learned very little from that. Only that it can be done.

There was a lot of illiteracy in our 19th century, thus the ignorance.

But a person could be ignorant, and still very bright.

Didn't a few of our Presidents start off as farm boys?

======================

"Half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at." ~Solomon Short?

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Monday, August 26, 2013 6:24 PM

SHINYGOODGUY

Death penalty - without question. Open and shut case, no stand your ground, no we're sorry, no nothing.

No reason but to take a life. These depraved teens should not be allowed to walk the earth, as they denied that young man life, so should they be denied theirs. There is no reason or excuse they could give, they are total sociopaths.

SGG

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Quote:
A random act of violence has left a promising 22-year-old college baseball player dead, a family devastated and two countries half a world apart rattled.

Christopher Lane, who's from Australia, was gunned down in Duncan, Oklahoma, while he was out jogging last week. The motive, police say? Three teens who had nothing better to do.

"They witnessed a young man run by on the street. Chose him as the target," Police Chief Danny Ford told CNN affiliate KSWO.

When police eventually arrested the three teens -- ages 15, 16 and 17 -- one of them offered up a motive that made clear that Lane, who attended East Central University on a baseball scholarship, was chosen at random.

"He said the motive was, 'We were going to kill somebody,'" Ford told Australian radio station 3AW.

"They decided all three of them were going to kill somebody."

Police say the teens shot Lane in the back in the town of about 24,000 and sped away in their car.

"There were some people that saw him stagger across the road, go to a kneeling position and collapse on the side of the road," Ford told KSWO.

Attempts to revive Lane failed.

Police caught the teens a few hours after the shooting. Thanks to security cameras from local businesses, police saw their car speeding down the street.

Nearly 10,000 miles away in Australia, Lane's family struggled to cope with the news.

"He's left his mark as we know, and you know there's not going to be any good come out of this, because it was just so senseless," Christopher's father, Peter Lane, said. "It's happened. It's wrong, and we're just trying and deal with it the best we can." http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/20/justice/australia-student-killed-oklahom
a/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Probably best these days to stay away from America, as well as Syria, Libya, Egypt and other such places where guns are readily available and violence is prevalent.

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Monday, August 26, 2013 6:45 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"But a person could be ignorant, and still very bright."

My grandmother was what people used to call 'canny'. She could definitely think things through despite the fact she only learned to read and write in Polish, and do simple arithmetic, thanks to the Russians that took over that part of Poland over a century ago. But others of her generation - not so much. The blithe ignorance was embarrassing. It's still a little embarrassing to think of even today. Those were 'my people'.

I was suggesting the book b/c I didn't want to type out some of the things in it - people living on the floor of an old tobacco-curing barn, pretty much like the animals that nested in there from the woods. Kids being born and no one quite sure of their names a couple of years down the road. Fathers sleeping with daughters, and then their daughters. Children left to roam and scavenge as best they could in the countryside, sometimes naked. Reading, writing, arithmetic - obviously out of the question. Life decisions that seem downright crazy, but nobody else seems to notice anything amiss. A very poor, very insular, extremely ignorant life, shocking to think about existing in the US so recently - less than 100 years ago.

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Monday, August 26, 2013 6:56 PM

xkcd did an awesome thing a couple weeks ago about how various behaviours and the listless untrustworthy foolish youth were going to be the downfall of society... at the turn of last century.

The technology may change, but humans never do.

Although I do still think that various agendas and rhetoric create fear and stress and are the primary cause of any overreaction that we do see. And I also think misdiagnosis plays a role as well.

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Tuesday, August 27, 2013 11:46 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

^ love it

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Tuesday, August 27, 2013 1:01 PM

And so that's just the thing.

The mental illness was always here. The guns were always here. The gun worship was always here. Violent media was always here (books, comics, then movies, then television, then video games). The stresses of life were always here. The political rhetoric was always here.

The question is what's different? And if anything is different, then I think it's the result of a perfect storm of things screwing around with human behaviour and psychology, convincing people something is just around the corner that is going to RUIN their lives. Then those scared crazy humans grab some guns.

I initially said that I thought the kids might be psychopaths, and maybe they do have deeper problems then this, they did say it was because they were bored. But then again, maybe that claim is all part of this same reactionary fearful tough guy act - look how bad we are. Better not mess with us.

And if so then there is overlap with this and other kinds of violence like mass-shootings and murder suicides. In these cases, then, what this really says is "I'm not strong. I'm not tough. I'm afraid. My life is out of control. I can't handle all this. But I can take some of it out with me."

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Tuesday, August 27, 2013 5:40 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"The mental illness was always here. The guns were always here. The gun worship was always here. Violent media was always here (books, comics, then movies, then television, then video games). The stresses of life were always here. The political rhetoric was always here.

The question is what's different?"

The relative position of the US in the global economy. The real agenda is already here - you want to work? You have to compete with Chinese prison labor, or at the very least, the people at Foxxcon. Even little rappy says it, and proudly too.

Nothing creates crazy like fear for survival, and the pathological beliefs that say we have to compete with each other to get what we need. If society has no concern for you, then you ... You want to see people totally disenfranchised from society as a result? Look no further.

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Tuesday, August 27, 2013 8:07 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
And so that's just the thing.

The mental illness was always here. The guns were always here. The gun worship was always here. Violent media was always here (books, comics, then movies, then television, then video games). The stresses of life were always here. The political rhetoric was always here.

The question is what's different? And if anything is different, then I think it's the result of a perfect storm of things screwing around with human behaviour and psychology, convincing people something is just around the corner that is going to RUIN their lives. Then those scared crazy humans grab some guns.

I initially said that I thought the kids might be psychopaths, and maybe they do have deeper problems then this, they did say it was because they were bored. But then again, maybe that claim is all part of this same reactionary fearful tough guy act - look how bad we are. Better not mess with us.

And if so then there is overlap with this and other kinds of violence like mass-shootings and murder suicides. In these cases, then, what this really says is "I'm not strong. I'm not tough. I'm afraid. My life is out of control. I can't handle all this. But I can take some of it out with me."

There are no perfect societies and there probably never will be. People are chaotic and unpredicatable, often violent and cruel, often loving and humane. That hasn't changed and probably never will.There will always be bad eggs in any society, possibly the larger, more complex a society is the more chances you'll have more bad eggs. It certain feels like the larger it gets, the more unstable it is.

What you appear to have in the US is a large complex society with all its instabilities and bad eggs, in addition to a liberal gun ownership laws and lots of weapons in circulation, in addition you appear to have an ethos which glorifies weapons. Guns allow you freedom, guns provide protection, use of guns are acceptable in your life/property/liberty is threatened.

Although gun advocates tout the belief that guns prevent crime and violence, statistically it would appear to be the opposite. Most people outside of the US, you know the rest of the liberty hating commie world, seem to believe that lots of guns, little regulation = lots of gun violence, but within the US, that idea, even when backed up by statistics, is unpaletable.

Which is why having gun discussions with many Americans is pointless. If you believe that something is a god given right or an inalienable truth, then by very definition, it cannot be refuted, even if it makes no sense, even in the face of evidence.

Additionally, even if I were to give a personal guarantee from, I dunno, the Oracle from the Matrix, that if a substantial amount of guns in the US were reduced from circulation and you imposed limits on types of guns available and ammo limits would reduce gun injuries and deaths, you'd still get those who would argue against it because guns and liberty are considered intrinsically necessary to one another.

AS I said earlier, its the kind of crazy discusions that happen 'oh my goodness, my child keeps choking on gummy bears and I don't know what to do about it. I wonder what it all could be about, are the gummy bears too large to swallow, are they causing an allergic reaction, does my child have a pathelogical death wish??" How about you just don't let your child eat gummy bears, then think about the whys and deeper questions.

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Wednesday, August 28, 2013 4:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:

AS I said earlier, its the kind of crazy discusions that happen 'oh my goodness, my child keeps choking on gummy bears and I don't know what to do about it. I wonder what it all could be about, are the gummy bears too large to swallow, are they causing an allergic reaction, does my child have a pathelogical death wish??" How about you just don't let your child eat gummy bears, then think about the whys and deeper questions.

...So adult Americans are children now. And... Who are you suggesting to be the parents here?

This is also still blaming guns for the psychological problems, when I'm pretty sure it's the other way around.

Look, I'm kinda sympathetic to the idea about yeah, lets keep guns out of the hands of people who either have bad judgement or who don't understand the consequences of their actions. But you're not going to get anywhere with that analogy.

The other issue is that while I can readily agree that it sounds good in theory, in practice... I think you're looking at a heaping load of claims about discrimination, abuses, and lawsuits.

Can you just IMAGINE what the ATF would do if they could restrict BLACK people and LATINOS from having guns? Not to mention, is it really all that fair to focus restrictions just on mental illness? That kinda perpetuates a stereotype that mentally ill people are inherently violent.

Once again, I'm having trouble seeing a workable solution to the issue. It's not like you can just outlaw guns and then go door to door and collect them. Guess what the most likely outcome of that scenario might be.

I guess you could offer cash incentives for people to turn in their weapons and melt them down. But our government wouldn't do that (the legislature and lobbyists alone would be a nightmare, and then there's the budget allocation), you'd have to create some sort of non-profit group or something. Plus at least then it's voluntary and you wouldn't get so much resistance. You'd have to outbid the other gun lovers and the collectors, which could be expensive. But that might be your best bet.

Still think there should be some focus in your plan on getting people to calm the hell down though. Since that provides the motive force for USING the guns.

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Wednesday, August 28, 2013 8:11 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

well it was supposed to be an analogy, rather than a description...

However, if people are claiming that society is sicker, stranger, less contained in general, then why support gun ownership in such a society.

I don't have a workable solution to offer you. I just find it odd that there is a prevalent attitude that point blant denies more guns in circulation = more gun violence. A bit like more cars = more car accidents - which is why cars and drivers and registered and licenced and why we have road rules. Funny how I don't observe the same level of objection to these laws being an infringment of liberty.

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Monday, September 23, 2013 8:36 PM

Why No Mainstream Media Outrage Over Killing of Innocent White
Man in Oklahoma?; The Blatant Hypocrisy of ‘Hate’ Crimes
http://americanfreepress.net/?p=12537

"Police have three suspects, two black and one white. The latter
said they were bored and decided to shoot Lane for “the fun of it.”

"As Lane was white and the shooter black, racism has surfaced as
a motive. Thursday came reports that killing a white man may have
been an initiation rite for the black teens in joining some offshoot
of the Crips or Bloods.

"What happened in Oklahoma and the reaction, or lack of reaction,
to it tell us much about America in 2013, not much of it good.

"Teenagers who can shoot and kill a man out of summertime boredom are ... "

More than 20 years ago, some predicted that this generation would
have ... special problems/attitudes. Morbidity, obsession with death
& horror. But I don't recall anyone predicting an almost suicidal lack
of restraint.

Common sense? Out of style!

======================

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Monday, September 23, 2013 9:43 PM