Psychology of mass violence/sadism and mass irrationality.

[dizekat]

to summarize: i think they kill the victim in the state of intensely hating the victim (hence the torture), and killing someone you intensely hate is [unfortunately] a pleasurable activity for most people, can we agree on this? I further hypothesise that seeking of this pleasure is what motivates people towards invention or adoption of the belief/"moral"/etc systems that acts as enabler for extreme hate, which ultimately leads to violence.
Like, you know that it's usually the already hateful and violent people who tend to invent or derive or adopt hateful beliefs, "moral" codes, and the like.
edit: why so many edits, making this more "strawman proof". It is not easy to describe unthinkably extreme violence.

[Gota]

Imagine all your relatives and family raping and torturing you...that must suck..

[dizekat]

Imagine all your relatives and family raping and torturing you...that must suck..

or actually, someone random raping you, and then in response all your relatives rape and torture you too. and then kill you. Most often than not, rather slowly and painfully.
BTW, they describe this foreign custom with appropriate foreign words; i wonder who ever came up with idea of translating one of those words as "honour", defence attorney or a self appointed defender I'd guess.

The way I see it, people can fantasise up imaginary things to get hate to torture and murder someone with pleasure. (Same neurological mechanism as when imagining porn to get a boner to jerk off.)

Then those hate-enabling fantasies get described, in the process of legal defence, with all sorts of words that are normally used for more noble things. Then many atheists jump on opportunity to attribute such perversions entirely to religion (i'm atheist, but i'm also sceptical as of role of religion. Surely religion plays some role as inspiration, but to attribute it all to religion seems incorrect)

[SwiftSpear]

to summarize: i think they kill the victim in the state of intensely hating the victim (hence the torture), and killing someone you intensely hate is [unfortunately] a pleasurable activity for most people, can we agree on this? I further hypothesise that seeking of this pleasure is what motivates people towards invention or adoption of the belief/"moral"/etc systems that acts as enabler for extreme hate, which ultimately leads to violence.
Like, you know that it's usually the already hateful and violent people who tend to invent or derive or adopt hateful beliefs, "moral" codes, and the like.
edit: why so many edits, making this more "strawman proof". It is not easy to describe unthinkably extreme violence.

I'd agree I think. But it extends to more than just violence and murder. People always tend to justify things they want to do as acceptable or "right". "I didn't give him money, he would have just used it on drugs and alcohol anyways"

[MidKnight]

I think that both society and human nature enforce obedience to an authority. It's selected for, because more cooperative humans tend to live longer, and it's essential for society to flow smoothly, so we instill it in everybody from the day they are born.

The downside to this is that, by adulthood, most of our instincts regarding questioning authority have been dulled to the point that we'll readily do what more people with authority tell us to.

Here is a loose example:

Have you ever pulled an all-nighter to finish a project or study for an exam? Did you do this potentially unhealthy action explicitly because you were weighing its effects on your future life prospects, or did you do it because you felt The weight of your family's, peers', and professors' expectations on your shoulders?

This behavior also manifests itself in most humans' priority of impressing their peers over maintaining someone's dignity (don't lie, 99% of you will insult someone close to you if the result will make other people laugh), and also, less obviously, in internet trolling.

[MidKnight]

to summarize: i think they kill the victim in the state of intensely hating the victim (hence the torture), and killing someone you intensely hate is [unfortunately] a pleasurable activity for most people, can we agree on this? I further hypothesise that seeking of this pleasure is what motivates people towards invention or adoption of the belief/"moral"/etc systems that acts as enabler for extreme hate, which ultimately leads to violence.
Like, you know that it's usually the already hateful and violent people who tend to invent or derive or adopt hateful beliefs, "moral" codes, and the like.
edit: why so many edits, making this more "strawman proof". It is not easy to describe unthinkably extreme violence.

I'd agree I think. But it extends to more than just violence and murder. People always tend to justify things they want to do as acceptable or "right". "I didn't give him money, he would have just used it on drugs and alcohol anyways"

The extension of this: The just-world phenomenon

[SwiftSpear]

Just world phenomena definitely exists, but I think it's weaker than the phenomena of self justification. People who do horrendous things have a million reasons why they should not have to be held accountable for their actions, or why more leniency should be shown to them than average. The least evil person in most people's world view is almost always them selfs, irrelevant of what mistakes they have made and what evils they have in their heart. People often project their legitimate good qualities unfairly on others, and they often suspect others of having the same vices and weaknesses they have. To the rapist, any man in his right mind would have thought about raping that woman if he had seen what she was wearing and the way she was acting, but the truth is most of us just don't think that way at all.

I don't believe anyone is not exposed to a belief system. Secular atheism is a belief system, capitalism is a belief system, as is communism. People twist belief systems to justify their own actions, but the belief system isn't necessarily twisted in it's purest form. Capitalism isn't a belief system designed to promote the killing of communists, but aspects of capitalism have been used to defend that action. Belief systems are unavoidable because there are too many unknowns in our state of existence. It is impossible to survive healthily without making some assumptions as to the nature of things. Science in our world doesn't really have any good description for things like how the human mind works, how the environment really runs, for example: shouldn't we be mad at the person with tourrets syndrome for disrupting class with constant outbursts? We all innately know we should not because they are not in "control" of their actions, however, we are mad at the child with ADD for the same problem, although psychology literally has NO current definition for how the control deficiency of an ADD child is any different from the control deficiency of a tourrets child.

Certainly belief systems can be dangerous, but in the same way electricity in your home can be dangerous. If they are inadequately designed they will not "work" in society, they will cause fires.

The problem isn't belief system in a general sense, the problem is people manipulating belief systems, whatever belief systems those are, to justify their own evils. And no belief system is impervious to such an attack.

[dizekat]

SwiftSpear: but what if a belief system is primarily used to the purpose of bringing up in oneself extreme hate? And is primarily adopted in pursuit of hate-related pleasure?
What if the belief system consists of so much fantasy that it would seem almost nobody would believe it, just fantasise and role-play it? Surely we can't equate such belief systems with ideologies like capitalism or communism where there is at least some attempt at argumentation. The belief systems are obviously not equal. There is electric wiring, and there is electric chair.

other thing for those "honour" killings. There is additional explanation. Maybe those people are not raping their own children only as long as those children lives have sufficiently high monetary value (i.e. could be put into arranged marriage). Rape victims, by their customs, can't be sold into arranged marriage; so they end up used for pleasure, combined with (when it happens among immigrants in the Western country) under-estimation of ability of justice system to prosecute. This explanation i think supplements the hate-pleasure explanation. This is of course very horrible. I think such crimes are poorly 'understood' because nobody wants to try to think and explain it, less the explanation will make themselves look like psychopaths.

I think one should first look for the most rational explanation for crime through basic drives such as pursuit of pleasure, and only then, given strong evidence to the contrary (such as killer being obviously batshit insane non-functioning before the fact), consider possibility of nonsensical motive.

[Gota]

What else is there to live for if not for impressing others?
What else is left if you require no agreement from society or do not showcase anything for judgment(attempting to climb the social status , the financial status,doing something nobody else has done etc etc)?
All your than left with are your basic instincts...

even those living outside of social laws like criminals still got a hierarchy and they still need to prove their worth to others and willingly participate in it all just like law abiding citizens.

[TradeMark]

Well, theres always "enjoying the life" thing left.

[dizekat]

Well, theres always "enjoying the life" thing left.

Ya. I can live just fine on uninhabited island together with my gf. I don't care about impressing anyone. All this "obey the group" thing is another instinct. BTW obeying the conventions is not impressive.
Other BTW pleasing larger group at the ultimately own expense (of your social ties within your subgroup, i.e. your friends) is submissive.
The alpha is one the group submits to; the clown is one who submits to the group.
This: "don't lie, 99% of you will insult someone close to you if the result will make other people laugh", I think, is submit-to-the-group behaviour. "Look at me i'm aint gonna challenge for alpha male status, i don't even want to have my own sub hierarchy, i'm just a clown"

[SwiftSpear]

SwiftSpear: but what if a belief system is primarily used to the purpose of bringing up in oneself extreme hate? And is primarily adopted in pursuit of hate-related pleasure?
What if the belief system consists of so much fantasy that it would seem almost nobody would believe it, just fantasise and role-play it? Surely we can't equate such belief systems with ideologies like capitalism or communism where there is at least some attempt at argumentation. The belief systems are obviously not equal. There is electric wiring, and there is electric chair.

Ideologies and belief systems are the same thing. Some belief systems are not scientifically indefensible and others are, but fundamentally, from the perspective of the individual whatever they make assumptions on is a belief system. If a belief system isn't a series of assumptions regarding the phenomena one witnesses in their environment, then what is it?

I completely and totally agree, a poisonous belief system is dangerous, extremely so even, but the point remains. It's the fault of a specific belief system, belief systems in general are inescapable.

[scifi]

SwiftSpear: but what if a belief system is primarily used to the purpose of bringing up in oneself extreme hate? And is primarily adopted in pursuit of hate-related pleasure?
What if the belief system consists of so much fantasy that it would seem almost nobody would believe it, just fantasise and role-play it? Surely we can't equate such belief systems with ideologies like capitalism or communism where there is at least some attempt at argumentation. The belief systems are obviously not equal. There is electric wiring, and there is electric chair.

other thing for those "honour" killings. There is additional explanation. Maybe those people are not raping their own children only as long as those children lives have sufficiently high monetary value (i.e. could be put into arranged marriage). Rape victims, by their customs, can't be sold into arranged marriage; so they end up used for pleasure, combined with (when it happens among immigrants in the Western country) under-estimation of ability of justice system to prosecute. This explanation i think supplements the hate-pleasure explanation. This is of course very horrible. I think such crimes are poorly 'understood' because nobody wants to try to think and explain it, less the explanation will make themselves look like psychopaths.

I think one should first look for the most rational explanation for crime through basic drives such as pursuit of pleasure, and only then, given strong evidence to the contrary (such as killer being obviously batshit insane non-functioning before the fact), consider possibility of nonsensical motive.

As i said earlyer this sadistic pleasure you speak off only apears after a brutal influence of the mind itself.

i agree this sadistic pleasure exists, and its suported by the faults of society.

It doesnt exist naturaly, children are curious not full of hate.

besides we only get the full meaning of hate and understanding when we grow up.

what is hate what is love, joy evil or good. These terms are distorted so mutch that morality isnt called into these maters.

Crime is an evil comited by someone that is condemned by the rest of the society. What you consider sadistic pleasure it can be for someone else normal behaviour.

This is justified (in my view) as we are open people, the path we choose at the start of our lives and the life we take and live, influences the most. Type of work, type of university degree we take, type of choices we make, be good , be bad e.t.c.. we cant control this random factor in our lives we trow ourselves into the world and shape ourselves randomly. We try to control these things, some times sucessefull other times in a wrong way.

But surely this sadistic and wrong search for pleasure you speak off only exists when our mind has been molded twisted by bad moments in our lives.

Drugs alchool, society rules e.t.c.. frustration....

And sometimes some people are more geneticaly inclined to agression (cant justify this).

----------------------------------------------------------------

A couple experiments in North america and europe.

Crime rate in some areas in NA reduced by removing grafitated walls and repairing the metro stations fully. Not a single train left the station in a bad shape. This move showed that criminal will is also shaped by the environment around.

In europe sweden muslim imigrants are the mos accepted in all of europe.

They seperated huge comunities into small sets of familys and introduced them in seperated housing areas mixed with swedish people.

The colective influence surpassed the undividual background.

e.t.c....

Ive got to say we are more influenced by positive and good behaviour than bad one (also cant justify this), and it is my opinion that this honor concept of honor killing and the most disgracefull crimes that are suported by looking for sadistic pleasure, are a direct consequence of negative moments in our life.

Last Note: you can give several examples of people with clean record, of doing crimes. I can just say (you dont know theyr lives im sure something wrong was with them, some form of frustration depression, bad moments and maybe some genetic justification involved e.t.c.).

[bobthedinosaur]

Any one ever catch these series?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5960015727#
They get some polymaths talking about game theory applied to sociology and mass psychology. In one scenario they found that people work more fluidly and effectively when everyone acts selfish and assumes everyone else will act the same. Most of this doesn't actually work in application though, but some of it has use.

[dizekat]

Any one ever catch these series?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5960015727#
They get some polymaths talking about game theory applied to sociology and mass psychology. In one scenario they found that people work more fluidly and effectively when everyone acts selfish and assumes everyone else will act the same. Most of this doesn't actually work in application though, but some of it has use.

ohh really, then why aren't we all acting selfish and assuming everyone else will act the same... ohh wait, the integral part of being selfish is to try and coax others into being unselfish.
Also if you're totally selfish you eat your own kids. Which just doesn't work very well in the wild.

[Gota]

Any one ever catch these series?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5960015727#
They get some polymaths talking about game theory applied to sociology and mass psychology. In one scenario they found that people work more fluidly and effectively when everyone acts selfish and assumes everyone else will act the same. Most of this doesn't actually work in application though, but some of it has use.

Ill try and watch it but the title seems a bit...conspiracy theoryesck.

[Cheesecan]

Anybody is capable of any horrific cruelty. Good/evil is relative. Observe how even chimps fight vicious turf wars. It's pretty hilarious to watch although it is cruel(the fact that we enjoy to watch violence in the form of things like this, boxing, gladiator games, etc really proves the point that we are all sadists). You would not say that one chimp is more evil than the rest, because they are below such absolute and perfect concepts such as good and evil. A chimp won't stop and reason whether or not he should bash the other chimp's brains out just because he is from a different tribe. Good and evil can only exist when there are actual decisions being made, not just base instinct. It's the exact same thing with us with 99% probability. We are extremely flawed creatures.

The human brain is the most complex brain we know of, but it's still just an evolved mammal brain, evolved from a vertebrate brain with the basic fight/flight instinct preserved in it forever. Because of this, I'm very doubtful that there will ever come a time when humanity or its ancestors transcend above violence. I think that in the very distant future, that is, if we make it that far(though probably not at this rate, total nuclear destruction nearly happened twice in the last 50 years and that's just a minuscule span of time in the greater picture of things), our ancestors will finally realize that humanity and in fact, all life evolved on planet earth is inherently flawed by this ruthlessness. Ruthlessness is a necessity for evolution through natural selection in our environment. But this is not to say that life somewhere else couldn't have evolved in a completely different way that our scientists cannot grasp. Hopefully those distant ancestors will then obliterate all life from this planet so that perhaps other, more worthy life forms may have a chance in the universe. If not then I think sooner or later humanity will have invented things that will allow it to travel much further into space than can be dreamed off today, and use that technology to wage war, enslave, humiliate and terrorize other lifeforms in the universe. If that's what we did to our own species, why would we even hesitate to do it to others? Look at how horrible we treat animals.

Of course we're not violent all the time, in that way, our organism isn't as aggressive as say a virus or a bacteria, but when we do get violent, the scale of destruction is enough to make up for our periods of passivity.

[bobthedinosaur]

Some animals kill the children and old first when resources become scarce, not because they are selfish, but because in resource investment a male and female of reproductive age are more valuable assets.

[Teutooni]

The human brain is the most complex brain we know of, but it's still just an evolved mammal brain, evolved from a vertebrate brain with the basic fight/flight instinct preserved in it forever. Because of this, I'm very doubtful that there will ever come a time when humanity or its ancestors transcend above violence.

Humanity or its ancestors, no. Descendants, hopefully. I like to think, based on the very fact that we are discussing violence and agree it is an "inhumane" thing and undesirable, that we some day can give birth to a new generation that doesn't have the burden of evolutionary violence. AGI or genetic manipulation or just advanced psychological conditioning, who knows...

[dizekat]

The human brain is the most complex brain we know of, but it's still just an evolved mammal brain, evolved from a vertebrate brain with the basic fight/flight instinct preserved in it forever. Because of this, I'm very doubtful that there will ever come a time when humanity or its ancestors transcend above violence.

Humanity or its ancestors, no. Descendants, hopefully. I like to think, based on the very fact that we are discussing violence and agree it is an "inhumane" thing and undesirable, that we some day can give birth to a new generation that doesn't have the burden of evolutionary violence. AGI or genetic manipulation or just advanced psychological conditioning, who knows...

well there's also that counter-evolutionary violence, that's what is most interesting... the kind of violence that other animals don't usually have except for very stupid animals like insects.