Posts by Neil
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Regarding the fly spray street myth, the police only every said that it was word on the street they had heard about. They never claimed or set out to imply this was true.
Prior to those Police statements I’d had heard from people I know who were close to – but not actively involved in – the production side of things, that fly spray was used. I think though it may have been as a solvent to transfer the active ingredient to the leafy substance. And so the misunderstanding and consequent street myth about potential harm.
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
We watch TV dramas for entertainment, not to be morally improved or have our cultural sensitivity enhanced....At worst it conveys a faint but unsettling whiff of Stalinist-style totalitarianism, which used art to enforce ideological orthodoxy and ruthlessly suppressed anything that didn't conform.
Pretty silly stuff from du Fresne. We tell stories for a variety of reasons and have to make them entertaining to keep peoples’ attention.
Telling stories is a fascinating ability we have which relies on brain structure that evolved in order to tell stories. But I would think that.
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I think one issue Twyford isn’t willing to confront is that the building industry is not his friend.
One reason the cost of building is so high is that the industry is at best dysfunctional and at worst corrupt.
Handing out government money to take away risk for developers is not going to change the building industry for the better.
Most of the companies and people responsible for the poorly termed leaky building disaster are still around and still fleecing home buyers. Just trading under other names or company numbers.
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to mark taslov,
I’m surprised you haven’t accused me of weaponising comas.
Going back to the original post, there are two examples given of Lost Men - Cesar Sayoc and Robert Bowers. Their behaviour could be described as obsessive, in that they spent a great deal of time and envergy on their preoccupations and revenge motivated in that they sort to get back at those who they thought were doing wrong.
There’s a degree of compulsive fixation that leads them into a dark world and eventually to mass violence.
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to linger,
the mechanism is still not exclusively genetic
No it’s not and what aspects are are of course to be remedied by social action – which is what I would say liberal democracy is. Just that attempt to counter our worse nature.
But what is considered to be socially caused has to an extent an underlying genetic component. Our social environment is other people who are influenced by their genes. Our emotions are a product of our brain structure that eveloved to enable us to live in groups.
Obsession and revenge are common elements of male violence. There’s some evidence that this has a genetic component – linked to above. It’s not straight forward but any slight variance would throw up particular individuals in large populations. Many of the mass shootings in the US are by men with obsessive grudges. That they are so lethal is a product of the social environment – easy access to guns - with a social remedy.
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to Sacha,
If you want to come out with something like that, put some links where your mouth is.
I have provided one link and referenced the Dunedin Longitudinal study whose finding on the genetics of male antisocial behaviour is relevant.
If you feel that those two sources are problematic I’m interested to know why.
There is also the daily evidence of males acting more aggressively than women. Which has been the case for a long period of our history and in by far the majority of societies.
I’m surprised this is in any way controversial.
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to Sacha,
I’ve provided evidence which you choose to ignore.
I’m not sure what you are arguing though, you mention « gendered violence » - are you arguing that there is a different pattern of violence based on gender or not?
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to Sacha,
We have Women’s Refuge not Peoples’ Refuge.
The argument is one of variance in a population. Men being predisposed to certain behaviour doesn’t imply some women can’t act in a similar manner.
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Given how much the voting system is stacked against them these are good results for the Dems and the rest of humanity. The popular vote once again is not reflected in the results but if that was the system Hillary would be president.
Trump isn’t a true reflection of US politics but a product of a distorted system that enables the worst
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Hard News: Lost Men, in reply to Sacha,
Not sure why you keep going for snark. It seems like an important element of men’s behaviour especially in this age of Trump.