quote:

ORIGINAL: vincentML

In this present case recall, there is an older brother living away from the mother and killer. Which raises the question of why one and not the other. The unibomber, Ted Kaczynski, also had a brother, who btw turned him in. I realize we all have our own environment through which we develop, but these sibling differences seem too extreme to fault environment. Handicapped here by small samples. I imagine there are large sibling studies for the effects of parenting environment.

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ORIGINAL: Rule

There appears to be a strange misconception that all people are born with identical minds and that how they turn out is due only to how they are raised.

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ORIGINAL: Aswad

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

Many, perhaps including you, believe we can construct our own meaningfulness for the short time we are here.

It seems the guy in Connecticut did just that, which illustrates the limitations of constructing meaningfulness per se.

Similarly, Breivik had an altruistic form of meaningfulness that wasn't exactly very palatable, either.

One sadly can't differentiate these from the "good" ones in any objective sense.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

Psychopathy and sociopathy have a genetic predisposition.

quote:

Psychopathy appears to be comprised of two broad dimensions: impulsivity/antisocial behavior and interpersonal detachment/callousness. This study examined the extent to which variance in these 2 psychopathy trait dimensions was associated with common or unique genetic, shared, and nonshared environmental factors in two independent samples of reared together 16–18-year-old male twins. One sample included 142 monozygotic (MZ) and 70 dizygotic (DZ) pairs; the other sample included 128 MZ and 58 DZ pairs. Boys completed the Minnesota Temperament Inventory (MTI), a 19-item measure that contains separate subscales: Antisocial and Detachment. Variance in the Antisocial and Detachment scales was associated with additive genetic factors and neither scale was associated with shared environmental factors. As expected, the bivariate biometric analysis suggested genetic influence on the covariance of the scales. The results are consistent with theoretical models of psychopathy that posit some independence in the etiology of the two major trait dimensions of psychopathy.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jlf1961

quote:

Psychopathy appears to be comprised of two broad dimensions: impulsivity/antisocial behavior and interpersonal detachment/callousness. This study examined the extent to which variance in these 2 psychopathy trait dimensions was associated with common or unique genetic, shared, and nonshared environmental factors in two independent samples of reared together 16–18-year-old male twins. One sample included 142 monozygotic (MZ) and 70 dizygotic (DZ) pairs; the other sample included 128 MZ and 58 DZ pairs. Boys completed the Minnesota Temperament Inventory (MTI), a 19-item measure that contains separate subscales: Antisocial and Detachment. Variance in the Antisocial and Detachment scales was associated with additive genetic factors and neither scale was associated with shared environmental factors. As expected, the bivariate biometric analysis suggested genetic influence on the covariance of the scales. The results are consistent with theoretical models of psychopathy that posit some independence in the etiology of the two major trait dimensions of psychopathy.

source

May I say....

BULLSHIT.

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

Not at all. I'm just giving as good as I get. ;-)

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

It isn't bullshit at all. It is why ordinary people can kill in a war, they have the approval of their leaders and peers. In a more extreme form it was how the German nation could be seduced in the 30s.

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It depends who and where you are. The Iraqis got the brunt of American and British approved killing at the beginning of this decade. You can hardly say that was peaceful. Just because the violence is perpetrated on another society, doesn't make it less violent.

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The mind is more complex than that.

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But feel free to live in a simple world where everything is so obvious.

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Except the solutions of course.

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

Environment can mitigate the genetic disposition, but not eliminate it.

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ORIGINAL: ChatteParfaitt

quote:

ORIGINAL: PowerXXXchange


SNIP

In terms of cause, we know that serial or mass killers have one major factor in common - they are almost entirely males.

there have been plenty of female serial killers.

For example...

Characteristics of Serial Killers Active Since 1900 (N = 558)
Offender Category Percentage

Sex
Male 85.8%
Female 14.2%
Total 100.0%


By this FBI statistic 79 females, which I will ggrant you is "plenty". The point is they are outnumbered by ~7:1 by males, roughly the male -female ratio for all gun homicides, roughly the same ratio as for autism diagnoses.



What is being learned about DNA this very minute is that the gestalt of who we are genetically is hugely complicated. Your DNA might be coded for a particular personality trait that will only be triggered if there is an environmental issue along with a nurture issue. Scientists are in the very baby stages of learning about this fascinating discovery. (Mine from an earlier post. We *ARE* learning the answers to nature, nurture, and environment, though admittedly much work needs to be done in this area. )

Agreed. Would you like to comment on the ASD/empathy studies relative to hormonal (testosterone) levels in utero?

here

So we have as a society about 1 in 100 beautiful male babies who will develop some level of ASD, and who show signs of it at birth.

I am personally amazed at the power of environmental factors to moderate their dysfunctional behaviors forbetter or worse.


Then I suspect you have never been a parent. Being a parent teaches you that lack of good nurturing and extreme abuse creates major dysfunction in the emerging personality. And, if you are paying attention, it also teaches you that your children are born who they are, and though environment and great parenting can shape them to a certain extent, people appear to be born with various personality traits.


A very bad guess: I was an active involved parent, and have two model adult chidren, in happy relationships and two beautiful grandsons. They have the manners not to make condescending assumptions, which makes them better in that way than me.


I'd been very careful of allowing a young child to play violent video games or watch violent TV or movies. Studies have shown this shapes the developing brain, and NOT in a good way.

I am glad you are also aware of the effect of violent media on children. Your apparent assumption that all video games are violent probably says something about this toxic culture.


PxC

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aswad

quote:

ORIGINAL: jlf1961

Environment can mitigate the genetic disposition, but not eliminate it.

Stop thinking in terms of what's absent, and start thinking in terms of what's present; as a rule, that approach has greater predictive power by far. Rule gave a fairly clear and reasonably accurate accounting of this part: there is stuff present from nature, which will develop based on the influences present, into a result that is the product of its parts, more or less.

If you start throwing in negatives, absences and the like, you're back to epicycles, making a big song and dance to work around what should be the blatantly obvious solution: working with what actually is, instead of what might be or usually is or isn't. On occasion, we need to work with what we don't have, but it's an error prone process and often needlessly complicated, so it should be reserved for when there isn't a better solution on hand, and here we do have a better solution.

The environment doesn't mitigate or eliminate a disposition, genetic or otherwise, it just participates in the integrative process which goes from a template to a fully fleshed out person. If one lacks empathy, it isn't a question of the environment mitigating the lack, but rather a question of how what remains develops in a given environment. In some cases, the result can be remarkably close to having empathy, in fact. In other cases, you can have a person with normal empathy, developing to a result which is indistinguishable from not having any.

The error is similar to conflating the obverse with the converse or the inverse.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aswad

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

Not at all. I'm just giving as good as I get. ;-)

Against that scoring system, the gods themselves contend in vain.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aswad


Actually, the reason why ordinary people can kill in a war is because they're desensitized and habituated through extensive training, without which most just stand around pretending to be shooting when they in fact are not. And you seem to neglect that I've already noted that the argument is quite simply too far up in cloudcuckooland for me to bother pull it back down to Earth.

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ORIGINAL: Aswad


And even so, there's been less violence, all in all.

Go read the argument and the sources, instead of waving about things that were already factored into it.

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

Okay, how are you going to determine if someone is a possible dangerous psychopath before he acts against someone, or group?

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I have heard a suggestion about genetic testing at birth for genetically transferred diseases, you suggest we do it for this problem?

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

How do you account for resistence groups that have never been military trained?

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There is peer support and leadership sanctioned.

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People don't need to be desensitized to kill or we wouldn't have so many murders.

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You know that is rubbish. Crime declined from a high in the 90s but is still significantly higher than the 50s, 60s and mid 70s and is predicted to climb again during the next years because of a worsening economy.

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The west has always exported violence since the beginning of the capitalist/imperial age and it is not declining with western power as we can see with the mess in the ME.

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They are all males, lacking empathy as a mental defect and we do not know why. Professor Simon Baron Cohen says it better than I...