tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post1391514012004154561..comments2023-10-22T18:25:39.688+08:00Comments on The View from Taiwan: Why doesn't Taiwan have more rage killings?Michael Turtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17974403961870976346noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-56640830757162212362014-06-02T00:05:58.462+08:002014-06-02T00:05:58.462+08:00"A second approach is to consider them as mer...<i>"A second approach is to consider them as merely the statistical tip of murders as a whole, and those as being the tip of the iceberg of murderous impulses that most people experience occasionally but do not act on."</i><br /><br />That is somewhat ambiguous. You either mean to say that most people occasionally experience the impulse to murder someone, or that most people occasionally experience the impulse to mass murder. Which is it? <br /><br />If it is the first, then that is categorically different from cases like Cheng's. I recently experienced the impulse to beat to death the man who poisoned my dog Shao Bai, but naturally I had more than enough sense to restrain myself. Cheng experiencing an impulse to butcher a bunch of random strangers on an MRT train is a completely different thing. It seems to me disingenuous to argue that they are part of the same statistical "iceberg". <br /><br />If you meant the second one, then I don't for a moment believe that is true except for a handful of sociopaths.Mike Faganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08745281285031316740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-37522591595207039622014-06-01T14:27:23.569+08:002014-06-01T14:27:23.569+08:00"Guns are the real issue causing spree-killin...<i>"Guns are the real issue causing spree-killings in the US..."</i><br /><br />If Jeff Sparrow in that Counterpunch article is correct that such killings are characteristic of the past 30 years or so, then your claim cannot stand; if guns are the "cause" of spree-killings, why is it that there weren't such spree-killings in earlier times despite the widespread availability of guns?<br />Mike Faganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08745281285031316740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-70886794373959857082014-05-31T13:57:21.759+08:002014-05-31T13:57:21.759+08:00Two points Re the statistics:
Are counting thimg...Two points Re the statistics: <br />Are counting thimgs like bars being set on fire so a large number of people die?(i remember that happening in Taiwan)<br /><br />You say Taiwan should have at least "a couple more", but I think that with a population of 23 million "a couple" is not statistically significant. (i haven't studied statistics deeply so i could be wrong) <br /><br />Sorry about the caps, im using a pad instead of a keyboard and it is a pita to tpe this way.Readinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-90747751952610939842014-05-29T17:06:46.389+08:002014-05-29T17:06:46.389+08:00Ineptitude. Socially we are expected to conform to...Ineptitude. Socially we are expected to conform to demands placed on us by our peers etc. etc.. When we fail to live up to those expectations, people are shunned by society and made to feel as outcasts. Social misfits internalize their inadequacies and become hostile to the authority figures, peers, or those who place the demands on their ability to conform or live up to those expectations. Given the right individual under misguided circumstances, and you have a chemistry for disaster.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-90917227964362624672014-05-28T23:29:56.281+08:002014-05-28T23:29:56.281+08:00Part of the problem could be the attention heaped ...Part of the problem could be the attention heaped on the murderers by the media. These people either grave attention, or inspire copycats who do. <br /><br />Unfortunately there is money to be earned by making this into a media circus, so as a result the warnings from psychiatrists are ignored.<br /><br />Charlie Brooker did a very interesting segment on this:<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4<br /><br />Obviously it's not practical (and not really desirable, either) to ignore these events completely, but perhaps some measures could be taken. E.g. I see no need to ever refer to the murderer by name.StefanMuchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13041616398172997165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-44354508271288869002014-05-28T21:59:20.129+08:002014-05-28T21:59:20.129+08:00@Michael - Hmm . . it's possible to consider s...@Michael - Hmm . . it's possible to consider spree-killings as being in a class by themselves (in which case, why argue that their cause is something generally present in society?). A second approach is to consider them as merely the statistical tip of murders as a whole, and those as being the tip of the iceberg of murderous impulses that most people experience occasionally but do not act on. <br /><br />My own personal experiences (an acquaintance was murdered by her boyfriend, like most murderers he did it on pure angry impulse, and pleaded guilty) and the cases I read when I studied law, have made me a firm believer in the second proposition, although obviously you have to take account for the invention of a kind of ritual surrounding spree-killings over the last couple of decades. <br /><br />https://www.utexas.edu/features/2005/murder/index.html<br /><br />http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/vfluc.txt<br /><br />http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/17/graph-of-the-day-perhaps-mass-shootings-arent-becoming-more-common/Gilman Grundyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06607416440240634159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-10499496451240937872014-05-28T10:07:50.448+08:002014-05-28T10:07:50.448+08:00But rage killings like these recent ones are a mod...<b> But rage killings like these recent ones are a modern event.</b><br /><br />No they're not. It's just the modern version of "running amok".blobOfNeuronsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-70790642699990453912014-05-28T06:57:49.077+08:002014-05-28T06:57:49.077+08:0000 million. Estimating because I'm lazy...for ...<b>00 million. Estimating because I'm lazy...for every 14 mass killings in America there should be only 1 in Taiwan. How far off is that?</b><br /><br />If that is true, then Taiwan should have at least a couple more, since the US has had 70 in the last few decades.<br /><br />MichaelMichael Turtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17974403961870976346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-62425527975920225512014-05-28T06:46:58.441+08:002014-05-28T06:46:58.441+08:00We might also reflect that, at a time when the fre...<b>We might also reflect that, at a time when the free market encompasses most of the world, murder rates are falling throughout the world and have been for years.</b><br /><br />True, US murder rates are at 1960s levels. But rage killings like these recent ones are a modern event. The rest of your comment has nothing to do with rage killings, of course. A pretty typical FOARP comment, actually. <br /><br />Michael Turtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17974403961870976346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-39985812313698876792014-05-28T04:05:32.743+08:002014-05-28T04:05:32.743+08:00Taiwan has million people. America has 300 millio...Taiwan has million people. America has 300 million. Estimating because I'm lazy...for every 14 mass killings in America there should be only 1 in Taiwan. How far off is that?<br /><br />The suggested reasons are interesting in that they all seem to be based on the idea that increased freedom and greater responsibility for oneself leads to increased violence.<br /><br />Did America have a lot more mass killings back before the New Deal? Were the Soviet Union and Communist China relatively free of mass killings?<br /><br />The best explanation I've ever heard for mass killings and a lot of other modern psychological problems is that people have too much free time to worry about small things instead of being focused on supporting themselves and making a better life. I'm not saying I want to go back to the old days, but I do suspect that while a lot of psychological problems used to go untreated, a lot also never became an issue because people were to busy working during the day to have issues and were too tired at night to lay awake thinking about issues.<br />Readinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-24898182676263442292014-05-27T22:28:57.345+08:002014-05-27T22:28:57.345+08:00Guns are the real issue causing spree-killings in ...Guns are the real issue causing spree-killings in the US, not nebulous terms like "neoliberalism". <br /><br />We might also reflect that, at a time when the free market encompasses most of the world, murder rates are falling throughout the world and have been for years. They do, however, remain stubbornly high in countries like Venezuela (a "socialist" country where every year more people are murdered than in the EU and the USA combined).Gilman Grundyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06607416440240634159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-45935568694526143362014-05-27T21:31:57.605+08:002014-05-27T21:31:57.605+08:00Haha. I dunno. There's a lot of things....Haha. I dunno. There's a lot of things....Michael Turtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17974403961870976346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-59879948703845278742014-05-27T21:27:12.390+08:002014-05-27T21:27:12.390+08:00As much as you hit the nail on the head in most of...As much as you hit the nail on the head in most of your articles, you missed a key point on this one....<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_psychotropic_medications" rel="nofollow">This</a> is why we have so much trouble with youths in America. <br /><br />I'll bet the subway slicer was medicated....just sayin'Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com