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People throughout history have killed, seemingly casually. It's human nature. I would contend that modern society has instilled these feelings of guilt associat

by pvnick 11y ago

People throughout history have killed, seemingly casually. It's human nature. I would contend that modern society has instilled these feelings of guilt associated with murder specifically against the natural tendency of man.

clarkmoody 11y ago
The vast majority of people have never and will never murder. It's not human nature to do so.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- AdeptusAquinas 11y ago
  The book Guns, germs and steel retorts that fit the majority of human history (I.e the last hundred thousand years or so) most human encounters with other humans who were not family resulted in death for one party or another. Still the case in some isolated areas. Only the growth of societies really changed that default inclination, out of necessity.
  - copperx 11y ago
    That seems awfully murderous. Not even animals of the same race face that fate.
    - chaostheory 11y ago
      That's not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War That's just one example and it isn't exclusive to primates.
  - nosuchthing 11y ago
    Absence of community, scarcity of resources, and a life of fear might have a significant influence on aggressive behavior in those circumstances.
  - maaku 11y ago
    There's a book called "on killing" that you should read.
    - barry-cotter 11y ago
      The book is based on research that was flat made up by S.L.A. Marshall. There is no evidence he ever collected the data he used to spread that myth. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Dave Grossman Quote From Wikipedia The book is based on SLA Marshall's studies from World War II, which proposed that contrary to popular perception,[1] the majority of soldiers in war do not ever fire their weapons and that this is due to an innate resistance to killing. Based on Marshall's studies the military instituted training measures to break down this resistance and successfully raised soldiers' firing rates to over ninety percent during the war in Vietnam.[2] Below quote from http://www.warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm http://www.warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marsha... Emphasis not in original This calculation assumes, however, that of all the questions Marshall might ask the soldiers of a rifle company during his interviews, he would unfailingly want to know who had fired his weapon and who had not. Such a question, posed interview after interview, would have signalled that Marshall was on a particular line of inquiry, and that regardless of the other information Marshall might discover, he was devoted to investigating this facet of combat performance. John Westover, usually in attendance during Marshall's sessions with the troops, does not recall Marshall's ever asking this question. Nor does Westover recall Marshall ever talking about ratios of weapons usage in their many private conversations. Marshall's own personal correspondence leaves no hint that he was ever collecting statistics. His surviving field notebooks show no signs of statistical compilations that would have been necessary to deduce a ratio as precise as Marshall reported later in Men Against Fire. The "systematic collection of data" that made Marshall's ratio of fire so authoritative appears to have been an invention.
      - maaku 11y ago
        Marshall is not the only source of data in the book.
- pvnick 11y ago
  > The vast majority of people have never and will never murder. Like I said, modern society has instilled feelings of guilt and negative consequences with our comparatively well-developed ethical and justice systems, generally leading to situations where the risk of getting caught murdering someone outweighs the benefits of killing them (go to jail, hell, etc). But flip the risk analysis (eg, what this article is about), et voilà, no problem.
  - clarkmoody 11y ago
    > modern society Did I restrict my statement in some way when I said "vast majority"? I know citing Wikipedia is lazy, but it mentions high murder rates of 35 in 100,000 during medieval times. I know there are other forms of homicide, but I haven't spent the time to find stats. Assuming on average one murderer per victim, %0.00035 is vansishingly small. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter
    - kiiski 11y ago
      In this context, medieval times are "modern society". They already had social, religious and legal norms against killing. Also, most people lived in the countryside or small villages where they didn't have many chances for killing people anyway, so the murder rate in larger towns must be a lot higher than the overall 35 figure.
- alextgordon 11y ago
  Watch this and see if you change your mind on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPM-gJA62Rs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPM-gJA62Rs
  - clarkmoody 11y ago
    600 people killed in 30 years in battle between the featured tribes. Population of New Guinea: 11.3 million. Some of the battles are agreed upon ahead of time. Killing in battle is not usually considered murder under law, but even so, the vast majority of people do not murder. The armed militia was also high on drugs when they confronted the motorists, so their very minds (nature) were changed during the encounter.
- jdietrich 11y ago
  Two words: Stanley Milgram. Our morals aren't nearly as absolute as we like to think. 20% of the entire population of Rwanda were hacked to death with farm implements by ordinary people. 25% of the Cambodian population were butchered, starved or worked to death by a poorly-organised militia. Any of us have the capacity to kill if we have a sufficiently compelling justification. Ask any mother if she would kill to save her children. The difference between murder and self defence is mere context - the Nazis believed that they were defending themselves from a Jewish conspiracy, the Interahamwe believed they were liberating themselves from Tutsi oppression. Consider the fact that the rate of domestic homicide in the US is drastically higher in households that own a gun. A great number of Americans have killed their partner simply because the means to do so easily was readily available. Evil or insanity is not a prerequisite for murder, only means, motive and opportunity.
  - clarkmoody 11y ago
    > Two words: Stanley Milgram. In the study, he didn't ask his subjects to kill. And they didn't actually murder anyone. > Rwanda ... Cambodia ... Nazis ... Interahamwe People killing on behalf of the State is a whole other matter than what the article is talking about vis-à-vis pedestrian fatalities. The State has been the largest single driver of misery, destruction, and death in human history, and I don't disagree that mass murder has happened and is evil. But drivers ensuring the death of a struck passenger stands in stark contrast to the kill-or-be-killed nature of State violence. On this point, I would agree with your assertion about "compelling justification," which in the case of the State is the threat of violence against the killer for not doing the bidding of the State. But even in the face of multiple genocides and huge wars, including nuclear bomb blasts, the fact remains that the vast majority of humans have never and will never kill another human. > A great number of Americans ... See a sibling response for murder rates and compare to my assertion that a vast majority of people don't do it. And self-defense is not murder by the legal definition, which include premeditation.
    - fapjacks 11y ago
      While I think murder is a bit outside the in-built nature of human beings, I absolutely believe that violence in general is one of the core human behaviors. People resort to violence very often, and very quickly. Sure, there's incentive to get the other guy or girl to back down without expending the energy of physically attacking them, but I'm not limiting my definition of violence to only be physical. Psychological violence is half of the infantry's job, anyways. I also offer another[0] interesting story about this fact (that most humans will not voluntarily murder another human being). [0]: http://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-at-the-enemy-during-the-vietnam-war.htm http://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers...
- EliRivers 11y ago
  Every last one of us can kill. Second by second our minds overrule our instincts and our emotions because we're smart and we can think and we're very social animals that care about shame and what others think of us and what we've been told and the consequences of our actions, but every last one of us has a stone cold killer threaded inseparably. I am an enormous believer in good manners [1]. [1] Which I am much better at in meatspace. Damn you, anonymous internet.
SteveBash 11y ago
It's not human nature, even the etymology and history for the word "assassin"(hashish eater) says it, in most of the cases humans have needed drugs to bypass his default nature and kill another human.
jgalt212 11y ago
> People throughout history have killed, seemingly casually. It's human nature. Putting aside the statement's low plausibility of truth, it is certainly the worst thing I've read in quite some time.

by pvnick 11y ago

clarkmoody 11y ago

The vast majority of people have never and will never murder. It's not human nature to do so.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
AdeptusAquinas 11y ago
The book Guns, germs and steel retorts that fit the majority of human history (I.e the last hundred thousand years or so) most human encounters with other humans who were not family resulted in death for one party or another. Still the case in some isolated areas. Only the growth of societies really changed that default inclination, out of necessity.
- copperx 11y ago
  That seems awfully murderous. Not even animals of the same race face that fate.
  - chaostheory 11y ago
    That's not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War That's just one example and it isn't exclusive to primates.
- nosuchthing 11y ago
  Absence of community, scarcity of resources, and a life of fear might have a significant influence on aggressive behavior in those circumstances.
- maaku 11y ago
  There's a book called "on killing" that you should read.
  - barry-cotter 11y ago
    The book is based on research that was flat made up by S.L.A. Marshall. There is no evidence he ever collected the data he used to spread that myth. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Dave Grossman Quote From Wikipedia The book is based on SLA Marshall's studies from World War II, which proposed that contrary to popular perception,[1] the majority of soldiers in war do not ever fire their weapons and that this is due to an innate resistance to killing. Based on Marshall's studies the military instituted training measures to break down this resistance and successfully raised soldiers' firing rates to over ninety percent during the war in Vietnam.[2] Below quote from http://www.warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marshallfire.htm http://www.warchronicle.com/us/combat_historians_wwii/marsha... Emphasis not in original This calculation assumes, however, that of all the questions Marshall might ask the soldiers of a rifle company during his interviews, he would unfailingly want to know who had fired his weapon and who had not. Such a question, posed interview after interview, would have signalled that Marshall was on a particular line of inquiry, and that regardless of the other information Marshall might discover, he was devoted to investigating this facet of combat performance. John Westover, usually in attendance during Marshall's sessions with the troops, does not recall Marshall's ever asking this question. Nor does Westover recall Marshall ever talking about ratios of weapons usage in their many private conversations. Marshall's own personal correspondence leaves no hint that he was ever collecting statistics. His surviving field notebooks show no signs of statistical compilations that would have been necessary to deduce a ratio as precise as Marshall reported later in Men Against Fire. The "systematic collection of data" that made Marshall's ratio of fire so authoritative appears to have been an invention.
    - maaku 11y ago
      Marshall is not the only source of data in the book.
pvnick 11y ago
> The vast majority of people have never and will never murder. Like I said, modern society has instilled feelings of guilt and negative consequences with our comparatively well-developed ethical and justice systems, generally leading to situations where the risk of getting caught murdering someone outweighs the benefits of killing them (go to jail, hell, etc). But flip the risk analysis (eg, what this article is about), et voilà, no problem.
- clarkmoody 11y ago
  > modern society Did I restrict my statement in some way when I said "vast majority"? I know citing Wikipedia is lazy, but it mentions high murder rates of 35 in 100,000 during medieval times. I know there are other forms of homicide, but I haven't spent the time to find stats. Assuming on average one murderer per victim, %0.00035 is vansishingly small. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter
  - kiiski 11y ago
    In this context, medieval times are "modern society". They already had social, religious and legal norms against killing. Also, most people lived in the countryside or small villages where they didn't have many chances for killing people anyway, so the murder rate in larger towns must be a lot higher than the overall 35 figure.
alextgordon 11y ago
Watch this and see if you change your mind on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPM-gJA62Rs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPM-gJA62Rs
- clarkmoody 11y ago
  600 people killed in 30 years in battle between the featured tribes. Population of New Guinea: 11.3 million. Some of the battles are agreed upon ahead of time. Killing in battle is not usually considered murder under law, but even so, the vast majority of people do not murder. The armed militia was also high on drugs when they confronted the motorists, so their very minds (nature) were changed during the encounter.
jdietrich 11y ago
Two words: Stanley Milgram. Our morals aren't nearly as absolute as we like to think. 20% of the entire population of Rwanda were hacked to death with farm implements by ordinary people. 25% of the Cambodian population were butchered, starved or worked to death by a poorly-organised militia. Any of us have the capacity to kill if we have a sufficiently compelling justification. Ask any mother if she would kill to save her children. The difference between murder and self defence is mere context - the Nazis believed that they were defending themselves from a Jewish conspiracy, the Interahamwe believed they were liberating themselves from Tutsi oppression. Consider the fact that the rate of domestic homicide in the US is drastically higher in households that own a gun. A great number of Americans have killed their partner simply because the means to do so easily was readily available. Evil or insanity is not a prerequisite for murder, only means, motive and opportunity.
- clarkmoody 11y ago
  > Two words: Stanley Milgram. In the study, he didn't ask his subjects to kill. And they didn't actually murder anyone. > Rwanda ... Cambodia ... Nazis ... Interahamwe People killing on behalf of the State is a whole other matter than what the article is talking about vis-à-vis pedestrian fatalities. The State has been the largest single driver of misery, destruction, and death in human history, and I don't disagree that mass murder has happened and is evil. But drivers ensuring the death of a struck passenger stands in stark contrast to the kill-or-be-killed nature of State violence. On this point, I would agree with your assertion about "compelling justification," which in the case of the State is the threat of violence against the killer for not doing the bidding of the State. But even in the face of multiple genocides and huge wars, including nuclear bomb blasts, the fact remains that the vast majority of humans have never and will never kill another human. > A great number of Americans ... See a sibling response for murder rates and compare to my assertion that a vast majority of people don't do it. And self-defense is not murder by the legal definition, which include premeditation.
  - fapjacks 11y ago
    While I think murder is a bit outside the in-built nature of human beings, I absolutely believe that violence in general is one of the core human behaviors. People resort to violence very often, and very quickly. Sure, there's incentive to get the other guy or girl to back down without expending the energy of physically attacking them, but I'm not limiting my definition of violence to only be physical. Psychological violence is half of the infantry's job, anyways. I also offer another[0] interesting story about this fact (that most humans will not voluntarily murder another human being). [0]: http://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-at-the-enemy-during-the-vietnam-war.htm http://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers...
EliRivers 11y ago
Every last one of us can kill. Second by second our minds overrule our instincts and our emotions because we're smart and we can think and we're very social animals that care about shame and what others think of us and what we've been told and the consequences of our actions, but every last one of us has a stone cold killer threaded inseparably. I am an enormous believer in good manners [1]. [1] Which I am much better at in meatspace. Damn you, anonymous internet.

SteveBash 11y ago

It's not human nature, even the etymology and history for the word "assassin"(hashish eater) says it, in most of the cases humans have needed drugs to bypass his default nature and kill another human.

jgalt212 11y ago

> People throughout history have killed, seemingly casually. It's human nature. Putting aside the statement's low plausibility of truth, it is certainly the worst thing I've read in quite some time.