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I have seen this video before this HN post. There is a follow up video depicting our antagonist from a jail. He loses his temper and is put on mute. You can see

I have seen this video before this HN post. There is a follow up video depicting our antagonist from a jail. He loses his temper and is put on mute. You can see from his body language how distressed he is. It disturbed me greatly. This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very quickly with little self control. I can only imagine the kind of environment that helps create a person like that… It is so sad.

SamBam 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id6q1q-r-Sw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id6q1q-r-Sw The compilation starts briefly from the later jail incident. The part depicted in the article (edited) starts at 0:34.
ryandrake 5y ago
> This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very quickly with little self control. Maybe this is Captain Obvious speaking, but poor impulse control seems like the single common denominator among a whole load of social ills that consistently land people in trouble (legal, financial, social, across lots of spectrums). From crimes of opportunity/passion, to short-tempers and "blowing up" on people in public or private, to impulse shopping, to road rage, to everything you see on r/PublicFreakout, and so on. Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their upbringing, and suffer needlessly for it for the rest of their lives. EDIT: This thread took a wild turn. I guess I never considered there might be a genetic or environmental explanation. Much food for thought!
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their upbringing, and suffer needlessly for it for the rest of their lives. ...and make things worse for the rest of us; but god forbid the state do anything about it with proactive evidence-based early-interventions or treat the perpetrators of crime with compassion and understanding too - otherwise it's called being soft-on-crime or worse: "liberal".
  - whatthesmack 5y ago
    I wouldn't say that only the state is capable of helping. Most organizations that help in these situations currently in the US are private, often faith-based, and non-profit. Also to mention... to challenge preconceptions about who's behind this stuff, the current US president (who many would consider "liberal" or "leftist") made great efforts and progress toward locking up lots of people ("tough on crime"), especially minorities, in the past. The last president (who many would consider more to the right of the political spectrum) actually did a lot to reform and fix that, especially for minorities.
    - KittenInABox 5y ago
      I'd actually be really interested in what reformations could be attributed to the Trump administration when it comes to aspects of the justice system that disproportionately target minorities. I'm not very educated on the subject so I'd love some analysis available for a layman if possible. If not, a specialized analysis is fine and I'll just glean what I can glean.
      - nradov 5y ago
        It was primarily the First Step Act, which President Trump signed in 2018. It eliminated some sentencing disparities which had disproportionately targeted minorities. https://www.bop.gov/inmates/fsa/overview.jsp https://www.bop.gov/inmates/fsa/overview.jsp (I'm not taking a position on which president was better or worse on this issue.)
    - kelnos 5y ago
      I think you're giving Trump too much credit. Trump's support of the First Step Act was widely attributed to doing a favor for Kushner, and is seen as an anomaly against his broader "tough on crime" theme, which he doubled down on in the run-up to the 2020 election. (I mean, he literally tweeted "LAW & ORDER!" with no other context several times.) It's hard to take Trump seriously in the realm of criminal justice reform when considering -- for example -- his reaction to the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. And that's just one example among many. I won't claim that Biden is a saint here, but painting Trump as a criminal justice reformer is a bit absurd. Regardless, incarceration isn't really something that changes a lot based on federal-level action, as federal prisoners account for less than 10% of the prison population (the rest are incarcerated at the state level).
- tclancy 5y ago
  >Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their upbringing I think it's worse than that: they get too much shock and awe beatings/ unpredictable rage from parents who were raised the same. It's a cycle/ disease. "My parents hit me and I turned out fine" is often a revealing statement. And a defense of parents who may not deserve it but coping with that is harder.
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    I see constantly lots of parents that use physical punishment with their kids with lousy results. Violence delegitimize authority. You think your kids respect you, but they fear you. Like the subjects of a dictatorship they will be role model citizens under your eyes, and run all kind of "illegal activities" and you are not close. I know because my mom beat me. Yes, I ended up fine, DESPITE it, NOT BECAUSE of it.
  - yomly 5y ago
    My parents did hit me and I did turn out fine. They did their best with the tools and knowledge they had available to them. Would I hit my kids? Probably not, I can see some value in it, but I think ultimately your parenting style shouldn't deviate too much from their own surroundings - that is what causes more harm IMO. YMMV So what does this statement reveal about me?
    - fennecfoxen 5y ago
      Well, my guess is you're trying to defend "occasional physical punishment on rare occasions, such as when a child has done something life-endangering." What this specifically reveals is some level of naïve obliviousness to the extant patterns of violence, both physical and emotional, which abusive parents apply to their kids in practice, and the emotional harms that many children will suffer under such disciplinary regime.
      - perl4ever 5y ago
        >my guess is you're trying to defend "occasional physical punishment on rare occasions, such as when a child has done something life-endangering." I mean, you can let someone touch a hot stove, or not. Is letting them learn for themselves abusive? I believe that was how I learned that specific lesson, not by being hit when I reached. On the other hand, there are things that you can't let someone learn for themselves because they won't live through it. And what about hurting other people? Is it possible that there is an empathy circuit that doesn't necessarily get wired properly if early on, pain isn't connected to hurting others? This doesn't have to be applied by humans in all cases. You bother the cat, it slaps you. If physical punishment is unacceptable, does that mean the cat should be declawed so it can't do that?
- himinlomax 5y ago
  Why do you assume it's the upbringing? It could be any kind of brain injury, in utero or post birth, heavy metal poisoning or simply genetic. This kind of behavior does not strike me as learned but rather as a deficiency. On top of that the defendant looks rather dumb.
  - jyrkesh 5y ago
    I would assume it's the upbringing because I don't think impulse control is actually a very natural behavior. There's a reason it's called "primal rage". On the flip side, self-control, impulse control, being able to manage your emotions with a toolbox: these are skills that are learned, honed, and mastered. Sure, many people learn them through other means than from their parents, often as a survival necessity in their environments, but I don't think that e.g. the people who fly off the handle and get into a bar fight when someone's hitting on their girlfriend, are doing so because of heavy metal poisoning or genetics.
    - himinlomax 5y ago
      It's part of social functioning, and we obviously have genes for that purpose. Other social animals have comparable instincts, such as respect for dominance hierarchies among others.
      - denton-scratch 5y ago
        > and we obviously have genes for that purpose That's far from obvious. You can't just observe some trait in an organism, and conclude "that must have genetic origins".
    - navjack27 5y ago
      > self-control, impulse control, being able to manage your emotions with a toolbox: these are skills that are learned, honed, and mastered. I got news for ya bub. They aren't learned. They can be honed to a small degree. They cannot be mastered. When you have ADHD you realize this. And to your last thing. Not in all cases but in some.
- markstos 5y ago
  Studies of identical twins with different upbringing has found that outcomes are like 70% genetic and 30% environment. Anecdotally, I grew up an environment with good parents and siblings with different genetic parents. One of us had been in jail and juvy several times by age 18 due in part to impulse-control related problems. Today a diagnosis of significant ADHD might have been given. Then it was not as well understood.
  - cryptnotic 5y ago
    > Today a diagnosis of significant ADHD might have been given. The hyperactivity component of ADHD is often expressed as impulsivity, so that fits.
    - Aerroon 5y ago
      Emotional disregulation seems to be correlated with ADHD. I'm not sure if it's used as a diagnostic criteria, but people with ADHD discuss it frequently. https://www.verywellmind.com/sensitivities-and-adhd-20473 https://www.verywellmind.com/sensitivities-and-adhd-20473
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  poor impulse control This can be due to an old head injury. Head injury syndrome is a thing and one study found that upwards of 90 percent of people on Death Row had a history of head injury so severe that you could find evidence of it with an x-ray machine if there were no medical records. In other words the skull still bore the scars. So it went well beyond just a concussion.
  - jandrese 5y ago
    It's an interesting correlation. It should be remembered that people with poor impulse control are more likely to find themselves in situations where several cranial injury is likely to occur. It may even be a vicious cycle.
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      I think it's worse than that. I think some of them take illicit drugs because they hate being that way and are trying to control it in the absence of a proper diagnosis and proper intervention. And then they get vilified as "addicts" for self medicating to keep themselves chilled out. Edit: And of course there will always be the assholes with an excuse for their intentionally malicious behavior, which complicates the hell out of finding good solutions.
  - moistly 5y ago
    Can also be due to hormonal issues, which in turn may be exacerbated by gut micro biome issues.
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      I'm sure there are many factors. At one point while very sick and homeless, I was coming across like a bipolar person to some degree. I did some research and adjusted my diet to shut that down. I imagine that poverty and poor diet do all kinds of bad things to the populations that tend to be most at risk of ending up in jail in the US. I have at times fantasized about trying to do something about nutrition in the US prison system as a means of trying to break the cycle, but I'm probably never going to be in a position to do that. Even the Bible posits that feeding people is the way to promote the peace, basically. Psychological research and firsthand experience suggest that's pretty sound as an approach. Edit: See discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867
- rbanffy 5y ago
  > This thread took a wild turn. I guess I never considered there might be a genetic or environmental explanation. Much food for thought! Since nobody mentioned it, I’ll add that toxoplasmosis seems to reduce the ability to control impulses in humans. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579228/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579228/ Patients with latent toxoplasma have a higher chance to get involved in car accidents. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC117239/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC117239/
codyswann 5y ago
Only on HN could we diagnosis someone with impulse control from less than 8 minutes of video.
- sovietmudkipz 5y ago
  I tried to be careful with my observations. “It appears like…” I recognize that this incident is a microscope’s view of this young man’s life painting.

SamBam 5y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id6q1q-r-Sw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id6q1q-r-Sw The compilation starts briefly from the later jail incident. The part depicted in the article (edited) starts at 0:34.

ryandrake 5y ago

> This young man appears to be able to go from 0 to 100 very quickly with little self control. Maybe this is Captain Obvious speaking, but poor impulse control seems like the single common denominator among a whole load of social ills that consistently land people in trouble (legal, financial, social, across lots of spectrums). From crimes of opportunity/passion, to short-tempers and "blowing up" on people in public or private, to impulse shopping, to road rage, to everything you see on r/PublicFreakout, and so on. Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their upbringing, and suffer needlessly for it for the rest of their lives. EDIT: This thread took a wild turn. I guess I never considered there might be a genetic or environmental explanation. Much food for thought!

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their upbringing, and suffer needlessly for it for the rest of their lives. ...and make things worse for the rest of us; but god forbid the state do anything about it with proactive evidence-based early-interventions or treat the perpetrators of crime with compassion and understanding too - otherwise it's called being soft-on-crime or worse: "liberal".
- whatthesmack 5y ago
  I wouldn't say that only the state is capable of helping. Most organizations that help in these situations currently in the US are private, often faith-based, and non-profit. Also to mention... to challenge preconceptions about who's behind this stuff, the current US president (who many would consider "liberal" or "leftist") made great efforts and progress toward locking up lots of people ("tough on crime"), especially minorities, in the past. The last president (who many would consider more to the right of the political spectrum) actually did a lot to reform and fix that, especially for minorities.
  - KittenInABox 5y ago
    I'd actually be really interested in what reformations could be attributed to the Trump administration when it comes to aspects of the justice system that disproportionately target minorities. I'm not very educated on the subject so I'd love some analysis available for a layman if possible. If not, a specialized analysis is fine and I'll just glean what I can glean.
    - nradov 5y ago
      It was primarily the First Step Act, which President Trump signed in 2018. It eliminated some sentencing disparities which had disproportionately targeted minorities. https://www.bop.gov/inmates/fsa/overview.jsp https://www.bop.gov/inmates/fsa/overview.jsp (I'm not taking a position on which president was better or worse on this issue.)
  - kelnos 5y ago
    I think you're giving Trump too much credit. Trump's support of the First Step Act was widely attributed to doing a favor for Kushner, and is seen as an anomaly against his broader "tough on crime" theme, which he doubled down on in the run-up to the 2020 election. (I mean, he literally tweeted "LAW & ORDER!" with no other context several times.) It's hard to take Trump seriously in the realm of criminal justice reform when considering -- for example -- his reaction to the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. And that's just one example among many. I won't claim that Biden is a saint here, but painting Trump as a criminal justice reformer is a bit absurd. Regardless, incarceration isn't really something that changes a lot based on federal-level action, as federal prisoners account for less than 10% of the prison population (the rest are incarcerated at the state level).
tclancy 5y ago
>Seems that some people just entirely miss that part of their upbringing I think it's worse than that: they get too much shock and awe beatings/ unpredictable rage from parents who were raised the same. It's a cycle/ disease. "My parents hit me and I turned out fine" is often a revealing statement. And a defense of parents who may not deserve it but coping with that is harder.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  I see constantly lots of parents that use physical punishment with their kids with lousy results. Violence delegitimize authority. You think your kids respect you, but they fear you. Like the subjects of a dictatorship they will be role model citizens under your eyes, and run all kind of "illegal activities" and you are not close. I know because my mom beat me. Yes, I ended up fine, DESPITE it, NOT BECAUSE of it.
- yomly 5y ago
  My parents did hit me and I did turn out fine. They did their best with the tools and knowledge they had available to them. Would I hit my kids? Probably not, I can see some value in it, but I think ultimately your parenting style shouldn't deviate too much from their own surroundings - that is what causes more harm IMO. YMMV So what does this statement reveal about me?
  - fennecfoxen 5y ago
    Well, my guess is you're trying to defend "occasional physical punishment on rare occasions, such as when a child has done something life-endangering." What this specifically reveals is some level of naïve obliviousness to the extant patterns of violence, both physical and emotional, which abusive parents apply to their kids in practice, and the emotional harms that many children will suffer under such disciplinary regime.
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      >my guess is you're trying to defend "occasional physical punishment on rare occasions, such as when a child has done something life-endangering." I mean, you can let someone touch a hot stove, or not. Is letting them learn for themselves abusive? I believe that was how I learned that specific lesson, not by being hit when I reached. On the other hand, there are things that you can't let someone learn for themselves because they won't live through it. And what about hurting other people? Is it possible that there is an empathy circuit that doesn't necessarily get wired properly if early on, pain isn't connected to hurting others? This doesn't have to be applied by humans in all cases. You bother the cat, it slaps you. If physical punishment is unacceptable, does that mean the cat should be declawed so it can't do that?
himinlomax 5y ago
Why do you assume it's the upbringing? It could be any kind of brain injury, in utero or post birth, heavy metal poisoning or simply genetic. This kind of behavior does not strike me as learned but rather as a deficiency. On top of that the defendant looks rather dumb.
- jyrkesh 5y ago
  I would assume it's the upbringing because I don't think impulse control is actually a very natural behavior. There's a reason it's called "primal rage". On the flip side, self-control, impulse control, being able to manage your emotions with a toolbox: these are skills that are learned, honed, and mastered. Sure, many people learn them through other means than from their parents, often as a survival necessity in their environments, but I don't think that e.g. the people who fly off the handle and get into a bar fight when someone's hitting on their girlfriend, are doing so because of heavy metal poisoning or genetics.
  - himinlomax 5y ago
    It's part of social functioning, and we obviously have genes for that purpose. Other social animals have comparable instincts, such as respect for dominance hierarchies among others.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      > and we obviously have genes for that purpose That's far from obvious. You can't just observe some trait in an organism, and conclude "that must have genetic origins".
  - navjack27 5y ago
    > self-control, impulse control, being able to manage your emotions with a toolbox: these are skills that are learned, honed, and mastered. I got news for ya bub. They aren't learned. They can be honed to a small degree. They cannot be mastered. When you have ADHD you realize this. And to your last thing. Not in all cases but in some.
markstos 5y ago
Studies of identical twins with different upbringing has found that outcomes are like 70% genetic and 30% environment. Anecdotally, I grew up an environment with good parents and siblings with different genetic parents. One of us had been in jail and juvy several times by age 18 due in part to impulse-control related problems. Today a diagnosis of significant ADHD might have been given. Then it was not as well understood.
- cryptnotic 5y ago
  > Today a diagnosis of significant ADHD might have been given. The hyperactivity component of ADHD is often expressed as impulsivity, so that fits.
  - Aerroon 5y ago
    Emotional disregulation seems to be correlated with ADHD. I'm not sure if it's used as a diagnostic criteria, but people with ADHD discuss it frequently. https://www.verywellmind.com/sensitivities-and-adhd-20473 https://www.verywellmind.com/sensitivities-and-adhd-20473
DoreenMichele 5y ago
poor impulse control This can be due to an old head injury. Head injury syndrome is a thing and one study found that upwards of 90 percent of people on Death Row had a history of head injury so severe that you could find evidence of it with an x-ray machine if there were no medical records. In other words the skull still bore the scars. So it went well beyond just a concussion.
- jandrese 5y ago
  It's an interesting correlation. It should be remembered that people with poor impulse control are more likely to find themselves in situations where several cranial injury is likely to occur. It may even be a vicious cycle.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    I think it's worse than that. I think some of them take illicit drugs because they hate being that way and are trying to control it in the absence of a proper diagnosis and proper intervention. And then they get vilified as "addicts" for self medicating to keep themselves chilled out. Edit: And of course there will always be the assholes with an excuse for their intentionally malicious behavior, which complicates the hell out of finding good solutions.
- moistly 5y ago
  Can also be due to hormonal issues, which in turn may be exacerbated by gut micro biome issues.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    I'm sure there are many factors. At one point while very sick and homeless, I was coming across like a bipolar person to some degree. I did some research and adjusted my diet to shut that down. I imagine that poverty and poor diet do all kinds of bad things to the populations that tend to be most at risk of ending up in jail in the US. I have at times fantasized about trying to do something about nutrition in the US prison system as a means of trying to break the cycle, but I'm probably never going to be in a position to do that. Even the Bible posits that feeding people is the way to promote the peace, basically. Psychological research and firsthand experience suggest that's pretty sound as an approach. Edit: See discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867
rbanffy 5y ago
> This thread took a wild turn. I guess I never considered there might be a genetic or environmental explanation. Much food for thought! Since nobody mentioned it, I’ll add that toxoplasmosis seems to reduce the ability to control impulses in humans. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579228/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579228/ Patients with latent toxoplasma have a higher chance to get involved in car accidents. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC117239/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC117239/

codyswann 5y ago

Only on HN could we diagnosis someone with impulse control from less than 8 minutes of video.

sovietmudkipz 5y ago
I tried to be careful with my observations. “It appears like…” I recognize that this incident is a microscope’s view of this young man’s life painting.