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We're talking about someone who suffered from very serious mental illness. And we're talking about stochastic processes. We can agree that killing people or tr

We're talking about someone who suffered from very serious mental illness. And we're talking about stochastic processes. We can agree that killing people or trying to kill people is terrible, but I'd stress the mental illness part so perhaps society will get serious about treating mental illness with seriousness. Our cities are full of mentally ill people living on the streets. Are they a ticking time bomb? was Kaczynski?

ars 3y ago
> And we're talking about stochastic processes. No we aren't, because that's not a real thing. That's just something people make up when they want to demonize someone for their words, but don't have any actual evidence that their words are causing harm. People aren't random agents of evil, that may or may not trigger. That's simply not a description of reality.
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  > People aren't random agents of evil, that may or may not trigger. That's simply not a description of reality That is not what stochastic terrorism means. Stochastic terrorism is the observation that while you can not express specifically, where and how terror will occur, you know that with prob 1, it will occur and is a consequence of people rallying and exploiting crazy people. Of course, anyone can deny that they explicitly told people to commit acts of terror, because they didn’t, and therefore they can not be held responsible for what the mentally ill did; that doesn’t mean there isn’t a cause and effect. A constant barrage of people expressing “think of the children”, or blaming minorities for the perils of society is going to slowly but surely deteriorate and rally people into supporting murder and other heinous acts by distorting their reality and allowing them to justify atrocities. Expressing that some [hero] needs to do something, nudge nudge wink wink doesn’t mean you did not cause an event, people don’t exist in vacuums, and all of our interactions provably matter.
  - PartiallyTyped 3y ago
    I really fail to see why my response is deemed inappropriate by HN standards. Apparently I have also been flagged and I can't even comment. I really don't understand what I am doing wrong and would appreciate some feedback.
Roark66 3y ago
Seriously, why do we so often see mental illness as an excuse for simple evil? As far as I know in most non-authoritarian countries if a mentally ill person commits a crime the factor that decides if they get punishment, treatment, or both is not if they are mentally ill, but if they knew what they were doing at the time was wrong. The burden of proving that is on the defense and it's not easy to do so as it should be. Someone could say, but his mental illness made him believe he has to kill those people for the good of humankind. Firstly, how do we truly know this as true? Perhaps he just loved the feeling of power it gave him so he came up with the justification. Being an intelligent man he came up with a convincing story.
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  I don’t think it’s an excuse or justification, but rather an explanation or motive. Unfortunately the brain is rather complex and can break in surprisingly many ways. One such example is the shooter who had cancer that pressed against his [iirc] amygdala. For Ted, we know that he was a subject of mkultra experiments, and that he was tortured. We know that he was deeply troubled and had communication issues. Perhaps he felt that the bombings were the only way he could garner focus on the problems he saw; but that is likely rationalisation on my end. It should also be noted that Ted lived very isolated, and that can cause severe damage to the brain. If you find yourself alone in a foreign country that you work in and no social support system or many interactions, you might experience this and see yourself changing. In Greek αιτιολογώ and δικαιολογώ exist, where the former identifies causality and uses that to reason on the events and the latter is the same as justifying. To my knowledge the former doesn’t have a translation in English.
  - SllX 3y ago
    > In Greek αιτιολογώ and δικαιολογώ exist, where the former identifies causality and uses that to reason on the events and the latter is the same as justifying. To my knowledge the former doesn’t have a translation in English. In an effort to understand your post, I ran those through the English Wiktionary which some may not know, also has foreign words. αιτιολογώ: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B1%CE%B9%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B3%CF%8E https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B1%CE%B9%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%B... δικαιολογία: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B3%CE%AF%CE%B1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B... My personal interpretation is that this like the difference between an explanation and an excuse, but perhaps someone here has a better interpretation.
jdkoeck 3y ago
He was not a terrorist because of his mental health issues, he was a terrorist because of his convictions. No excuses.
- 9991 3y ago
  Can you cite a reference for that?
  - rgrs 3y ago
    The sprectrum for mental illness is too broad that anyone can fit into it one way or another. Not all mentally ill person are movitvated as these evil few.
  - valval 3y ago
    Can you cite a reference for the morality between good and evil?
    - 9991 3y ago
      No. Good and evil are labels people attach to the emotions people feel about others' actions. They have surprisingly little predictive power on the hows and whys of behavior.
kevincrane 3y ago
> We can agree that killing people or trying to kill people is terrible, but That last word in this quote should’ve been a red flag.
Broken_Hippo 3y ago
Many, many people have severe mental illnesses and don't murder others. Mental illness is not an excuse. Most folks with mental illness simply suffer. This is the real reason we should "get serious" about treating mental illness.
- 11235813213455 3y ago
  and treating the whole society and its extreme impact on environment. Someone who's overpolluting looks absolutely crazy and irresponsible to me
yawboakye 3y ago
i really don’t know what to count as mental illness now. is it when people make decisions that aren’t consonant with expectations of a reasonable person? are stupid people mentally ill? what about religious believers who believe, for example, that muhammad ascended to heaven on horseback? coherence of thought may be a yardstick, and if so ted is as coherent and articulate as it can be. was he wrongly inspired? did he hate so much the current political organization that emasculates any single individual from achieving much? or causing a consequential national debate? did he take his anger too far? thinking about these, and having read all his material, i think we shouldn’t consign him to mental illness. it’s too convenient, it’s a worthless external judgement, and one that he vehemently rejected. ted was a sane man acting on his belief. no different than me praying every morning and going to church every sunday to thank god for how far he has brought me.
sieabahlpark 3y ago
[dead]
inferiorhuman 3y ago
Our cities are full of mentally ill people living on the streets. Are they a ticking time bomb? was Kaczynski? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65867291 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65867291 His crimes seemed to begin shortly after he was fired from the family business by his brother for posting abusive limericks to a female colleague who had dumped him after two dates. From there he retreated to the Montana wildness and to the cabin he had built by hand, without heating, plumbing or electricity. Perhaps we should watch out for socially inept STEM graduates.
- spiralx 3y ago
  Engineers are famously over-represented amongst terrorists, so probably. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t....

ars 3y ago

> And we're talking about stochastic processes. No we aren't, because that's not a real thing. That's just something people make up when they want to demonize someone for their words, but don't have any actual evidence that their words are causing harm. People aren't random agents of evil, that may or may not trigger. That's simply not a description of reality.

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
> People aren't random agents of evil, that may or may not trigger. That's simply not a description of reality That is not what stochastic terrorism means. Stochastic terrorism is the observation that while you can not express specifically, where and how terror will occur, you know that with prob 1, it will occur and is a consequence of people rallying and exploiting crazy people. Of course, anyone can deny that they explicitly told people to commit acts of terror, because they didn’t, and therefore they can not be held responsible for what the mentally ill did; that doesn’t mean there isn’t a cause and effect. A constant barrage of people expressing “think of the children”, or blaming minorities for the perils of society is going to slowly but surely deteriorate and rally people into supporting murder and other heinous acts by distorting their reality and allowing them to justify atrocities. Expressing that some [hero] needs to do something, nudge nudge wink wink doesn’t mean you did not cause an event, people don’t exist in vacuums, and all of our interactions provably matter.
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  I really fail to see why my response is deemed inappropriate by HN standards. Apparently I have also been flagged and I can't even comment. I really don't understand what I am doing wrong and would appreciate some feedback.

Roark66 3y ago

Seriously, why do we so often see mental illness as an excuse for simple evil? As far as I know in most non-authoritarian countries if a mentally ill person commits a crime the factor that decides if they get punishment, treatment, or both is not if they are mentally ill, but if they knew what they were doing at the time was wrong. The burden of proving that is on the defense and it's not easy to do so as it should be. Someone could say, but his mental illness made him believe he has to kill those people for the good of humankind. Firstly, how do we truly know this as true? Perhaps he just loved the feeling of power it gave him so he came up with the justification. Being an intelligent man he came up with a convincing story.

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
I don’t think it’s an excuse or justification, but rather an explanation or motive. Unfortunately the brain is rather complex and can break in surprisingly many ways. One such example is the shooter who had cancer that pressed against his [iirc] amygdala. For Ted, we know that he was a subject of mkultra experiments, and that he was tortured. We know that he was deeply troubled and had communication issues. Perhaps he felt that the bombings were the only way he could garner focus on the problems he saw; but that is likely rationalisation on my end. It should also be noted that Ted lived very isolated, and that can cause severe damage to the brain. If you find yourself alone in a foreign country that you work in and no social support system or many interactions, you might experience this and see yourself changing. In Greek αιτιολογώ and δικαιολογώ exist, where the former identifies causality and uses that to reason on the events and the latter is the same as justifying. To my knowledge the former doesn’t have a translation in English.
- SllX 3y ago
  > In Greek αιτιολογώ and δικαιολογώ exist, where the former identifies causality and uses that to reason on the events and the latter is the same as justifying. To my knowledge the former doesn’t have a translation in English. In an effort to understand your post, I ran those through the English Wiktionary which some may not know, also has foreign words. αιτιολογώ: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B1%CE%B9%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B3%CF%8E https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B1%CE%B9%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%B... δικαιολογία: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B3%CE%AF%CE%B1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B... My personal interpretation is that this like the difference between an explanation and an excuse, but perhaps someone here has a better interpretation.

jdkoeck 3y ago

He was not a terrorist because of his mental health issues, he was a terrorist because of his convictions. No excuses.

9991 3y ago
Can you cite a reference for that?
- rgrs 3y ago
  The sprectrum for mental illness is too broad that anyone can fit into it one way or another. Not all mentally ill person are movitvated as these evil few.
- valval 3y ago
  Can you cite a reference for the morality between good and evil?
  - 9991 3y ago
    No. Good and evil are labels people attach to the emotions people feel about others' actions. They have surprisingly little predictive power on the hows and whys of behavior.

kevincrane 3y ago

> We can agree that killing people or trying to kill people is terrible, but That last word in this quote should’ve been a red flag.

Broken_Hippo 3y ago

Many, many people have severe mental illnesses and don't murder others. Mental illness is not an excuse. Most folks with mental illness simply suffer. This is the real reason we should "get serious" about treating mental illness.

11235813213455 3y ago
and treating the whole society and its extreme impact on environment. Someone who's overpolluting looks absolutely crazy and irresponsible to me

yawboakye 3y ago

i really don’t know what to count as mental illness now. is it when people make decisions that aren’t consonant with expectations of a reasonable person? are stupid people mentally ill? what about religious believers who believe, for example, that muhammad ascended to heaven on horseback? coherence of thought may be a yardstick, and if so ted is as coherent and articulate as it can be. was he wrongly inspired? did he hate so much the current political organization that emasculates any single individual from achieving much? or causing a consequential national debate? did he take his anger too far? thinking about these, and having read all his material, i think we shouldn’t consign him to mental illness. it’s too convenient, it’s a worthless external judgement, and one that he vehemently rejected. ted was a sane man acting on his belief. no different than me praying every morning and going to church every sunday to thank god for how far he has brought me.

sieabahlpark 3y ago

[dead]

inferiorhuman 3y ago

Our cities are full of mentally ill people living on the streets. Are they a ticking time bomb? was Kaczynski? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65867291 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65867291 His crimes seemed to begin shortly after he was fired from the family business by his brother for posting abusive limericks to a female colleague who had dumped him after two dates. From there he retreated to the Montana wildness and to the cabin he had built by hand, without heating, plumbing or electricity. Perhaps we should watch out for socially inept STEM graduates.

spiralx 3y ago
Engineers are famously over-represented amongst terrorists, so probably. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t....