> "He's SO SMART his brain is brute-forcing social methods of manipulation in order to obtain/achieve a goal/objective." This seems like wild supposition to me

> "He's SO SMART his brain is brute-forcing social methods of manipulation in order to obtain/achieve a goal/objective." This seems like wild supposition to me. We know that the child has wild mood swings and alternates between "normal" and "manipulative and violent". I don't think it's clear at all that his behavior is due to raw intelligence. To be more blunt, this seems like armchair psychology with nothing in the blog post (or the other cases referenced in this thread) to support this perspective. There needs to be substantial support if we are to believe that a child that experiences psychotically violent phases is doing so for logically sound reasons, because our current understanding of disorders such as this point in the opposite direction. > "As far as anyone becoming more isolated...Why does a person have to be social in the first place" I think you're conflating two issues. There is indeed no reason to force anyone to be social - but the reality is that even in the 21st century it is practically impossible to lead a life without social contact. Even the most ardent hermit must interact with the rest of the world at some point. The question here, in the context of the tragedy that occurred this week, is not about the child. It is about whether or not, if left alone without interference, the child will eventually pose a substantial threat to society at large. It's about the state of mental health care in this country and whether or not people like this child need to be "fixed". And when it comes to explosively violent people - particularly people who can be set off by unpredictable triggers (the child's mother, after caring for him for years still has no handle on his triggers, and there is no real reason to believe the mother is unbelievably daft) - I emphatically believe that it is correct to pathologize this behavior.