Fucking Guns

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  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    For example, there's this from 2014 which shows a strong correlation between female violence and testosterone, but not male violence.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    Then there's this (pdf) overview from 2017 which states in its conclusion
    In general, there is a weak and inconsistent positive relationship between baseline testosterone concentrations and various indices of human aggression. More robust is the finding that testosterone concentrations change rapidly in the context of human competition—and that such changes in testosterone concentrations positively predict ongoing and/or future human aggression.

    So, baldly stating that testosterone is responsible for male violence is just bad science. Things are, as usual, far more nuanced than that. Do keep up.
  • And now we have an 11-year-old boy shooting his grandmother and then turning the gun on himself because he didn't want to clean his room when asked.

    Unasked, of course, is how he got access to his grandfather's gun in the first place. But this is Arizona, remember, where access to guns is as sacred as a baby's access to its mother's milk.
  • Doc Tor, your studies are saying that larger than average amounts of testosterone in some men don't make those men more likely to be violent than other men. I never said it did. I said that men are more likely to be violent than women because they have much more testosterone in their bodies than women do. That's different.

    Why else do you suppose little boys up through adult men are so much more likely to get in fights, want to play contact sports, want to join the military, and commit more violent crimes, then? What's your theory? I can't buy that from age three they're just feeling more entitled than the girls.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    Twilight wrote: »
    I said that men are more likely to be violent than women because they have much more testosterone in their bodies than women do. That's different.
    And you simply restating a canard doesn't make it any more correct than the first time you did it.
    Why else do you suppose little boys up through adult men are so much more likely to get in fights, want to play contact sports, want to join the military, and commit more violent crimes, then? What's your theory? I can't buy that from age three they're just feeling more entitled than the girls.

    If you want to open a Purg thread on this topic, you know the way.

  • I actually thought Stonespring had opened the topic here with his theory that white men committed the most murders because they felt entitled. Nevermind.
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    Ah, sexism. So deeply rooted that most people have it as irrefutable assumptions about reality.
  • Hormones and their effects are real. Next you'll be saying it's sexist to say menopausal women often have hot flashes. Watch toddlers play and tell me there's no difference between girls and boys. Testosterone is not a bad thing, without it men wouldn't have the big muscles to do the work that many of them do, we probably wouldn't have as effective of an army or police force or fire brigade. There's just a downside, just as there is for women and their hormones.

    Of course my post is sexist but Stonespring's wasn't racist. Umhmm. Where are his scientific links?
  • Twilight wrote: »
    Watch toddlers play and tell me there's no difference between girls and boys.

    Okay [ Youtube ]. Not scholarly research, but a useful way of questioning the assumption (which seems pretty far removed from the premise of this thread) that toddlers are not already socialized in a lot of ways.
  • I've watched toddlers play and, yes, there is a huge difference between how girls and boys are treated. I once was at a lunch counter next to parents who let their boy climb the furniture (and bump me) through the whole meal but stopped the girl every time she even started to move from her seat.
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    Twilight wrote: »
    Hormones and their effects are real.

    Crœsos and Soror Magna dunked on the idea first, but I still am rather frustrated with the persistently oversimplified notion about the function of hormones or how they have been used to assert unnecessarily sexist definitions of behaviour.

    Look at it this way: isn't it lovely to consider that human males (even caucasian ones) don't have to be fundamentally illogical rageholics? Wouldn't you like to think that? Or is there some fundamental reason to cling to the bias of violent males with the excuse of "hormones"?
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    Then there's this (pdf) overview from 2017 which states in its conclusion
    In general, there is a weak and inconsistent positive relationship between baseline testosterone concentrations and various indices of human aggression. More robust is the finding that testosterone concentrations change rapidly in the context of human competition—and that such changes in testosterone concentrations positively predict ongoing and/or future human aggression.

    So, baldly stating that testosterone is responsible for male violence is just bad science. Things are, as usual, far more nuanced than that. Do keep up.
    Haven't read the whole thing yet. But the conclusion doesn't say that testosterone isn't responsible, but only that baseline testosterone has a weak link. Yes, it is likely more nuanced than testorone makes people violent.
    From your linked paper:
    growing body of neuroimaging data provide
    support for the idea that testosterone may influence threat-related neural processes
    Men hurt women more that women hurt men. Men hurt men more than women hurt men. Men hurt women more than women hurt women. See a pattern?
    Testosterone does not cause violent behaviour, but it appears to abet it. So, whilst it is possible twilight is overstating her case, it isn't as if she is talking completely out her arse. On that anyway
  • This is old, but provides a nice synopsis.
  • If testosterone affects the threat response, then one could hypothesize that higher levels of testosterone are what makes men so easily frightened. Men are more prone to violence because their hormones make them big 'fraidy cats. Strong men can handle the emotions engendered by their hormones, but weak, frightened men lash out violently over the tiniest thing.






  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Testosterone does not cause violent behaviour, but it appears to abet it. So, whilst it is possible twilight is overstating her case, it isn't as if she is talking completely out her arse. On that anyway

    Overstating - stating there is a causal link between testosterone and violence - is wrong. It's more strongly linked to risk-taking, for one thing, and there are complex feedback loops between risk and reward and aggression and dominance.

    If a man with a gun is likely to have more testosterone after he fires it than before, it's not really the hormones, is it?
  • I thought that there are also connections with status, so that in fact, a lower ranking male would not be aggressive, but would shore up his own position (subordinate).
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Testosterone does not cause violent behaviour, but it appears to abet it. So, whilst it is possible twilight is overstating her case, it isn't as if she is talking completely out her arse. On that anyway

    Overstating - stating there is a causal link between testosterone and violence - is wrong. It's more strongly linked to risk-taking, for one thing, and there are complex feedback loops between risk and reward and aggression and dominance.

    If a man with a gun is likely to have more testosterone after he fires it than before, it's not really the hormones, is it?
    If it were only after then you would ha e a point. But it is also before.

  • I thought that there are also connections with status, so that in fact, a lower ranking male would not be aggressive, but would shore up his own position (subordinate).
    That is what I understand as well. The more dominant person will respond with aggression and the less with appeasement.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    How can something be cheap and also cost a lot of dollars? Those are opposites. FFS.

    Yeah, I eventually saw my mistake Mousethief. I meant the video I linked above of 5 minutes of Homer Simpson saying 'doh' to mean that was what I was doing when I saw the mistake you highlighted.
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Men hurt women more that women hurt men. Men hurt men more than women hurt men. Men hurt women more than women hurt women. See a pattern?
    Maybe. If using this sort of logic is a horrific simplification when considering skin colour as a factor in criminality, but apparently just fine to beg the question with gender, the pattern might be "your bias".

    What I and my distinguished sphincter-like colleagues are suggesting is that perhaps there are more fundamental root causes than the societally-assumed simplifications. My suspicion, albeit not yet provable, is that male-dominated patterns of violence in our society is essentially fear-based. Just like the problems of guns itself. Violent people are cowards, and gun advocates more so. It's a horrible fractal realization when you see how what many fear most is being seen as being afraid.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    If a man with a gun is likely to have more testosterone after he fires it than before, it's not really the hormones, is it?
    If it were only after then you would ha e a point. But it is also before.

    And the science is ambiguous about both that and whether it's a cause at all.

    But sure, the poor men can't help it, because it's their hormones. Even if it was a reason, it's still not an excuse.
  • The points about fear seem valid to me, but also humiliation, maybe. There is a thesis that Trump attracts white men who feel humiliated, over loss of status. No idea how valid this is, or how hormones fit in. You can enlarge this, to argue that fascism has humiliation as one foundation.
  • The issue is not excusing people. I don't believe anybody here has said "oh the poor dears they can't help it give them a break." The issue is finding causes of things so one can uproot them.
  • Exactly.
  • Here is a study talking about how hormones affect behaviour, even in the absence of an actual threat.
    RooK wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Men hurt women more that women hurt men. Men hurt men more than women hurt men. Men hurt women more than women hurt women. See a pattern?
    Maybe. If using this sort of logic is a horrific simplification when considering skin colour as a factor in criminality, but apparently just fine to beg the question with gender, the pattern might be "your bias".
    Except colour doesn't inherently affect behaviour and hormones do.
    What I and my distinguished sphincter-like colleagues are suggesting is that perhaps there are more fundamental root causes than the societally-assumed simplifications.
    And I agree.
    My suspicion, albeit not yet provable, is that male-dominated patterns of violence in our society is essentially fear-based. Just like the problems of guns itself. Violent people are cowards, and gun advocates more so.
    It's a horrible fractal realization when you see how what many fear most is being seen as being afraid.
    But that is as simplistic and fraught as testosterone make you do bad things.
    The rat study I linked indicates that stress is a prime mover in violence. Stress has many causes and though fear is a common cause, it isn't the only one. Humans act towards mental challenges as they do towards physical. This indicates that some of the causes of behaviour are more instinctual than rational.
    This is not to say that society, culture and other external factors do not shape our behaviours, they obviously do.
    Back to the rat study, the presence of stress hormones, even in the absence of any physical cause, results in attacks.
    The, to me, obvious reality is that our behaviours are a mix of innate and environmental. Dismissing the innate makes altering the environmental problematic.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    The issue is not excusing people. I don't believe anybody here has said "oh the poor dears they can't help it give them a break." The issue is finding causes of things so one can uproot them.
    I don't get that as the base cause of Doc Tor's complaint. I might be wrong, but I see it as more a Women are as inherently violent as men, but society shapes us differently so it isn't apparent.
  • Oh look, another mass shooting.

    Now is not the time...
    Gun control won't stop this...

    Rinse and repeat.

    :rage:
  • Oh look, another mass shooting.

    Now is not the time...
    Gun control won't stop this...

    Rinse and repeat.

    :rage:

    Bloody Hell.

    That's what I was going to say.
  • It's a human sacrifice. Required. The gods need it to keep smiling in their shining city on a hill. And pornography. They need that too. Because it is pornography. And your thoughts and prayers. Those too please.
  • Ah shit.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    I don't get that as the base cause of Doc Tor's complaint. I might be wrong, but I see it as more a Women are as inherently violent as men, but society shapes us differently so it isn't apparent.

    There is new data showing that relationship violence is more equally distributed than we once thought. We overlook it partly because a woman slapping a man isn't generally going to cause the same level of damage as a man punching a woman. If women are potentially just as violent as men, being generally more physically vulnerable may mean they have to be more discerning in when to use violence.

    (Funny story: I showed up at work one day with a swollen eye caused by a blocked tear duct. Nobody said anything about it, but when I explained, one of my (female) student staff said, "Oh, I thought you were in a bar fight." Bar fight? Moi?!)

  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    I don't get that as the base cause of Doc Tor's complaint. I might be wrong, but I see it as more a Women are as inherently violent as men, but society shapes us differently so it isn't apparent.

    There is new data showing that relationship violence is more equally distributed than we once thought. We overlook it partly because a woman slapping a man isn't generally going to cause the same level of damage as a man punching a woman. If women are potentially just as violent as men, being generally more physically vulnerable may mean they have to be more discerning in when to use violence.

    (Funny story: I showed up at work one day with a swollen eye caused by a blocked tear duct. Nobody said anything about it, but when I explained, one of my (female) student staff said, "Oh, I thought you were in a bar fight." Bar fight? Moi?!)
    I’m going to be close to the last person to claim women cannot be violent, angry or aggressive, I’ve only to look a very short distance to find a contrary example.
    And a more equal distribution I accept. I’m a little hesitant to believe a completely equal one, however. Culture shapes behaviour, ‘tis true. But biology also shapes culture. To me, that isn’t the argument. To me, the discussion is in how much each contributes.
    But hell, I’m up for the experiment. Let’s equalise everything for a generation or two and then launch a study.
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Let’s equalise everything for a generation or two and then launch a study.
    I like that idea a lot.

    Regarding degrees of sexist differentiation is one of the most pernicious unquestioned assumptions in my workplace. The difference of mental capabilities of human males and females for most things is close to the realm of experimental error (~5%), so there is something systemically wrong with an outcome that exhibits much more drastic correlation with gender. 10% female engineers in our office demographic screams that we're missing out on a lot of potential talent.

    By the same rubric, it seems very plausible that the very same assumption about gendered violence gets metabolized by society as assumptions that fester into expectations about violent male behaviour. Maybe we could make some real headway to blossoms of violence if we found some way to erode those assumptions and expectations. Perhaps @lilbuddha's experiment is saying the same thing.
  • [quote="RooK;c-85431. Maybe we could make some real headway to blossoms of violence if we found some way to erode those assumptions and expectations.[/quote]

    My baby boomer generation was all over that when our kids were young. In the 70's my neighbors and I were buying dolls for our boys and erector sets for our girls and eliminating guns as toys altogether. We very much believed that the gender differences were almost entirely due to nurture rather than nature and we were gob-smacked as we watched our kids sort out the toys along traditional lines. The only woman who seemed successful with her efforts had a little boy who loved his dolls and a little girl who insisted on wearing only "boys" clothes. Then both children turned out to be gay, sort of skewing our experiment. Of course our group of about thirty kids wasn't scientific but it was all enough to make us wonder if we might be wrong and nature had more to do with it than we had first thought.

    My only child was a boy and I babysat boys, all of whom expressed their anger through throwing and kicking. I was truly amazed the first time I babysat a little three year old girl who got angry at me for something (no more candy) and opened her tiny mouth to say, "I hate you and I hate your face and you will not be invited to my party!" Wow! I much preferred being kicked in the shins, but I was still admiring of her awesome verbal skills.

    That's why I think recognizing differences in hormones might be a good thing. It doesn't have to be throwing up our hands and saying, "boys will be boys." Maybe if we tried a little harder to teach our boys to "use their words," fewer of them would end up in prison. Maybe we should admit that it might be harder for them to resist the "fight or flight" response and spend a little more time on their anger issues instead of their (largely female) teachers just making a prissy face and telling them they can't come to the party.

  • "Telemachus Orfanos, 27, died alongside 11 others when a man opened fire at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, north-west of Los Angeles.
    He escaped death last year when a gunman killed 58 people in Las Vegas...

    "My son was in Las Vegas with a lot of his friends and he came home. He didn't come home last night," his mother told ABC News.

    "I don't want prayers, I don't want thoughts, I want gun control", she said."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46150847

    You escape one mass shooting and die in another.

    You poor sods on the West of the Atlantic.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    I watched the father of Cody Coffman as he sobbed on national television yesterday because his oldest son was among those killed at the Borderline bar. There is video on line. I don't have the heart to post it here.

    I sat there agonizing for him and the other family and friends of those murdered people.

    How can our legislators not have broken hearts seeing all this pain? How can they not want to stop it immediately? When there are people needing mental health care, how can we make it easier for them to be treated (and kept from buying and owning firearms?)

    I'm sick of 'thoughts and prayers' and 'this is not the time to talk about gun control'. Now is exactly the time. Years ago would have been even better.

    If a person isn't in the military or a law enforcement officer, I see absolutely no reason for any kind of semi-automatic weapon. My son-in-law was a sheriff's deputy. Even he didn't have a semi-automatic weapon.

    My dad (a cradle Republican) and I used to go hunting when I was younger. We talked about it yesterday, and we totally agree that the folks who claim they need semi-automatic guns for hunting are completely bogus. (Are they that horrible at aiming?) And, nobody where I grew up would have ever dreamt of pointing a gun, loaded or unloaded, at a human.

    All to say, my rage and sadness and this deep, deep ache just keeps getting deeper and wider, almost day by day.

  • jedijudy wrote: »
    How can our legislators not have broken hearts seeing all this pain? How can they not want to stop it immediately? When there are people needing mental health care, how can we make it easier for them to be treated (and kept from buying and owning firearms?)

    I'm pretty sure that ship sailed when legislators decided that a mass murder of six year olds was okay by them. If that wasn't going to motivate them, it seems unlikely any subsequent event will.

    It should also be noted that legislators who deflect gun control proposals by blaming "mental health" are, funnily enough (but not "ha ha" funny) usually the ones most avid about repealing the Affordable Care Act, which not only provides health insurance to those Americans who don't get it through their employer, it also mandates that health insurance must cover mental health problems.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    Crœsos, that's all true. Knowing it just makes the heartache even worse. I doubt those legislators would have done anything even if the little 6 year olds were their kids and grandkids.

    Y'all have been patient and kind when I've spilled my guts on this thread so many times, and I thank you sincerely.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    There were also...people...who decided that Sandy Hook was fake, a fraud perpetrated by the gov't. I think Alex Jones of Infowars pushed that.

    (eyeroll) Grrrrrr.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    {{{{{jedijudy}}}}}
  • (((((jedijudy)))))

    Fucking Guns.
  • Jedijudy, never have spilled guts smelled as sweet. Spill them as much as you feel able.

    There was an IS-related terror attack in central Melbourne a few days ago. The guy had an explosive device in his car that didn't work properly, and a standard kitchen
    knife. He killed one person, the first to approach him to help, by stabbing him. Two others are in hospital. To beat cops were first on the scene, along with a homeless bloke who rammed the guy a few times with a shopping trolley, and two others, one who attacked him with a rubber traffic cone, and the other with an aluminium steel chair. The guy wouldn't go down and one of the cops had to shoot him. The IS guy died in hospital from the gunshot wound. Melbourne is apparently awash with 'Trolleyman' memes, my favorite being a cartoon of a spotlight in the sky with the shape of a trolley in it. Naturally there is a gofundme page.

    O Lord hear my prayer, O lord hear my prayer. When I call answer me. O Lord hear my prayer. O Lord hear my prayer. Come and listen to me.
  • I don't believe that better mental health will eliminate mass shootings. Its a good way to argue for necessary increased funding though. Less people on the streets with untreated mental health issues is a good thing in itself. I fear that Trump is scapegoating mental illness. Nobody knows why that bloke put a bullet into over 500 people in Las Vegas last year, in a little over 10 minutes, but everyone knows how he did it..
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Re the song lyrics at the end of your previous post, Simon Toad:

    Aha! Music from the Taize' community! :)

  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I don't believe that better mental health will eliminate mass shootings.
    It won’t.
    Its a good way to argue for necessary increased funding though.
    But it isn’t. The idea of increasing the stigma on people with mental health issues in a false manner that will still be ineffective is crazy itself.
    Less people on the streets with untreated mental health issues is a good thing in itself. I fear that Trump is scapegoating mental illness. Nobody knows why that bloke put a bullet into over 500 people in Las Vegas last year, in a little over 10 minutes, but everyone knows how he did it..
    As Crœsos, already pointed out, those who use mental illness as a deflection are the most likely to also defund mental health programmes.
  • I'm not sure what you are saying constitutes a monty LB. You're probably right, but I don't see another strategy for injecting large sums of money into the sector that has worked.

    It would be interesting to draw some lessons from the story of the AIDS epidemic. The public sector response started with fear in the 1980's. How quickly did things turn to education and finding treatments?
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm not sure what you are saying constitutes a monty LB. You're probably right, but I don't see another strategy for injecting large sums of money into the sector that has worked.

    It would be interesting to draw some lessons from the story of the AIDS epidemic. The public sector response started with fear in the 1980's. How quickly did things turn to education and finding treatments?
    Because there was money in it. Big money. And education? Did you know that risky sex is in resurgence?
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    NRA yet to respond on awkward fact that good guys with guns are required to be white.
  • edited November 2018
    The gun people NRA tweeted this, telling physicians to shut up about gun deaths etc., to which much lashback backlash is available: lash back lash.

    This is a nice bloody summary.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm not sure what you are saying constitutes a monty LB. You're probably right, but I don't see another strategy for injecting large sums of money into the sector that has worked.

    It would be interesting to draw some lessons from the story of the AIDS epidemic. The public sector response started with fear in the 1980's. How quickly did things turn to education and finding treatments?
    Because there was money in it. Big money. And education? Did you know that risky sex is in resurgence?

    I saw an ad on TV in Arizona for a drug that you inject as a vaccine for HIV. You should have seen the qualifications. They started qualifying before the qualifications part of the ad had even started.
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