The Criminal Mind

Ahnimus

soulsinging wrote:

ah, so you ARE a psychopath? i always suspected you lacked any capacity for empathy.

I have empathy for both the cat and the child slaughtering it.

farfromglorified

Ahnimus wrote:

I have empathy for both the cat and the child slaughtering it.

What's the difference?

soulsinging

Ahnimus wrote:

It's certainly not what I expected.

cos guess what? im a reasonable guy. i just happen to disagree with your policy suggestions becos i recognize that they are utterly impracticable.

Ahnimus

farfromglorified wrote:

What's the difference?

One is a slaughtered cat and the other is a boy that needs help.

farfromglorified

Ahnimus wrote:

One is a slaughtered cat and the other is a boy that needs help.

Needs help to do what?

soulsinging

Ahnimus wrote:

I have empathy for both the cat and the child slaughtering it.

im sure you do, seeing as that child is you.

so let me ask, do you truly feel empathy, or do you just intellectually understand the concept and learn to fake it becos you know they will lock you up again if you dont?

Ahnimus

soulsinging wrote:

cos guess what? im a reasonable guy. i just happen to disagree with your policy suggestions becos i recognize that they are utterly impracticable.

I would suggest that's because you don't understand them.

Ahnimus

soulsinging wrote:

im sure you do, seeing as that child is you.

so let me ask, do you truly feel empathy, or do you just intellectually understand the concept and learn to fake it becos you know they will lock you up again if you dont?

Gee, your real empathetic.

Ahnimus

farfromglorified wrote:

Needs help to do what?

To get better, I thought that would be obvious.

farfromglorified

Ahnimus wrote:

To get better, I thought that would be obvious.

To "get better" at what?

soulsinging

Ahnimus wrote:

I would suggest that's because you don't understand them.

i perfectly understand the premise of your argument, but it is impossible to put into practice. even if we did brain scans of every child annually we could not tell who was dangerous. but that's moot becos we'd never have the resources to do such scans. and we'd never be able to force a child into treatment or therapy based upon it... that would carry a worse stigma than the current system you bemoan so much. instead of labelling a kid a psycho for torturing a cat, we'd label him a psycho becos a brain scan makes it look like he might think about torturing a cat. plus the scan would be dependent on his mental state at the time of study. the kid would likely not understand why he's forced into treatment and wrong becos there would be no connection to any wrong actions. it's why i think it's ridiculous how much we prescribe add. we'd have millions of psycho kids on lockdown for no reason. psych wards would be overflowing and we'd be worse off than before.

hippiemom

Ahnimus wrote:

We are active members of our environments. So if we understand how the criminal mind develops, we can actively prevent it from happening. So with that knowledge we can change the way things are. Without that knowledge, we can't do anything of the sort. Either way, we are subjects of our environment. T he knowledge is the key.

I doubt that the sort of people who sit around thinking about how to not create psychopaths are the ones raising psychopaths. As of now, we have no way to ensure that every child is raised in a reasonably well-functioning home, and I'm not at all sure that we ever will. Knowledge is wonderful, but we're going to have psychopaths with us for a long time. Parents who torture their children are not reading the latest literature on how to raise healthy kids.

Ahnimus

soulsinging wrote:

i perfectly understand the premise of your argument, but it is impossible to put into practice. even if we did brain scans of every child annually we could not tell who was dangerous. but that's moot becos we'd never have the resources to do such scans. and we'd never be able to force a child into treatment or therapy based upon it... that would carry a worse stigma than the current system you bemoan so much. instead of labelling a kid a psycho for torturing a cat, we'd label him a psycho becos a brain scan makes it look like he might think about torturing a cat. plus the scan would be dependent on his mental state at the time of study. the kid would likely not understand why he's forced into treatment and wrong becos there would be no connection to any wrong actions. it's why i think it's ridiculous how much we prescribe add. we'd have millions of psycho kids on lockdown for no reason. psych wards would be overflowing and we'd be worse off than before.

You don't need to examine every child. But when a child tortures an animal, it's indicative of mental problems and that the current system isn't working.

miller8966

Ahnimus wrote:

You don't need to examine every child. But when a child tortures an animal, it's indicative of mental problems and that the current system isn't working.

Its not the systems fault for every little fuck up.

Ahnimus

hippiemom wrote:

I doubt that the sort of people who sit around thinking about how to not create psychopaths are the ones raising psychopaths. As of now, we have no way to ensure that every child is raised in a reasonably well-functioning home, and I'm not at all sure that we ever will. Knowledge is wonderful, but we're going to have psychopaths with us for a long time. Parents who torture their children are not reading the latest literature on how to raise healthy kids.

No shit, but what are you doing as a parent? Are you taking the responsibility to understand them? Or are you just repeating the process?

I'm not asking everyone in the world to change anything. I'm ask you the people of this board to do something right. Maybe that's why you feel like you need to defend yourselves.

soulsinging

Ahnimus wrote:

Gee, your real empathetic.

consider it therapy. ive suspected this for a long time and maybe il deal with you differently from now on. but ive noticed this block about you. you cant comprehend the experience of others, only your own, which you inevitably feel is normal. no thought anyone has is valid or reasonable unless it jives with what you consider valid and reasonable. your only insight into the behavior of others comes from textbooks, not an empathetic understanding of their motives and desires. you explain your psychoses by textbook explnations of abuse, so you assume that anyone else who acts out has to have had similar abuse. you dont seem to understand simple jokes. there are a multitude of different signs of this that ive noticed.

perhaps you have changed your behaviors and i am glad to hear that. it does provide hope for reform. but im wondering if the underlying issue changes or if you simply learn to adapt to more acceptable behaviors. i get the sense it's more the latter and if that be the case, maybe ill try harder not to provoke you.

farfromglorified

Ahnimus wrote:

I'm ask you the people of this board to do something right.

If you really understood your own position, you'd understand that there is no "right" in your world. Furthermore, asking us to do something would be pretty silly. You'd be better off using a cattle prod.

Examine your own logic, and you'll see why you feel so helpless.

Ahnimus

miller8966 wrote:

Its not the systems fault for every little fuck up.

Oh no? Who would you blame? Who would you point the finger at to ease your concsious?

Ahnimus

soulsinging wrote:

consider it therapy. ive suspected this for a long time and maybe il deal with you differently from now on. but ive noticed this block about you. you cant comprehend the experience of others, only your own, which you inevitably feel is normal. no thought anyone has is valid or reasonable unless it jives with what you consider valid and reasonable. your only insight into the behavior of others comes from textbooks, not an empathetic understanding of their motives and desires. you explain your psychoses by textbook explnations of abuse, so you assume that anyone else who acts out has to have had similar abuse. you dont seem to understand simple jokes. there are a multitude of different signs of this that ive noticed.

perhaps you have changed your behaviors and i am glad to hear that. it does provide hope for reform. but im wondering if the underlying issue changes or if you simply learn to adapt to more acceptable behaviors. i get the sense it's more the latter and if that be the case, maybe ill try harder not to provoke you.

Dude, don't try to analyze me. You are failing miserably.

rebornFixer

Ahnimus wrote:

You don't need to examine every child. But when a child tortures an animal, it's indicative of mental problems and that the current system isn't working.

Does the system need work? Absolutely it does. We need more programs to de-stigmatize mental illnesses like depression and ADHD. We need more funding to pay for proper treatment and assessments ... We need to make sure our services get to more of the people who need them. We need funds to research new treatments for conditions like psychopathy.
But is mental illness ever going to be eradicated? Never. You cannot measure the efficacy of a system by the yes-no existence of a phenomenon. You can look at numbers, for sure. The percentage of people who don't get help for a mental illness needs to decrease. But like hippiemom suggested, you could have the best services possible ... And many people still wouldn't access them. That's where some element of choice or free will comes in.