In the News
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Elizabeth Isabelle
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An answer from a forensic psychologistJamesh wrote:This is interesting to me. I wonder what is motivating this sort of thing,
A few years ago I saw an article on television about this sort of thing, and they interviewed some kids that had killed (and yes, sometimes it has been teenage girls, too). According to the interviews I saw, basically they just want to know what it's like to kill someone.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Over the years my view on this has been more and more gravitating toward the idea that killing others, and violence in general, for other purposes than survival and competition is just deeply ingrained into the nature of Homo Sapiens.Shahrazad wrote:Eliz
Yes, and it's all about power. It makes them feel powerful to be able to take someone else's life.According to the interviews I saw, basically they just want to know what it's like to kill someone.
This has perhaps something to do with the structures of the social organizing that has engraved the need for the violent so deeply. The twisting that comes with trauma and torture of the Beast.
And yes, it's there lurking basically in everyone, not only the killer instinct but the killing drive, the pure need for blood. But the social also has established that the 'right to kill' (especially your own kind) is something done only by appointment (government, military, mob). So killing has been formalized and ritualized in all kinds of ways. This way the Violent can for most safely be transfered to the Specialists ("high-altitude bombing"). The mob's killing energy is now transferred onto the executioners, with the only purpose to keep the social structure intact (the internal violence would tear it apart otherwise). But it's not like the 'ordinary civilian' has now suddenly become peace loving, meek and kind. Or even anti-war. It's only transferred and denied rigorously - a 21st century taboo: lust after violence. An imperfect transference and over time something builds up, undeniable, unstoppable.
But it's now the 21st century and what we had as rituals and formalities is on one of its low points of history. So senseless killing by individuals is naturally on the rise as the 'social' breaks down and the transference is getting disabled.
Perhaps time for another cleansing in some other worldwar and genocide. Something has to feed the beast until one addresses the lies of the social and our delusional 'civilized' values. And aim for something better, if we can.
That article is, to be frank, total crap. The author is doing exactly what it claims others are doing. Trying to blame "other" things than anything that could affect himself for violence. Unintelligent. Mentally ill. Anything else that could cause these to be the ones in jail? Oh wait! I know! They're gonna be less good at covering their tracks and more likely to get caught! At any rate, it is certainly not true that every murderer is one of those two things. Indeed, the Columbine kids were fairly intelligent, iirc.Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:
An answer from a forensic psychologist
Well, this isn't really the case, either. Specifically the "all" and "about" power. Sure, it can make one feel powerful, but there's almost always something else to it. Otherwise every bullied kid would go about killing people.Yes, and it's all about power. It makes them feel powerful to be able to take someone else's life.
-Katy
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Dan Rowden
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It's really no great surprise that teenagers occasionally kill. What's surprising is that more of them don't. Teens are highly narcissistic. Combine that with one of more other factors and you have a ready made killing machine. Almost every teenager has murderous and/or suicidal fantasies. It's just as well that we can't read the mind of the average teen or we might well be living in constant fear!
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Dan Rowden
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Elizabeth Isabelle
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Well, it's normal for Americans
That reminds me of talking to a friend's younger sister, back when I was a college student. She was having fantasies and daydreams of cutting up people with a chainsaw.Dan Rowden wrote:It's just as well that we can't read the mind of the average teen or we might well be living in constant fear!
I told her that was normal and not to worry about it.
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Dan Rowden
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I was obviously joking, as was Sher. I just don't feel the need to always add smilies to what I say. And I have never diluted what I say on message boards out of deference to individual sensibilities (except in rare cases where mental illness might be involved). Reality is what it is - it doesn't stop being what it is for certain people.Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:I hope you said that with a tinge of humor. You don't mean to start pussy-footing around, afraid to say things that might cause others to start seeing even personal things in a broader light, are you?Dan Rowden wrote:Yeah, sorry, I forgot you have one of your own.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: Well, it's normal for Americans
It is normal, actually. If teens didn't have these sorts of fantasies you'd have to start wondering why. It's part of their development as individuals - a symbolic breaking away. It just involves a fairly high degree of narcissism and cynicism (perfectly warranted if not cogently developed). For all their faults teens quite often have an intuitive insight into how screwed up the adult human world really is. It's just that they grow out of it rather than have it develop into a more mature and rational outlook. Which is to say that the notion that the average adult is a "mature" being because they've "accepted" things and left the rebellion of youth behind is a total myth.DHodges wrote:That reminds me of talking to a friend's younger sister, back when I was a college student. She was having fantasies and daydreams of cutting up people with a chainsaw.Dan Rowden wrote:It's just as well that we can't read the mind of the average teen or we might well be living in constant fear!
I told her that was normal and not to worry about it.
There's a big difference between "mature" and "resigned".
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Aaron Mathis
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This isnt even really funny, it's just plainCreepy
I dunno, you people who liked to analyze the psychology behind phenomena might find some merit in witnessing this.
I dunno, you people who liked to analyze the psychology behind phenomena might find some merit in witnessing this.
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Elizabeth Isabelle
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Aaron Mathis
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Well, when I didnt know how it got on her face, the clown make up I think deserved a little analysis - however, I've just discovered that one of her kids painted her face, and then it just rolled from there.
If she painted her own face, or the guy with the camera did - then it would be worth thinking on.
If she painted her own face, or the guy with the camera did - then it would be worth thinking on.
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Dan Rowden
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Porn is Bad 'mkay
CNN.Com
The good samaritan? This guy thinks he hears someone being raped and rushes in to help. Turns out he was just hearing his neighbor listening to porn (and what volumes you gotta listen to provoke that from your upstairs neighbor!)
The good samaritan? This guy thinks he hears someone being raped and rushes in to help. Turns out he was just hearing his neighbor listening to porn (and what volumes you gotta listen to provoke that from your upstairs neighbor!)
-Katy
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Matt Gregory
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- Location: United States
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Matt Gregory
- Posts: 1537
- Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2005 11:40 am
- Location: United States
Re: Porn is Bad 'mkay
He could have been totally lying and really just smashed the guy's door in to get him to turn down his TV. I've wanted to do that to my downstairs neighbor plenty of times.Katy wrote:CNN.Com
The good samaritan? This guy thinks he hears someone being raped and rushes in to help. Turns out he was just hearing his neighbor listening to porn (and what volumes you gotta listen to provoke that from your upstairs neighbor!)
Re: Porn is Bad 'mkay
haha that's true too. I've wanted to do it to neighbors a few times too. But, seriously, if your porn is that loud you just might deserve it ;)Matt Gregory wrote: He could have been totally lying and really just smashed the guy's door in to get him to turn down his TV. I've wanted to do that to my downstairs neighbor plenty of times.
-Katy
This poor kid has been over feminised by his mother to a very significant extent - now seeking money for events when he was 6-7. I'd bet any money the choking was not extreme.
'Bullying builds character' claim
A NSW Education Department official told a mother that bullying "builds character" after her six-year-old son was choked by another student, a Sydney court has been told.
The boy, now 18, is suing the NSW government, claiming not enough was done to help prevent the bullying.
The boy's mother today told the NSW Supreme Court the bullying began in 1994 when her son was aged five and escalated to an episode of choking the following year.
She said she approached education official Ian Wilson at the department's Maitland office after the incident and was told her son could not be protected.
"Ian Wilson told me that bullying builds character and it was a good thing that (the boy) got bullied," she said.
"I asked him if he could provide a safe place for my son to go. He said he could not provide total safety for my son."
She said the man told her bullying could happen at other schools as well.
The woman says her son is now scared to leave the house alone and will not use public toilets.
The hearing, before Justice Carolyn Simpson, continues.
'Bullying builds character' claim
A NSW Education Department official told a mother that bullying "builds character" after her six-year-old son was choked by another student, a Sydney court has been told.
The boy, now 18, is suing the NSW government, claiming not enough was done to help prevent the bullying.
The boy's mother today told the NSW Supreme Court the bullying began in 1994 when her son was aged five and escalated to an episode of choking the following year.
She said she approached education official Ian Wilson at the department's Maitland office after the incident and was told her son could not be protected.
"Ian Wilson told me that bullying builds character and it was a good thing that (the boy) got bullied," she said.
"I asked him if he could provide a safe place for my son to go. He said he could not provide total safety for my son."
She said the man told her bullying could happen at other schools as well.
The woman says her son is now scared to leave the house alone and will not use public toilets.
The hearing, before Justice Carolyn Simpson, continues.
This articleabout projected rent increases is a sign of how far people will go to promote their own wealth.
If I was a state Premier I would be charging the Real Estate Institute, and all the media involved with whatever crime is related to public deception. As a judge I'd fine them a total of about 30-50 million.
The outcome will be that lessors will read this shit and their expectations will rise, and they'll increase rents creating a snowball effect where rents rise "just to keep up with the Jones".
Pity the whole of the NSW political system is completely infested with the bribes of property developers.
If I was a state Premier I would be charging the Real Estate Institute, and all the media involved with whatever crime is related to public deception. As a judge I'd fine them a total of about 30-50 million.
The outcome will be that lessors will read this shit and their expectations will rise, and they'll increase rents creating a snowball effect where rents rise "just to keep up with the Jones".
Pity the whole of the NSW political system is completely infested with the bribes of property developers.
Women outshine men as stars of stockmarket
Matt Wade March 2, 2007
DO WOMEN or men make better workers? Three economists at Emory University, in Atlanta, have bravely attempted shed light on that delicate question. The guinea pigs for the study - by Clifton Green, Yue Tang and Narasimhan Jegadeesh - were stock analysts who worked for investment banks and stockbrokers on Wall Street.
The job of a Wall Street stock analyst is to provide research and analysis on the performance of companies listed on the sharemarket for their clients, mostly big institutional investors.
They are well paid for their efforts - the average salary of the stock analysts in the study was more than $200,000.
What interested the researchers about these workers was not their incomes but how effectively their job performances could be measured and compared. Every stock analyst tracked a set group of companies and this allowed the researchers to compare the workload of each one. Also, a key task of stock analysts is to make regular earnings forecasts for the companies they cover. The accuracy of these forecasts gave the researchers an "important measure" of how good each analyst was. A measure of the professional reputation of stock analysts was also found.
The researchers decided these indicators - output, forecast accuracy and reputation - provided an "objective" way to compare "gender performance" and they set about poring over the work of 7900 male and female stock analysts between 1995 and 2005.
So what did they find? On the first indicator - workload - men were superior. Males were responsible for researching an average of 10 companies, compared with nine for women.
The higher workload of men might have reflected greater demands on women's time away from work. "Traditionally, women have carried a bigger share of family responsibilities and a reduction in number of firms covered may be a natural way for women to accommodate greater demands on their time away from work," said the paper, Gender and Job Performance: Evidence from Wall Street.
The type of company that women were most likely to research was also revealing. Women were most highly represented among the analysts who followed companies in consumer industries such as food, beverages and cosmetics.
The authors politely conclude that this "may be natural if these companies emphasise sales to women". But it also raises suspicions of crude gender stereotyping.
The second indicator - accuracy of forecasts - revealed a noticeable gender difference. Women's earnings forecasts for companies tended to be less accurate than men's. The discrepancy was roughly equivalent to four years of experience, the authors estimated. But on the third indicator - professional reputation - women came up trumps. The researchers measured this by the number of men and women designated "all-stars" by the respected Institutional Investor magazine and admitted to its annual "All-American Research Team". Team membership is based on thousands of institutional investor surveys. Stock analysts at many Wall Street firms can expect healthy pay rises if they make the team. Women were found to be "significantly more" likely than men to do so.
"The fact that women cover fewer stocks and are less accurate at earnings forecasts but are more likely to be designated as all-stars suggests they may perform better at non-quantifiable aspects of the job, such as client service," the researchers said.
Client service includes keeping customers abreast of industry trends and developments in individual companies, and arranging for meetings between investors and company management. Even though these attributes are hard to measure, they are highly valued by the clients of stock analysts.
Neither gender can claim a clear victory from these findings. Despite taking on bigger workloads and being more accurate forecasters, men tend to be less appreciated by their clients than women. Ouch!
But the greater likelihood for women to be ranked as all-stars raises some suspicions. Could this indicate that Wall Street's many male investment managers prefer interacting with female stock analysts, regardless of skill?
Women's earnings forecasts for companies tended to be less accurate than men's.
The reason for this is clear to me - women are not to be trusted in any way shape of form - THEY ARE SHEEP BEING LEAD BY RAMS. One has to realise that the term tended to be less accurate means about 25% accuracy.
Women do do well in stock markets because they are less radical and can follow trends better.
Matt Wade March 2, 2007
DO WOMEN or men make better workers? Three economists at Emory University, in Atlanta, have bravely attempted shed light on that delicate question. The guinea pigs for the study - by Clifton Green, Yue Tang and Narasimhan Jegadeesh - were stock analysts who worked for investment banks and stockbrokers on Wall Street.
The job of a Wall Street stock analyst is to provide research and analysis on the performance of companies listed on the sharemarket for their clients, mostly big institutional investors.
They are well paid for their efforts - the average salary of the stock analysts in the study was more than $200,000.
What interested the researchers about these workers was not their incomes but how effectively their job performances could be measured and compared. Every stock analyst tracked a set group of companies and this allowed the researchers to compare the workload of each one. Also, a key task of stock analysts is to make regular earnings forecasts for the companies they cover. The accuracy of these forecasts gave the researchers an "important measure" of how good each analyst was. A measure of the professional reputation of stock analysts was also found.
The researchers decided these indicators - output, forecast accuracy and reputation - provided an "objective" way to compare "gender performance" and they set about poring over the work of 7900 male and female stock analysts between 1995 and 2005.
So what did they find? On the first indicator - workload - men were superior. Males were responsible for researching an average of 10 companies, compared with nine for women.
The higher workload of men might have reflected greater demands on women's time away from work. "Traditionally, women have carried a bigger share of family responsibilities and a reduction in number of firms covered may be a natural way for women to accommodate greater demands on their time away from work," said the paper, Gender and Job Performance: Evidence from Wall Street.
The type of company that women were most likely to research was also revealing. Women were most highly represented among the analysts who followed companies in consumer industries such as food, beverages and cosmetics.
The authors politely conclude that this "may be natural if these companies emphasise sales to women". But it also raises suspicions of crude gender stereotyping.
The second indicator - accuracy of forecasts - revealed a noticeable gender difference. Women's earnings forecasts for companies tended to be less accurate than men's. The discrepancy was roughly equivalent to four years of experience, the authors estimated. But on the third indicator - professional reputation - women came up trumps. The researchers measured this by the number of men and women designated "all-stars" by the respected Institutional Investor magazine and admitted to its annual "All-American Research Team". Team membership is based on thousands of institutional investor surveys. Stock analysts at many Wall Street firms can expect healthy pay rises if they make the team. Women were found to be "significantly more" likely than men to do so.
"The fact that women cover fewer stocks and are less accurate at earnings forecasts but are more likely to be designated as all-stars suggests they may perform better at non-quantifiable aspects of the job, such as client service," the researchers said.
Client service includes keeping customers abreast of industry trends and developments in individual companies, and arranging for meetings between investors and company management. Even though these attributes are hard to measure, they are highly valued by the clients of stock analysts.
Neither gender can claim a clear victory from these findings. Despite taking on bigger workloads and being more accurate forecasters, men tend to be less appreciated by their clients than women. Ouch!
But the greater likelihood for women to be ranked as all-stars raises some suspicions. Could this indicate that Wall Street's many male investment managers prefer interacting with female stock analysts, regardless of skill?
Women's earnings forecasts for companies tended to be less accurate than men's.
The reason for this is clear to me - women are not to be trusted in any way shape of form - THEY ARE SHEEP BEING LEAD BY RAMS. One has to realise that the term tended to be less accurate means about 25% accuracy.
Women do do well in stock markets because they are less radical and can follow trends better.