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16th November 2012, 10:02 AM | #401 |
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16th November 2012, 10:03 AM | #402 |
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I posted a very specific genetic influence on a well known moral dilemma that explains why people's response to the dilemma differs. It's not simply upbringing or culture, it's directly related to measurable brain chemistry.
Your answer was not to discuss the neurology or the genetics or even the study. You answer was, you don't get it therefore you dismiss it. |
16th November 2012, 10:04 AM | #403 |
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Mobs are not composed of the minority. Lynching is not done by the mentally ill, but by normal people. All it takes is a victim who is sufficiently alien, by deed, culture or blood, to count as the Other.
That is not to say that your average person is two short hairs away from becoming a pillaging psychopath. But given the right circumstances, the right motivation... yes, Joe Six-pack can indeed be a killer. They call it "basic training." The soldier is conditioned to follow orders; without question, without hesitation, no matter how objectionable or nonsensical they may seem. Watch Full Metal Jacket (Warning: hilariously NSFW language). Fyi, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman was played by a REAL drill instructor, so this is straight from the horse's mouth sir no offense meant sir. |
16th November 2012, 10:05 AM | #404 |
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16th November 2012, 10:18 AM | #405 |
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Sure it is! Happens all the time. I read about one in the paper happening in Virginia not two weeks ago. Some black kid scared a white girl just before Halloween, was arrested for assault, then drug out and lynched.
Just because it's not nice and talked about much doesn't meant it's disqualified from consideration for the norm. |
16th November 2012, 10:18 AM | #406 |
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I actually have no idea. Certainly not in the UK, anyway, where people lose their minds if someone puts a cat in a bin overnight, but they're happy to hunt foxes with dogs.
I know that we Brits are very protective about our pets as a nation, and like to think we are of our live food as well. But if we don't eat it or stroke it, nobody seems to mind. |
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16th November 2012, 10:19 AM | #407 |
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I now have no idea what you are going on about and why my comment
"OK so not trained on some sort of psychological level to kill, with specific here is how to turn yourself into a psychopath lessons. Just an expectation that their job is very likely to result in them killing and that they will have to deal with that and not back out of doing it. Soldiers are trained, or maybe conditioned is a better word to follow orders, no matter what, even if that order means a high risk of theirs or another's death. That comes with basic training, drill and a new soldiers life being dominated by senior officers whose word is law." is rubbish. You are coming over as being in a default argue mode no matter what is said to you. If a commander points and says kill, the soldier has to do that when it is a lawful order. In the same way some Pakistani and Afghan women will react regarding honour killings, they have been conditioned and are expected to comply and in their case it is not even considered lawful as they can still be punished for murder. |
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16th November 2012, 10:20 AM | #408 |
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At a guess, I would think they reinforce all the dehumanizing out-group type stuff. It doesn't seem like it would be that amazing of an idea. 'These guys are the enemy, they're trying to kill you, also they hate you and are stupid, and they like to throw acid on uppity women, and they'd be killing each other in sectarian violence if we weren't here anyhows, so you don't need to waste any of your sympathy on them.'
This inbuilt aversion to killing that we are discussing is exponentially stronger the closer to your own in-group it is, and weaker the further away from your own in-group. Which makes sense because the idea is that it's tied to genetic survival. If you're green, you won't mind nearly as much if you had to kill the purple guy for the greater good, as you would if you had to kill a fellow green guy. Or do you really think the infantryman would feel exactly the same about his job if he was doing it in his hometown instead of thousands of miles away from everything (besides the people he's deployed with) that he cares about? |
16th November 2012, 10:24 AM | #409 |
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16th November 2012, 10:31 AM | #410 |
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16th November 2012, 10:36 AM | #411 |
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FMJ is set about 50 years ago, and deals with the American army. With no disrespect to the US Forces, I know for a fact that the British Army has not churned out brainwashed unthinking automatons for at least 30-40 years. British soldiers are trained to follow basic words of command, yes, but are also trained to act independently, work 2 rank levels above their own if possible. Orders (as in formal written/verbal orders) are not given and expected to be followed to the letter - a subordinate commander gives the broad parameters, the assets, enemy forces and his intent - the detail of the execution is left to those on the ground, often at a very junior level.
Getting all your ideas about how a modern army (certainly the British Army) operates is like getting all your ideas about how modern computers work by using a 1950's card operated 'computer'. |
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16th November 2012, 10:38 AM | #412 |
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You may want to re-read that report:
Crime History: Leesburg teen lynched for frightening white girl
Quote:
People who kill under those cultural circumstances first have to come to the belief that the person they are killing is not human. That doesn't negate the innate nature of morality, it side steps it. We're debating with two completely different concepts. It's cross talk. The norm. It's a big world. There are things going on every second of every day that are outside the norm. |
16th November 2012, 10:43 AM | #413 |
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For the readers general consideration, dehumanizing is a long known concept:
The Lucifer Effect: Dehumanization
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It's like saying, because people are different shapes and sizes, or because one can over eat or under eat and affect one's body size, it must not be genetic makeup underlying the difference. |
16th November 2012, 10:48 AM | #414 |
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Indeed and within that there is clearly still a place for a more senior soldier to order troops out of a trench and to charge. I am sure we agree on all of this. Maybe some of the confusion here is down to outwith conflict a soldier will have no instinct to kill and has the instinct of protecting their offspring, but in conflict his instinct to kill will take over, but not such that he would kill his offspring. Those places with honour killings are not at war, so they need to be conditioned to kill, especially their children who instinctively we protect. |
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16th November 2012, 10:49 AM | #415 |
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Hm... coulda been. I tried googling it myself, but the false positives I got for "Virginia Lynch" took longer to sort through than my customary thirty second giving a damn duration.
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16th November 2012, 10:50 AM | #416 |
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No. You are getting all your ideas from films and television. We are NOT trained to blindly follow orders 'no matter what', or follow the word of a superior officer as if it was law. We are trained to follow basic words of command, but never blindly and without thought to consequences. We are encouraged to point out better ways of doing things to our superiors, give suggestions and rely on experience. A better way of doing something based on proven experience will always take precedence over the word of a commander, if he has got any sense.
I'm pretty sure I said something similar... Yes, they have been conditioned by their culture to believe that honour killing is morally right. Just as in Western culture we have been conditioned to believe that murder is unacceptable and morally wrong. |
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16th November 2012, 10:55 AM | #417 |
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16th November 2012, 10:58 AM | #418 |
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I understand a Western army soldier would now be unlikely to charge a tank with no gun as Soviets did during WWII, or for their senior officers to be behind then shooting the ones who did not keep charging for failing orders. You have decided that I have only ever watched TV and films and that is where I get my information from and you move goal posts and argue past me to keep that idea going.
We agree more than I think you realise, hence no issue about a soldier following a lawful order. So you agree conditioning is needed to kill in certain circumstances? That suggests it goes against instinct. |
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16th November 2012, 11:01 AM | #419 |
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No that is down to breeding and conditioning by tradition and environment. But you could get anyone to do it if their animals which they depend on are being savaged by foxes and dogs provide a means of stopping that.
It just so happens for some that chase between dog and fox became a kind of sport and less cruel methods of killing foxes were ignored. |
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16th November 2012, 11:07 AM | #420 |
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So where ARE you getting your ideas about soldiers then? And where have I moved the goalposts?
No, because we in the West are culturally conditioned NOT to kill. Which would suggest our natural state is a 'blank slate' where we have no compulsion either way, outside of basic survival instincts. |
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16th November 2012, 11:13 AM | #421 |
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So we're born with an in-built sense of kindness to all living things then? That's why we have animal cruelty laws?
What about BEFORE we had animal cruelty laws? Were we born indifferent to animals, then quickly evolved to be born kind to animals, over the course of say 100 years? Or did our cultural moral zeitgeist just change, and we're born as a moral 'blank slate', and have to learn 'right' from 'wrong'? |
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16th November 2012, 11:14 AM | #422 |
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I have been getting them from my dad who was a soldier and from the study of military history up to the present day.
You particularly moved the goal posts as shown in post #407 when you claimed what i had said was rubbish but accepted a soldier would still have to charge an enemy out of a trench if so ordered by a commander. I think our natural state is not blank but instead it has both kill and not kill depending on situation or circumstances. So not kill your offspring, kill attackers, not kill random strangers for no reason, kill if desperate for scarce resources to survive. Hence a soldier attacking the enemy needs some conditioning, as killing is still traumatic but not as much conditioning as a mother needs to kill their offspring in a honour killing. |
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16th November 2012, 11:17 AM | #423 |
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16th November 2012, 11:28 AM | #424 |
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I owe you an apology; I checked post #407 back and it should have read "point at ANY target..", not "at A target...", which changes things somewhat, and makes more sense in the context of the point I'm making, ie; a modern soldier is expected to be able to judge what is lawful and act accordingly. Sorry for the confusion.
I put 'blank', but (as I put in my last post while you were writing this one) I kind of mean 'indifferent'. We're saying 'conditioning', but I'm not sure it's the right thing to say if we're born indifferent/morally blank. We could kill depending on the situation with no problem, but until we are taught our society's moral values, we wouldn't know or care if it was 'right' or 'wrong' - so there's no compulsion, or inhibition towards killing. |
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16th November 2012, 11:31 AM | #425 |
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16th November 2012, 11:36 AM | #426 |
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To be fair to Skeptic Ginger, the only way to conclusively prove we're born with morals built-in would be to raise a child from birth to adulthood in a sterile, controlled environment and then test them. Would be extremely difficult to do though; imagine using children's books to teach the child to read while trying to avoid any moral lessons...
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16th November 2012, 11:40 AM | #427 |
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I don't think anyone is disputing that empathy exists. It's the claim that empathy has some kind of special status, biologically, which unempathetic actions don't have.
The existence of a gene which disposes people towards being more empathetic in no way implies a sound biological basis for morality.
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16th November 2012, 11:44 AM | #428 |
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16th November 2012, 11:45 AM | #429 |
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Plus, the mother would have been brought up from birth believing that murder is wrong, but honour killing isn't - it's absolutely the right thing to do. She would have been learning both at the same time; not grown up thinking all murder is wrong until the age of 18, when she would then be intensively programmed to accept honour killings.
Don't many US states punish the crime of killing another human being by killing a human being? "Planning and carrying out the execution of a human being is WRONG! We will now demonstrate this by planning and carrying out the execution of a human being!". Funny when you look at it like that. |
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16th November 2012, 11:47 AM | #430 |
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16th November 2012, 11:48 AM | #431 |
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16th November 2012, 11:50 AM | #432 |
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Again, evidence ? Today people have little incentive to kill each other because we live in such a comfortable world. I didn't say people killed willy-nilly, but they certainly had less qualms about hacking each other with swords over matters we'd consider trivial.
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16th November 2012, 11:50 AM | #433 |
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16th November 2012, 11:53 AM | #434 |
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That's precisely the point. If we had universal empathy, we probably wouldn't be able to function. We have empathy which is limited in its scope. We have hostility, which is also limited. The balance between the two depends on circumstances. The idea that our empathetic impulses are normal, whereas our hostile impulses are due to some kind of genetic fault is simply absurd.
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16th November 2012, 11:53 AM | #435 |
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16th November 2012, 11:55 AM | #436 |
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16th November 2012, 12:01 PM | #437 |
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Innate behaviors does not require said behavior be a single rigid thing. I don't understand why this concept is excluded from people claiming morality is learned (or comes from the magic sky daddy or pixie dust). The fact we don't all have the exact same morality does not preclude that moral framework being the result of our hardwired brains.
It's a very easy paradigm for me. |
16th November 2012, 12:05 PM | #438 |
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Why not care about animals that are cute and furry and with big eyes and not animals that are hunted for food or sports or that are ugly?
Why would it need to be all or none instead of a more nuanced form of empathy? Most farmers don't give personal names to animals they intend to slaughter for meat. But they name their pets. Why is that? Why do people mourn their pet's passing but not the meat animal on their table? |
16th November 2012, 12:07 PM | #439 |
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16th November 2012, 12:08 PM | #440 |
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I am sad about something because I am culturally conditioned to be sad about it, and this triggers chemicals in my brain which causes the feelings I associate with sadness, and certain physical reactions.
If I have no moral sense of whether something is 'right' or 'wrong', I will not feel anything about it at all. If I am not taught stealing is 'wrong' then I will have no qualms about it. Ever watched two babies play? Ever seen one take a toy from the other and play with it happily, without any remorse or understanding of why the other child is crying? Ever wonder why a (good) parent will then come over and demonstrate simply the concept of sharing and property? Why do they feel the need? Or is the baby just defective? |
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