Parenting with a .45

[Thumpalumpacus]

I cotton to what Solzhenitsyn once wrote on the matter: "The line between good and evil runs down the middle of every man's heart."

Commieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doing good is a conscious choice.

Socialisttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Gallstones]

I cotton to what Solzhenitsyn once wrote on the matter: "The line between good and evil runs down the middle of every man's heart."

Doing good is a conscious choice.

I don't agree.
I don't have to consciously consider if, then consciously choose to do good.
I am impelled to do "good" because it feels like what I want to do; because it feels more pleasurable. It takes a betrayal, or an act of hostility against me to cause me to consider doing "bad".

Yes, that's why I wrote, "I cotton ... " I am speaking about myself and my experiences ... my opinion. I don't presume to speak for other people, particularly those I don't know outside the random Internet post.

I think there is an instinctive drive to be intraspecifically cooperative and it takes threat to then cause a person to instinctively be driven to respond to protect themselves and their loved ones and their in-group from threat. I think, that as social animals, our intrinsic drive is to bond, form alliances and be faithful and protective.

I doubt human behavior is so simple as to be instinctive when it comes to considerations of morality. I'm satisfied that human behavior is largely a result of environmental influences, and that emotional and moral proclivities aren't genetic.

I think we are a hell of a lot more atavistic than we might like to believe.

[FBM]

Seems to me that a lot of people are still working from the same assumptions of Thomas Hobbes' "Bellum omnium contra omnes", that the life of man(kind) in a natural state (without a strong central gov't) is "nasty, brutish, solitary and short."

I don't buy it. That doesn't describe much of what anthropologists have discovered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellum_omnium_contra_omnes

Life in the Stone Age: New Findings Point to Complex Societies

...A flood of new insights on the issue, coming in a rush that has made it one of the hottest topics in archeology, is causing scientists to abandon the prevailing image of Stone Age foragers as simple, nomadic people who lived hand-to-mouth in small, egalitarian bands...In the emerging new profile, prehistoric hunter-gatherers were much more diverse and highly organized than has been thought. They tended to stay in one place. They established decision-making hierarchies. They formally regulated social relations and behavior, usually through ritual.

The preagricultural foragers developed what amounted to banking systems, in which food surpluses were stored, with some people owning more than others. They traded goods over long distances, fashioned a burgeoning number and variety of tools and implements, and produced luxury goods, ceramics and art.
...

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/20/scien ... all&src=pm

Our ancestors were not so much into tooth-and-nail, bloody and brutish competition for survival, but instead cooperated with each other peacefully much more than may be commonly recognized.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I think we are a hell of a lot more atavistic than we might like to believe.

The plasticity of the brain, combined with studies on the effect of the infant environment on personality, lead me to disagree with the idea that behavior is largely instinctive. It's not a hard-and-fast stance, because there's so much we have to learn yet about neurophysiology, but I'm loathe to ascribe complex behaviors to simple genetic loci.

[Ronja]

Seth, you were reminded and warned just a few days ago in relation to our Play Nice and Personal Attack rules.

You will be suspended for 24h for breaches of our Play Nice rule in the following subsequent posts:
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 5#p1118777
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 0#p1119527

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

[FBM]

I think we are a hell of a lot more atavistic than we might like to believe.

The plasticity of the brain, combined with studies on the effect of the infant environment on personality, lead me to disagree with the idea that behavior is largely instinctive. It's not a hard-and-fast stance, because there's so much we have to learn yet about neurophysiology, but I'm loathe to ascribe complex behaviors to simple genetic loci.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjcYbv0Z ... =endscreen[/youtube]

I'm just starting this lecture myself, but what he promised at the end of lecture 8 was that in this lecture he's going to show how it is that we go through most of our lives, if not all of it, without conscious control of our behavior. That is, we don't really have free will, we just imagine that we do.

This is roughly in line with epiphenomenalism, though it doesn't confirm it conclusively, if I'm understanding it correctly so far. Neuronal activity is sufficient to explain both consciousness (and its component of the sense of free will, i.e., being a causative agent) and behavior, but attributing causal efficacy to consciousness (sense of free will) is fallacious. IOW, brain activity can cause both simultaneously and consistently, but saying that the sense of free will is the cause of behavior is a misattribution.

I think. I'll know more after I finish the above lecture.

[Robert_S]

Anyone can snap, lose your job come home with find your wife in bed with someone else or even just being unlucky genetically, we are all capable of acts of great evil

And a gun makes it ridiculously easy to do it. Whereas, if I don't have a gun, I get mad, then I calm down, then I get over it, and no one is the worse for wear. If, however, I have an, oh, I dunno, INSTRUMENT OF FUCKING DEATH in my hand, the outcome may very well be different.

I can see a house right now. he guys who used to live there are not there any more. One's dead and the other's in prison. The one that's not dead now used an instrument of fucking death in the form of a Chevy van on his housemate.

If you've been pissed off at one of your co-workers and seen them walking in the parking lot while you're driving and not tried to run them over, then you're probably safe with a gun. If you got really pissed off at some jackass driver but did not run their ass off the road and into a ditch, then you're probably safe with a gun.

I would, however, recommend in a safe that's difficult to open for the more moody heavy drinking brethren and sistren. (I got fairly moody toward the end of my drinking)

[MrJonno]

Rofl. So we're all ticking time bombs just waiting to explode into murderous rampages at the slightest provocation? You two sound like those religious people that say we need religion to keep us from killing each other.

I think your statements say more about your wacky, distorted views than anything else.

It's fascinating to see the leftist mind at work. And a little frightening...

Pretty accurate we are all ticking time bombs definitely, not sure I would agree with the 'slightest' provocation as its obviously going to vary between people but definitely everyone will have a critical point

To be honest until I came on this forum I actually thought people took that as a given.

Well of home in a couple of hours to be on a bus where there will be 50 extremely tired out and extremely stressed people squashed into a sardine can (no room to draw a mobile phone never mind a gun, I've tried you simply can't reach your pocket)

[Thumpalumpacus]

That is, we don't really have free will, we just imagine that we do.

You're choosing to accept this line of reasoning.

[FBM]

That is, we don't really have free will, we just imagine that we do.

You're choosing to accept this line of reasoning.

Not necessarily. A couple of points: First, whatever I post(ed) consciously most likely arose out of unconscious processing prior to my conscious behavior. Second, there is still a controversy among the pros in cognitive science as to whether or not conscious processing affects behavior in advance or whether it is ad hoc rationalization of experience, with the sense of free will filling in the gaps after the fact. Seems that it's still undecided.

Here's an interesting question I have found: Do you consciously choose the thoughts you think, or do they arise/arrive out of the unconscious (or pre-conscioius/subconscious, whatever term you prefer)?

[Gallstones]

I don't think it is either the nasty primate looking out for self, or the cooperative altruistic primate.
It has to be both because we manifest both tendencies.

I also think that there has to be some inborn hardwired factors to temperament as well as some plasticity.
However, I think the malleability is limited and enabled by the inherent (inborn) individual temperament.

I am not prepared to assert that the hard wiring is solely determined by DNA, only that one does get neuro-physical architecture from DNA and that architecture can be altered by external influences during gestation and even during parturition.
I also don't assume that whatever neuro-physical architecture we end up with obligates destiny.

[PsychoSerenity]

That is, we don't really have free will, we just imagine that we do.

You're choosing to accept this line of reasoning.

Not necessarily. A couple of points: First, whatever I post(ed) consciously most likely arose out of unconscious processing prior to my conscious behavior. Second, there is still a controversy among the pros in cognitive science as to whether or not conscious processing affects behavior in advance or whether it is ad hoc rationalization of experience, with the sense of free will filling in the gaps after the fact. Seems that it's still undecided.

Here's an interesting question I have found: Do you consciously choose the thoughts you think, or do they arise/arrive out of the unconscious (or pre-conscioius/subconscious, whatever term you prefer)?

Oooh this thread gets interesting again! - though very far from the OP Thanks for posting that lecture, FBM. Bookmarked, so if and when I get the time I'll try and go through the whole course.

[klr]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/10 ... rs_laptop/

An angry American IT pro has responded to a rude Facebook post from his daughter by riddling her laptop with a fusillade of bullets and posting video of the shooting on YouTube.

Here it is, with the incensed dad leading in by reading out the offending Facebook post and offering a few points in response before emptying his .45 – apparently loaded with "exploding hollow point rounds"* – into his daughter's machine.



Viewers will note that the testy IT-guy's daughter had seemingly blocked her Facebook diatribe from being viewed by her parents, despite the fact that it was notionally addressed to them. Not only did she show an undoubtedly misguided faith in Facebook's privacy defences (all the more unwise, as her father points out, when one has a dad who works in tech), the obstreperous teen also showed a very poor awareness of cliche, leading off her remarks with the statement that she is not her parents' slave.

For those preferring a summary to audio, the oppressed teen seemingly objected to doing such chores as cleaning, emptying the dishwasher and making her bed, and felt that her parents should pay her for doing these things rather than nagging her to get a job. The young lady added that "we have a cleaning lady for a reason", and also suggested that her parents should get off their fat asses and pour their own coffee.

Her dad, who apparently discovered these thoughts while upgrading his daughter's machine, begs to differ before moving on to the aforementioned enpopment of caps in the hapless laptop. Piling on the punishments, he adds that he expects to bill his daughter both for the software added to the machine and for the cost of the bullets expended in destroying it.

"When you're not grounded again," he adds, "whatever year that turns out to be, you can have a new computer. When you buy one."

The online community seemed broadly to stand behind the enraged, pistol-packing IT dad, with the vid standing at well over 36,000 likes compared to just 3,000 dislikes as of publication of this article. ®
Bootnote

*From the vid one would say probably just hollowpoint. It's pretty common to hear various kinds of expanding/dum-dum rounds (previous Reg coverage here) described as "explosive" or "exploding" but they almost never contain an actual explosive charge in the projectile itself (as opposed to the propellant charge in the cartridge which blows the bullet out of the gun).

Technically for anti-materiel work, hollowpoints wouldn't normally be the choice - though of course our gun-fancying readers may differ on this point, it's what comment threads are for - but in this case the job seems to have been done in a workmanlike fashion.

[FBM]

Mergination took place here...