The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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So what are you saying here? That there are no such thing as psychopaths? There's never been a human with an outsize negative effect on society? Your moralizing tone doesn't make you any more convincing.
I'm a borderline pacifist that abhors violence. But if you disagree with my assertion you are either a teenager with too little life experience or willfully ignorant.
I am not saying either. Ofcourse there are people who have been a net negative to society throughout their lives. It's good to know that you abhor violence, but your initial statement didn't come across that way. I am saying that even the people who are a net negative to society and are psychopaths are still human (not animals) and don't deserve to be murdered ("put down"). I believe it is immoral to kill people except as a last resort (for self-defense). There are many other things we could do with these people instead of killing them that will still make society safer.
In my (admittedly most extreme) example we're literally talking about people who start by murdering, raping, and robbing other people their whole lives.
Then they have more children, addled by drugs from birth and neglect from the jump. Who kick things off by consuming vast quantities of resources from families that adopt them. The exact same problems, but geometrically multiplied for each generation. And they're fast too, because getting knocked up the first at 16 means more meth quicker.
These are rare examples, yes. Fractions of a percent. But to repeat: it's not a morally superior stance to look at the rivers of blood and treasure consumed by tiny fractions of society, then to just throw up your hands and say "oops, guess we can't fix it!". It's the absolute worst version of the tragedy of the commons.
I agree that the right approach is not to ignore the problem because it is hard, but I don't believe that the only thing we can do to solve it is murder these people.
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Like what? I’m trying to imagine some institutional entity set up to try and maximize the productive labor value of people like this girl; such an entity would need to devote a very onerous amount of money, time, and resources just to making sure she doesn’t fuck something up massively. This is money spent just to make sure she isn’t a huge net negative; that’s long before we’ve gotten anywhere near turning her into a net positive. We also need to make sure such an entity does not give her access to anything important with which she could channel her obvious devotion to cause into a genuinely destructive action.
So, what sort of menial, non-impactful tasks are we setting her to, such that if she decides to do something horrible she can’t have much impact, but she still has the capacity to represent an economic (or even social) net positive, after taking into account everything required to keep her from doing something horrible?
Feature, not a bug. Plus, all the boys and men whose lives are graced by her presence should Have Some Empathy and take her accusations on the chin like a Real Man (where each accusation needs to be thoroughly investigated by The Authorities).
It reminds me of a Reddit thread about a female illegal immigrant committing a DUI homicide (no, not the jetski incident, a different female illegal immigrant homicide while operating a motor vehicle likely under the influence).
The perpetrator was sentenced to multiple years in prison, and a Redditor bemoaned that we don’t treat Persons of Justice Involvement (especially those of Color) with enough Compassion, and it would be better for Society to give her a second chance instead of ruining two lives over a little DUI whoopsie while waiting for her citizenship documentation. A wrongthinker replied that it is awfully coincidental that what’s promoted as good for society always sounds suspiciously similar to what would be good for the criminal(s) under discussion.
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We don't have to necessarily try and maximize the productive labor value of such people. Even locking them up in prison and giving them the necessities to live is better than killing them. Many people with dysfunctional lives have mental illnesses that can be treated, or they can be institutionalized. There are constraints on how many resources can be spent on fixing such people right now because we live in a resource-constrained society. This is becoming less of an issue as we grow wealthier and technology advances though, and eventually I believe we will be able to give everyone what they need due to AI. I think the main reason we don't see a lot of change in mentally ill and psychopathic people is because we don't spend a lot of resources to identify the origin of their issues in detail and give appropriately personalized treatment to fix them in the first place (understandably so, but that doesn't mean that nothing can be done to fix them). I will also note that most psychopaths grow up into productive people because they are intelligent enough to understand the incentive systems created by society.
I think a huge cause of the issue with the girl in question is also that she is a child. I don't claim to understand her mindset fully, but she doesn't seem to want to be purposefully causing harm to people around her. I think her actions would be a lot more destructive if that were the case. I think it is possible that this particular girl will stop trying to do things such as break into other people's house for fun when she becomes older, has more responsibilities and her actions have consequences that directly impact her life. As of now, her actions don't have that many consequences. She gets to live in a decently wealthy house with attentive parents and have all her needs met without having to work for them. Punishments like grounding aren't really negative if you don't care about them much. She would probably also stop it now if she was in a harsher incentive system. I don't think she would behave in the same manner if she had to work to get money for her necessities like food and clothing, she couldn't steal and would be placed in jail like adults if she did anything illegal or harassed people, and had more things to worry about just like adults. We don't do that because it is considered child abuse, but I wouldn't say that we have explored all the options just because her parents take her to counselling, try to make her understand the consequences of her actions, and institute disciplinary measures that don't affect her very much.
But she didn't. She is intelligent enough to understand those incentive systems created by society to purposefully cause harm to others.
Her actions were already seriously destructive. Tantamount to attempted murder, in fact. Preventing it already required her to be locked up, and that has already put the rest of the family in danger.
She really isn't (Western fiction about the age of adulthood aside); note that your suggested solution is to treat her like the adult she clearly is. Mine is too, of course- adults attempting murder get adult punishments (including and up to physical removal), and that's OK. The British hanging tables have data matching youth body types for a reason.
Which action of her would you say is tantamount to attempted murder?
I agree that she doesn't care about the harm being caused to others (like her parents and siblings, but also the people whose house she breaks into) in this case, but I think that is more due to apathy rather than finding it fun to harm others specifically. When I said I think her actions would have been a lot more destructive, I mean that would have included consistent violence, property destruction, emotional abuse, and other things that are more severe.
11 is still a child in my opinion. That's the oldest age given above, unless I missed something. I don't think I had the maturity I do now at 11, and I think that is true of a lot of people. You grow up a lot partly due to increased responsibility you are given by others. I wouldn't say that she should get adult punishments yet, there are a lot more stricter options between adult punishment and her current life that have not been tried at all. And unless juvenile prison is different in her country than mine, even that would be a much harsher life than she is living currently (though she wouldn't have much responsibility there either - you get your basic necessities brought to you and you can't do anything to improve the quality of life you are given, so the incentive system doesn't incentivize good behavior and she will still be as rebellious as possible thus it wouldn't be a good solution, but still better than "putting her down").
You don't believe intentional false accusations of the "State, please murder my parents and destroy my family" variety counts as that? People who try to get cops to kill people they don't like via similar means (SWATting) are still attempting murder.
What kind of state kills people due to accusations like this? And no, I don't think it counts as violence. I wouldn't say it is emotional abuse either, because that's a specific kind of harm to me, but it is definitely as severe. She was trying to get herself removed and either genuinely didn't understand the full consequences of her actions on her family or she just didn't care (probably this).
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Not trying to beat you up with responses here, but I both:
You want to be fair to this child. I want to be fair to everyone else.
I meant that she is a child more to point out that her current way of living and incentive system is very different than from an adult's and also that she doesn't have the capacity she would have as an adult, rather than to elicit empathy. Empathy is also a good to have, but I do think that her specific problem of getting bored and seeking chaos for fun would be less likely to occur if she had a lot of responsibilities to worry about in her day to day life and also had a lot more control over her life (so if she wants something, then she can figure out how to get it for herself rather than begging the people around her, and it would probably be in a productive manner in a well-structured society). She would also have learned mechanisms to deal with things that cause her to be upset with more experience in life (even if they aren't the most healthy or ideal way). Currently, she has only learned to devolve into tantrums and escape whatever irritates her because that is what works now. I also have heard of people who didn't have empathy for others the way she doesn't have any now when they were teenagers, but went on to learn it. So even if it is unlikely, I don't think that it is impossible she would always stay this way.
I am not convinced that children with this very specific/rare combination of traits go on to be great destroyers 100% of the time. Can you link a source if you have any, or are you speaking from your own experience? Personally, I have read that most psychopaths tend to become productive members of society, and it makes sense to me why that would be. Also, I am curious what kind of behaviour you are expecting from the girl in the future. I can see her becoming a druggie in a society that allows drugs, and a thief in one that is lenient with thiefs, but in both cases I would blame the system too. Apart from that I can see her being anti-social in situations where she has nothing to gain from, but that's not considered destructive enough to murder people.
I agree that it doesn't make sense to prioritise this girl over everyone else, but I don't think that it has to be a tradeoff. Surely there are solutions between just letting the problem be, and "putting her down" that work out for everyone.
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