Whiskyman wrote: ↑Fri Dec 03, 2021 7:15 am
BlackDiamond wrote: ↑Thu Dec 02, 2021 11:13 pm
Some people enjoy being cruel and don't care if others view them as cunts,which is probably the category that those two individuals occupy.
They are therefore sadists and that is a choice thing. You do it because you enjoy it.
Therefore it's not a brain structure thing nor is it determined by say abnormal low IQ, so studying them will not be any material benefit. And anyway
the subject of sadism is pretty understood with only the origin a contested subject.
Although it's always been recognised a large percentage of staff that worked in the Nazi concentration camps were recruited because of their limited mental acuteness. It's simply easier to persuade stupid people to do morally reprehensible things.
However the convicted American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was studied and found to possess an IQ of 140 which is considered high or genius level. The average IQ is about 100 and the US military don't hire anyone with below a 85 IQ score. At that level (<85) it is thought there is no task they could usefully master.
I get your point completely. But if all our brain functions were identical we would, in effect, all be clones would we not ? The things we like and dislike are surely determined by the way each person's brain responds to those things, such as our preferred tastes or t v programs. Surely there has to be some sort of trigger which causes some people to enjoy inflicting, or receiving, pain just as I believe there has to be a reason people have vastly different levels of intellectual capability, physical abilities, artistic talent and so on. I say this because basically everything we do, every single one of us, is driven by the old grey matter.
Your point about IQ is a good one although it does appear that whenever all too often we read about cases of obscene cruelty to children, or indeed to animals, in the vast number of cases the perpetrators seem to fall into the category of what most of us would describe as having the intellectual attributes of the lowest form of pond life. Of course this may be pure coincidence but it does beg the question.
From what I have read, the biggest determinating factor in a persons personality development - good or bad - are their early years experience. Children who were abused,neglected often grow into abusers themselves. Not always but it's fairly predictable.They are damaged at an early age and basically go off the rails. It's very hard to correct or indeed heal someone that damaged.
And the main problem of all rehabilitation, is trying to untangle the twisty logic of behaviours, that on the face of it, defy sane understanding.
So the individual that commits crimes of such depraved evil, might be wholly motivated by self hate and loathing. Masochism taken to it's ultimate level. They kill so others hate them. They enjoy feeling sorry for themselves because no one else does.
Or something like that. So in extreme cases, sending someone to prison is a continuation of punishment, which they wholly enjoy.
