That would be a lot of monkey poop.

It seems that scientific ignorance is a popular fetish, so not sure how this goes. How do you discuss the pros and cons of changing people's internal chemistry permanently through stemline changes that are inheritable with someone who is looking to the bronze age for ultimate moral guidance. Then modifying that to prove that being rich is a sign of virtue. "No, literally, this dude can change how your body chemistry generates good feeling to make you feel good all the time. Or bad. His call. Can we talk about what's right and wrong here?"

I think the same thing is coming up in robotics. I did some work on bomb disposal robots. Ethically pure? Then some PD strapped a bomb to one and killed a guy. Their ethical consideration? No problem, it was safer that way and they drove it RC fashion. The fact that you could program the darned thing to automatically do the same thing based on some meh criteria? No thought that they had deployed a killer robot.

Maybe in 1997, the much electronics industry decided to refuse to supply parts to be used in antipersonnel mines. I've wondered if the same could happen for automated killing robots, or if that ship has already sailed with drones and missiles. If you can't get this stuff straight with robots you can see, no idea how it works with CRISPR. The fact that I've seen little evidence of the former makes me think that the latter is not happening.

"Can we talk about what's right and wrong here?"

Right: saving lives through research and application.

Wrong: infringing on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Mods do your thing if you want. I have something to ask of the forum. I found a "preventing the next mass shooting" organization and instantly had questions in my mind that are quite important to me. Here's my Facebook comment to the link that brought me through some tubes to the aforementioned organization.

Please keep the discussion non political. This is a social issue imo and as such, all opinions matter. Even Forrest Gump, as dumb as he is, has a say in such an issue imo.

My thoughts: It's difficult for many people to admit that they have a mental health problem. If we can bring such problems into the forefront of social issues that need to be dealt with, then we can move forward as a society.

Peace,
Bob

No

bummer.

I'm in contact with the organization now and am waiting for them to call back. I'm down for whatever. Going undercover in a psych ward? Piece of cake imo. Even if they just want an over the phone interview and nothing comes of it, that's fine with me.

I suspect pig4bill put as much thought into his response as effort into typing it out.

Mass shootings attract way more media attention than their body counts justify. Only a minority die by homicide, but most homicide victims die for personal reasons (that is, it's reasonable to believe if the killer was deprived of guns they would have killed the victim anyway).

If the question you're interested in is about mass shootings only and liberty only, pig4bill's response is probably most accurate. If you're interested in saving lives, the answer is still probably no but with a big asterisk. Liberty is not absolute - we all generally agree that individuals should be prohibited from owning certain weaponry, such as nuclear bombs and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft rockets. On the flip side, we all generally agree that banning anything that could be potentially used as a weapon (such as steak knives and shish kebab skewers) is ridiculous. Which half of the scale is a ban on high capacity magazines? Well, that's a decidedly political question. And that's what society is about - finding agreements to get along.

What's really not political is the need to improve our mental health as a country. The majority of gun deaths are suicides, not homicides. And the reasons for suicide are distinctly different from the reasons for homicide. Most people who fail a suicide attempt don't go on to try again (read about the anti-suicide nets on the Golden Gate Bridge). Guns are a very efficient way to kill oneself; if people didn't have guns they wouldn't succeed as often; and if they don't succeed they often survive.

Does the benefit of banning guns, or certain types of guns, or certain types of ammunition, or certain people from owning certain types of guns, outweigh the liberty cost? It's political. Won't go there.

Is there a benefit that we all enjoy - across the political spectrum - from keeping people from considering suicide (gun related or not)? Absolutely.

So I would just put aside the whole gun thing and the whole mass shooting thing altogether, and focus on the real - and nonpartisan - problem. How do we help people who are considering suicide?

By making it ok to be depressed.

Indeed you hit the nail on the head. Pun intended. This is exactly what I'm getting on about. The social issue that makes people lie about their own mental health or that of those close to them. It's like we're still in the denial phase as a whole. I believe that if we can move on to the acceptance phase, we can then deal with the problem.

I heard back from the director of the New England chapter of the Association of Threat Prevention Professionals. Just got invited to speak to a bunch of cops and doctors on the topic of mental illness. Not sure when but I think it's going to be a win win situation.

What do you mean by this? That if we accepted that some people are just going to be depressed no matter what we do, they wouldn't consider suicide?

I mean I agree we (as a society) should be more accepting of people who struggle with depression, but I think society can do things to make people less depressed (or fewer people depressed).

I think social isolation is a thing we can change, for instance.

No. I mean that "you need help" shouldn't be an insult used when people argue. I mean that when someone tells a friend, "I'm depressed" then the response shouldn't be, "what's so bad about your life that you're depressed?" I mean that when people admit to having a mental issue, the response shouldn't be, "well I had a heart attack a few years ago, which is a real health problem." etc etc.

I agree, but depression is likely not going to be fixed in our lifetime. As long as depression continues to be looked down upon by us, this will never change because people will be afraid to get help.

Mass killings and homicide are different beasts. Although personal reasons may come into it.

It is much more difficult to carry out mass killings with a steak knife or a skewer. Will the sociopath deprived of rapid-fire easy-to-obtain guns turn to alternatives like explosives? Or planes?

Yes, some will anyway.

That doesn't mean you cant have limits and tests for types, availability etc. for guns. Why cant I have a stinger missle?, I want to get the sporting model to shoot down target drones on my private ranch in Texas.

Its a balance. Rights and liberties conferred by a political process/framework can certainly be limited by the same. They already are. And just because someone may go around a limit and do something adverse, doesnt mean you should make it easy for them.

Even at the expense of some liberty.

This is why I am searched when I get on a plane.

Close a few loopholes add some hops and limits, so some of this nonsense is reduced.

Thanks Lurshy,

Thanks, this gave me the penciled in drop the mic moment that may or may not be in my future.

----

Unrelated, well kinda: a Dr told me today that 94% of violent crime could not be directly attributed to severe mental illness. Now, depending on how we define "severe" that could be illustrative of the fraction or not. Severe mental illness certainly does not mean foaming at the mouth with a thirst for blood or anything worse than that. It also doesn't mean that you're nuts if you ever had a violent thought, cue Orwell.

Let's assume that the smart guys and girls that came up with these statistics had their heads on somewhat straight for the moment. Now compare that fraction, to the fraction of the population that is estimated to suffer from severe mental illness x times in their lives. For me? I lost count over the years. For others? Maybe it's more and maybe it's less, I don't know because I've rarely done group therapy with other mentally ill people in my lifetime. I honestly don't know the fraction of the population that is mentally ill so I'll end in a question mark?

----

even more unrelated, I guess: I was watching the news with a friend a few years ago and I said, "I used to like channel 7 because the ladies are my age, but then I realized that I didn't like seeing all the bad stuff that they seem to focus on at channel 7." To which he replied, "their motto on channel 7 is "If it bleeds, it leads."" Kinda sums it up.

Is it an American obsession with terrible atrocious disgusting news or does the media control what we're "supposed" to know, or both, or is it a big money making tv ratings scam to make us hate those that don't share our belief system? I can't pick. Seems like these things are all true. For example, I wonder if anyone from the west coast heard about the guy that was wanted in connection with a local atrocity a few years ago in Brockton. Yeah he took a last second flight to Venezuela or some **** where they don't cooperate with us. Dude got away with some gross stuff but he's probably not on your radar because of all those things listed above.

I can see this all happening, while only watching tv very rarely. I feel like the world needs more Jackie Moon:

nsfw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nXJe9i70DE

I'm sure this is super-controversial, but isn't it normal that there are happy people in the world and there are sad? Is it important that sad people be happy?

If someone wants to commit suicide, what gives us the right or moral obligation to tell them they can't? If I were captured by the enemy (Theon Greyjoy) and tortured everyday, I would rather die than live. Now obviously most people's lives are not that bad, but I'm sure there are people that feel their lives are.

Life is a human right. But so is death.

^ I agree. I thought Dr. Kevorkian was an angel of mercy, and thought suicide should be made easier for everyone.

Idk man. Maybe for terminally ill patients that are in constant excruciating pain, sure. For some kid turned 18 whose girlfriend dumped him? Not so much.

"Suicide doesn't take the pain away, it just passes it on to someone else."

-unknown

People should be able to kill themselves, but they should not be able to kill others easily maybe?

Because for most people who "want" to commit suicide, the feeling is temporary but the act is permanent. When they tracked people who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge but were saved by the nets, most did not try to kill themselves again.

I think it's very much within someone's rights to be sad, but it's better if they're happy. I'm not in favor of banning all guns in all places, even if to save lives, but if we could get 50% of the same effect with a 3-hour waiting period for ammunition, shouldn't that be something that we as a society consider? If we took all the money that people donated towards banning guns or preventing guns from being banned, and instead put that into a system where depressed people could check in their guns for a day/week/month and get some counseling (to prevent rash decisions), isn't that something we as a society can agree would be better?

There's an oxymoron joke in there somewhere.

It's also not the emotional 18 year olds committing suicide at the highest rates. It's mostly middle-aged and really old people.

https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

But that aside, I don't really understand the idea that any single person has (or even any collective of people have) the authority to try to impose on others when their life is or is not worth living. I think humans are social creatures and it's appropriate for society to encourage one result or the other, but there seems to be no authority to impose that on someone else.

"A permanent solution to a temporary problem" is the one I like.

Terminally ill patients already have an out of sorts. Living wills that allow the plug to be pulled, or other similar stuff.

I like that too.

I was watching the news with some friends sometime last year. The video showed a guy running towards the edge of a highway bridge. A cop ran up and tackled him just before he jumped. My friend says “should’ve let him jump.” I disagreed by saying, “the guy is probably sick. He needed help. If you’re ever really depressed should we all just do nothing?”

Seems like a total lack of any sense of responsibility to a fellow man to me.

If you are a NFL player, what's worse for your career, making a sexist remark to a female reporter or murdering somebody

Or kneeling.