8 dead on Manhattan bike path

Because one is idelogically/politically/religiously driven, the other is usually caused by a long lasting condition of mental illness.

@yyy: I’m not ignoring it. People who commit mass shootings or things like that as a result of mental illness don’t to it to instill fear or anything like that. The last step of that kind of depression usually leads to thinking that all life is pain and it’s ultimately useless, so they decide to kill as many people as possible before committing suicide.
The two issues have to be treated separately, you can’t put in the same grouping people with a mental disease and people who form violent organized groups for political/religious/etc reasons.

You don’t know that vegas guy is mentally ill, or even long lasting with mental health problems. I’m not denying something went very wrong with him, and possibly contributed by mental health problems that lead to this. (when i mentioned he was mentally ill, i’m saying thats how he is painted) But mental illness being painted as the cause is just a bullshit excuse like this was a freak accident. It’s not, we keep seeing more and more gun violence.

If you have met people with mental health issues, even pretty severe ones, they are either pretty normal by most definitions and are high functioning and can hide their issues, Or the latter which is people completely unable to function and do basic things like going to a store. It’s hard to imagine a severely mentally ill person being able to carry out and plan this attack on vegas. It wasn’t like he found a gun and shot some people. The whole thing took some rational thinking to do and took some time. It would be hard for a person with perfect mental health to get everything organized for a attack like that in vegas.

The connection between depression and homicidal thoughts have been overlooked for a very long time because it’s usually connected to suicidal thoughts. During the last 30-ish years (more in depth in the last 15 or so) there have been many studies that show how depression can lead to homicidal states of mind. People who suffer from that have no problems carrying on with their lives and are perfectly able to plan any sort of violent acts.
I didn’t study this topic in English (many years ago), so I’m not 100% familiar about the terminology, but spending some time on Google looking for “depression homicide” explains a lot of what goes on in the head of people who commit those kind of actions out of the blue, with no apparent motivation apart from a desire for causing suffering.

Ok, it sounds like we are not debating the point. Clinical depression is pretty damn common, and it’s likely to happen to many people. About 1 in 4 people have some mental health issues, and I’m willing to say maybe even more but some are easier to cope and some people are able to deal with it better without psychiatric health. So to paint this as isolated incident that can’t be solved chalking it up to mental health is a disservice to people who have mental health problems and a distraction to the real issue. Can we do more for people with metal health, sure. I can accept that as a solution. But that isn’t mentioned so why even mention it as the cause when the large majority of violent crimes are people that don’t have mental health problems.

The real original train of thought if wasn’t clear to you is that. There’s a clear discrepancy between how attacks of violence is painted based on who is committing the act. And how politicians, and especially seeing how the president and the WH reacted to both incidents so differently. One, nope, now it’s not the time to talk about gun reform, it’s time to grieve. The other, The trumpster himself followed a condolence tweet immediately with let’s go with extreme vetting again.

I’m not saying either one should be treated better, i’m not saying one is worse than the other, and i’m not saying one or the other is not an act of terror. I’m just saying, as a gun owner from hand guns to assault rifles who knows how damn easy to get guns. Its ridiculous we can’t talk about the issue. But when a person does this, it’s time for political gain by reaffirming the fear they painted in the campaign by going to extreme vetting of immigrants and travelers.

And this is coming from a guy who is pretty critical of islam, I don’t believe its just a religion. It’s historically just as much as an empire and the founder was the ruler of it. And a gun owner who loves firearms.

I agree with most of what you say. I’m also for a gun reform in the US, but now we’re not talking about terrorism vs (usually mentally sick) lone wolf, we’re talking about how to handle those issues, which clearly requires different solutions.

If I were a politician I’d consider gun reform to be ore important, but from a political point of view it’s easier to come up with ideas to reduce the impact of terrorism rather than reforming an article of the US constitution and angering millions of people (dozens?hundreds?) plus the gun lobbies + all the companies/retailers that make a living off that.

I’m just pretty tired of the state of the US and the politics of everything. I left there 3 years ago having grew up there and was so proud to get my citizenship. Now I feel a complete lack of efficacy from 2 shit parties and a president that I pretty much fundamentally disagree with on a majority of issues. I just can’t see myself going back there. And sadly, most people have no idea of a life outside of the US there and don’t have the ability to leave and have a life away.

And I take the immigration issue personally. I’m sick of the argument of fairness. It’s not fair, there is no real line. The people with money like my family got a green card investing there and was on the fast track to citizenship. So don’t give me the it’s not fair for those who waited line. The line is already being cut. Many don’t have that ability.

I believe you are ignoring it, but never mind.

You have a false dichotomy here: everything under discussion is caused by either mental illness or political beliefs. Thus you deprive all mentally ill persons of the ability to have political beliefs, and you deprive all persons with political beliefs of the ability to be mentally ill.

(I’m not defending anyone’s beliefs or mental health/illness btw, just critiquing your almost Jothamian reductionism.)

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I clearly wrote that people with political/religious motivations may also be mentally ill.

It’s not usually true the other way around, and in the cases when it happens those political/religious motivations are usually a result of mental illness. First one that comes to mind was the crazy guy who killed someone because he thought he was Trump. He wanted to kill Trump for political reasons, but it didn’t take long to realize it was all generated by an underlying medical condition.

There are also disagreements about the definition of mental illness, but that’s a broader topic than I care to debate right now.

But the case is, is mental health the real cause for concern? Because more violent crimes are commited by those without mental health problems. Using mental health to cover for the real larger, and attainable solution to the problem is where I take issue.

That would be a nightmare, let’s avoid it…

Mental illness is one of those things that’s hard to define, but you definitely know it when you see it. I think our brains are hardwired to recognize it.

Some kinds of mental problems can be extremely serious issues, both for the person who suffers from it and for his/her family and friends, and in extreme cases even for random people. They’re borderline situations though, and should not be used to cover other issues. I’m not a fan of the pro-guns argument:“Yeah the dude owned 85383 rifles, all of which obtained legally…BUT HE HAD A MENTAL PROBLEM!!! CHECKMATE, GUN-HATERS!”. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Very different topics, though.

You definitely don’t know it when you see it in a large majority of cases. I don’t agree with your statement at all.

Did you just use a quote about porn to describe mental illness? xD

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Oops. But I stand by my statement. I think it’s a survival instinct. Like how humans can detect even the slightest limp in someone’s walk, or recognize fine facial details at a distance. Most animals are very sensitive to weakness and defects in other animals. It’s all about survival.

You may not, but this has definitely been my experience.

They say the same thing about humans vs. replicants, and yet…

Are we all crazy? @discobot fortune

:crystal_ball: Reply hazy try again

Are we all crazy? @discobot fortune