A snowball effect. A boulder rolling off a cliff is hard to stop.
"Anything that doesn't kill you, makes you stronger". I think that's bullshit. There are traumatic events that haunt people for the rest of their lives, or at the least take away their livelihood. These stories go untold because as I have said, people don't really want to be around losers and "bad humans".
I believe there's some good in everybody. It just takes more effort to see that in some people. Behind the countless layers of trauma, fear, and hostility, there was probably a good kid.
All of this manifesto shit. Isn't that the ultimate sign for the need of acknowledgement?
Quite frankly, I'm not interested in what caused them to do it.
Every human only has one person to blame for their actions.
Not society, not the guy who molested them, not the poverty they were born into.
The person they see when they look in the mirror.
Right. Genetics are meaningless and Mendel was a hack.
Sadly, people only have about a tenth of the free will you think they do.
sidenote.
i feel really shitty about what this will do for the already shitty view of mental health problems in this country, especially among young people.
That is a rough age- among other times, when schizophrenia most often rears its head. there are really important changes being made in college, and i fear that any mental problems that exhibit themselves in college are now going to land a kid in a lot heavier a situation than needed, owing to a fear of shootings.
its late; i was having trouble sleeping, and now i'm exhausted, so i'm going to go to bed.
but, i just want everyone to consider how we treat people with mental health issues. there is no justification (NONE) for what happened on Monday. But, among the many issues we need to address coming out of this event, mental health issues among college students is most definitely one. and, kicking them all out of school to avoid another VT is not a solution.
Quite frankly, I'm not interested in what caused them to do it.
Every human only has one person to blame for their actions.
Not society, not the guy who molested them, not the poverty they were born into.
The person they see when they look in the mirror.
Right. Genetics are meaningless and Mendel was a hack.
Sadly, people only have about a tenth of the free will you think they do.
sidenote.
That is a rough age- among other times, when schizophrenia most often rears its head. there are really important changes being made in college, and i fear that any mental problems that exhibit themselves in college are now going to land a kid in a lot heavier a situation than needed, owing to a fear of shootings.
absolutely. My mom lost her brother to schizophrenia in college. It's daunting how much we have yet to learn about the disorder.
On another, related sidenote. There have been a string of studies recently examining a possible link b/w cannabis use and the onset of schizophrenia.
I just found out that a very close friend of mine lost her best friend in the massacre. He was the resident assistant that responded to the first murder.
She flew back from Brazil as soon as she heard the news. I don't even know what to say to her.
[i]The student shot along with Hilscher was Ryan C. Clark, a Virginia Tech senior and a deeply admired resident adviser in West Ambler Johnston.
Clark, called "Stack" by his friends, was from Martinez, Ga., just outside Augusta. He was friendly and charismatic, said Kelly Pierce, who lives in the dorm. Monica Price, 23, of Annandale, who graduated from Virginia Tech in December and knew Clark, said he was spending an extra academic year at the university and planned to go to graduate school.
Price said she was told that Clark had gone to check on people's safety yesterday morning after hearing that a possible outsider was in the dormitory.
Clark, who played in the university marching band, was pursuing a double major in English and biology and expected to work for an advanced degree in psychology, according to the band's Web site.
"He was just one of the greatest people you could possibly know," Gregory Walton, 25, a friend, told the Associated Press. "He was always smiling, always laughing. I don't think I ever saw him mad in the five years I knew him."
On another, related sidenote. There have been a string of studies recently examining a possible link b/w cannabis use and the onset of schizophrenia.
Makes sense, though. Paranoia? Check. Delusions? Well, mild ones, on occasion, depending on the strength of what you're smoking.
And to clarify for those who may be laboring under a common misconception, schizophrenia is completely different from multiple-personality disorder. But I'm sure Breakself could elaborate on that far more accurately than I could.
Thursday, Apr. 19, 2007 It's All About Him By David Von Drehle
My reporter's odyssey has taken me from the chill dawn outside the Florida prison in which serial killer Ted Bundy met his end, to the charred fa??ade of a Bronx nightclub where Julio Gonzalez incinerated 87 people, to a muddy Colorado hillside overlooking the Columbine High School library, in which Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold wrought their mayhem. Along the way, I've come to believe that we're looking for why in all the wrong places.
I've lost interest in the cracks, chips, holes and broken places in the lives of men like Cho Seung-Hui, the mass murderer of Virginia Tech. The pain, grievances and self-pity of mass killers are only symptoms of the real explanation. Those who do these things share one common trait. They are raging narcissists. "I died--like Jesus Christ," Cho said in a video sent to NBC.
Psychologists from South Africa to Chicago have begun to recognize that extreme self-centeredness is the forest in these stories, and all the other things-- guns, games, lyrics, pornography--are just trees. To list the traits of the narcissist is enough to prove the point: grandiosity, numbness to the needs and pain of others, emotional isolation, resentment and envy.
In interviews with Ted Bundy taped a quarter-century ago, journalists Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth captured the essence of homicidal narcissism. Through hour after tedious hour, a man who killed 30 or more young women and girls preened for his audience. He spoke of himself as an actor, of life as a series of roles and of other people as props and scenery. His desires were simple: "control" and "mastery." He took whatever he wanted, from shoplifted tube socks to human lives, because nothing mattered beyond his desires. Bundy said he was always surprised that anyone noticed his victims had vanished. "I mean, there are so many people," he explained. The only death he regretted was his own.
Criminologists distinguish between serial killers like Bundy, whose crimes occur one at a time and who try hard to avoid capture, and mass killers like Cho. But the central role of narcissism plainly connects them. Only a narcissist could decide that his alienation should be underlined in the blood of strangers. The flamboyant nature of these crimes is like a neon sign pointing to the truth. Charles Whitman playing God in his Texas clock tower, James Huberty spraying lead in a California restaurant, Harris and Klebold in their theatrical trench coats--they're all stars in the cinema of their self-absorbed minds.
Freud explained narcissism as a failure to grow up. All infants are narcissists, he pointed out, but as we grow, we ought to learn that other people have lives independent of our own. It's not their job to please us, applaud for us or even notice us--let alone die because we're unhappy.
A generation ago, the social critic Christopher Lasch diagnosed narcissism as the signal disorder of contemporary American culture. The cult of celebrity, the marketing of instant gratification, skepticism toward moral codes and the politics of victimhood were signs of a society regressing toward the infant stage. You don't have to buy Freud's explanation or Lasch's indictment, however, to see an immediate danger in the way we examine the lives of mass killers. Earnestly and honestly, detectives and journalists dig up apparent clues and weave them into a sort of explanation. In the days after Columbine, for example, Harris and Klebold emerged as alienated misfits in the jock culture of their suburban high school. We learned about their morbid taste in music and their violent video games. Largely missing, though, was the proper frame around the picture: the extreme narcissism that licensed these boys, in their minds, to murder their teachers and classmates.
Something similar is now going on with Cho, whose florid writings and videos were an almanac of gripes. "I'm so lonely," he moped to a teacher, failing to mention that he often refused to answer even when people said hello. Of course he was lonely.
In Holocaust studies, there is a school of thought that says to explain is to forgive. I won't go that far. But we must stop explaining killers on their terms. Minus the clear context of narcissism, the biographical details of these men can begin to look like a plausible chain of cause and effect--especially to other narcissists. And they don't need any more encouragement.
There's a telling moment in Michael Moore's film Bowling for Columbine, in which singer Marilyn Manson dismisses the idea that listening to his lyrics contributed to the disintegration of Harris and Klebold. What the Columbine killers needed, Manson suggests, was for someone to listen to them. This is the narcissist's view of narcissism: everything would be fine if only he received more attention. The real problem can be found in the killer's mirror.
On another, related sidenote. There have been a string of studies recently examining a possible link b/w cannabis use and the onset of schizophrenia.
If you're talking about the study I think you are, it doesn't really say that weed creates schizophrenia where there was none before, but more that it brings out or exacerbates a latent tendency that was already there.
Great article above. Maybe this should be no surprise...
Study Finds Current College Students Are Most Narcissistic Generation
People Born After 1982 Favor Self-Enhancement
SAN DIEGO -- College students are now more narcissistic, or self- loving, than previous generations, according to study released Tuesday that was led by a San Diego State University professor. Researchers examined the responses of about 16,000 college students from around the country who completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006, according to SDSU. It asked for responses to statements like "If I ruled the world, it would be a better place," "I think I am a special person," "I can live my life any way I want to," and "I like to be the center of attention."
The study was led by Jean Twenge, a SDSU psychology professor and author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable Than Ever Before." "Far from being civically oriented, young people born after 1982 are the most narcissistic generation in recent history," Twenge said. Also taking part in the study were researchers from the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia and the University of South Alabama. Twenge said that highly narcissistic people -- or those who are characterized by excessive self admiration, vanity and a sense of entitlement -- lack empathy for others, are aggressive when insulted, seek public glory and favor self-enhancement over helping others. The study found that narcissism is 30 percent more prevalent among today's college students than those in the so-called "Baby Boomer" or "X" generations, according to Twenge. "Narcissism feels good and might be useful for meeting new people or auditioning on `American Idol,???" said W. Keith Campbell, a University of Georgia psychology professor and a study co-author. "Unfortunately, narcissism can also have very negative consequences for society, including the breakdown of close relationships with others." Twenge said the prevalence of narcissism is fueled by current technology, such as the Web sites MySpace and YouTube. The results of the study were presented today at a "Why Don't You Get Me? Bridging the Generations" workshop at the University of San Diego.
On another, related sidenote. There have been a string of studies recently examining a possible link b/w cannabis use and the onset of schizophrenia.
If you're talking about the study I think you are, it doesn't really say that weed creates schizophrenia where there was none before, but more that it brings out or exacerbates a latent tendency that was already there.
Right, sorry if that wasn't clear. That's what I meant by 'onset'.
Interesting article, Birdman, though I'm not sure how much I agree with the author. Narcissism, to me, is a non-explanation, becuase calling a killer narcissistic is completely redundant.
"The real problem can be found in the killer's mirror."
A generation ago, the social critic Christopher Lasch diagnosed narcissism as the signal disorder of contemporary American culture. The cult of celebrity, the marketing of instant gratification, skepticism toward moral codes and the politics of victimhood were signs of a society regressing toward the infant stage.
"The real problem can be found in the killer's mirror."
A generation ago, the social critic Christopher Lasch diagnosed narcissism as the signal personality trait[/b] of contemporary American culture. The cult of celebrity, the marketing of instant gratification, skepticism toward moral codes and the politics of victimhood were signs of a society regressing toward the infant stage.
"The real problem can be found in the killer's mirror."
A generation ago, the social critic Christopher Lasch diagnosed narcissism as the signal personality trait of contemporary American culture. The cult of celebrity, the marketing of instant gratification, skepticism toward moral codes and the politics of victimhood were signs of a society regressing toward the infant stage.[/b]
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Charles Mesloh, Professor of Criminology at Florida Gulf Coast University, told NBC 2 News that he was shocked Cho could have killed 32 people with two handguns absent expert training. Mesloh immediately assumed that Cho must have used a shotgun or an assault rifle.
"I'm dumbfounded by the number of people he managed to kill with these weapons," said Mesloh, "The only thing I can figure is that he got close to them and he simply executed them."
Mesloh said the killer performed like a trained professional, "He had a 60% fatality rate with handguns - that's unheard of given 9 millimeters don't kill people instantly," said Mesloh, stating that the handguns Cho used were designed for "plinking at cans," not executing human beings.
Cho was certainly no slouch, in the two hour gap between the first reported shootings and the wider rampage that would occur later in the morning, during which time the University completely failed to warn the students despite having loudspeakers stationed throughout the campus, Cho had time to film a confession video, transfer it to his computer, burn it onto a DVD, package it up, travel to the post office, post the package, and travel back to his dorm room to retrieve his guns and then travel back to the opposite end of the campus to resume the killing spree. The almost inconceivable speed of Cho's actions become more suspicious when we recall initial reports that there were two shooters.
He had a 60% fatality rate with handguns - that's unheard of given 9 millimeters don't kill people instantly
my tought 5 minutes after i heard about the number of dead people...I mess around with weapons. I'm not an expert but i have friends that qualifies in that domain. Knowing the amount of clips he had, the kind of guns he had, it's pretty much an exploit to shoot and kill that much people...I mean, from my point of view, it takes a trained dude. Now it would interesting to know if he was member of some shooting school or whatsoever. Just to guarantee the fact that you can't shoot and kill so much without being trained.
He had a 60% fatality rate with handguns - that's unheard of given 9 millimeters don't kill people instantly
from the interviews I heard on the radio, it sounded like he kept going back into the same classrooms again & again, & re-shooting the people who were already hit & hiding under desks & stuff.
---
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
He had a 60% fatality rate with handguns - that's unheard of given 9 millimeters don't kill people instantly
from the interviews I heard on the radio, it sounded like he kept going back into the same classrooms again & again, & re-shooting the people who were already hit & hiding under desks & stuff.
---
To me, that only provides more evidence of a trained killer, plus a question...
Comments
"Anything that doesn't kill you, makes you stronger". I think that's bullshit. There are traumatic events that haunt people for the rest of their lives, or at the least take away their livelihood. These stories go untold because as I have said, people don't really want to be around losers and "bad humans".
I believe there's some good in everybody. It just takes more effort to see that in some people. Behind the countless layers of trauma, fear, and hostility, there was probably a good kid.
All of this manifesto shit. Isn't that the ultimate sign for the need of acknowledgement?
Shit really is depressing.
I only know of the era I've lived in, but I get the impression that the world wasn't as complicated as it is today.
He's right, for what it's worth. If you believe in Darwinism.
Extrapolate as you will.
Right. Genetics are meaningless and Mendel was a hack.
Sadly, people only have about a tenth of the free will you think they do.
sidenote.
i feel really shitty about what this will do for the already shitty view of mental health problems in this country, especially among young people.
That is a rough age- among other times, when schizophrenia most often rears its head. there are really important changes being made in college, and i fear that any mental problems that exhibit themselves in college are now going to land a kid in a lot heavier a situation than needed, owing to a fear of shootings.
its late; i was having trouble sleeping, and now i'm exhausted, so i'm going to go to bed.
but, i just want everyone to consider how we treat people with mental health issues. there is no justification (NONE) for what happened on Monday. But, among the many issues we need to address coming out of this event, mental health issues among college students is most definitely one. and, kicking them all out of school to avoid another VT is not a solution.
absolutely. My mom lost her brother to schizophrenia in college. It's daunting how much we have yet to learn about the disorder.
On another, related sidenote. There have been a string of studies recently examining a possible link b/w cannabis use and the onset of schizophrenia.
She flew back from Brazil as soon as she heard the news. I don't even know what to say to her.
Fuck.
RIP Ryan "Stack" Clark.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/17/AR2007041700442_2.html?hpid=topnews
[i]The student shot along with Hilscher was Ryan C. Clark, a Virginia Tech senior and a deeply admired resident adviser in West Ambler Johnston.
Clark, called "Stack" by his friends, was from Martinez, Ga., just outside Augusta. He was friendly and charismatic, said Kelly Pierce, who lives in the dorm. Monica Price, 23, of Annandale, who graduated from Virginia Tech in December and knew Clark, said he was spending an extra academic year at the university and planned to go to graduate school.
Price said she was told that Clark had gone to check on people's safety yesterday morning after hearing that a possible outsider was in the dormitory.
Clark, who played in the university marching band, was pursuing a double major in English and biology and expected to work for an advanced degree in psychology, according to the band's Web site.
"He was just one of the greatest people you could possibly know," Gregory Walton, 25, a friend, told the Associated Press. "He was always smiling, always laughing. I don't think I ever saw him mad in the five years I knew him."
Makes sense, though. Paranoia? Check. Delusions? Well, mild ones, on occasion, depending on the strength of what you're smoking.
And to clarify for those who may be laboring under a common misconception, schizophrenia is completely different from multiple-personality disorder. But I'm sure Breakself could elaborate on that far more accurately than I could.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1612688,00.html
From Time.com
Thursday, Apr. 19, 2007
It's All About Him
By David Von Drehle
My reporter's odyssey has taken me from the chill dawn outside the Florida prison in which serial killer Ted Bundy met his end, to the charred fa??ade of a Bronx nightclub where Julio Gonzalez incinerated 87 people, to a muddy Colorado hillside overlooking the Columbine High School library, in which Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold wrought their mayhem. Along the way, I've come to believe that we're looking for why in all the wrong places.
I've lost interest in the cracks, chips, holes and broken places in the lives of men like Cho Seung-Hui, the mass murderer of Virginia Tech. The pain, grievances and self-pity of mass killers are only symptoms of the real explanation. Those who do these things share one common trait. They are raging narcissists. "I died--like Jesus Christ," Cho said in a video sent to NBC.
Psychologists from South Africa to Chicago have begun to recognize that extreme self-centeredness is the forest in these stories, and all the other things-- guns, games, lyrics, pornography--are just trees. To list the traits of the narcissist is enough to prove the point: grandiosity, numbness to the needs and pain of others, emotional isolation, resentment and envy.
In interviews with Ted Bundy taped a quarter-century ago, journalists Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth captured the essence of homicidal narcissism. Through hour after tedious hour, a man who killed 30 or more young women and girls preened for his audience. He spoke of himself as an actor, of life as a series of roles and of other people as props and scenery. His desires were simple: "control" and "mastery." He took whatever he wanted, from shoplifted tube socks to human lives, because nothing mattered beyond his desires. Bundy said he was always surprised that anyone noticed his victims had vanished. "I mean, there are so many people," he explained. The only death he regretted was his own.
Criminologists distinguish between serial killers like Bundy, whose crimes occur one at a time and who try hard to avoid capture, and mass killers like Cho. But the central role of narcissism plainly connects them. Only a narcissist could decide that his alienation should be underlined in the blood of strangers. The flamboyant nature of these crimes is like a neon sign pointing to the truth. Charles Whitman playing God in his Texas clock tower, James Huberty spraying lead in a California restaurant, Harris and Klebold in their theatrical trench coats--they're all stars in the cinema of their self-absorbed minds.
Freud explained narcissism as a failure to grow up. All infants are narcissists, he pointed out, but as we grow, we ought to learn that other people have lives independent of our own. It's not their job to please us, applaud for us or even notice us--let alone die because we're unhappy.
A generation ago, the social critic Christopher Lasch diagnosed narcissism as the signal disorder of contemporary American culture. The cult of celebrity, the marketing of instant gratification, skepticism toward moral codes and the politics of victimhood were signs of a society regressing toward the infant stage. You don't have to buy Freud's explanation or Lasch's indictment, however, to see an immediate danger in the way we examine the lives of mass killers. Earnestly and honestly, detectives and journalists dig up apparent clues and weave them into a sort of explanation. In the days after Columbine, for example, Harris and Klebold emerged as alienated misfits in the jock culture of their suburban high school. We learned about their morbid taste in music and their violent video games. Largely missing, though, was the proper frame around the picture: the extreme narcissism that licensed these boys, in their minds, to murder their teachers and classmates.
Something similar is now going on with Cho, whose florid writings and videos were an almanac of gripes. "I'm so lonely," he moped to a teacher, failing to mention that he often refused to answer even when people said hello. Of course he was lonely.
In Holocaust studies, there is a school of thought that says to explain is to forgive. I won't go that far. But we must stop explaining killers on their terms. Minus the clear context of narcissism, the biographical details of these men can begin to look like a plausible chain of cause and effect--especially to other narcissists. And they don't need any more encouragement.
There's a telling moment in Michael Moore's film Bowling for Columbine, in which singer Marilyn Manson dismisses the idea that listening to his lyrics contributed to the disintegration of Harris and Klebold. What the Columbine killers needed, Manson suggests, was for someone to listen to them. This is the narcissist's view of narcissism: everything would be fine if only he received more attention. The real problem can be found in the killer's mirror.
If you're talking about the study I think you are, it doesn't really say that weed creates schizophrenia where there was none before, but more that it brings out or exacerbates a latent tendency that was already there.
Study Finds Current College Students Are Most Narcissistic Generation
People Born After 1982 Favor Self-Enhancement
SAN DIEGO -- College students are now more narcissistic, or self- loving, than previous generations, according to study released Tuesday that was led by a San Diego State University professor.
Researchers examined the responses of about 16,000 college students from around the country who completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006, according to SDSU.
It asked for responses to statements like "If I ruled the world, it would be a better place," "I think I am a special person," "I can live my life any way I want to," and "I like to be the center of attention."
The study was led by Jean Twenge, a SDSU psychology professor and author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable Than Ever Before."
"Far from being civically oriented, young people born after 1982 are the most narcissistic generation in recent history," Twenge said.
Also taking part in the study were researchers from the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia and the University of South Alabama.
Twenge said that highly narcissistic people -- or those who are characterized by excessive self admiration, vanity and a sense of entitlement -- lack empathy for others, are aggressive when insulted, seek public glory and favor self-enhancement over helping others.
The study found that narcissism is 30 percent more prevalent among today's college students than those in the so-called "Baby Boomer" or "X" generations, according to Twenge.
"Narcissism feels good and might be useful for meeting new people or auditioning on `American Idol,???" said W. Keith Campbell, a University of Georgia psychology professor and a study co-author. "Unfortunately, narcissism can also have very negative consequences for society, including the breakdown of close relationships with others."
Twenge said the prevalence of narcissism is fueled by current technology, such as the Web sites MySpace and YouTube.
The results of the study were presented today at a "Why Don't You Get Me? Bridging the Generations" workshop at the University of San Diego.
Right, sorry if that wasn't clear. That's what I meant by 'onset'.
I've had a few friends & relatives that were never the same again after psychedelic experiences.
the schitzo and/or manic-depressive symptoms may have emerged eventually tho, who knows - early 20s is when in happens usually.
---
Bush activates a brainwashed shooter to distract the public from Iraq & Gonzales' testimony in the Senate.
I just want to hear the Whitman conspiracy.....this one oughta be good.
Datura supposedly does the trick as well in some cases, even though it's not technically a hallucinogen.
Oh, you'll get it eventually...
I've never said that I think anything is lizard people related apart from books, websites, and theories specifically addressing lizard people topics.
my tought 5 minutes after i heard about the number of dead people...I mess around with weapons. I'm not an expert but i have friends that qualifies in that domain. Knowing the amount of clips he had, the kind of guns he had, it's pretty much an exploit to shoot and kill that much people...I mean, from my point of view, it takes a trained dude. Now it would interesting to know if he was member of some shooting school or whatsoever. Just to guarantee the fact that you can't shoot and kill so much without being trained.
from the interviews I heard on the radio, it sounded like he kept going back into the same classrooms again & again, & re-shooting the people who were already hit & hiding under desks & stuff.
---
To me, that only provides more evidence of a trained killer, plus a question...
How many clips of ammunition did he have on him?