New society type to counter terrorism and increasing lunatics?

[AqD]

We just had an incident in which a local university student who has no mental illness or crime history decided to start mass slaughtering inside subway out of no reason - more than 20 wounded and 4 dead already. He was born into a normal family with nothing special, except he's a little nerdy and probably unlikable, just like most of teens these days. And it's lucky he has no gun, otherwise we'd be expecting hundreds of deaths, since neither the subway company nor the police were ever prepared for that.

Since there is no viable cause, there could be no cure either. I suppose we'll become like USA or Pakistan soon, with metal detectors and armed guards everywhere, which, however wouldn't help much if guards themselves get crazy and start shooting each other, and the wider availability of guns would probably make things worse. After all, the modern society especially in urban area is quite fragile - there is nothing to prevent your neighbors from blowing up everyone by bottled gas, or crazy cooker stabbing his customers to death, or overworked and angry nurses injecting AIDS into annoying patients.

So how should or how will the society change to cope with this? Should we revert back to medieval-european society where everyone lives in villages and towns with known neighbors, and never go out without proper escort? Or like Surrogates where everyone use a robotic replica to experience social life in outside world? Or like Elysium or In Time in which people are put into different zones, and thus confine all the potential lunatics together?

Please share your opinions - or if you don't think any structural change is required, explain how we could fix the madness that is happening right now?

[Denny Crane!]

The madness?

Still a nicer place to live than it used to be. We just hear more about the bad stuff.

[Gaidin]

When did this happen? Are they seriously dumping his medical records for all to see especially if it just happened?

[AqD]

Yes. It happened last week. They checked everything and nothing is unusual.


@Denny Crane!: Are you certain of that? We had nothing like that before. And there were never guys like Tsarnaev in USA or Anders Behring Breivik in Norway. I don't think places are getting better at all, although I'm getting better myself due to my own financial condition.

[Phier]

@Denny Crane!: Are you certain of that? We had nothing like that before. And there were never guys like Tsarnaev in USA or Anders Behring Breivik in Norway. I don't think places are getting better at all, although I'm getting better myself due to my own financial condition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers

It happens. More people and more coverage may make it happen more often, but its nothing new. Society as a whole doesn't need to change for the .000001%.

[Heathen Hammer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers

It happens. More people and more coverage may make it happen more often, but its nothing new. Society as a whole doesn't need to change for the .000001%.

It is an air crash effect. More people get killed by muggers everyday, but they don't make it to the news. Spree shooters do, because they are easy to make a sensation out of. Not to mention all the cheap populism to fuel the anti-gun agenda.

[Denny Crane!]

A few more mass killings overall less violence. Could we improve things? Sure. Is society declining? No, its been mariginal improvements decade on decade beyond a few spikes like I think the mid 90's there was a huge spike and its dropped again. The big rise in cocaine then crack brought more death and violence than now.

But if you really want to push for a better society push rehabilitation not punishment politically, decriminalise drugs and look at treatment and targeting dealers not users. That is the easiest way to massively improve society and empty the jails and stop a terrible cycle of violence.

[conon394]

Please share your opinions - or if you don't think any structural change is required, explain how we could fix the madness that is happening right now?

Is it happening right now? Or do we simply have 24 hour news feeds, the internet and a lot more people crammed up next to each other in huge cities? Not to mention all kinds of social media to make sure you can bully somebody endlessly or have your perhaps poorly decided selfy exposed to the world etc.

I mean think about we demand an ordered nice society but back in the day 'Ted' the nut job might have had a perfectly honest career in the East India Company (or its equivalent) being a violent loner for king and country and be rewarded for it.

[fkizz]

make a hotline for these kinds of people.

[Ima Farmathar]

Unlike the claims made earlier in the tread, this kinds of killing sprees are increasing in frequency. Admittedly while violence as a whole is decreasing. There is a series of blog posts by Dr. Peter Turchin about the issue. He considers it as a symptom of the unraveling of cooperation in society*.

Regarding its solution, society will just learn to live with these symptoms just as it has learned to live with cars, and other problems. That is unless the deeper pathology causes a collapse in civilization. We are lucky that by their nature this kinds of outburst they cause relative few deaths, as the OP previously pointed out,

there is nothing to prevent your neighbors from blowing up everyone by bottled gas,

It is extremely easy to do terrorism in a modern world, you can easily make bombs with materials that are available without permit, and which by their nature as important precursors cannot be regulated without a great cost to the economy. As our collective knowledge progresses it is going to become easier and easier to do such things. This reminds me of the classic episode of outer limits “final exam”**, our “final exam” as a society and as a species consists in learning to deal with the possibility that the deranged can build mas destruction weapons. In a similar vein, Frank Herbert, in “committee of the whole”*** considers that once every human can easily destroy the rest of the species humanity will transcend and achieve maturity…

“For all I know it is within the providence of God that the human race should destroy itself in this manner [nuclear war]."
“Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury,”


*http://socialevolutionforum.com/2012...n-a-coal-mine/

** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_E..._Outer_Limits)
***http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committ..._(short_story)

[Bethrezen]

"Terrorism" is a notion invented by the US government in order to invade oil/mineral rich countries (or just strategic valuable areas), through killing its own citizens.

US proclaimed itself the Defender of the World (against Terrorism) so it may have the right to build military bases, missile sites and position its fleets anywhere it wants.

Civilian terrorism can be countered by the police alone.

[Col. Tartleton]

Actually terrorism is the late 18th century philosophy that a virtuous society can only exist in a state of perpetual fear.

In terrorism the government must be the source of fear not the source of security.

The Taliban was a terrorist regime. North Korea is a terrorist regime. Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization because their end goal is terrorism. Fatah rebels are not terrorists, Hamas rebels are terrorists.

[hellheaven1987]

We just had an incident in which a local university student who has no mental illness or crime history decided to start mass slaughtering inside subway out of no reason - more than 20 wounded and 4 dead already. He was born into a normal family with nothing special, except he's a little nerdy and probably unlikable, just like most of teens these days. And it's lucky he has no gun, otherwise we'd be expecting hundreds of deaths, since neither the subway company nor the police were ever prepared for that.

I have been following that event and my conclusion is Taiwanese nowadays live in peace too long, hence become dumb, irresponsible and naive.

Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization because their end goal is terrorism.

Their end goal is to create an Islamic One State. Now if you want to say Islam itself is terrorism...

[AqD]

I have been following that event and my conclusion is Taiwanese nowadays live in peace too long, hence become dumb, irresponsible and naive.

I take that as a compliment. But how does this kind of environment even breed serial murderers? It's not USA or China. And this guy has no agenda or strong motivation at all.


@Denny Crane!: terrorists are not gangsters, and crazy people are worse than terrorists because they don't have anything to gain by killing. How do you purpose to fix them by rehabilitation?

BTW if we could manipulate people's mind to suppress that kind of violence, wouldn't it also be possible to create it? That would surely make a wonderful weapon in 21st century.

[trance]

The truth is that you cannot build a completely safe, foolproof system, even in a highly optimized system accidents, mistakes and lethal incidents will still occur. Can we further optimize law enforcement, treatment of mental disease and the general socioeconomic state? Absolutely! And this is happening as we speak, it takes time but believe me, these are scientific fields as much as any others. But generally, this is reactive components, not proactive. Because proactive measurements are extremely intrusive, costly and generally not very good at preventing incidents such as mass killings or the like. Sure, limiting availability of force multipliers like semi automatic rifles may have some effect, but some people (like Breivik) would still get their hands on such weaponry through illegal means.

Psychopathy and other potentially violent mental disorders are very hard to detect and when detected humanely prevent from escalating. Consider Breivik, a solitary terrorist with a personal agenda without any obvious suspect ties, of course he's going to fly under the radar. For the ones who commit less calculated acts, you should be aware that psychotic episodes can also be very hard to predict.

Given the rarity of these events, and the already extensive protection in place against them, I think you can sleep safe at night. More so than in any other time in human history. I'm not blind towards other aspects that for example terrorism bring to the table, but isolated killings just are. Safety isn't paramount, you got to live too.

[hellheaven1987]

I take that as a compliment. But how does this kind of environment even breed serial murderers? It's not USA or China. And this guy has no agenda or strong motivation at all.

Compliment or not, the fact is danger is always around us and it is your own responsibility to protect yourself, especially in a world when information sharing become more and more globally. Be an ignorant person who assume everything is safe and hence let the guard down is, in the end, your own fault.

[Knight of Heaven]

Compliment or not, the fact is danger is always around us and it is your own responsibility to protect yourself, especially in a world when information sharing become more and more globally. Be an ignorant person who assume everything is safe and hence let the guard down is, in the end, your own fault.

No, in the end the fault is the perpetrator.
That line of thinking, is excusatory, and fearmongering.

[hellheaven1987]

No, in the end the fault is the perpetrator.
That line of thinking, is excusatory, and fearmongering.

No wonder Melilla got stormed by at least 1000 illegal immigrants few days ago...

[AqD]

Compliment or not, the fact is danger is always around us and it is your own responsibility to protect yourself, especially in a world when information sharing become more and more globally. Be an ignorant person who assume everything is safe and hence let the guard down is, in the end, your own fault.

How would you protect yourself from a crazy katana wielder, or random shooters? Are you going to wear dragon scale all the time? plus helmet? What about poison in food or explosion from gas?

[hellheaven1987]

How would you protect yourself from a crazy katana wielder, or random shooters?

It is quite easy and back before 2000 most elementary schools in Taiwan did teach their children how to protect themselves (because there were large amount of kidnappers, rapists, and worse Commies on mainland trying to invade Taiwan):

- Be alert of your surroundings.

- Set up plans for emergency.

- Don't go to dangerous places unless necessary.

- Don't do stupid things that endanger yourself.