Is It Time to Treat Violence Like a Contagious Disease?

reply to post by sonnny1


If violence is a disease, then would it come under the auspices of Obamacare?

Seriously. If they can find a way to categorize "anger" as a treatable disease, then they can diagnose you as having a mental "instability" and prescribe treatment (and take away your firearms).

reply to post by beezzer

I think by the end of things, they'll just simplify it down to one common diagnosis that covers all the aggressive and undesirable elements found by society to exist in a person.

Diagnosis: Being Male

Prognosis: Poor to Terminal

Treatment: (zip...zip..zip) just let me finish sharpening my knife here and I'll get back to ya...get comfy!

Very interesting concept and just too add my two cents, I live in Iceland most of the year, coming home to the states to visit in the summer months and Christmas.

I can tell you that its like a different world, there is almost no violence whatsoever, the police have no guns, people leave their doors open and unlocked on nice days/nights. No homeless or problems with drugs [sure there are a few isolated cases of drug issues but nothing like the states] Its the most peaceful place I've ever seen and almost unimaginable and if I didn't live there I would never believe it.

Most of the violence that does occur is in and around the main city of Reykjavík but is still very rare. I would say the only real threat of being hurt is by nature itself.

So is violence a disease?, No I don't believe it is, but I do believe its a learned behavior. Sure humans have the capability of being very violent as seen over millions of years, but I live in a land that is proof that is doesn't have to be that way.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by beezzer

 

I think by the end of things, they'll just simplify it down to one common diagnosis that covers all the aggressive and undesirable elements found by society to exist in a person.

Diagnosis: Being Male

Prognosis: Poor to Terminal

Treatment: (zip...zip..zip) just let me finish sharpening my knife here and I'll get back to ya...get comfy!

But dovn't worry.

It'll be free under Obamacare.

Originally posted by sonnny1
These folks think so. Humans have always been violent, but could it be treated like a Disease? Should it be treated as such?

What they describe might seem at first like common sense. Intuitively we understand that people surrounded by violence are more likely to be violent themselves. This isn’t just some nebulous phenomenon, argue Slutkin and his colleagues, but a dynamic that can be rigorously quantified and understood.

According to their theory, exposure to violence is conceptually similar to exposure to, say, cholera or tuberculosis. Acts of violence are the germs. Instead of wracking intestines or lungs, they lodge in the brain. When people, in particular children and young adults whose brains are extremely plastic, repeatedly experience or witness violence, their neurological function is altered.

I was actually surprised there is research on it.

Some of the best-known research on this phenomenon comes from analyses of homicides in New York City. Homicide rates nearly tripled between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s, rose in waves through the mid-1990s, and then fell precipitously, like a disease burning itself out.

Is It Time to Treat Violence Like a Contagious Disease?


Very interesting indeed.


So if it can be considered a Disease, is it curable?

ATS, Thoughts?

When I read things like the original post in this thread (quoted above), it reminds me of this

OK. So the details are not quite the same but I get the same kind of vibes.

Originally posted by magycpapyri


So is violence a disease?, No I don't believe it is, but I do believe its a learned behavior. Sure humans have the capability of being very violent as seen over millions of years, but I live in a land that is proof that is doesn't have to be that way.

I would agree, from observation its a learned behavior.

S&F to the OP too for an inelligent disussion.

This makes me think of that old monkey see, monkey do statue.