The Truth About Killing - Debunking the Hobbesian Myth

Miscellaneous General
1

Hi,

I just finished watching the two episodes of “The truth about killing”, which discusses the natural tendency of humans not to kill in combat and how military science is overcoming that.

Episode 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vlGR7S2wcI

Episode 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6jrRqGwtB8

According to this documentary, in WWII, only 2% of soldiers actually shot their guns and aimed for the enemy. Most shot without aiming and many did not even shoot at all. The reason is that in danger situations our “animal part” of the brain takes over, which instinctly says we shouldn’t kill our own species but fight side by side against our natural enemies. (In fact, so is argued, historically military uniforms were meant to be very visible and awe inspiring, with the goal of deterring, not killing, the enemy.)

Out of those 2% who did kill, half of them were sociopaths, defined as not having a different reaction to seeing violence vs seing positive stuff like food and girls. The other half were non-sociopathic killers, and military science has trained their soldiers to become like that ever since.

This training, as seen in episode 2, conditions soldiers into killing without thought by gradually making their shooting practice more realistic. Soldiers are sent to battle after they become accustomed to the act of killing. What modern science didn’t solve, however, is the psychological effects that occur after the killing - when the soldiers start thinking about what they did (and have flashbacks to horrible sights they saw).

The documentary states that nowadays 95% of soldiers kill from close distance.

Other than discussing the “progress” in close distance infantry killing, the documentary also discusses how aviation and missile technology fit in the ever existing move to more long range killing to lower the psychological burdens. So we went from bare hands => rocks => small knife => bigger knife => swords => archers => pistols => … => planes

All in all a very interesting documentary that indicates that the Hobbesian Jungle theory does not hold for 98% or 99% of people. In my opinion it clearly demonstrates the dangers of outsourced, impersonal violence.

2

… are police given psychological screens for sociopathy?

3

… are police given psychological screens for sociopathy?

I doubt it.

4

This doesn’t surprise me. Most people are reasonably well adjusted, even after decades of socialism and double think in the public school system.

When people talk about boogeymen I just roll my eyes. Unfortunately, there is enough ignorance out there that people can be convinced of external threats if they aren’t convinced of internal ones.

5

I have an excellent book by Col. David Grossman titled On Killing, I recommend it for anyone interested in this subject. Killing other human beings is extremely difficult for non-sociopaths to do, except under certain conditions (terror/fight or flight).

Also, check this out by Gwynne Dyer.

Clayton -

6

Just keep telling yourself: “There is no selection effect.”

Repeatedly.

Clayton -

7

Clayton, David Grossman is the main expert in the Truth about killing episodes. I found his expertise impressing indeed. Thanks for the video recommendation.

8

A brief search of the internet shows that police do indeed undergo psychological screening for aggression/decision making. It turns out this is the kind of test many police study for. Police forums show police just trying to beat the test. None of the comments say “just put down what you think is the right answer”.

9

Very good documentary except for the “give glory to soldiers” part at the end, ofc

10

Yeah the “give glory” thing kind of shows the whole problem of socialized defense. If all defense were private, soldiers would probably come almost entirely from that 2% and be a lot like Koobus Venter from the movie District 9.

Clayton -

11

This sounds interesting. But I’d like to point out, the original posters claim that killing is unnatural is very incorrect. Killing is very normal and very human, provided one is in a situation where killing is beneficial.

Evolution has created us as killing machines, designed to kill when we can abscond with someone food, women etc. Killing is also a normal desire when someone has injured your reputation, such as slander, adultery, sexual rivalry etc. Read “The Murderer Next Door” for a good take on the subject.

Modern society provides fewer situations where killing can be beneficial. Of course, we have also been socialized to not be killers. Furthermore, most Americans have few experiences with killing animals, unlike those from hunting or farming socieities. Killing animals is often a good stepping stone to being able to kill humans.

So this could be a good documentary, but don’t draw the wrong conclusions about innate human nature.

12

before everyone rushes to conclusions, i think it is worthwhile to think about what the data is tellng you…

is the statistic quoted by the op saying that only 98% of people would never try to harm someone? no, it is saying that 98%of soilders found it difficult to harm people they never met to capture land they will never use because they were told to do so by someone else. so it is hardly relevant for typical violent crimes (over 1 million committed each year in the US alone)

but can we even trust the data to tell us that much? even a small amount of googling reveals that there a variety of criticisms the way S.L.A Marshall (who was never trained in statistics or data collection or psychology for that matter) conducted his research. for one, the data themselves or a detailed methodology were never actually released, only the results. so it isn’t clear exactly how he collected his information, the demographic characteristics of respondents, etc according to at least one eye witness account, Marshall did not use a standardized survey instrument and only rather casually interviewed soilders (sometimes asking them about thier firing behavior and sometimes not).

http://www.theppsc.org/Grossman/SLA_Marshall/Bad-Firing-Data.htm

it only took one google search “sla marshall report” to start finding out that this number smelled a little fishy. so i would probably avoid using this figure in polite company.

13

Out of those 2% who did kill, half of them were sociopaths, defined as not having a different reaction to seeing violence vs seing positive stuff like food and girls.

I like how anyone without anthropocentric moralistic fantasies has a disease. Psychiatric pseudoscience :slight_smile: