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Author Sam Harris writes about the possibility of violence and how one should respond to it. Real-world crime is different from what we are used to seeing on TV dramas. The article lines out three principles of self-defense, with the overreaching goal being to avoid violence if at all possible.
If someone puts a gun to your head and demands your purse or wallet, hand it over immediately and run. Don’t worry about being shot in the back: If your attacker is going to shoot you for running, he was going to shoot you if you stayed in place, and at point-blank range. By running, you make yourself harder to kill. Any attempt to move you, even by a few feet—backing you off a sidewalk and into an alley, forcing you behind a row of bushes—is unacceptable and should mobilize all your physical and emotional resources.?[8]
If you find yourself in a situation where a predator is trying to control you, the time for listening to instructions and attempting to remain calm has passed. It will get no easier to resist and escape after these first moments. The presence of weapons, the size or number of your attackers—these details are irrelevant. However bad the situation looks, it will only get worse. To hesitate is to put yourself at the mercy of a sociopath. You have no alternative but to explode into action, whatever the risk. Recognizing when this line has been crossed, and committing to escape at any cost, is more important than mastering physical techniques.
Of course, there’s a lot more to consider, but you won’t have time to think these things through if the situation arises, so read the whole thing and think about it ahead of time. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Flickr user Pensiero)
This post is not about the Wall Street protesters, well, yes it is, but not about the Occupy Wall Street protest of 2011. A century ago, people were not any happier about what went on in New York City’s financial district.
On September 16, 1920, an explosion at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in downtown Manhattan killed 39 people and wounded hundreds more. It would be the deadliest terror attack on American soil until the Oklahoma City bombing 75 years later. Despite its proximity to the attacks on New York on September 11, 2001, the Wall Street bombing of 1920 has more in common with the public sentiment at the Occupy Wall Street protests in lower Manhattan today—with one notable exception. Today’s protesters are committed to nonviolence. The anarchists of yesteryear were not. They largely failed in their attacks on capitalism and Wall Street—and their tactics turned public sentiment against their cause.
That bombing was the culmination of decades of violence on Wall Street, which involved suicide bombs, union-busting mercenaries, and gunfire. After the 1920 bombing, cooler heads prevailed, and everything was hunky-dory on Wall Street …for about nine years. Link
This slide show is subtitled “Pistols, canes, bowie knives, and fireplace tongs: a brief history of congressional violence.” Read 14 accounts of our representatives in Washington acting in ways that we don’t expect.
Upset with Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner’s abolitionist rhetoric, South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks approached him on the Senate floor and beat him unconscious with his cane in 1856. Brooks later told the House he “meant no disrespect” by the assault, and mused about his choice of weaponry in a floor speech: “[I] speculated somewhat as to whether I should employ a horsewhip or a cowhide; but knowing that the senator was my superior in strength, it occurred to me that he might wrest it from my hand.”
Link -via Everlasting Blort
This strange video is part story, part showreel, as it was produced, filmed, and performed by stunt doubles Sam Hargrave and Monique Ganderton. -via reddit
Why do some people murder? Is it in their blood? Maybe so, according to scientific studies that suggest that there is a genetic basis for violent behaviors:
They’ve tested some 30 criminal defendants, most of whom were charged with murder. They were looking for a particular variant of the MAO-A gene — also known as the warrior gene because it has been associated with violence. Bernet says they found that [the defendant] Waldroup has the high-risk version of the gene.
"His genetic makeup, combined with his history of child abuse, together created a vulnerability that he would be a violent adult," Bernet explains.
Over the fierce opposition of prosecutors, the judge allowed Bernet to testify in court that these two factors help explain why Waldroup snapped that murderous night.
"We didn’t say these things made him become violent, but they certainly constituted a risk factor or a vulnerability," Bernet says.
Bernet cited scientific studies over the past decade that found that the combination of the high-risk gene and child abuse increases one’s chances of being convicted of a violent offense by more than 400 percent. He notes that other studies have not found a connection between the MAO-A gene and violence — but he told the jury that he felt the genes and childhood abuse were a dangerous cocktail.
"A person doesn’t choose to have this particular gene or this particular genetic makeup," Bernet says. "A person doesn’t choose to be abused as a child. So I think that should be taken into consideration when we’re talking about criminal responsibility."
Does that make a person less culpable of his own actions? What do you think of the "my genes made me do it" defense?
Chimps may be portrayed as mischieviously fun but largely harmless by Hollywood, but the truth is anything but. In the wild, chimpanzees are killers that engage in years-long war against one another, and their behavior may explain man’s propensity for violence:
It was a four-year "war" witnessed by Dr Jane Goodall, and Dr Muller’s PhD supervisor, Richard Wrangham, a professor of primatology from Harvard University, Boston, that put an end to our cosy ideas.
In the Seventies, Prof Wrangham and Dr Goodall watched a group of chimpanzees split into two factions. One group killed every male and some of the females in the other group. The victims had recently been their companions.
Although Dr Goodall was the first to suggest it, Prof Wrangham went on to develop a theory that would explain human violence based on the aggression he had witnessed. As he points out, we are hardly a peaceful species. In Britain, men are 24 times more likely to kill or assault another person, and 263 times more likely to commit a sexual offence than a woman.
Prof Wrangham’s theory is called the Demonic Male Hypothesis. He argues that human males and chimps share a tendency to be aggressive with our closest common ancestor. Chimpanzees and humans have many attributes in common: we share approximately 98.5 per cent of our DNA, we both hunt and males show a strong desire to form alliances against other males while jockeying for status. Male chimpanzees are hostile towards other groups of chimps; you don’t even have to go to Arsenal to know that men are not dissimilar.
Some amazing photography enables us to get up close as various insects meet their demise. Includes various acts of dismemberment (including one in mid air) which are not for the faint hearted!
Death in the domain of the insects can be swift and cruel but retains a magnificence and beauty that is somehow at odds with the brutality of what is happening. Take a look at this collection of awesome photographs and see whether or not you agree – but beware! This is not for the squeamish!
Link – via webphemera
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.
While the jury’s still out on whether playing video games lead to violence, one thing is clear: some people deserve to have their video games taken away from them. Here’s the story of one 19-year-old teen who attacked his mom with a taco when she unplugged his Xbox:
Dena Moir, 54, told deputy sheriffs she called her 19-year-old son Zachary several times to come downstairs for dinner Tuesday. When he didn’t respond, she went upstairs and unplugged his Xbox. She told deputies her son pushed her, called her names and ordered her out of his room.
The woman said she was cleaning the kitchen when her son came down to eat and that she pushed him to the side because he was in her way. At that point, deputies said, the man smacked his mother on the left arm, called her more offensive names and threw his taco in her face.
"I don’t think he believed I’ll call," the woman told a 911 dispatcher when she called the Sheriff’s Office. "He’s done this plenty of times before and I’ve never called."
The unruly teen is now in jail: Link – via Arbroath | Side discussion: Do video games cause violent behavior?
(Photo: Volusia County Sheriff’s Office)
