Never Give Into the “Good Boy” or “Good Girl” Syndrome

Fully agree. Similarly, and even harder to look past, is when some dirt-bag dies while committing some atrocity and so many people mourn it. Family get a small pass but friends, classmates, etc. going on the news and saying what a great loss it is.

(Spoiler alert for the mental model)

This is just insane. And yet, people who have known the perpetrators insist they are 'good' or 'misunderstood' because the cognitive dissnonance of such an act is way too hard to bear, making denial kick in. Practically everytime. As Dale Carnegie mentionned in one of the first influence books, How to Win Friends and Influence People, even the worst criminals of the time as Al Capone viewed themselves as 'public benefactors' instead of public enemies. And the halo effect probably plays a role in the 'good guy' syndrome too. Speaking of mental models, here's another one too : chances are you read my comment, despite the spoiler alert, because you fell for the forbidden fruit mental model. 😛

Anyone who mentions "How to Win Friends and Influence People" gets an upvote from me. That book changed my life.

I too am in the middle of How to Win Friends and Influence People and went back to reread the part on individuals who commit heinous crimes and are able to justify in their mind they are good people. Carnegie speaks of the warden of Sing Sing prison in New York saying that few inmates admit that they are bad men, they have the ability to rationalize and explain away their actions, a trait found in all humans. While we all have moment in life that we do good deeds, we are all capable of sin and can screw up our lives and the lives of those around us in an instant. As soon as society rationalizes evil as a fleeting act of poor judgement we have castrated our justice system

The halo effect is what I see in this post. Just because someone does one bad thing doesn't necessarily mean everything about them is bad. We are eliding the trickier questions of how real life actually operates if we insist that people who are monsters in some contexts can never be heroes in another or vice versa.

Outside of that, I mean, come on, no one is ever going to say, "I'm sure my son's guilty." The whole principle of the justice system hangs on the golden thread that says they're innocent until proven otherwise; why would family members, who owe each other some loyalty, say anything harsher than what an impartial judge would say? Something so simple to understand that it doesn't need a mental model is that what people say isn't necessarily what they feel.

Actually, someone related to the heinous Boston bombers did come out and voice his disgust of his nephews. Bravo and kudos to him.

"worthless pieces of trash"
For me, that's putting it lightly.

"he was a 'good boy.'"
Socially, this is a required statement. Anything else means you, as the parent, are to blame. If it's not foreseeable, although paradoxically you raised the "thing," you can't be responsible as the parent. Therefore, you say it came out of left field, and as such you're not to blame. The schools, violence in the media, etc., are to blame. "I did my best."

Also, what particularly upsets me, is that it happened to be some foreign guy visiting the country. I'll leave it at that.

However, as a parent of two children -- same mother, same father, same upbringing, same gender -- it amazes me to see how different siblings can be.

One is cautious, always follows the rules, saves her earnings, and carefully avoids mistakes.
The other believes it's easier to "ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission."

I hope we have given them a strong moral compass, but, at some point, they make their own choices.

So, I don't give 100% of the blame to the parents.

It's amazing how different Toyota RAV4s are. The 2013 model doesn't have the spare tire in the back and can come in hybrid. The 2006 model does have the spare tire in the back and some models came with 6 cylinders. Both built and designed by the same company.

At some point, these cars do what they do and if they unintentionally accelerate and the brakes don't help any, and they crash and kill someone, well, I don't give 100% of the blame to Toyota.

Your assertions are backed up by the science. Steven Pinker did an amazing job deconstructing what he called the modern "denial of human nature" that had arisen as a result of some in the psychology field a couple of generations ago in his bestselling book The Blank Slate, that deals with the neuroscience of plasticity .

Whether people want to believe it or not, and while parenting does make a difference, a vast majority of your personality is determined by genetics and hardwiring of the brain before birth. Some children, raised by perfectly normal, loving, involved parents, are going to end up robbing banks or raping or murdering. Other children, raised by drug addicts that never fed them, will escape and become productive adults.

In other words, parents matter, but they cannot overcome everything. They are but one variable in a very complex equation.

Environment and parenting unquestionably matter, but they only exert an influence on a predetermined range of potential outcomes (sometimes, a very large range, which is why they are so essential). Anyone who has a lot of kids or grew up in a large family knows this instinctively - personality begins to assert itself very, very young. My parents had four children - two boys and two girls - and we grew up in the same household yet have wildly different personalities, educational records, personal histories, and interpersonal skills.

Terrible. Just terrible kids.

I wish everyone would go on YouTube and look up comedian Adam Carolla's videos on kids and parents/parenting. Once you watch them, you will understand everything about Thugvon Martin and the others you hear about in the news (regardless or race).

I'm slightly troubled by the fact that this didn't get more national news regarding race much like the recent T. Martin Case. This was obviously a planned murder of one race against the other but it only gets widely reported if the roles are reversed? Very Troubling....

Troubling, but to be completely expected. White liberals need to wake the f*** up in so many ways.

Seems like it is all over the news.

But, this is different from the Zimmerman / Martin case. These punks were caught, arrested and will be prosecuted to the extent of the law.

This wasn't some fool starting a fight, then getting his gun when he got beat up and murdering someone and having the law look the other way (due to a very terrible law that places the burden of proof on the dead victim) while encouraged by one of the nation's biggest lobbying groups.

Here bad guys commit crime, bad guys get caught, bad guys (presumably) get prosecuted and sent to prison. Looks like the legal system is working.

Not sure why anyone is trying to draw parallels to the Zimmerman case.

The question is not about the case but about the media attention to the case. If the role was reversed and three whites killed a black college student it would be on the news for days stating it was a hate crime and how we have a huge race problem.
The media that routinely called zimmerman ‘white’ and martin 'black' for months is avoiding describing Christopher Lane’s killers. Just "teens" That is the double standard that is troubling

Another example is this case in March. A 'black' man shot a 'white' baby in the face inside the babys stroller... no description of the man:
[URL=http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/18/20077208-georgia-man-faces-trial-in-killing-of-baby-in-stroller?lite]Baby Shot[/URL]

I would actually call that GOOD reporting. Race Shouldn't matter.
But when I see headlines like this:
[URL=http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2017764283_apusneighborhoodwatchdeath.html] Family of slain black Fla. teen hear 911 calls[/URL]
or
[URL=http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0319/Florida-students-rally-to-arrest-white-neighborhood-watch-leader] Florida students rally against white neighborhood watch leader [/URL]

I expect better news reporting where someone's race is not mentioned because it honestly shouldn't matter.
I'm troubled because the reporting is biased and it's not improving

"If I had a son, he'd look like James Edwards" - Barack Obama

First off, your description of the Zimmerman/Martin case seems to be more detailed than the evidence involved in the case would allow, and would in fact seem to run counter to some of the evidence put forth in the Zimmerman trial.

That 'terrible law that places the burden of proof on the dead victim' that you speak of is called the presumption of innocence, and it's pretty damn important. And in Zimmerman's case, there wasn't even enough evidence to justify charging him, which the police didn't at first. In fact, the initial investigators thought he was innocent, as testimony from his trial showed. He was only charged when it was turned into a political event where Zimmerman was painted as a racist, despite no real evidence to support the accusation. There was more evidence that Martin was a racist, and there was at least as much evidence to support a story of Martin attacking Zimmerman with a racial motive as there is of Zimmerman attacking Martin.

Now on the other hand, here we have three black males kill a white male. There seems to be no question they did it, and killed him 'for fun'. Hell, there is solid evidence that one of them is a racist, as he has racist tweets on his account. Where's Jesse Jackson, where's Al Sharpton, where's Barack Obama's conversation on racial problems in America?

Now turn it around and imagine three clearly racist white teens killed a successful black guy out for a jog. And did it 'for the fun of it' and 'because we were bored'.

Why should race have been discussed in the news coverage? The shooter who pulled the trigger was half white, being raised by his single, white biological mother (source) . There are no logical parallels to the Martin / Zimmerman case, nor are any of the same factors in play.

I would have to agree that there likely doesn't exist a hate crime when some of the perpetrators are partly or in whole of the same background.

Although, I will posit, that there was a reason they gunned down the person that they killed. They picked him over someone else for a reason. There's a reason they were driving around that rich neighborhood, as opposed to somewhere else. I suspect we'll soon find out.

Maybe race was a factor...

And three days before what police call the indiscriminate shooting,
the suspect, 15-year-old James Edwards Jr., tweeted, "With my n****s
when it's time to start taken life's" -- a line from the Chief Keef rap
song, "I Don't Like."

Back in April, he tweeted, "90% of white ppl (people) are nasty. #HATE THEM."

Race permeates every news story because it is an emotional issue and emotion sells and rationality does not. Neither is rationality politically correct. If you quote actual crime statistics you will be labeled a racist.

After researching the FBI numbers for “Suicide of a Superpower,” this writer concluded: “An analysis of ‘single offender victimization figures’ from the FBI for 2007 finds blacks committed 433,934 crimes against whites, eight times the 55,685 whites committed against blacks. Interracial rape is almost exclusively black on white — with 14,000 assaults on white women by African Americans in 2007. Not one case of a white sexual assault on a black female was found in the FBI study.”

http://humanevents.com/2013/07/19/black-americas-real-problem-isnt-white-racism/

But would anyone dare to talk about those figures on public news program or in a newspaper article? No, because they would be convicted by the media as racist because the inconvenient truth is blacks commit far more crime than whites. There are many issues that are not discussed rationally in the media and race and crime are just one of them.

What kind of life could this kids have lived to come to that decision? Can't imagine.

I can easily, easily, easily imagine it. "Life" probably consisted of listening to rap, hollerin' at da ho's/bitches, lovin' da thug lyfe, bad or absentee parents, a lot of free time for trouble makin' because Uncle Sam gives da welfare and part time jobs are for whitey, no incentive for single moms to keep a husband/boyfriend or work--again b/c USA gives da Section 8 & EBT and the more kids you have the more welfare you get, infantilization of blacks, etc., etc., etc.

If I were racist, and a simpleminded casual reader might mistakenly conclude I am, which again, would be incorrect, but nonetheless predictable, I would be a straight ticket votin' Democrat. I would love MSNBC, although I wouldn't watch it.

These days, there's nothing quite as perfectly racist as cruel low expectations, replacing someone's rugged individualism with parasitism and a chip on the shoulder, and encouraging families to break up through welfare. These are beautiful in their effectiveness, much like a super virus, and so superficially unracist. But make no mistake... it's devilishly racist and genius.

Forgot to add life also consisted of drinking booze and doin' drugs (both facilitate bad decision making).

Anon, while your protest of this horrible incident should be commended your premise is quite terribly bad. You seem to be an intelligent person, so I'll just assume your passionate about this story and "lost your head". Rap Music is consumed and purchased more by Caucasians than people of African descent. Furthermore Rap music, nor any kind of music makes you go kill people. Please point me in the direction of any rap song you know that says " after listening to this go kill someone for fun ". Your use of Ebonics to prove your point just makes it sound even worse. You are clearly creating an incredibly descriptive picture that you spend your entire second and third paragraph trying to refute. The fact alone that you spend time defending it just proves how terrible it is in the first place. This story is not about race AT ALL. Joshua put it incredibly accurate, one kid was black one was white and the other was half. Leave it be. Stop trying to blame outside influences on the bad choices of these kids. Some things are beyond the realm of parenting. You were a kid once, wasn't there any side of you that you hid from your parents? Movies create way more terrible imagery than music ever does, and welfare and section 8 benefits are enjoyed by more Caucasians than blacks also. Your incredibly stupid and biased premise that people on welfare don't want to work or that they believe that "part time jobs are for whitey" is just ridiculous and VERY far from the truth. But again, "your not racist" only a "simpleminded casual reader" would believe so. I'm not simple minded nor am I a casual reader, and despite how clearly insane your beginning argument is, I won't judge you and call you racist. Most likely you are not, but you are no doubt prejudice my friend, and although we all are, you make it so easy for anyone reading your posts to see "what lies beneath". Also, because I dont know you it would be really dumb for me to just sit here and judge you based on a blog post. Your last paragraph is very accurate, and again as I said you seem to be very intelligent so why you feel the need to prove your point this way just baffles me. I'm a black guy and come here to receive regular motivation from Joshua. He's one of my heroes for what he has done and how much info he gives out. He's also so similar to me that I often find myself feeling like he's the white version of myself. So please just let these three idiots get what they deserve for doing something they all are grown up enough to know is wrong, and leave the racially insightful comments out of it.

Rap music is consumed and purchased mostly by white people? So what? That does not matter at all. Unless you're saying that no blacks, or a negligible number of blacks, listen to rap music, then your point is meaningless. As I foresaw, these 3 murderers were huge fans of Chief Keef. Dare to refute that?

I agree that movies promote violence. So do video games. But so what? Thug rap music does that too. Movies does not have a monopoly on promoting violence. Hell, they might all 3--movies, video games, and music--feed off each other and conspire to destroy lives together.

I have heard the statistic that whites use welfare more than other ethnic groups. I'm too lazy to Google the exact figures or see if it's actually true. However, the problem we have, using fake numbers, is that although 10,000 whites use welfare and 5,000 blacks use welfare, there are 100,000 whites in the country and there are 10,000 blacks in the country, meaning 10% of whites are ravaged by the welfare system, but more importantly, 50% of blacks are ravaged by the welfare system. We have a percentage problem. Will you deny that 72% of blacks are born out of wedlock, while only 30% of whites are born out of wedlock? Who's the culprit? You have to be smart enough to understand the problem.

I like it when you call my arguments stupid and biased. And hint--only hint--that I might be racist. And then settle for saying that I'm prejudiced. It makes me very happy when you switch to attacks when your facts and arguments are woefully insufficient.

I'm glad you're a black guy who loves reading Joshua Kennon. It brings half a smile to my face. You're not the problem. Although you could use some brushing up on logic and argumentation. All you need to do is wish and work for the same thing for others like you and the amount of suffering in this world will go down, which will be better for everyone, regardless of race.

The sooner you walk off the plantation, the sooner your mind will be free. Listen to Ben Carson, Allen West, and other enlightened people who get it and want to lift up black people.

I said it elsewhere in this thread, but analyzing it rationally, in this case, were I required to make a guess, I would be inclined to believe that the underlying cause was not bad parenting nor an inherent genetic tendency toward malevolence (which is fairly rare, all things considered), but rather, a socio-economic trap caused by a combination of endemic poverty, lack of employment opportunity, peer expectation, and institutional racism in the way the access to education is setup in the United States. One way to test this theory would be to ask the question: If these kids had been born and raised by a doctor or accountant in the suburbs, would they have been likely to engage in this behavior? Based on the probability distributions, I'd say no. They'd probably be getting ready to leave home for college or worrying about their SAT scores.

However, accepting that reality requires accepting that these sorts of societal outcomes are the result of something called intersectionality, which doesn't appeal to those who crave "greedy reductionism", as the latter is emotionally seductive because it relies on simplistic platitudes. It makes it appears as if, on first glance, you are saying it isn't the perpetrators' fault, which is not the case; you are simply recognizing that incentive systems, when combined with human nature, lead to some fairly predictable outcomes and that the solution is to address the source inequalities that lead to the recurring non-desirable behavior. In my opinion, one of the greatest accomplishments of the past century in this area has been the almost unbelievably effective work of this group.

I'll also add a life where public officials do not want people in jail because of funding and overcrowding. A life where a 35 year prison sentence really means 7 years. A life where assaulting or raping someone doesn't get you in that much trouble. The sticker price of consequences doesn't reflect the reality of bargain basement sale prices.

A life where going to jail isn't seen as a bad thing. It shows you keeps it real and are hood. That you got street cred. That people not better f*** with you. That you got nothing to lose and going back to the slammer doesn't worry you.

On a side note, in keeping with my desire to prevent lawsuits and legal problems where I can, I suggest changing the picture that features the 3 animals. Because the one on the right is not Michael Jones.

(See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2398952/Chris-Lane-shooting-Parents-bored-teens-shot-Australian-baseball-player-weep-court.html)

This is like what happened to my friend Matt Chew in 2010. Except these kids used
knives. Too many bored young men with nothing but time and bad ideas on their hands.
Sorry to hijack, but it was too similar and struck a nerve. It hit our group of artistic friends really hard, because Matt was trying to start a renaissance of fun things to do in New London, he would DJ, paint, and was just a great guy that everyone liked. I felt bad for him, I felt bad for us, and I felt bad for those kids that didn't really understand how bad they had just fucked up their entire lives. I did stupid shit when I was younger, so I am glad I never did anything like this, because, lord knows, it seems like when a group of dumbass young punks get together, anything is possible.

http://www.theday.com/article/20120523/nws02/120529873

(You can tell I grew up in Missouri because the first thing I said when I read the headline was, "Oh Lord Jesus have mercy".) Out of all of the mental models, I just can't deal with this. Now they are maintaining innocence because their child couldn't possibly be guilty?

I just ... can't. I can't. I realize that the parents' pain is enormous, too, because they just effectively lost their child for life, but to ignore the evidence because the denial is more comforting is just ... I'm baking bread right now. I should go back to that.

(P.S. I appreciate you pointing out Gawker's image error; I rectified it and redirected it to their story.)

Happy to help!

Life in the USA is becoming more and more like the "Twilight Zone" since 2008.

That's horrible 🙁 I'm so sorry about your friend ...

You are absolutely correct that there is a correlation between rates of violence and a specific age bracket of young males across all societies, all races, and all time, with idleness (and unemployment, specifically), playing a role. It occurs post-puberty when testosterone and muscle mass are high, but before the age of 21 or 22, when the frontal lobe that allows for long-term consequence consideration has fully matured. Whenever you're examining economic data and there is a crime component, you have to adjust for this otherwise you'll reach false conclusions (e.g., you can't compare the crime rate in Japan to the crime rate in a very young country, because all other factors identical, the latter will still have a higher murder rate).

It's one of the reasons I've been watching Greece for a few years. The young, male unemployment rate is so unfathomable that I cannot see how they escape some sort of extremism or totalitarianism at this rate.

It's a little harder to hide your extremist activities from mom when you still live at home. Seriously. Family structure is the variable you'd want to examine strongly to answer your question.

Agreed, but if you only have one set of eyes watching you (because they have a single parent), and if your parent has a full time job and a part time job on top of that to make ends meet (assuming they don't just settle for welfare), and your parent is watching TV nonstop or abusing alcohol/drugs, it's not very hard for a child to hide their actions/beliefs from the parent.

Of course, the gist of what I am saying, is that the parent is responsible for raising and watching their kid like a hawk. If the parent is unable to do this, for whatever reason, and the kid doesn't hit the lottery and have that special teacher or mentor in this life, the parents get 100% of the blame. It's their responsibility.

Can't handle raising kids? Don't want the responsibility? Don't think you can do a good job? You... don't... have... them... in the first place. Case closed. No sloppy muddling through allowed.

This is correct. I don't see a lot of articles about 40- and 50-year old blacks committing crimes. It's always the 20- and 30-year olds. But, is it because their frontal lobe has developed or because they think they're too old for that s***? Honestly, I don't know. But I guess it also doesn't matter.

Hello,

I think you are somewhat incorrect in this case. The reason you hear a lot of parents say that their children are good is that they are. There are lots of wonderful children (people who are good to their parents) who are horrible people (treat non-family badly). I'm sure lots of drug-dealers take their mother's out to dinner on their birthday. Thus, their perception of their child is different than someone who just heard some news story.

Yes, of course, they are bad people. But I don't think that their parents are 'in denial' when they make those statements about their children.

Best.

I do believe this is at play, generally. However, parents know whether their kids are "hood" or book worms. Parents know if their kids are getting into trouble in school or not. Whether they're getting into fights.

Parents are 100% to blame, and excuses such as socio-economic factors are just that: excuses. If socio-economic factors are to blame, then we shouldn't be sad they're not eligible for the death penalty. Hell, there shouldn't be "jails" then. There should just be rehabilitative centers at hospitals throughout the country and as soon as you're cured, you're released. But that's not reality. People are responsible for their own actions, and if you commit a crime--it's not like the rules of the game are unknown to the public--then you go to jail. Regardless of whether you were raised in the ghetto, by a single parent, by your grandma, without money, that your parents gave you up for adoption, etc.

Please go on YouTube and listed to comedian Adam Carolla and his videos on parents and parenting. I can't do them justice in these posts.

1. Parents are a socio-economic factor.

2. To say that they are the only socio-economic factor that matters ignores the power of institutions and social relationships in a given culture. Social proof, the #1, most powerful, most foundational mental model of all demonstrates this. A simple example is Dr. Robert Cialdini and the co-authors talking about how he couldn't get his child into a swimming pool, yet once the kid saw someone their own age jump in, they suddenly did it of their own volition. That's how our brains are wired. The peers that surround a person are far more influential than parents in determining outcome. In many ways, a parents' ability to self-select peers by location, socio-demographic status, and other factors is the primary power of parenthood. The question then becomes, when this is stripped away due to a total lack of employment opportunity and ingrained poverty that makes it impossible to amass enough capital to become self-sufficient and kick off the power of compounding, can the parent be said to have that influence? That's not an easy question if one looks at how humans actually behave. Social proof is even more powerful than the superpower of incentive. It is the mental model equivalent of Superman. Almost nothing can overcome it unless you've trained yourself to, or you are one of about 10% of the population with a very specific psychological profile that causes you to be partly or wholly immune to it (which is good in some situations, bad in others).

3. To say that parents are always responsible, without exception, for the outcome of their children not only ignores social proof, it is based upon a flawed assumption, now all but disproven by neuroscience, that the human brain has far higher plasticity than we now know it does. Many people are not, it turns out, lumps of clay that can be molded into any outcome desired by controlling for environmental factors. The degree to which each person can be molded varies by individual. While environment does play a major role, every human falls along a natural genetic spectrum of various behaviors and potential outcomes that influence everything about their behavior. A good parent can make a difference, but not always. A perfectly normal couple living in the suburbs can give birth to an absolute monster that no amount of attention or therapy can fix, no amount of Church can save, no amount of incentive can diffuse. One of the most famous cases that helped illustrate just how hard wired the brain is, regardless of parental influence, is David Reimer. At some point, children become individuals with their own free moral agency.

4. To acknowledge these realities does not absolve the person who committed an atrocity of responsibility. This "crisis of faith" is inconsequential if we want to fix the underlying causes so that it is solved for future generations. Yes, someone can be the product of their environment through no fault of their own, and yes, society can still decide to punish them for their actions. It is not efficient as it wastes resources, nor is it particularly just, but we do it all the time in the United States, which is why our criminal system is an absolute joke compared to the ones in Switzerland and the Nordic countries. They paid attention to the science and pay less with far better outcomes. We, as an American society, keep doing what "feels" right rather than focusing on data.

The unquestionable, statistical reality is that if you take a group of poor, young boys, put them in homes that are far below the poverty line, in a school district that does not serve their needs so that they are functionally illiterate by 6th grade or so, and have no alternative paths to employment or pride (e.g., military service, trade school, joining the union, etc.), history has shown time and time again, without exception, that a vast percentage of these young men will end up banding together and engaging in violent, destructive behavior regardless of race or nation. It's in the human genome. We are not that far descended from the trees as people would like to think, and this is an adaptive behavior that led to greater gene propagation when a band of roving marauders showed up and raped a village of non-genetically similar women, leading to greater diversity of offspring, as well as shared defense against other groups of men sneaking through the countryside.

Working to change that reality, so it isn't repeated, by modifying structural poverty and focusing on how intersectionality influences ladders of opportunity doesn't mean you can't punish those who commit crimes against others, nor does it abdicate the responsibility each man has to take ownership of his own moral agency at some point in life. It's simply a matter of investment. We can spend a few pennies and solve a problem 20 years down the line, or we can ignore it and clean up the mess for far more dollars later, when rehabilitation is much less of a viable opportunity. You can't really get a 30 year old to change his ways as easily as you can a 6 year old.

And, yes, in some cases, rehabilitation would be vastly preferable (e.g., most drug crimes), and in others, it is entirely misguided (e.g., pedophiles, where recidivism rates exceed 99% because they cannot be cured of an inherent condition, therefore should never be re-released to the public).

This was a bit infuriating to read. I had to take two days off. I'm still a big fan of yours, regardless.

I'll start with your first point. You are correct. I purposefully avoided taking sociology classes in college, and this is my small punishment for that. I will admit that parents are a socio-economic factor.

I do not deny that there are powerful forces that influence people--from a little bit to greatly. Obviously this must be true. Like your example, everyone thought running a mile in 4 minutes was impossible, but then someone broke the record and others started breaking it too, because the impossible had become observably possible. Same thing for a young gang member. If he sees someone in the gang kill someone, he now knows how a murder goes down, he knows that murder is possible and something he can do since he just witnessed a similarly able-bodied fellow gang member kill someone, and so the chances of him murdering someone else just shot way the hell up. Same idea with listening to rap lyrics about killing someone, playing a video game and fake-killing a character, and watching a movie where someone kills someone else. I admit all of it.

I still maintain that parents are responsible and I'll explain that shortly. Because...

Here's the infuriating part. You say that if you take a group of poor, young boys living below poverty, with no good path to employment or pride, without exception the vast majority will band together and engage in violent/destructive behavior.

The first problem is that poverty today is not the same as poverty decades ago. The poor of today are not the poor of the Bible. Someone living in poverty in the United States is not the same as someone living in poverty in Africa. Someone living in poverty today, in the United States, is eligible for massive amounts of assistance (housing, food, unemployment, etc.) to such an extent that they're able to have/afford cell phones, PlayStation/Xbox, air conditioning, cable TV, a so-so automobile, etc. Generally, when people say "poverty" in the United States they're not referring to absolute poverty (i.e., Africa and parts of the Middle East), but rather relative poverty (poor by comparison). It's impossible to eradicate relative poverty unless you implement socialism, which means society living at a lower absolute standard of living. (See Margaret Thatcher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okHGCz6xxiw)

What I'm saying, before I move on, is that someone living in Sierra Lione, living in true poverty, would gladly swap lives with someone living in poverty in the United States, who's getting welfare on the basis of X number of dependents. (Of course, there's a question about whether he or she would prefer to be #1 in the Special Olympics or #50 in the regular Olympics.)

Next point is that not everyone who lives in poverty, in the United States, is going out and wilin' out. Why hasn't every single person who was living in relative poverty growing up killed/attacked/raped someone? Why didn't I? Why didn't you? Why didn't "annoymous"? What accounts for that? I assert that the reason is that, either through smart or luck, their parent(s) did what they had to do to live up to their responsibility to raise their sons and daughters in such a way that they did not kill/attack/rape someone. They instilled morality/ethics or gave them the belt. They did whatever they did.

It might be helpful if we thought about this problem not in terms of violent blacks in the United States (and it should be pointed out that nowhere near a majority of blacks kill/attack/rape/whatever other people--I love black people and as the trite saying goes, the vast majority are good people), but rather in terms of suicide bombers in the Middle East, and more specifically the Gaza Strip. Let's say Mohammed is 12 years old and all his other friends are around the same age and they live in poverty. Little Mohammed gets brain washed by a terrorist group and he straps on that suicide bomb belt and walks into a non-Muslim city and detonates and kills and injures lots of people. Obviously, the terrorist group who recruited Mohammed and convinced him to strap on the belt is to blame for this terrorist attack. But were they responsible for Mohammed? No, that natural responsibility falls on the parents. If, for example, the Gaza Strip must produce 10 suicide bombers each year, then it's up to each parent to make sure that their child does not become one of those 10. If a child winds up being one of those 10, then something went wrong. The parent dropped the ball and did not, relative to other parents, do what needed to be done to make sure Mohammed did not become one of those suicide bombers.

Another example. Father/mother sits his/her son/daughter on the hood of his/her parked car and either (1) another car crashes into it and instantly kills the son/daughter sitting on the hood or (2) a strong gust of wind blows the son/daughter several feet into the air and the son/daughter lands on an unfortunate object/surface and dies. Who's to blame? The other driver and the wind. Yes. But who was responsible for ensuring that no harm would ever befall the son/daughter? The father/mother. How do we know that the father/mother dropped the ball? Their son/daughter is dead. It's proof positive. Had they been more conscientious, the son/daughter would not be dead. Of course, this is not correct 100% of the time. I will concede that. If an asteroid falls from the sky and blows up your state and every single neighboring state too, then there's literally nothing you could have reasonably done to prevent your death and the death of your son/daughter. "Reasonably" because I do suppose you could have spent your entire life staring at a telescope all day and figuring out where you should flee to when you spotted the asteroid. So... what could the father/mother have done differently? Not sat the child in the hood of the car. The father/mother knew that wind and dangerous drivers existed. So, you don't take the chance.

I think the fundamental mismatch we're having in this argument is that you kind of view child rearing as a fiduciary duty. In other words, you think you're just supposed to look out for the child's best interests and you kinda do your best. That is not my point of view. My point of view is that child rearing is much like a contract to hit $100,000 in sales and you move heaven and earth to hit that $100,000 in sales. If you don't make $100,000 in sales, for whatever reason/excuse (i.e., the economy was in recession, 9/11 happened, the market for the product dried up, etc.), then you dropped the ball and the blame lies only with you.

Another example would be an understanding that the bottom 10 salesmen who sell the least amount of product will be fired each year. Same idea. Did you get fired at the end of the year? No?: Perfect. Yes?: You dropped the ball. You should have ensured you were not one of those bottom 10.

In summary, I do not deny that environment has a major influence on the life of a young child/man/woman growing up and well into adulthood. But... so what? You have a duty to overcome that influence.

Takes a villiage to raise a child so a the village is responsible, in my opinion.

Hi there,

Regarding the latter half of your second half, and if you have a few spare hours, please look into the classic ecological theory of R and K selection (and I'm only talking about how it affects social behavior). This paper is a good start http://www.academia.edu/2860063/From_Quantity_to_Quality_of_Life_rK_selection_and_human_development

If you relate this theory with the average life span of youths of certain demographics you might get some useful insight into why risky behavior is more common in some groups.

Regardless, you are trying to make what is an incredibly complex, multi-factorial issue, into something that is black and white.

I'll read the paper and I might respond afterwards.

With regards to your last sentence, I can see how readers might come to the conclusion that I'm taking something that's very multi-faceted and tangled up and treating it as if it were not. But make no mistake... I do understand, as should be clear from my post from a few minutes ago, that a lot of factors go into someone deciding to kill a random white dude.

What I'm trying to get across is that the parent has the divine or natural responsibility of making sure their son/daughter does not commit that crime. That of the statistical number of murderers in the country each year, their son/daughter does not become part of that statistic. By any means necessary. That the parent did their "best" is a pathetic argument. (See "The Rock" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD5GtohtRYU). If you decide to have a child, it means you have accepted responsibility for ensuring that that child does not turn into a criminal. If you cannot handle that responsibility, you should not be having a child.

Of course, I will admit that situations change. You might be middle class one day, have a child, get a horrible medical disease, lose your job, and next thing you know, you can't make ends meet. You stop loving life and start shutting down, get divorced, and your son/daughter starts hanging out with the wrong people. Unfortunate? Yes, very. So is the parent still responsible? Yes. What could the parent have possibly done to avoid that horrible medical disease that led to the parent not being able to hold down a job and not being able to make ends meet? Are you stupid, Anon? No. It's called a long-term disability insurance policy. You should have spent some time foreseeing the future and ensuring against negative events/outcomes.

I understand your point, and don't disagree that the distinction exists in many cases where a terrible person does treat a particular individual or group kindly.

If anything, though, wouldn't that strengthen the argument the parents are in denial? If you see large piles of evidence that your son is a rapist, he confesses to the police that he is a rapist, and women come forward and break down in front of him when they see him, recounting the horrible things he did, the fact that he's always been nice to you is not sufficient reason to ignore the evidence, even though it contradicts your own experience. To discount that evidence because you don't want to believe it, and your own personal interaction doesn't support it, is the definition of denial.

I still wouldn't call such a person a "wonderful [child]". I'm of the conviction that the quality of a man's character can often be surmised by the way he treats those from whom he can get nothing. I've seen this ability to split off our personality referred to as compartmental conscience, and I think it's important not to give into it. We should view our actions, and the actions of those around us, as an integrated whole.

(It's a funny thing that we are having this discussion, as it's not a new moral dilemma, proving man doesn't change very often. One of the most famous historical passages dealing with it was written a couple millenia ago: "For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so?" - Excerpt from Matthew 5:43-48)

Regarding your second paragraph, you are listing evidence that usually appears over time. Sure, lots of parents do eventually come to the conclusion that their child "used to be such a good boy/girl," but when we see the blanket good boy/girl statements is typically right at the beginning of these scandals when there is a lack of evidence.

I don't disagree with the rest of your response, or the take-home message of your original post, Joshua. I am just trying to establish that you need to take into account the information differential that exists in these sorts of cases (and it should really be a critical consideration when attempting to make or receive impartial judgement).

"I am just trying to establish that you need to take into account the information differential that exists in these sorts of cases (and it should really be a critical consideration when attempting to make or receive impartial judgement)."

- This makes me like you. A lot. I concede that is a very fair point, and well articulated, too. Have an upvote (and please, comment more often!)

Well, in an idealistic world race reporting wouldn't matter. But journalism is a dying business. And the mouth breathers respond to the sensational "news" stories. So, the media will run with it.

There's a huge portion of society that gets worked up by stories like this and the two utes in Washington who killed the WWII vet. Never mind the fact that random killings in this country are very rare. Most times the victim knows their killer.

But race sells. Just look at the comment section on CNN today. For some reason, people irrationally think that race is a cause of crime. If you look at the stats, race isn't a factor in determining crime. It's things like poverty and family structure. So, blacks of means with solid family life will have low crime rates. Go back in time, before blacks migrated north. To where the poor urban areas where populated by the Irish or Italians. Guess which segments of society had the high crime rates then? The Irish and Italians.

Look at the migration of blacks from the South to the industrial North in the 20th century. Those who got their first, were able to get solid, blue collar jobs. Their families stayed intact. Their future generations improved. Those who got to the North late, found there were no jobs. Their families crumbled. Their future generations are what you see in the ghettos today.

This might be a little over simplified, but there really is two black Americas. Yet, many people want to try and paint all blacks as thugs.

Were all Irish or all Italians thugs in the late 19th / early 20th centuries?

Because people get all riled up with these stories, you will continue to see them in the media. And when the media shows them at higher rates, people will think that they are happening at a higher frequency than the actuality of the situation.

Just like many people think that America has more crime than 30 years ago. No, there is significantly less crime now. There is just more media, outlets and venues, all running 24x7.

For me, I'm just glad I cut the cord earlier this year. My exposure to this nonsense is minimal now.

I just looked into r/K selection theory, briefly. The Wikipedia article asserts that "[n]either mode of propagation is intrinsically superior." However, I think that in the United States, with certain demographics, while propagation or quantity over quality is a rational benefit-maximizing choice for the parent(s), due distortions from welfare, it's a disastrous choice for society, which stupidly subsidizes it. (That is to say, for example, using fake numbers, if you have one child, you get $500; if you have two children, you get $1,000; if you have three children you get $1,500. But why isn't it $500, $0, $0? The PC answer is obvious...the children should not suffer--but really just not suffer while they're children. But, seriously, if you need welfare, society should screaming at you that you need to be stopping at one child and will not get any more money so you better take some precautions.)

Part of my argument is that parents are stretching themselves too thin. Some of that is because they have more than one child. Some of that is also because their hands are full and what little free time they have left is spent sitting in front of the TV, doing drugs/alcohol, or whatever, except raising a child. The parent leaves the child-rearing, if any, to others.

I forgot to mention this before, twice, but I'll state it now.

With my fake benefit numbers of $500, $1,000, and $1,500 (be it for subsidized rent or food stamps or whatever), the entire benefit amount does not always only go to the child. The parent absorbs some of it for him or herself. Instead of each child getting $500 in goods and services, for example, each of the 3 children get $375 instead and the parent uses $375 on him or herself ($375 x 4 = $1,500).

Obviously, it's much harder for a parent to use some of the benefits on him or herself if they only have 1 child. What are you going to do? Split that $500 between the two of you? $250 each? When the government thinks the child should really be getting that whole $500 in benefits? No. There's an incentive to have 2, 3, 4, etc., children and then take a slice of each benefit for yourself.

The incentives are really perverse. And the people on welfare are not stupid. They might not be rocket scientists good at match, but they understand more children equals being able to skim more for yourself (more food to go around, whatever).

Look, man, I get what you're trying to say. You do have some valid points. The only real problem I have is that you are justifying your views by using the worst of the worst as examples for your arguments. There definitely are people who are gaming the system for their own benefit. These people exist in every system from welfare, to law, to those running this country. I personally feel that a life lived on welfare is punishment enough and that if we center discussion primarily on those who abuse it, rather than on how to help those who want to build a better life, then we are never going to make any meaningful change.

I'm with you. I care, but I don't really care, about abuse of welfare. Everything government gets abused. It's just the way it goes.

I'm simply upset with what welfare translates into... the destruction of people's lives and souls. For that reason, I want welfare to be strictly temporary.

Josh, you're talking about parents here, and they are not always rational. Particularly mothers.

This is because parents see their offspring as (with apologies to Terry Pratchett) four-dimensional worm-shaped beings with a newborn baby at one end, and whatever they are today at the other. They are actually looking at the nice little boy or girl somewhere in the middle of that being, and aren't really looking at what the rest of us see - the mess that that person has become.

Mr, Munger addressed this in his Psychology of Human Errors Speech... he chalked it up to psychological denial. I think psychological denial is very underrated in the process of judging human actions. Every day I see people cling to incorrect ideas because it would hurt too much to give them up.

Josh makes a great point that we need to accept the pain of giving up long held beliefs when we learn they are wrong. But don't expect society to imitate you or reward you for it, people HATE the pain of change.

The mental model is the horns and halo effect.

I agree with you that it is terrible when mothers abandon their babies to
die. A mother with an unwanted child can safely place her baby with a person at
a hospital, police station, fire station, or house of worship. It is completely
anonymous. It is important that the baby be given to a person and not left in a
basket inside a hospital building.

Tim Jaccard helped write New York's "safe haven law." The charity
he founded is called Children of Hope. The phone number of the crisis line is
877-796-HOPE.

The alternative to using the safe haven law is to place the baby for
adoption. The birth mother can choose open adoption or closed adoption. The
birth mother continues to receive information and updates about her child under
open adoption. The privacy of the birth mother is protected with closed
adoption