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Comment by fractallyte | Hacker News Reader

So, just finished reading the article... I guess everyone should, just for the sense of thoughtfulness it should provoke.

The thing is, the perpetrators started out as ordinary young American men. What tipped the balance, to turn them into stone-cold killers? It's not unique to this situation: this is what soldiers eventually tend to do. The ultimate modern example of pure, large scale monstrosity is the Red Army, at the close of WWII. But - make no mistake - many (most?) males are capable of such acts.

Some serious psychological tools need to be thrown at this problem.

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My friend participated in local war in 00s. They did not see much, generally sitting in trenches, but heard stories from spetsnaz guys. How anyone, including women and children could (and did) shoot at them or throw grenades after trading, smiling and handwaving. I’m not justifying orders they got there, but that definitely ruined their belief in humanity and peace, if any pre-existed. All these civilians were perceived as a real potential threat to their lives, not to some high political forces – that’s where violence grows from.

This is not a single story of war: my granddad took part in famous caribbean crisis (he cold-opposed to reds for a whole life). While cuban people were mostly on ‘our’ side, he told that leaving their dislocation at night or unarmed was strictly prohibited, since chances of returning in a box were too high. When people have no power, they figure out own ways to fight and these ways can do horrific things to their and your minds.

“But - make no mistake - many (most?) males are capable of such acts.” This thing is not their natural trait, it is an adaptation to not lose their minds in a new reality that they don’t actually support or understand. I blame those who throw them at it sitting in their soft chairs. It is their psychological problem, they are real psychopats.

The same survival instinct was also shown by German soldiers returning home on leave from the Eastern Front in WW2. Many of them instinctively shot any dog they saw in the street, as they had learned to do on the front to protect themselves from dog-borne bombs.

Anyone could turn into a monster. Even you, even I. It's like the old myth of the Sirens and Ulysses. We have to be vigilant and protect human rights beforehand, lest we are lured by bloodlust in the worst times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petar_Brzica#cite_ref-2

I prefer to think that I could never turn into a monster. Solzhenitsyn managed to hold on to his humanity, through some of the worst atrocities imaginable.

"The little daughter's on the mattress, Dead. How many have been on it A platoon, a company perhaps? A girl's been turned into a woman, A woman turned into a corpse. It's all come down to simple phrases: Do not forget! Do not forgive! Blood for blood! A tooth for a tooth!" -Prussian Nights by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_Nights)

You would be surprised. Some of the most terrible people in the Nazi concentration camps were fellow prisoners tasked with being Kapos (prisoner overseers). The Kapos were spared some of the worst labor but in exchange had to show extreme brutality to the prisoners they oversaw so the Nazis wouldn't question their effectiveness.

This isn't the only example: Stanford prison experiment and the Milgram experiment. I'm sure there are others. When you value being alive many people will do anything to survive.

Stone cold killers is not the right description here. These soldiers, conscripts, were put into the most bizarre, dangerous, depraved situation you could imagine. The stress must have been unreal, in the jungles. They suffered a situational insanity.

Well said. From my reading of many non-fiction accounts of the Vietnam War, this view is reinforced with each account. I think it's also unfair for Monday-morning quarterbacking of "well, if i were there, i would have just ...".

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