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Comment by Ancalagon | Hacker News Reader

Kind of a dumb question based on my own anecdotal observations. Is there any chance that mild brain damage to a large portion of the population (say from long covid in select individuals) produces more violent and aggressive tendencies, similar to lead poisoning from leaded gasoline?

Again, completely anecdotal question based on my own observations of myself after having covid (I myself felt very slow mentally and frustrated after having covid), and some of the rise in aggressive tendencies of consumers (e.g. airline passengers and retail consumers), not to mention incidents of road rage.

Edit: help me understand why you’re downvoting. Is it ignorance on my part? I prefaced this by saying it was not an evidence based question

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I don't know about long COVID, but there is definitely an issue with new forms of methamphetamine (specifically, P2P meth) inducing aggression and mental instability in otherwise stable people. Among other sources, The Atlantic published an article about it: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new...

The lengthy isolation most of us have endured last few years isn't exactly great for mental health, regardless of Covid infection.

As American society slips from being "educated" you're more likely to see violent tendencies. We don't prioritize actual education anymore so people are not able to put to words how they feel or think around their problems.

I have always said anyone who points a gun at another person outside of a self defense scenario has brain damage or a mental illness (Even if it's unknown).

There is a clear difference between being evil and being mentally ill.

I would argue someone so evil is mental ill even if we don't know what causes it.

It's not that clear at all

I would think that there are other environmental stressors that have influenced the behavior first, specifically the economic stagnation of the middle and working classes, combined with things like the opioid epidemic, income and housing insecurity with everything further exacerbated by the pandemic, social isolation, economic and supply chain constraints and now record inflation, all within the last decade and with minimal support systems available, along with the rise of divisive populist politics permeating everything and social media pushing people into echo chambers that radicalize their opinions even further.

A lot of people are probably beyond stressed and stretched way past their tolerance point by now.

I think if those were the underlying factors we would've seen a rise in the homicide rate earlier than immediately after the beginning of the pandemic.

I think it is a multivariable thing, especially when you are looking at different municipalities and their respective crime policies. A lot of the places that top the list have had rising homicide rates over the past decade from a low around 2010-2015, with the national rate reaching a local low in 2014 before climbing from there. To me it could suggest that populations were coping (poorly) for a while before the pandemic broke the camels back so to speak.

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