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Comment by dionidium | Hacker News Reader

This presupposes that bullying is always explained by something environmental or that it's learned behavior. But what if bullying is just fun for some people? What if human beings have differing innate levels of aggression, empathy, and tolerance? What if some people see bullying and feel a little pit in their stomach -- fear, disgust, anger -- and what if others simply don't?

"The blank slate" conception of the world continues to mislead us about the domain of effective interventions.

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I don't understand what point you are trying to make here. If some people find bullying fun, they should be taught why it isn't fun for others and dealt with if they continue. I mean I'm sure rapist think that their rape is fun or empowering or something, but that doesn't mean it should be allowed.

I agree with you. The point is just that it suggests a different set of interventions. If you keep digging for the "root cause" when the root cause is, "he likes it," then you're going to waste a lot of time getting nothing done.

If you're going to make a claim like "'the blank slate' conception of the world continues to mislead us", it wouldn't hurt to have more than a series of what-ifs.

"Nature vs. nurture" is in the public conception a live debate, but it really isn't. The data are in. If you're genuinely interested, Pinker's "The Blank Slate" is a great overview of the argument for the layman.

>But what if bullying is just fun for some people?

We have a word for those people: "sociopath"

Nah, that's too glib. The people at one extreme end of the spectrum might accurately be called sociopaths, but lots of more ordinary people fall to the right of center on the "enjoys bullying" bell curve.

Monsters aren't born, they are created.

This is an unscientific platitude. No more or less.

No, this is true. Statistically, we know many serial killers are actually victims of brain trauma as children (usually through being violently beaten) and we know traumatic brain injury can cause aggression. In fact there's a predictive relationship between childhood trauma and juvenile psychopathy. [0]

0. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29598432/ " Results indicate that psychopathy is significantly correlated with childhood trauma. For the Missouri data, trauma significantly predicted psychopathy scores for both boys and girls."

Following up with an argument full of terms like "many" and "can" is not enough to support an absolute claim in either direction.

That's why I cited a source that explicitly said there was a predictive relationship found. Please read my entire post?

Enjoying and causing the suffering of others, especially as a power thing (and what is bullying about if not power) is sociopathy, plain and simple no matter how you adjust your spectrum.

If "ordinary people" are on the right of centre of the bell curce, all you are arguing is that the culture you are in encourages sociopathic behavior.

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