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Comment by MrVandemar | Hacker News Reader

>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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