Mindhacks says: I don’t know what to make of this, but the discovery is quite startling. It’s data from a World Health Organisation study on lethal violence, finding that the ratio between murder and suicide differs between countries, and in some countries differs between sexes.
It suggests an interesting hypothesis, that cultural differences affect whether lethal violence is typically directed outwards (murder) or inwards (suicide).
Via Mindhacks
i’ve always wondered about serial killers too – like why they have a certain pattern in their victims – are they crazy with morals or what? !
There was a study a while back on toxoplasmosis, the nasty little parasite found in cat faeces that was thought to explain cultural differences especially more aggressive / warlike societies. http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=547
I can hardly believe that they did good background research on all these people and his/her surroundings. Whereas those things are of major importance ofcourse. And what if all those murders/suicides are not being researched correctly, so what if the data is not correct at all.
The difference between inward and outward response does have different reasons, but is above all based on personality differences and life circumstances, body & mental health etc.
Suicides are being committed due to so many reasons, as murders … which can not be plainly be explained by what part of the world you come from. It’s way too general. There are so many other factors which can be of major importance here .. that it may not be at all the part of the world but also all that other stuff that happened to go on in that part during the period these studies focusses on, next to the things I already mentioned above.
I dont see the use of this type of studies, and what kind of weird name is … Global Burden of Disease …
The outbursts of those youngsters all of a sudden running into their school and shooting like crazy …. that apparently was not interesting enough to study …
This sounds awfully like exactly what Durkheim was hypothesising a century ago… (albeit with some pretty dodgy theoretical grounding)