Author Topic: OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain  (Read 3738 times)

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Offline Grey Wolf

OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
Disclaimer: I am not a psychiatrist, these are amateur observations. I came to these conclusions through the use of logic and my memory of history class.

Have you ever noticed the human fascination with death and pain? It dates right back through history, to Roman times. Thousands of people were slaughtered in the Colloseum, for three reasons:
1. They had commited crimes.
2. They had angered the emperor.
3. The emperor needed to placate the public.
The third one is the one that pertains to this subject. For hundreds of years, they gained the support of the Roman citizens through this slaughter. Also, they developed many methods of torture. And example: One Christian martyr was killed by being cooked on a giant frying pan. Later Europeans also were torturers. Ever heard of Count Dracula? Those tales were inpired by Count Vlad Dracule, often known as Vlad the Impaler. He lined his border with the bodies of his enemies mounted on stakes. The truly disturbing fact is that the bodies were put on there while still alive.

And it is not just limited to Europeans. The Aztecs killed thousands if not millions to honor their god, and Mongols destroyed the city of Kiev in Russia down to the last man, woman, and child for failing to pay tribute.

It continues to this day. People pay to see people beating each other into a bloody pulp in sports such as boxing and wrestling. Movies, such as the Arnold Swarchenneger (sp?) movies, war movies such as "Saving Private Ryan", and teen slasher movies also fall in this category.

My theory for the reasons for this odd phenomena is the history of humankind. As you can see by the skull design (forward-facing eyes as opposed to side-facing) and the types of teeth (the canines), we evolved to hunt prey. As we no longer need to hunt to eat, our hunting instinct is satisfied through watching the pain and death of others.

I would like to hear your opinions on this subject.
You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" -George Bernard Shaw

 

Offline Galemp

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
Yep, that just about sums it up.
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Offline Grey Wolf

OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
I did get all the facts above right, right?
You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" -George Bernard Shaw

 

Offline LtNarol

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
i can add a bit to Count Dracula:

His father's last name was Dracule, back then adding an a to the last name meant "son of", therefore the name Dracula, yes, that was his name.

It is believed, and well supported (dont ask me for details, i dont remember them from my human geography class), that he was very sensitive to sunlight, to the point where daylight would cause blisters very rapidly.  This led to the myth of vampires melting in the light.

Also from the same source as above: it is believed that he found that drinking blood to be somewhat easing of this disorder

He enjoyed impalings, he would have people impaled in front of him at his dinner table.  The lining of POWs on sticks was when he was in retreat after a major defeat.  He retreated back to his borders and lined them with impalements to disturb the invading army in order to get them to turn back, which worked.

He couldnt stand the thought of poor and sick living in his country, so he gathered them all up, built a bigass dining lounge out of wood, brought in the poor and sick, brought in a big feast, sat at the head of the table, excused himself while the rest were still eating, and had the doors locked.  He then set fire to it, and thus got rid of the sick and poor in his country.

 

Offline Grey Wolf

OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
Quote
Originally posted by LtNarol
He couldnt stand the thought of poor and sick living in his country, so he gathered them all up, built a bigass dining lounge out of wood, brought in the poor and sick, brought in a big feast, sat at the head of the table, excused himself while the rest were still eating, and had the doors locked.  He then set fire to it, and thus got rid of the sick and poor in his country.
Hmmm..... Didn't know that part :eek2:
You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" -George Bernard Shaw

 

Offline an0n

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
Quote
He couldnt stand the thought of poor and sick living in his country, so he gathered them all up, built a bigass dining lounge out of wood, brought in the poor and sick, brought in a big feast, sat at the head of the table, excused himself while the rest were still eating, and had the doors locked. He then set fire to it, and thus got rid of the sick and poor in his country.


Holy hell! Even Hitler didn't have that kind of efficiency.

And I would like to poiint out one little thing:
If you let the sick people in your country die long and painful deaths you are pittied by others. If you round them all up and shoot them, you are a butcher. Now I personally think that is really f*cked up.

And back On-Topic:
The UN and the big players on the international scene seem to think that they can create peace and stop genocide by moving troops in and slaughtering the country doing the killing. Now this also seems very f*cked up to me. Whenever a small country brutally wipes out its neighbours in a very evenly pitched war they are labelled as being evil. But when the UN march in and start killing this country they are heroes.

No-one seems to realise that the Human race is about survival of the fittest. They try to make everyone equal and happy but it just doesn't work. Intelligence and strength usually result in a lust for power (survival of the fittest) but people stop them. For example, if Iraq had been allowed to continue its wars and whatnot with its neighbours then they all would have eventually wiped Iraq off the face of the planet. By intervening with less than total military support from Iraq's neighbours Husseins reign (which I have nothing against) continues to this day. War is good. It lets people rid themselves of threats completely and fully until only those advanced and enlightened enough are left to for a global governement and take to the stars in search of new wars.
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Offline Nico

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
her.... there's more and more strange topics around, these days :p
Just a quick note, we evolved from a hunter I guess, not toward.
Anyway, the need for violent scenes and stuff can be explained by one fact, according to some psychiatrists: our life is supposd to be very frustrating. That may make some people laught, but limitations like not being able to fight, eat, have sex, and all those things wild creatures can do whenever they want, may be against the human nature, which, after all, grew from a wild creature (tho it seems the ape theory has been trashed a few years ago, I learned that quite recently). So just like playing Midtown Madness or GTA3 woulld make you feel much better after a 5 hours long journey and you were the one driving (hemm, what? don't look at me like that!!!! :p ), watching movies and sports about this kind of stuff is probably the best way to cool down the stress induced by the lack of tbhe "real" stuff.
Voila.
SCREW CANON!

 

Offline CP5670

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
Quote
War is good. It lets people rid themselves of threats completely and fully until only those advanced and enlightened enough are left to for a global governement and take to the stars in search of new wars.


I complete agree.:)

 

Offline Nico

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
Quote
Originally posted by an0n


Holy hell! Even Hitler didn't have that kind of efficiency.

And I would like to poiint out one little thing:
If you let the sick people in your country die long and painful deaths you are pittied by others. If you round them all up and shoot them, you are a butcher. Now I personally think that is really f*cked up.

And back On-Topic:
The UN and the big players on the international scene seem to think that they can create peace and stop genocide by moving troops in and slaughtering the country doing the killing. Now this also seems very f*cked up to me. Whenever a small country brutally wipes out its neighbours in a very evenly pitched war they are labelled as being evil. But when the UN march in and start killing this country they are heroes.

No-one seems to realise that the Human race is about survival of the fittest. They try to make everyone equal and happy but it just doesn't work. Intelligence and strength usually result in a lust for power (survival of the fittest) but people stop them. For example, if Iraq had been allowed to continue its wars and whatnot with its neighbours then they all would have eventually wiped Iraq off the face of the planet. By intervening with less than total military support from Iraq's neighbours Husseins reign (which I have nothing against) continues to this day. War is good. It lets people rid themselves of threats completely and fully until only those advanced and enlightened enough are left to for a global governement and take to the stars in search of new wars.


so you're in favour of the Tallion law? mmh, interesting, but what ifyou were the weakest one? you'd sure not be happy if someone could come and kill you just because you're weak, and then he would fear nothing, no police would threaten him: coz he was right, he was strong, you were weak, so what he did was logical, and in this case, legal. Think about it. In a given social structure, you have to go against natural rules, or it's back to chaos. Think what you want, but during the early middle age, it was about what you describe. There was much more suffering and others, sick and poors were already slowly dying outside, etc. People always complain about what they don't have, but easily forget about what they have already.
SCREW CANON!

 

Offline an0n

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
Yes, there are many flaws in my ideals, most of which are due to basic human ignorance and small mindedness. My ideals do kind of collapse when you factor in stupid people. I like to base all my thinkings around the assumption that people would be clever enough to realise what was going on, but sadly they rarely do.
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Offline LtNarol

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
this is why countries form unions and alliances, and i personally think we -are- moving closer to a united world government, but it will take something big for it to take hold.  Theoretically, a world government would solve all these problems but it is a proven fact that the human race doesnt like change, therefore people will want to hang on to their heritage and it could easily take a generation or two after the actual political movement for the idea to really sit with the people.

About Vlad, yes, my facts are (or should be) right, seeing as i got them straight out of my human geography teacher and textbook.  If you disagree, please feel free to let me know, im as curious to know more as you are.

 

Offline CP5670

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
The world government should come about soon enough, I think in at least 400 or 500 years. :) It will go through stages; a few nations will join together to form a larger one, which will in turn join with another "nation block" to form an even bigger "block." The best example of this trend starting up is the European Union, which will probably be recognized as a single country in 50 years. The US, Canada and Mexico will probably also merge soon after due to their intertwined economies. At some point, all of these small unions will merge into one large republic. There will be nations who will refuse to join in order to preserve their "individuality," but they will not be able to economically and technologically compete with the massive nation and will be left behind in history as third-world nations, leaving only the big union to progress further. We can then have a true GTA. ;):D
« Last Edit: March 09, 2002, 12:21:27 pm by 296 »

 

Offline USS Alexander

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
I love pain, you should respect it, cause it wil show (let feel) tha your still alive.
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Offline Ace

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
Actually that's just how the techroom described the forming of the GTA ;) City states, nation states, world states, etc.

If someone was crazy enough to try a globalist movement and lucky enough not to get killed by every terrorist on the planet, it would take at least a generation for it to stick.
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Offline wEvil

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
there IS a globalist movement.

its just being done in such a way its hard to recognise.

Just look at the patterns though, and it becomes apparent.

 

Offline CP5670

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
Quote
Actually that's just how the techroom described the forming of the GTA ;) City states, nation states, world states, etc.


hehe, you're right; I never thought of that.

Quote
If someone was crazy enough to try a globalist movement and lucky enough not to get killed by every terrorist on the planet, it would take at least a generation for it to stick.


Yeah, it would basically have to be done over at least a century. As LtNarol said, most people do not like change, and would not react favorably to a sudden shift in world power, but a gradual change over hundreds of years would allow the global state to encompass most of the world over time. :)

Quote
there IS a globalist movement.

its just being done in such a way its hard to recognise.

Just look at the patterns though, and it becomes apparent.


Exactly; the trends are subtle but they do exist, and it can be deduced that there will probably eventually be one massive nation. :) (although it might take a while)

Quote
Anyway, the need for violent scenes and stuff can be explained by one fact, according to some psychiatrists: our life is supposd to be very frustrating.


I think that humans have technologically risen above the other species in the world because of a desire to want that which they do not have, to ascend to higher levels of happiness. Technology solves problems and creates new problems, which are supposed to solved by more advanced technology, which in turn does the same thing. This trend may well be infinite and humans might never attain complete happiness, but that is good IMHO because it will lead to perpetual progress. ;)

Okay I think I am just rambling away; I'll stop here for now. :D

 

Offline Nico

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
lol, I don't think so actually. Just a qucik exemple: basques that want to split up with spain. corses that want to split up with france,  the IRA, etc... the trend among people is not to get together, it's to settle on old fashioned ways of living, and the pride of belonging to an ethnic group which has no real foundation excepted geographical ones. I'll take the exemple of Corse coz I know that better. The corse have the benefits of lower taxes, are kindda allowed not to respect the law (they build stuff when and where they want. In fact they have about all the advantages of being french and volontary left the disavantages. But no, they're not happy, they kill people when someone takes the incredible decision of destroying a crappy cabin built on a beach, they keep assaulting the police, etc. Well, they want independance :p ( I would like to see how they would live on their own, with no economy, no industry, nothing excepted tourism, but that's another pb :p ).
So go and talk to them about a global gvt. I guess about all the countries in the world have this kind of independantist groups.
You need much more than good will and commercial bonds to makje up that kind of things: you need the people to change , and it's probably the hardest thing ever to achieve.
SCREW CANON!

 

Offline Grey Wolf

OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
Quote
Originally posted by venom2506
Just a quick note, we evolved from a hunter I guess, not toward.
Actually, we at one point evolved into hunters. Our early primate ancestors were apes, and most likely herbivores (Ex.: Gorrilas), but by the time we started to evolve into a recognizable form, we were hunters.
You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" -George Bernard Shaw

 

Offline LtNarol

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
"like clings to like" is a basic human instinct.  Take a group of people of different ethnicity and heritage, put them in a large room, and they will spread out to be among others like themselves and away from those who are different.

 

Offline Nico

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OT: Psychology: The Fascination with Death and Pain
Quote
Originally posted by Grey Wolf 2009
Actually, we at one point evolved into hunters. Our early primate ancestors were apes, and most likely herbivores (Ex.: Gorrilas), but by the time we started to evolve into a recognizable form, we were hunters.


(gorillas aren't herbivores, they're omnivore and will eat small animals if they can catch one -ie if one is stupid enough to come right under the big ape's hand :p) I think the apes descendance theory has been scraped some years ago.
SCREW CANON!