Dark Knight Shooting-Such a Shame

[Death Knight]

Alright man, I know that your a fan of the joker. I am too. However, theres a big difference between fantasy, and killing people in real life. You didnt have to kill those people, you could have crept along the theatre like a nut and people might have laughed.

 

This is why there is a need for video games, get your frustration out on them, not on the public.

 

I doubt thats the only reason behind what he did so I guess it wont have mattered.

 

Has anyone else heard about this?

[Goldengirl]

Yes, I've heard of it. Twelve people dead, from the last figured I heard, with seventy or so hospitalized. Here is the story for those who don't know.

 

Playing video games almost certainly wouldn't have helped. For someone to do something on this scale, there is almost certainly abnormal mental processes going on. Unfortunately, events like these are difficult to prevent.

[Actaeon]

Facebook was buzzing with it this morning (a dynamic I'm still not used to), though to the best of my knowledge no one I know personally was present. I don't think any of the area's Spiderwebbers had any reason to be in Aurora, either.

 

I don't know what to make of it. I'm not old enough to see the trends in events like this (it seems like shootings are becoming more common and bombings less, but that's a perception with no concrete basis). I'm a little ashamed that it keeps happening in Colorado, even if it's not the part of the state I hold dear.

 

(It goes without saying that I feel terrible for the victims, their friends, and their families, but I don't want to offend anyone by neglecting it.)

[Galactic Maiden]

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

(it seems like shootings are becoming more common and bombings less, but that's a perception with no concrete basis)

The shooter's apartment was stuffed full of explosives, so it's likely that he had some sort of bombing planned as well, or he just wanted to give the police hell. What a heinous individual.

I feel terrible for the victims and their families as well. I'm at a loss for words, honestly.

[VCH]

Universities really need to take a look at their PhD programs. I mean, supposedly 50% of candidates drop-out and never finish; that is horrible, and universities need to do something about it, whether that be Psyc screenings, which they may already do, or just limiting how anal professors etc get about research. The fact is, your research, your profs, and probably most of the universities, is not that earth shattering, not that important, and more or less just ego-tripping—sorry but that's how it works. We have way too many professors that think their area of research is all that matter in the world, when in reality they could not do it and nobody would notice. I'm not saying research is inherently bad just that the people doing it are sometimes self obsessed narcissists, and that sucks. Everyone: PhD students, profs, whatever needs to get some perspective on the whole higher education thing—get over yourself.

[Enraged Slith]

He just wants attention. Instead of giving it to him in the form of a massively publicized trial and angry internet discussions, let's focus on the people who matter: the victims and their families. The only thing the shooter needs a quiet execution in the back of a prison.

[Goldengirl]

Originally Posted By: VCH

Universities really need to take a look at their PhD programs. I mean, supposedly 50% of candidates drop-out and never finish; that is horrible, and universities need to do something about it whether that be Psyc screenings which they may already do, or just limiting how anal people get about research because the fact is your research, your profs and probably most of the universities is not that earth shattering not that important and more or less just ego-tripping—sorry but that's how it works. We have way too many professors that think their area of research is all that matter in the world when in reality they could not do it and nobody would notice. I'm not saying research is inherently bad just that the people doing it are sometimes self obsessed narcissists, and that sucks.

Putting aside the dubious implication you're making that this person did what he did because he dropped out of his PhD program, why should universities revise what they're doing? The universities are trying to instill important lessons in not only the complicated subject matter being researched, but also how to research complicated subject matter in the first place. They aren't trying to give everyone a golden star for attempting to do the work, and that sort of work isn't meant for everyone.

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

He just wants attention. Instead of giving it to him in the form of a massively publicized trial and angry internet discussions, let's focus on the people who matter: the victims and their families. The only thing the shooter needs a quiet execution in the back of a prison.

That is a possibility, but I won't presume to speak for his intentions short of seeing an in-depth psychological evaluation conclude as such. Moreover, even if it is what he wants that doesn't mean we have an obligation not to grant it to him. Society would be doing itself a disfavor if it didn't try to figure out what was going on.

[Actaeon]

I'm not really a proponent of the death penalty, but I DO wonder if our media's treatment of such incidents encourages them. The fact that this guy was captured alive and without resisting is suggestive, I'll admit. I'm curious about VCH's implication that the motivation is school related. Was that printed somewhere?

 

Edit: Why is it always Goldenking that snipes me? And should I really be using that turn of phrase in this thread?

[Alorael at Large]

And my money is on this guy having serious, tragic psychiatric issues. I don't know if he could ever be rehabilitated even if that were at all a priority of the American penal system, which is isn't, and I doubt anyone would ever trust him free again. But sane people don't do what he did.

 

—Alorael, who will note that cognitive decline often precedes psychotic breaks, and there's at least some evidence for that. But sane or not, vicious or not, what he did was a tragedy, and a kind of tragedy that has been happening too often. (Ever is too often, but the fact that one of the victims had survived a previous shooting is really too much.)

[Enraged Slith]

Originally Posted By: Goldenking

That is a possibility, but I won't presume to speak for his intentions short of seeing an in-depth psychological evaluation conclude as such. Moreover, even if it is what he wants that doesn't mean we have an obligation not to grant it to him. Society would be doing itself a disfavor if it didn't try to figure out what was going on.

I don't see why anyone should care what he has to say.

[Aoslare]

What he has to say could provide some insight into what was going on in his head -- no doubt useful information if we have the goal of preventing these in the future.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

Originally Posted By: Goldenking

That is a possibility, but I won't presume to speak for his intentions short of seeing an in-depth psychological evaluation conclude as such. Moreover, even if it is what he wants that doesn't mean we have an obligation not to grant it to him. Society would be doing itself a disfavor if it didn't try to figure out what was going on.

I don't see why anyone should care what he has to say.

Yep, as far as I'm concerned you officially forfeit any obligation society has to rehabilitate you when you murder 12 people and wound over 50.

[Prince of Kitties]

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

I don't see why anyone should care what he has to say.

Because listening to him, however unpleasant an idea it is, could give valuable information about what goes on in the heads of violent nutters like him... Valuable because it might make it easier to recognize people with such tendencies, and intervene before they commit violent crimes.

IOW: it's not a matter of rehabilitating him, it's a matter of gleaning information so that innocent deaths can be prevented in the future.

Edit: House of S got there first. Anyway, if rehabilitation is a side effect of figuring out what's wrong with him, so much the better... But that's not the main focus.

[Death Knight]

The media will no doubt cleanse his mind of any info but I happen to think that people know suspects are like this and do nothing. The Virginia Tech shooter had even less secretive and more bizarre behavior, and no one did a thing.

 

The typical behavior for this sort of thing is cruelty to animals, lack of morals, and extreme anti-social personality disorder. Anti social personality disorder tends to develop in people when they spend long periods of time alone and out by themselves in self-destructive conditions. This is not to say that loners are doomed to be psychos, but it doesn't help when your already addled in the head.

[keira]

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

The only thing the shooter needs a quiet execution in the back of a prison.

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

I don't see why anyone should care what he has to say.

This. So much. Anyone who would do this doesn't deserve to live.

[Aoslare]

You know, I understand being angry at him. I understand judging him right away. I don't even disagree with it: killing even one person draws a pretty clear line.

 

What I don't understand is making all these assumptions. Doing something that is unthinkable according to our general social and moral code does not qualify a person as insane. Maybe he is, but we don't know. There's not a lot of public information out there. We are speculating based on minimal evidence. Death Knight, I don't know why you're throwing around questionable DSM diagnoses, but we definitely don't know enough about him to meet the criteria for any diagnosis, let alone antisocial personality disorder -- and based on what I have read in news articles, it doesn't seem clear that he would fit the profile anyway.

 

And what I really don't understand is wanting to plug our ears and assume there is nothing of use in what he says. It's in our best interests to listen, to try and understand the factors in him and around him that led to this taking place, so that we can at least attempt to prevent things like this from happening in the future.

[Enraged Slith]

I think the only preventable factor in this scenario was his birth. Normal people don't react to negative factors in their life by turning into sociopaths and then massacring people at an event that would specifically generate the most media attention. I don't have any issues if the medical community thinks they can learn something valuable from him, but the only thing that should be reported to the general public is the research that comes out of it. Giving this man a podium validates everything he did, which is a poor message to send to others who might be willing to do something similar.

[Acky]

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

I think the only preventable factor in this scenario was his birth. Normal people don't react to negative factors in their life by turning into sociopaths and then massacring people at an event that would specifically generate the most media attention. I don't have any issues if the medical community thinks they can learn something valuable from him, but the only thing that should be reported to the general public is the research that comes out of it. Giving this man a podium validates everything he did, which is a poor message to send to others who might be willing to do something similar.

This is a complete atrocity, for sure, but I don't think anyone is suggesting we let this guy get a spot on CNN. Anyone suggesting that we "learn" from this man is surely meaning we give him a serious pyscho-analysis and determine what got him to that mind state to begin with. If he was just born crazy, then its important to know why he's crazy, to help other people who are crazy to stop them from doing, you know, crazy stuff...I also think it's a little naive to think he could influence other people into doing something like this.

Also, the details are still coming in. We aren't aware of the exact motive, so making assumptions about his reasons before the Doc's have looked at him is a little counterproductive, isn't it?

[Randomizer]

Michael Moore, as a segment of his short lived Summer series, looked at neighbors who always said about murderers, "But I can't understand it, he seemed like such a nice guy." So he rented a house in a nice suburban neighborhood and moved a guy in that looked like your movie serial killer. Scraggy beard, wild eyes, and plenty of bizarre behaviors like strange power tool noises at night, and what appeared to be blood splattered wooden boards left out with the trash.

 

A few weeks later the neighbors were interviewed and all said he was a nice guy. A bit noisy at night, but he didn't cause them any trouble. People are willing to overlook possible warning signs as long as they aren't bothered.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

Normal people don't react to negative factors in their life by turning into sociopaths and then massacring people

Normal people become killers all the time. We just pretend they aren't normal after the fact because it gives us an excuse to treat criminals and people with mental disorders as less than human as well as having to avoid worrying about whether our society enables or encourages violence or if we might become killers too in the wrong circumstances.

Dikiyoba.

[Aoslare]

Exactly what Dikiyoba said.

 

What concerns me are the ways that we may be inadvertantly creating violence, passively, as a result of the environment in which the children in our society grow up. I'm not talking about violent movies or video games so much as the number of kids who, regardless of whether or not they are part of a functioning family unit, do not experience the basic positive connections with other human beings that most of us had in our formative years. That may not be your fault or my fault, but it's a fact we have to deal with.

 

People don't commit massacres out of nowhere — but it's not because they were born killers, it's because of what they've experienced. That excuses nothing, but it's important etiology if we're trying to prevent horrible crimes.

[Arch-Mage Solberg]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

Normal people don't react to negative factors in their life by turning into sociopaths and then massacring people

Normal people become killers all the time. We just pretend they aren't normal after the fact because it gives us an excuse to treat criminals and people with mental disorders as less than human as well as having to avoid worrying about whether our society enables or encourages violence or if we might become killers too in the wrong circumstances.

Dikiyoba.

I agree. A person could be 'normal' but then something would happen to them and they would snap. As long as someone is comfortable where they are they are fine. Take away that comfort, and things can change. Does that mean that they will go on shooting sprees killing and injuring many people...not always.
It could happen literally to ANYONE! You take away a person's house, car, phone, and food away and they start getting desperate. They could do any variety of things. The main consideration of what they do depends on the morals of that person.

Post #678

[Prince of Kitties]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

Normal people don't react to negative factors in their life by turning into sociopaths and then massacring people

Normal people become killers all the time. We just pretend they aren't normal after the fact because it gives us an excuse to treat criminals and people with mental disorders as less than human as well as having to avoid worrying about whether our society enables or encourages violence or if we might become killers too in the wrong circumstances.

Dikiyoba.

I think, more importantly, it prevents us from worrying about whether we might become murderers given the wrong circumstances. The idea that one does not have Free Will is bitter medicine... Necessary, but bitter.

Edit: though to be fair, I have a somewhat... unusual perspective on such things, mostly due to what sort of person I am. I might be entirely wrong about the above.

Edit again: My apologies, Dikiyoba; I missed your last sentence. Basically I agree with you completely.

[VCH]

Goldenking's linked article has this quote: "Police said he had been in the process of withdrawing from his PhD studies at the University of Colorado-Denver."

 

I guess I did make some assumptions about the cause of the event. But then, like I said, many people drop out of their PhD programmes, and a hell of a lot of them have mental issues. Additionally, Goldenking, I understand that high standards are needed to conduct research but there's a difference between that and taking yourself far too seriously. That sort of thing leads to mental breakdowns—when your whole life revolves around some question and the people that should be supporting you are not. We all need some perspective on things at times, obsession may win you gold stars in the science journals but usually not in life: which is more important.

 

(But like you people said, I am speculating on the cause.)

 

And I agree that we should listen to this guy. The people that are dead are dead, what do we gain by not analysing this event.

[Actaeon]

The New York Times has a pretty decent article about not jumping to conclusions regarding motive.

[Alorael at Large]

Originally Posted By: VCH

But then, like I said, many people drop out of their PhD programmes, and a hell of a lot of them have mental issues.

Really? I know quite a few people who have dropped out of graduate programs, and the reasons range from cost to family issues to finding that the program wasn't a good fit to realizing they can't hack it in the field. I know people who have taken leaves of absence for mental health issues, but they've all come back.

—Alorael, who maintains that shooting in a random theater is not a sane response to anything. There's reason to suspect a number of psychiatric problems. No evidence beyond circumstantial, yes, but psychosis, if it's present, deserves treatment, not demonization. And someone who lashes out at the world in a "sane" way, well, that deserves treatment too; something went terribly wrong, and figuring out what that was and how not to have it happen again is worth quite a few lives.

[Enraged Slith]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Originally Posted By: Enraged Slith

Normal people don't react to negative factors in their life by turning into sociopaths and then massacring people

Normal people become killers all the time. We just pretend they aren't normal after the fact because it gives us an excuse to treat criminals and people with mental disorders as less than human as well as having to avoid worrying about whether our society enables or encourages violence or if we might become killers too in the wrong circumstances.

Dikiyoba.

A few people out of three hundred million go on a random killing spree and it's society's fault. Even shouldering that blame, society would have a pretty phenomenal track record. In light of this data, I'm going to go ahead and blame the guy who killed a bunch of random people in an unprovoked massacre, and give a pass to everyone who didn't go out of their way to ensure his happiness.

[Aoslare]

I don't know if Dikiyoba was just talking about highly publicized killing sprees, but I wasn't. According to the FBI, there are about 16,000 homicides per year in the U.S. Divide by the number of teens and adults (I'm using age 15+ for ease of availability of statistics) and you get around 1 homicide a year per 12,000 people. Life expectancy is 78, subtract 14 for the age group, that gives 64 years in the potential-murderer age bracket. Now the number changes to (very roughly) 1 homicide per 200 lifetimes.

 

Our track record doesn't look so great now. Whether or not it is the fault of society as a whole, the collective performance of our society isn't great.

 

The fact is that the same kinds of things that lead to people going postal, or having psychopathic killing sprees, also lead to murders in smaller numbers -- and before we get to the point of murder, they lead to all kinds of other evil behavior, too.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

I don't know if Dikiyoba was just talking about highly publicized killing sprees, but I wasn't. According to the FBI, there are about 16,000 homicides per year in the U.S. Divide by the number of teens and adults (I'm using age 15+ for ease of availability of statistics) and you get around 1 homicide a year per 12,000 people. Life expectancy is 78, subtract 14 for the age group, that gives 64 years in the potential-murderer age bracket. Now the number changes to (very roughly) 1 homicide per 200 lifetimes.

There is a clear statistical misrepresentation here. I can't put my finger on exactly where it occurs, but just look at your conclusion and twist it around a bit, and you'll see something is wrong. If there is one murder per 200 lifetime units (whatever the hell that means), then, given that the average person knows closely ~150 people (and probably is acquainted with closer to a thousand over the course of their lifetime), by your conclusion ever single person in the US over their lifetime would expect to know one to five victims of murder and one to five murderers on average, which is obviously not the case (after all, every murderer has to have a victim, too).

Also, that assumes that murders are equally distributed amongst all age groups- I'm not very sure that 70-year olds murder at anywhere near the rate 20-year olds do. I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of homicides would be committed in the age range of under-30's- meaning that given people's predilection for having friends at around their age group, most people on SW would already have met their first couple murderers or victims, which again, I highly doubt to be the case.

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

Our track record doesn't look so great now. Whether or not it is the fault of society as a whole, the collective performance of our society isn't great.

I'd lay down serious cash that, taken as a whole, our current society- relative to any others in the past- has a vastly lower mortality rate, not just in terms of homicides, but also in terms of wars, diseases, famine, infant mortality, etc. By historical standards, and across just about any metric imaginable, our current society is just about a paradise on earth- outside of a few isolated conflicts, people on the planet enjoy all-time lows of violence and death in general, and are richer, live longer, enjoy more rights, and are happier than any other previous time period ever.

So yeah, I'd say that the collective performance of our society is pretty amazing, thank you very much.

[Aoslare]

There's no misrepresentation. The wrinkle in the statistics is probably that homicides clump along a number of factors and are not even remotely evenly distributed. However, murders are murders; I'm not sure why the fact that they are clumped disproportionately among certain demographic groups would make me any prouder of our society.

 

Originally Posted By: Dantius

and are happier

Your point about comparing historical standards of living and of mortality is a good one. However, if you're going to talk about using "metrics" to compare our society to others in the past, I think you're out of luck when it comes to your "happiness" assertion. You may find it obvious, but I certainly don't; I can think of good reasons that it might be true, but equally good reasons that it might be very false.

[Prince of Kitties]

On that note, I'll mention that when people start to fear that they might become murderers, that's labeled as OCD - and treated by behavioral therapy that inures them to that fear. Kind of stupid when you think about it.

 

And our society does take most of the blame, IMO, because it is a cannibalistic society. "Normal" people think nothing of buying a laptop computer, which is actually made by an incredibly long chain of debt slaves, wage slaves, and just plain slaves. The worker who put the keyboard together does hundreds every day; in another ten years she'll have lost the use of her hands entirely. The tantalum capacitors were made from minerals mined in Congo, and each counts for several rapes and murders. The machine I'm typing this on is responsible for quite a lot of death and misery, and by extension so am I. If you're reading this, so are you.

 

With such complete lack of caring drilled into us from day one, is it any wonder that a few of us take it a step further?

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

If there is one murder per 200 lifetime units (whatever the hell that means)

What it means is exactly what you said: that about one in every 200 Americans is killed by another human being in a non-accidental way. See for yourself: in 2009, for example, 0.7% of all deaths were attributed to homicide. If the Center for Disease Control isn't a good enough source for you on mortality statistics, I dunno what to say.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Originally Posted By: Dantius

If there is one murder per 200 lifetime units (whatever the hell that means)

What it means is exactly what you said: that about one in every 200 Americans is murdered. See for yourself: in 2009, for example, 0.7% of all deaths were attributed to homicide.

But that is only in terms of Americans who die that year, which account for a tiny fragment of the population. It's not a case of "1 in every 200 Americans are murdered" like you say, but rather than "1 in 21,000 Americans are murdered*". You can't break down that number across lifetimes, because murder rates change from year to year, and so does population- you're basically taking one year of statistics and generalizing that to a 78-year range, which is definitely not kosher.

[Lilith]

Murder rates change, but they don't change by a huge amount. The percentage of deaths caused by homicide has stayed pretty close to 0.7% for every year in the past 10 years, so if anything 1 in 200 is an underestimate if things keep going as they are. If an average of about 1 in 200 deaths are caused by homicide over the course of your lifetime, then your chance of dying of homicide is about 1 in 200.

 

(And of course, if the murder rate does decrease, that only proves Slarty's point: something needs to change.)

[Erebus the Black]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Murder rates change, but they don't change by a huge amount. The percentage of deaths caused by homicide has stayed pretty close to 0.7% for every year in the past 10 years, so if anything 1 in 200 is an underestimate if things keep going as they are. If an average of about 1 in 200 deaths are caused by homicide over the course of your lifetime, then your chance of dying of homicide is about 1 in 200.

(And of course, if the murder rate does decrease, that only proves Slarty's point: something needs to change.)

You make it sound more dangerous than it is.
It's not your chances of dying of homicide but rather if you are at the moment dying then there's a 1 in 200 chance that you have been murdered.

plus this:

Originally Posted By: Miramor

And our society does take most of the blame, IMO, because it is a cannibalistic society. "Normal" people think nothing of buying a laptop computer, which is actually made by an incredibly long chain of debt slaves, wage slaves, and just plain slaves. The worker who put the keyboard together does hundreds every day; in another ten years she'll have lost the use of her hands entirely. The tantalum capacitors were made from minerals mined in Congo, and each counts for several rapes and murders. The machine I'm typing this on is responsible for quite a lot of death and misery, and by extension so am I. If you're reading this, so are you.

With such complete lack of caring drilled into us from day one, is it any wonder that a few of us take it a step further?

I mean just take a look at the saw series, a world that makes blockbusters from such a depiction of gruesome deaths 6 times really shows that it has cauterized itself.
With all due respect to the deceased, 12 deaths is nothing when compared to the amount of deaths in africa, india, china, n. korea, latin america and the different clan wars in the "stans". In places calling themselves the first world if you kill someone unimportant you get punished while in the nations I listed above you will not even be persecuted (e.g. I've heard from someone who's been to India and was in a taxi at the time. A driver next to him was honking at another driver in front of him, the driver in front without a sound got out of his car with a knife, went to the honking driver, stabbed him, calmly went back to his car and kept on driving).
And how many unreported murders perpetrated by different crime syndicates happen?
It's a jaded world, and in a jaded world jaded things happen.

[Cairo Jim]

In the end, does it really matter how you die? Everyone has the same 100% chance of dying, regardless of how it happens.

[Erebus the Black]

I would rather go as painlessly as possible, thank you very much

[Cairo Jim]

Good luck with that then.

[Erebus the Black]

Do you know of any nuclear explosive tests anywhere, that would be the least painful method, instant evaporation

[Aoslare]

Originally Posted By: Y? Bcaus, IDK he's on 3rd & IDC

You make it sound more dangerous than it is.
It's not your chances of dying of homicide but rather if you are at the moment dying then there's a 1 in 200 chance that you have been murdered.

Since everybody dies once and exactly once, those are pretty much the same thing, given the timing and homicide rate change caveats already mentioned.

Also, facepalm on the idea that anywhere that is not a "first world country" ignores murderers.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

Since everybody dies once and exactly once,

With modern medicine you can be clinically dead and still come back.

[A less presumptuous name.]

If someone tries to kill you, you clinically die, but are resuscitated, are they tried for murder or attempted murder?

[Actaeon]

I'm pretty sure most jurisdictions would try for attempted murder.

[Alorael at Large]

To commit murder, someone has to die. Clinical death is something of a misnomer: you can be clinically dead but very much still alive, and indeed a state very much like that (but obviously not called that) is induced therapeutically for some surgeries. When it comes to trial, if you can testify before the court you're not a murder victim.

 

There are interesting cases, though. What if you were revived, but suffered enough brain damage that you're now unable to communicate above the level of a three year old child? What if you lived, in some sense, but you're in a persistent vegetative state?

 

—Alorael, who thinks the question is somewhat academic. Attempted murder is a serious felony. The nomenclature under which you're imprisoned for life isn't all that important.

[Erebus the Black]

Yeah, The higher standard for death nowadays is brain death which is yet un-undoable.

Which raises an interesting question, you hear in many places that the entire human body replaces itself (meaning every cell in it) every 7 years (not at once, but rather over that period of time). If that's true how do brain cells replicate their current connections and chemical setup(by setup I mean the type of chemical that represents the type of memory or function of that neuron)?

Another thing is cartilage, FWIK the reason people have so many knee problems is because it doesn't grow it only erodes under stress.

 

And one more thing is, if a man is injured to a state of brain death, but his family is wealthy enough (or insured enough) so that they can keep him resuscitated for a period of time longer than the injurer's trial, then a year after the trial is over they decide to pull the plug, will the injurer be retried for murder?

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Y? Bcaus, IDK he's on 3rd & IDC

Which raises an interesting question, you hear in many places that the entire human body replaces itself (meaning every cell in it) every 7 years (not at once, but rather over that period of time). If that's true

it's not

Quote:

And one more thing is, if a man is injured to a state of brain death, but his family is wealthy enough (or insured enough) so that they can keep him resuscitated for a period of time longer than the injurer's trial, then a year after the trial is over they decide to pull the plug, will the injurer be retried for murder?

Nope. Double jeopardy applies: you can't be brought to trial twice on the same set of facts.

[keira]

Originally Posted By: Y? Bcaus, IDK he's on 3rd & IDC

Another thing is cartilage, FWIK the reason people have so many knee problems is because it doesn't grow it only erodes under stress.

I believe cartilage keeps growing, but bone does not (hence why elderly people tend to have gigantic ears and noses). It's just that in joints it becomes hard bone versus soft growth plates, which wears it down faster than it grows. I could be way off on this, though, but 'eh

[Alorael at Large]

Various cells are replaced at various rates. Epidermal skin cells generally get a few weeks between final division and being sloughed off, and a fair amount of that time is spent with the cells already existing as dead containers full of keratin. Stomach lining is replaced every few days. The neurons of the central nervous system have no turnover at all, although we do have the ability to produce new neurons. The old ones just aren't repeatedly replaced.

 

Cartilage and bone are different, because they're largely made of non-cellular material. Since they're mostly proteins and mineralization, respectively, they have no way to repair damage unless cells show up to do it. If you break a bone, it will heal because there are osteoblasts to lay down new bone and, usually, enough blood supply nearby to keep the cells working. (And if you damage your circulation to bone, you can have serious tissue necrosis that requires replacement with artificial supports.) Cartilage doesn't have vascular supply and there are few cells, so regeneration is often very slow. But there isn't none! In fact, if you exercise a lot, the cartilage of the joints that are bearing a newly increased load will remodel to become stronger and better able to withstand damage.

 

—Alorael, who brings you this info dump so you can skip to the tl;dr. Cartilage and bone are both capable of regenerating, although both stop expanding in size. Cartilage regenerates slowly, which can be why arthritis happens. But aging-related arthritis doesn't always happen, and is based substantially on changes in cartilage composition rather than mechanical damage. The process still largely gets a shrug as far as consensus goes.

[Erebus the Black]

If we're already on the subject I would be thankful if you could answer a couple more questions.

Is it true that some cell types, such as fat cells and white blood cells, don't require oxygen?

Is it true that small bodily bodies, such as enzymes, lizozomes and anti-bodies don't contain DNA (or RNA)?

[keira]

The only non-nuclear organelles I can think of that have D|RNA are mitochondria, chloroplasts (both believed to have formed from symbiotic bacteria), and ribosomes (which are made of a creatively-named form of RNA called ribosomal RNA). Enzymes and antibodies are made primarily of protein.

 

On the other point, false. Anything that needs aerobic respiration to metabolize sugars requires oxygen.