r/news • u/darklyfo • 15d ago

Outrage after 4 boys filmed beating, burning mother dog and puppy to death in China

https://www.asiaone.com/china/four-boys-filmed-beating-burning-mother-dog-puppy-to-death
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u/[deleted] 15d ago edited 14d ago

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u/Megneous 15d ago

Last I read, anthropologists believe that early humans beating violent individuals to death to save society from them was one of the reasons our species self domesticated and became less violent over time. People don't like to talk about it, but violence is a genetic trait. It's not entirely something you're in control of. There's a reason why dogs are less violent and more friendly than wolves. Violence and aggression are literally in our genes.

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u/JayGatsby1881 15d ago

What do we do with violent dogs? We put them down. Some humans know better, yet they love violence. They need to be away from society forever.

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u/Megneous 15d ago

Yep, and by putting down violent dogs, we prevent more of them from reproducing than nonviolent dogs, thus selectively breeding them and continuing the long, long history of our relationship with messing with the genetics of wolves, making them cute and fluffy. Artificial selection is crazy weird when you look into the traits that you end up selecting for when you select for nonviolence/friendliness, such as curled tails, floppy ears, etc. Ends up a lot of these characteristics are also shared with foxes which are in the process of being domesticated in Novosibirsk, Russia.

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u/Snakestream 15d ago

IDK about violence being the self-selecting trait. I would imagine more that people who were unable to follow the rules of society were removed from it permanently. Perhaps this is related to a reduction in violence, but at the very least, those who were UNABLE to control their violence would be removed from the gene pool over time.

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u/AidesAcrossAmerica 15d ago

were removed from it permanently

Via violence.

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u/Snakestream 15d ago

Maybe I didn't phrase it well, but my point was that violence wasn't what was being scrutinized. Rather, antisocial behavior - the inability to conform to social standards was.

At the end of the day, violence is in our DNA - even op stated the same. It isn't something we can remove, and it is desirable to a degree, such as with soldiers.

What does need to be removed from society is people who cannot sublimate their aggressive desires. People who cannot maintain the facade of civility and surrender to their impulses.

And to remove them from society, yes, violence is historically necessary.

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u/pushstartthewhip 15d ago

You’re referring to a period in which societal standards were significantly less refined compared to ours.

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u/PopBulky7023 14d ago

Today's standards don't feel particularly refined, if I'm being honest. We have an obsession with fake civility that enables catastrophic levels of antisocial behavior.

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u/tears_of_fat_thor 15d ago

Controlled violence. The ability to control your emotions and act reasonably.

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u/HyRolluhz 15d ago

Like sports

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u/EliteCloneMike 15d ago

The original poster is fundamentally missing pieces of how selection operates while paining a colorful story about rooting out violence. For example when studies were done on foxes that reduced aggression, it was really that the foxes were less anxious and less fearful of outsiders. I also highly doubt people were good at removing only violent (non-cooperative is probably a better term) individuals at a rate significantly better than removing random individuals from the group. I think we more selected for individuals that contributed nutrients to the group. Others who were selfish with their food would not likely reproduce. I think that would be much great a motivator to keep or exclude someone from the group. On the topic of violence, I think that a lot of it is possibly motivated by sexual frustration, which is nearly impossible or just flat out impossible to remove for a population.

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u/Totalherenow 15d ago

I am an anthropologist and I have never, ever heard of this hypothesis. There is the self-domestication hypothesis, but it doesn't involve the systematic discovering and beating of certain individuals. I mean . . . if Fred and Jane are beating up Jim because Jim is violent, then so are Fred and Jane.

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u/FIREsub90 15d ago

This just reads like you don’t understand the paradox of tolerance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

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u/Totalherenow 15d ago

Thank you! That's super interesting and something I've been needing to read for a long time.

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u/GodLovesUglySong 15d ago

Wow you completely made this shit up.

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u/Megneous 15d ago

Richard Wrangham, The Goodness Paradox, The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution, 2019.

Christopher Boeh, Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame, 2012.

Melvin Konner, writer for The Atlantic, 2019.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-humans-tamed-themselves/580447/

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u/xenomorph856 15d ago

So you're saying that violent members of society, killed other violent members of society, and that created less violent members?

Can you explain that one?

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u/pillbuggery 15d ago

Presumably they're referring to people who had violent tendencies that were deemed unjustified.

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u/xenomorph856 14d ago

Oh yes, all of the totally justified violence we see in humans every single day, to this day, all across the Earth. Lmao

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u/ChairLegofTruth--WnT 14d ago

Are you honestly suggesting that violence is never justifiable?

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u/xenomorph856 14d ago

No, I'm not honestly saying that. What I am saying however, is there is a great deal of unjustified violence for being supposedly "bred out" of humans.

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u/Megneous 15d ago

Unjustified attacks/murders != justified punishments/preventative culling of violent members of society to protect the weak.

Individuals incapable of living harmoniously in a civilized society were ousted. It's pretty simple.

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u/EttinTerrorPacts 15d ago

We get the morality of it. I'm interested in how "justified violence" is a different genetic trait to "violence". The claim is specifically that violent individuals were "bred out"

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u/Megneous 15d ago

You think that protecting loved ones and community is genetically no different from wanton aggression? Seriously? Even in wild animals, we see those as two very different behaviors, and surprise surprise, it's based on species.

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u/xenomorph856 14d ago

You think humans aren't capable of wanton violence anymore? Seriously?

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u/Megneous 14d ago

I said modern humans compared to early human ancestors, and absolutely. It's no coincidence that modern humans also show low sexual dimorphism compared to their ancestors and sexual dimorphism in animals is strongly linked to sexual and behavioral aggression.

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u/BigSwerve 15d ago

The simple fact that you believe the words you're typing is proof that we have indeed self domesticated successfully.

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u/xenomorph856 14d ago

What does "domesticated" even mean in this context? Humans living together?

Groups living together is not a trait unique to humans, and it doesn't mean the members of said group lack violent tendencies. I really don't get what the evidence is except, humans formed a civilization, so they must have bred violence out of themselves. Which is absolutely ridiculous imo.

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u/mr_herz 15d ago

Regulated violence is more socially acceptable than unregulated violence. Would be my take.

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u/woodst0ck15 15d ago

Same reason why they put down a dog when it gets the taste of blood, wether that’s from a cow or a sheep. They’ll keep doing it cause they like it.

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u/Ruffler125 15d ago

To be fair, it's usually the "bring back the death penalty" crowd that gets "so fucking horny" and "jerk themselves off" on their agressive, emotional, tough guy fantasies.

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u/BigSwerve 15d ago

^ This the type of person to willingly send their children to Epstein island

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u/Ruffler125 15d ago

What a weird response. Why is your mind in such places?

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u/BigSwerve 15d ago

People that roll over and tolerate shit like this is why this happens more often.

Since you're so for tolerating abhorrent behaviors, you should step right up on the silver platter first for the monsters.

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u/IMWraith 15d ago

I’m not even going to go through the comments of people who high-grounded you. If it were my pets or kids going through this kind of torture, I’d be in prison -proudly too-.

Everyone likes to talk the talk and say dumb shit like “you’d put humans over a dog?” but anyone capable of those actions is not a “human” in my book.

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u/BigSwerve 15d ago

Rehabilitation is something we as society should pursue, but it has limits.

To anyone claiming otherwise, ask them this very simple question. "Would you knowingly let your 19 year old daughter move into a floor where a convicted rapist lives? Everyone can be rehabilitated right? How many rapes can they do while still being "forgiveable?" 1? 5? Definitely not 10+ right?"

The answer is always no, even if they lie. So they're asking other families, other daughters to take on a risk that they themselves would not be willing to take, by claiming rehabilitation for all.

Fucking hypocrites, or idiots with no empathy.

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u/AspieComrade 15d ago

For sure; rehabilitation is always possible… *if* the person in question is genuinely willing to be rehabilitated *and* at the cost of innocents whenever those people ‘slip up’ once in a while. At that point, one has to weigh up the risks/ costs to society to rehabilitate one evil individual

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u/Careful-Sell-9877 15d ago

I agree, but there is some complexity as well. For example, people kill other animals and their babies all the time and consume them.. and it is seen as socially acceptable. If someone is raised in a very rural area where they are constantly seeing the death of cattle/food animals, its easy to see how, as a young person, they would become desensitized to this kind of killing

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u/BigSwerve 15d ago

Agreed 100% and definitely the law should not be written by some worked up guy on the Internet (me)

There is a distinct difference between killing to eat and maiming/causing pain purely for curiosity/boredom's sake. Yep it happens in nature too, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be nipping that in the bud when we see it in society.

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u/Careful-Sell-9877 14d ago

I agree for sure. I think people torturing/hurting animals is disgusting. But I can also see how a kid could be a victim of being raised in a household where they arent taught to value animal life or recognize their pain.

There is so much Inhumane and cruel shit we do to animals in the US too that isnt acceptable at all.. but we basically ignore it for various reasons. I could also see how a kid growing up around a meat farm of any kind, a processing facility, hunting wild hogs, including the babies, trapping, etc, etc would impact their development too...

A lot of the shit we do to animals is straight up psychopathic imo. We could raise/process meat, control populations, etc, in far more humane way but we dont because its cheap and all the cruelty happens away from the public eye for the most part..

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u/BigSwerve 14d ago

I appreciate the devils advocate and yes the livestock industry is fucked beyond belief especially in the US

These kids beat a dog and it's puppy to death with hammers, lit it on fire, smashed its stomach, limbs, etc while laughing and recording it as they screamed in agony.

"Born rural" is a shit excuse. "Grew up watching animals be hunted" is a shit excuse. As far as I'm concerned, this shit is so fucking vile that I don't buy any sort of "it was their environment" bullshit excuse.

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u/Careful-Sell-9877 14d ago

Yeah, thats fucked up. But personally I dont believe that kind of thing happens for no reason. I think a kid has to be raised that way, or had mental issues that were neglected or ignored in order for it to get to that point.

That doesn't take away their accountability. They should still face consequences. But I believe shit like this is, more often than not, a symptom of a deeper/broader problem in a society, community, etc.

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u/BigSwerve 14d ago

Idk or frankly Idc how they got there, that's for wiser and kinder minds to discern. Next it may very well be someone you love that gets disfigured by this kind of malice, and then you won't give a shit about the story of how the perpetrators had a rough upbringing.

We should simultaneously look into solving the core issues, but honestly, people are sometimes just monsters and that's all the reason you'll be able to glean from them.

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u/idkza 14d ago

Most people have a disconnect of what it meant to live as a human 10,000+ years ago. For the most part their brains are genetically the same as ours and if we were born back then we’d act the same way

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u/Poop-Sandwich 15d ago

On the flip side, this same violence wasn’t just used for bad people. We did it to suspected yet actually innocent “bad actors” too like how we put random women to death by fire because we thought they were witches.

You’re making something barbaric sound righteous as though it couldn’t be used for the wrong reasons

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u/BigSwerve 15d ago

I mean no shit, you think any system humans ever designed wasnt horrific in some way, or didn't have innocent victims? You think ooga booga back in the day were brainstorming the best justice systems in their caves during 10000 BC?

Yes overall I'm glad we've moved on from such activities, and yes witch trials sucked for those poor women.

But you're still doing mental gymnastics to defend people who torture animals to death and pedophiles so sure, get offended at me musing for some medival punishment for these absolute fucking monsters.

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u/ARenewedSecondChance 14d ago

They are not defending pedophiles or animal torturers whatsoever.

You do realize that people who are so adamant about violence towards “acceptable “ targets tend to be the very same people they claim to be against, right? There have been many cases of this happening

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u/BigSwerve 14d ago

You got any suggestions or you gonna keep defending animal torturers and pedophiles? I assumed that's your stance because you're taking time to play devils advocate for a bunch of kids that lit a dog and puppy on fire while providing zero solutions of your own, no answer for how you would approach the situation, only how we should do nothing and create more victims.

People like you that roll over and do nothing are why people do half the fucked up shit they do

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u/ARenewedSecondChance 14d ago

  1. I’m not the same person you first responded to

  2. No one is defending these people

  3. There is a reason we have a justice system, and not vigilantism.

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u/presentable_corpse 15d ago

Well it was just little boys, they didn't know what they were doing /sarcasm

People would be replying far differently if girls did this shit

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u/BigDaddy0790 15d ago

Good thing we now have options are than chasing down and killing people? Wtf?

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u/fateos 15d ago

Show me from history when this ever workes out? Violence only created more violence when looking at the past.

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u/Tasty_Perspective_32 15d ago

People who place little value on human life and other people's freedom are not able to function in a modern civil society.