The Human Behavior Podcast
Do you ever wonder why people act the way that they do? Join human behavior experts Brian Marren and Greg Williams as they discuss all things human behavior related. Their goal is to increase your Advanced Critical Thinking ability through a better understanding of HBPR&A (Human Behavior Pattern Recognition & Analysis.) What is HBPR&A? It's a scientific (and fun) way to understand and articulate human behavior cues so that you can predict likely outcomes and it works regardless of your race, religion, political ideology or culture!
The Human Behavior Podcast
Violence is a Language
This episode explores the complex relationship between violence and communication, positing that violence can be a maladaptive language used by individuals when they feel unheard or powerless. The hosts discuss behavioral distinctions, the significance of feeling heard, and how effective communication can prevent violent escalations while providing insights from real-world examples.
• Exploring the concept of violence as a language
• Understanding maladaptive coping mechanisms and their role
• Distinguishing between acting up, acting out, and acting in
• The importance of feeling heard in human interactions
• Analyzing historical examples of violence as communication
• Strategies for de-escalation: employing time and distance
• The need for empathy and understanding in conflict situations
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Hello everyone and welcome to the Human Behavior Podcast. Have you ever watched someone flip from calm to combative in an instant and wondered what triggered that response? In today's episode, we're taking a deep dive into the idea that violence is a language, a last resort form of communication people may use when they feel powerless, unheard or desperate. During the episode, we talk about how to spot the early signs that someone is acting up, acting out or turning inward, and why each of these behaviors matters more than the actual words they say. We also discuss simple strategies like using time and distance to help de-escalate tensions before they spin out of control. Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed the episode. Don't forget to check out our Patreon channel for additional content and subscriber-only episodes. If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving us a review and, more importantly, sharing it with a friend. Thank you for your time and remember training changes behavior. Okay, Greg.
Speaker 1:So today's overarching theme of the show is going to be called violence is a language, and this is something that you've kind of alluded to or said several times before in the past, and I think we even wrote something about this a while back, but, you know, wanted to discuss it with our listeners and what you mean by it, and get into a few things. I know for those of you who've, like you know, been to our class or even just listen to the podcast we, you know, we like to say most people want their say, not their way right. Most people just want to get something off their chest. They want to complain to the manager, they, whatever the situation is. It's sort of a psychological, sociological imperative. But some people want their say and their way right, and that's kind of what we look out for. Like is this person? Are they acting up and they're just being a person who acts up we all do sometimes or are they acting out? Is there something else that's going on here? Because when we say the danger lies in the people that want their say and their way, you know that that's where we get into what we do. How do you then, how do you determine this is a person who wants their way versus someone's say? We talk about demonstrations of intent, but I don't want to go down that sort of pathway.
Speaker 1:I kind of wanted to just get into what we mean by violence as a language, because we use that as an overarching theme for some of the cases that we discuss, some of the things that we see on the news and how these things occur, where other people look at the different factors and their motive and what they did and you know how they were upset about something and what group influenced their way of thinking, and a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 1:I I get why we analyze it and it seems significant, but it's typically like significant for that moment in time, Like maybe this is a group I was inspired by but in five years that group doesn't exist anymore or there's a different one or there's something else. Those contributing factors, sometimes because I think they're almost, they're a little bit arbitrary and because they just fit sort of this general mold or thing that we can point to when a lot of times the factors are a little bit different. So that's kind of a lot. But we'll start the conversation there and what I guess maybe start by. However, you want to define what you mean when you say violence is a language.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we'll start there, but we've got to dance around a little bit to make sure we get there.
Speaker 2:So violence is a language. Whenever an individual feels overwhelmed or unable to handle a situation constructively, violence becomes a maladaptive coping mechanism. In other words, it's not where you should go, but it's where you do go. And I feel that it's amazing that we're having this discussion on the 6th of January. I just dawned on me when I looked at the clock behind you there and Martin Luther King, in 1967, said a riot is the language of the unheard.
Speaker 2:And that's my starting point when I say violence is a language, because when I talk about maladaptive coping look, brian, when we don't know how or what to say in the moment, then violence is always on the tip of our tongue, because that's how we are raised, that's part of our foundation. It's a fundamental underpinning of humankind. So really quickly to go back to what you said about people want their say, not their way. It's been a couple of years since we handled a podcast on that and deep-dived, but what we need to know about that is most people like to express their opinion or their perspectives on any matter at hand. They want to be heard, they want to know and feel that their specific opinions are being considered, but most people don't go around insisting that we accept their opinions or follow up on their perspectives. That's huge. That speaks directly to the violence as a language. And then we also understand.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. Go ahead, Brian.
Speaker 1:No, no. And you brought up a great word that you use and I want to. I want to kind of stress that to everyone listening. You said we, we want to feel like we're heard.
Speaker 2:That's very different than actually being heard, and this is why this is the most important, yeah.
Speaker 1:But, but, but. But. I want to get that because that's part of what in cap police people want, their say, not their way, like this is also why social media works so well and why everyone can comment like I need to feel heard, I need to feel better, I need to exactly I may not actually the situation may not improve for me.
Speaker 2:But if I feel like it is, yeah, okay, I just want to, I want to stress that no, no, that's, that's great that you do that, because sometimes I go at the speed of greg and that's not the speed of retention or understanding all the time.
Speaker 1:Well, you're also getting on and off the freeway and making frequent stops Sometimes to rob a liquor store, sometimes to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2:So the people wanting their say, not their way. Okay, that's your expressive side and your feeling. And so then we talked. Brian talked briefly at the very beginning about action. Speak louder than words. We did an entire episode on that, but these are the three that are important to you. Acting up, that's being loud, disobedient, misbehaving. Acting out, that's being disruptive, that means you're moving things around and touching people. And then what I like to call acting in, that's your human behavior, signifying that you want to be left alone. You've gone internal and I need to know about all three of those. If I'm going to read the room, I've got to read the tea leaves. And Brian, gestures are so essential communicating that we make them even when we're alone. But on a phone speaking with somebody else, we can all see that when we're alongside a car, because everybody's texting and speaking and you see the people show exasperation or they're trying to be demonstrative with their hands. So the next likely thing to that look, words are important, but a pointy, talky chart got your son or daughter or husband through Iraq and Afghanistan during a war.
Speaker 2:Okay, trade happened in the world, even though we didn't speak the language or understand the culture. But then pigeon English and pigeon. Language came up as a language of trade where we took those key things that we understood and put them together. I don't know if you've ever seen the Sopranos, but they had a Johnny Cake episode on it and every time that Johnny Cake episode played I laughed. Because Johnny Cakes everybody knows what they are on the East Coast, a very East Coast thing. That's not where they came from. They came from places like Trinidad and Tobago where they were called journey cakes and people were mispronouncing the journey, the hard tack that you had in your saddle when you were going to different places. So all of our language comes from us defining what those words mean. Not the word the rose by any other name, do you get it?
Speaker 2:So violence is always there and when it's like, like if you think about certain things, when push comes to shove, hey, let's put that on a punch list. Hey, adding insult to injury, let's take a stab at it. All of those things are violence born. Why? Because when you were not, when you felt that you were being misunderstood, not understood, you couldn't get your voice heard, then you resorted largely to physical actions. And you know what? If it wasn't a physical act, then it certainly was intentionally causing harm through words, that's violence too. And there's a whole school of thought out there, brian, that would tell me oh no, that's not the way things work. If it's not a physical act, then speech can never be violence. I call bullshit.
Speaker 2:I call people that like you and me that have chronic exposure to violence, Brian, are much more prone to resort to violence to be heard when we feel that we're not being heard, and it's a character trait, perhaps, or maybe it's our maladaptive response to humans but that's what we do.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and you call it the maladaptive coping mechanism and it's. You know, I look at it as it's not, that I see this kind of mis-explained or misunderstood a lot of times, because when people do this, you know we're just a few steps away from complete chaos and people fighting in the streets, and it's like no, we're fucking not. You know, people fighting in the streets and it's like no, we're fucking not. You know how I know that, because it's not whatever happens, like when, when shit goes down, people, people band together and they, they work together as as a tribe or a clan, or a family or community or or city, whatever. But but what you? But in a sense you are saying that it's it's kind of like at the tip of her tongue, more for some people than for others, based on their life experience and training and a whole bunch of other different or or lack of self-control, or or lack of, you know, emotional regulation no, critical thinking skills, yeah, brain damage there's.
Speaker 1:There's a bunch, so some more than others, but but what do you mean, though, when you say it's like? It's kind of at the tip of our tongue? It's almost to me. I explained it like the easy button is to get angry and bash you over the head when I don't like something. That's actually easier than working it out and compromise right. So so what to to kind of you know, before we get some of the examples really define that that violence is a language. If I'm trying to tell you something and I'm not getting through to you, greg, I may hit a threshold where you know what, I know what I'll get through to you, because violence is a language that every human being implicitly understands. They don't have to be taught it Right, and maybe you haven't been, and so, but that first punch in the face goes oh wow, probably shouldn't have said that you know, but you know, everyone should have that experience. I've had it many times, but the idea meaning it's so ingrained in human survival and that it sort of is right underneath the surface.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:Some that you know, people, it's got to get deeper under the water. Some it's right below the surface, right, but some people who have it right at the surface are actually better at controlling it and using it in areas that that they've they find necessary. But but to understand this, violence is language. I literally look at it as that. It's like, well, I, I have to speak to you in a way that you understand and everyone understands this. I mean, that's just and and so this is, when we look at the different cases, like that's no different to me from a domestic violence situation.
Speaker 1:A young kid who's a gangbanger, who's just shooting it out in the streets against some rival gang and he doesn't even fully know why, or or something like, hey, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna pack my rental truck full of explosives and gasoline and I'm gonna make a big to do about it because I'm not being hurt. Right to me when it, when it comes to this, is like look for the what are the simple connections? Everyone wants to make these extravagant, whatever, and not blame the actual person who did it, right, well, that kid didn't know, he's only 14 and he was raised that way in the streets.
Speaker 1:Like, okay, but there's other kids who go through the same thing that don't choose that and then, well, this guy, you know, didn't understand this situation and he wasn't fully informed and you gotta understand, he had a lot of mental health issues and he says like, yeah, but a lot of people fall into that category and they don't go and do those things. So that that's part of the difference too. And when we talk about people who want their say versus people who want their say and their way, is there, there's, there, there's. That's a different threshold. You know it's, it's a small amount of people I would say, right, it's, it's, it's a very, you know, it's statistically insignificant almost sometimes. However, we all, everyone else also fits into that. We'll call it a continuum somewhere, right, you're all in it somewhere at some point on there.
Speaker 1:And and raising that next level is going to be dependent on a number of different factors, but they're typically internal and not external factors, meaning it's not that it was ISIS, because if ISIS didn't exist, that guy would have found a different group to associate with. Right, it's not the trench coat mafia, because, oh well, that's not even around anymore, but there's still school shootings. Right, it's not the trench coat mafia, because, oh well, that's not even around anymore, but there's still school shootings. Right, it's we. We can pick whatever thing that we want to do, but it's a little bit deeper than that, and that's where you kind of come up with why I like the phrase. Violence is a language, so so what? What do we need to know about that then?
Speaker 2:Or how do I understand that better? That's great. So I would say if there was a talking point that occurred before that, because violence as a thing, but we don't understand that. De-escalation has been around just as often as gestures for speaking. It's a part of how humans are built. We normally de-escalate because it's in our favor to make friends and make tribes and make groups and make love and do all those wonderful things. So clearly the defense mechanisms don't come up autonomically unless we see a sign of danger or additional opportunity. So the idea there is that we try to make the escalation a module a thing. Well, it's how we're built, it's how our chemical structure works in our brain. That's like face recognition. It's there because we look at a person and we see the emotion on the face and we go. Well, generally, unless I'm being fooled, this is a good situation and I think this person would fit in in my tribe or clan or pants. You know we got to be very obvious with that and and the idea of back in the late seventies, brian, in the dojo, when we had the logo made for the karate school and had the letters stylized S-M-O-B-M and wear your big boy and girl pants out there. It meant show me or blow me, because every dojo that I was going to as a black belt, there's a lot of theory, brian, but not a lot of people throwing it down on the mat, and the idea was okay. Well, if you're thinking that this situation is actually you know, that should be, to be brutally honest. There's another violence term. If you're thinking that this situation can be resolved without violence, show me. Show me how that works.
Speaker 2:And what happened is people didn't understand the gift of time and distance. And that was literally the beginning of this. You know, if, if I don't carry a gun, okay, well, that what does that mean? Well, that means, if I need one, I'll take yours. Well, guess what, how do you defeat that, brian? Gift of time and distance, I can't get to your gun. Okay, do you see what I'm trying to say? The strategy didn't change. And you say well, I'll wear nine winter coats over my gun, so you would have to cut through me with a machete. You see what I mean? It's the idea of how you do it. So look, it's January 6th.
Speaker 2:The lawmakers hid beneath their desks. What should they have done? They should have been out talking to their constituents. That's the only way that you can decompress a situation is to face the situation with logic and understanding and try to calm it down. And if you can't do that, what do you meet it with? You send out a larger volume of well-aimed fire or a higher degree of explosives. Brian, why did the guy commit suicide in front of Trump? He felt that he was being marginalized. He felt that nobody was listening to him. Why did a copper put his uniform on and drive to work and park in the Sallyport and blow his brains out? Because he felt like I'm done now with this part of my life and I have to leave you with a message that you won't forget, because that's me. I want to control that narrative.
Speaker 1:So and and that that that's the big you brought up one. The big thing is is is time and distance to get to the point where you're going to use violence as a language, where you're you're not being heard, no one's understanding you. So I'm going to start, I look at it with, with, with the terrorist, the little guy. Right, he's 18 months old, right? But, like you were saying, we communicate all day long. I know what he wants, I know what he needs. We work on docky pointy. Gabe taught him some basic sign language so he understands it and then he can conceptualize it. First we taught him the more when he wants more food. But then, when I was playing around with him and I was throwing him up in the air and I stopped, he went more like I want that, and I was like, okay, now he understands not just more food, he understands a concept of more. So he goes back and forth. But when he gets tired and he gets frustrated, he gets fucking angry man, like because he's trying to tell me something and I'm not getting it and he smashes things, and so it's like I just leave it as a very, very primitive response to something. But that take now, but, but but for for an 18 month old, that flash to bang is right away, because this is the worst thing that's ever happened to their in their life, because they're only 18 months old. So so let's get in the world like adults then, or, or you know, you're, you're grown up at least.
Speaker 1:Like what, that time and distance, what? What are the factors there? Like what, how does it take, meaning like to get to the point where, okay, I'm gonna go build a v-bed and blow it up, I'm gonna go into the office and kill a bunch of people, or I'm gonna kill this person, like because, because it can happen, that rage can happen right there in the moment. But that's different. Like a rage attack where road rage, perfect example I've got all this stuff going on in my head. I'm pissed off, you cut me off, we're f you, I'm gonna shoot you and kill you, right.
Speaker 1:Well, that's different than carrying out like an attack because there's no, that's that. The flash to bang is right there, they're in the moment and boom, it's rage. We see red, right, we have different uh interpretations that, even legally. But that's different when it's something planned. So like that, when you get into the time and distance, that's where things get. They can get complex because it's it's different for each situation. Is that? Is that true? Or? Or how do I delineate these different situations, cause we like to lump?
Speaker 2:them together under one concept.
Speaker 1:So how do I understand that? So just so.
Speaker 2:So I reinforce your final point. Before I reinforce this point, Z is is six months younger than Brian's terrorist, and and so Z was with us, Shelly and I, on Saturday, and every kid loves Shelly. There is something that Shelly exudes, whatever the pheromones are that there's not a kid that doesn't come running to Shelly even the first time that they see her. She's like a magnet, and so we had changed the water filters on her filtration system, and so I was playing with Z, and then Shelly came up out of the basement. The noise caused Z to orient and immediately saw Shelly and wanted nothing more to do with me. Now, moments before we were having a great time. So Z, at just 12 months right, you know, just under a year, a week under a year she pushed with her legs to get my arms open.
Speaker 2:Then she pulled away from me and then, she was head-butting me and actually bit me with the two teeth that she's got coming in and I looked at Shelly and I go. I wish you were videotaping this, because what it was is she didn't want to cause me harm. She was acting out, being disruptive, moving things and touching me to tell me that she was unhappy with the situation because she had no other way to do it.
Speaker 2:She didn't have the words to do it. So I would say, if somebody's acting up, you can handle it. If somebody's acting out, you can likely handle it. If somebody's acting in, that's where the danger lies, because if somebody like, uh, how many people have engaged that are listening to us now in drama? We have a couple of drama queens, brian, that we deal with all the time that are on the teams and what's up? Nothing. You having a good day, fine, yeah, okay, here we go. What you're doing by acting in is you're begging me to pay attention.
Speaker 2:Most people don't want to do that. Most people's psychological de-escalation quotient is so low because we play all our games in the phone or streaming that we've forgotten that it's a human that's right in front of us at the water cooler. And this is where we're supposed to let our guard down. This is where the shields are supposed to come down and we should say stuff like no, really, what's bothering you now? Well, I got a divorce and I lost my job and I'm not feeling good and this toothache is not going away and all those other things. Well, brian, if a certain amount of those get to a certain threshold, then I'm going to act out. I'm not just going to act up, I'm not just going to be a drama queen, I'm not just going to act in, I'm going to vent, just like Vesuvius. And when I vent, sometimes the control mechanism mine, my personal control mechanism or the societal ones around me aren't going to be able to encapsulate that.
Speaker 2:You know, we just watched this thing on NOLA and the newest thing that came out is the guy wearing these GoPro video style glasses while he's doing his rehearsal. He's driving around and taking a look, you know, and you're going to get some pundit, some security expert that's going to drive on and say, well, right there, that was demonstrations of intent and somebody should have caught it. Somebody should have caught it. And the thousands of people that were biking around wearing glasses that day? No, what you got to do is you got to look for that leakage. You got to look for those statements. You got to look for those statements. You got to look for Brian, how long does it take to build a VBIT?
Speaker 2:Some people would be wicked fast at it, but what does it take? Well, if you build it out in front of everybody, somebody is going to shoot you or take you to jail or call the cops. So what do you got to do? You got to conceal that. What about the items? Well, most of the items to do illegal acts are illegal in themselves. Or you got to invent street tools, which means you've got to go to certain sites or ask for the aid of others, or write a manifesto. Brian, those things take time. So it's usually flashed a bang of simmer than boil, rather than so bad to be as remarkable as what we call road rage. Right, that's the rage that hits you right now and it has to run its course and abate, but they're still rare.
Speaker 2:We don't see incidents of road rage in my streets every single day. Right, there's something that manifests itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, to kind of give the your, your cooking analogy you started doing there, it's like that, the simmer to the boil, it's that simmer. But then if I, if I come by and I put that the top, you know, back on that pot, well it's going to raise that temperature in there and it's going to increase the pressure in there and is eventually going to start maybe boiling higher than I really want that temperature to go. And so if you don't release that, release that heat, it's going to continue to boil over. But one of the things you mentioned that I kind of want to jump into because this kind of fits into all the different subjects, like you said, it's about, if I look that, violence is a language.
Speaker 1:Is it a control mechanism, meaning whether it's the road rage incident or it's some sort of attack, a domestic violence thing. When I'm getting in there, let's say that this person is like is there some what I'm trying to get at? Sorry, kind of tripping over my words here this morning, but if I'm going to control the narrative, I can use violence as a language. Where the road rage one, it's still an element of control in a sense, because it's like you cut me off. I'm in my lane. It's like dude, this is a fucking highway man. It belongs to whoever's on here, right. The internal factor of loss of control seems a lot more powerful and a lot more significant than whatever fucking group I'm following ISIS radicalization, you mean? Yeah, you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Would you agree with me, May I depose you? Would you agree with me that some people are just assholes and some people will find a reason to make your day miserable just because they like it? Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:There are some people like that or a situation or something, and you know what? We see them a lot because we're out in public more than other people and we travel a lot and I've seen it in the airline industry amazing amount of stuff that people go through to give you a hard time. You know, like like pardon me, brother, I'm not your brother.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, this is where we're starting. You get what I'm saying, because it's on now.
Speaker 2:Now they may have worked with the seven people before me, but Greg's here now and I want to introduce you to my psychological brand of warfare. The idea, brian, is that when we take a look at NOLA and we take a look at the attacker, that was there, of course that could have happened, of course it was a manifesto, but when you get an angry person, that's full and they're done okay, they're going like. I'll give you one. There was a judge on Christmas, new Year's, one of the holidays and it doesn't matter which. Read our book and look up how the seven step works and the cognitive rule of threes, if you want to go deeper. But there was a judge that showed up for his last day of work. At the end of the last day of work, he put his robes on, he sat at his bench and he shot himself. I cannot tell you in my career how many I've done at least a dozen that I know that have done that exact same thing. Why? Because he wanted to control the narrative. It was a place he felt comfortable and this was the place he wanted to return to more than anything else. And when that was denied him, this was his—now. Look, he could have shot a defendant. He could have shot the bailiff, he could have got in a shootout with security at the court, but that's not his brand of violence as a language. His violence was directed against himself. Okay, because he was closing the chapter of the book my life is at end right now. And then the lights go dark. Right, your NOLA guy said man, I'm in pain, so I'm going to spread the wealth, I'm going to spread the pain to a whole lot of people. And you know what? You're going to have to read it now, because I'm going to put an exclamation point on the end of it.
Speaker 2:Now, trump guy did the same thing, but I don't think Trump's guy was in intent to kill anybody, because he had an hour of driving around the building. Yeah, where he could have. Yeah, he could have pulled up in a parking lot. He could have pulled up in the airport parking garage. He had the capacity to do that. So you've got two capers that seem intertwined, but when we get down to the nitty gritty, it's about the human at the end of the equation, and that's where we need to start. We need to talk about humans, humans to humans, and when I have a shitty taste in my mouth, I got to take a drink to get it out of my mouth, and sometimes that drink is alcohol, sometimes it's drugs, and sometimes it's the muzzle of a gun, and sometimes I feel so bad. Brian, I want to share that pain. And how do I share that pain? Domestic violence how do I share that pain?
Speaker 2:You're going to take my kids from me, so I'm going to show up and meet you to exchange the kids, and I'm going to understand if the person in front of you is exhibiting signals.
Speaker 1:So this is a good explanation of how we said it before. You know where I always talk about, like whether it's a person who comes in and, you know, shoots up a school or kills themselves, it's the same idea, right. One is gone internal and it's sort of like, well, I'm the problem here, or I know how to deal with this situation. I'm going to make sure I'm heard, whatever when the other one is. A lot of times it's well, this isn't you know what F all of you, you're the reason why you're this, and so it becomes that that's still. It's a lack of control. It's a different coping mechanism. Either way, they're, they're. They're both maladaptive, right they're not precisely they're not correct.
Speaker 1:They're. They're not. They're certainly not logical, but meaning they're not in keeping with, you know, even just basic biology and survival of species. Right. It's not supposed to be that way. There are certain factors. It should be about survival. Right is what we're primed for. So if I'm not in a survival situation and I'm killing someone, well it's kind of a little. Right Is what we're primed for. So if I'm not in a survival situation and I'm killing someone, well, it's kind of a little bit different than what I'm wired for as a human being. Right. And so it's just an incorrect, like you call it that, a maladaptive coping mechanism.
Speaker 2:Because it's not insulting and everybody gets it, you know.
Speaker 1:Well yeah, and it's because it's, I think, a Well yeah, and it's because it's, I think, a better way of explaining it than saying a lack of critical thinking or a lack of coping skills or a lack of this. It's like, no, you have coping skills, they do. It's just a very, very different manner. So we don't have to talk about those two specific cases. But you know, you're talking about the family annihilator situation. Talk about judge committing suicide.
Speaker 1:I brought up, like you know, the kid gang mayor run up and, you know, got got caught up, supposedly in the city doing this, so so on. That you know spectrum, I guess, of people acting up versus you know, or, excuse me, you know acting out versus acting up. You know what are like those typical things, cause there are some typical things that you see across those. Or is it, as I look at it, when I get, when the pressure's on, as we know, when the stress is on whether it's psychological, physiological, it doesn't matter what it is Like I fall back on what I know. So, so, if I fall back on my lack of critical thinking, cause I'm a kid and I'm a gangbanger and all I know is violence, that's what I've seen.
Speaker 1:Well, that that's a viable solution for me. If I've seen other people carry out attacks and was fascinated by them and you know what, I know I'm going to lash out at everyone Well, now, that seems like a viable solution for me. So what are the other? What are their indicators? In a sense and I'm not asking for a list of things to look for, because it doesn't- really exist, right, but what is it about?
Speaker 1:what typifies that behavior in people that you don't see in other people? Because it's not just there in that one thing, because what I'm saying is, if I carry out a highly organized attack, I'm likely organized in other areas of my life. That's not a bad thing. Maybe that makes me a better employee, maybe that makes me better and it's scientific.
Speaker 1:So it's like how do I take the comparisons that are good, in a sense, that aren't a bad thing? Do I have to look at them as being well? How would this person use that in a negative way? Or what other things do they show that that I see someone leaning towards that area, because we get we get asked our opinion a lot on different cases or things. We have clients that reach out and that this is basically what it comes down to is. Is this the guy that's going to come in and do this? Because they're hitting all of these other areas right, and that's the. That's the hardest part to do, because it's so, it's so case specific, right? I mean, it's so specific to that individual sometimes that it it, it. It gives the appearance of it being a lot more complex than it actually is. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I would say nothing is more complex than a Brian Marin six prong-pronged question yeah, yeah, a lot of thought into why that's a great I didn't put any thought in my question. That's why yeah, but let me tell you right now there's so many landmines in that yeah, so I'm gonna have to navigate.
Speaker 1:Well, I I started to walk towards one. I was like I don't want to put you in a landmine.
Speaker 2:I kind of want to like no, no, no, no you I'm in the chinese swing right now. Okay, so here's the thing. Three comparisons I'd like to make, the first one to what you said initially, and it's why there are social constructs that are also physiological constructs, that delge from sociology to physiology, to psychology. Murder is wrong in every country on the face of the planet. Committing murder because it's not a good thing to do, dropping somebody from the count when you need a good, rich, wide group of people to procreate. But every country on the face of the planet has justifiable homicides okay, and they also have war where, where?
Speaker 2:and even the religions say there's certain times that you can fight. That's an important distinction. Folks Dig into that. There's an answer there. Compare that the opposite side of that same coin to incest. Incest is not a viable gene pool. So no matter how good your second cousin looks I don't know what the numbers are or whatever there's a thing inside of you that makes that revolting and that's a good thing. And there's no country on the face of the planet that says thou shalt sleep with thine youngest. That's bullshit, because that doesn't go towards procreation. So if you take a look from law or from science or from genetics, you're going to come up with the same answers. And we like that. Brian, you and I both like things that are simple in science. They're not binary necessarily, but they're simple, they're simplified.
Speaker 1:They're elegant.
Speaker 2:Elegant. Yeah, simple, so simple, they're elegant. So that takes me to master manipulators and I'll explain this. If you attempt suicide and you don't complete it, there's a very low chance you'll ever try it again, because many times the people that attempt suicide are screaming for attention, and negative attention is attention nonetheless.
Speaker 2:And what I mean by that is if you have, or surrounded yourself or met a master manipulator, your kid's going to be either really, really smart but doing shitty in school, or they've got you thinking that, look, the only thing that's going to make me come back around for that birthday is that handgun we've been looking at on that wonderful first-person shooter. What's happened is you've encountered a person that's so cognitively based that they're thinking so many steps ahead of you that they're already planning their school shooting or suicide or whatever is in their narrative. But they're on chapter 17 and you've just cracked a book and, as a parent or as a teacher or as a counselor, you're missing these cues. And why are you missing the cues? Because you're so close that you're up and out or down and in and you can't balance those against what's in front of you. Master manipulators will steal the radio and leave you the music and and you won't notice it. Why? Those are the signs you should be looking for. Uh, if I've got time to brood so deeply that I'm writing a manifesto and going on my facebook page and updating it and and still amassing matches and fireworks and all this other stuff, brian, that takes a lot of time. You got to be out of work to do that. I don't know anybody that can maintain a normal nine to five and go home to mom and dad or the kids or whatever mom and mom, whatever your relationship is, and pull that off. Take a look at the people that we've seen do that. They are acting in. They've dropped themselves from the radar because everything's internal. So they can't hold down a job. They can't hold down a marriage. They can't hold down a job. They can't hold down a marriage they can't hold. Maybe they got other things that are competing with them, because your high functioning person is also going to be a manipulator. But guess what? They're going to be in the band and they're studying a new interest, a new instrument. They're learning origami, for you know whatever else, and they've got a new language going Every time somebody goes.
Speaker 2:There was no sign of suicide before it happened. There was no sign of this. I bet you, if you look deep enough, there was a whole bunch of signs, but you misinterpreted those signs and that's okay because we're humans. Because that person fooled us. They wore another mask and when that mask was on. We missed those cues, huh. So let's take a caper that everybody knows about and I'll go out on a limb with you, because where I go you go on that limb bastard. You know the, the sheriff that, uh, shot the judge in his chambers.
Speaker 2:Okay, that sheriff knew each other is in tennessee or kentucky and there was an ongoing relation relationship between them where they knew each other, they worked together and then something occurred and they're still working out with that. Something is, but something occurred. That was parallel to a case they had running where a deputy was fired and charged for using his office to gain sexual favors at some point, and then there was an allegation that the judge had recording equipment in his office. That's how they discovered one situation, but that may have led to the discovery of the judge himself. I'm talking about rumors. Folks Was involved in some clandestine, surreptitious sex, for you know bail something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that there was also a recording of those things. Now, at some point, the sheriff is either again speculative your Honor involved in some degree or is so insulted by what's going on that he confronts the judge During that lunchtime meeting. The judge brings up hey, you better watch your P's and Q's because this is going on or I'll end you or whatever else happens there. And now that conversation goes back to the private chambers. Judge doesn't understand or see how important this is to the sheriff in the moment. He's lighting a cigarette, he's smiling, he's making light of it. Brian, the sheriff is at road rage, he's in the red and he all of a sudden goes well, I need to take over this narrative. There's no way this is going to end well, this is a shit sandwich. And guess what? You're making light of it. No, that's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:Pulls out a gun and starts shooting. Had the gun not been there, he would have choked him or beat him to death. Had there been an ax or a knife, he would have stabbed him to death. So the vehicle happened to be a mass casualty-producing, fatality-producing weapon. But if he couldn't have done that, he'd have built a Molotov cocktail. Fuck, you can go to Looney Tunes and learn how to build one of those. Those are on kids' cartoons in the morning.
Speaker 2:Do you see what I mean? So it's the violence, that's the language, not the means. And it's a means to readjust what we've been talking about. It's like hitting that little you know that cat and you've got little balls and you're trying to get the balls in his eyes and his mouth. That's what you're doing, but you're doing it to a human. No, no, no means no, and guess what? We get caught up in that.
Speaker 2:So if I've learned that behavior over time, that violence is a language. You've had that in your life. I've had in my life my dad, the Marine dad, my mom and my aunt, the Twin Towers. We've punched and beat and bit and kicked a lot, and so guess what do you think? The first thing is, when I get angry and mad, I have to slow myself down or I'm starting to throw shit around and tip stuff over and I'm acting out. You know so. So if you're asking for what types of those behaviors underscore maladaptive behaviors, if you are maladaptive in other ways of dealing with these situations, you will resort to violence more quickly than a person that doesn't, a person that is adaptive, a person that is flexible you know what do we talk about. There's a thousand words for that where that person understands that there's a coping mechanism other than using those harsh words, that harsh language, or waving a gun around harsh words, that harsh language, or waving a gun around?
Speaker 1:yeah, and it's. It's that it's not always going to maybe rise to the level of significance like this, like that meaning the suicide or the violent act, like that's the, that's, that's the last thing, obviously, that you can do, so it's the last resort. But, like you said, you'll see you, you know you're last resort. But, like you said, you'll see, you know you're the maladaptive behaviors in a sense you'll see consistently throughout that person's life, maybe a little bit, maybe a little bit, maybe a little bit here maybe a little bit here meaning it, it, it becomes, it builds and builds and builds and has to go somewhere.
Speaker 1:You know, I have it's even like you know relationships where I people will ask me relationship questions. Why I don't know. I tell them like I'm the, for obvious reasons. I mean, obviously, don't ask me about that.
Speaker 2:Like poster child, don't. I'll tell you.
Speaker 1:Well, like all about human behavior, if you want to get a relationship that I have between you, know people dating or whatever, like, look, I did not, not, not my thing, not, not not my thing. However, like someone was asking me about this person they knew and it's like well, what do you think he's going to do? I'm like he's going to continue to do the same thing, cause what he did was he was married, had a kid was, was you know, cheating on that person. They got divorced, got married, had a kid with the next girl and then they got divorced and now he's going to the next. I'm like, but it's going to keep happening. Like, yeah, but these are all failures.
Speaker 1:How does someone continue to fail? And I was like, well, from their perspective, that wasn't a fail. Like they, they actually got with a different person and they end up getting married to them. Like they end up like, okay, I'm with this person now. Then they met someone else and okay, now, so it didn't really fail. It's like the, the relationship sort of got rewarded in a sense, and it was just a a different way to look at it. And that was just just one example. And they're like so what do you think, is it going to change? I'm like not, not unless there's a lot of work to be done, I can. I can predict it that your past behavior is likely to be future behavior, but it but in these situations it escalates.
Speaker 1:Most people don't raise that level, like you know that the biggest thing is you see something attack, happen like this, or like a school shooting happens, what usually happens within the next week or two.
Speaker 1:Right after that there's usually another one, because someone's sitting there on the edge of that sort of precipice, right, and they're at that point, and then it's becomes very simple because you are in a very sort of simple survival state at that point. It's like it's like the monkey, see, monkey do. It's like, oh okay, that person did it, I can go do this right, because we really don't expect these things, even though every day there's another example or something you can point to and it goes down. And which is why we're always making these arguments about how we analyze the situation, because if I just look at it as what education they had and whether or not they were abused as a child or they were on drugs or the okay, well, what, what if none of that existed? What if? What if that group didn't exist? What if there was no drugs or these things these things would still happen like a meeting.
Speaker 1:It's we. We pick these random things to blame. Where you're saying here with violence is a language is like okay, I'm. That person lacks the ability to effectively communicate what their thoughts and feelings and concerns are Right. So before they even get into whether or not they're valid, it's like they're not feeling that they're being heard because they're not being heard. Now, whether or not you're going to fix that on the person, I don't care. That's not what we talk about. We talk about the recognition of where that person is at. It has to go somewhere. You have to get it off your chest. If you lack the critical thinking skills, if you lack the emotional maturity to do that, you still have to be heard. You have to complain to the manager. You have to do these things. So it's a normal part of the human condition under abnormal circumstances or coping mechanisms.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. Look, rape is a crime of violence, not a crime of sex. So with rape, your tool is your tool, literally, and what you're doing is you're showing that you're mad or hate men or women, depending on who you're raping, or children, not that you're getting off on it. That's what you think you're doing, because the endorphins and the chemical imbalance and everything else and I've never been around a water cooler where somebody just in a casual conversation dropped I'm going to go over and rape my neighbor's fucking, you know, 13-year-old this afternoon.
Speaker 2:You know that sounds like a good thing to do, that would stick out like a sore dick. Year old this afternoon. You know that sounds like a good thing to do. That would stick out like a sore dick, so nobody's going to do that. So you're wondering why these folks have to marginalize their behavior, and what I mean by that is they have to hide in the seams and gaps, because mainstream it's really hard not to discover a person like that. So so I I've known people that changed some of the auto web, some-automatic weapons, into full auto, and that same person that went on to make a silencer. And then, after a while, my friends with the ATF visited their house and those people got the stuff confiscated and went to jail. Why? Because they went past their fantasy about having a cool weapon and started building shit in their basement and I didn't know where it was going to lead to Brian. But every time that I started following the line across my yellow pad, I couldn't come with a.
Speaker 2:Oh, he wants to silently deer hunt in a park by his house, you know.
Speaker 2:So so I would say, if you take a yellow pad and always set it rectangularly for when you're doing this, and take your stylus, take your pen or your pencil and go over here on the left and start going on the right for your continuum, and then what you do is you create a little heartbeat. So you say something like okay, so the person told their parents to F off. Okay, there's a little blip, that's on the radar. But you know what, on mother's day they hand you a card and said I'm really sorry about that behavior. You know I was acting up. Okay, then Okay, then we go a little bit farther and that person a year later said F off to a teacher at school, got suspended, but then did all of the work that they were assigned to make up for it and then some, and went back in the class and now is a model. So we all have those blips. Do you get what I'm?
Speaker 2:saying and they go above the baseline and fall below the baseline. Now, if you compare that, month to month, year to year, day to day, whatever your timeline is, brian, and you start laying those over each other and shine a flashlight through the back of them, if all of those are relatively close to that baseline, that's life, man, that's the tapestry of life.
Speaker 2:If all of a sudden you're getting these wild ups and downs and gradually, from left to right, we see an increase from left to right. Now it becomes a funnel, with the upper side of that is going, you know, towards the top of the scale rather than staying around the baseline. Houston, you have a problem, because that's what happens when people say well, I wonder if my relationship is breaking up. Well before the internet, brian, I would stop at a little place, at Aiton Shainer, every single day on duty and get Shelly a card and I would hand, fill out the card with the poem and tell her how much I loved her. That got much easier. Yeah, romantic me. That got easier when we got to things like texting, because I can drop a text all the time.
Speaker 2:You know how much I text Shelly and I text Shelly all the time uplifting stuff like stop what you're doing right now and shake that ass. Here's a song, whatever the thing is, because that communication to me is important and Shelly and I communicate constantly. Now, all of a sudden, if you said, well, are they having a good time in their marriage? You could tell if that communication drops off. Boom. Key number one Two I'm going to the gym seven nights a week. Not the gym in the basement anymore, now it's in town. Oh and, by the way, I've started pickleball at a new club.
Speaker 1:Do you?
Speaker 2:get what I'm saying. So, Brian, you can compare those baseline elements and this nuanced stuff Now, whether it's above the baseline and it's new because I'm improving myself and trying to look better for somebody, or below the baseline I'm spending more time in the basement with that manifesto. Either of those are significant and everybody shows that to some degree.
Speaker 1:And we're not talking about cathartic.
Speaker 2:We're not talking about trying to fix me. We're talking about those things that, if we take a look at, they're bad for us. Brian, you've been in many bars in your day today, in your life, I mean. And if you take a look at the standard bar, what's the image that conjures up? People sitting in chairs, facing a mirror, behind the the bar and the drink is right in front of you. You want another one? Well, that ain't going to help you out of shit. So you have to compare those. You have to compare before, what you knew of the person, a historical perspective to now, and then that's going to help you get an accurate projection of the future. Are we going to be right 100% of the time? No, and that's the problem.
Speaker 2:Most people don't want to be yeah, but most people don't want to be wrong enough that they don't want to go across the street. Knock on the door and go. What the fuck is wrong with your grass? It's been growing wild. Do you need help? If we ask that more, there would be less, uh, new orleans, there'd be less trump tower. There'd be less people laying on a shed roof at the county fair trying to shoot the future president that, that's it, it's communication.
Speaker 1:It is and I agree with that statement that you know this isn't a lot of these things are. Just, they add up over time because no one ever took the time for that person or no one ever took. Now you're always going to get the extreme cases where the person's never going to be, but those again, like you said, they stick out. When you do that, when they're just always like that, it's like okay, this person is a ticking time bomb. They are always angry. They are always saying it's so. They don't take responsibility for any of their actions. You know those things.
Speaker 1:When you see that denial constantly and constant blaming others for things, it's like that, if you're a kid, okay, like you're still learning, right, I get it. You're an adult and you're like that. You know what you're. You're heading down a dark path and then if you continue down that, it continues to reinforce it. If you continue to stay, like you said, if you continue to stay in that bar at, you know, 9 am on a monday, then you're gonna, the longer you do it, the longer and continue to go down that path. But that's the same stuff with. I've been wronged, or I have this information, or I'm following this on social media and I'm constantly eating it and eating, and eating and digesting all this shit. It's just going to. Eventually it will sort of add up and and again like the this is, these things are. I got there, they're, they're frustrating to talk about because they're still the same shit that people now everyone links everything together and all the everything is significant and it's like and you're just like this is so bad, it's so so bad.
Speaker 1:It's like look at this person, stop looking at yourself, stop looking at everything else out there, and look at that individual and it just the the worst. The analysis guess shows how inept humans are at taking another human's perspective.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:You have to see, this is our constant argument and it's not an argument because we both see it and frame it very well. But my thing is, you have to force yourself into those shoes and walk around in that person's mind and look at the things that are important to them in their trash and in their car and in their clothing and all those messages and see if they're significant, because if they're significant to that person, then it matters. If they're insignificant to that person, then you have to disregard them. But when we're talking about artifacts and evidence and support, look, why do people like apocalyptic films and books? Why do they like the zombies? The zombies have gone and now they've faded. Now it's the apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic. Why? Because it's a world with no consequences.
Speaker 2:Why do you like first-person shooter? Because you get an assload of lives before you actually die and what happens is that allows me to go out and play act. Okay, when you're play acting, you're not really killing, so there's a big difference there. But these people, brian, when we're walking around in their lives and seeing their thing, it's all about the other person you caused this. One day, the shoe will be on the other foot. You'll see when things change. I'll make sure that you know it. I'm going to rub your nose in it. And would it surprise you that those people also abuse animals? Would it surprise you that those people also set arson fires? Would it surprise you? And we could go down that list, okay, and the?
Speaker 2:way we're going down that list is when I'm unhappy with me. I either cut me okay.
Speaker 2:Or I do things that aren't helped, you got it, and so if I can't do that, maybe then I'll cut this puppy or that kid across the street. I'll be the bully, and so those type of outlets for lack of a better term that's a mechanism that my disobedience, my misbehaving has crossed a line, and no longer am I just saying F you, I'm saying F you, and so there, brian, but I'm putting a point on it, because now I'm pointing that weapon at you, or now, look, look, you know that song and I don't remember it. Bust it Out the two headlights. You know, you'll think next time that you cheat on me and the woman goes all the way around the guy's car and it was a popular thing for a while.
Speaker 2:That's maladaptive. That's not how humans are.
Speaker 2:I understand that you're pissed, okay. But that's when you break up with somebody. Just add alcohol, I become an asshole. And then what do I do? I start looking at those things and now I'm taking that disruption and I'm putting it on a thing. Well, guess what? If that was a domestic violence situation and I broke that lamp that you made when you were a kid in shop class, I'm going to jail. I don't have to lay hands on you. Just that is enough.
Speaker 2:So if your actions, or the actions and human behavior remember the actions are so much more important than words when we're talking about this so if your actions tend to show that that person doesn't control any of these issues, well then what's likely going to happen? Either that person's going to do the slow downward spiral, hurt themselves, or they're going to distance themselves and become that recluse, or they're going to find a way to be a disruptive force in somebody's life, and that may include homicide or suicide. It may not. You may never ever rise to that threshold, because a lot of humans have found other outlets for it, but there are certain people that that's a likely end.
Speaker 1:It's like you said, likely end. It's like you said I mean you kind of you said it earlier in in the podcast too about we derive meaning of from language you know, based on a number of different factors and it's about the intent behind what is said, not what's actually said.
Speaker 1:Right, and this is another reason why you know if we're talking about violence as language, well, specifically, behavior in the general term is a language, like everything that we do, and this is why we go, we spend so much time beating it. This stuff up is like I don't fucking care what direction you face when you pray. That is utterly meaningless. I care what you do. You took these steps, you did these things.
Speaker 1:I don't care that you said some comment on social media, unless it was like some very specific incitement, threat okay, well, that that's different, obviously, but but that stuff is less consequential than people think it is and it's the intent behind your actions and those specific actions are what give value to anything and and those are the valuable observations that I think people need to look at it's like what steps did they take? How did they handle this? You know, you know. You know we're saying, you know, fuck you to someone. Could be I could. We could be doing that because we're friends. We could be doing that because it's a joke. We could be doing that because I'm angry. We could do that because I'm sad or I'm hurt, like you know or I'm doing it just before I pull the trigger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's what I mean. It's exactly it's.
Speaker 1:We don't, you know, we, we look at what. Hey. This is why everyone gets obsessed with the different manifestos and people try to pull all this shit out of it. I'm like this is all nonsense. When it comes out like even like you just read what was ted kaczynski stuff. I talk about the universe all the time because he's a brilliant mathematician. He comes a genius mit MIT guy. But you read his stuff and you're like there's no consistency here. There's no, there's no thread that you can follow.
Speaker 1:It's all over the fucking place because it's maladaptive coping mechanisms and I'm going to just pull what I think works for me and I'm going to come up with it because it's about them. It's always, always, always about them and how they were wrong or how they're not being heard. It's not anything about what society has to do or the rules in place or the mechanisms we have or the social norms that we have. Nope, that doesn't apply to them. You have such a sense of entitlement like you, you, you don't, you know what this is. We just look at these things wrong and and just I, I, I just think it'd be easier to identify these things sometimes earlier on when I look for that that you know sense of unearned entitlement. You know what I mean Exactly.
Speaker 2:So so Detroit relationship. So I, I knew Kevorkian and and and I knew his attorney, figer, and some of the other people. Figer's a famous attorney. So my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my.
Speaker 2:And you're sometimes with a defendant or a prosecuting attorney or listening to somebody's deposition, because you're in the same place ready to go on and you hear it and it's my suicide is going to be assisted. Assisted suicide because I'm in pain all the time. My skin hurts, my hair growing makes me vomit, I can't sit or move. When I blink my eyes, the amount of ambient light causes nausea and you feel for these people. Okay, then all of a sudden, I can tell you of thousands of suicide notes that I put in envelopes and evidence bags where I was on the scene, the first officer, and they read you cheated on me, you caused all of this. Well, I'm going to show you, I'm going to tell you. You know those things that you did. This is how I'm going to pay you back. And that poor person never understood that all of those actions that they did didn't equal those words, brian. They didn't show anybody. And then there was the others, where the person is sitting across from me in an interview room and they're saying well, I knew that they would be in the bar and I walked in and, sure enough, they were dancing with somebody else. So I shot them, but I ran out of ammo before I could shoot myself.
Speaker 2:People have a story. It's his story, history or her story. We haven't gotten to that part yet I hope God we do where people understand the etymology there. But the idea is that if we take a look at that, that's important to a person. Your ego system is fragile and what happens is some people it's so bent on retribution that they can't think past that. Yeah, you can't get past it. I got handed a shitty hand and I can't fold it in, so I'm all in. And if I'm all in and this happens, I'm going to commit suicide. If it's all in and this happens, I'm going to ram people on a sidewalk and to me.
Speaker 1:But Greg, and that's why I said earlier why I call it the easy button, Because if. I. You know it goes back to if I have something or someone to blame, that's the cause of all of this pain physical, mental, emotional, whatever it is. That's easy, because then I don't have to take the responsibility for it. It's there.
Speaker 2:Listen, so you remember this. This is a personal thing. I'm attacking you personally. Now, in Iraq and Afghanistan, you saw body bombers and you saw them up close and you still have tinnitus, or tinnitus because of it. Okay, many of the body bombers that I saw explode, detonate, conflagrate, not die. Sometimes horrible situations or kill other people. Even more horrible situations when I was in those situations a lot of time. The research at the end of it demonstrated that those people were the most vulnerable people in our society. They had incurable illnesses. They were mentally ill.
Speaker 1:Mental health. They were young kids, young Yep.
Speaker 2:And guess what they were? They were impressionable, and so that religion or that song or that situation that they were exposed to made them think this was a way that I could be remembered past my story.
Speaker 1:And some of them it was sort of a hero's journey because they were guaranteed they were given money to their family or something like that.
Speaker 2:There was all of that. So they were such a zealot that they bought into it. They were vulnerable to that belief system. Now, as many as there were it wasn't everybody in that town and even in those towns that we were in that didn't want America and they didn't want democracy and they didn't want us walking around they didn't become suicide bombers, snipers or insider threats. So it takes a special person to take that step.
Speaker 2:And am I categorizing a suicide bomber with your husband or daughter that committed suicide? No, I'm not trying to say that, but I'm trying to say that that person wanted to use a felt tip marker and put an exclamation mark at the end of their sentence because they felt that they weren't being listened to, and this was a way for them to say are you listening? Are you, can you hear me now? And and I know how horrible that is, brian but that's the thing that we have to come to and look flash to bang is different now, but it wasn't all that different when Ben Franklin was around. It wasn't all that different when Hammurabi was around.
Speaker 2:So there's periods when things get a little bit rough that people resort to that stuff and then things tend to even themselves out. But you know what? There's still that person in the corner that's smoldering and the fuse was lit and they're burning and they're going to do it, no matter what. I mean, brian, just at the top of your mind. Could you come up with five or six people that you've studied their capers extensively and you knew that that was a bad seed man?
Speaker 1:They were, that fuse had been lit when they were a kid and it was just waiting for an outlet, well and that's. But it's so rare, thankfully. Well, even when you see it before they get to that it is rare. But like, if you, if you haven't been properly socialized by the age of about seven or eight, it probably ain't fucking happening for you. And it's sad when you see that where you're like, this person is unlikely to survive. Cleveland, harris master manipulators.
Speaker 2:Okay, they fooled everybody. They fooled judge, they fooled their probation officer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were convicted felons. They fooled their parents Exactly, Brian.
Speaker 2:So when we look that far, Bath Township, the massacre, when we take a look at Andrew Kehoe. Brian. He was an angry guy and sooner or later Whitman Whitman, the Texas Tower angry angry guy.
Speaker 1:He had a voice in his head and he had an aneurysm. But guess what?
Speaker 2:Brian, in those days it's a tumor. If you were talking to Dr Schwarzenegger, well, on that one at least that guy was.
Speaker 1:He even wrote in his letter cut me open and see what's going on. But he hurt and he hurt so badly. He wanted to show he was right. He literally had a brain tumor. That's a missing case of evidence in the calendar that guy was innocent Brian.
Speaker 2:No but this is what we're talking about folks. Look, brian, I'll invoke Hoberman one more time, at the very beginning of the year, on 6 Jan, when this is being recorded. You have to take a look at the 360. You have to imagine what that person like. If a person kicks off their shoes before they go in a house, are they a Muslim or did they just get new carpet? Those things are significant to me, artifacts and evidence in support of a reasonable conclusion, and the more information I know, the less anxiety I have in dealing with other people. Not everybody's out to kill you. Not everybody is planning and rehearsing.
Speaker 1:Well, the way we do it is. I go back to even just our first principles and one of the things is what it's? Whether it's with a person you know, whatever out on the street, whether it's my wife, whether it's my the baby, it's like okay, what is this person teaching me? What are they trying to teach me? What are they like? Don't listen to the words, they don't matter. What are they showing me? What it's saying, cause like that's helped out, I mean for relationships up to cause that's that's how my wife and Kaylee gets sometimes, where she goes a little bit internal and when she's dealing with a lot of stuff, cause she doesn't want to be effective, but but it does either way doing what is?
Speaker 1:What is a little guy who's 18 months old? He's teaching me like, and he's showing me and he's trying to explain. He'd see the frustration. So if I go through enough, we'll get like he's 18 months old. So there's only so much he could be asking for, like he doesn't know a lot. But but think about the contextual situation. Like, okay, he's a high school kid. What could he possibly be teaching me like? What could he possibly need? Or he's person in this situation? Well, there's only so many things or so many outcomes to this situation. What? What are they teaching me about? About where this is going, and like it just helps, helps you kind of dial it in a little bit. You know what I mean. It helps you get rid of this thing that don't matter.
Speaker 2:So stop the stigma with the gift of time and distance, where you're closing your ears because you want to remain a white belt. What do I mean by that? Gifted time and distance can be used in any situation, just like the Hoberman to avoid Jack the surprise the Jack in the box.
Speaker 2:What I mean by that is there are certain situations where I need to close the distance quickly to stop the event from occurring. I need to get in there and ask that person what are your intentions? Because your behavior is out of line in this scenario. This context isn't working for me and Brian. That's a form of de-escalation. And there's the other one where we need to distance ourselves and remain behind cover and slow time down.
Speaker 2:Where are you on that space-time continuum? Well, guess what? If you're unable to read human behavior, you're going to be at the right of the event, which means at bang or right of bang, and everybody that's ever read the AAR on my training left of bang will understand that those guys were operating in white belt and yellow belt and they were doing a good job. But is that where you want to stay? The gift of time and distance means you have to be able to read the tea leaves. You have to take a look at the situation, just like determining what the weather's like tomorrow and saying I need snow chains or I need a jacket. You know, when I'm at the bus station, my kid needs a hat. Those are the type of things you need to be doing every day, and what happens is social media has increased our distance. We think that news is faster and being absorbed faster, but we're not getting as much face time not the type you're thinking about with real humans, and so you have to look for leakage differently.
Speaker 2:We used to be able to look somebody in the face and be able to tell what's going on well, that's.
Speaker 1:There's some writings and they're just so much more more noise and it's happening faster. So you don't you, you get. You know everyone's talking. You know one sentence about 20 topics, rather than 20 sentences on three topics. You know, that's how we're. We're wave tops only when it comes in like that.
Speaker 2:Well, that's also why people crave yeah, people crave longer.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's also reason why someone listens to an hour of us talking, because they want to know that deeper. You know, know what I mean.
Speaker 2:There's nobody listening anymore. I'm so hopeful at this point, but we know Both of us know, brian. There's a part of us that knows and we're crying on the inside folks no no, but what I'm trying to say?
Speaker 2:violence is a language, and so that language, whatever the new thing is that comes out, it's going to be found there. So if social media is a new thing that's going to stick around for a while, it's going to be there. If AI Brian is the new language that's going to be around for a while, guess what? Violence will be found there, because it's a vehicle, it's a tool, it's a way to communicate. You know.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, okay, I think we covered a lot. You know you can appreciate you explaining in depth about what we mean by violence as a language. And I I actually because there's so much study about language, which is really cool. There's some good accounts. Actually, I follow on social media guys. Like you know, etymology tells you where the different meanings were and this came from here and then it changed. This is just cool.
Speaker 1:Most we don't know most of that stuff at least 90 something percent of the words we even use and where they came from and all that. But Johnny. But but if I look at you know violence as a language. I can use sort of that like almost communication studies are like well, how have other people studied how language has occurred? You know what I mean. It puts it in a different light versus just saying they were inspired by or self radicalized. I mean that's such such a. These terms are just fucking meaningless. I mean, right, I don't know, but you know it, it's just a better way to do it. I like that, that term, and so it's. It's all about controlling the narrative.
Speaker 2:So, on that, greg, I'll let you control the narrative and give any, any final words if you have them yeah, repeat what I said if an individual feels overwhelmed or unable to handle a situation constructively, then violence is an immediate tool that they can resort to. So, thinking of that, think of your desk, your room, the hallway, the office, the parking lot, your house, the basement windows. Think of all of those things in those terms. If you're a security person, then open that up to your client. If you're a security person, then open that up to your client. If you're a parent, open that up to your kid's car, your kid's room, their trash can and Brian. That becomes a way of assimilating information, because in that communication we're going to see what that person's aims are, where they're headed, and that trajectory can tell us a lot, and that is predictive analysis 101, and that can increase your time distance gap in your favor.
Speaker 1:That's it. All. Right, that's it. Holy shit, I know I'm sweating, just getting through that.
Speaker 2:So I went through a bet on this episode. You didn't breathe once you might want to sit back and take a breath. I don't think you?
Speaker 1:I don't think you've breathed the most.
Speaker 2:You know what burns my ass, Brian my gears Exactly.
Speaker 1:All right, I think that's good to end on. Thanks everyone for tuning in. There's always more on the Patreon site, so so check us out on there. You can get right now. You can still, for another week or so, get a month free on there if you want. But yeah, check this out on there. But thanks everyone, what.
Speaker 2:Before we bring it to close, I'm so sorry. Bobette's in the hospital Everybody. I bet she's a fan. She listens to the episodes all the time, her and Richard. So shout out to her and real quick. I apologize to take your time for this too, but if we think of Kevin Castle, kevin's out with that triple knee surgery, bypass all that other. He and Teela listen all the time. So he just got out of the hospital and is on rehab. Say a little prayer for those folks. Keep them in your thoughts, folks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good.
