School massacre in Finland

[imawindowlickr]

Yet another good point. Prof.

[Vicsun]

Originally Posted by C Elegans

Why not cry equally much for all meaningless deaths of innocent people?

Because you'd soon run out of tears Human tragedy is well nigh infinite, while the minds' capacity for it is not.


e: That sounded way more morose than I intended it to be. For every tragedy someone, somewhere is sitting on a lawn watching the clouds go by while petting a kitten and generally having a wonderful time.

[C Elegans]

Originally Posted by Vicsun

Because you'd soon run out of tears Human tragedy is well nigh infinite, while the minds' capacity for it is not.

Of course I didn't mean it's meaningful to go around and feel negative feelings for every human tragedy, what I meant was rather why not view every meaningless death of innocent people as equally tragic.
We FEEL more when it's our own close ones who dies, because it's a personal, but opinion-wise there is no reason to think one meaningless death of innocents more tragic than another.

[C Elegans]

Originally Posted by Maharlika

Indeed. It is how these risk factors are present in each individual is what is needed to be analyzed, hence a need for Threat Assessments in school. We got gun enthusiasts and gamers in our school yet they were not classified as "high-risk." Now, if there are disturbing signs that these risk factors are pointing to that "danger" direction, then the Threat Assessment should be elevated to a Threat Investigation involving law enforcement agencies, especially if there are evidences that a doable and detailed plan coupled with verifiable procurement of dangerous weapons/explosives are present.

Here is another post of mine which complements what CE is trying to point out.

I had not seen that thread before, thanks for linking to it Mahar! The Threat Assessment program looked as good as any risk assessment can be - I also saw a couple of names I know well among the experts who had participated in developing the program.

In Sweden though there is currently no action in the direction of employing any kind of risk assessment. There is just a lot of talk in the media that "it could happen here" and "what shall we do about it", but no action.

Originally Posted by Kipi

You are right, and I mostly used it to begin some discussion here (we are gaming community, after all). Also, gaming and movies and violent in media has got so big attention in this case here, so at times it seems that to media it's one of the most important problems...

I often forget GB is actually a gaming site When Finnish media write about the media violence thing, what do they actually write? What kind of opinions do they state? Is there any discussion in Finland regarding what do in order to prevent this kind of incidents?

I've seen it mentioned somewhere couple of days back, I'll look for it and post it later.

Please do, I'd be interested in knowing more.

[Moleman]

After long absence I'm happy to see so many old "faces" still here.

But I'm sorry that the topic I'm making my comeback in is as sorry and sad as this one (and I'm referring to the shooting as sorry and sad, nothing wrong in this topic itself).

Originally Posted by C Elegans

Is anything known about Auvinen's upbringing and social life apart from his activities in internet communities? What about his psychiatric disorder, what kind of problems did he get medication for and how long was his history of disorder?

According to his neighbor and a school mate, he didn't have too many friends. However he sometimes went out with the group of friends the neighbor hangs out, had lunch with them and he wasn't the least talkative of the group, but lately had "withdrawn into his shell".

Finnish media has claimed that Pekka-Eric was picked on at school, but I think it was quite vague and I think they didn't mention source.

His father is a musician, a guitar player, who has a day job at transportation company. His mother seems to be a rather radical environmentalist, based on her web site and articles she wrote. Both she and Pekka-Eric have been citing Pentti Linkola, who is well known in Finland for his extreme opinions about human race and nature. Pekka-Eric's mother has also worked with Linkola in Elonkehra magazine. She has written for example: "...evolution should be forgiven the miserable mistakes it has made" and "it would probably be better if humanity would be destroyed if it can't live peacefully with the ecosystem". These quotes might give false impression about her agenda, she claims to be a humanist. But one can't help but wonder what impact her mother had on extreme opinions of Pekka-Eric... The family is in protection by the police due the threats they have received after the shooting.

I don't even know if it was confirmed that Pekka-Eric received any medication or not. He did write in Youtube comments that "medication makes me aggressive" and he also did an Youtube video about psychiatric medication, but that hardly is any proof that he in fact used them. Finnish psychiatric doctors said in media that before any medication is prescribed, a patient has to go through extensive therapy first. His autopsy results aren't finished yet, so we don't yet know if he was influenced by any medication or drugs during the shooting. In a Finnish gaming forum he wrote that he had been depressed for a year or so. I haven't heard anything specific about his condition, or if he had treatment for it. People assume he did, just because he said/wrote so, but personally I would take everything he wrote quite critically. If somebody is capable of shooting his school mates, that person is most likely capable of lying as well.

[Kipi]

Okay, finally found out some more info about the medicines Auvinen was using.
Here is an article in Finnish about it.
Basically, the police has high suspicions that Auvinen used Cipralex, Zoloft-, Luvox and Prozac -medicines. What I understood, those medicines are counted as SSRI -medicines, whatever that means (Anyone care to elaborate it to us who doesn't understand what that means? )

Oh, and basing on the interviews of the friends of Pekka-Eric, he wasn't picked on at school.

[fable]

Originally Posted by Kipi

What I understood, those medicines are counted as SSRI -medicines, whatever that means (Anyone care to elaborate it to us who doesn't understand what that means? )

Google is a good thing. Try here. I wonder if there were any interactions with other drugs he might have been taken? Because his behavior was certainly psychotic at that point. It's possible that something else was blocking the anti-depressants.

Mind you, CElegans (if she can tear herself away from Silur and Baby for a moment) is probably going to blow all this information out of the water with incredible detail.

[Kipi]

Actually, my request for explanation was aimet towards CE...

Oh, and have to check the link you provided. But before that, the article I linked in previous post mentioned that sudden ending of the use of the those medics may lead to aggressive behaviour.

[C Elegans]

Sorry I've been away from this thread quite long, duty calls, as usual...

Originally Posted by fable

Mind you, C Elegans (if she can tear herself away from Silur and Baby for a moment) is probably going to blow all this information out of the water with incredible detail.

Alas, it's not Silur and the baby who keeps me away from GB, it's my job as usual. Silur and the baby entertain each other very well, actually.

I won't go into incredible detail since the topic is enough to fathom a number of PhD theses, but I'll try to clarify a little bit what is known about SSRI and aggression/violence.

Thanks Moleman and Kipi for the additional information. What you write about Auvinen's background @Moleman is quite interesting, especially that his friends report he had withdrawn society lately. Withdrawal is a marker of a lot of bad things, most prominently psychosis or other form of outburst of disorder. It is not know why, but psychiatric research shows that a period of withdrawal is associated with subsequent outbursts. Severe psychosis disorders like schizophrenia are characterized by a period of withdrawal and even social isolation, before the first disease episode. But as I said, also other forms of outbursts, like suicide, aggression/violent outbursts or other impulses, can follow after a withdrawal period. It's impossible to predict what will happen with a specific individual, but in general, something bad will happen.

Swedish media have reported that Auvinen expressed sympathies with Pentti Linkola's worldview, that's what I referred to as "eco-fascistic narcissism" above. I didn't know Auvinen's mother was a Linkola follower, though.

Regarding Auvinen's medication, all of those mentioned in the article Kipi linked to are anti-depressants of SSRI type. SSRI means selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and without going into receptor pharmacology and synapsology, the effect of all these medication is to increase the concentraion of serotonin in the brain. The serotonin system however, is a very large and complex system that is involved in regulation of a variety of important physical and psychological functions. SSRI:s are anti depressants, but apart from basic mood, other functions such as emotions, sexuality, sleep and eating behaviour may be affected. A well known side effect of SSRI treatment is that in some patients, impulse inhibition decreases and anxiety increases during the first weeks of treatment. After a while, the nervous system "adjusts" to the new level of serotonin and these undesired effects disappear. These side effects however, are related to the much debated topic of whether SSRI:s are unsuitable for some patients, and especially young people. Although suicides due to depression clearly are decreased by SSRI treatment, there are clinical reports of increases in thoughts about suicide and feelings of wishing to commit suicide. This is especially true for younger patients. It is not know exactly why, but probably the increased activity in the serotonin system leads to more intense emotions for a period of time.

Without knowing the exact details about Auvinen's medication intervalls, dosage, time or putative side effects it is of course impossible to say whether these medications played any role at all in his behaviour. Even though Auvinen himself felt he became more aggressive by his medicines, there is no way of knowing if this might have been true or not without studying his medical records thoroughly. What we do know however, is that he must have been diagnosed with depression, since SSRI:s are used almost exclusively for this indication in Scandinavia.