Now I said that I wouldn't throw the thread offline anymore with my ramblings, but I'm a liar so I'll go on
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Originally Posted by Neapolitan
I thought hhbh was talking strictly personality traits. Those who had the gumption to get up and go to another country (in this case America) were risk takers and then they passed that risk-taking gene down to their discendants. I don't know if that is the case. I doubt if he could prove that is true since basically all humans descend from people who migrated at one time or another. And what the gunman did imo doesn't equate to "risk taking." Since a risk implies what choice is the better in the long run. I took it that hhbh was talking through his hat.
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I assumed he was talking about the risky behaviour that immigrants can often demonstrate when they move country, but now I see that he was referring to 'genetics' and in some aspects I'd agree with the 'risk gene' concept. But I guess some kind of scientific facts would need to back this up. But I don't doubt for one moment, that the USA is the most violent of all the developed countries.
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Originally Posted by hip hop bunny hop
Nope. I'm referring to the descendents of White, European immigrants during the settling period, meaning those who came during the 20th century (the stimuli/impetus for coming to the US changed drastically after this period) & how this resulted in different frequency of certain genetic traits as opposed to those in the old country.
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This is actually a belief that some Europeans including myself share. In that the formation of the USA had quite violent beginnings. The early settlers and the frontier mentality, the war of independence, a civil war, the wild west and then participating in two world wars and two wars in Asia. Now a lot of countries in Europe have had similiar ocurrences down their history, but I don't think any can boast at having all these drastic conflicts in such a short historical time period! Also the USA is still actually quite a young country compared to the old world.
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Originally Posted by Vanilla
In New Zealand we don't let people in unless they have learnt English and have either an education or skills to bring to the workforce. It doesn't mean they won't go around killing people.
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This is why I said it was one of the toughest countries to get into and it also helps to limit the amount of violent offenders that can enter from abroad.