Why mass murders occur

Why are Middle Eastern terrorists attacking us? No, it isn't to destroy our way of life, it is to maintain their own way of life.

Western Industrialized multinationals seek out resources and markets that they can use to expand their for-profit business interests. Incidentally to this process we export Western culture and value systems, which we hold up as standards even while we violate them ourselves.

For example, sexual equality, we (Western Industrial nations) treat women as less than men and then demand equal rights for women in other nations.

As these people see their traditional values being destroyed by "do as I say, not as I do" hypocrites they get angry, just as we would.

Now, most people don't go around killing other people when they get angry, so our hypocrisy does not excuse their behavior. Generally, what happens is that some individuals, a very, very small percentage, who have been treated unfairly, "experienced excessive punitive action", act out against their oppressors.

This is true of most mass murders, from high school shooters to terrorists. The percentage might be 1 in 1 million, or 1 in 100,000. Our population is growing and so the number of individuals who will react violently when confronted with "excessive punitive action" will increase, not matter how small the percentage is.

Most cultures have a concept of "fair". When an individual experiences "excessive punitive action" by other individuals who ignore the rules they are supposed to be enforcing, or who enforce rules unequally, they act out.

If we are going to use Pavlovian conditioning, punishment/reward behavior modification, it must be consistent and equally applied. The less consistent and the more unequally applied the more of these mass murders will be created.

I believe that as our population grows the less consistently and more unequally we are applying our Pavlovian standards.

This begins in our education system and our education system must change if we want to reduce the potential for future mass murders.