[Quarrelsome]

I personally think getting into organised crime kind of mirrors the process where corps pick up fresh grads. Someone who fits the profile of being suitable for organised crime is someone without legal opportunities due to a lack of education, illegal immigration status, prior convictions, etc. In similar ways they are "headhunted" in a process that is more about convenience than key skills in a resume. If you're one of these people you'll end up floating around spaces where the "headhunting" happens.

I remember when I was young and unemployed being plucked from the street when I was looking at job cards in the window of a job centre by members of an MLM. They tried to rope me into their ugly embrace selling door to door on commission only deals that were dubious in nature.

What's kind of spooky to me is how thin those lines can be, it only takes one mistake, lapse in judgement in youth or rolling your birth into an unstable family to end up on the wrong side of that line. This is why I personally find it quite distasteful when people who travelled the happy path turn up their nose at people who fell off onto the darker one. In some cases some kids excel in their black market roles and would have applied the same gusto to a white market profession if they'd had that opportunity.

[lazide]

Once you’re in, it also gets progressively easier to get in deeper, and harder to get ‘out’.

All your contacts are ‘in’, you have a reputation and people trust you to do what they expect, etc. etc. If you get arrested, even more so, as now people ‘outside’ have a clear signal which side of the line you’re in.

People looking down on you is as much a defense mechanism for them as anything else too, of course, as it provides not only a us vs them mechanism, but also makes it easier to segregate themselves and avoid crossing the line.

It’s genius really.

[netsharc]

The documentary the Act of Killing [1] follows a man who was a regime-sanctioned killer of "communists" in Indonesia. Watching interviews with the director, he talks about how after someone's killed a couple of people, refusing to do more means admitting that the previous kills he's done are something wrong/terrible.

The director helps reveal what's inside the killer's mind by suggesting to him to make a movie of his experiences. In one scene [2], we're at a lush waterfall, we see angels dancing and the victims of the killers thank him for freeing them from communistic godlessness and sending them to heaven, with the song "Born Free" playing in the background...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CfG-VmDyjE

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ta9To14yw

[lazide]

Having been close friends to some killers (legally sanctioned by the gov’t at the time), the other issue is killing is, frankly, really easy. Way easier than anyone in polite society is going to be comfortable with really knowing, frankly.

Emotional and social consequences from killing are not so easy though, usually, but the actual act itself is pretty straightforward, especially with a little training and some forethought/prep.

It tends to change one’s view of society and other people quite a bit. Which makes re-integrating with society and/or integrating childhood conditioning hard. Hence the flight to delusions or drugs for many.

But often the hardest part for many people to understand is how easy it can be for many to just shrug their shoulders and go ‘ok’ and continue on with their lives with not only no guilt, but feeling good about it. Because sometimes people needed killin’.

[close04]

Aren’t soldiers just that? Governments sanctioned killers? The only “guideline” is that the victim must be the “enemy”. Just that the definition of “enemy” is vague and arbitrary, enough that it can mean anything needed at any time.

Being government sanctioned it makes sense that it would attract people who find it easier (even enjoyable for some) to kill and live with it afterwards, or at least it makes it easy by providing the moral cover that it was necessary and moral. They were enemies after all.

These people are far more likely to continue to find killing easy during and after the fact as ling as they’re given even the vaguest sense of moral cover.

[lazide]

The vast majority of soldiers will never plausibly be in a position to kill anyone, even in self defense.

And even in the worst wars, very few front line soldiers ever actually killed anyone - even infantry.

[cutemonster]

Makes sense, with the Pareto principle in mind.

("roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes", https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle)

[potato3732842]

>Aren’t soldiers just that? Governments sanctioned killers?

Don't forget cops. Their job is literally to be willing to kill you over compliance.