[throwaway31131]

And there is some significant evidence that it is not true.

Think about training soldiers and the concept of “non-firers”. I’m not an expert on those things but the fact that training soldiers to kill is hard, and no one has a great solution even after a lot of effort, and passive combat personnel concepts even exist at all, I think gives evidence to the idea that not everyone can be a murderer, even under extreme circumstances.

“ Gen. S.L.A. Marshall once described war as “the business of killing”. And yet many war-fighters throughout history have gone out of their way to avoid it. Marshall himself estimated (though some say he exaggerated, or even fabricated) that only 15-25 per cent of infantry soldiers in the Second World War fired their weapons in any given battle. The rest were so-called “non-firers”; they had the opportunity to shoot at enemy soldiers but failed to do so. Marshall added that even those who did shoot often deliberately missed their target — they were so-called “mis-firers”. These “passive combat personnel”, as they are sometimes called, have long been a thorn in the side of military institutions. War is a “competition in death and destruction”, in the words of Henry Shue, and these individuals deliberately forego opportunities to score points for their own team.”

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/ned-dobos-military-training-...

[andrewflnr]

To be fair, on the grand scale of possible circumstances that might drive someone to murder, being a soldier is relatively common but not that high. The more interesting cases involve intense personal hate, possibly for revenge for extreme injury, or reasons that blur the line with self-defense or defense of a loved one. But I think a lot of people would still require unfeasibly extreme circumstances, if they could do it at all.