u.s. politics: sundowning on the american empire

[TrueMetis]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

not sure if serious...

There's some really horrific shit in the dark parts of the internet (8chan, etc) combining mass shooters with the worst parts of toxic gamer culture. And yes these sick fucks rank mass shooter on a higher kill count = higher score basis. That's not the fault of games themselves anymore than football riots are the fault of football existing, but it's really fucked up.

[Jace, Extat]

16 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

There's some really horrific shit in the dark parts of the internet (8chan, etc) combining mass shooters with the worst parts of toxic gamer culture. And yes these sick fucks rank mass shooter on a higher kill count = higher score basis. That's not the fault of games themselves anymore than football riots are the fault of football existing, but it's really fucked up.

Shut up, it's about ethics in gaming journalism.

[Fragile Bird]

47 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Even before I was born comics were the road to hell and worse for the youth of America. By the time I was old enough to read that was debunked. Then tv and movies were blamed, arcade games followed after that as the cause and now it is video games. Excuse my yawns.

A

Except that originally some comic books were pretty grotesque and violent, which is why they got a bad rap.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Simon Steele said:

I will say (and I'm saying this as an avid gamer)--there is something up with online gamer culture. Games aren't the culprit, but that so many of these young men (not just the killers, but young men in the hate ranks nonetheless) come from gamer culture. Why? I have no idea. 

They want to live out their violent fantasies, but for a time their fear of being caught,killed by police or going to prison for life prevents them from doing it in real life. So they find video games a great outlet for this, until they stop feeling the rush from killing pixels, even if there's a real person controlling those other pixels. At the same time they are being radicalised through other mediums (social media, peer groups) and at some point their radicalisation overcomes their fear of the consequences of acting out in real life, so they go out and act on their violent fantasies fueled by their extremist radicalisation. But these people have dreamed about killing people before they ever picked up a video game. 99.9% of gamers don't have those violent fantasies, even the ones who are complete trolls, racists and misogynists online. The violent radicals would almost entirely come from within the subset of racist / misogynist trolls. But they were racist / misogynist before they ever started playing video games, probably because their parents are. I don't think I'll ever stop pointing the finger at parents as the primary influencer of people being racist / misogynist. If you teach your kids from the start to love people of all races, sexes and sexual orientations and you model that behavior in your own life then your kids are not going to turn into violent radicals, except possibly the Nazi punching kind if you spew hate and vitriol at them while teaching love for others.

 

[maarsen]

31 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

There's some really horrific shit in the dark parts of the internet (8chan, etc) combining mass shooters with the worst parts of toxic gamer culture. And yes these sick fucks rank mass shooter on a higher kill count = higher score basis. That's not the fault of games themselves anymore than football riots are the fault of football existing, but it's really fucked up.

When I was a teenager a popular movie at the local drive in theatre was Death Race 2000. Not the remake but the original. The racers got extra points for increasing the body count. 

I suspect Aristotle probably complained about violent imagery in the Iliad and the Odyssey leading to violence in Athens amongst the youth.

[KingintheNorth4]

1 hour ago, Bonnot OG said:

 

 

bahahahahahahaha

I hope he cracked his shell on the way down. 

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Gaming is a correlative piece of data, just like abusing women is, just like being a man is. It is obviously not the cause simply because most of the rest of the world also games, yet they dont have these problems. 

It is likely that US gaming culture is predatory and a number of people use it to radicalize men who are unhappy with their lives and are looking for a cause. Gaming is what they do because they dont have many friends, a good family life and relationships, so they game - but gaming doesnt make them do this. 

Though one might argue that gaming gives them just enough pleasure in life to not go seek help or other more human outlets for pleasure. That may be bad. 

I wouldn't limit it to the USA. It's just that access to guns is much greater in the USA, so it manifests more frequently there. But the seeds of radical, hate fueled violence exist everywhere.

[Ice Queen]

2 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

I will say (and I'm saying this as an avid gamer)--there is something up with online gamer culture. Games aren't the culprit, but that so many of these young men (not just the killers, but young men in the hate ranks nonetheless) come from gamer culture. Why? I have no idea. 

As a parent, this is what I see: they're extremely insecure with no social skills, and their skill at games gives them some kind of validation. The isolation only reinforces their real life inability to form normal human relationships, so it's easy for them to blame everyone else for that. They're looking for a peer group they don't have in real life because they're unable to form those relationships in any other way. Gaming is an obsession that feeds into that and they're easy pickings. Now, whether they already possess their hateful views when they begin gaming and the online world or develop them as they become more and more immersed in it I can't say. I suspect they gravitate towards groups and games that already share their views, but I could be wrong.

My daughter is a gamer but she's getting out of it. The misogyny and abuse she deals with is insane and I've been quite angry that she was willing to put up with it for so long. All that for a game? It's not worth it.

As someone who thought Atari was the coolest thing ever invented, I gotta say I think gaming is stupid and unhealthy. No wonder our kids are lazy, fat and know nothing about real life social skills. The social isolation makes them angry and depressed. The best thing a parent can do is pull the plug and make them get out of the house for fresh air and sunshine.

[Fez]

One big thing that pokes a hole in the games-cause-problems is Japan. In Japan, gaming culture is just as large, perhaps even larger, among a huge swath of young men and others. And yet Japan doesn't have anywhere near the level of mass shootings we do, or mass knife attacks because guns are so rare. 

And in fact, I think pretty much any single variable you pick out for the US, you can find just as present, or even moreso, in other countries, and none have the same level of mass violence that we do. It's something about how they all combine together here that makes such a toxic soup. Real, serious gun control would help, but we'll never get rid of all the guns, and there's always knifes. Or becoming a bomber. I think we have to figure out what the real root causes are and address them, or at least be able to identify them.

[KingintheNorth4]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

It's all very mysterious.  Isn't the shoulder joint itself far enough up that it stays within the shell at all times?  

It's different for human-turtle hybrids like Massacre Mitch.

[karaddin]

4 hours ago, Zorral said:

Indeed, those have contributed to the white nationalist insanity of quite a few inveterate gamer - losers.  Gamification, it's called, obsession with kill scores.

 

4 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

not sure if serious...

If I can attempt to speak for Zorral I'd say its a twofold thing. As already mentioned there is a sickness in gaming culture which has been recognised by right wing extremists who have moved it from "there are problems within this culture that are caught in a negative feedback loop" to "nazis and white supremacists are actively recruiting from this group on top of the other issues".

The point she's specifically making that is separate from the gaming culture issue is gamifying shootings - this was a big "achievement" of the Christchurch shooter (who heavily influenced the El Paso fuckwit). By streaming his atrocity online with a helmet cam oriented to give it the sense of a first person shooter and putting it to a 'soundtrack' he really leaned into what already existed in the disgusting way they talk about body counts as a high score.

None of which is saying that video games are the problem or cause this, but that there are things associated with the gaming community which are feeding through into this.

On the subject of influences the thing I've found really chilling and disquieting in the last few years is realising how much success the Noway attack had in its primary goal of inspiring others to follow his example. It didn't happen in the first few years but now we're coming up on a decade the fingerprint of his influence is showing up in a lot of other attacks. It makes me so mad that that fuckhead may have done what he wanted.

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Bonnot OG said:

Actually, it looks like the Dayton shooter was an Elizabeth Warren supporting leftist. 

The only information I've read that suggests a motive is he killed his sister and she was one of the "early" victims.  To me that implies there's no reason to think at this point there was a political motive.  Plus the fact he was reportedly down within 30 seconds could indicate it was kind of a death by cop thing.

[all swedes are racist]

18 minutes ago, DMC said:

The only information I've read that suggests a motive is he killed his sister and she was one of the "early" victims.  To me that implies there's no reason to think at this point there was a political motive.  Plus the fact he was reportedly down within 30 seconds could indicate it was kind of a death by cop thing.

yeah, he also seemed to have real issues, he was suspended from school when someone found a notebook of his that has a list of people he wanted to [cw ]

Spoiler

kill, rape and skin

so yeah, nothing to suggest it was in anyway political, let alone driven by his “leftist” politics. 

but of course you’d never know that from every right wing freak that was insisting on “not naming the killer or politicizing” mass shootings yesterday 

[Fez]

I'm starting to like Beto for the first time (it's the second tweet, not the first one). Going full Bulworth is the only correct response.

 

[Bonnot OG]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

The only information I've read that suggests a motive is he killed his sister and she was one of the "early" victims.  To me that implies there's no reason to think at this point there was a political motive.  Plus the fact he was reportedly down within 30 seconds could indicate it was kind of a death by cop thing.

 

The whole thing is weird to to me.

 

supposedly he arrives, armed and armored, with his sister & black friend; then kills someone in an alley. He then tries to get into the bar & is refused, then shoots people up in the line.

 

somehow during all this his sister and the black friend are supposed to have gotten killed, but the cops, from what I saw, specify it did NOT happen before the other shooting, so nothing makes sense here.

 

the biggest what the fuck to me is a supposed gun control advocate owning tactical gear and assault weapons in the first place.

 

and attacking random black people? either this was some personal thing, or it's a far right winger's idea of what a left wing attack wouldn’t / *should*  look like.

 

i dunno, it just seems to me that a left wing shooter would target a MAGA rally or something, if such a thing even were to happen.

 

theres been plenty of far right wingers larping as left wingers online before. Wouldn’t be shocked if this person was doing such a thing.

 

he was chummy with people called stupidpolers, which they’re called after a subreddit called stupidpol, which is filled with reactionaries that are class conscious and don’t care about the civil rights of the marginalized & are in fact hostile to marginalized demographics. One of their top posts recently was about how they should start calling cops and fbi on anti fascists to get them out of the way.

 

theres also an issue of red brownism / Duginism, where leftists are a bit too friendly / cross over with fascists. Nazbols etc.

 

[Bonnot OG]

My issue with gun control is historically it has gotten enforced on people of color the hardest. I also don't trust  a far right state to not target people that aren’t aligned with them & leave them open to attacks by their far right militias who love to show up to doxxed anti fascists homes to intimidate them. And I sure as hell don’t trust the police to protect communities.

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, Ice Queen said:

As a parent, this is what I see: they're extremely insecure with no social skills, and their skill at games gives them some kind of validation. The isolation only reinforces their real life inability to form normal human relationships, so it's easy for them to blame everyone else for that. They're looking for a peer group they don't have in real life because they're unable to form those relationships in any other way. Gaming is an obsession that feeds into that and they're easy pickings. Now, whether they already possess their hateful views when they begin gaming and the online world or develop them as they become more and more immersed in it I can't say. I suspect they gravitate towards groups and games that already share their views, but I could be wrong.

My daughter is a gamer but she's getting out of it. The misogyny and abuse she deals with is insane and I've been quite angry that she was willing to put up with it for so long. All that for a game? It's not worth it.

As someone who thought Atari was the coolest thing ever invented, I gotta say I think gaming is stupid and unhealthy. No wonder our kids are lazy, fat and know nothing about real life social skills. The social isolation makes them angry and depressed. The best thing a parent can do is pull the plug and make them get out of the house for fresh air and sunshine.

You might as well say watching TV or movies or listening to music or even reading (as entertainment) is stupid and unhealthy too. They are all passive consumption of entertainment. Video games are interactive, but still consumptive rather than productive. I suspect a lot of people who single out video games for derision also don't recognize video games as an art form similar to film / TV / music. There is excellent art being produced in video games as well as a plethora of shite, that's no different to all of the other mass entertainment media. People should have a healthy relationship with any form of entertainment media they choose to consume and try to avoid obsession and addiction. Video games are no better or worse in that regard.

Some people might say a whole online community dedicated to examining and arguing about the intricacies of one work of fantasy fiction is stupid and unhealthy. Consider the number of words and hours spent arguing about the parentage of a fictional bastard. Looked at from a certain perspective that is an unequivocal waste of time of everyone who has ever been involved in such a debate.

Personally I think the only way for toxic masculinity to be eliminated from video games is greater involvement of women both in the industry and as gamers. Though I don't envy what these pioneering women go through at this point in time. They are like modern day suffragettes, subject to the same sort of hatred, vitriol and threats to their person. Rather sad that such a parallel can be drawn 100 years after most democracies deigned to allow women to vote. 

[Martell Spy]

27 minutes ago, Bonnot OG said:

My issue with gun control is historically it has gotten enforced on people of color the hardest. I also don't trust  a far right state to not target people that aren’t aligned with them & leave them open to attacks by their far right militias who love to show up to doxxed anti fascists homes to intimidate them. And I sure as hell don’t trust the police to protect communities.

That goes both ways. Libertarians are not in a struggle to arm people of color or defend their civil rights. They are happy to claim such, however. And the larger the house and more secure the neighborhood of some white dude, the more likely he is packing heat. 

Ocasio-Cortez Tells Off Kevin McCarthy: Blame White Supremacy, Not Video Games
Freshman lawmaker calls out House minority leader for blaming video games after mass shootings.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-kevin-mccarthy_n_5d47928ae4b0acb57fce8a54

Quote

 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Sunday suggested that video games were to blame for mass shootings. 

And Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) isn’t having it. 

“When you look at these photos of how (the El Paso shooting) took place, you can see the actions within video games and others,” McCarthy said. 

But Ocasio-Cortez said the real problem is white supremacy ― adding that it’s one Republicans won’t address because that would mean taking on part of their own base: 

 

 

[karaddin]

@Bonnot OG I'm willing to trust Emily G when she's putting forth what she's managed to find so far on the shooter:

ETA: Id seen that post from a classmate of his earlier, whatever his political beliefs he sounds pretty clearly a misogynist and a scary one

[all swedes are racist]

yeah, i agree with @karaddin; re his politics, his twitter account was too old, the accounts he followed/interacted with were both diffuse (in that it wasn’t all just big famous names) and mundane. if it was a fake/ false flag or whatever, i’d say it was  a long and subtle one. it wasn’t so on the nose. and like @Bonnot OG said, he was into the stupidpol/“irony” nazbol crowd