Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

And it sounds like Sanjix and FFA need to learn about Stochastic Terrorism and the way that the culture of the country in the last 18 years has moved towards fostering circumstances that make these things far more likely.

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

The one problem that I have is that people like to make excuses for not only themselves, but for others as well. Have you noticed that half the news outlets we get are blaming video games for the violence and not the culprits themselves?

Someone also brought up the point of some people having mental issues that are hard to spot.

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

Sounds very insidious

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

Well if you don't want to research Stochastic Terrorism yourself, I'm happy to give a basic introduction here.

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

I've never heard about this one, actually. So now I'm curious.

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

my point isn't about the count

my point is that its an issue, regardless of whether or not its going to matter for "the vast majority of people"

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

Wikipedia isn't a far jump away

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

In its simplest definition, Stochastic Terrorism is the act of using mass communication, like social media, news networks, etc, to generally incite hatred or violence towards a group or groups, such that acts of violence are individually unpredictable, but statistically likely.

So basically if you have a guy like Trump going on twitter and national television saying that Mexicans are drug dealers and Rapists, and his supporters describe them as an Invasion and an Infestation, and racist groups advocate for killing minorities, there's not necessarily any way to predict a -specific- incident of "somebody taking all this in and deciding to act violently on it" but you've created an atmosphere where "People who are inclined to react to things like this by doing violence, will at some point do violence."

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

So in other words, it's basically "If it's on the news and this guy says it, then it must be true and we should abide by this." So quite literally mental thought control on a subtle level. Is that right?

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

There is a critical element of human psychology that you aren't considering that reconciles the situation pretty easily.

There are two traits that dictate a vast percentage of short-sighted, illogical, and catastrophic decisions:

Hopelessness, and desperation.

When you are so assured that you are correct and you have nothing else to lose, if you are at the end of your rope, if you have exhausted all other routes to achieve a strong desire, that is when desperation arises.

This isn't new, even Sun Tzu recognized the danger of desperate men:

Mass shooters that are otherwise totally healthy will feel desperation if they feel the world isn't listening to them.

Even altruistic people fall under this category. Malcolm X, a hugely important civil rights leader, acknowledged that no matter hard he tried to fix these problems within the system, nothing would change. He wasn't afraid to embrace that desperation and advocated for acting OUTSIDE the system, often violently.

No mass shooter is an altruist but in their mind they are peforming a noble cause (white supremacy) in a desperation attack.

This isn't a mental health issue. This is a white supremacy issue.

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

No, more like, there are people who are prone to acting on that kind of input, so if you expose them to that kind of input enough times, eventually they're going to act on it. You can't predict it so it looks like a "lone wolf" thing because no single event can be pointed to that set them off, but because you've created a cultural space where this is a thing being talked about, the people prone to acting on it will eventually.

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

How do we fix a white supremacy issue?

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

By discouraging white supremacy in a humane, non-violent way.

The question to THAT is what is the most effective method?

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

Unfortunately, white supremacy is so deeply-engrained in our cultural fabric that it seems impossible to clearly excise. I also am not an expert so I don't have all the answers but a few thoughts to at least mitigate the damage:

1) Prevent political leaders with tiny hands and shitty toupees from tacitly supporting white nationalist rhetoric
2) Make it harder for white supremacists to congregate online (that is, disrupt their communication channels)
3) Increase the visibility of minority voices in the public discourse, in film, television. Normalizing the presence and experiences of minorities at least helps prevent radicalization in the child-development phase.

I thought of that stuff in five minutes and I'm just a random asshole on the internet.

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

man, if only we didn't have that freedom of assembly from that piece of paper written a third of a millenium ago

maybe then these organizations wouldn't have the freedom to exist above-ground

ah well, there's nothing we can do, no possible way to change an existing document

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

Yeah, I mean you can't change a document if it would impact the second AMENDMENT TO THE DOCUMENT.

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

Yeah... the Second Amendment has the words "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" in it, so of we tried to change it Gun Jesus would smite us from on high

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

I'm talking about a part of the first amendment, but yeah, we're basically saying the same thing

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

I was riffing off you

I even quoted art of war, please notice me

Re: El Paso and Dayton Shootings (SERIOUS TOPIC)
 

I miss you IRL
come visit sometime