The brother of Rob Ford: the fat, cackling criminal that runs this province despite the fact he doesn’t even have an eleventh grade education has made his message clear: Post our propaganda, or we’ll steal your money. https://windsor.ctvnews.ca/mobile/n...x-stickers-will-result-in-fine-ford-1.4563569 ...unreal. I am counting the days until these obese siblings reunite.
More Canada news, https://ml-fd.caf-fac.ca/en/2019/08/33077 I can't remember a press release with wording like this one.
Gun question: could it be possible that we use "mental illness" as a way to label mass shootings to avoid peering into the void? I'm mentally ill, but not violent. I think 99% of mentally ill people fall into this category. There are mentally ill people who are violent, but do not understand their actions or the ensuing consequences, and their illness can be legally an excuse for their violence. What if: the people doing mass shootings are not 100% mentally ill? What if they are purposely committing atrocities, knowing full well that their actions are hurtful? What do we do then? To Nett's point, no it's not "normal", and it's so extreme that it makes sense to call it a mental illness. But that also closes the door to understanding these people, their motivations and their reasons (if they have any). And I think therein lies the secret to meaningful interventions. I think gun control laws are a waste of fucking breath. The government is not confiscating 300+ million weapons. Also, I am terrified that my mental illness will somehow be used to prohibit me from exercising my rights, to the point I actively sought to avoid diagnosis. And my particular brand of crazy is depression....looking at the state of the world we live in, I think it's a completely rational response. I can envision a world where I am not allowed to buy a gun for fear I might take my own life due to a diagnosis....and I use something else to do it, that might involve other people. That world is fucked up and it shouldn't become reality. So, if you can't remove the guns from this equation, and applying the crazy label is essentially a write-off (What can you do, you can't reason with crazy! It's not like those folks all seem to fit a pattern, and are otherwise completely maladapted!), then how do you solve this? My thought is that it's less of a gun problem, because guns have always been there. It's a mental health issue, at a certain point, because people with well-functioning brains do not do this. It's also a social issue. There's no intervention, no last line of sanity represented by a community member, no one saying the obvious fact: For better or worse these victims are American citizens, our brethren and countrymen, worthy of our respect and consideration, even (especially) when we may disagree. It seems to me, the common factor here is isolation, echo chambers and lack of hope for a preferable future that causes these men to lash out. Those factors are intimately familiar to me as factors that strengthen depression, and the most critical one is isolation. I can point back to a few times in my youth where I was heading down a terrible path, and someone intervened. A teacher, one of my parents' friends, even someone from a church I briefly attended. The common theme to that is that you need to be a community member for those interventions to occur. Labelling these folks as crazy essentially guarantees they never integrate into a community, are never trusted, are never seen as someone the community should invest in, and further perpetuates their isolation. They are thrown away. Maybe "guns meets crazy" isn't the end of the issue.
Its going to sound glib, but I think a contributing factor of these young, angry white guys committing these mass shootings is the fact that they, in part, because they cant get laid. I have nothing to back that up whatsoever.
A common trend that I’ve read about with some of these guys is either a history of domestic violence or some serious beef with women over rejection or failed relationships. These little bitch types that women don’t traditionally find attractive.
I 100% believe that it's a weird combination of both. I'm a huge nerd and spend a lot of time on various sites discussing games, Japanese comics, American comics, social media, etc., and a common issue I've seen crop up is the isolation and depression down mentioned combined with some if what Juice said. A lot of these guys were sold on this ideal that they're OWED certain things(sex, money, power, etc) by certain times in their live because reasons(took her to dinner, went to college, etc.). When those things don't pan out for any of the infinite reasons that they don't, they go into depression and look for guidance sadly running into hate groups(of which there are hundreds if not thousands) who are always recruiting and are very good at manipulating and brainwashing while also providing feelings of belonging, camaraderie, and community. The whole thing is unspeakably bizarre rabbithole, not sure how many people on here were familiar with it, but a lot of this likely goes back to the GamerGate incident a few years ago.
I think a lot of these guys are just the “nice guys” that think by treating a woman a certain way, they must tick off some boxes that gain them access to females. The same guys who complain about the friend zone. Like some sort of real life RPG. Except they just take it a step further. And feed off each other.
The virginia tech killer had an imaginary girlfriend and a few of the other mass shootings have had a sexual or misogynyst element to them. When it comes to serial killers the whole warped sense of sexuality is really common. Men like to talk about how women be crazy, but in terms of pure weirdness we have them beat by a longshot. The aztecs used to cut out and eat the hearts of childen so sky beasts wouldn't rain fire on them. No woman is ever coming up with that shit.
I think it’s also intertwined with mental illness, but not directly a cause or a result of it. Some guys that might be prone to some kind of it might also have traits that lead them to violent incel communities, etc. Couldn’t he have just humped one of those anime body pillows like every other Asian guy?
I think your point here is better than just focusing on incels at least if we are talking being vulnerable to radicalization, though incels have started online groups for this purpose. Money and power can be simplified as just not making anything of yourself in a career. The el paso shooter had been a Chipotle worker as the highest note on his LinkedIn profile. Realizing youre a loser at life and not having the humility to look inward leads to blaming others for the pain in your life. Im sure there is mental illness at work here, not speaking to invisible people schizos, but untreated chronic depression. Incels are a whole different beast. I read a Vice article where the writer interviewed one about his life and his online incel pals. The whole underlying tone was mental illness, particularly aspergers, agoraphobia, and severe anxiety and depression. They'd commiserate together online and barely left their houses. One dude live streamed himself shitting in his pants as a joke, then ended up taking his own life a few weeks later. Many of the them have fucked up and clinical self image issues. These dudes need serious psychiatric attention. I liken their mental illness to girls with eating disorders except instead of turning their illness on themselves, guys typically turn it outwards towards society.
I'm going to sound old and "get off my lawn"-ish, but I think a lot of it has to do with the change in socialization. I think the internet and social media and just the ability to be able to keep yourself entertained without any real, physical, social interaction, has an effect. Online communities are not the same thing as real-time face-to-face. In much the same way you can see "different" behaviour from people that were home-schooled rather than those that went to a public school, I think you get some sort of shift with kids that are more "virtual", be it video games, or just watching TV all day. Then there's the sense of belonging when you find online groups that are into hate, or weird beliefs (flat earth, anti-vax, etc). Shunned by most of their normal, local peer group (if it exists in the first place), and then finding acceptance via remote online circles, probably adds to things. Add to that the whole "look at me at my best" social media impact of feeling inadequate, etc, based on what you see others post online... watching other people rather than doing something yourself. Combine that with the deterioration/change of the family social dynamic, where kids are left on their own more as they are growing up, there's not as much interaction (not having dinner together as much, etc), and I think you're seeing more people that are really not socially adjusted as they get older. Then they get angry, and then they lash out. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's video games, etc, but I am saying that the way that people grow up and socialize today is different than it was even 30 years ago, and I think that has an impact, and I think we may be seeing some fringe cases as a result.
Oh for sure. There are shows and comics dedicated or this kind garbage attitude. I'm very bad at expressing my ideas and thoughts and can only hope I get SOME of this expressed right. Agree. I was thinking of guys like Elliot Rogers in particular here, but there's also a sort of crossover with a lot of these groups like incels blaming LGBTQA groups for their failures with women or guys who have made nothing of their lives blaming immigrants for their job failures and both groups being part of a community of some kind. Being into nerd stuff depresses me a lot sometimes because I see a lot these assholes and usually also see/hear of shows espousing so terrible shit that they then use as talking points or make excuses for. The other source of the depression is an extreme tilt in the opposite direction with both sides AGGRESSIVELY hating each other. This goes back to the feeling of isolation thing where a lot of these guys have nowhere to go and get picked up by guys who tell them nice things along with telling them it's "certain peoples" fault for (insert issue of choice) in their lives. Could be money, lack of intimacy, friends, etc., anything. I think a big way to help is to give these guys some kind of support on sorting their issues out, but a lot of people are more than ready to write them off.
I see this a lot yes. To be fair, a lot of online communities are also great places to meet and interact with people of similar interests en masse especially if said interests are very specific.* But yeah there's a big problem with echo chambers happening in online communities regardless of beliefs. *Being into "nerd hobbies" isn't quite as simple given the absolutely massive variety of genres and styles of games. This is also true of comics and animation East and West.
My point isn't that they are bad, just that they probably exacerbate that very small percentage of people that end up doing a very few but "newsworthy" things like the shootings.
Yeah Ive said it before, we need a lot better psychiatric intervention in younger people. Any national mental health push should include Middle and High School level funding for schools to have trained therapist on staff to help evaluate and acclimate kids into seeing and using mental health resources as normal in keeping yourself healthy. I wish now I'd have had someone sit me down when I was15-18 and just lay out everything I was having issues with and how to deal with them, let me know or express what the most common issues are and how to recognize them when they happen. It wasnt until I was 25-26 that I experienced anything major, though they were issues that had built up from my teens and early twenties, and it still took me years to recognize it and actually get help.
There are places in Reddit that actively talk about needing to hear up for the eventual "Invasion of Un-Americans" and other God Awful shit like that. I think it was Elliot Rogers or one of the two recent guys who actually mentioned one of the Reddits in his manifesto or something. 100% Agree. A lot of it has to start with absolutely ending the demonization and trivialization of mental health problems and the seeking of help for them. I've had depression, anxiety, and several other issues for years starting with my teens, but could never really get help and still deal with them now due to being shamed by some family members about how I don't really need it or how someone else has it harder.
Agreed. The way even people our age now socialize has radically changed. And I think Americans are WAY overmedicated. Working in a doctors office, it was all too common for someone to come in and ask for an anti-depressant or some other psyche med because someone in the family died, they were having marital issues, etc. and they were sad. Well of course you're fucking sad, that's a normal response. But instead of going through the stages of grief and processing it, nope, medicate me so I don't feel anything at all. People don't realize what that shit does to their brain. Doc put me on Lexapro and I hated how I felt, so I quit. When I realized the symptoms I was having from going cold turkey, I vowed that or any of that other stuff would ever go in me again. A buddy of mine went through the same thing with Paxil ( only on it because his girlfriend convinced him he had issues and needed it... guess what the issue really was ). Anyway, it's anecdotal, I know. But I think the over use of psychotropic drugs is a factor in all this madness.
This is going to sound ridiculous, but the economy plays a role here. To get out and socialize takes money. To get medical treatment takes money (A FUCKING LOT OF IT). The irony of buying guns at Wal-Mart, the "low cost" chain isn't lost here: this was a cheap way to share their pain. To put it another way: what in the fuck do we expect these guys to do? They have a lot in common with the radicalized muslims we're "combatting": dim economic prospects, very little hope for a shot at the middle class, even dimmer family prospects. You spend enough time on (insert website/news source here), you see men being written off at large (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250215437) and they are inspired to action by folks like Alex Jones, with no further direction than "Be honorable! Trample the snakes under your feet!". Say what you want about the guy, that type of energy is appealing. It's inspiring. And America functions best when it has a villain.... My point is the era of inequality and a service economy are leaving some people behind. Not everyone is geared to be a service provider, and those people still need to work. That was one of the main appeals of the manufacturing economy: it could handle folks without people skills (like all those vets coming home from wars with PTSD...). At a larger scale, violence has forever been a male outlet. Most successful cultures adapt these impulses as a corollary to strength, character or useful skills. But when it doesn't take much strength to pull a trigger.....
Just speaking for myself, I sided with the gamers on that big time. I see no connection to mass shootings. The whole thing was really annoying women pretending the reason people didn't like them was because they were women, rather than the obvious that their social commentary was really stupid and they were purposely picking a fight with gamers. If you constantly say stupid stuff on the internet the trolls will flame you. Hence, they were 'victims'. Being involved in weirdo niche online groups seems to be related to mass shootings, but I really don't buy the idea that mass shootings have anything to do with societal views about women, blacks, gays, lgbtqia+, etc. To be clear, of course you can find an outlet with like minded bigots if you're looking for one. You can be a nerd without being a pent up enraged looney. Although, I guess there needs to be a distinction between a nerd who gets out of the house, and a nerd who's sole social interaction is on the internet, and is a pissed off 35 year old virgin. I'm not sure what's supposed to be done about the latter. Shutting down the places these people find each other is a major first amendment infringement. I'm not sure therapy is going to get most of this demographic to adjust in a normal, healthy way, but that is a better option at least. I'm going to point out that angry nerds do not commit even a fraction of the violence in this country. Perhaps the reason America is so inept at tackling the murder rate and reducing violence is because the discussions continue to revolve around groups committing such a small percentage of it. It really shouldn't be much of a surprise that this is accomplishing so little.