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LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

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Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#141

I happen to think a lot of the pandemic denial and downplaying had to do with the media's refusal (for valid privacy reasons) to show what was actually going on in ICUs everywhere. The lack of graphic coverage kept the pandemic's worst effects out of sight, out of mind for a lot of people, allowing them to focus on and rage against the less important side-issues like how awful masks are and how upset it made them to…

I agree with this. Unfortunately, I got covid right out of the gate and should have been in the hospital. Then I lost some people, one of whom was worth a lot, and despite that still spent 40 some days on a ventilator, basically in hell, only to die pretty terribly. While all this was going on, I am surrounded by people who think it is all fake, nobody is dying, etc... I would tell about what I saw, felt and they wou…

Thanks for sharing. I’m glad you recovered and very sorry about the others. My own family happened to escape it but my wife lost several loved ones.

> While all this was going on, I am surrounded by people who think it is all fake, nobody is dying, etc...

The saddest, craziest stories are the ones who, while the tubes were going in, used their last voluntary breaths to cry “How is this happening? The virus is a hoax!” We need to have a serious reckoning with mental health in this country.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#142

The world is a scary and violent place. Without Liveleak, you might never feel it. Until you see the actual violence and gore, it doesn't mean anything, it's just empty words. I didn't care at all about wars in the middle east until I saw the reality on Liveleak. Seeing dead children and people with their legs blown off made all the commentary on CNN and Fox seem so understated. A lot is said about desensitization as…

Liveleak doesn't portray the reality of war because it shows you some beheading. Voyeurism and gore are not the same as genuine insight into what scary and violent places are actually like. It's worth reading Baudrillard's ' The Gulf War Did Not Take Place ' on how media representation, and stylized, selective footage is used to distort. You didn't get to know the 'reality' of war, but the hyper-reality of it. If you…

Both points of view are necessary, but one is more important than the other.

The bigger deal is that in its inherent brutality, there should be a high bar for war, and that is something that people need constant reminding of.

The other is mostly a matter of public expenditure and the fact that military service is basically a form of welfare that's more palatable to many people, even if it boils down to paying people to work out and carry boxes around in a far away desert.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#144
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The world is a scary and violent place. Without Liveleak, you might never feel it. Counter-point; the world is mostly a neutral, even OK, place, with also violence in it. Our cognition is heavily biased towards saliencing and preserving the scary bits, and being exposed to a planet scale showcase of those bits does not necessarily make us wiser (e.g. better decision makers). At least for me personally it took a dec…

>Counter-point; the world is mostly a neutral, even OK, place It isn't, you are lucky to be in a privileged environment. And I don't even mean warzones. People who live paycheck-to-paycheck with family or medical issues wouldn't agree with you.

> People who live paycheck-to-paycheck with family or medical issues wouldn't agree with you.

You wouldn't know if you were talking to such a person right now without making a circular argument such that "a person without privilege cannot think the world is an OK place and since they think that they must be a person of privilege". Existence of depression and anxiety across all socioeconomic strata proves that logic wrong.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#145

The world is a scary and violent place. Without Liveleak, you might never feel it. Until you see the actual violence and gore, it doesn't mean anything, it's just empty words. I didn't care at all about wars in the middle east until I saw the reality on Liveleak. Seeing dead children and people with their legs blown off made all the commentary on CNN and Fox seem so understated. A lot is said about desensitization as…

It taught me to never get involved in the drugs business in Mexico or Brazil or never drive in Russia.

Dude seriously the stuff in Brazil is next level. Mexico I felt like they were stone cold but had some semblance of reason for doing stuff. Brazil was just primal.

I was in Brazil for a month, luckily before I watched a lot of those types of vids. Honestly it’s a dangerous place, right beneath the veneer. If you get off the path and into a hairy situation you might be done.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. Unfortunately, I got covid right out of the gate and should have been in the hospital. Then I lost some people, one of whom was worth a lot, and despite that still spent 40 some days on a ventilator, basically in hell, only to die pretty terribly. While all this was going on, I am surrounded by people who think it is all fake, nobody is dying, etc... I would tell about what I saw, felt and they wou…

Thanks for sharing. I’m glad you recovered and very sorry about the others. My own family happened to escape it but my wife lost several loved ones. > While all this was going on, I am surrounded by people who think it is all fake, nobody is dying, etc... The saddest, craziest stories are the ones who, while the tubes were going in, used their last voluntary breaths to cry “How is this happening? The virus is a hoax!…

No doubt! I know one of those, and they made it through.

It is rough. I can see them question just about everything and feeling a little lonely, due to their peer group not identifying very well with their struggle.

Yeah, I had a couple loooooong nights deep breathing, eye on an oximeter. Was early enough to feel a lot of angst about going to the hospital! We were not good at treatment yet, people go in, die alone...

Woke me right the fuck up.

Not to say I was anti, but I had not really internalized what was happening. Was not as careful as I could have been. Definitely did not have all the info I could have had.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#147
post #36
post #20

Why couldn't they make enough money to stay in business?

I don't feel like posting the alternative, but there is a much more extreme alternative to LiveLeak that makes LiveLeak look like eye bleach and I suspect much of LiveLeak's users moved over to it. LiveLeak was in a weird position because it allowed full on gore but it also kind of tried to pretend to be a serious site reporting actual events. I suspect most people going to LiveLeak were not interested in seeing a le…

Liveleak stopped hosting gore, including controversial videos, many years before this shut down.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#148

The world is a scary and violent place. Without Liveleak, you might never feel it. Until you see the actual violence and gore, it doesn't mean anything, it's just empty words. I didn't care at all about wars in the middle east until I saw the reality on Liveleak. Seeing dead children and people with their legs blown off made all the commentary on CNN and Fox seem so understated. A lot is said about desensitization as…

Agree. Kayla Mueller would be alive today if she had watched some ISIS execution videos on LiveLeak.

Yeah and these “it’s all good! We’re all humans!” people seriously need to watch it and then realize you need to back up proper diplomacy with force if needed.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#149

Four LiveLeak videos will always stay in my head. WARNING: even in text this stuff is horrifying. Stop reading if you don’t want to have nightmares. 1) an ISIS video where a 7 year old kid or so goes through a building where a bunch of hostages are tied up. He shoots them dead in succession. He looks like he’s about to cry throughout the whole video — but he doesn’t. 2) a completely covered up woman(?) in Iran is exe…

LiveLeak definitely had the ability to change you. There was a video from a dashcam where a couple is driving down a road, and a brick or rock falls off a truck driving the opposite way. It bounces on the road before slamming through the windshield and instantly killing the wife sitting in the passenger seat. Whenever I feel like a member of my family has gotten on my last nerve, pushed me to my limit, I think of the…

[deleted]

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#150

I happen to think a lot of the pandemic denial and downplaying had to do with the media's refusal (for valid privacy reasons) to show what was actually going on in ICUs everywhere. The lack of graphic coverage kept the pandemic's worst effects out of sight, out of mind for a lot of people, allowing them to focus on and rage against the less important side-issues like how awful masks are and how upset it made them to…

That sort of coverage doesn't sway people who have decided already not to subscribe to facts, domain experts, or reality. Conservatives would be shown videos of known popular conservatives online storming the capitol, and in all serious start claiming that these people were actually secretly Democrats or something there to make conservatives look bad. Some would call these would be videos of ICUs fake, just like some people think the moon landing is fake.

"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - Orwell.

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