Something primal about LiveLeak I've not met anywhere else online.
LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online
321–330 of 717 posts
Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. Though they often did want a method to spread their videos, the West lacked any of the real context behind such videos turning it into outrage fueled Western propaganda. I expect the videos sparked far more Islamaphobia than radicalization.
Creating or fuelling islamophobia has always been one of ISIS's tactics
I don't see how you can make that claim. The only possible benefit I can think of for them would be that more bigotry towards Muslims might sway more people towards their point if view, but they were already in close contact with a population thoroughly abused by the West in Iraq.
Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. It is incredibly telling when people attempt to equilibrate "I'm anxious because I'm not sure if I'll be promoted to senior dev this quarter" to "I'm anxious because I cannot feed my family". As someone who has come from the latter circumstances to the former (through a lot of luck and sweat), I can tell you that having the same roof over my head for long periods of time and not having to carefully budget eve…
It’s pointing out that while objectively different, subjectively it’s often the same emotional weight - as counter intuitive as it may be - especially for those that don’t have prior experience or calibration in the objectively more serious environment. In my experience (as someone who grew up with extensive food insecurity, parents who barely kept the family afloat, etc.), it’s hard NOT to have the bar shift too if…
I was not equipped for the type of psychological distress that comes from truly competitive academic / job endeavors. After acing my easy high school and going to a top uni for CS I became really despondent. I just felt like there should come a point when I "made it" and don't have any worries anymore.
Through a lot of reading and therapy I got better, but I agree that there is a tendency to move the goalposts and not be grateful for what one has. Even though it is more materially distressing to not know if/where/how one will eat, the problems usually have tangible solutions (e.g. go to grandma's house to eat...again, or know a sympathetic employee at some chain restaurant who will give you a bunch of unsold food that would otherwise be tossed). The problems to "how do I make the leap to become a senior dev?" are much more nebulous and uncertain, and indeed that is more psychologically distressing.
Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online
#324The 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…
We used to watch the stuff on Ogrish back in the day,when we were teenagers. I couldn't say it desensitized me but made me realise I can't do shit about it. When one side of the planet is launching rockets to space and the other throwing stones on people because they looked at someone, there's no fixing of this only slow, agonising passing of time,with the hopes that it will eventually improve as people will be less…
Don't forget that the rocket side of the world does, in fact, also tend to throw some of those rockets at other people.
That insulation you mention is heavily intentional. How many Americans would have continued to support the military actions in the Middle East if live videos of mangled bodies were being broadcast right into people's homes on a nightly basis? We in the West live in relative safety yet we refuse to recognize as a culture how much harm is done by our societies' actions to others' safety. We subconsciously know it's happening but we say "meh." It's the ultimate privilege -- yet we wonder why so many in the Middle East hate the west. "They just hate our freedoms!!" They hate that we reserve the right to a relatively safe life for ourselves.
Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that’s life. I have 2 friends that died in a car accident. They were in their mid-20s. A split second accident. If they didn’t drive that night, they probably would never get as close to death as they did that night. But it happened and all their efforts were erased in a second. It’s not just war that causes that.
The difference is not only the scale of things but especially that a war is caused by people, on purpose, too often with the consent of their population. Car accidents are exactly that, accidents.
Car accidents are caused by people, by a system kept in place on purpose, and most the population is made dependent on them in many countries, in that there is no choice but to make oneself at risk of a car "accident".
Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
War and terrorism was definitely made “more real” on LiveLeak than what you’d experience via the media or YouTube. I also found a real appreciation for other things: driving safely, worker protections, fire safety. These “boring” things take on more importance when you can see what happens when you ignore them. I don't think people should dwell on these morbid things. But seeing just one or two videos of, for example…
I saw someone killed on a lathe on liveleak and ever since that video I've taken tool safety EXTREMELY seriously. Like, I bought safety goggles and wear them for drilling random screws. I never even thought about it before that.
Sometimes, just a story is enough. I read about a father who drove over his child while backing up. He thought his child was under his wife's supervision. Since then, all my cars have the rear view camera.
Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online
#327The 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…
War and terrorism was definitely made “more real” on LiveLeak than what you’d experience via the media or YouTube. I also found a real appreciation for other things: driving safely, worker protections, fire safety. These “boring” things take on more importance when you can see what happens when you ignore them. I don't think people should dwell on these morbid things. But seeing just one or two videos of, for example…
Yes I think a few videos is enough. I still have images in my head kind haunting me but like you said it’s a good thing. Same with animal condition (don’t know if you find that here). But more than that I wouldn’t play with the psychological consequences.
Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online
#328Why is there so much fetishization of violent content in the comments? Sure maybe liveleak provided some footage you couldn't get on youtube and that is indeed a loss, but to think that the violence you see represents the truth is just as bad as denying that any bad happens in the world. The world is far larger than any one mind can handle. I wouldn't judge it from a few videos taken out of context. The world can be…
What are you on about. Since when can you get shell-shock from watching videos online. Its not fetishization but rather an unabridged edition of the footage you see on the news.
The problem is that these clips of condensed malevolence has such a disproportionate effect on your outlook on life. I'm almost certain it has made me much more cynical and less trusting in general. In my day to day life in a safe western society, it's been an overwhelmingly bad and unnecessary sort of "hardening".
Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
You consider Reddit usable? I stopped using Reddit a few years ago, recently came back and tried both the website and (dark-pattern driven) mobile app. It's distinctly worse. Everything seems to have been re-engineered to drive "engagement" and/or mindless consumption.
The userbase is also becoming worse, because they're attracting the kind of idiots that respond to design like that.
on reddit you can say something factual yet outside party line and can get downvoted to oblivion or get deleted on some subreddits but your post might survive on some other subreddit.
hn is just a big subreddit with one party line. we get bombarded by party propaganda. almost everything is anti-others. seeing through propaganda, stating the obvious or pointing the elephant in the room is autamatically and conveniently 'whataboutism'. and that is if you are lucky! you probably get deleted or worse shadowbanned. what a disgusting practice. what you are left with is posts written by seemingly brillant bigots and jingoists.
Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Existence of depression and anxiety across all socioeconomic strata proves that logic wrong. Further supporting the argument that the world is not "mostly an OK place".
In the case of depression and anxiety, at least in the view of CBT, there is always some sort of cognitive distortion at play. In other words, if the mental anguish originates from having taken a distorted view of the world, it wouldn't tell us anything if the world was an OK place or not to begin with.
The question that bothers me is whether the existence of such distorted views of the world tells us something about the world. After all, they did not arise in isolation - what distorted that person's perception and what's preventing it from correcting itself?