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LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

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Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#381
Very weird comment section. It feels really weird to me that you need videos of people blowing up and getting killed to get a reality check. Reading about it and being empathetic should really be enough. Are you guys so out of touch with yourselves and the world? And is it really necessary to consume this taxing content? I mean, I've seen a lot. I lurked on 4chan/krautchan in the early days. But I'm not so sure that was a good thing as I was quite young and I can imagine that it sends some people down the drain and incentivises violence.

I'm really wondering what happens to a brain that is exposed to such things. Now I would be really interested in the psychological effects of such content on our brains. But imho it's just weird to consume that stuff. Also I'm really glad that it's forbidden in Germany to take or publish videos of these things due to personality rights.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#382
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The vast majority of car "accidents" (more properly collisions) are the predictable result of policy choices.

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Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#383
post #251
post #216

Why 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…

I'll just repeat my previous comment because I actually feel this is important: I've gotten absolutely zero enjoyment from the few that I've watched. They make me feel completely sick and scared for myself and my family and I think about how incomprehensibly horrible it must be to live through these events, either as someone who died or someone who watched or knew the person who died. However, I am much more careful…

The reason violence doesn't represent reality: check out data on what makes people suffer and die.

Self-harm is about equal to interpersonal violence, conflict and terrorism combined. But by far the largest cause of suffering and death is disease.

https://ourworldindata.org/burden-of-disease#how-do-differen...

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#384

Very weird comment section. It feels really weird to me that you need videos of people blowing up and getting killed to get a reality check. Reading about it and being empathetic should really be enough. Are you guys so out of touch with yourselves and the world? And is it really necessary to consume this taxing content? I mean, I've seen a lot. I lurked on 4chan/krautchan in the early days. But I'm not so sure that…

Its not a reality check its more akin to mindfulness meditation. Momento mori, a reminder that it is so easy to die of stupid things in this world.

> I can imagine that it sends some people down the drain and incentivises violence.

As far as I’m aware, this is not the case for video games and violent movies, so I don’t buy it for liveleak content.

Propoganda for terrorism and cartels is a whole other argument though.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a couple/few videos on LL and it shocked me to the core. I never wanted to see that kind of thing again. But I also wish that everyone could witness it without becoming psychotic about it, to have a visual imprint of 'as bad as it gets', and hopefully do something about it or at least avoid perpetuating those actions. But that would never happen. A whole lot of people will go to very desperate measures to avoid…

What does this say about people who cannot see this kind of footage without becoming traumatized? Is it right to just call them incapable of handling the truth? I had seen some things in the past, on similar channels (4chan). The result was that when someone else had to drive me somewhere on a freeway I became so hopelessly anxious that I was constantly reminding them to drive slower, or just not drive me at all, bec…

I’m sorry to hear about your anxiety, it sounds terrible to have to process those feelings in such everyday situations. You shouldn’t feel bad about the way your mind has dealt with experiencing horrific videos, and how it has led to anxiety around death and risk assessment.

It’s not normal to witness or experience such events, especially when they are concentrated and amplified on a site like LiveLeaks. We simply haven’t evolved to predictably handle such an intense cross section through human suffering. Everyone will handle the emotions differently.

>the exhaustion of having to put so much energy and trust into therapists that ultimately never work out

Are you speaking hypothetically or have you attempted to talk about these feelings before with a mental health professional?

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#386

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…

I remember American TV regularly showing things like Palestinian children blown to bits back in nineties, or atrocities of wars in Africa, and then it somehow just disappeared.

Showing these kind of things has always been against the ethical standards of journalism and exceptions to it used to be discussed intensively by editors - excluding the tabloid yellow press who make their living from this trash, of course. I guess some of the more recent American TV channels realized at some point, after they had gained fame for showing everything, that quotas are not everything and that relatives usually don't want the death of their beloved ones displayed all across the Internet without their consent.

Sites like Liveleaks are very hypocritical, they pretend to show videos for "freedom of speech" while instead their main purpose is simply to satisfy their viewers' voyeurism. Cheap thrills are the main reason for viewing this kind of material - and don't pretend to be someone better, you've looked up that kind of stuff yourself for precisely that reason just like I have. People who watch this material only want to satisfy their curiosity and get the thrills from it.

That's also why Truffault once said "There’s no such thing as an anti-war film." (There are exceptions, like "Taxi Driver", and perhaps also "Deer Hunter" and "Killing Fields", but these are rare.)

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#387
post #370
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000s of children die everyday due to diarrhoea caused by unclean water. About a 1 000 000 die every year from malaria mostly children. Just to name a few things. The world is a hard unforgiving place for millions, we should never forget that.

Keep in mind, this is out of a population of 7.6 billion. Yes, lot of people die from terrible things. But the chance of someone suffering in the worst possible way (as depicted in those videos) is unlikely for most humans. That said, we could certainly do better.

The old age is where it sucks the most, and money/being privileged can only help so much. For example, even with money for great care, it is just torture to be mostly immobilized in bed, in pain, half-deaf and with mild dementia (this describes someone I personally know). And some variant of this is in the cards for a lot of us.

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#388

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…

I think soldiers should see this as part of their training

I served in the British Army and before I went out to Afghanistan I'd watch all of the gory Middle East stuff because I wanted to know what I was getting myself in for. Also to see the kind of situations that had killed my friend.

I'm glad I did, because although most of it was extremely boring stuff like you describe I probably would have brushed off the capabilities of the Taliban

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#389

I do hope you also understand our reasons I mean, I'd like to try, except he didn't actually give us any of those reasons. Rest in peace, LiveLeak. You were a beacon of reality that shone through the propaganda, the bullshit, and the sugar-coating. Your demise means that people who want to see something like a shooting that's been removed from mainstream platforms will be forced to visit darker corners of the interne…

> Now if someone asks me "Hey where can I go see that thing that was taken off of Youtube" I don't have a ready answer that isn't an alt-right cesspool.

Does this mean that only the alt-right have access to uncensored information?

Re: LiveLeak shuts down after 15 years online

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's exactly the scary thing about war though. You can grow up, go to school, make friends, fall in love, fall out of love, graduate, move, make new friends, learn to cook, fall back in love, buy a home, get a job, get a new job, learn to paint, fix that leak in the kitchen... And then a car bomb goes off while you're walking by and all that time spent is gone.

That's the scary thing about life, not war in particular. Everything you just said applies to everyone alive right now. What difference does a few decades make?
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