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8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now

slate.com

241–250 of 378 posts

Re: 8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to ideologues who murder is not to listen to them more carefully. No one seriously suggests we need to be more respectful of the beliefs of ISIS.

“It's right to learn, even from the enemy.” - Ovid. If you do not learn what motivates an extremist you will not be able to prevent other extremists from committing similar acts.

I think we are all well aware of what motivates these killers by now. Giving them more of a platform and audience won’t reduce their murders - it will bring them more followers.

Re: 8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now

#242

The theory seems to be that white supremacists just naturally wish to commit violent hate crimes and that white supremacists use 8chan to indoctrinate more followers. What if it turns out that white supremacists primary wish is to have their arguments heard by society, but society has instead cast them out and refuses to let them post elsewhere so they can only post on 8chan, and that some of them, mentally unstable,…

So you basically have no idea what you’re talking about but want to talk about giving a wider platform to nazis?

I said "I'm not arguing that they have any good points or that we should give them a platform."

Also, admitting ignorance doesn't mean I have "no idea". I've read a bit of psychology on this topic, and feelings of being rejected by society are very powerful motivators.

Re: 8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4chan has been mainstream for very long now. Just check Alexa and similar sites for stats. But boards are on subdomain and and also nsfw boards are separated. I've seen young people so much browsing 4chan in public, also discussing it. I'm talking about school or university environment. When I was young and actually had time or will to take part if imageboards, I did it at home and secret. No one wanted to admit or m…

>When I was young and actually had time or will to take part if imageboards, I did it at home and secret. No one wanted to admit or mention it in public. Everything has changed now. Because newfags ruined everything. 4chan used to be amazing, especially /b/ and their memes (I'm talking 2008is)

eternal september forever my dude

Re: 8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now

#244
post #15

Does anyone have an idea of how big 8chan and 4chan is in terms of users? Just from the visible activity in there I can see they must be massive. I think Slate is incorrect in describing them as expression of traditional neo-nazism. To me they are quite their own thing. Born out of Anime culture and gaming-culture becoming a playground for role playing, trash talking, trolling, real-life pranks degenerating into what…

> To me they are very hard to understand. You start by joking that you are a jew-hating nazi and then after a while you become an actual jew-hating nazi. How does that work psychologically? It works not through jokes, but through otherwise rarely mentioned facts. For example, of the 7 chairs of the Federal Reserve since 1970, 5 were Jewish. The two gentiles collectively held the chair for 2 of those 49 years (1978-19…

This is really the source of it. The jokes and memes have power because the underlying facts are unmentionable in polite company and go unanswered. Even here you just get downvoted. The fact that they go unanswered and that there is an instinct to bury them or censor them (you have been downvoted without a response btw) instead is even more ominous than the supposed "hate" they are attributed to. One starts to suspect that there is no answer and suppression and censorship is the only remaining option for society, which of course emboldens the heretics and gives them a moral justification - exposing the truth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vcn4cnpv6Y

Re: 8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now

#245
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always worked that way. That's why fascistoid ideologies are so dangerous. It gives you a 'humorous' out of a dire situation where the 'humor' is dehumanizing to whoever the ideology deems 'other'. Very well encapsulated by this Sartre quote: “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusi…

Sartre wanted to remove the age of consent laws, so talk about dehumanisation and depravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_of...

1. Most French Intellectuals at the time supported this. You'll have to disvow basically most of Critical Theory if you don't like frenchies who want to remove the age of consent.

2. More importantly, all of this is totally unrelated to the point made by the previous poster.

Re: 8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now

#246

The theory seems to be that white supremacists just naturally wish to commit violent hate crimes and that white supremacists use 8chan to indoctrinate more followers. What if it turns out that white supremacists primary wish is to have their arguments heard by society, but society has instead cast them out and refuses to let them post elsewhere so they can only post on 8chan, and that some of them, mentally unstable,…

The solution to ideologues who murder is not to listen to them more carefully. No one seriously suggests we need to be more respectful of the beliefs of ISIS.

There seems to be a misunderstanding that I want to give them a platform. That is not the case. I said "I'm not arguing that they have any good points or that we should give them a platform." All I want is to understand their motivations so that we can have a better chance at stopping the next shooting.

Re: 8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now

#247

...how have things gotten objectively worse for young men?

When a young woman has trouble with life she's given sympathy and resources. When a young man has trouble he's told to stop being such a wimp. Not surprisingly some of them snap.

Yeah. Men are still, to a huge extent, discouraged from sharing and expressing their emotions as much as women (since that behavior is seen as inherently feminine). People still make fun of guys for crying and other healthy ways of expressing distress. The "strong silent type" still seems to be many people's masculine ideal. This is exacerbated on hate-filled sites like 4chan and 8chan, where guys who express feelings nonviolently are regularly mocked as "soyboys" or whatever; putting that sort of rhetoric alongside racist propaganda is, as other people have commented, an effective way to promote racial resentment and, in turn, violent outbursts.

The problem of discouraging men from expressing their emotions nonviolently is definitely not confined to these boards, however. I see tons of characters in media and people in real life who model the idea that anger or violence, while bad, are understandable ways for a man to express feelings (the same sentiment for women is much rarer). It might be bad that a man did something violent, but it doesn't undermine his very identity by eroding his masculinity in the same way that weeping and sobbing and being sensitive might.

I can't count the number of times I saw guys punching walls in movies growing up, often in circumstances where their characters were really feeling sad or hopeless or hurt. Women in movies under the same circumstances would often cry or be consoled. Or to put it another way, in a movie scene with a man and woman under extreme stress in a room together, I've never seen the woman punching holes in her own walls while the man sits on the bed crying. There are tons of other examples of stress reactions that are usually modeled in media along gender lines in this same way.

I think this stuff is self-fulfilling. Guys are discouraged from acknowledging difficult feelings except through stoicism or anger, and in turn people continue to associate that behavior with guys. When men on 8chan start buying into racist ideology and feeling like they can only express their distress through anger and violence, it seems inevitable that things like shootings will follow. The copycat effect with shootings that already happened only encourages it (see how this shooter cited the NZ shooter as inspiration).

I think things are improving, but I think that until guys are trained to express a full spectrum of emotions openly and without shame, and people in general are acclimated to supporting and validating men's feelings, it's going to keep encouraging this sort of snapping behavior.

Re: 8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now

#248
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Christchurch one is illegal for me to read Could you elaborate on this? It sounds awful to me - someone could tell you anything they want about the manifesto and the shooter's motivations, and it would be illegal for you to check if they are lying or not.

I assume he means he is from NZ and the government has made downloading/sharing the shooter's manifesto illegal.[1] [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/new-zea...

yes, this

Re: 8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now

#249

I think that technology has brought us some truly marvelous things. But they also enable us to avoid casual social contact while enabling us to withdraw from meaningful social contact. Online anonymity permits endless Sybil attacks -- helping turn communities' frustration from anger and rage into violence. I'm guessing/assuming that 8chan is an anything goes censorship free community (like 4chan was/is?). And maybe i…

Interesting that a google search for "8chan" doesn't return a link to it anywhere on the first page of results (for me).

Re: 8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now

#250
post #15

Does anyone have an idea of how big 8chan and 4chan is in terms of users? Just from the visible activity in there I can see they must be massive. I think Slate is incorrect in describing them as expression of traditional neo-nazism. To me they are quite their own thing. Born out of Anime culture and gaming-culture becoming a playground for role playing, trash talking, trolling, real-life pranks degenerating into what…

This graph is usually used to complain about the quality of mobile posts but also gives a good idea of 4chan's growth and size

https://img.fireden.net/v/image/1475/72/1475724694736.png

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