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As to understanding his place in US culture I found watching the recent South Park episode Got A Nut where he is parodied helpful.
Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
831–840 of 1001 posts
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#832I don't know how a country filled with guns can survive the normalization of calling people you disagree with Nazi, Fascist, etc. We've all been taught since grade school it was a good thing to kill Nazis, even in small percentages there are mentally unstable people who will hear you call someone a Fascist and take the logical step from "it's good to kill nazis" to "they're a nazi so I should kill them". I am both ve…
Good point. I don't think we can avoid gun violence. Maybe a good improvement would be to incent basic education ?
But I hate so much attacks on freedom from governments that will always choose freedom of speech.
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#833Call me crazy, and maybe I'm just out of touch, but something seems... off with the reaction to this. The amount of people on reddit that I'm seeing gloating, openly celebrating this, it's really just something I have never seen before. Not even the Trump assassination attempt had this kind of reaction. All I'm saying, is that if I was a US adversary, I would absolutely be spinning up a million LLMs to post the most…
> All I'm saying, is that if I was a US adversary, I would absolutely be spinning up a million LLMs to post the most provocative possible stuff.
They have already been doing this for years -- over a decade -- with meatbag posters before LLMs were widely available.
How do you think we got to the current political climate in the first place?
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#834Platforms like Reddit and BlueSky need to be held accountable for promoting violent rhetoric, as well as the users that openly call for violence. A child could write an LLM backed script that filters out calls for violence.
There's also the global movie industry where most movies seem to have violence. Plus much historical literature.
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#835I understand why people would hate him, but even being a terrible human being doesn’t carry an automatic death penalty.
We are better than that.
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#836I was just at a conference today where one of the presenters referenced the "Trust barometer": https://www.edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer According to that study, 23% approved of the statement "I approve hostile activism to drive change by threatening or committing violence". It's even higher if you only focus on 18-34 year olds. Full report here: https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2025-0..…
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Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#837I was just at a conference today where one of the presenters referenced the "Trust barometer": https://www.edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer According to that study, 23% approved of the statement "I approve hostile activism to drive change by threatening or committing violence". It's even higher if you only focus on 18-34 year olds. Full report here: https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2025-0..…
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I think 1 is too many. How is that in anyway "strocking violence"? I somehow have the feeling you would agree if instead of trans it was white men...
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#838The sad irony is that he's at a college campus debating/arguing with people. At their best that's what college campuses are for. I know they haven't been living up to it lately but seeing him gunned down feels like a metaphor. I know he liked to publicize the exchanges where he got the best of someone, and bury the others, and that he was a far, far cry from a public intellectual. Still, he talked to folks about idea…
Feels like your second paragraph negates the first. That he wasn’t honestly debating ideas but fishing for soundbites to spread hate and appear intellectual, using the backdrop of college campuses to lend legitimacy to his divisive ideas. That is not what college campuses are for, and it is not a debate.
I’m not American, I never heard of this guy before. But I saw the video of the last moments and it’s a telling snippet. He was incredibly dismissive in his answers which were vague and devoid of information, while being clearly rage bait meant to be cheered on by his base.
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#839pragmatically, you can't kill an idea with bullets. terrorism does one thing only: it triggers retaliation. nihilistic accelerationists who want a war can use terror to provoke one. some of Charlie Kirk's last words: > ATTENDEE: Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years? > KIRK: Too many. [Applause] I don't think the shooter was trans. but I'm trans, and I don't see thi…
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Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#840Leaving personal feelings about the person. What exactly does 2nd amendment guys think using guns to fight "tyranny" looks like? People rising up to a group of people clad on black clothes and an eerily fascist reminiscent symbol ala rickandmorty?
Some people using guns to defend themselves against who they believe are the harbingers of this authoritarian State is 2nd amendment working as intended. Not a "tragic but necessary sacrifice" as some will put school shootings, but actually what right to bear arms is supposed to be about.
And it's immaterial if you ultimately disagree to whether this administration is authoritarian, but these things will keep happening as long as enough people believe that to be the case. It's a feature, not a bug.