White supremacist attack in NZ

[tinfoilhat 11]

15 minutes ago, Hots on said:

I saw the video of this attack on YouTube before it was taken down.  As I watched it I went a bit shakey and my heart was pounding very fast, which reassured me  that I'm not desensitised to mindless violence.

Not having a pop here, but why did you watch it?

[crazyhorse 37]

As the father of two young kids I can never understand how anyone can get into a state of mind where they can move from room to room shooting terrified men, women and children in front of them...and film it as some kind of personal achievement...

 

But if you look deeper at the things we already know about this guy, the same old patterns emerge...

Limited education
Limited job opportunities
Obsessive social media use including strong association with remote causes in other parts of the world (the guy was a true globalist in that regard).
Narcissistic tendancy (obsessive gym use and perhaps even steroid abuse as the aggression involved indicates)
Limited male role models (father died early)
Basically no hope and perceived himself as cornered
Classic White extreme right wing terrorist with an extreme version of their sense of identify.

 

Compare with the other side of the coin and recent examples of Islamist terrorists.
Pretty much the same pattern in both cases, but the stong identity here is fundamentalist (not mainstream/pragmatic) Islam.

 

Common demoninator?
No hope, living in a system that does work against you, a sense of powerlessness to respond...except by regressing into an extreme version of identity and acting on it.
Brexit is a similar example of the backlash (albeit much milder) you get when your core identify is threatened...and I say that as a someone who voted for Brexit...but has a foot in the other camp, due to my background.

 

The answer to all this extreme tribalism...not sure.

But based on an interesting book I read recently, here are a few thoughts:

 

Boost self respect and a stake in society by providing:
Increased contibution based support to working families only...make work really pay.
Ensure the generous spirit of the group (us as the people who currently live on this island) is not abused by people who do not contribute to the group.
You work and pay in (regardless of who you are) and you get back.
That satisfies the basic human desire for fairness before we share with each other...
..and increases social cohesion and group identify by making access to housing, health and social support much more contribution based.

 

Much more support to help companies provide expanded local apprenticeships to allow people a job they can respect and is respected by society, but which they do not need to go to a remote Unversity and lose their local links to obtain.
Give more social standing to a non degree technical qualification than a degree in Media Studies.
The German model is the one to follow here.

 

Listen to the genuine concerns of people who are being hammered by globalism and do much much more to take into account peoples perfectly valid concerns about the rapid changes that globalisation is making to their local community.

There is nothing racist in liking the place you live and liking it as it is...we are all citizens of Somewhere and care about local places.
Build those local community ideas into policy to limit the current overeach of globalisation and provide more balance and support for local communities.

 

People with more stake in society do not lash out at it

Then these incidents may start to decline

[Top Cats Hat 10]

9 minutes ago, crazyhorse said:

People with more stake in society do not lash out at it

Then these incidents may start to decline

Anders Breivik was neither poor nor poorly educated.

 

The main guy in this attack isn't living in a sink estate somewhere. He has the social mobility and means to travel, and the ability to compose and publish a reasonably coherent 'manifesto'.

 

We need to look beyond EDL and UKIP members laughing and making jokes about the death of Shamima Begum's baby on facebook last week and recognise that there are elements of the far right primarily influenced by the US white supremacist movement who are organised and have the ability to hurt people.

 

Despite the effects of Trump/Brexit/populism, these people will never be anywhere other than on the fringes of society in most democracies but they do pose a danger.

[crazyhorse 37]

42 minutes ago, Hots on said:

I saw the video of this attack on YouTube before it was taken down.  As I watched it I went a bit shakey and my heart was pounding very fast, which reassured me  that I'm not desensitised to mindless violence.

Like others on this thread, I do find it quite strange why you even considered watching this...?

 

I would never watch this...I appreciate the morbid fascination to see what is happening, but this isn't Fortnite, this is real people in their last moments.

 

This is why I really hate social media...the world truly was a more civilised place with 4 TV stations and no internet...even though the Internet created my job.

 

The only good thing about that video is that it illustrates how little control the social media companies have and how weak they now are having opened Pandora's Box.

If I were in the Government I would make my move on the social media companies now, as I feel they are on the wrong side of peoples feelings on this.

[mafya 243]

I watched the video out of curiosity, he was a coward who shot people while they were running away trying to save themselves.

[woodview 10]

5 minutes ago, mafya said:

I watched the video out of curiosity, he was a coward who shot people while they were running away trying to save themselves.

I can't believe you or Hotson watched it. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from seeing it. It was obviously going to be sickening, and the act of a deranged lunatic.

[crazyhorse 37]

5 minutes ago, Top Cats Hat said:

Anders Breivik was neither poor nor poorly educated.

 

The main guy in this attack isn't living in a sink estate somewhere. He has the social mobility and means to travel, and the ability to compose and publish a reasonably coherent 'manifesto'.

 

We need to look beyond EDL and UKIP members laughing and making jokes about the death of Shamima Begum's baby on facebook last week and recognise that there are elements of the far right primarily influenced by the US white supremacist movement who are organised and have the ability to hurt people.

 

Despite the effects of Trump/Brexit/populism, these people will never be anywhere other than on the fringes of society in most democracies but they do pose a danger.

Ok - perhaps he was rich (he was Norwegian after all), but I bet Breivik was still socially isolated and lived his life through the prism of social media...only interacting with people who shared his fringe views.

Stuck in a positive feedback loop, these fringe views became more and more amplified until he snapped.

 

Exactly the same could be said of Islamist terrorist who watched ISIS videos, day in day out, building up their extreme identity.

 

This is the reason I hate social media so much...unless you interact with a wide range of opinions you may find distasteful, you never get a balanced picture.

Humans need a balanced picture...as they are tribal animals with a strong group identity...that needs to be moderated by personal gradual experience of otherness.

 

Social media links you to a thousand causes (Political Islam, White Supremacy, Rotherham Grooming Gangs, Conspiracy Theories), all in milliseconds.

I think it should be banned in the name of the public good...it is harmful to mental health and group cohesion.

 

We need physical interaction to break all these barriers down...not interaction over HTTP.

[Hots on 10]

1 hour ago, K1Machine said:

Why did you watch it?

Genuine question,

 

53 minutes ago, tinfoilhat said:

Not having a pop here, but why did you watch it?

Just human morbid curiosity I suppose.

[melthebell 862]

23 minutes ago, Hots on said:

 

Just human morbid curiosity I suppose.

was gonna say, morbid curiosity, like the US captives etc that got beheaded over a decade ago, people watched those out of curiosity

[Penistone999 10]

1 hour ago, tinfoilhat said:

Not having a pop here, but why did you watch it?

I watched it myself on YouTube,  like millions of other around the world probably did.

[Top Cats Hat 10]

6 minutes ago, Penistone999 said:

I watched it myself on YouTube,  like millions of other around the world probably did.

And how did you feel about it?

[tinfoilhat 11]

44 minutes ago, Penistone999 said:

I watched it myself on YouTube,  like millions of other around the world probably did.

I don’t understand why though. It’s pretty much a snuff video isn’t it?