Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

[Friday]

The disconnect between real life and the internet actually sometimes makes people forget that you cannot commit crimes, like attempted murder/harm, over the internet.

As a thought experiment, imagine that (somehow) people could decide to actually kill their team mates in real life when they teamkilled at the start of the round in CSGO or whatever. Whole lotta dead people very quickly.

I mean, you can do that in real life at any time. Anyone can get a gun and go murder 5-10 people very easily. But that doesn't happen very often because people understand how awful that is and also that there will be very serious consequences.

Part of it, also, is the disconnect between personal and non-personal. The "press this button and someone somewhere randomly dies but you get 1 million dollars" thing usually has people saying OH MY GOD I WOULD MASH THAT SHIT OVER AND OVER but if you put a gun in their hand, and then pay them 1 million dollars to go assassinate that woman over there, they balk.

I don't know if you know this, humanity, but pressing that button is equally as horrible, retard.

[Thad]

Hm -- maybe. I think there's definitely a possibility that setting up that detachment between a perpetrator and a victim makes it easier, which is one thing that makes me uneasy about drone warfare.

But there's also a possibility that it's not the detachment, it's the convenience and the sense that you're less likely to get caught.

I heard some guy on the radio the other day yammering about how the horrible things people say on the Internet are the sorts of things they would never say to somebody if they had to look them in the eyes and see the pain on their face. To which my response was, "Clearly this man did not go to the same middle school I did." I think most of us can probably think back to our school days and remember people who didn't just pick on people who they could tell they were hurting, but targeted those people specifically.

I definitely see a serious and terrifying problem with lack of empathy in the Internet age. But I don't think the Internet has caused the problem, it's merely brought it to the surface. Part of it is convenience, part of it is anonymity (though it doesn't take much time on Facebook to see that people are happy to say terrible things under their real names), and I think a lot of it is reinforcement. The blessing and the curse of the Internet is that whatever you're into, you can find a group of people who are into the same thing. As I've said before, that was a real comfort to me as a kid who was into Nintendo and Tolkien, but it's also a comfort to people who are into hating women and Jews, and that's a serious problem we still haven't figured our way out of.

[Friday]

But there's also a possibility that it's not the detachment, it's the convenience and the sense that you're less likely to get caught.

Well, yeah. If your response to my gun vs button comparison was "but they could catch you if you used a gun, how would they catch you using a magic button" you might be a psychopath.

I was comparing them morally (in that they're the same), not pragmatically in regards to how likely it is you'd be caught.

But I mean, you're right. It turns out that yeah, a lot (more than most people assume/think) of humanity is actually pretty fucking psychopathic.

I heard some guy on the radio the other day yammering about how the horrible things people say on the Internet are the sorts of things they would never say to somebody if they had to look them in the eyes and see the pain on their face. To which my response was, "Clearly this man did not go to the same middle school I did." I think most of us can probably think back to our school days and remember people who didn't just pick on people who they could tell they were hurting, but targeted those people specifically.

Yeah, I've never bought into that whole idea. People were torturing each other with knives long before they could call people fags over the internet. The detachment thing is a factor, not the whole reason. Turns out (a percentage of) humans are just sort of shit in general. And that's not even getting into the whole "entirely amoral as long as profits are involved" greed shit that afflicts 50-80% of all large companies on the planet.

Imagine a corporation that can press a button that kills 5-10 people but increases their profit margins for that year by 0.01%. Guess what? Tons of corporations everywhere mash that button nonstop, right now, in real life.

[Thad]

Well, yeah. If your response to my gun vs button comparison was "but they could catch you if you used a gun, how would they catch you using a magic button" you might be a psychopath.

[...]

But I mean, you're right. It turns out that yeah, a lot (more than most people assume/think) of humanity is actually pretty fucking psychopathic.

That's not exactly what I was saying. I think most people are actually decent, at least one-on-one.

But when you network a huge portion of the population, a couple of things happen.

One is that the minority of people who are psychopaths are given more opportunity to act on their impulses with less fear of consequences than they would experience in meatspace.

Another is groupthink: people who aren't psychopaths, but have certain antisocial beliefs and biases that they'd probably keep to themselves in most cases, but when they're surrounded by a bunch of other voices saying things that reinforce those views, become more inclined to speak up. It's a lot easier to act like an asshole when everybody else around you is acting like an asshole too.

(The same could be said of all religions...)

As for the specific case we're talking about, who knows what the fuck was going through Rivello's head. Maybe we'll find out, maybe we'll never know.

My guess is "not a whole hell of a lot". Dude clearly was not much of a master criminal, what with the whole keeping a record of his intent to commit a crime and his understanding of the nature of that crime thing.

[Wheels]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/arts ... utism.html

Sesame Street introduces Julia, a muppet with autism.

[Mongrel]

"Fearless Girl" was commissioned by State Street Global Advisors as part of an advertising campaign and gender-diversity initiative. There is something pleasing about the fact that the Charging Bull, a global symbol of rapacious financial capitalism, is a piece of guerrilla art installed without payment or permission -- while the Fearless Girl, an egalitarian symbol meant to challenge the bull's soulless greed, is a piece of corporate advertising commissioned by an asset-management company.

Huh.

[Grath]

In more important news, FBI director James Comey admits under oath that he hates the Patriots.

[Yoji]

Huh, I guess John McCain got into a beef with Kim Jong Un for calling him a "crazy fat kid." They answered with the usual snarl of sacred destiny of cleansing fire yaddda yadda fart, and McCain had actually had a good comeback:

Still, it always feels gross to say some variant of "John McCain is right about a thing."

Also too, someone on Wonkette quips "Think it's hard being the only fat kid in school? Imagine being the only fat kid in your entire country."

[Blossom]

I mean, how about not attack someone's appearance in the first place? It's pretty easy.

[Mongrel]

TA is more or less right, but if it bothers Kim Jong Um, I'll give it a pass this time.

[Yoji]

Right. I was gonna say that in any other circumstance, he'd be right. But when we're dealing with a guy who lives in luxury while his people starve, some petty insults are the least he deserves.

I also have it on good authority that he smells like poop.

[Brantly B.]

Yeah, a little fat-shaming in that situation is called for. He should be ashamed.

Well, except for two little kinks:
1. Kim Jong Un's position is not entirely Kim Jong Un's fault, and despite his title of dictator, not something Kim Jong Un can really control.
2. The context isn't really a call-out, just a petty insult with an even pettier double-down.

McCain's the guy who can turn a justified criticism in schoolyard name-calling.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, a little fat-shaming in that situation is called for. He should be ashamed.

Well, except for two little kinks:
1. Kim Jong Un's position is not entirely Kim Jong Un's fault, and despite his title of dictator, not something Kim Jong Un can really control.
2. The context isn't really a call-out, just a petty insult with an even pettier double-down.

McCain's the guy who can turn a justified criticism in schoolyard name-calling.

Uh, WRT to #1... he has more power than about anyone else in the world to change that. Seems from most reports he's doubling down on murder, repression, and centralization of power than the other way around.

[Mongrel]

Speaking of NK, one of my Aussie friends got me so good just now.

Called frantically to tell me to check the breaking news because North Korea had just fired a nuke into Seoul. I thought he was reading some bullshit site or something because obv I couldn't find anything, so I asked for the link and then he admitted it was an April fools joke. IT'S NOT APRIL HERE YET YOU DIRTY CHEATER.

[Brantly B.]

Assuming the poor kid is even aware of what the fuck is going on under him and also assuming he has ever had any chance to build the sort of personal ethical framework to even make a decision about whether that's good or not, I'm pretty sure he'd be "Reharmonized" or something the moment he tried to put a halt on North Korea's Perfect Order whatever.

The whole fucking shitty situation is a terrifying example of a System exhibiting a sense of self-preservation. The damned thing doesn't benefit a single human being, not even the most corrupt elites, and yet no one person is going to be able to change it into something more suitable.


EDIT: Clearly in response to Mongrel's doublepost.

[Mongrel]

He received extensive education outside of the country, so he should at least have some awareness of how the outside world works, alternate modes of morality, etc. His elder brother, who also had an outside education chose to leave North Korea, so clearly a choice of SOME kind was possible to heirs of Kim Jong Il. In fact the point was that the elder brother was passed over because he seemed like he wasn't as willing to do what his father and grandfather had done where Kim Jong Um was.

To some degree, he's constrained by the machine, sure, but actions such as the murder of potential competitors such as other senior figures or his brother have been things that confirm he is committed to perpetuating and making the regime even more severe as well as bending it to his personal will. He bears clear responsibility. If nothing else, it takes a fairly cold blooded motherfucker to murder their own brother.

I don't think I can paint him as the victim. We can argue about *exactly* how much responsibility he bears, but I'm not changing my position that the majority share is his.

[Brantly B.]

Fine, then he's fat.

[Thad]

... So I take it everybody's cool with "crazy", then?

[Mongrel]

WaPo: Man forcibly dragged off* overbooked United flight to make room for United employees.

*and possibly beaten?

[Blossom]

Beaten bloody, yes. And, emphatically, Asian man. It is important to not bury the racism of this violence,where the airline looked at a plane full of white people and picked the Asian couple to eject to make room for their employees who had work tomorrow, and who they immediately called the cops on when they didn't want to leave.