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Buffalo bleeds today
News reports out of Buffalo, New York say a young man with a semi-automatic rifle and body armor shot up a grocery store - killing 10 people.
He's in police custody.
It seems the violence just keeps getting worse and worse.
-m
He's in police custody.
It seems the violence just keeps getting worse and worse.
-m
no subject
I am reminded of the Hymn to Breaking Strain
There is a lot of stress going around, the economy is making just daily living unindurible for some, people feel like the world is ending (and with some justification) and who knows what else is going on in someone's life.
Eventually, some of them will break, and like an overstressed cable, lash out blindly.
no subject
He came armed and armored. He drove several hours to the spot. He live streamed the shooting. He left a racial manifesto online. All of this shows thought and preparation. And money.
He didn't just 'break under the stress' - this was planned. He doesn't get a pass from me.
-m
no subject
Agreed, this was most assuredly NOT an impulsive act.
However, the thing is a lot of people forget that people can commit the most terrible atrocities while being quite rational and apparently sane. He was broken, somehow, but not in a way that drove him mad...
To put it another way, his ethical subroutines went off-line and he decided that the logical thing to do was commit an act of terrorism. It was a choice, but one that was based on some seriously twisted and insane assumptions about the world. Aka white supremacy.
Thing is, you have to ask why nothing in him told him this was the wrong choice...why ethical behavior went out the window. I'd argue that it was symptom of extensional stress. Or to put it crudely.. if you think the world is ending, and every day feels like battlefield, then it's pretty hard to give a damn and you end up not caring about anyone else.
We see this in a small scale with 'karen' like behaviour, with Trump supporters believing the most assine shit just to feel safe and not scared by everything (it's doesn't work, but you know, the rat keeps pressing the lever.) and so on...
Mass shootings are just the far end of a scale.