Slashdot Mirror
YouTube Video Warned About School Shooting
mytrip writes to tell us that CNN is reporting at least eight dead in a Finland school shooting that was apparently planned out in graphic videos posted to YouTube. "YouTube appeared to have removed 89 videos linked to his account, many of them featuring Nazi imagery, shortly after the incident. Finnish media reported someone posted a message two weeks ago on the Web site, warning of a bloodbath at the school. A video posted earlier Wednesday, by 'Sturmgeist89,' was titled 'Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007.' 'Sturmgeist89' identified himself as Auvinen, and said he chose the name 'Sturmgeist' because it means 'storm spirit' in German."
While it's reasonable to assume that some people will react with "We should ban X" -reactions, judging from the recent local news (I live in Finland) I think this time around there will be more talk about how no one noticed what was happening inside the shooters head and less about what to blame.
Interestingly, the news interviewed a friend of his who apparently hadn't noticed anything much more than the kid keeping to himself. It seems to have come as a surprise to everyone.
The shooter's manifesto also claimed that he did not wish anyone to be blamed for his own actions. It seems he saw the media reaction coming.
Ultimately, much depends on the survival of the shooter. When I last saw the news at 22:00 local time he was alive but in a critical state after having shot himself in the head. If he does survive the aftermath will hopefully have less guessing to be done.
There's a Wikipedia article about the Jokela school shooting as well, with some bits and pieces of information.
.: Max Romantschuk
The eternal question: Is he just messed up, or is he scary messed up?
People always telegraph their intentions beforehand, but seeing it is almost always reserved for after the fact. Most attempts to predict this sort of behaviour run aground on the fact that it doesn't sound all that different from regular messed up behaviour. Of course a lot of people would like to stomp that out, but a lot of antisocial people still don't go to the point of mass murder...or even solo murder, or self-murder.
I look at things like this, and my first response is never: "Oh gosh, we should have seen it coming!" For every real nutjob, there are a hundred others who are just being young, alienated, and angry. Every quasi-normal action is held up as a "warning sign" and every admittedly abnormal action is magnified, and then used to villify people who "should have seen it coming."
I don't know. Just my experience that, every time something like this happens, it's used as an excuse to harass people who don't fit the "normal" mold, whatever the hell that is, and when, in reality, 99% of the people you're harassing have done nothing wrong, and will do nothing wrong.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
God the PATRIOT act is a fricking nightmare. Has it made anyone safer?
The real issue is, 9/11 won't happen again. As a country, we've learned our lesson about "just sit tight and wait" when it comes to plane hijacking. Box cutter? You best have a flamethrower next time, because me and everyone in business class are going to beat you to death with our laptops as soon as you start trying to wave that piddly crap in our faces. Akbar Macbook, Bitch!
It was a surprise. People bought it. That day has passed. But in response we have done unto ourselves far worse things than they could have ever hoped to have accomplished. Massively stupid.
And we will have other successful attacks on our soil. It's inevitable that, over time, everyone will miss someone. The occasional deranged teen will go on a shooting rampage. The occasional terrorist will pull off a successful attack.
But the fact that there is a possible danger is not a reason to upend your entire society. Analyze, find your mistakes, and correct them...Don't throw out a system that failed once, and try to replace it whole cloth with something new, designed by committee! Ridiculous.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I don't understand why it's so hard for people to understand that violent fantasies -- not actions, but fantasies -- are therapeutic and cathartic. Dante wasn't a crazed devil because he imagined and wrote The Divine Comedy. Nor was Shakespeare because he wrote King Lear and Macbeth. Look at just about any piece of creative work and you will find violence and usually a non-psychotic who wrote it.
There is a difference between things that feel good and things that are good for you. Catharsis feels good. Freud told us that catharsis was good for us. Freud also was full of shit.
Here's the deal. Our lives are full of circumstances that provoke us or challenge our assumptions and expectations. If you let things continue to do that, you will have anger. There are many ways to deal with this:
1. Accept the limitations of the situation. Find other ways to get what you want.
2. Use the anger to get energy to overcome the challenges in ways that respect others.
3. Use the anger to get energy to overcome your sense of empathy and ignore the rights of others.
4. Ignore your desire to do something about the challenges. Get depressed.
Violent fantasies do not reduce anger. "Venting" does not reduce anger. They both just increase it. You don't realize that they increase anger when you do it, because anger without a solution feels bad, and dominance and/or validation from others feels good. The good feeling you get after violent fantasies or from venting is not the antithesis of the original anger you felt, though- it's a reward for your anger. This can be good, if you were doing strategy 4 and, because of your increased anger, are ready to go to strategies 1 or 2. But if that's not the transition in strategies that's going to take place, then there's no benefit.
Side note: where did people get the idea that "therapeutic" meant "feels nice"? Improving one's health (mental or physical) very often involves sacrifice and changing habitual ways of thinking and acting. Things that feel nice like "therapeutic" shampoo or "therapeutic" massages or "therapeutic" whatever do nothing by themselves to promote growth or change.
The holocaust refers to the mass exterminations of Jews AND homosexuals AND gypsies AND whoever else was included in the purging of human life. It is an event that is named the holocaust. It's not a special "Jew massacre". The only thing that smacks of racism is you believing that it is somehow exclusive to Jews and disliking it for that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears (forced relocation, numerous examples here as well)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre (machine guns turned on women and children)
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/281/22/2127.pdf (smallpox used as a biological weapon)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_treaties (hundreds of broken treaties)
I'm already bored with this, but I could certainly keep going.
I'll grant you that the holocaust is far more recent, but that doesn't really make it somehow more terrible nor more relevant.
Lots of people get the shaft on a regular basis. Yes, European Jews of the 40's are in that crowd. No, we probably shouldn't infringe on someone's right to question whether or not it happened (or at least happened exactly as it was reported.)
If I have to permit people to claim that there is no God, you also get to permit people to claim things you believe to be false.
Right?