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The Internet Is Now Part of the Crime Scene
theodp (442580) writes "Over at Forbes, Kashmir Hill examines the disturbing Internet footprint of Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger. 'A decade ago,' observes TechCrunch's John Biggs in The Internet Is Now Part Of The Crime Scene, 'a crime scene was a photo and a report. Now it is a sea of interconnected tracings, the murderer bobbing loosely in social media and the forums. We can watch him make his way through these straits, we can watch the madness growing, and we can watch his terrible end, all through murk of media. We are quick to judge and we are quick to look at his wake and say, definitively, that he was this or he was that. He was frustrated. The frustration grew. He went to a place he thought would help. It didn't.'"
..the places where he made the shootings and possibly where he prepared.
the internet is not a "crime scene"(for this) any more than the postal system and newspaper opinion pieces were 30 years ago..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Like pretty much any invention mankind has ever come up with, the Internet can help or hurt. If someone is feeling upset over something, they can turn to friends online for help and can get assistance, support, and guidance through their troubled times. Or, if they aren't as lucky or don't look in the right places, they can find abuse hurled at them, idiots saying "Why don't you just kill yourself" and the like, or an echo chamber where particular prejudices are amplified and focused against Group X being the cause of all of the person's problems.
This isn't really that different from a distraught person seeking help from others via face-to-face social interaction except that the "kill yourself" jerks are probably somewhat less likely to say that to a person's face. Then again, some people I've met in person don't seem to care at all if what they say/do hurts another person. In fact, they consider hurting another person as "harmless fun." These people would be jerks even if the Internet had never existed.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
No wonder people keep committing mass killings: they see the people that killed before them and see someone who was invisible, that no one paid attention to, become a household name. How many people here know the name of the person that shot up Sandy Hook, or the Colorado movie theater, this guy, or Columbine? Now, name me some of their vicitms? You can't. People that feel unstable, or feel marginalized and that no one ever notices them or cares about them, they already need mental help. If they turn to the internet, post videos on youtube or write blogs, they get pushed over the edge even more when no one watches their video, or people write negative comments. They get to the point where the only way to get noticed is to start killing people. If they do that they become famous, everyone starts talking about them. When you see yourself as only something they might see killing as the only way to become someone. Stop publishing the names of these killers, stop implicitly glorifying these people, and killings will drop. We also need to improve mental health treatment in the country, but that's a whole other topic.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The NSA isnt WATCHING, they are RECORDING and STORING for later use. Its a very different game.
Good-bye
If someone is feeling upset over something, they can turn to friends online for help and can get assistance, support, and guidance through their troubled times.
Internet "friends" are no such thing - they are just electronic ghosts of people. The relationship is superficial and shallow - no matter how nice it is.
Nothing beats face to face interaction with someone. Nothing.
We have mirror neurons that allow us to connect and help with emotional regulation.
That kid didn't have adequate real personal connections. From what I've read, his family sounds pretty fucked up and mix in any mental illness this kid had (reported Aspie), you get the actions he committed.
If there was someone who was able to be a real friend to this guy (a VERY tall order considering his previous assaults, abusive actions and emotional issues), maybe - maybe the shooting wouldn't have happened.
Kids like this usually find "healthier" outlets for their rage like boxing, for example - see Mike Tyson.
It's pretty sad when folks spend all their time online and consider their online contacts as friends.
Now for the thick headed, I am NOT talking about communication with your real friends with email or posting to your friends about meeting up at Joe's Bar for happy hour. I am talking about the phony "friends" that are only online with no physical contact.
really? because I would wager that a number of us here have been shit on for a large portion of our lives, being the geeks and nerds and all. Ive never killed anyone
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
This is what narcissistic psychopaths do; they blame other people for their own problems. Girls don't want to go out with me. It's clearly their problem, nothing to do with me, so I will kill them all.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
From what I have gathered, he didn't even speak to them. He simply expected them to come up to him and lust after his cock or something. It is really bizarre. He had no social skills *at all*,
Possibly because that's how things looked to him. Any skil set (including "social skills") can look like magic to someone who does not posess it. Quite a bit of social interaction, including sexual, is "non-verbal". (Sexual encounters which involve little even no verbal communication certainly do happen.) People with good non-verbal communication skills are often less conciously aware of non-verbal communication than those who are poor at non-verbal communication. With the former even assuming that all communication is verbal.
which seems to have been the result of him being awkward around the time high school started and him retreating into video games, mainly WoW.
More likely this was a reaction to his lack of social skills. Whilst the lack of a non verbal communication channel, in text based chat, is often considered a handicap this dosn't tend to be the case people who have difficulty with non verbal communication. Especially if their non verbal illiteracy means they are effectivly sending out "noise".
Being verbally literate but non verbally illiterate appears to be especially confusing to the verbally and non verbally literate majority.
In Western cultures, possibly others, whilst verbal communication is typically taught to both children and adults non verbal communication typically isn't.