Now with a new computer (thanks, Dr. Evil), so expect some high speed, low drag kinda contextualizing from here out, brothers and sisters. Or more likely, more of the same, but with fewer cries of frustration from this side of the conversation.
While fixing dinner last night, I heard this line: “But since you’re accusing me I might as well be guilty.” It struck me a such an odd bit of passive/aggressive nonsense, or victim blaming that it stuck with me. Then this morning I came across a report about a 33 year-old man who stabbed his father to death while ranting about some secret pedophile ring run out of a DC pizza joint. This was but one of many conspiracy theories he bought into.The 911 call from his frazzled parents on the day of the stabbing has been released and it is unsettling to say the least. At the beginning of the call, the mother sounds almost bored, as in “here we go again,” but by the end of the call, her husband is dead. At one point during the call (calls, actually), the man can be heard saying, “OK well, so here’s the deal. If I am going to go to prison for threatening to kill somebody, I mean…” before fatally stabbing his father with a kitchen knife, stabbing him in the chest and back.
There are plenty of questions to be asked here: why is a grown man living with his parents? was he unemployed because he was unemployable? would he have been such a conspiracy nut if he did not spend hours upon hours chumming up to—and arguing with, I’m sure—other conspiracy nuts? But one question that plagues me concerns the responsibility of website owners and managers in instances like this. Legally, I think they are on firm footing, as long as they make the minimum effort to discourage and report unlawful behavior, but what about ethically? This man frequented Reddit, which I have a slight familiarity with, but was also a long-time contributor to the Ralph Retort, a far right fringe group deeply mired in GamerGate, and was a collaborator with Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart infamy. What does a society with a deep belief in the principal of freedom of speech and association do when the hubs of these associations are frequently destructive to that very society? The easy answer is a better educated populace, but I am not convinced that’s likely or even possible. The dummies and simps have alway been amongst us, it’s just that they were previously unable to make their voices heard beyond the local tavern or fraternal lodge, you know places that had rules of conduct and social norms.
The essence of freedom is having the opportunity to make unwise use of it. I might even argue that unwise use is a necessary part of learning to be free. Of course, there’s the risk of madness, and anyone making threats to kill other people needs a social response to address that problem. That said, when we talk about social norms, they are often the source for bad ideas and individual and group violence, far worse than what is posed by any individual. Any non-conforming individual or group — from atheists to Anabaptists, from the stranger to the mentally ill… Read more »
I’ll agree with you on much of this, but I will also add that by education I mean the actual smartenizing of the people so that they are not as prone to believe everything the see, read or hear.
Hard to Manufacture Consent if you have a population inoculated against propaganda. Better to just supply enough education to have people capable of operating a cash register or drone – until that also can be automated. The few kooks that get through just serve to validate the surveillance state, that’s win/win from a certain perspective.
Not disagreeing with you. I just worry when people point to social norms as a modulating factor, because it always makes me think of lynch mobs.