Mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio

  • Thread starter Novalee
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When I was in grade school, there were no drills for shooters, because there weren't any. However, there were "duck and cover" drills for Soviet strategic nuclear bomber attacks. Paranoid people in my neighborhood actually built backyard bomb shelters.

As the lives of young white men became increasingly meaningless and without purpose, that's when the mass shootings, not to mention suicide epidemic, in the USA really started. Social, cultural economic advancement left the young male a victim of a million years of evolution to hunt, kill and reproduce. And not do much else other than loaf, smoke and drink.
 
Dotini
As the lives of young white men became increasingly meaningless and without purpose, that's when the mass shootings, not to mention suicide epidemic
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Still waiting for an answer to the question I posed the last time you spouted this... line of thinking.

Danoff
Exactly what purpose do you think other people have?
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People other than young white males have the excellent purpose of obtaining work, raising families and maintaining a responsible place in society.
 
Dotini
People other than young white males have the excellent purpose of obtaining work, raising families and maintaining a responsible place in society.
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And young white males don't have those purposes? What do you think differentiates young white males from other genders or skin colors when it comes to purpose?

Edit:

It sounds, sortof, and I might be mishearing this, like you're saying that because they're white, young white males need not obtain work or be responsible. And that for some reason they have less reason, desire, or ability to raise a family?

It's very difficult to follow.
 
That definitely sounds like some old man bitterness. "Them young men with their long hair, smoking them marihuana cigarettes. Get a job you young punks!" Dot, you have said some absurd stuff, but that one single sentence right there takes the cake. Its like this old boss I had back when I worked in a pizza shop. He though society was going to $%!& because gen x and Millennials didnt have a "great war like WWII or Vietnam." What a weird philosophy. Society can only find equilibrium and meaning because of war?
I am curious too Dot, what is it that is lacking for these "young white males?" What is the cause to their lack of meaning?
 
Danoff
And young white males don't have those purposes? What do you think differentiates young white males from other genders or skin colors when it comes to purpose?

Edit:

It sounds, sortof, and I might be mishearing this, like you're saying that because they're white, young white males need not obtain work or be responsible. And that for some reason they have less reason or desire to raise a family?

It's very difficult to follow.
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It's actually very, very simple.

1) Society - our culture, economy, mores - has advanced and evolved very greatly over the past few decades.

2) Young white males are still afflicted with the same genetics and memetics they've evolved to over the last 100,000 years.

Young white males have the same needs, reasons and desires they've always had. But now they are much, much more difficult to realize. Bright, eager high school graduates can no longer go down to the nearest factory or mill and get a great job that buys them a house, car, stay-at-home wife and boat in just a few years. Women no longer fall all over them eager to get babies and have a daddy figure. Whether they know it or not, they are disillusioned, disenfranchised and alienated. Lacking purpose and meaning, they become slackers, dopers and fall into self-pity, self-loathing and destructive rages.
 
Dotini
It's actually very, very simple.

1) Society - our culture, economy, mores - has advanced and evolved very greatly over the past several decades.

2) Young white males are still afflicted with the same genetics and memetics they've evolved to over the last 100,000 years.

Young white males have the same needs, reasons and desires they've always had. But now they are much, much more difficult to realize. Bright, eager high school graduates can no longer go down to the nearest factory or mill and get a great job that buys them a house, car, and boat in just a few years. Women no longer fall all over them eager to get babies and have a daddy figure. Whether they know it or not, they are disillusioned, disenfranchised and alienated. Lacking purpose and meaning, they become slackers, dopers and fall into self-pity, self-loathing and destructive rages.
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And why is this specific to "white" or "male"? Or even really "young". Whatever you've said above could just as easily apply to any other arbitrary group. It almost looks like (and I could be wrong about this) you're trying to dodge the question.

Edit:

Did you mean to say Americans? Rather than young white males? Not that what you're saying is necessarily specific to America, but I could see it as a distinction between America and some other nations.
 
Danoff
And why is this specific to "white" or "male"? Or even really "young". Whatever you've said above could just as easily apply to any other arbitrary group. It almost looks like (and I could be wrong about this) you're trying to dodge the question.

Edit:

Did you mean to say Americans? Rather than young white males? Not that what you're saying is necessarily specific to America, but I could see it as a distinction between America and some other nations.
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Yes, IMHO this is specifically true for young, white American males. To a much lesser extent it applies to other males.
 
Dotini
Yes, IMHO this is specifically true for young, white American males. To a much lesser extent it applies to other males.
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I've asked you 4 times now to explain why you think that. You've not attempted to once. For the record, this is the 5th time.... why do you think that?
 
Danoff
I've asked you 4 times now to explain why you think that. You've not attempted to once. For the record, this is the 5th time.... why do you think that?
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You do not seem to even acknowledge what is it I think. To ask the question why - the question of motives - is possibly the very most difficult of all possible questions to ask anybody about anything. But anyway, just to make you happy, I think the way I do mostly because of direct, first-person experience. I'm in my 8th decade of life, I've lived on multiple continents, and I've seen a lot.
 
Dotini
You do not seem to even acknowledge what is it I think. To ask the question why - the question of motives - is possibly the very most difficult of all possible questions to ask anybody about anything. But anyway, just to make you happy, I think they way I do mostly because of direct, first-person experience. I'm in my 8th decade of life, I've lived on multiple continents, and I've seen a lot.
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"Trust me, young white males are different on this. I can't be bothered to explain how they're different, but it helps me explain why they shoot people so I'm sticking with it. Since I'm your senior, you need to accept this as wisdom."
 
Danoff
"Trust me, young white males are different on this. I can't be bothered to explain how they're different, but it helps me explain why they shoot people so I'm sticking with it. Since I'm your senior, you need to accept this as wisdom."
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Can you get it in your mind that US society has evolved, and young US white males haven't?
 
Dotini
Can you get it in your mind that US society has evolved, and young US white males haven't?
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Yes, US society has evolved. And yes, human biology has not*. That's true of men and women, and people of all skin colors and ages. The US happens to have men and women and lots of people with different skin colors living in it at lots of different ages. So none of what you've said distinguishes young white males.

* significantly, recently
 
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Danoff
Yes, US society has evolved. And yes, human biology has not*. That's true of men and women, and people of all skin colors and ages. The US happens to have men and women and lots of people with different skin colors living in it at lots of different ages. So none of what you've said distinguishes young white males.

* significantly, recently
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You still don't git it. But you will. :dopey:
The position, the opportunity, shall we say the privilege, the entitlement of young white men in US society has changed.
 
Dotini
You still don't git it. But you will. :dopey:
The position, the opportunity, shall we say the privilege, the entitlement of young white men in US society has changed.
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Are we talking about "young" people? Like, people who have not been adults long enough for their position, opportunity, privilege and entitlement to have undergone a change?

So now you're saying that young white men are specifically angsty about having jobs and families because it used to be... what... easier? to have those things? I'm not going to get it (at least in this conversation) if you can't explain it.
 
I'm a young(ish) white male.

I have pretty solid delusions of purpose.

I think a case could be made for young & rudderless conservative (as opposed to the less informative "white") males falling into isolation. I've thought about this, but it hasn't all quite gelled yet, so don't take this as a well-resolved thought, its a work in progress: Something about the ideals of individualism and the power of the ego (in the Randian way, a fixture of post-Reagan conservatism) not quite working out for the underachievers (AKA, the bottom half of the bell curve) and confronting the fact that you don't measure up to the very ideals you hold. I say this applies mostly/only to ungifted and secular conservatives. The true religious ones always have God to worry/think about. Liberals, on the other hand, can be slackers & losers, believe in nothing in particular, all day long without deep internal conflicts.
 
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Eunos_Cosmo
I'm a young(ish) white male.

I have pretty solid delusions of purpose.

I think a case could be made for young & rudderless conservative (as opposed to the less informative "white") males falling into isolation. I've thought about this, but it hasn't all quite gelled yet, so don't take this as a well-resolved thought, its a work in progress: Something about the ideals of individualism and the power of the ego (in the Randian way, a fixture of post-Reagan conservatism) not quite working out for the underachievers (AKA, the bottom half of the bell curve) and confronting the fact that you don't measure up to the very ideals you hold. I say this applies mostly/only to ungifted and secular conservatives. The true religious ones always have God to worry/think about. Liberals, on the other hand, can be slackers & losers, believe in nothing in particular, all day long without deep internal conflicts.
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Excellent! You are working on some potentially award-winning thoughts there. Keep 'em coming! 👍

The clinical psychology of mental health may be of relevance.

Are Conservatives Healthier Than Liberals?
Greater personal responsibility may give conservatives a health advantage.
Posted Feb 28, 2019

Political psychology has long been interested in psychological differences between people with conservative and liberal orientations. A recent paper provides evidence that people with conservative political attitudes tend to have better health than their liberal counterparts because of the former place greater value on personal responsibility (Chan, 2019). This may also be a reflection of higher
conscientiousness among conservatives.
-----------
A previous study suggested that self-ratings of conservatism tend to be more strongly related to attitudes to social rather than economic issues (Kemmelmeier, 2008), so if this is true then the results of the study are probably more related to social conservatism (i.e., adherence to traditional mores) rather than economic policies (e.g., advocacy of free markets). Additionally, health was rated by a single item. However, there is considerable evidence that single-item self-ratings of health are actually a reasonably good predictor of a person’s objective health status (Kööts‐Ausmees et al., 2016), so this study does provide valid information about the participants’ health.
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the third study took an experimental approach to try to establish a causal relationship between conservatism and health-related behavior. (To those who are unfamiliar with how things are done in social psychology, this might seem rather peculiar. To others, this might seem all-too-familiar.) This experiment involved attempting to manipulate participants to become temporarily more conservative or more liberal through a priming procedure. To do this, participants completed a word-scrambling task in which they had to rearrange presented words into a meaningful sentence. As the author explains, ‘To prime conservatism, words such as “traditional” and “conventional” were used; to prime liberalism, words such as “free” and “left-wing” were used.’ Apparently, merely reading these words is supposed to “prime” certain kinds of automatic thoughts outside one’s awareness that somehow influence one’s subsequent behavior. All participants in this study were smokers, and after the priming, they were asked about their intentions to quit smoking in the next three months. Additionally, they completed a brief measure of personal responsibility.

Amazingly, those primed with conservatism indicated greater intentions to quit smoking and greater value of personal responsibility than their counterparts primed with liberalism
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...e/201902/are-conservatives-healthier-liberals
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How weird are humans that we seem to need to look at the world through politically filtered lenses. "the liberals are better at being slackers and losers", "Conservatives are healthier because of responsibility." Everything turns into "us vs them."
 
Eunos_Cosmo
I think a case could be made for young & rudderless conservative (as opposed to the less informative "white") males falling into isolation. I've thought about this, but it hasn't all quite gelled yet, so don't take this as a well-resolved thought, its a work in progress: Something about the ideals of individualism and the power of the ego (in the Randian way, a fixture of post-Reagan conservatism) not quite working out for the underachievers (AKA, the bottom half of the bell curve) and confronting the fact that you don't measure up to the very ideals you hold. I say this applies mostly/only to ungifted and secular conservatives. The true religious ones always have God to worry/think about. Liberals, on the other hand, can be slackers & losers, believe in nothing in particular, all day long without deep internal conflicts.
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Failing to live up to your own standards is a common theme among all walks of life. The cycle of Islamic terrorism is deeply entrenched in this exact type of thing - where young people are told how to get into heaven, fail to live up to that standard, and fall back on Plan B - which is to die killing the infidels.

But I'd argue that the average age of the Islamic terrorist is a little higher than the average age of the typical school shooter. They seem to need to spend their 20s sinning before they're ready to fall back on plan B. School shooters are generally not old enough to have had any kind of understanding of adult life, let alone to realize that their adult goals will not be met.

I don't think that you can generate a specific cause for the psychological profile that results in a school shooter. But you certainly can try. For older mass murderers the causes are even more widely spread.
 
Danoff
Failing to live up to your own standards is a common theme among all walks of life. The cycle of Islamic terrorism is deeply entrenched in this exact type of thing - where young people are told how to get into heaven, fail to live up to that standard, and fall back on Plan B - which is to die killing the infidels.

But I'd argue that the average age of the Islamic terrorist is a little higher than the average age of the typical school shooter. They seem to need to spend their 20s sinning before they're ready to fall back on plan B. School shooters are generally not old enough to have had any kind of understanding of adult life, let alone to realize that their adult goals will not be met.

I don't think that you can generate a specific cause for the psychological profile that results in a school shooter. But you certainly can try. For older mass murderers the causes are even more widely spread.
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I was thinking about this while I was walking to the bus this morning.

I think before anyone coalesces around any firmly and personally held ideology, they generally absorb whatever is in their immediate surroundings. Most probably this is their parents ideology. It's their sort of adolescent "base condition". Combine that with a typical young persons yearning for....something, and hormonal spikes. You get young, uniformed people very passionate about something they don't understand. It's like Romeo and Juliet. They are too young to understand that their passion isn't really worth dying for, but that judgement is clouded by youth. One thing I've noticed across the board is that none of these school shooters are gifted people.

So you grow up under the influence of a conservative society (without fully grasping its foundations) that idolizes two things: God, and the heroic nature of man. But it's 2019 and God doesn't have much meaning anymore. So half of your foundation is gone. And then you realize that you really aren't all that heroic...maybe you struggle in school, maybe you don't get along with others. But yet you've been influenced, conditioned, for years to see great men (men as in males) as the ideal, and anything less is unfathomable. So both pillars are gone and all that's left is nihilism, 8chan, counterstrike, and GUNS. Guns are the tool for these folks to finally feel superior to the others. They can be the hero at last. It's all bottled up together tight. At least that's my theory.
 
Dotini
You still don't git it. But you will. :dopey:
The position, the opportunity, shall we say the privilege, the entitlement of young white men in US society has changed.
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You mean that young white males arent slavely doing what their told anymore and thinking more to themselves? How entitled!
 
You would still have to develop some sociopathic traits to do that, and those traits would be the most crucial to carry it out.
 
Now a mass shooting in downtown Seattle.

Reportedly, two men were arguing at the heart of the downtown shopping district. They drew and began shooting at each other. Eight bystanders were hit, including a 9 year old boy currently in surgery, and a 55 year old women, still lying dead on the street as the hunt for the escaped shooters goes on.
 
Touring Mars
Terrible news.

I wonder how long before the NRA recommends arming 9 yr old boys as a potential remedy for this kind of incident.
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And of course, the impressionable nine year old boys will buy into that, thinking guns make them “manly” and whatnot. This is how people are lured into the right-wing rabbit hole.
 
Touring Mars
Terrible news.

I wonder how long before the NRA recommends arming 9 yr old boys as a potential remedy for this kind of incident.
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It would probably be better to train criminals to shoot straighter!
These drug-dealers were gunfighting toe-to-toe at 3rd and Pine, between Macy's department store and McDonald's frequented by tourists, families etc., and they shot everybody but each other.

The hard leftist social engineers running Seattle have decided that downtown is a great place for the homeless and drug dealers. Police are not allowed to arrest and jail them, prosecutors are not allowed to prosecute. This is the 3rd drug related shooting within a 4 block radius in the past 3 days. The shooters escaped together into the subway system, and are still at large.

Edit: This is not intended to claim that there are zero arrests and prosecutions for street level drug crime, but to emphasize that the police are forced by policy to strictly limit enforcement according to the wishes of the city council and mayor.
 
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Dotini
Police are not allowed to arrest and jail them, prosecutors are not allowed to prosecute
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Unsurprisingly, this is in fact a lie.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/p...cking-organization-sentenced-125-years-prison

https://q13fox.com/2019/10/11/dario...arrants-for-same-crime-selling-crack-cocaine/

https://mynorthwest.com/1658698/seattle-police-drugs-fentanyl-seized-december-2019/

I suspect that you are conflating the fact that Seattle pushes users towards treatment while targeting dealers for arrest and presecution

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opinion/sunday/opioid-crisis-drug-seattle.html
 
 
Dotini
No, I am correct. You should be resourceful enough to read the local reporting.

https://www.seattletimes.com/opinio...eattle-violence-readers-say-enough-is-enough/
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No, you lied, evidence of arrests and convictions clearly shows that your claim of...

"Police are not allowed to arrest and jail them, prosecutors are not allowed to prosecute"

... To be just that, a lie.

If it were factually accurate no evidence of arrests, prosecutions and convictions would be available.

Nor is your source reporting, it's anecdotes.
 

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