12 shot dead at movie theater

[devilof76]

Thank ya.

 

[DarthNeil]

Great quote.

I think everyone acknowledges that. But again, where do we go then? I guess we just wait for the next one and then we all sit around and debate how crazy he was.

IMO the society, while not responsible for the actions, is slowly making it easier and more desirable for someone to CHOOSE that course of action.

Is it possible to turn the tide so that fewer people want to do it?

I completely agree that parenting is an obvious answer. Is it possible to turn the tide back toward good parenting?

Awesome analysis.

Yeah. Get out of people's homes, get out of their heads, get out of their bank accounts and their businesses. Let them live as though their lives belong to them, and they'll stop feeling like they have no control to such an insane degree that they hold all of us accountable, unleashing indiscriminate death in exchange for the suffering they think we caused.

Uber fantastic.

 

[King Darkness]

Very well said actually.

Uber fantastic.

Don't encourage him.

 

[ProgMatinee]

That really is a big thing. Give people their lives back so that they can develop some pride in their contribution to society.

Its almost like people don't have buy-in to the world they live in. I also think though that the scale and impact we have on the world needs to be recognized as being a small part to the overall existence and be ok with that.

I think too many young people are fixated with the number of people they impact, twitter, facebook, etc. Everyone wants to be famous. This kid achieved that.

 

[csi]

I think everyone acknowledges that. But again, where do we go then? I guess we just wait for the next one and then we all sit around and debate how crazy he was.

IMO the society, while not responsible for the actions, is slowly making it easier and more desirable for someone to CHOOSE that course of action.

Is it possible to turn the tide so that fewer people want to do it?

I completely agree that parenting is an obvious answer. Is it possible to turn the tide back toward good parenting?

completely disagree with the bolded part, and in my opinion that kind of thinking is what makes it easier for someone to choose that course of action. Hell why not do it, its not really my fault, I can just blame it on society later.

 

[ProgMatinee]

completely disagree with the bolded part, and in my opinion that kind of thinking is what makes it easier for someone to choose that course of action. Hell why not do it, I can just blame it on society later.

We don't live in a vacuum, its just not reality to think that everyone formulated their own actions with no influence from their surroundings.

Again, I'm not talking about responsibility. I'm talking about causality. People don't just formulate on their own to kill a bunch of people for no reason at all.

I'm not asking you to personally take blame for his actions. I'm asking do we as a society feed into the desire to do this sort of thing? I think we do.

 

[hairlesswookiee]

Yeah. Get out of people's homes, get out of their heads, get out of their bank accounts and their businesses. Let them live as though their lives belong to them, and they'll stop feeling like they have no control to such an insane degree that they hold all of us accountable, unleashing indiscriminate death in exchange for the suffering they think we caused.

Yes sir.

 

[csi]

We don't live in a vacuum, its just not reality to think that everyone formulated their own actions with no influence from their surroundings.

Again, I'm not talking about responsibility. I'm talking about causality. People don't just formulate on their own to kill a bunch of people for no reason at all.

I'm not asking you to personally take blame for his actions. I'm asking do we as a society feed into the desire to do this sort of thing? I think we do.

and I whole heartedly believe we do not. You can't say that society feeds the desire to kill and not blame society at the same time. Its a scape goat to say society feeds into the desire for people to kill plain and simple. Everyone who decides to kill someone has his or her own reason for doing it. Some are obvious like revenge, some are insane like voices in their head. There is no one causality in society that you can point to that "makes" someone take a life. And actually there are some people who formulate on their own to kill a bunch of people for no reason. The history books are filled with serial killers who did just that. People who were born without the ability to differentiate right from wrong. People who get a rise out of seeing animals/people suffer. But I'm sure the Dark Knight made him kick that puppy right

Thinking like that is what makes it easier for people to kill. Its not my fault, society made me that way.

 

[ProgMatinee]

There is no one causality in society that you can point to that "makes" someone take a life. And actually there are some people who formulate on their own to kill a bunch of people for no reason.

Thinking like that is what makes it easier for people to kill. Its not my fault, society made me that way.

We're going round and round because you refuse to move out of black and white land. I never said that "one" thing in society makes people kill. By putting up a black and white defense as you are here, you're basically saying that anything anyone has ever done to you or anything that you have ever done to anyone else has never held the slightest merit or impact on each other. If that's true, what's the point in this conversation?

 

[devilof76]

We don't live in a vacuum

You're right. We don't.

This society (and the world at large) imposes a hell of a lot of unchosen obligation on people. That's not influence so much as it is dominance. The more people you bind a single person to, the less of a person they are going to be. They become tools. At a certain point, the resentment becomes completely justified, but the object of resentment is everyone in general, and no one in particular.

Whose fault is it that I owe more taxes than I can afford to pay? Mine, because I chose not to pay them when I was told to. But who gave anyone the power to tell me I had to pay for the schemes they dream up? Taxes aren't my debt; they're the debt earned by people in power who assumed I would be happy to shoulder their ambition. How do they get away with it? There are people who want more spent on them, and there are people who don't mind enabling it. That's a lot of people, and I bet if I fired a random shot into the crowd, I'd take out at least one person who was genuinely responsible.

Would it change anything? No. Would it give me satisfaction? No. Would it punish the people who are ultimately responsible? No. Is it even remotely proportionate to the crimes committed against me? No, no, no, and no.

My rationality is fully in tact. It wouldn't matter how severely I believed society had screwed me over; I would not be able to inflict violence upon complete strangers. But I'll be damned if there aren't a hell of a lot of people out there who are dumber, angrier, and more emotionally volatile than I am. They won't care when it becomes too much for them. They won't be interested in justice. They will want retribution, and it won't matter who they have to slaughter to get it. All they'll know is society drove them to it, so anyone will do.

That happens because they aren't able to separate themselves from everyone else. They have lost the concept of being independently minded. They gave it up, or had it beat out of them, or whatever. Point is, they succumbed to the pressure. And yeah, the pressure came from without.

Don't encourage him.

 

[ProgMatinee]

I think that's sorta my point. Replace taxation with cruelty, neglect, loneliness, ridicule, abuse, perceived irrelevance, or something else and some people will burst. Combine this with what that person is influenced by such as music, movies or video games and the method of them bursting out can look like those movies, music or games.

Whether that happened here, who knows. I don't mean to blame it on those things, just saying they are a part of our consciousness and existence so of course to some degree they impact who we are and what we do, good or bad.

 

[thenammagazine]

Guess I need not bother to reply to the pic. Devil took care of that.

completely disagree with the bolded part, and in my opinion that kind of thinking is what makes it easier for someone to choose that course of action. Hell why not do it, its not really my fault, I can just blame it on society later.

It's easy to point the finger and blame society for a single person's actions rather than hold that person accountable, or the parents accountable if he's a product of poor parenting. As a matter of fact, that's one of the major problems, if not the main issue. Something bad happens and there's zero accountability. That's not society's fault. Why blame it on everybody else?

 

[csi]

We're going round and round because you refuse to move out of black and white land. I never said that "one" thing in society makes people kill. By putting up a black and white defense as you are here, you're basically saying that anything anyone has ever done to you or anything that you have ever done to anyone else has never held the slightest merit or impact on each other. If that's true, what's the point in this conversation?

alright smart guy, why don't you identify the problem and the solution? I am guessing you can't because there isn't one identifiable area that may lead to someone going nuts and killing a bunch of people. So if your not able to identify the cause and solution I ask you what is the point of the conversation? You started out saying that media (video games, comics, movies etc) had an affect, then backed off that. All I hear from you is that people do this kind of disgusting things because of societal influences. I say that's a cop out. Everyone is affected differently by all the different stimuli around them. You can't go and blame what they do on it. You are giving people an excuse, when there shouldn't be one. For all the supposed negative stimuli these people supposedly get, there is just as much, if not more, stimuli saying its wrong to take a life or hurt someone. If you see a specific problem that is causing people to kill please identify it and suggest a solution. Otherwise your conversation only serves to draw people away from the horrors of what actually happened and into some nonsensical land of he was a product of his environment. And that is only making excuses for what this evil being did. I would much prefer the land of black and white you say I live in, the the liberal land of its not really their fault, we are to blame you seem to enjoy.

 

[Niltusk]

alright smart guy, why don't you identify the problem and the solution? I am guessing you can't because there isn't one identifiable area that may lead to someone going nuts and killing a bunch of people. So if your not able to identify the cause and solution I ask you what is the point of the conversation? You started out saying that media (video games, comics, movies etc) had an affect, then backed off that. All I hear from you is that people do this kind of disgusting things because of societal influences. I say that's a cop out. Everyone is affected differently by all the different stimuli around them. You can't go and blame what they do on it. You are giving people an excuse, when there shouldn't be one. For all the supposed negative stimuli these people supposedly get, there is just as much, if not more, stimuli saying its wrong to take a life or hurt someone. If you see a specific problem that is causing people to kill please identify it and suggest a solution. Otherwise your conversation only serves to draw people away from the horrors of what actually happened and into some nonsensical land of he was a product of his environment. And that is only making excuses for what this evil being did. I would much prefer the land of black and white you say I live in, the the liberal land of its not really their fault, we are to blame you seem to enjoy.

I think thats the problem. People feel powerless to figure this out, so they want someone/something to blame.

The thing I find ironic is that regardless of all we've accomplished as a people over the thousands of years, people are in such an age of entitlement right now, that they want to scream for instant fixxes to issues like this tragedy, ignoring how far we have come as a people, when in fact that self entitlement attitude I think is a part of the equation to which they want to point fingers. What a freaking paradox.

 

[hairlesswookiee]

If I'm not mistaken the Swiss allow their citizens to arm themselves like crazy. They have some of the lowest shooting related incidents and I believe most were committed with illegal weapons.

So you have a country full of armed citizens and a low number of murders committed by firearms. Go figure.

This is a city called Kennesaw in Georgia. Their crime rate dropped by 50% after they made this law in the 80's. It continues to have one of the lowest crime rates in the US. Again, go figure.

I'm in Kennesaw. Great area.

I'm moving there one day!!!

ahh great, Dracula bringing his blame society nonsense into this thread too

Ignore feature?

 

[devilof76]

It's easy to point the finger and blame society for a single person's actions rather than hold that person accountable, or the parents accountable if he's a product of poor parenting. As a matter of fact, that's one of the major problems, if not the main issue. Something bad happens and there's zero accountability. That's not society's fault. Why blame it on everybody else?

Well, no. The person is still accountable. They were the ones who allowed themselves unrealistic expectations for which society owed them. But when you have a society that fosters that way of thinking, transmits it in every soundbite, and creates inescapable legal institutions to guarantee that it ossifies, there does come a point when society begins to ask for it. If people can't be bothered to think past their self-congratulatory bromides when they cast a vote, and never become aware of the long-range consequences of their chosen candidate's actions, whose fault is it when the chicken's come home to roost?

Art has similar effects, but unless people are required by law to subject themselves to the art which drives them to mass murder, there is no one but themselves to blame for the resultant condition of their mind. Force changes everything, and the only thing with that kind of power is government (which unlike the threat of a criminal, is all-encompassing and carries the imprimatur of civility).

 

[Niltusk]

Ignore feature?

You know, since you bring it up, theres a couple people I've thought about using that feature for, but does it make threads seem choppy?

 

[ProgMatinee]

Sorry, I don't claim to have the answer. That's the point of having the conversation. But in black and white land you're free to be the only person there and set your own rules.

Again, I'm not claiming the guilty (don't even need to call him a suspect) is not guilty of his own actions. No one at all is trying to divert blame or responsibility.

My question is "is there anything we as a society should change" and I guess you've answered your side sufficiently and thus no need to reply further, is that "nope, our actions, images and words can never ever contribute to the actions, images and words of another human being because we all are individual people on our own individual planets."

 

[Niltusk]

Well, no. The person is still accountable. They were the ones who allowed themselves unrealistic expectations for which society owed them. But when you have a society that fosters that way of thinking, transmits it in every soundbite, and creates inescapable legal institutions to guarantee that it ossifies, there does come a point when society begins to ask for it. If people can't be bothered to think past their self-congratulatory bromides when they cast a vote, and never become aware of the long-range consequences of their chosen candidate's actions, whose fault is it when the chicken's come home to roost?

Thats great on the outside, but dig deeper and it almost becomes a "the sheep deserve to be sheered for being sheep" analogy. No one victim is society, its a sum of millions.

 

[hairlesswookiee]

You know, since you bring it up, theres a couple people I've thought about using that feature for, but does it make threads seem choppy?

Yes and no. You still see some of their posts if another member quotes them so sometimes you're stuck reading what they say. I only have a handful of people on my list, and they're all people like Dracula.