Commodore Remix

Piet_B wrote:Someone near there heard about it?

"Heard about it" would be a gross understatement - it's completely taken over every medium of discussion in the country. In a rather macabre way it demonstrates what it means to live in an information age: an event of such magnitude generates a huge quantity of information, from facts to opinions to outright lies, and the information rapidly flows out from ground zero to flood every available pool and niche. I've seen it reported on the Web at all major international news sites, as well as in some high-profile blogs such as Pharyngula at ScienceBlogs.com.

It's a horrible tragedy, of course, but what's almost equally horrible is how quickly some people have rushed in to twist its meaning toward their own ends. The manifest left behind by the shooter is making things worse, because it gives pretty much everyone something to latch on to. Those wishing to raise hysteria about the dangers of videogames tout the fact that the killer was into first-person shooters. Those who oppose the theory of evolution are having a ball with the killer calling himself "natural selector" and wanting to eradicate those he deemed unfit to live. Those looking for reinforcement for their anti-Americanism overemphasise the example set by American school shootings and the (completely predictable) gloating of the Westboro Baptist Church, as if those are somehow representative of the U.S. in general. There's a deeply bitter irony in the realisation that so many people, while professing a devotion to making the world a better place, are actually acting out the killer's slogan, "humanity is overrated".

Apart from that loud minority, the general mood here seems to be one of solemnity and mourning mixed with disbelief. I expect that the speculation on what makes a young man's mind snap like that will run its course without reaching any conclusive answers, since the shooter fired his final round into his own head and died in hospital before the end of the day. Personally, I just hope this will remain an isolated incident and won't provoke any overblown and oppressive countermeasures in the name of making our society "safer".

The mindset that created that situation is not uncommon, unfortunately. I wonder how far gone into its own delusions a mind has to go before it's not able to be rescued: like a computer that's gone so badly wrong the only thing you can do is reboot it. What Youtube does is to bring diseased minds out into the open: it might not be pleasant, but if people actually paid attention to the signals, these things could be stopped before they happened. That's if Governments actually cared a damn about mental illness, which is doubtful. They'd rather respond with platitudes to a disaster than spend money on a system which actually repairs people.

The gunman appears to have been a bit Darwinian by exterminating himself, in that he was defective and committed suicide (and therefore not fit). Kind of ironic.

Chris

I bet we will see more of this in years to come.

The younger generation was sold out over the course the last two decades and many young people could not stand the pressure involved, so you have lots of no-future, violent-denial and god-knows-what types running around who don't find their place in life as they were ignored, bullied or considered human trash. If one of those snaps, media presents him with lots of stuff, prime examples to retaliate, revenge of the losers and such stuff and outright cults where people celebrate those frustrated murderers.

How fucked up is this place?!

Seems I have to gather some people and retreat to Neuschwabenland.

Piet_B wrote:Someone near there heard about it?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21686096/" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

There was a YouTube Video online some days before...it seems to be a great disaster.

We're living in a wrong world full of unspoken problems. It's time to change right now and I mean everyone!

And you're going to change... how, exactly?

Chris

Is that a threat.

Yes, that was also a tragedy. And media and politicians exploited it to harass citizens with new stupid laws and bans and whatever crap. Since then they try to ban computer games like Counter-Strike because nobody looked at the real circumstances but blamed "killer games" for what happened there. It's a mess.

In my own personal opinion and as much as people will argue against it. We need a nuclear war and im talking EVERYONE with capabilities flinging it in whatever direction. In the aftermath of that maybe those that survive will learn to appreciate life a little more and stop playing the fucking martyr.

Its a gift, there were around 4million other sperms swimming with you when you came out .. and you won, your gift, spend it well.

Infamous wrote:Its a gift, there were around 4million other sperms swimming with you when you came out .. and you won, your gift, spend it well.

Agree

Unfortunatly the ppl who goes "crazy" spend it in killing or other bad things, witch they think is their gift "to man kind"

Just read about that today. Here is an English article: http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 95,00.html" target="_blank

I guess the moral of the story is that these people seem to be boastful about what they are planning. If police or other authorities look hard enough they can find the signs that these idiots leave behind.

Though it's questionable if those idiots where boasting or really up to something. Good that people did react to the threats and police was fast enough to prevent a possible desaster.

Well... I can almost feel the excuses: too much horror films, evil music and - of course - Killergames... f*ck those politicians who will undoubtly jump on the train to demand more restrictive laws and bans and whatever crap they want.

The 17 year old plotter of the rampage committed suicide after escaping from the police station. Now they're blaming the police for his death, claiming they would have needed a psychiatrist and didn't take enough care. They're also blaming them because it seems that both kids had revoked the idea weeks ago.

Honestly sometimes I don't understand people. What were the police to do? The guy did not in fact commit a crime. They couldn't lock him in jail or something. I hate it when people blame others that 'they should have known before it happened'. I mean of course the guy was a wretch, and there's a certain amount of pity I can hold for him. But looking for a scapegoat is helping noone. Instead they should be happy that this time people were alert.

The media will never allow the police to do anything right. If there are violent riots, and the police use force, they're almost always blamed for using too much force. If they don't use force, they'll be blamed for being too passive. If they don't prevent a crime, they're being seen as useless. When they do prevent a crime, they'll be blamed for doing something wrong in the process.

I find it highly ridiculous really - while at the same time I do believe it to be dangerous to give too much power to the police force. None the less, they're rarely given credit for anything they do.

It's very easy to point at people and say "You should have known/done/prevent..."
Well, if that has to be correct WHERE THE HELL WERE THAT SMARTPANTS (WHO CRITICIZED POLICE) IN THE FIRST PLACE? They should have also seen the event coming! Or did they forget to dust off their personal Palantir? No scrying glass, no visit to the old gypsy lady? No devine inspiration? Aw, feck off.

OK, so there's a confused minor who gets questioned by the police, since he has supposedly been planning to commit a massacre at his school - not exactly the kind of thing people do when they are in a mentally stable condition. And what do they do afterwards? They just send him on his way back home. Alone. Call me smartpants if you like, but even police psychologists have lambasted this decision in the meantime...

Did you ever had some smartass at your school who made a prank with a bomb threat?

Police was pretty convinced that massacre threat was a lame prank, a modern version of the bomb threat, nothing more. So they let him go. If they really thought he was a threat they would have taken him in custody until he was thoroughly checked on.

Well, they were wrong. So he is dead. Bad luck. Nothing but precognition could have seen this end coming. Now we are smarter. He is still dead, so it's pointless. If police had held him in custody, later on it would have been called a police arbitrary act.