Hacker News Reader

This has video-games-cause-violence vibes. People don't become mass murderers because they read a comment on the internet.

Marc Lépine's manifesto (he walked into Montréal's Polytechnique and killed 14 women and shot several more, he was blaming them studying and feminism for his not getting accepted) is treated as gospel on incel forums. Many acts of incel/misogynist terrorism have been committed by people who frequented such forums. Ideology is not videogames and does have an impact on people's actions. You can look at the whole history of the 20th centuries' wars for another very obvious example.

I don't need others to decide what ideology I need to be protected from for me. I'm much more concerned about the ideology of the people who think information control is justifiable.

Others are responsible for their own actions. Don't impose information control on me because others do stupid shit.

>I'm much more concerned about the ideology of the people who think information control is justifiable.

Indeed. That's only to justify blatant censorship. Reading books doesn't cause people to kill other people. If someone kills someone after reading a book, that person already had huge issues and was on the edge to kill already, and instead of a addressing the issue by investing more in helping those with mental illnesses, we take the dumb cheap and easy way out of blaming books, video games, forums, incels, toxic masculinity, etc.

Everyone is quick to blame incels but nobody asks why do men become incels in the first place and how to prevent that by addressing the causes and not the effects.

The truth is our current society has a disproportionate lack of safety nets and help available to males and male issues, when compared to females, hence why there's 10x the rate of suicides and homelessness for males vs females, and is also one of the reasons why men have statistically been going more conservative and right wing in the last decade or so. Yet nobody talks about this or wants to do anything to address this and just resorts to shaming men who draw attention to this as incels and "far right" and calls it a day.

When society takes away young men's communities (previously it was the church) and purpose in life, their prospect of building a family, good job (men used to be able to support a family by bolting bumpers to Fords in a factory) and owning a home, and demonize them for the sins of their fathers (patriarchy and male Privilege) while depriving them of any help, it's no surprise they become radicalized against the society that hates them and that void gets filled by manosphere bros who tell them it's the fault of the Rothschilds and that all women are hoes.

"Won't someone think of young men!" is a point that won't travel far because the world is owned and ruled by men, young and old. Of course, most men are poor and powerless in comparison. So they (we) rage against those we do have some power over.

Changing healthcare and the culture is necessary. Because healthcare is only effective when men are willing to accept it, not cling to harmful ideas like "only the weak take meds / do therapy / cry / talk about their feelings / avoid violence".

But it's also like trying to stop shit rolling down hill. Ultimately we need to stop the source of the problems and limit the damage of those that slip through the cracks. And the manosphere and machismo culture are part of the problem, not innocent symptoms.

Said another way, the problem is multi-faceted and there is no silver bullet.

>the world is owned and ruled by men

These kind of extreme statements just help to feed the divide. Sure in one sense it's a true statement, but it is a very small minority of men that actually have any of this power or wealth you speak of. Why should the rest, including the marginalized men who are worse of than many women (in terms of suicide, working dangerous jobs), not be defensive as a response to such claims? It is completely irrelevant to them that Mansa Musa was the richest person in the world and a man long before they were born. It is completely irrelevant to them that the president of the united states is a man. They don't stand to gain anything from that.

Focusing on class is a much more fruitful endeavor because it unites the groups that are actually harmed instead of dividing them. Anything else plays into the hand of the elite, and if I was them I would be laughing at you for taking the bait of continuing this culture war.

Fair point, and I tried to call that out elsewhere in my comment. Though IMO it's not entirely a class problem. Males as a gender do have certain tendencies that require (more? different?) nurturing to avoid antisocial outcomes. (I say this as a male who has struggled with antisocial behavior and seen it in my peers.)

That says something about you and your peers, but nothing about "all men are bad".

I've not said "all men are bad". I've said the manosphere and machismo culture are bad.

>"Won't someone think of young men!" is a point that won't travel far because the world is owned and ruled by men, young and old

If you demonize all current generation men in such a reductionist radical fashion, because of a handful of bad apples of men from previous generations, why are you surprised men now become radicalized against women and against society demonizing them? If someone would hate you and discriminante you based on an immutable characteristic like gender, wouldn't you be upset and vocal about it and look to vote for someone who promises to be on your side? How can we punish a group of people today for the original sin?

>Because healthcare is only effective when men are willing to accept it

Most men aren't in the luxurious position to be able to refuse care that's not even offered to them in the first place. Hence the 10x more homelessness and suicide than women. If you're a woman in risk of unemployment, homelessness or suicide, you have dozens of decent options of help available for you both public and private. If you're a man in the same situation, you have much fewer and of lower quality options or even none at all, or worse, a lot of "help" available for men is just telling them how they're priviledged and they need to shut up and man up and stop bitching about it.

You can't tell me with a straight face there is no gender discrimination and anti-male bias here.

>And the manosphere and machismo culture are part of the problem, not innocent symptoms.

No. The core problem is societal anti male bias and discrimination which you pointed out yourself in the first phrase. The manosphere is not the cause, it's the release valve of the pent up frustrations of an entire generation.

Who is demonizing all men?

Since when do women have more job opportunities than men? Certainly not true in most of the US and certainly not for the same pay.

Society isn't anti-men. Society very clearly fears men, as both males and females should. Because men are -- as a group -- far more dangerous than females. There are many societal controls to counter act that danger. Until the rich no longer exploit the weak, and leave them powerless and without adequate healthcare, AND male culture becomes more pro-social and willing to accept help, things won't improve.

>Since when do women have more job opportunities than men?

It's not about raw absolute numbers but DEI policies in companies and some gov jobs, have made plenty of good white collar jobs restricted to only women or giving priority to female candidates at the expense of competence, which is legally speaking just gender discriminations with a PR spin on top. You are not allowed by law to discriminate job candidates by immutable characteristics like gender.

>Because men are -- as a group-- far more dangerous than females

Treating men, and individuals generally, as a group based on statistics is just discrimination legally speaking. Imagine saying that society should fear black people because they are more dangerous because statistically speaking they're more likely commit more crimes than whites. That's the same kind of discrimination. Are you ok with this?

>Until the rich no longer exploit the weak

What does this have to do with the life of average men? 99,99% of men individually, are not rich and powerful enough to cause oppressions at societal level. Lots of global oppression is happening due to capitalist corporate greed which are a collective hive mind, at which many women are also at the helm on boards and help enable this oppression. It has nothing to do with gender.

>AND male culture becomes more pro-social and willing to accept help

Please share what help are men getting and refusing. You're creating this narrative around "male culture this" and "male culture that" not backed by any facts.

> Treating men, and individuals generally, as a group based on statistics is just discrimination legally speaking. Imagine saying that society should fear black people because they are more dangerous because statistically speaking they're more likely commit more crimes than whites. That's the same kind of discrimination. Are you ok with this?

Let’s take this to an extreme. Is there any point at which such discrimination becomes acceptable?

Hypothetically, if it was known that 99 out of every 100 people who have a specific tattoo are predatory, violent muggers, should people not fear and be particularly cautious around that entire group?

Assuming, solely for the sake of argument, that instead of a tattoo the indicator is a particular race, but the numbers are the same, does that change anything?

You argue against things you disagree with, you don't suppress them. When you suppress them, you just turn them into mystery religions.

Also, incels don't need a manifesto to learn how to hate women. The reason they were looking for the manifesto is because they hate women.

Perhaps the issue with "the Internet enables self-learning" is that people just read the arguments they like and dismiss the ones they don't like; however perverse it is, there's some merit to an authority figure/your friends in a classroom saying "you're wrong" -- but then again, in the Taliban-ruled areas of the United States they teach that evolution is a lie.

I can see how a manifesto saying "the truth is, women are [bla bla bla], therefore [bla bla]" can make sense in a superficial level (and gives twats like Jordan Peterson an air of intelligence), and can be persuasive to incels.

Of course suppression isn't the answer either.

The movie Natural Born Killers apparently inspired several mass shootings (most notably, Columbine)

Even if media (social or otherwise) can influence people to commit violence, does that justify censorship?

"Inspired" seems perhaps too strong a word for the connection.

Can you say that, had Natural Born Killers not been made, there would have been no Columbine? I contend that it would have happened anyway. If that movie didn't exist, they would have found another movie to imitate, or even one of the other things they were interested in, such as DOOM or whatever. Correlation not causation.

Sure, you could remove both Natural Born Killers and DOOM and KMFDM and whatever else, but then they would have moved to something else. You can't ban everything just because some sick people might enjoy it.

How many mass shootings have been inspired by the bible or the quran, or The Catcher in the Rye?

Nope, wrong cause direction. Do people never become mass killers to get attention? Does giving mass killers more attention, making them famous affect anything, maybe encourage more?

"No" is a reasonable response if you can support it.

You know what the actual biggest difference between countries with large amounts of mass killings and those that don't is? Gun control.

Luigi Mangione's comments on stack overflow don't even register in terms of violence caused.

These kinds of removals are simply attempts at information control by the elite, and -- assuming you're not part of the 1% -- you're playing straight into their hand.

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." - Karl Marx

Mexico has virtually 0 legaly owned firearms. Total gun control. Yet they have large amounts of mass murders.

Guns being illegal without being enforced isn't gun control. That much should be obvious.

It is enforced. No one legally has guns.

Legality and enforcement are orthogonal concepts. They should align, but sometimes they don't and you get an unenforced law.

Obviously, less people's behavior will be changed if there are no consequences to doing the illegal thing.

Gun control implies the need for enforcement, because you need to act on something in some way to control it. A piece of paper with some words on it (which is what an unenforced law is) can't act on people by itself.

That's not the point. If everyone has an illegal gun, that's a law not being enforced and mass murder is all-but guaranteed.

Only the cartels have guns, it's what enables them to use them against those who do not and it is why they can commit such atrocities unimpeded.

How does the last part follow from any of the previous parts?

> Luigi Mangione's comments on stack overflow don't even register in terms of violence caused.

This is completely and totally true.

Totally irrelevant in terms of what policy /should/ be and one of the reasons to move it away from one example because what fits one example may not be generally applicable. I have not and do not stick up for S.O.

Marx, yeah nah I don't think he's helpful here or indeed anywhere.

Marx is incredibly helpful in most things as long as you realize that he managed to identify the right problem (which I referenced by the quote), not necessarily the solution; and that his proposed solutions have never been properly tested, and that his ideas for the solution to the problem were -- just like Nietzsche's ideas -- bastardized by terrible people for their own gain.

You don't have to be a communist to realize that Marx was instrumental in giving us the labor movement, including unions which most people who haven't been indoctrinated over generations with red scare tactics will realize where good things and important mechanisms against overreach by the powerful.

There has never been a case where removing primary sources results in a more enlightened understanding.

>Is there now an incentive to advertise your views by committing crime to attract as much attention as possible?

I guess. That would be really stupid though. This isn't a burner account. You get to do this maybe once, and it doesn't always work (some user upstream has 2 ex-coworkers on SO to no fame. Accounts still up).

Alternatively, there's 2 situation in which this can be gamed against other users

1. Your name is common and now all John doe's in X sector are accused of being murderers.

2. A non-obvious account has a sabetour try to associate the account with a murderer. You can't do much to disprove it outside if doxx yourself. Lies pile on and you're banned wrongfully.

The internet is still semi-anonymous. We literally cannot be a judge of stuff like this.

>So now we're somewhere pretty uncomfortable. I think it wrong to suppress Osama Bin Laden's screeds recently removed from the Guardian online, however much I loathe him and everything he stood for.

I think that's where the subtetly of this situation kicks in. This isn't about banning people, and honestly banning Luigi would have gotten less attention on this story (but still some). This is ultimately a private server and they can ban you for whatever they want.

But this was So having their cake and eating it too. They simply erased the name. To use The guardian example, this is like remove Bin Laden from the site, but his comments about whatever (be it trivial opinions on economics or threats of terror) stay there just fine on the site. I Don't see who wins here. The actual ideas are on your site, but you just swept the name under the rug.

On top of this, this goes agiandt the CC license of comments. You can remove a comment, but you can't unattributte an existing comment.

> what appropriate policy should be where serious crime gathers attention.

Not making it public in the first place. Why do i (in EU) need to know that a child killed its schoolmates in US ?

> Why do i (in EU) need to know that a child killed its schoolmates in US ?

To remind yourself why it's such a good idea to keep voting in politicians in favour of strict gun controls?

I have a feeling school shootings would collapse if they weren’t reported on.

It would no doubt have an effect, but availability of firearms is probably the biggest factor. School shootings in my country (where gun ownership is strictly controlled) are almost non-existent, but definitely reported on when they occur — probably more so for the very reason they are so infrequent.

This is probably optimistic - they're a meme, kids don't need to see reporting about new school shootings to get the idea that shooting up your school is the way to go, it's something communities are quite naturally propagating amongst themselves - but it seems super clear that they wouldn't have become a meme in the first place without repeated breathless scandalising reporting.

If they do so with a political point eg "you should care as much about children in ...." Maybe that point has some considerable support too. Should that be suppressed too? Maybe it should. Uncomfortable.