FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
User ID: 1175
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
13m ago
In that part I was referencing the Weinstein scandal for the most part. AFAIK non of those women claimed to be underage when they allegedly had sex with him.
I have absolutely no idea why you're bringing up adult women who claimed to be the victims of sexual misconduct when my post was specifically (and very explicitly) about child actors of both sexes.
McCurdy was around that age during her iCarly career so, I guess it would apply to her too.
The pilot was filmed in January of 2007, when she was fourteen. I have no idea what "scientifically consent" is supposed to mean, but it sounds extremely noncey. California's legal age of consent is eighteen.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
18m ago
It would involve his community turning on him, condemning and outcasting him.
In fairness, Digwa had already been barred from his local gurdwara at the time the stabbing took place, and in response British Sikh leaders are revisiting their policies around ceremonial blades:
Gurmel Singh, chief executive of the Supreme Sikh Council UK, told The Telegraph that community leaders would meet on Saturday and in coming weeks to “review safeguards” in the religious training of Sikhs and ensure that such an incident was “never repeated”.
Under the faith, Sikhs are permitted to wear a kirpan only if they have been baptised and had the required spiritual training. The curved knife is meant to remain on a Sikh’s body until their death and is cremated with them.
Responding to [Reform UK's] proposals, Mr Singh said: “We extend our deepest condolences to the family of Henry Nowak, who was tragically killed. Our thoughts are with them during this devastating time.
“The Sikh community unequivocally condemns the actions of Vickrum Digwa. His conduct represents a grave breach of our values and code of conduct, and has brought disrepute to a community that stands for service, justice, and peace.
“Wearing the Sikh articles of faith is a sacred responsibility, not a symbol to be misused. Any act that violates the principles of Sikhi will always be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
“Community leaders are meeting to review safeguards and ensure that such isolated incidents are never repeated. We are committed to internal accountability and will be launching a strengthened education campaign on the responsibilities that come with the articles of faith.
“While we reject reactionary political statements that use this tragedy for populism, we fully embrace our own responsibility to act. The Sikh community will not excuse wrongdoing, and we will continue to uphold the integrity of our faith through action, not just words.”
Maybe nothing will come of it and these are just empty statements made under the advice of a lawyer until the case leaves the public imagination. But I've been legitimately impressed by the Sikh community's response, and think they've handled this a lot better than Britain's Muslim community would have done.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
52m ago
I'm guessing you blank slated it and assumed that Hollywood caused the abuse in the cases you cited, not the parents.
Uhh, no? I literally have no idea where you got that impression. The post begins with a lengthy preamble talking about a child who was horrifically abused by his father, not by Hollywood.
Hollywood didn't do it to either of them.
Jennette McCurdy specifically alleges that Dan Schneider, the creator of iCarly, engaged in some deeply suspect behaviour on-set. She is far from the only child actor who worked with Schneider to make similar claims. I don't know what, specifically, you're claiming Hollywood "didn't do" to McCurdy, but Hollywood did do something to her.
Normal people just get over a sexual encounter they later regretted.
It's meaningless to talk about children "regretting" sexual encounters, because children cannot consent to sex and every sexual act between an adult and a prepubescent child is statutory rape.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
58m ago
My understanding is that Digwa had two blades on his person, the larger of which he used to kill Nowak, which his mother then removed from the crime scene and brought back to the family home (for which she was convicted). The blade in the photo you linked below is the smaller one which he did not attack Nowak with.
Even if Digwa was openly brandishing the weapons, I can imagine that Nowak might not have noticed. The bodycam footage was filmed in front of a house with a floodlight, but if Nowak and Digwa encountered each other in a dimly-lit street, the weapons on Digwa's person may not have been as obvious. Also consider that Nowak had had a few drinks and was distracted filming a Snapchat video before and during the encounter.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
1hr ago
Some years ago, I wrote an article complaining about an irritating tic wherein progressive journalists will assert "Alice has faced controversy in the past for her problematic opinions" but will refuse to tell the reader what those opinions are, thereby allowing them to draw their own conclusions. I argued that this should always be taken a tacit admission that the problematic opinions in question are ones that the average reader can be assumed to agree with. If there was a smoking gun (e.g. Alice has consistently argued that the Holocaust didn't really happen), the journalist would say that outright. Their reluctance to tell the reader what the opinions in question are illustrates a lack of confidence in their own opinions to win in the marketplace of ideas.
I now think this is a specific example of a general rule: if a political partisan doesn't want to talk about a particular story, it's because they know that it favours their ideological opponents' worldview more than their own.
Andrew Doyle has an article called "Henry Nowak and the politics of deflection" in which he notes that a Spanish newspaper, El País, has published exactly one article about the case, which takes Nigel Farage to task for cynically "weaponising" the case to further his supposedly far-right agenda. (The article doesn't even include a photo of Nowak, but does include a photo of Farage.) The woke gobshite I mentioned a couple of hours ago insists that, because Digwa was arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison, therefore there's nothing to see here and anyone who wants to talk about it is a "racist idiot".
The reason this man wants to focus on the fact that Digwa and his mother were convicted is because it's the only aspect of this case which is remotely flattering to the British establishment, and to the progressive worldview more broadly. In every other particular about this case, progressives know they haven't got a leg to stand on, and that it vindicates just about every complaint conservatives have been making for years about immigration, ethnic enclaves, clannishness and two-tier justice. Consider:
- Almost entirely without provocation, a second-generation Indian immigrant stabbed a white Briton to death.
- The only reason he was able to stab his victim is because Britain's notoriously stringent laws against their citizenry carrying weapons of any kind include religious exemptions for Sikhs.
- Rather than realising the gravity of his error and attempting to help his victim, the killer spends the next hour or so filming himself mocking him (which, to my mind, suggests that his primary motivation for murdering Nowak was his own amusement).
- Eventually, the killer realises that he's going to be in big trouble pretty soon, so he calls his brother, tells him what he's done and asks for help. Rather than calling an ambulance and urging the killer to turn himself in, the entire family springs into action to cover up his crime.
- They call the police, cynically appealing to their progressive sensibilities by claiming that the killer was the victim of a racist hate crime.
- Despite presenting no actual evidence that the killer was the victim of any kind of assault (never mind a racially-motivated one), this absurd cover story initially appears to work: the police officers responding to the call, witnessing the stabbing victim lying on the ground, bleeding to death and complaining that he can't breathe, nonetheless attempt to arrest him essentially because a brown person told them to.
- Throughout the entire legal process and even during sentencing, the killer refuses to accept culpablity and continues to insist that his victim was a racist, as if this would justify the killer's conduct even if it was true.
Read down through the numbered list above: there is no element of it which casts the progressive worldview in a positive light. (Even the fact that Digwa and his mother were convicted is far from a slam-dunk: although his father and brother have appeared in court on weapons charges, they really ought to be charged with obstruction of justice or whatever the equivalent crime in the UK is.) In other words, this is an anti-scissor statement: there is no possible way you can spin it that is remotely flattering to the progressive worldview. In this scenario, short of admitting that a stopped clock is right twice a day, the only winning move you can make is to ignore the case altogether and loudly proclaim that anyone who wants to talk about it is either a far-right racist, or "legitimising" complaints made by far-right idiots. Goodthinkers do not Notice™: they ignore the evidence of their eyes and ears.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
2hr ago
I can only assume the knives Digwa was carrying weren't visible on his person when Nowak ran into him. If so, I doubt the possibility even occurred to him that Digwa was armed. I certainly wasn't aware of religious exemptions to the UK's LOICENSE laws prior to this case, and Nowak probably wasn't either.
More cynically, one might say that a lifetime of antiracist education completely compromised Nowak's ability to assess threats in a sensible way. It simply did not occur to him that the scary-looking Indian in religious garb walking around with a scowl on his face (and perhaps visibly carrying ceremonial weapons) might not respond too favourably to playful banter.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
2hr ago
At the minimum, they knew Nowak was lying on the ground, immobile and incapacitated, while the man who claimed to have been attacked by him was standing, talkative, lucid and displaying no signs of injury whatsoever (absurdly pointing to a fictitious bruise on his eyelid to bolster his claim to have acted in self-defence). I don't think you need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that a) however the altercation might have transpired, Nowak did not pose an active threat to anyone at the time the police arrived on the scene (so cuffing him was unnecessary) and b) Digwa and his family weren't being entirely truthful in their versions of events.
Police have a bad tendency to trust the first calm person to talk to them, which is Digwa claiming that he got attacked first.
Show me an example of a white Briton (or hell, let's make it easier for you: a white person from anywhere) stabbing a brown man, the police arriving on the scene to find the white aggressor clearly uninjured and the brown man visibly incapacitated, the white man claiming to have been attacked first, and on his word alone, the police handcuffing the visibly incapacitated brown man. If you can show me that, or even something vaguely analogous, I will consider the possibility that there are no real CW aspects to this awful case.
the police approach the scene and find a calm guy who says he got attacked and another guy who is panicking and freaking out
Nowak was not "panicking and freaking out". He was lying on his side, clearly incapacitated, and summoning what little strength he had remaining, he claimed that he'd been stabbed and couldn't breathe. Vickrum's father even told the officers that Nowak kept falling over. I believe the family made up some silly cover story about Nowak attacking Digwa, attempting to flee and cutting himself on a fence. Even if that was how Nowak got injured, it was obvious from the first that he was injured and Digwa wasn't. They should have attempted to render medical care to the clearly injured or incapacitated person. Instead, they put him in cuffs because he allegedly did a racism.
Now this is something I think is always ridiculous. Religious exemptions are a nonsense idea.
Oh, so in other words there are culture war aspects to this story? You changed your tune from one end of the comment to the other.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
3hr ago
I believe the mother has been convicted, but you're absolutely right that the father and brother are also complicit in perverting the course of justice.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
5hr ago
According to Millennial Woes, even the jury weren't shown some of these videos because they were considered too disturbing.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
5hr ago
Another bodycam video I wish I hadn't watched. I can still hear him drunkenly begging the police not to shoot him. For the life of me, I cannot fathom why they didn't just tell him to lie face down and put his hands on his head.
I got into an argument this morning with some woke gobshite who insists there's nothing to see here and is more concerned about a hypothetical far-right backlash against the UK's Sikh community than he is about Henry Nowak and for the love of God will that one Norm Macdonald clip ever stop being relevant.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
5hr ago
I made the mistake of watching the bodycam footage yesterday. Just reading about this case made me feel angry and upset enough. Watching the bodycam footage was ten times worse.
The murderer smugly claiming to have been assaulted, pointing to a non-existent bruise on his eyelid as evidence. With his last few breaths, Nowak begging the police for help and insisting that he's been stabbed, only to be calmly told by them that he hasn't been. The police officers' inexplicable insistence on cuffing him in spite of the fact that, even if he hadn't been stabbed, he was clearly incapacitated and posing no active threat. One of the police officers calmly instructing his colleague to get the Digwa family's details, apparently not even considering the possibility that one of them might have stabbed Nowak and that perhaps they ought to be arrested.
I don't know how anyone can look at this case and claim in all seriousness that the UK doesn't have a two-tier justice system.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
5hr ago
This specific claim appears to be the product of Chinese whispers; Millennial Woes's exhaustive account of the entire incident can find no evidence for it.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
7hr ago
Yes, I learned that after making the original post and edited it to mention it at the very end.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
7hr ago
Are you just denying that "cyberbullying" exists as a concept? Threatening to kill someone (even in jest) is unacceptable if done in person, but magically becomes okay as long as you do it over the phone?
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
8hr ago
I do not want to live in a world primarily optimised for the health and purity of children.
I still think you're constructing a strawman to make me sound ridiculous. I'm not demanding that our entire culture be systematically overhauled, root and branch, to optimise for the health and purity of children. I simply think a) for variety of reasons (including but not limited to premature sexualisation, grooming and body image issues) smartphones and social media are really bad for children and teenagers, and parents should not buy smartphones for their children; and b) it's weird that Western societies collectively think that child labour is bad, except child labour in the entertainment industries.
There. That's it. That's the extent of my opinion. Anything beyond that is you knowingly putting words in my mouth.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
9hr ago
Agreed. The fact that he repeatedly cheated on his wife is scummy enough, without needing to imply he also did something illegal.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
9hr ago
Young girls talk to older girls, older girls tease them for being ignorant and drip-feed knowledge of the adult world. That’s why lots of women recall being terrified of menarche, because older girls think it’s funny to torment them. The boys in my all-boys school were making pussy jokes at 10, not because they understood them but because that’s what the older boys did.
None of these seem remotely similar to the specific example I gave of eight-year-olds requesting skincare products for Christmas.
Are you saying that competition for looksmaxxing is harmful because stressful, and the earlier it begins the worse it is? Is it a spiritual commitment to defend the innocence of childhood, and is that for both boys and girls or just girls?
Both, and that social media facilitates child grooming and sexual exploitation, and may induce assorted mental health difficulties such as depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia, and facilitate bullying. You know, all of the things I've already expounded on in this thread at great length.
How major? And are we talking about a generalised effect over the whole cohort specifically in that time, or specifically worsening of the most anxious 1% from quite suicidal to very suicidal, or what?
The graph I was citing came from this study from Jean Twenge:
Many of these indicators [of poor mental health] have increased considerably: self‐poisonings among 10‐ to 12‐year‐old girls quadrupled (14); hospital admissions for self‐harm tripled among 10‐ to 14‐year‐old girls (12); major depressive episode among 12‐ to 17‐year‐old girls increased 52%, from 13.1% in 2005 to 19.9% in 2017 (11); emergency room visits for suicidal ideation and attempts nearly doubled among children and adolescents (15); and suicide among 10‐ to 14‐year‐old girls doubled (16)... Similar increases in mental health issues have also appeared among adolescents in the United Kingdom and Canada (Haidt and Twenge, 2019, unpublished). With such similar trends across many measures and sources, an overwhelming amount of evidence indicates that adolescent mental health has deteriorated since 2010.
FtttG
Gheobhaidh mé bás ar an gcnoc seo.
10hr ago
New Year's resolution check-in:
- Went to the gym three times last week, just cardio. Planning to go this evening. Can deadlift 1.84x my bodyweight for 3 reps, squat 1.22x for 8 reps and bench press .87x for 6 reps.
- Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.
How goes it @self_made_human, @thejdizzler, @birb_cromble, @ThomasdelVasto and @falling-star?
My mother went to an all-girl's school and they discussed this kind of thing constantly.
At the age of eight?
I don't think it's healthy for society to obsess over protecting the purity of women or the spread of images of women
I'm not obsessing over protecting the purity of women. Women are adults, and can do as they please. (I in fact get very annoyed at the infantilisation of adults, such as women who accuse men of having "groomed" them when the women in question were already old enough to drink.) I am, however, very invested in protecting the purity of girls, especially young girls. That's kind of the whole point of this discussion.
playground bullying is worse than cyberbullying
Some and some. Past generations of teenagers did not have to contend with embarrassing footage of them being uploaded to YouTube etc. for the entire world to see without their knowledge or consent, or their nudes leaked. Playground bullying by definition ends outside the playground: the current generation of bullies can torment their victims morning, noon and night, even after they've changed schools if it pleases them.
I don't think it's the phones, although the phones don't help, I think it's the pressure and the constantly raised standards, which is mostly downstream of globalisation.
Well, I don't agree with you. Indeed, I'm not even persuaded that teenagers face higher pressure to succeed than they used to, if the proportion of obese teenagers and Harvard undergraduates taking remedial maths classes is anything to go by.
I believe that heavy social media use is extremely damaging for everyone, but particularly for young children and adolescents. Some of the reasons social media is bad for teenagers and pre-teens include the fact that it facilitates child grooming, how it tacitly encourages members of this demographic to dress and behave in sexually provocative ways and how it encourages members of this generation to obsess over their appearances in unhealthy ways. Before TikTok, did you ever hear of an eight-year-old being asked what she wanted for Christmas and her replying "skincare"? No eight-year-old should want skincare products for Christmas, and it's obscene that social media has made her think she needs them.
If you are concerned about the existence of people who might watch these videos and think unsavoury thoughts, thus defiling innocents with their nasty brain-waves, then that sounds like a classic moral panic. The haunting fear that somewhere a nonce is happy.
This is an extremely obnoxious misrepresentation of what I said. Children are not being magically defiled by the nasty brain-waves of pederasts thinking impure thoughts about them. I explained quite clearly that a major component of the audience for tweens dancing on TikTok is nonces; that tween girls (like everyone else) respond to social media incentives and engagement metrics; and that in attempting to attract as many nonces' eyeballs as possible, these tween girls end up dressing and behaving in more sexually provocative fashions than they otherwise would have. Sexualisation of children is bad, and to the extent that social media incentivises (or algorithmically encourages, or whatever term you prefer) children to dress and behave in sexually provocative fashions prematurely, social media is bad.
There is no point troubling yourself (or everyone else) over such things, it’s almost certainly healthier overall than the alternative.
I do not believe that our world, in which most teenagers in the West own smartphones and use social media, is healthier overall than the counterfactual world in which most teenagers do not own smartphones and use social media. As I recently pointed out, the year 2014 (the year the iPhone achieved market penetration with a critical mass of American users) was the beginning of an enormous spike in teen suicide, self-poisoning, diagnoses of depression (and, less politically correctly, corresponding spikes in gender dysphoria and trans identification, and probably various things that are harder to quantify like loneliness, friendlessness and the ability to concentrate in class). We don't have to go way back into the mists of time to imagine a world where most Western teenagers don't own smartphones: I don't think it's remotely controversial to suggest that the average teenager was happier in 2013 than they are now. And what, exactly, are the benefits of widespread smartphone adoption among young people? This really does seem like a case of extreme costs and marginal (if any) benefits.
Yeah, I'd say that's the least they could do.
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