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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30414 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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In a "what the fuck even is this timeline" update: Anderson lee Aldrich, the Q Club shooter, is apparently non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, and already had an Encyclopedia Dramatica article detailing his career as a 15 year old "professional hacker", calling him a pedophile, and describing his absent father as an MMA fighter and porn star.

I'm feeling very vindicated in my impulse to hold off conclusions... but I would think that, given my biases, wouldn't it? The real test would be a tragedy that looks at first glance to fit my biases perfectly and allows me to cathartically Boo Outgroup. I suspect that differences in media ecosystems have that less likely... but I would think that too, wouldn't I?

Plus obvious, audacious narrative updates in real time.

And our first echo shooting, as usually happens in the immediate wake of a highly publicized mass shooting. No apparent political/CW element, disgruntled employee.

There's a lot of people going "look at all these people proven wrong by not holding off conclusions" who aren't... holding off conclusions, such as the conclusion that this non-binary identification shuts out the possibility that the shooter might be anti-gay far-righter. One might quickly imagine why such a shooter might announce they-them profiles to be written in official documents: to own the libs. ("Lol! They have to call me by this shit now!") Of course, I don't know if that's the case - that's what holding off conclusions indicates.

There's a lot of people going "look at all these people proven wrong by not holding off conclusions" who aren't... holding off conclusions

Yeah, seconding this. Finding that the initial story is wrong or missing information doesn't necessarily make the second shallow story complete.

One might quickly imagine why such a shooter might announce they-them profiles to be written in official documents.

The shooter doesn't appear to be filing pro se, so at the very least they managed to talk a lawyer into risking sanctions for it. Which still isn't that high a bar.

You might as well consider the possibility it was 42D Chess move by a far-left radical, who wanted to make the right look bad, by attacking a gay club...

Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me...

He could also, as seems likely, be just crazy.

That would be good argument, but Stefferi doesn't seem to like it.

I'm not arguing against the thesis that they're crazy, I'm arguing against the idea that having unconventional ideas and lifestyles (especially if they're some years past) means they're not a right-winger.

FTSOA, a nonbinary they/them shooting up a gay nightclub is extremely noncentral to the grouping of "right-wingers". It sounds like a desperate bid for everything to be the fault of a political side rather than a disturbed and violent individual.

Nobody can even define what "right-wing" is, but we're all pretty sure that everything bad that has happened since man first descended from the caves is their fault.

Does a 66-year-old white heterosexual male smalltown small businessman gun owner sound central to the group of "left-wingers", let alone far-leftists? Because that would be the description of James Hodgkinson, the Congress baseball shooter, aka the incident that tends to be brought up at this forum in regular intervals when discussing right-wing terrorism - I hardly imagine an argument dismissing Hodgkinson as a counterexample of left-wing violence on grounds of identity-based "noncentrality" would get very far.

Sounds pretty central to me. White people are a majority not just of the country, but of the Democratic Party as well. Older people are more likely than younger people to be involved with politics.

"Nonbinary" is a political term with no basis in reality. Swapping pronouns is likewise a purely political thing.

You're looking at demographics. I'm pointing out that one person personally identifying with the shibboleths of one political party is a lot more indicative of loyalty than conforming to the media's hysterical stereotype of giant tranches of the population.

I mean, there’s right wingers into some weird shit, but this particular kind of weirdness is pretty exclusively a left wing phenomenon and doesn’t appear to be completely in the past.

That's not the argument though. The point is that if you're crazy, you might do crazy shit regardless of your beliefs, so you shouldn't blame the beliefs on his actions, but the craziness.

Even when otherwise healthy radical Muslims were committing terrorist attacks, progressives were saying you shouldn't blame the religion for it. I think that argument should apply even more, if we were discussing a radical Muslim who had a long history of mental illness.

It's not like "crazy" is an on/off switch. There are examples of people where you clearly can blame insanity and not any particular ideologies (ie. James Holmes), but it's also perfectly possible to do an attack due to ideological motives while having some sort of a mental illness. Of course we don't know what's the case here, since we don't really know all that much at all about this case still.

How are we supposed to know if he's genuinely using the pronouns or not? Unless he admits to trolling, the rules are we have to take him at his word.

Being somewhat facetious here, but I don't think many of the rightists blowing up the non-binary thing suddenly think that this stuff is legit. Myself I think it's possible, but makes sense that it could be an easy way to avoid a hate crime charge (how could I hate them, I am them!), or could also just be true. But it is very...i don't know the adjective, something, that the rules established by the progressive class are now suffocating them. They cannot say that he's faking it without destroying a central tenet of many of these people which is that Self Id Is God.

I'm not saying all progressives believe this, Jesse Singal for one was very good at pointing out the insanity with Jessica Yaniv, but enough do that many of us watched the coverage of this thing evaporate instantly among some previously engaged people.

but makes sense that it could be an easy way to avoid a hate crime charge

First, I don't think it will be easy, since his nonbinary identification will surely be challenged in court. But even if it succeeds, and let's say it gets him out of a hate crime charge, what would be the point? The quintuple homicide alone is likely sufficient to put him away for life (Colorado doesn't have the death penalty).

So I don't really see it as a calculated move to get a lighter sentence. Trolling, maybe. Insanity, maybe. Genuine claim, maybe.

Definitely seems possible that it's a lie to troll or dodge hate crime charges. But it is interesting seeing people squirm in the hot seat on this question. If mere identification is sufficient, then how can you question this person? If you've previously held a standard that there was no legitimate gatekeeping, and that anything short of enthusiastic affirmation was transphobic bigotry, do you bite that bullet or flip-flop? If you flip, your enemies will use it against you forever. And if you bite the bullet, they'll use that against you forever too!

Very much a situation that highlights the contradictions.

I don't think this question is as squirm-inducing as you think. How would you respond to this?:

Obviously you're trying to catch me in a trap, you're not really asking me to be consistent here, you're just trying to score points against me!

"What is a woman?" is exactly the kind of thing that ought to make people squirm, and maybe it makes normies / clueless / true believers squirm, but I see a ton of, "that's just a political gotcha question, you're obviously a right wing troll to ask it!"

The response to the trap is "no, it's your opinions that let me score points, I'm just trying to expose them."

The response probably won't work since anyone who merits the response probably isn't logical. But it's the correct answer. Showing that someone's opinions lead to one of two things, both bad, isn't a "gotcha", it's reasoning.

That's still squirming. It's the crying soyjack with the smug mask on. It's like someone went "what are you, some sort of commie?" if you asked them what time it is.

Definitely seems possible that it's a lie to troll or dodge hate crime charges.

When facing 5 premeditated murder charges how much worse does it get with a hate crime charge?

Much worse to spend that sentence in a men's prison than in a women's prison, I assume.

But he's not claiming to be full-on trans.

Yet

i still think mere identification is sufficient. it’s more of a subjective disposition than anything, so if he says he’s nonbinary i’ll take him at his word. not like i have any way of corroborating it beyond that.

I've never known these people to actually think that way. Because there is no thinking occurring. So there is no contradiction to be noticed. You are not supposed to question how people identify when it's to their advantage to not have it questioned. And then it's "obvious" evil right wingers are faking it when it's to their advantage to believe that. You will see no one of any consequence or influence modify their perspective on the supremacy of self identification what so ever. They're already letting men into all you can rape buffets women's prison if they "self identify". To say nothing of all the lesser ways they've marginalized and disenfranchised women for the sake of the trans identity. Why would some trollish behavior from a mass shooter change any minds in how our society is being dismantled?

TBH I suspect there's even a simpler solution: his lawyers told him to do it in an effort to avoid hate-crime charges.

Lawyers don’t generally advise their clients to lie.

The phrase "If you were to identify as non-binary, you'd be less likely to get hate-crime charges." is not legal advice. It's a statement about the legal system that is likely true (and might be useful for an accused person to know).

What someone else takes from that is not necessarily the lawyer's business.

"A statement that would be useful to know" is advice. And it's coming from a lawyer, so legal.

Advice is specific direction on how to proceed. That statement does not qualify.

I'm not sure it could be considered a lie, even in principle. If you inform the court that you'd like to use nonbinary pronouns, then you are literally and factually identifying as nonbinary.

In principle it could be a lie if he is snickering to himself and his stream of consciousness contains the symbols "owning the libs."

A truthful self identification wouldn't look like that at all

That's how they identify themself to the court, which the court can verify because that is how they identified themself to them. Is the idea that they have a different "true" pronoun identity? In the absence of a brain-scanning machine that can determine one's "true" pronouns, I don't know how that could be demonstrated. Is the idea that they identify differently to their friends and family? Well, there's no rule that you have to identify with the same pronouns to everyone.

I dunno, I think a lawyer would not be doing anything wrong to basically cue up the decision. "With what pronouns would you like to identify yourself to the court? We could use he/him, she/her or they/them. It's your choice how to identify, although the prosecutors will likely have a slightly more difficult time establishing the elements of a hate crime charge if you use she/her or they/them. Let me know what you decide." I don't think there's a lie there, no matter how you squint.

I don't think the way you identify to court can be a lie in principle, so on that we agree.

But, I think Lauren Southern was lying here. She was kind of laughing at all this as a joke. I suppose, similar to the courts, you can say she identified to the government as a man, and you can't lie about that in principle.

What the left gets right is that a right-wing troll could lie about their identity. (Like Lauren was doing). The gunman could be, or could not be. You would get a good feel for if he is lying or not based on hearsay of private conversations he's had with friends. Or you could try guessing if you knew what his reddit posts looked like or whatever.

What the left gets right is that a right-wing troll could lie about their identity. (Like Lauren was doing). The gunman could be, or could not be.

Yeah that's true. It still opens a can of worms for the trans movement, though. Once you can construe falseness in someone's purported gender identity by ascribing an ulterior motive and looking to ulterior behavior, each being inconsistent with someone who is "actually" a woman or whatever, then you kind of open the door to (e.g.) discrediting a trans woman as pursuing an ulterior motive of indulging a sexual fetish (autogynephilia), if you can in principle substantiate it by looking to ulterior behavior (does his browser history contain some type of porn that suggests he is getting off on pretending to be a woman).

This of course raises the question, what if it's all a troll job? The entire non-binary thing, or even the entirety of Queer Theory. Given it's internal contradictions it would hardly be surprising. Maybe it's all a giant joke that got out of hand. It could be, or could not be.

Seems like it should be hard enough to prove that it's false, but maybe I'm wrong.

is that even a legally sound defense strategy? seems more like something he came up with himself

No idea; it could be the reverse.

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