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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   21028 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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There's apparently a video going around of the attack, but I haven't a desire to see it.

Mildly interesting article from the Associated Press: Graphic video of Kirk shooting was everywhere online, showing how media gatekeeper role has changed (original title "Graphic Charlie Kirk video spread fast, showing media’s fading grip")

Traditional news organizations were cautious in their midafternoon coverage of Charlie Kirk’s assassination Wednesday not to depict the moment he was shot, instead showing video of him tossing a hat to his audience moments before, and panicked onlookers scattering wildly in the moments after.

In practical terms, though, it mattered little. Gory video of the shooting was available almost instantly online, from several angles, in slow-motion and real-time speed. Millions of people watched.

On X, there was a video showing a direct view of Kirk being shot, his body recoiling and blood gushing from a wound. One video was a loop showing the moment of impact in slow-motion, stopping before blood is seen. Another, taken from Kirk’s left, included audio that suggested Kirk was talking about gun violence at the moment he was shot.

For more than 150 years, news organizations like newspapers and television networks have long been accustomed to “gatekeeping” when it comes to explicit content—making editorial decisions around violent events to decide what images and words appear on their platforms for their readers or viewers. But in the fragmented era of social media, smartphones and instant video uploads, editorial decisions by legacy media are less impactful than ever.

Across the country in Ithaca, New York, college professor Sarah Kreps’ teenage sons texted her about Kirk’s assassination shortly after school was dismissed and they could access their phones.

No, she told them. He was shot, but there were no reports that he had died. Her son answered: Have you seen the video? There’s no way he could have survived that.

I feel like media norms around sharing footage have loosened a bit. There was a recent machete attack in Melbourne, Australia a week or so ago and major news platforms had the video on autoplay when you clicked the article which really feels like something that wouldn't have been a thing a couple years back.

I think I remember reading somewhere that, when Oliver Stone's film JFK came out, for many audiences it was the first time they'd seen the Zapruder film which shows the moment Kennedy was shot, and there were audible gasps of horror during screenings. It's hard to imagine a similar reaction nowadays.

It's interesting, because per capita murder rates have steeply declined in the last hundred years. In 1924, the USA's homicide rate was 10.8/100k; in 2023, it was 5.8/100k. On its face, this suggests that the number of people who personally witness a murder in a given calendar year has roughly halved, and likewise that the number of people who would truthfully answer in the affirmative to the question "in your lifetime, have you personally witnessed someone being murdered?" has fallen precipitously. If you expand the question to "personally witnessed someone being killed", the comparison would be even more striking given the fall in military enlistment over the period (in 1980, 18% of American adults were veterans, compared to 6% in 2022).

And yet over the same period, the number of people who have watched graphic, high-definition footage of someone being killed has shot up, when as little as two generations ago the number of people who could accurately claim to have seen footage of this type would have been a rounding error.

This invites the question - are current generations more desensitised to violence than previous generations, or less?

This invites the question - are current generations more desensitised to violence than previous generations, or less?

Desensitized towards media violence, but violence that would have been essentially completely unnotable 100 years ago such as wife beating or random pub punch-ons stick out a lot more. I'm in my thirties and can't really remember the last meaningful unlawful violence I saw in person that wasn't essentially just direct escalation from sport into punches being thrown.

number of people who would truthfully answer in the affirmative to the question "in your lifetime, have you personally witnessed someone being murdered?" has fallen precipitously.

Might this be confounded by advances in medical technology and practice?

Violence that resulted in death in 1924 would likely be more survivable in 2023.

Some number of 1924's murders would be 2023's attempted murder or assault with intent, etc.

I have read the decline in the homicide rate is dominated by better medical care.

I think this, combined with much stronger deterrents against violence like virtually omnipresent surveillance & a much stricter identification system, actually suggests that as a society we are actually more violent than before, at least on the long tail of extreme violence.

It does certainly seems true that low level violence like fist fights or domestic abuse seems to have lessened, but that seems to me a function of deterrence against relatively rational actors. Extreme violent actors are less easy to deter, maybe near impossible.

I think the desire and ability to conduct extreme levels of violence has plainly never been easier, and I think on a memetic / psychological level the desire for violence is through the goddamn roof.

I think in ways that are difficult to point to statistically, we very well might be in the most violent age of man since we lived as hunter gatherers and the most likely cause of death for men was murder.

A forum / memeplex founded by rationalist quokka types are going to be logically one of the last places to really feel this in their gut. I applaud the pro-social nature of some of the puzzled faces around here but the heat just got turned up a whole lot and I’m nervously looking at the clock tick up towards midnight.

This invites the question - are current generations more desensitised to violence than previous generations, or less?

Desensitised to violent media, fictional and otherwise, certainly more.

Desensitised to violence happening in their immediate physical surroundings, certainly less.

Of course, but I'm wondering how the two interact. If you've personally witnessed someone being killed right in front of you, does it make you less upset when you watch a violent film, or more (i.e. does it "trigger" you, in the literal, non-ironic sense of the term)? If you've watched countless hours of high-definition footage of people really being killed, would you find it less upsetting to see the real thing right before your eyes, or more?

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