site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   27983 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Did you know that 10 people were killed by a (potentially transgender) school shooter in Canada yesterday?

There is hardly anything about this in the American media today. It’s the third-billed story at best, behind Nancy Guthrie kidnapping updates and the FAA closing airspace over El Paso. Right-wing influencers have mentioned it, but it almost seems as if they are going through the motions. It’s not even trending on Twitter. I don’t feel the raw anger and hatred from when the Catholic school in Minnesota was hit.

The only explanation I can think of is that the shooting happened in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, which is in the middle of nowhere. Nobody wants to send reporters to Yukon-lite in February, so we get no coverage.

No wonder Bezos laid these people off.

There's some incredible coverage of the shooting from Canadian press

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/tumbler-ridge-van-rootselaar-neighbours-mental-health

They found some goober on the same street who said the shooter is actually a victim, failed by insufficient mental health resources. (and not insane policies around trans that funnel every mentally unstable person towards it and promote nihilistic attitudes). Journalists..

At the moment, this is the seventh most viewed story on the Guardian.

They call her by her preferred pronouns, but also mention that she was trans:

“I can say that Jesse was born as a biological male who, approximately six years ago, began to transition to female and identified as female, both socially and publicly,” he said.

Naturally they do not spin it as 'trans shooter' but mainly focus on mental health issues, which I find fair enough.

So if you are implying that the woke MSM is burying the story I think you are mistaken.

First paragraph:

Canadian police have identified the suspect who carried out a school massacre in remote British Columbia as an 18-year old woman with a history of mental health problems.

The article is 1,291 words long, and it's not until the tenth paragraph, 375 words in that we get any indication that the perpetrator was anything other than a "woman" in the traditional (i.e. adult female) sense of the term: "McDonald said police 'identified the suspect as they chose to be identified' in public and in social media". How many people are going to read down that far?

Also surely not a coincidence that they didn't include a photo of the perpetrator (despite doing so for the Brown University shooting and this UK shooting in September 2024), as no one could possibly mistake him for an adult female.

They may not be burying the story, but they're certainly running interference.

Updated news is giving name and other details:

We just received a lot of information regarding the shootings in Tumbler Ridge yesterday. Here's what we learned from deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Dwayne McDonald:

The suspect was named as Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, born a "biological male who approximately six years ago began to transition to female"
The updated death toll from the school stands at: one female educator, two male students and three female students
It was confirmed that the two people who had been shot in a nearby home were the suspect's mother and step-brother. The police were called to the home after they had been called to the school, by a female youth who is related to the suspect and victims
Police corrected earlier reports that a victim had died on their way to hospital
The suspect also died from what police believe was a self-inflicted wound
Two firearms were found at the school - one long gun and a modified handgun
Van Rootselaar dropped out of school four years ago. When asked if the suspect faced bullying "because of the transition from male to female", McDonald says there's no suggestion of this
Police had attended the suspect's family home on multiple occasions over several years, dealing with mental health concerns of the suspect. Some interactions concerned weapon
Those found dead in Tumbler Ridge Secondary School were an 39-year-old female educator, three female students, all aged 12, and two male students, aged 12 and 13

So the nine dead are the teacher, five pupils, mother and step-brother, and the shooter.

CNN had an article at the top of the webpage this morning. It refers to the shooter as female, which is strictly false, and intermittently swaps between "she" and "they" for pronouns. Eventually, far down the article, it quotes someone else explaining that the shooter was born male.

The central philosophical grounding of transgenderism is that gender is socially constructed (and correspondingly malleable) and thus separable from the biological notion of sex. The idea that a "woman" (gender) is not necessarily "female" (sex) may be arguable, but it is at least comprehensible. Forget expecting future Supreme Court justices to know what woman means--journalists don't even seem to know what female means. Or, more likely: they are part of the trans prospiracy to simply deny facts about biological human sex typing. The sex/gender distinction was drawn for political purposes, and now is being collapsed for those same political purposes. They are pointing at deer and calling them horses.

"Running interference," indeed.

The central philosophical grounding of transgenderism is that gender is socially constructed (and correspondingly malleable) and thus separable from the biological notion of sex. The idea that a "woman" (gender) is not necessarily "female" (sex) may be arguable, but it is at least comprehensible. Forget expecting future Supreme Court justices to know what woman means--journalists don't even seem to know what female means. Or, more likely: they are part of the trans prospiracy to simply deny facts about biological human sex typing. The sex/gender distinction was drawn for political purposes, and now is being collapsed for those same political purposes.

Because the anti-transgender faction, in response to the distinction as initially drawn by the pro-trans faction, was to take social matters of 'gender' and re-cast them as matters of 'sex', thus attempting to undo the exact goal of the pro-trans side, namely that biological sex ought not determine anything in social situations.

That principle is downstream of a more general left-wing ethos, that it is unjust for people to be limited by the circumstances of their birth, and that where we have the ability to make people not thus limited, we ought to do so. From this axiom, one can derive many other left-coded beliefs, which are left as an exercise for the reader.

it is unjust for people to be limited by the circumstances of their birth

It's amusing, then, that homophobia appears to be more heritable than homosexuality.

But is that a circumstance of birth, or of them being carefully taught before they are six or seven or eight?

Because the anti-transgender faction, in response to the distinction as initially drawn by the pro-trans faction, was to take social matters of 'gender' and re-cast them as matters of 'sex', thus attempting to undo the exact goal of the pro-trans side, namely that biological sex ought not determine anything in social situations.

They haven't re-cast them as sex, they just disagreed with the goal of the pro-trans faction. Seeing that they can't make a persuasive argument directly, the pro-trans side started playing language games, hoping they can hide the ball long enough to push their goals through.

They haven't re-cast them as sex, they just disagreed with the goal of the pro-trans faction.

The re-casting was how they sought to thwart the goal of the pro-trans faction.

To the best of my understanding, the pro-trans faction proposed to divide sex from gender, such that all social distinctions would fall under the latter category, and the biological differences would be as private as any other medical history, HIPAA avant la lettre.

The anti-trans faction, believing themselves entitled to know, and act on the knowledge of, the genital/gonadal configurations of strangers, then started referring to 'sex' instead of 'gender', 'males' instead of 'men', and 'females' instead of 'women'; thus allowing them to make the assertion that other people's genitalia are any of their business without being seen to make said assertion, and avoid anyone asking why they are concerned with other people's anatomy.

  • -21

The re-casting was how they sought to thwart the goal of the pro-trans faction.

It wasn't recasting. Prior to to pro-trans proposition , everybody was using a sex-based distinction. Even the word "gender" was just a euphemism for sex. The anti-trans side just adapted to the pro-trans lingo to try to have a meaningful conversation, and not fight over definitions.

and avoid anyone asking why they are concerned with other people's anatomy.

That makes no sense, no one on the anti-trans side has an issue answering that question. We're a sexually dimorphic species, and the dimorphism manifests itself in both behavior and physical capabilities.

and the biological differences would be as private as any other medical history, HIPAA avant la lettre.

Can't say I noticed the pro-trans side wanting to keep their genitals private.

Prior to to pro-trans proposition, everybody was using a sex-based distinction

And, like many other things 'everybody' was doing, some of us realised that it wasn't right.

(Many of the social movements of the post-WWII era are of this sort; someone realises that "Yes, we've always done it this way, but it's wrong. It's hurting people, and it needs to change." The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, is an early example of this argument, being a reductio ad absurdum; see also Edgerton's Sick Societies.

Can't say I noticed the pro-trans side wanting to keep their genitals private.

I will concede that, in that case, they are justified in dividing by currently possessed genitals, i. e. the ones with which they are presented, and for this purpose, a trans-woman remains a man unless or until she has that part of her anatomy altered.

More comments

thus allowing them to make the assertion that other people's genitalia are any of their business without being seen to make said assertion, and avoid anyone asking why they are concerned with other people's anatomy.

This is complete horse shit and instantly reduces your credibility to zero.

The anti-trans faction, believing themselves entitled to know, and act on the knowledge of, the genital/gonadal configurations of strangers

I am so, so fucking sick of trans activists suggesting that gender-critical people are perverts because they want to know what sex people are, by framing this desire in the most maximally uncharitable way. I've said before that the reason they frame the desire this way is because they themselves are so pornsick that they can't conceive of wanting to know a stranger's sex for any reason other than sexual gratification. And, well, my opinion hasn't changed.

So let me try, once again, to explain why it's perfectly reasonable and understandable (and not in any way indicative of sexual depravity) for people to want to know the sexes of the people in their vicinity.

Female people face a disproportionate risk of rape and sexual assault, and most rapes and sexual assaults of female people are committed by male people. Male people also commit a disproportionate amount of violent acts in general, not just sexual ones. Owing to their smaller size and reduced strength & speed compared to male people, female people are particularly vulnerable to assault, including rape and sexual assault: that is, if a male person attacks a female person, then 9 times out of 10 he will succeed in overpowering her. Ergo, if a female person is walking down a darkened lane alone at night and notices someone walking behind her, it matters to her a great deal whether that person is male or female. If that person is male, the female person instantly knows that he is vastly more likely to assault her than if that person is female; and that if he assaults her, he stands a very good chance of overpowering her compared to if the person is female. Thus, knowing whether a stranger is male or female plays a vital role in a female person carrying out a risk assessment. If she's walking down a darkened lane at night and notices a female person walking behind her, she'll probably keep walking; if she notices a male person walking behind her, she might try to duck into a bar or a restaurant rather than risk being attacked.

"Propensity to commit assault and sexual assault" is predicted by sex, not by the unobservable, unfalsifiable "trait" called gender identity. Trans-identified males who have medically transitioned commit violent crimes (including violent sex crimes) at 18 times the rate of female people, which is functionally indistinguishable from the rate at which non-trans-identified males commit violent crimes. In other words, if a female person is walking down a darkened lane at night and notices a male person walking behind her, the fact that said male person purports to "identify as" a woman doesn't change the risk calculus at all. It's a completely irrelevant statement, like whether or not he likes strawberries or enjoys the films of Jean-Luc Godard.

Likewise, physical strength and speed track sex, not gender identity. A male person does not magically become less strong and fast (less capable of overpowering a female person, should he choose to) simply because he purports to "identify as" a woman.

To a lesser extent, all of the above is true of why male people might want to know the sexes of people in their vicinity. When a male person gets assaulted, it's usually by another male person, and male people (being stronger) pose a vastly higher threat than female people. Thus, if a male person wants to avoid getting seriously assaulted, knowing the sexes of the people in his immediate vicinity is of paramount importance: male people are vastly more likely to commit assault than female people, and vastly more likely to cause serious injury should they choose to. If you're a male person walking through the streets and a drunk female person starts mouthing off at you, unless she has a broken bottle in her hand then she's at worst an annoyance. But if a drunk male person starts mouthing off at you, then you may want to beat a hasty retreat, as there's a very good chance he's capable of killing you with his bare hands should he choose to.

As a final point, this really has nothing to do with "genitals". "Sex" really just refers to the reproductive organs a person was born with, not the reproductive organs they currently have. As previously established, even emasculated males are vastly more prone to committing violent crimes than female people.

avoid anyone asking why they are concerned with other people's anatomy.

Well, I just told you why they're so concerned. I've been moving in gender-critical circles for years, and most of these activists are not the least bit shy about explaining why they want to know the sexes of the people in their vicinity, especially in intimate quarters. You're acting like there's some ulterior motive they're refusing to disclose, but that's just – a lie, I guess?

the biological differences would be as private as any other medical history, HIPAA avant la lettre.

I mean, if this is the state of affairs you want to bring about, I can't stop you. But politics is the art of the possible, and what you're demanding would make King Canute roll his eyes. While sex is ultimately determined by whether you were born with the organs associated with the production of small or large gametes, contra your dark insinuation, getting a close look at these organs is rarely necessary in order to identify a particular person as male or female, and we have a range of near-instinctive heuristics to do the job for us (height, wingspan, facial features etc.). From as young as 3-6 months old, babies can already distinguish male faces from female, before they even know what genitals are. Like it or not, virtually everyone can accurately "clock" an individual's sex within seconds of meeting them, even if that person has spent a small fortune doing everything in their power to try to pass themselves off as a member of the opposite sex (as freely admitted by innumerable trans people). Certain parts of one's medical history can (and should) remain private: if you've been diagnosed with HIV, if you suffer from diabetes, if you have a prosthetic leg etc. Other parts of your medical history simply cannot remain private: if you suffer from obesity or require the use of a wheelchair, everyone you pass on the street knows about it, sorry. No prizes for guessing which category "sex" falls into. This isn't even me passing comment on whether it would be desirable if our sexes were known to ourselves and no one else: I'm just pointing out that, with very few exceptions, most people can reliably infer most people's sexes at a glance.

(I can envision one hypothetical state of affairs in which an individual's sex really was a private matter: if everyone, male and female, was required to wear burqas in public, platform shoes to normalise their height, shoulder pads to normalise their perceived wingspan, chest binders to flatten their chests if necessary, and vocal processors to disguise the pitch of their voices. Boy, it didn't take us long to end up in the trans version of the "Harrison Bergeron" universe, did it?)

It's really tiresome that you're insisting that gender-critical people are disgusting perverts simply for accurately inferring a trait about someone that pre-verbal babies reliably can before they've even achieved object permanence. Or are you suggesting that 6-month-old babies are also creepy sex pests because they can tell male and female people apart? Goddamn, this whole "every accusation is a confession" concept is really paying down dividends.

I also just want to come back to the first part of your comment I quoted:

The anti-trans faction, believing themselves entitled to know, and act on the knowledge of, the genital/gonadal configurations of strangers

I will reiterate: babies as young as three months old can reliably tell the difference between male and female faces. This is not some subtle difference that gender-critical people have carefully honed their ability to detect, like a sommelier who can estimate the alcohol percentage of a glass of wine by sight. This is a skill learned from such a young age that it might as well be instinctive. Whether people are "entitled" to know (and act on the knowledge of) the sex of people in their vicinity is beside the point: they do know, at an unconscious, pre-verbal level, and they can no more train themselves out of it than they can train themselves not to experience vertigo atop a tall building.

What you essentially seem to be demanding is that people not use a valuable, evolutionarily advantageous skill that they learned before they could talk; that they pretend not to notice the accurate information this skill is bestowing upon them; that they consciously refuse to make use of this accurate information in their decision making, even if doing so would be in their own best interests. And why should they do this?

Because it makes a bunch of autogynephiles sad when they don't. Because this group of totalitarian, controlling narcissists cannot tolerate the slightest suggestion that anyone, even a complete stranger, is failing to "validate" them and their "identity" 100% of the time, even unconsciously. You are not only demanding that cisgender people yasslight trans people, but also that they gaslight themselves. "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

I'm actually sort of astonished that someone could openly promote such a nakedly psychologically abusive worldview without once stopping to ask themselves "are we the baddies?"

  1. If I were to claim that I was entitled to know any other aspect of your medical chart, on the grounds that it is statistically correlated with propensity to commit assault, most everyone would agree that I was out of line. The pro-trans faction is attempting to apply this consistently; the anti-trans faction is the one claiming that genitals are somehow less of a personal matter and should follow a different set of rules making them more of a public interest.

  2. It is possible to, by observation, deduce someone's probable genital configuration, just as it is possible to deduce many other aspects of a person's medical history. However, this does not mean that one is entitled to know whether their deductions are correct, nor that they ought to be brought up in polite company.

  3. The statistical correlations between biological sex and violent crime are claimed by many with whom you are probably familiar to have parallels with race. (I am sceptical of these claims, but the following argument holds even in a parallel universe in which they hold.) If people act on their knowledge of those statistics, innocent people of certain races are subjected to lifelong humiliation and ill-use, until it blows up in everyone's face. Thus, we regard information derived from that source to be inadmissible.

Because it makes a bunch of autogynephiles sad when they don't. Because this group of totalitarian, controlling narcissists cannot tolerate the slightest suggestion that anyone, even a complete stranger, is failing to "validate" them and their "identity" 100% of the time, even unconsciously. You are not only demanding that cisgender people yasslight trans people, but also that they gaslight themselves. "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

I, personally, am not making any demands regarding your, or anyone else's, beliefs regarding transgenderism. You deserve the ability to think what you want, and any attempt to deter you from doing so by imposing Consequences is an injustice. The same applies for arguing, in the general case, for your beliefs; I do not endorse any employer refusing to hire you because they read your Posts.

I am only asking that, when it comes to interactions with actual people, you not treat their genitals as relevant by default, and not bring up the matter any more than you would any other medical condition.

I realise that some people on the 'woke' left demand further concessions, and in that circumstance, even though I disagree with what you say, I support your right to say it.

More comments

As a trans person, none of the GC talking points actually matter in my daily life and it can actually be more disruptive for me to use the spaces (bathrooms, changing rooms) of my biological sex due to my appearance.

My experience is that the average person is absolutely not a sommelier when it comes to differentiating cis from even moderately passing trans people. If you look enough like a woman, you’ll get called ma’am by service workers and you’ll get weird looks if you try to use the men’s public bathroom (or even have the toilet attendant run after you to tell you you’re using the wrong bathroom). I’ve even had people be very surprised to learn that one of my friends was trans after interacting with them all day.

More comments

The anti-trans faction, believing themselves entitled to know, and act on the knowledge of, the genital/gonadal configurations of strangers...

...You frame this as though this was some novel innovation on the part of an "anti-trans faction", but in fact entitlement to know and act on the genital/gonad configuration of strangers has been a bog-standard feature of society for centuries, and arguably back to the beginning of recorded history.

thus allowing them to make the assertion that other people's genitalia are any of their business without being seen to make said assertion

They didn't have to assert shit. This was all common knowledge for generations at least. Other people's genitalia, in the framing you present here, are and have been a matter of public interest for as long as we've had sex-segregated public spaces, which is a very, very long time.

This seems to me to be a remarkably dishonest description of what has actually been done, and by who.

You frame this as though this was some novel innovation on the part of an "anti-trans faction", but in fact entitlement to know and act on the genital/gonad configuration of strangers has been a bog-standard feature of society for centuries, and arguably back to the beginning of recorded history.

And when the pro-trans faction were like, 'But this isn't right!', and sought to change it, the anti-trans faction objected to their cheese being moved.

This is far from a unique pattern in history.

  • -12
More comments

That principle is downstream of a more general left-wing ethos, that it is unjust for people to be limited by the circumstances of their birth

But with rare exceptions, just about every trans person is quick to claim that they didn't choose to be trans, that they knew from a very young age that they were "really" a girl, that it's not their fault they were born a girl trapped inside a boy's body. Taken at face value, this implies that their (our?) gender identity is just as innate as their sex. Why is it unjust to limit someone on the basis of one trait they have no control over (their sex) but not another trait they have no control over (their gender identity)?

Did you know that 10 people were killed by a (potentially transgender) school shooter in Canada yesterday?

The Telegraph, a right-wing paper, quoted the Canadian Police to say that the shooter was 'a female in a dress' before updating the headline to describe him as a 'gunperson in a dress', also a quote from the Canadian Police.

I'd have loved to be in the room when then Canadian law enforcement were deciding how to present the killing. Its as if someone genuinely thought they could keep the killer's sex a secret, or perhaps 'female in a dress' was a deliberate piece of malicious compliance.

EDIT: The police have now released the name of the perpetrator, it's this guy.

In the UK we had a rather horrible school stabbing spree. Nothing about the assailant has been released except the very reluctant admission that he was “apprehended in a mosque”.

This is SOP in the UK for three reasons:

  1. Laws protecting the privacy of minors. You can't publish identifying information about a minor, including a minor criminal, without the parents' explicit permission (which won't be forthcoming for criminals).
  2. Reporting restrictions to prevent press coverage prejudicing the jury pool.
  3. Newspapers don't have any kind privilege against defamation liability when republishing police statements. (They do when republishing statements made in open court or in court documents). Naming a suspect who turns out to be innocent is a good way to get sued, unless you have court proceedings to base a claim of privilege on. So newspapers only name names after the arraignment or if they are taking a calculated risk.

Point 2 is how Stephen Yaxley-Lemmon (aka Tommy Robinson) was jailed for "reporting on grooming gangs" - he made podcasts (that would have been accessible to the jury) where he described the not-yet-convicted defendants as "Muslim child rapists" and continued to do so after receiving a suspended prison sentence for contempt of court. Ironically, he appealed (unsuccessfully) against his own conviction on the grounds that media coverage had prejudiced the jury pool.

All of these measures (and the debate among lawyers and journalists about whether they are a good idea) long predate mass immigration and the Great Awokening - journalists back in the 1980s were bitching about how US-style tabloid crime journalism was illegal in the UK. (The only change in recent years is that Reynolds provides qualified privilege to newspapers who practice responsible journalism and make an honest mistake, which would be relevant to point 3 if the defendant was a public figure).

In this case, I assume the assailant is a minor so nothing interesting about him will come out unless the parents waive anonymity or the judge rules (only after conviction) that the crime was so severe that it would be appropriate to override it.

Point 2 is how Stephen Yaxley-Lemmon (aka Tommy Robinson) was jailed for "reporting on grooming gangs" - he made podcasts (that would have been accessible to the jury) where he described the not-yet-convicted defendants as "Muslim child rapists" and continued to do so after receiving a suspended prison sentence for contempt of court.

So what difference would it have made had he described them as suspected Muslim child rapists?

Thanks. I’m not sure it’s a good look for them but it’s interesting to get a good explanation of the background.

The American press is pretty famous for not covering Canada at the best of times... then add in the fact that it's winter and Tumbler Ridge is hard to get to.

In general my sense is the US sees Canada as much more of a foreign country than Canada sees the US. So it's not really seen as relevant to the domestic political battles.

Republican president and Congress, foreign, Olympics taking up story time, not useful to Trump vs. Canada, and the shooter is not the favorite type. Could be a lots of these factors that influence coverage. I am most certain it has nothing to do with a newfound ethical backbone among journalists. Had the kid spray painted a swastika we'd hear about it. Another idea is there are no political interests positioned to feed a big gun control news cycle in the US, or a Canadian shooting may not be capable of setting that off. There's still time for stories of backlash and pouncing Republicans/Conservatives.

Seems like a fairly big story, anyway. CBC is willing to report this individual "started transitioning" four years ago in one of its last bullet points. I see /r/Canada issued an obligatory reminder to not spread hate or misinformation. It is important to be careful.

9 dead, 27 injured in a town of 2400. That's 1.5% of the population hit... incredibly grim.

I see /r/Canada issued an obligatory reminder to not spread hate or misinformation. It is important to be careful.

They were deleting any comments about the shooter's identity until it was 'confirmed by the authorities'.

Which sounds fine, until you realise that the authorities were explicitly and deliberately lying. The shooter was not a female in a dress, he was a male in a dress.

As a data point, in Australia this was top story on ABC news 7am radio broadcast, second story on the 8am broadcast. During the second broadbast they listed off the genders of all of the victims (which I found a bit weird) but pointedly avoided saying anything about the gender or identity of the shooter. Perhaps they were giving a Straussian hint.

I see the online article now names the shooter, refers to them as a woman and no hint of a trans identity.

Perhaps they were giving a Straussian hint.

Extremely unlikely, IMHO.

That was what I saw at first. It appeared as breaking news on the ABC website. I was a little surprised for it to be Canada rather than America, as is far more common, and then a later update identified the shooter as a 'woman'. I admit I wondered if it was a trans woman if only because it's so unusual for women to be involved in mass shootings. Is there any confirmation on that either way?

Yes, they're trans.

The media has 2 choices- double down on "we need to ban guns to protect women from male mass shooters" and throw trans women under the bus, or double down on TWAW and throw "it's all men's fault" out.

I think they're still figuring out which one it's going to be, but TWAW's in the lead right now.

Third option: the fact that this person was driven to commit such a horrific crime is testament to how widespread transphobic bigotry is, even in an ostensible progressive utopia like Canada.

I'm sure the TRAs themselves are pushing this one on the backchannel. Trans cannot fail, they can only be failed.

We don't fully know the nature of the victims quite yet, but I'm getting the impression that most of them (other than his mother and one teacher) were pretty young -- there's a twelve year old in critical condition at the hospital.

"I was bullied so I shot my family and a bunch of grade 7 kids" seems like a tough sled...

I think it's profoundly unlikely that Van Rootselaar deliberately targeted people who had bullied him in the past. I suspect the narrative will be something along the lines of "Van Rootselaar faced such a relentless onslaught of transphobic abuse and bigotry that she finally snapped and lashed out", the clear implication being that the shooting is ultimately society's fault.

Lashed out at his mother and young sibling? Based on the mothers' social media she was more than supportive; I don't think this will fly. (which doesn't mean that it won't be tried I guess -- some people are pretty out of touch)

Sure, "the victims deserved it" is always an option.

Unfortunately for the TRAs, this wasn't a Christian school.

I'm sure the TRAs themselves are pushing this one on the backchannel.

"The mass shooter was female" is the best concession they're going to get. Because the truth- that this was violence the entire progressive political stack (by its own rules) is directly and solely responsible for- is an inconvenient one.

If anything the TRAs should be signal-boosting the couple of politicians who will inevitably shoot their mouth off too quickly in blaming trans people for this. They're completely dependent on progressive success for survival.

"The mass shooter was female" is the best concession they're going to get. Because the truth- that this was violence the entire progressive political stack (by its own rules) is directly and solely responsible for- is an inconvenient one.

So far, I did not see any evidence that this was politically motivated. Presumably your hedging of 'by its own rules' means something like 'if a member of the outgroup does something bad, we can blame the outgroup for it', and I am sure you have some story of some Trump supporter having a psychotic episode and shooting up a shopping mall getting spun as MAGA violence.

If there is some indication of political motive, like the shooter planning to kill some TERF teachers, then blaming the SJ movement is still a bit silly but fair.

Otherwise, bad faith behavior does not become acceptable just because the other side does it occasionally, I am sure a SJ supporter would find many spins from MAGA which I would condemn them for emulating.

Presumably your hedging of 'by its own rules' means something like 'if a member of the outgroup does something bad, we can blame the outgroup for it', and I am sure you have some story of some Trump supporter having a psychotic episode and shooting up a shopping mall getting spun as MAGA violence.

Right-Wing Violence Is Not A Fringe Issue
The American Right and the Thrill of Political Violence
Analysis: What Data Shows About Political Extremist Violence
Right-wing extremist violence is more frequent and more deadly than left-wing violence − what the data shows
The Right's Violence Problem
As Right-Wing Rhetoric Escalates, So Do Threats And Violence
Right-Wing and ‘Radical Islamic’ Terror in the U.S. Are Equally Serious Threats: ADL Report

...Just a couple links grabbed off a stack that rivals Everest.

Blue Tribe wants there to be a legible, coherent category of "Red Tribe violence"; for people to have common knowledge that Red Tribe violence is a live social issue to which current events connect, that there's a history and a dataset, a conversation in progress, potential solutions ready to go.

Blue Tribe wishes to prevent "Blue Tribe violence" from being such a legible, coherent category, or indeed for any of the above features to coalesce around it.

Blue Tribe very clearly uses the dance back and forth between "this is a social problem that demands systemic solutions" and "eh, crazy random happenstance, what can you do" as one of its core political tactics. People recognize this pattern, and they see it everywhere, and charity is burned thereby. This particular front in the Culture War has been operating for much more than a decade. You should be aware of it, and you should, I personally think, account for it in your arguments. Absent such an accounting, your condemnations are meaningless, because it is obvious that they are selectively partisan.

No, this one's a lot more systemic. If I recall correctly this guy was already convicted of a crime co-morbid with multiple mental disorders, but let off easy. (Can't imagine why that would be.) Failing to punish crime properly, which is a progressive goal, has actual consequences that look shockingly like dead 12 year olds.

and I am sure you have some story of some Trump supporter having a psychotic episode and shooting up a shopping mall getting spun as MAGA violence.

I mean, I have a story of some illegal gun owner who may or may not have been an RCMP informant shooting roughly 20 people and that getting spun as right-wing violence (and being banned and confiscated as a result), just like 2 million other people who have Canadian citizenship do.

Up until yesterday the dominant narrative in Canada was the notion that all mass shootings are straightwhitemen committing femicide against helpless women because Muh Patriarchy. That narrative is dead now, and ironically referring to the killer as a woman hurts it a lot more than admitting the killer was trans.

I find this issue somewhat ironic in that, IMO, Trans overrepresentation in this field is more about 'The sort of mildly-spectrumatic social misfits that would historically have been overrepresented as school shooters are now being nudged hard into transitioning' moreso than expressly 'it's the transness that does it'.

On the other hand, grabbing that particular demographic and ramming a bunch of random hormones down them plus giving them a persecution complex is probably not the absolute ideal way of handling the delicate subject of adolescent mental health.

The sort of mildly-spectrumatic social misfits that would historically have been overrepresented as school shooters are now being nudged hard into transitioning

It's funny to think that, if Columbine had happened today, the names that would have lived on in infamy would have been Erica Harris and – well, I suppose Dylan can be a girl's name too.

I peeped at the big canadian subs and predictably, any discussion regarding the killer's identity is being actively moderated. And the removed threads did acknowledge the bit of nuance you reference. Of course, now that it's confirmed they belong to an inconvenient demographic, I doubt we'd see much institutional bipartisan appetite for any exhaustive scrutiny. Because now the victims aren't just dead kids, but we gotta protect the kids transitioning. This individual reportedly surpassed Elliot Rodger in terms of casualties, yet it seems unlikely that we will witness a comparable level of sustained analysis of their background, motivations, or formative influences.

The recent shooting in Sydney, Australia had the same thing. Any attempt to bring up 'maybe there is some causatory factor here' getting immediate 'HOW DARE YOU NOT FOCUS ON THE VICTIMS AND IT'S THE GUNS' reactions, whilst you know if it were hypothetical Chudzilla there'd be absolutely no hesitation in making it a 'right wingers are gonna kill us all' story.

Even in Australia the lasting political impact seems to be negligible in terms of laws passed or anything that might actually hit Islamic radicalization. Instead massive upsurge in polling for the populist right party, death of the established middle-right party and gun control efforts.

Yes, I tend to think it's a combination of 1) shooters being almost entirely male, and thus more likely to be trans women than cis women or trans men, and 2) both shooters and trans people having strong positive correlations with mental illness.

You can debate the reasons for trans correlation with mental illness, say that it's all because of bigotry against gender-non-conforming people if you like, but the observation itself seems to remain true. Shooters tend to be biologically male people with some sort of mental disorder, and trans women are biologically male people who frequently have some sort of (other than being trans) mental disorder.

It isn't an epidemic or anything. But if trans women are slightly more likely, statistically, to be shooters than other demographics, it wouldn't surprise me.

This seems very plausible. On the other hand, society is generally chill about most mass shooters carrying the Y chromosome, I am sure that the take 'you can prevent violence by aborting your male fetus' exists somewhere but I have not stumbled upon it.

This seems entirely fair, most men do not engage in horrific violence, after all.

However, then it seems also fair to apply similar standards to trans women -- sure, they may be over-represented compared to cis men in shootings, but the violent ones still form a tiny minority.

Certainly, and the base rate being what it is, the odds that any given trans-identifying person is violent are so low that you should not assume the worst. In general you should try to treat people as individuals.

Society is pretty chill about most mass shooters being biologically male because biological males form 50% of the population or thereabouts- you can't not be chill about it.

I think trans ideology just caught on hard with school shooter types, that is to say a very particular strain of autistic mega-exile. I mean I think we all knew it wasn't Chad and Stacy driving those transgender teen numbers over the last few years.

Strong chance that this demographic is also on SSRIs, so that hypothesis still has legs too, IMO.

There's actually a very easy choice of "embrace individual responsibility" and stop blaming people for the actions of other just because they're in a tangentially related group. Most people of basically any demographic you can think of are law abiding citizens, even the black population with the highest rate still only has a third with a felony conviction of any kind, yet alone violent felonies.

Individual responsibility cuts both ways. Criminals should not be defended and forgiven because "oh but they're just poor" or "but society left them behind!", and innocents should not be blamed for the acts of criminals. Whether they be responsible gun owners who haven't inappropriately used their firearms or a trans person who hasn't committed violence.

With freedom goes responsibility, a responsibility that can only be met by the individual himself.

That would be a solution I could get behind, if the last fifteen years hadn't featured a nonstop deluge of handwringing about the dangers of young white men becoming radicalised by far-right/incel content, and how this poses such a grave threat to our society that we need to suspend freedom of expression and browbeat young white men into submission with artfully produced agitprop about how loathsome and contemptible they are (which no less than the prime minister of the UK erroneously referred to as a "documentary" on two separate occasions).

If it's legitimate to speculate on the societal factors that led to Elliot Rodger, Nikolas Cruz etc. to commit their horrific crimes, it's legitimate to speculate on why this guy did so. If young white men are susceptible to radicalisation by social media echo chambers, I see no reason why young white trans-identified men couldn't be also. Being trans should not be a get out of jail free card.

I mean, I'm ok with letting those past things go if the lesson is learned that we need to focus on individual culpability rather than blaming entire demographic groups when someone fucks up. Unfortunately, I don't think that lesson is likely to stick.

LOL, this is like on Star Trek when they presented Nomad with an irresolvable paradox, except instead of making him get a higher-pitched voice and explode, it made him quote Ronald Reagan.

Not much Reagan has ever been wrong about. Well, maybe Iran Contra but that's really only because he subverted Congressional will. He was right that the US should be supporting anti communist forces, he just should have accepted it wasn't viable at the time. Maybe acknowledged the aids crisis a little faster too but really, what would even the best president on that have been able to do? I can't see much different, they're politicians not doctors and medical researchers.

Iran-Contra was a crime, but not a mistake - it succeeded in its goals. Failure to take Iran seriously as a long-term enemy was a mistake, though not, I think, a big one at the time - focusing on defeating the USSR and leaving hostile non-aligned countries alone was obviously the correct big-picture call.

From a general right-wing perspective, Reagan's biggest mistake was no-fault divorce. From a right-populist perspective, it would be GATT.

From a factual perspective, Reagan was wrong bigly about Star Wars (it couldn't be implemented with 1980's technology) and where the US was on the Laffer curve (the Reagan tax cuts blew out the deficit in a way their supporters claimed they wouldn't), but in both cases the consequences were of the "trillion dollars here, trillion dollars there" type rather than anything potentially catastrophic.

Iran-Contra was a crime, but not a mistake - it succeeded in its goals. Failure to take Iran seriously as a long-term enemy was a mistake,

Well yeah that's what I mean. Iran Contra was an issue because he subverted Congressional will illegally, not because he was wrong about helping anti communist forces.

From a general right-wing perspective, Reagan's biggest mistake was no-fault divorce.

Maybe from the big government right wing perspective, but the libertarian sided right wing view doesn't have much issue with leaving a relationship for any reason you want. Why should the government be involved with any of that to begin with? It's only "necessary" because the government insists on tying things like tax breaks and benefits in relation to marriage. We didn't need big government to affirm love before, and big government is not the solution for affirming love now.

From a right-populist perspective, it would be GATT.

Another great example of how capitalism and populism don't co-exist as ideas very well.

They don’t have to give any reasoning for banning guns other than “prevent shootings.” Also they can just ignore this shooting if it isn’t politically advantageous. I don’t think the left is losing sleep over this

It's Canada. They already have more gun control than they ever thought they were going to.

There aren't enough guns left to ban for that (they already blew their loads on this 4 and 2 and 1 year ago), and the lack of coverage about what the guns the shooter used (along with how fatal the attack was given the near-immediate response time) suggests they weren't special in any way- likely a bog-standard hunting rifle or shotgun.

It's going to get ignored for that reason. The gun-banning side will take an L, since most of the narrative is "u need to ban guns to protect wimminz", and this guy being [allowed to be] a woman damages that narrative- it's best for them it disappear.

Isn't Canada in the midst of a gun buyback? Seems like a buyback should override any concern over details like what kind of weapon was used. But, the Canadian public may be more discerning than Americans on gun control. Here the type of weapon used is a tertiary consideration, at best. It's a gift to advocates if a shooter uses a scary gun, but none have let a shooting go to waste because it doesn't line up with the bill that's already in the chamber.

Isn't Canada in the midst of a gun buyback?

Kind of. Half the country is in the midst of something that could charitably be called a buyback.

The Federal Government has zero credibility on the issue, and they haven't taken any of the obvious opportunities to improve. If you properly file for the buy"back", then they won't guarantee any money, nevermind guaranteeing a fair price. They capped the payouts at about $250M, planning for 136k guns (vs. industry estimates of 500k+).

I also heard (and subsequently debunked) that they were giving themselves two months to do the paperwork, not that they were giving gun owners two months to apply. That tells you something about the current state of affairs.

Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Yukon are all obstructing it to various amounts because Trudeau was disastrous to national unity, both with specific policies (like this) and with his general attitude.

none have let a shooting go to waste because it doesn't line up with the bill that's already in the chamber

Sure, but none of the perpetrators have been expressly, blatantly, inescapably representative of every Establishment failure.

This is part of why they want to call him a woman, but it forces the anti-gun side in particular to give up being able to use the superweapon of blaming men; conversely, allowing them to call him a man costs them credibility with the TRAs.

If the government can't protect against attacks like this, and the reason it can't protect against attacks like this is that it let an ugly/unpopular Progressive token minority off the hook while acting to punish everyone else (and in a way that directly led to their children being killed), at a time where the government can't even keep the fucking nation together?

Then yeah, I'd be trying to lay low too. The most rabid anti-gunners in Canada might be tempted to go full Twitter meltdown, but if they do their time as a political force in Canada will be over.

and the reason it can't protect against attacks like this is that it let an ugly/unpopular Progressive token minority off the hook while acting to punish everyone else

Empirically, the only way you can protect against spree killings by psychos is to deny the general population (many of which are unfortunately, undiagnosed psychos) weapons.

More comments

they listed off the genders of all of the victims (which I found a bit weird)

If you found that weird you're not being cynical enough.

The demand for straightwhiteman crimes against young women far exceeds supply.

The demand for woman or transwoman crimes against young women, not so much. Of those, calling them a woman is perhaps the less damaging option.

Perhaps they were giving a Straussian hint.

The Canadian media already fell into that trap- "woman in a dress" = obviously trans.

To be fair, the El Paso airspace restrictions are kind of a big deal, and I'd expect them to suck the air out of the room.

There were some seriously hilarious headlines based on police quotes about a "Gunperson in a dress"

Couldn't they simply write "shooter" instead?

🎶 Gen Z gunperson and a mini 🎶

It’s like Coulter’s Law—but where the more ambiguously the suspect is described using clothing, the more likely it is the suspect is a fashionable racial or alphabet minority.

That might be the new journalist meta, where euphemisms like “urban youth” or even more recent innovations like “lunchtime rowdies” are already old hat.

Another recent example can be found with the FBI offering a $5,000 reward, involving an incident in Georgia where “an unknown male wearing dark clothing” threw acid upon a white woman and burning her severely. For some reason, absent is a photo of the suspect or further description of what he might look like.

This ABC article echoes that it was a “man in dark clothing,” but Problematically provides a photo of the alleged perpetrator.

I'm surprised by the photo. Acid attack to me would indicate foreign Muslim (some form of brown), not probably-domestic black.

Given the dates, I'm going to guess that the FBI didn't have the ABC photo when they put out the reward - they are specifically asking for something like the photo.

'memba when 4chan was referring to young black men as "joggers"? Seems like a lifetime ago.

Nobody cares about shootings, including school shootings, anymore and they haven't for a long while. South Park was making fun of this all the way back in 2018.

This has actually gotten significantly more coverage than the average school shooting gets, there was this one school where a shooting happened two years in a row and basically no one has heard about either!

The Rhodes-Ewing shooting occurred one year before another gunman allegedly opened fire inside the same school, injuring four students and a teacher. That incident, which took place this past April, led to 17-year-old Tracy Denard Haynes Jr. being charged with five counts of aggravated assault in connection with the mass shooting.

It might not seem like this recent one is getting much attention, but it's actually an outlier just because you've heard about it to begin with!

Sailer's Law...

Sentenced to 5 whole years!

Does it really need to be spelled out why the "average school shooting" is not covered? Because the "average school shooting" are gang bangers doing everyday gang banger shit, and not what people actually think about when "school shooting" is invoked.

AFAIK school shootings aren't covered because it was found that coverage inspires copycats, like suicides.

Does it really need to be spelled out why the "average school shooting" is not covered? Because the "average school shooting" are gang bangers doing everyday gang banger shit, and not what people actually think about when "school shooting" is invoked.

Is there an opposite to non-central fallacy, where the fallacy is taking a non-central event as central in order to inflate the impression of frequency of the non-central event?

I don't know that there's a special term for the bread and butter of mainstream news coverage: reporting every single "man bites dog" until it's nearly forgotten that "dog bites man" exists.

School shootings in general are very rare but just looking up some real quick there seems to be a few "traditional" mass shootings style school shootings that weren't big news.

Evergreen high school

Antioch High School (this one is interesting because he was a black kid but radicalized by white supremacist and neonazi groups online)

Florida State University

Lincoln University (maybe doesn't count depending on how technical we want to get, happened at a homecoming event on campus)

There's also stuff like this where a guy was shooting right outside of a high school. Like should we not count it if they don't take a foot inside but they're literally next to it? Idk

Yeah even with how rare these mass school shootings tend to be, you probably haven't heard about a good chunk of them anyway.

Cristo Rey high school is a special school for at risk youths(that is literally what a 'Cristo Rey Jesuit high school' is. It's a program that swings back and forth between woke nonsense and doing real but limited good through the usual mentorship route), and them reverting to the normal extracurriculars of at risk youths every so often is to be expected. It's not really a 'school shooting' in the sense of 'mentally ill guy with lots of red flags randomly killing people'.

These are not "traditional mass shootings style school shootings" and Cristo Rey High School is more gang bangers being gang bangers.

Location Deaths Injuries Details
Evergreen High School 1 2 Shooter (suicide); two students critically wounded but survived.
Antioch High School 2 1 Includes the shooter (suicide) and one 16-year-old female victim.
Florida State University 1 3 Shooter killed by police; three victims wounded (one paralyzed).
Lincoln University 1 6 One fatality during Homecoming; multiple gunshot and stampede injuries.

These are not "traditional mass shootings style school shootings"

How are they not? These don't seem to be "gang member just shoots another gang member" shootings, they include multiple victims and motivations outside of gang affailation. Evergreen, Antioch and FSU seem to have been motivated by neonazism (Ikner of FSU even used a Hitler profile picture and called his gaming account Schutzstaffel), not gang violence.

Lincoln University shooting is barely covered in the news, it was basically just dropped right away. Which really is just another piece of evidence towards society not really caring about mass shootings that we don't even have followup on a 7 person attack.

How are they not?

For one thing, certain bodies (among them Mother Jones) define a "mass shooting" as one in which at least three fatalities are incurred.

Ok well I think that's a ridiculous definition as I already explained. The idea that distance to a hospital or a shooters aiming skill makes a meaningful difference seems laughable.

What definition would you suggest? You have to have some cutoff, the general case of murder isn't a mass shooting.

More comments

"makes a meaningful difference" to what?

More comments

Primarily because there is a maximum of one fatality other than the shooter in any of them.

I don't draw that major of a distinction in a mass shooting between the successful murders and the attempted murders. If the difference is simply in something like the school's distance to the hospital or the shooters aim, it seems irrelevant.

There is hardly anything about this in the American media today.

Maybe the media finally got instructions do not give front page space to mass shootings and do not make shooters into heroes. (as is the case for celebrity suicides).

as is the case for celebrity suicides

I feel like that long standing journalistic practice is being more and more flagrantly ignored these days. To give one recent example, multiple outlets in different nations had zero qualms about specifying that James Ransone (Ziggy from The Wire) died by his own hand. Going a few years back, Chester Bennington from Linkin Park, Chris Cornell from Soundgarden. I really don't think there was any pretense of discretion.

It's unfalsifiable, but the obvious course isn't hiding the suicide, it's reporting it but avoiding romanticizing it directly or giving it more coverage than you'd give a tragic accident. Robin Williams is the classic example of the wrong approach on both counts; it was all over the press with loving tributes endorsing his decision to kill himself.

Yes, likewise with Bennington and Ransone, with journalists falling over themselves to highlight how both men had been victims of child abuse. I'm sure they meant well (attempting to highlight how abusing a child can traumatise them for literally decades hence), but the clear subtext was that their suicides were logical decisions in light of their experiences.

It's all over Irish media, first story I saw this morning. I have to say, when I read "school shooting" I thought USA, it's very surprising to be Canada.

Yeah, shooter probably trans, because who says "woman" (or "female", I've seen both versions reported) "in a dress"? Women are generally the ones in dresses, it's not some unusual thing. But we won't know for sure until further details are released. Shooter seems to have killed two family members first before going to shoot up the school and kill themselves/suicide by cop.

I think it was called out because it's pretty notable for a woman in Tumbler Ridge (55° N) to be wearing a dress in February -- local fashion I'd expect to run more towards lumberjack shirts even in the bug warm season.

The fact that the person was wearing a dress is in-and-of itself indicative of trans status IMO.

I’m just waiting for the inevitable Tumblr Ridge jokes to drop

Way ahead of you man

There is hardly anything about this in the American media today.

American media fails to publish story about news likely to be highly damaging to the preferred narrative of American media, news at 11.

Canadian media already fucked up and said too much about who the shooter was, so it's too late to deny it. The fact they haven't reported anything else suggests the other facts of the case are likely not in the regime's favor.

I don’t feel the raw anger and hatred from when the Catholic school in Minnesota was hit.

Canadians are a lot more passive-aggressive than that.

The "female in a dress" line was perfect. I can see that really catching on.

A (young and incompetent sounding) American reporter from ABC NY called into the press conference last night and was referring to the shooter as a "gun-person" -- the cop answering questions mirrored it for a while but seemed unenthused; politicians today are picking it up in their statements so maybe it will catch on!

A true win for peoplekind...

I eagerly await the day I see the headline "3 killed by male wearing pants".

American media fails to publish story about news likely to be highly damaging to the preferred narrative of American media

Given the ubiquity of linking That One Onion Article every time there is a mass shooting in America, I'm always darkly tempted to post it when there is one elsewhere (it's not that infrequent). Frankly, I feel bad even making the reference here: it's a shitty, inaccurate headline that makes people feel morally superior in their smugness and does nothing for the real people who have died, and their loved ones having to live through it.

I recognize I'm not doing much better in this regard right now, but clearly Canadian gun laws as they stand didn't stop this one (or the last one a few years ago, nor Australia's laws the Bondi massacre, and I could go on). I'd like to think good law could do better, but it's hard to design non-authoritarian systems that cope with the idiosyncratic and sometimes violently unpredictable failure modes of the human psyche. Sometimes there are signs (which would have lots of false positives to aggressively filter on), and sometimes people just break, it seems.

I was more surprised than anyone else to find that, per capita, Australia reports 80% of the deaths from mass shootings as does the US. And that's after multiple gun buyback schemes which supposedly prevented mass shootings altogether.

"The only country", indeed.

As an Australian (I cringed writing that phrase, but I suppose it's necessary), I am consistently annoyed both by local firearms discourse and by the way foreigners try to weaponise it. The 1996 buyback as far as I can tell made little difference - firearm deaths were a straight line trending downwards prior to Port Arthur, and continued their descent afterwards, with no visible change. There's just no particularly strong evidence that the policy change did anything.

I've come to interpret most tightening of laws after a tragedy as being symbolic. The buyback after Port Arthur probably didn't have much effect, but it was expressive. The point was for the government to communicate, "We care, and we are taking this seriously." The reforms currently being proposed after Bondi are the same. Both additional firearm restrictions and additional speech restrictions have the same effect: they are very unlikely to actually reduce gun violence or anti-semitic feeling, but they signal, "We, the government, care about this, and are taking action."

The only people who lose out of these trade-offs are, well, the public. People whose rights to own what they want or speak what they want are shaved back another millimetre.

The 1996 buyback as far as I can tell made little difference - firearm deaths were a straight line trending downwards prior to Port Arthur, and continued their descent afterwards, with no visible change. There's just no particularly strong evidence that the policy change did anything.

In the article, I said that the buyback program must be judged a roaring success in the limited sense of reducing mass shooting deaths in Australia, even if it's only a qualified success relative to the equivalent metric in the US. But correlation obviously does not prove causation, and it's entirely possible the steep decline in mass shooting deaths after Port Arthur was just a particularly pronounced regression to the mean and the gun buyback program was coincidental. But even if the scheme did have an effect, its success relative to the US has been vastly overstated. The way progressives (namely John Oliver) talk about the scheme, you would think that mass shootings literally never happen in Australia anymore, as opposed to them occurring 20% less often per capita compared to the US.

The point was for the government to communicate, "We care, and we are taking this seriously."

Agreed, it's just the politician's fallacy.

I'm skeptical of drawing strong causal conclusions around mass shootings if only because the number of mass shootings is so low. If we just look at Wikipedia's list, in the 1990s there are seven after Port Arthur, and twelve before. Counting Port Arthur itself, that's twenty, for a total of two per year. I think that's too low to draw any sensible inferences. If we go past that, Wikipedia lists fourteen shootings in all of the 1980s, versus six in the 2000s, and ten in the 2010s.

14-20-6-10 is overall a decline, but one that I find perfectly plausible in terms of the overall decline deaths by firearms (both homicides and suicides) over the period. Overall I tend to agree with RAND's conclusion - the evidence that the NFA reduced firearm deaths is weak at best.

For what it's worth I don't think NFA-style reforms in the US would accomplish very much, and I'd tend to support Australia moderately loosening up our firearms laws. I don't feel very strongly about firearms and I'd be happy to trade it away as part of a compromise on some other issue, but I think we could safely do it, and in principle I'm in favour of people being able to own things that they want, unless there is some pressing reason why they shouldn't. I'm more exercised about speech, personally, where I do think our record is unimpressive, and I look at the American First Amendment with mild envy.

I've come to interpret most tightening of laws after a tragedy as being symbolic. The buyback after Port Arthur probably didn't have much effect, but it was expressive. The point was for the government to communicate, "We care, and we are taking this seriously."

Nope. It's so that anytime they want, the government can with maximum ease send men to your house to tie you up, rape your wife, kids, and pets to death in front of you (if you have any), and drag you off to some blacksite to do medical experiments on you for the rest of your days. That's what "monopoly on force" means.

This looks very much like an inflammatory claim posted for maximum heat and zero information.

You may have some strong feelings about government monopoly on force, but if the Australian government is sending men to tie up citizens and rape their wives, kids and pets to death and then drag them off to blacksites to perform medical experiments on them for the rest of their days, or if that is the intention behind gun control laws, then you need to provide some evidence.

You now have a very mixed record of AAQCs and low-effort trolling, with the trolling being more recent. It is not amusing.

but clearly Canadian gun laws as they stand didn't stop this one

It's worse for the regime in this case because there's an active confiscation going on. The government has been campaigning for the better part of a decade on it. AUS murders did not happen under those conditions and the victims were perceived as having it coming- not quite the same thing.

Sometimes there are signs

If the most uncharitable rumors are true, institutionalization in some form have already occurred.

it's a shitty, inaccurate headline

It's made solely to justify reprisal attacks on the outgroup.

It’s hardly even on Fox. They love to report on trans shooters. I don’t buy it.

95% true -- it's a very small town where everybody literally knows everybody, and neighbours etc. have more-or-less confirmed the shooter's identity (both kinds!) on twitter.

There are fake (well real, but the wrong person) photos of a ridiculous young tranny from Ontario floating around; AFAICT that person has the same last name but is not the shooter; a yearbook photo of Jesse Strang for Tumblr Tumbler Ridge shows a much better effort but is still identifiably trans.

The trans thing was politically useful because it showcased the most extreme, least defensible positions on the progressive side (like that even biological sex was fake) during peak woke that had very low mainstream public approval. In a way, it was similar to eg factions on the academic far-left being sympathetic to extreme sexual deviancy in the late 1970s, which was also useful for the right at the time leading into the comparative backlash in the 1980s.

Today it feels like we’re no longer even close to that level. Yes, progressive wine moms and aunts are still very pro-trans, that’s true. But even the NYT is now no longer as zealous about the topic as it once was, and the whole right is in agreement. It feels like this chapter of the culture war is largely closed, albeit without a total victory on either side.

And yet every time a Democratic official appears in front of congress, they are reliably stumped by the "what's a woman" question. The "trans thing" is still strong enough to demand the slavish allegiance of every single elected and appointed dem in the country, apart from Fetterman. It still runs every university, major corporation and media organization. They're being a bit quieter about it, they aren't pushing the maximalist stuff as hard, but that's a temporary thing. This is a religious invocation of faith, and it won't be dropped for some time, if ever.

they are reliably stumped by the "what's a woman" question.

And thousands, perhaps millions, are reliably stumped by the "is a hotdog a sandwich" question, because most people still think of words as living in the Platonic Realm Of Forms rather than being pointers to fuzzy-edged categories. (I am once again asking you to Read the Sequences.)

  • -12

Bad analogy. The question "is a hotdog a sandwich?" is a query about whether an edge case falls inside a category. In the sex/gender debate, equivalent questions might include "is an emasculated male with breast implants a woman?" or "is a person with androgen insensitivity syndrome a woman?"

It's also a bad analogy because nothing actually hinges on the question of whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich. Quite a lot does hinge on the question "what is a woman?"

The third reason it's a bad analogy is because "is a hotdog a sandwich?" is a question which inspires disagreement, but which no one feels the least bit of discomfort about answering, and will be happy to present arguments for or against ("it's a piece of meat surrounded by bread, so it's a sandwich!" "but it's only one piece of bread, while a sandwich has two pieces!"). By contrast, among progressives the stock response to the question "what is a woman?" is a sputtering refusal to answer, usually attempting to dodge it by changing the subject ("I'm not a biologist", "I take care of people with many different identities"). This is not because it's a complicated question, but because progressives know that one answer ("an adult human female") will anger woke people, while the other answer ("anyone who identifies as one") will make them look like a lunatic to people with common sense.

It's also a bad analogy because nothing actually hinges on the question of whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich.

...until some arcane point of tax or tariff law depends on it (this was why the Supreme Court had to weigh in on whether a tomato is a fruit), and the Red Tribe and Blue Tribe converge on different answers.

among progressives the stock response to the question "what is a woman?" is a sputtering refusal to answer

Again, that might be different if progressives had read the Sequences.

Another possible response might be "With what purpose do you inquire?".

an adult human female

And what is a 'female'?

Even limiting ourselves to biological factors, there are at least five possible definitions.

Another possible response might be "With what purpose do you inquire?".

I have a hard time envisioning a helpful "purpose" for which the answer to the question "what is a woman?" includes people with penises.

It's been awhile since I read the Sequences, but my recollection is that Big Yud put a lot of stock in the idea of definitions that "cleave reality at the joints". Like Zack Davis, I think he ought to take his own advice: I'm baffled as to how he (or anyone else for that matter) could think that the definition "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" is one that cleaves reality at the joints, as opposed to "a woman is an adult female human".

And what is a 'female'?

An entity born with the organs associated with the production of large gametes.

I have a hard time envisioning a helpful "purpose" for which the answer to the question "what is a woman?" includes people with penises.

Any purpose that does not involve anyone interacting with said penes.

Big Yud put a lot of stock in the idea of definitions that "cleave reality at the joints"

Sometimes reality has multiple sets of joints, and at which ones we choose to cleave reality can be a function of our goals; e. g. the currently accepted definition of 'fish', excluding whales, cleaves reality at the joints of 'evolutionary relatedness', whereas older definitions which include whales cleave reality at a different set of joints, namely body shape and habitat.

An entity born with the organs associated with the production of large gametes.

So you would consider someone with XY chromosomes, who, due to some hormonal-response factor, developed ovaries instead of testicles, to be female?

Any purpose that does not involve anyone interacting with said penes.

Well, that's just sort of stupid, isn't it? Male people have an insurmountable advantage in strength and speed over female people, and this advantage doesn't disappear even if the male people in question have "medically transitioned". Ergo, any definition of "woman" which includes people with penises will make it impossible for female people to have a fair shot at winning sporting competitions. This is true even though none of the people involved will ever interact with any of the penes involved at any point.

I know they're the same word, but the concept of "sex" has meaning and predictive power beyond the narrow domain of "sexual intercourse" and "sexual gratification".

Sometimes reality has multiple sets of joints, and at which ones we choose to cleave reality can be a function of our goals

True. And I think the goals of the trans activist movement are incoherent, quixotic and disturbing. You'll note that, unlike the various definitions for "woman" proposed by trans activists, both the current definition and the older definition of "fish" were coherent, self-consistent and non-circular. I have a hard time believing that any circular definition can possibly cleave reality at any of its claimed joints.

So you would consider someone with XY chromosomes, who, due to some hormonal-response factor, developed ovaries instead of testicles, to be female?

Does such a person exist in reality, or is this a hypothetical?

More comments

And thousands, perhaps millions, are reliably stumped by the "is a hotdog a sandwich" question

AFAICT no one's lost their job, been hounded out of their hobby, lost an election, rewrote decades of a social movement, etc over this one.

Give it time.

The correct analogy would be if people were stumped about the "what is a sandwich" question. Once you have a definition for a category, you can have a debate about whether a specific instance belongs to one category or another. If it the category really is fuzzy, you'll have actual arguments for why that is, and why a specific instance falls somewhere in the middle, making it difficult to classify.

We've head these sorts of conversations countless times: what is a race, or a species? Does an animal belong to one or the other? What is a planet? Is Pluto one?

What you don't normally get is the Blue Screen of Death when you ask someone to define their terms.

I am once again asking you to Read the Sequences.

I'm yet to hear a good argument for doing so.

What you don't normally get is the Blue Screen of Death when you ask someone to define their terms.

Because you aren't setting off Admiral Ackbar with a 'Gotcha!' question. (Is it possible that we were a little too hard on Sarah Palin?)

I'm yet to hear a good argument for doing so.

Because the particular sequence A Human's Guide to Words covers the precise meta-level issue at hand, that there is no True Definition of 'sandwich/planet/woman' floating in the aetherial realm.

You have to speak a little more clearly. Is the question itself supposed to be a trap? How? The only way I see it as one is that any answer exposes some contradiction in the ideology, at which point you're admitting the person setting the trap is correct.

The trap is that they are hoping to get a soundbite that looks bad when taken out of context, which they can run endlessly in attack ads.

Every single question asked by a political opponent has this goal, and yet only this question produces a segfault crash. Also, the opponents are getting a lot of play out of the refusal to answer as well, so it's not a it's not even working to avoid the issue. And also, if this was the case, there should be someone, somewhere who came up with a good answer, and I haven't seen one yet, even in contexts where soundbites aren't a threat (like, say, this forum).

They've discovered it loses votes so they're keeping it under their hat until they're back in power, at which point trans-everything is back on the agenda.

But even the NYT is now no longer as zealous about the topic as it once was, and the whole right is in agreement.

I don't know. APnews has a main story that studiously uses she and her. That strikes me as still zealous on the issue given it's a mass shooter.

Lukewarm support for trans rights looks like "studiously use preferred pronouns but avoid materially contentious questions like kids, prisons, sports and bathrooms", not like "use preferred pronouns for nice people but not for murderers". I'm not actually sure if there's anyone in the world who does the latter, it would imply a very weird outlook where ability to change one's social gender is some sort of… revocable privilege? By and large, "anyone can change their pronouns" vs "no one can change their pronouns" is a binary debate, nuance vs zealotry is a question of what else someone in the former camp believes falls under the umbrella of inalienable trans rights.

I don't know how much a random redditor counts, but I have literally seen a conversation where the person "misgenders" a trans criminal, someone tries to lecture him, and he straight up says (paraphrased), "I use preferred pronouns because I am asked to, but criminals are not owed politeness." Which does square with the argument frequently made (if not necessarily believed) that pronouns are like titles and using them is "just being polite."

it would imply a very weird outlook where ability to change one's social gender is some sort of… revocable privilege?

What's weird about that? I'm skeptical of the science behind Trans, but if it convinced me my view would be Trans-Med: there are people with a disorder called "gender dysphoria" and going along with their preferences alleviates their suffering a bit. As long as someone is a functional member of society and in good standing, I can go along with that. It's not that they're allowed to change their pronouns, it's that they're being indulged, the same way I'd indulge an autistic weirdo like Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds. Why should I indulge a murderer, though?

Why should I indulge a murderer, though?

You needn't; but the non-murderous trans people you're interested in being nice to understandably perceive misgendering any trans person as an insult to them as a group. Similarly, you may not care about a black murderer's feelings, but you shouldn't call him the N-word in a newspaper article, because it would be hurtful to your non-murderous black readers.

but the non-murderous trans people you're interested in being nice to understandably perceive misgendering any trans person as an insult to them as a group.

This assumes the Queer Theory worldview to be axiomatically correct, where it's not a disorder, but a valid identity that each individual can put on and off at will, and a refusal to acknowledge could be construed as an attack on the validity of the entire identity.

I reject that view. Like I said, the view I would be endorsing is trans-medicalism. Asking that I pretend a man is a woman is already a tall order, but like I said, if that makes their life somehow more bearable, it's something I can indulge, if the person is otherwise reasonable.

Asking that I pretend that all men, that declare themselves to be women, are women, no matter how they conduct themselves, is deranged behavior, and a request they have no right to make.

Similarly, you may not care about a black murderer's feelings, but you shouldn't call him the N-word in a newspaper article, because it would be hurtful to your non-murderous black readers.

"Nigger" is an unambiguous insult. It's seen this way by people who hear it and are insulted by it, as well as by people who say it. Even when black people use it affectionately between themselves, the core meaning is still an insult, they are just adding sarcasm on top of it, to invert the meaning into something positive.

"Man" is a neutral factual term. It's not being used to insult trans people when relating a story about a trans murderer. It's being used the exact same way it would be, if the murderer was a non-trans male.

not like "use preferred pronouns for nice people but not for murderers".

It was a thing around one of the earlier trans violence incidents but I don't recall which one specifically. I'm thinking particularly of Blocked and Reported, with Jesse Singal sticking to the "studiously use preferred pronouns" line (of course) and Katie being much lazier (of course) and/or pushing back a bit, that it ultimately is a respect thing and you don't need to respect murderers.

It's not like there's not similar examples, other populations where slurs are 'allowed' or you won't be expect to respect an identity due to other factors. I wouldn't be surprised if you could find people that would use preferred pronouns for murderers but not for nice conservatives.

it would imply a very weird outlook where ability to change one's social gender is some sort of… revocable privilege?

A presidential candidate tried to change people's race based on their lack of support for himself. Hypocrisy exists and people are weird, news at 11.

I'm not actually sure if there's anyone in the world who does the latter, it would imply a very weird outlook where ability to change one's social gender is some sort of… revocable privilege? By and large, "anyone can change their pronouns" vs "no one can change their pronouns" is a binary debate, nuance vs zealotry is a question of what else someone in the former camp believes falls under the umbrella of inalienable trans rights.

I don't really do it based on morality, but I've generally been a lot more hesitant to swap pronouns (among the legitimate three; I utterly refuse to use singular-they or neopronouns) if someone's obviously acting erratic and crazy (given the likelihood that said person is not, in fact, stably trans).

While not an intellectually consistent approach, many people are not intellectually consistent. The worldview that 'we should be nice to trans people, but changing your sex isn't really real, so we should humour it for the goodies but not the baddies' doesn't seem terribly uncommon among moderate progressives.

Indeed, the core argument of https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/ is that using preferred pronouns is something you should to do to "make a little effort to be nice to people," in the same way that you might tell a little white lie to spare your friend's feelings (or, in the example that Scott uses, humor someone who jokingly declares himself Emperor of the United States).

A journalist reporting on a mass murderer probably doesn't owe them the same level of social nicety.

This is fair, but I don't think that Scott, if asked, would in fact defend ignoring a murderer's pronouns in the press on that basis. Not sure if he'd phrase his objection in terms of "misgendering anybody is hurtful to the sensibilities of the innocent trans people in your readership, so you should she-her the murderer to be nice to them", or in terms of "misgendering people is a mild but indecorous insult, and it's undignified for journalists to hurl indecorous insults at murderers; you shouldn't harp on about a dead murderer's biological sex any more than you should harp on about a dead murderer having had a small penis or an ugly wart, even if the claims are factually true", or something else I can't model.

I do suspect Scott himself leans quite a bit further to the left on this issue (after all, he's managed to survive living in the San Francisco Bay Area), but the post does a good job describing the "bailey" version of the position that's more palatable to moderates.

Surely the Motte is more palatable to moderates.

A journalist reporting on a mass murderer probably doesn't owe them the same level of social nicety.

Especially not when they're already dead, along with most of their immediate family who might care about such things.

(Incidentally, this xkcd comic is very relevant to your username.)

I can imagine a kind of internal logic that overlaps heavily with "men bad, women good" ideas. Anyone can change their identity and pronouns at will, but by choosing to do something heinous, they have switched their identity to male.

As an intuition pump, would people be more likely to "misgender" a MtF or a FtM mass shooter?

I can imagine a kind of internal logic that overlaps heavily with "men bad, women good" ideas. Anyone can change their identity and pronouns at will, but by choosing to do something heinous, they have switched their identity to male.

That's conceivable, but I'd hardly describe someone who believed that as non-zealous in their gender activism, they'd just be a very idiosyncratic zealot.

Anyone can change their identity and pronouns at will, but by choosing to do something heinous, they have switched their identity to male.

"Choosing to do something heinous" and "changing their identity and pronouns at will" tend to go hand in hand, so this isn't acceptable to TRAs. Their entire thing is that the community has no right to tell you who you are, no matter what.

but by choosing to do something heinous, they have switched their identity to male/"men bad, women good"

Older Boomer women currently wish this was the case so they could go on blaming men [and guns] for mass murder. Having a pet of theirs rack up the highest kill count to date west of the Canadian Shield is incongruous with the "gendercide" narrative.

I think the pronouns will stick in this case; the demand for violence from straightwhitemen might exceed supply, but the reaction to that is an increase in the demand for violence perpetrated by non-straightwhitemen (because the demand for violence comes from the highly passive-aggressive "see, we were right about them, now it's time to make them pay" that characterizes most Western nations, in particular English-settled ones).

There are definitely a lot of people who use the preferred pronouns of trans people they like and not mass murderers, it's just not a position with intellectual support on either side of the aisle.

People who pass well and are integrated into my community I use chosen pronouns. Bad actors I will truegender all day. The vast majority of unaffiliated trans people I just avoid using any pronouns in front of, and call them their real gender in private.

It feels like this chapter of the culture war is largely closed, albeit without a total victory on either side.

The medical scandal part of it is yet to play out fully. Like I mentioned in another post, the first detransitioner just won a lawsuit, the FTC is going after WPATH, AAP, and the Endocrine Society. In the UK, they commissioned a massive clinical trial of puberty blockers to get around a ban that was imposed in the wake of the Cass Review. If it goes well for them, we might end up with some sort of "alright, let's call it a draw" resolution, if not it might be the nail in the coffin.

Media overage is usually propelled by some combination of proximity, audience relevance, and narrative traction. Geography definitely matters, but also US newsrooms are abuzz right now with domestic political drama and Epstein. They prioritise what their core audience clicks on. If a story is distant, developing, and not generating engagement, it gets less oxygen. There’s also caution around the first 24 hours, especially when details about the shooter's identity or motive are unclear, because misreporting early permanently damages your credibility.

It is currently the top story in Google News when I look at it in browser incognito mode to prevent it from showing stories tailored for me (to the extent that is possible despite browser fingerprinting).

It is currently the top story in the New York Times' World section.

It is also currently the top story in the Washington Post's World section.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats