domain:youtu.be
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
10hr ago
I can appreciate being on the edge of killing the guy and giving him one last chance to redeem himself (in the killer's mind). Or alternatively, putting an exclamation mark on something he thought was especially shitty.
The past few years should have made it clear to anyone that much of the Right's dedication to "free speech" is just as much of a lie as the Left's.
Nah, sorry. A lot of us were principled free speech advocates until it became clear that we were trying to cooperate with a group of committed defectors. Which, hey, "always defect" is a valid strategy, but when your opponent begins to mirror that strategy, you don't get to rewrite history to claim that they were defectors the entire time.
Soteriologian
10hr ago
He did have his phone with him, and was even using it (why on earth an assassin would do that in the post-Snowden era is beyond me. Zoomers...). But yeah, if we assume for whatever reason he couldn't hear what was going on, this does render the timing of the shot insignificant, which would weaken my narrative.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
11hr ago
We're right now in a situation where being a family member of someone who starts a right-aligned social network is reason enough to be debanked. Your protestations that there's no way to avoid that without putting undue pressure on banks to accept deadbeats is... unconvincing.
It'd be a different situation if banking weren't such a heavily regulated industry, with high barriers to entry and a small pool of people who can actually do it. But it is, and that doesn't look to change.
Soteriologian
11hr ago
The conversation is interrupted right in the middle. It's basically just "How many trans shooters?" "too many" "5" "How many regular shooters?" "with or without gang violence?" bang
Soteriologian
11hr ago
I mean, let me be clear, I think the assassination was a bad idea; and even if I weren't, I think there were far better targets if you wanted to throw your life away on that.
My comment is an attempt to explain why the shooter did what he did, not to justify why it was morally or strategically correct.
Soteriologian
11hr ago
I also find it somewhat rich to claim that Kirk saying there had been "too many" trans school shooters was "maximally-inflammatory" - I feel like "too many" would be a normal, even standard answer to literally any question relating to the amount of school shootings committed by whatever demographic group.
To me it feels quite clear that he knows the commenter is going to make a probably-valid or at least not-off-the-cuff-easy-to-refute claim about transpeople not actually being statistically dangerous and is seeking to derail that any way he can. Which, yes, is epistemically dishonest (although par for the course for verbal debate, especially of the rhetorical judo style geared for TikTok clips he does).
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
11hr ago
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
FtttG
11hr ago
Okay, notice when the shot happened: Tyler specifically waited for Kirk to badmouth transpeople before firing his shot.
As Brendan O'Neill pointed out, Robinson was 200 yards from Kirk. It's profoundly unlikely he was able to hear what Kirk was saying.
dr_analog
top 1% of underdog fetishists
11hr ago
Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?", and instead of replying "I don't know", Kirk replies with the deflective and maximally-inflammatory "Too many." The shot came a few seconds later, but I think this was when the shooter decided to aim carefully and fire. Kirk demonstrated he had no interest in discussing actual numbers that might fail to make transpeople look bad, he just wanted to play rhetorical judo and try to find his dunk.
Political assassination is bad and I don't condone it, of course, but even in condemning the killer, as a Mottizen I appreciate the artistry involved in waiting for Kirk to resort to paltering before killing him. Un bacione, addio!
Soteriologian
11hr ago
Thank you for the good engagement!
Then you go to college, first step of being a Professional Smart Person Who Is Obviously Left and you bomb out in one semester.
I don't think this is what happened. The guy had what, a 34 on the ACT? That's a very high score. Like, Harvard-tier. If he bombed out, it certainly wasn't for lack of ability.
But yes, clearly something odd happened, because he did drop out. Maybe he just didn't get along with the people there. Whatever it was, some sort of internal crisis of the sort you describe makes more sense to me than the simplistic "he fell for a bunch of libtard indoctrination."
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
11hr ago
My thoughts on this are very simple. The taboo has been broken. Cancelling is fair game now and always for everyone. I 100% do not doubt that if e.g. Gavin Newsom wins a trifecta in 2028 we will be right back to the bad old days of internet deplatforming and cancelling of right wingers (only turbocharged because so many have come out the woodwork). People who throw around the term "woke right" are idiots who still think that this time, if the right presses the cooperate button, the left will stop smashing defect at every opportunity, contrary to all of recent political history.
there342
11hr ago
But Kirk goes out of his way to be an ass here, to pander to low-class right-wing bigotry.
This sounds like any old way a tribalist would perceive any polite disagreement. I could just as easily say your comment is a long-winded effort at shaming people for being against murder.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
11hr ago
Pesky fourth declension, confusing bad classicists since someone put their hand on their knee.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
11hr ago
For individuals, requiring banks to offer basic accounts to anyone who isn't on a blacklist of people convicted for bank fraud would be a plausible regulation - it is definitely something that exists in the UK. The question is whether you can make a basic account which is both safe for a bank to offer to dodgy people and useful enough that dodgy people will use it rather than continuing to rely on cheque cashers and prepaid debit cards. (And in any case, a rich person whose account was downgraded to basic status would probably consider themselves debanked and complain to the press about it - as Nigel Farage did)
Given modern technology, you can set up an account that is almost impossible to overdraw with outgoing payments - the problem is overdrafts caused by reversal of incoming payments. Incoming cheques can bounce for all the usual reasons. Bouncing cheques typically bounce within a week, but in the US there is no legal limit on how late a cheque can bounce. If you protect yourself against bouncing cheques by putting a week's hold on incoming cheques (incidentally, illegal in the US although that rule could be changed) then the typical low-credit-score customer will go to their local cheque casher to avoid the hold. ACH payments and wires are reversable for alleged fraud, again with no time limit, so for a customer who is a sufficiently high fraud risk can't be banked safely at all.
For businesses, the risk of reversed incoming payments are a lot higher (particularly if you accept credit/debit cards which are subject to chargeback, but also because businesses don't get most of their income from payroll and government welfare, which are the least likely payment streams to involve NSF cheques or reversals for alleged fraud. An account which won't let you accept card payments and puts a 5-day hold on incoming personal cheques is basically useless for a business, and even if it was a business there is still a risk to the bank if the business disappears after receiving a bunch of allegedly fraudulent electronic payments. There isn't a "basic business bank account" which is actually useful for businesses and which can safely be offered to dodgy people.
ulyssessword
11hr ago
I think that's a valid clarification from "The shot came a few seconds later, but I think...". If you're going to place relevance on his last words, then it makes sense to pay attention to his last words, even if it's to dismiss them.
I think your theory makes as much sense as any other about the timing (e.g. about gun violence in general, or random because he was too far to hear), but the one extra answer should be addressed more explicitly than "a few seconds later" IMO.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
11hr ago
If Ilhan Omar died in a car accident and people were being fired for voicing disrespectful opinions about her, would you feel similarly?
Yes. Good grief, if nothing else it's just stupid. A dead Ilhan Omar is a closed plot thread. There's nothing to shut down, no final argument to win with a post-buzzer dunk. I'm sure plenty of people wouldn't be able to restrain themselves from husband/brother jokes and nastier comments besides, but it's feeding ammo to the outgroup.
Just nod to yourself to acknowledge the changed landscape, do the "Thoughts and Prayers with her family" ritual and move on to the next battle.
daguerrean
11hr ago
I haven't hung around here much for years, but every reply I'm getting is like... multiple standard deviations below my expectations
You’re the one claiming he had no discernible political motivations despite inscribing multiple antifascist slogans on his bullets and his family describing his fervent devotion to politics. You’re also the idiot claiming that a sniper would have packed up and left without taking a shot if he just avoided making any trans-related statement. Frankly these are just idiotic comments
ActuallyATleilaxuGhola
Axolotl Tank Class of '24
11hr ago
And lurking in the background, with both of them, is the deeper reality that many of us (I certainly include myself here) are spending more and more of time as floating eyeballs attached to brains with floating fingertips, living mostly in the screen.
I came across this idea in the last few years and the implications are terrifying. The way it was out was that when you are online and invested in your online persona, you are essentially projecting your consciousness, your soul, out of your body and into a different dimension, a dimension where there is zero distance between you and all manner of hostile and corrupting influences. Other people, of course, but also alien artificial minds and egregores many times more powerful than you. And perhaps other emergent entities that we still do not yet understand. Since the space feels so "real" and meaningful to many, the online persona can often feel more real than the meatspace persona, and so the online persona, the one subject to an unknown array of corrupting forces, increasingly dominates and directs the actions of the meatspace persona. This is not just a long-winded way to say "people get radicalized online." It's not "radicalization" in the same way that visiting the wrong mosque might get you caught up with Al Qaeda or whatever. It's a much deeper andore profound psychological transformation.
stuckinbathroom
11hr ago
It’s stricto sensu
Soteriologian
11hr ago
Kirk was very much NOT shot right after making a remark about trans people, he was killed just as he was hinting at how school shooting statistics are distorted by gang violence.
Another commenter not even bothering to take 10 seconds to Google the context, which yes, as I've demonstrated multiple times now, explicitly does make this about comparison of rates of trans violence.
I will not engage with this epistemic sloppiness and dishonesty. This place used to be LessWrong and SSC. Now it's just fricken' Twitter transformed with a GPT politeness filter.
You're pretending like this is some weird mystery
It is a mystery, because Fuentes is the obvious, obvious target if you're actually concerned about The Rise of Far Right Fascism. He's an actual thinker, he will not be immediately replaced if you knock him off the board, and he has a growing audience. Charlie Kirk is like Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck or any other of the zillion establishment mouthpieces for big moneyed interests. He'll just be immediately replaced the moment you get rid of him and nothing will change.
The entire point of my post is that an external, chessboard-style political analysis of "where would be the most efficient place to put my bullet?" does not explain what happened here, just as it does not explain what Luigi did. What does explain it is an internal psychological narrative where the shooter is responding to his own perceptions and experiences and rationalizing what is obviously a poor decision by external standards. How people here are so illiterate as to read this as "ARE YOU ENDORSING LE CHARGLIE KURK MURDER?" is beyond me. This was clearly a mistaken endeavor.
4doorsmorewhores
11hr ago
"Afraid of the deadly global pandemic" is not something independent of government policy, but instead the product of government policy. If a government makes people afraid to travel by telling them covid will kill them if they do, that's still the government's fault.
This is something we could agree on, but probably won't: The chilling effect of both covid restrictions and ICE deportations is the direct result of government policy, not something that happens without. Yet for some reason you think the chilling effect of covid restrictions is merely an organic "desire not to travel".
I think you're completely off mark here and I will make the strongest version of the argument. People travel less to places when they perceive a danger, even if the danger wasn't presented to them by any policy or authorities. It seems trivially obvious to me that people can be afraid of things based on their own judgment, you seem to disagree. As a rough stand in for "People's unwillingness to go do things during a pandemic" you can look at the sharp decrease of domestic economic activity in Feb/March 2020 before almost any policies were in place. Furthermore cutting out 2020 because "Biden wasn't in charge yet" when 2020 had by far the lowest amount of travel and activity (and Trump was in charge for the entire calendar year), again showing that this activity is not steered entirely by the chilling effect of the government (Remember at this time Trump was saying the risk was really really low, it might miraculously disappear, and that most cases would heal in a day).
The fact that 70-80% of visitors to Las Vegas are domestic strengthens my point even if you don't yet realize it. The dropoff of 10-15% suggests that 50% of all travel from foreign visitors has been curtailed by these chilling effects - much more than even the most generous example you can find of vaccine rules.
You can A/B test this with the similar drop off of tourism to SEA during the 2002 SARS outbreak. The dropoff was about 40% despite no Coronavirus-like restrictions in place. The best I can find are some local quarantine orders in Beijing - who knows if they were followed or enforced - as well as Travel Advisories, the same kind which exist for like 70% of countries but don't have any real effect on travel because nobody cares about some government suggestion, they care about their own judgement and safety.
Not a comprehensive account of tourism restrictions, you need to also consider domestic restrictions that would affect the activities that tourists can do once in the country.
If you have an argument to make then make it.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
11hr ago
Thematically, IMO, the ending cements the futility of the urge that drove the boys into the contest in the first place. I can’t possibly do it justice here, but it’s a haunting, phenomenal, thematically rich ending (for an author who is notoriously bad at writing endings) to a great book.
You know, I see right-wingers make fun of King for looking like an old lesbian, but reading that description makes me want to rip up his man card. What a dismal spirit it must have taken to write that book! Hopefully, he can at least blame the drugs.
I am reminded of a supposed fact about scammers - that they will often have deliberate inconsistencies, typos, and so on because it helps them not waste time. They filter out the people who will notice and ask questions.
To me this seems absurd, who would fall for that?
But people do, and the mechanisms of that don't always match our intuitions.
See: Lauren Sanchez, as you mention.
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