After Kirk shooting, Utah governor calls social media a “cancer.” Will we treat it like one?

We did not evolve to handle this, Utah governor says.

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[AusPeter]

I recall Kurt Vonnegut pointing out that TV shows need to mold stories into precise running times and have broad strokes drama to hold audience attention, including during breaks. We now have generations raised on fictional stories with little nuance filled with characters resolving disagreements with a punch, bullet or other nuclear option.

I watched Thunderbolts* tonight and they solved the potentially world destroying crisis by hugging it out. Seriously, hugging it out

 

[Jordan83]

I watched Thunderbolts* tonight and they solved the potentially world destroying crisis by hugging it out. Seriously, hugging it out

I'm not sure if you're trying to counterpoint the person you're responding to, or if you're agreeing with them.

I read by the emoji at the end that you didn't like the movie (or at least its ending), but your paraphrase doesn't nearly do it justice IMO. I appreciated it for many reasons, one of which is that it is in fact a subversion of the trope. Virtually every other MCU movie comes to a climactic scene where the heroes save the day by just punching the villains harder.

In the case of Thunderbolts, the "potentially world destroying crisis" was a single person, who was battling his own internal villain. He tried just punching his internal villain harder, which only served to make it stronger, so the group came together to give him the things he actually needed in order to defeat it - companionship, camaraderie, friendship, acceptance, empathy.

I loved it. I thought it was brilliant, and frankly one of the absolute most relatable superhero movies I have ever seen.

 

[One off]

I watched Thunderbolts* tonight and they solved the potentially world destroying crisis by hugging it out. Seriously, hugging it out

Lol. I was unfortunate to see a tv show where a school shooting was prevented via interpretive dance. Better than violence as the universal cure.

 

[One off]

I'm not sure if you're trying to counterpoint the person you're responding to, or if you're agreeing with them.

I read by the emoji at the end that you didn't like the movie (or at least its ending), but your paraphrase doesn't nearly do it justice IMO. I appreciated it for many reasons, one of which is that it is in fact a subversion of the trope. Virtually every other MCU movie comes to a climactic scene where the heroes save the day by just punching the villains harder.

In the case of Thunderbolts, the "potentially world destroying crisis" was a single person, who was battling his own internal villain. He tried just punching his internal villain harder, which only served to make it stronger, so the group came together to give him the things he actually needed in order to defeat it - companionship, camaraderie, friendship, acceptance, empathy.

I loved it. I thought it was brilliant, and frankly one of the absolute most relatable superhero movies I have ever seen.

That sounds pretty good.

 

[arsisloam]

I watched Thunderbolts* tonight and they solved the potentially world destroying crisis by hugging it out. Seriously, hugging it out

Haha yeah, because the Big Bad was a manifestation of bipolar disorder. It was a different kind of movie. And maybe a tad too long.

 

[jtwrenn]

I really need to disabuse you of the notion that there is anything in any way moderate about Joanne’s views on Trans people. It may be true that Kirk’s were similar, but that would in fact mean they both had monstrous and abhorrent views about trans people.

I'm sorry where did you get anything I said as moderate? I was just trying to say that people focus on his Trans points way too much as it is far down the list of his extremely messed up ideas. People have degrees and I disagree with almost everything Kirk was about, but his trans side was far less radical than most of his misogyny but it gets all the time anymore. Hi fascist, racist, pro political violence against the left and Christian nationalist views were much worse.

 

[CrashingTooFast]

A post on lemmy claims this wasn't true at all, that it was just made-up crap. I'm not sure who to believe here, but I figured I should pass the doubt along.

I don't know anything about the poster, and it could easily be disinformation.

edit with a thought: there's not a lot of room on a bullet for sayings that complex.

I saw something in the dead trees newspaper this morning about this. Apparently a casing had a headstamp from the manufacturer. (NRG maybe) Some of the media took that as a message from the shooter, and starting assigning wild ideas based on the 3 letters.

The other etchings (take this, fascist; bella ciao; etc) sounded real. But I'm a little shaky on their timing. Thought there was only one shot, and even that one could have stayed in the rifle. so maybe he threw some bullets around at the shooting site for effect, or they were found with the rifle?

 

[DaVuVuZeLa]

From what I saw "not sure if it was the actual casing" it was stamped TRN. TRN being Turan Ammo, the manufacturer. TRN meaning "trans"?

who knows: But I guess that means we're at the stage where we can't mention trans- anything without triggering the right:

Trans-mission
Trans-portation
Tans-lator
Trans-cript
Trans-action
Trans-ducer
Trans-fer
Trans-it
Trans-national

....I'm sure you get the point now

 

[egbert65]

It may be a side issue to this particular shooting, but he is right in general. Social media allows people who would in the past have been left ranting on their own in the pub or on a street corner to get artificially promoted by reckless big tech algorithms. From there, equally reckless media desperate to fill a gapingly empty 24 hour "live" news stream report on them breathlessly like they really matter. and before you know it, they actually do matter.

However, I firmly believe that 24 hour news is every bit as bad as unconstrained, unmoderated social media. Because they are desperate for clicks, every wrinkle of a story gets leapt on, however ephemeral or irrelevant it might be, and reported as though it is both fact and meritorious. There is little consideration of genuine news value, just an endless compulsion to fill a space. And conflict, bile and hate fills those spaces more dramatically than considered content.

It's a double-barrelled disaster, the 24 news cycle feeding on the open sewer of social media, and vice versa.

 

[Carewolf]

The problem is that you can't shame people on the right with these quotes because they all 100% agree with them.

I now found some European right wingers, believing some sanatized sane-washed quotes, and that "the left" is just trying to change the narrative by painting a dead guy as an extreme right-winger.. It is pretty good to just flood them with quotes, because while the European right wingers are fascists, the Overton window is not in the same position and defending his extreme positions puts them in water where they can't swim (in Europe)

 

[JaneDoe]

One could certainly argue that an Ars account is social media.

I see a difference between news sites with user comments, and engagement driven social media, where the content is user generated too and where inter user interaction is the main thing.

 

[TVPaulD]

I'm sorry where did you get anything I said as moderate? I was just trying to say that people focus on his Trans points way too much as it is far down the list of his extremely messed up ideas. People have degrees and I disagree with almost everything Kirk was about, but his trans side was far less radical than most of his misogyny but it gets all the time anymore. Hi fascist, racist, pro political violence against the left and Christian nationalist views were much worse.

Here (where emphasis added):

The thing that is funny is it was likely the least toxic of his comments. He was far more racist and mysoginist than trans phobic. He was closer in line to JK's views on it, that it is a sickness and that it comes after women's rights more than anything. He used a lot of young trans kids pain as talking points and it was gross but not nearly his worst things. He had a whole lot of bad things in there.

That is you downplaying his transphobia by drawing a direct comparison to Joanne's as if she herself is also only a mild transphobe. To the point of wholly misrepresenting the depth and vindictiveness of Joanne's transphobia.

She does not, for example, consider trans people's interests - whether incorrectly (and offensively) as a "sickness" or not - to come "after" the matter of women's rights. Joanne barely cares about women's rights beyond using them as an excuse to attack trans people. She does not believe trans people exist (in the way they actually do), or if they do she believes they should be systematically removed from society, if not destroyed, because she does not approve of their existence. She is vicious, aggressive and consistent about this.

By saying that his being "less transphobic" than racist because his views on trans people were like those of Joanne, you inherently imply that she is in some way not that transphobic.

If that wasn't your intent, then don't do that.

 

[iseptimus]

The irony is palpable. GOP weaponises social media, then blames it.

 

[lukijo]

When I was in college, the Marxists and the Trotskyites, usually in majors which did not seem to require much actual work, were quite an entertaining side show. One quickly learned that the people in most danger from the Marxists were the Trots, and vice versa. At first we puzzled over the fact that they were mutually self-targeting, despite their similarities. Upon further observation we realized that it was because of their similarities. Once one realizes that in many political movements, the word heresy is all important, one can understand a great deal of political history, including recent events.

There are parallels here with Democrats and Republicans - for a signifcant amount of USAmericans there's a canyon between the two but for a lot of the rest of the world they are two sides of the same coin; a bloodthirsty genocidal imperialist beast.

 

[jnk1000]

Calls to honor Kirk and reject all forms of violence...

That's no way to honor Charlie's legacy and what he tirelessly worked for.

 

[ZippyPeanut]

When I was in college, the Marxists and the Trotskyites, usually in majors which did not seem to require much actual work, were quite an entertaining side show. One quickly learned that the people in most danger from the Marxists were the Trots, and vice versa. At first we puzzled over the fact that they were mutually self-targeting, despite their similarities. Upon further observation we realized that it was because of their similarities. Once one realizes that in many political movements, the word heresy is all important, one can understand a great deal of political history, including recent events.

When you were in college, did you ever have an opportunity to hear Marx lecture?

 

[GreyAreaUK]

"Why won't they give up their guns?", asked the people shooting at them.

He was killed by an ultra-hard-right follower of Nick Fuentes, dude.

Although I note the GOP are still frantically, desperately trying to make this about trans rights.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

That's no way to honor Charlie's legacy and what he tirelessly worked for.

Indeed. If you honour hate, you are a hateful person.

 

[J.King]

Killing someone for their words is peak fasicm. Look in the mirror.

The finest example of "Not Even Wrong" I've seen in quite a while.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

He was killed by an ultra-hard-right follower of Nick Fuentes, dude.

We still don't know this. AFAIK almost nothing about the shooter's views has been uncovered by legitimate journalists. A lot of it is speculation derived from the gamer memes on the bullet casings. That's not enough to go by in this case.

People have degrees and I disagree with almost everything Kirk was about, but his trans side was far less radical than most of his misogyny but it gets all the time anymore.

He called for doctors that assist in gender-affirming care to be rounded up, put on trial, and executed. That's pretty fucking extreme. JK Rowling is virulently anti-trans herself; she literally fears that trans people using bathrooms is a plot to sexually victimize ciswomen. You don't believe that about a group unless you're deeply, deeply prejudiced against them and want to treat them as dangerous predators just for being trans.
It's not really credible to say that his views on trans people were less extreme than all his other bigotry.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

We still don't know this. AFAIK almost nothing about the shooter's views has been uncovered by legitimate journalists. A lot of it is speculation derived from the gamer memes on the bullet casings. That's not enough to go by in this case.

Good point, well made. And his status is that he is still the alleged shooter.

Mea culpa.

 

[luddite1967]

Please -- this is just another excuse conservatives are going to run with to clamp down on any narratives, discussion, or facts, and the like that they don't like or agree with. Because freedom of expression is an anathema to the fascism core hiding beneath conservatism's thin shell.

All true, but a broken clock is righ twice a day. Social media is a cancer.

 

[AusPeter]

From what I saw "not sure if it was the actual casing" it was stamped TRN. TRN being Turan Ammo, the manufacturer. TRN meaning "trans"?

who knows: But I guess that means we're at the stage where we can't mention trans- anything without triggering the right:

Trans-mission
Trans-portation
Tans-lator
Trans-cript
Trans-action
Trans-ducer
Trans-fer
Trans-it
Trans-national

....I'm sure you get the point now

This is a well known issue called the Scunthorpe problem

 

[AusPeter]

I'm not sure if you're trying to counterpoint the person you're responding to, or if you're agreeing with them.

I read by the emoji at the end that you didn't like the movie (or at least its ending), but your paraphrase doesn't nearly do it justice IMO. I appreciated it for many reasons, one of which is that it is in fact a subversion of the trope. Virtually every other MCU movie comes to a climactic scene where the heroes save the day by just punching the villains harder.

In the case of Thunderbolts, the "potentially world destroying crisis" was a single person, who was battling his own internal villain. He tried just punching his internal villain harder, which only served to make it stronger, so the group came together to give him the things he actually needed in order to defeat it - companionship, camaraderie, friendship, acceptance, empathy.

I loved it. I thought it was brilliant, and frankly one of the absolute most relatable superhero movies I have ever seen.

We can agree to disagree over our personal receptions of a movie. You saw a great movie, I saw something else.

From my point of view it was simply a trope of scrappy people thrown together, realizing that they have a lot in common and then saving the day. I barely laughed at a lot of the jokes, the actual bad person (Valentina) got away with her actions. While Bob had his generational trauma healed in a 5 second group hug that was reminiscent of 70's love bombing. And even the location of where the hug occurred treated was so casually that it wasn't even hand-waved away.

 

[AusPeter]

We still don't know this. AFAIK almost nothing about the shooter's views has been uncovered by legitimate journalists. A lot of it is speculation derived from the gamer memes on the bullet casings. That's not enough to go by in this case.



He called for doctors that assist in gender-affirming care to be rounded up, put on trial, and executed. That's pretty fucking extreme. JK Rowling is virulently anti-trans herself; she literally fears that trans people using bathrooms is a plot to sexually victimize ciswomen. You don't believe that about a group unless you're deeply, deeply prejudiced against them and want to treat them as dangerous predators just for being trans.
It's not really credible to say that his views on trans people were less extreme than all his other bigotry.

A while ago I saw an interesting take on JK Rowlings. She is known as JK because she took on initials, rather than her full name, in order to effectively pretend that she was a man and not a woman in the publishing world. Which is ironic given her comments on trans folk.

 

[gnasher729]

Here (where emphasis added):

That is you downplaying his transphobia by drawing a direct comparison to Joanne's as if she herself is also only a mild transphobe. To the point of wholly misrepresenting the depth and vindictiveness of Joanne's transphobia.

She does not, for example, consider trans people's interests - whether incorrectly (and offensively) as a "sickness" or not - to come "after" the matter of women's rights. Joanne barely cares about women's rights beyond using them as an excuse to attack trans people. She does not believe trans people exist (in the way they actually do), or if they do she believes they should be systematically removed from society, if not destroyed, because she does not approve of their existence. She is vicious, aggressive and consistent about this.

By saying that his being "less transphobic" than racist because his views on trans people were like those of Joanne, you inherently imply that she is in some way not that transphobic.

If that wasn't your intent, then don't do that.

The way I learned it in Germany 40 years ago, before “woke” had been invented: Being transgender is a medical condition, which means your health insurance has to pay for treatment. Trying to treat your mind will not happen, first because it doesn’t work and second because it would be deeply unethical (a doctor would be struck off, anyone else would be charged with assault). There is a known treatment through transitioning, which doesn’t work perfectly, but well enough. And then the health condition is gone.

Now the word “sick” for someone with that health condition is stupid. For someone who has transitioned it is absolutely idiotic.

 

[Jordan83]

We can agree to disagree over our personal receptions of a movie. You saw a great movie, I saw something else.

From my point of view it was simply a trope of scrappy people thrown together, realizing that they have a lot in common and then saving the day. I barely laughed at a lot of the jokes, the actual bad person (Valentina) got away with her actions. While Bob had his generational trauma healed in a 5 second group hug that was reminiscent of 70's love bombing. And even the location of where the hug occurred treated was so casually that it wasn't even hand-waved away.

Of course, I just thought your single sentence descriptor was selling it way short.

You didn't like it. Fair. I loved it. I thought it was a big subversion of the typical superhero movie trope, which I have grown a bit tired with. The new Fantastic Four for example? I thought it was just meh. Perfectly bland. The heroes punched the villain harder to save the day. Thunderbolts, to me, actually felt refreshing for going a different direction.

And of course Bob had his trauma healed rather quickly. It is a movie, with a limited runtime available. If it were a TV series, that alone could have been drawn out over the course of many hours on screen. But movies don't have the luxury of time as much as TV series do. The point wasn't how fast it took to heal him, the point was you can't solve everything by just punching it harder.

So yes. I guess we don't agree. That's fine.

 

[Jordan83]

Killing someone for their words is peak fasicm. Look in the mirror.

Okay? And who perpetrated said fascism? In other words, what is your point? Did the commenter you are replying to kill this person? I don't get what you think you're saying here.

Also, where is this line of delineation between doing something because of someone's words being fascism and not fascism? For example, all the people that have been fired since for their opinions on Charlie Kirk's opinions and the circumstances of his death - is it fascist to punish them for their words, or is that acceptable because it's not killing them? And if it is acceptable to severely hinder someone's well-being simply for their words as a counterpoint or counter opinion to the words of another, who decides which set of words is the acceptable ones or not? If that's not outright fascism, what is it called?

I swear, I feel like I have less and less understanding of what the rules are every single day.

 

[Demios]

Everything but the guns right?

 

[Jordan83]

"Why won't they give up their guns?", asked the people shooting at them.

Wrong - "Why won't they give up their guns?" asked the non gun owners to the gun owners. The person who did the shooting was a gun owner. If the non gun owners had gotten their wish, Charlie Kirk wouldn't have gotten shot. Weird, huh?

 

[J.King]

This is a well known issue called the Scunthorpe problem

I was not aware this phenomenon had a name, so thanks for that. I once tried to create a Facebook account for work, and couldn't because one is not allowed to include titles in one's name—"King" apparently being a title according to the idiots at Facebook. I don't know if social media is cancer, but it sure is stupid.

 

[Jordan83]

Everything but the guns right?

Yup. Can't be that. Can't ever be that. It's the trans, it's the gays, it's the libs, it's the colleges, it's the Democratic mayors and governors...anything and everything but the fact that there are more guns than people in this country.

 

[Castellum Excors]

He's always struck me as one of the most bad-faith, "I'm just asking questions" kind of people. He was only interested in debate when he had a potential upper hand or control over the environment.

Speaking of "just asking questions" has anyone heard from Shapiro lately? I don't run in those corners so I don't know if him and his ilk are loudly pounding on the mic or if they're been extremely quiet lately.

 

[AusPeter]

I was not aware this phenomenon had a name, so thanks for that. I once tried to create a Facebook account for work, and couldn't because one is not allowed to include titles in one's name—"King" apparently being a title according to the idiots at Facebook. I don't know if social media is cancer, but it sure is stupid.

There was a story this last week of a lawyer having issues with FB because his name is actually Mark S. Zuckerberg (as opposed to FB's Mark E. Zuckerberg). FB kept claiming he was impersonating Zuck, and kept shutting his pages down.

 

[graylshaped]

Neither he, nor I, have anything to apologize or make up for, and the discussion isn't personal, @ZippyPeanut

It's pretty cut-and-dried: He wants MAGA to fade away largely on its own or using primarily 'compassion' 'education' and 'logic' against a political party that has been steadily marching toward rejecting all three of these things since the Federalist Society was formed. The voters in that party will never, ever, be in an introspective mood, if the veiled bad faith rhetoric of the youngest conservatives on college campuses has been any indication since Kirk's death.

I on the other hand am making the case that long term plans to undermine and permanently dismantle that political party need to be underway now, take time to come together, are entirely possible to accomplish non-violently, corporate/estate tax punitively, minimize representation given their disproportionate representation up to now over the last century, and are going to end up ethical gray areas no matter what you do.

We agree on the problem, and it's obvious it's getting worse by the month, but disagree on the solutions. Planting head in the sand or trying to electoral campaign exclusively within compromised rule of law on economic issues when 'I'm not Trump' isn't enough for non-political reasons isn't a solution, in fact it's an abrogation of agency.

The eventual liberal winning candidate is not exactly going to be a man of personal virtue that takes the reins from Trump or J.D. Vance even if their heart is in the right place, a morally correct campaign platform, and have plausible deniability. It's going to be one hell of a manipulative and clever son of a bitch, not even necessarily wealthy, that knows where to matador the reactionary bull that is MAGA, someone smarter than Stephen Miller, Peter Thiel, or Elon Musk, and frankly not working exclusively in the lines of the rule of law or exclusively in a political campaign in the end. You're talking a candidate that takes the direction David Hogg has been going and moves forward from there even if they lose or concede small disputes every now and again on purpose. There's two and a half very, very, long years left to formulate a contingency plan that no longer feels it needs to compete on a level playing field with MAGA with an option to extend that plan out five or six years waiting for MAGA to make mistakes that you can force past the eroded courts on.

That is exactly the type of personality/candidate that he's warning against when protesting my rhetoric (and that I'm openly questioning why the Democratic Party doesn't have rumors of a Project 2032 to facilitate) and therein lies the summary in difference of opinion.

Agreed. I do believe it will take work to marginalize these forces--it won't happen "on its own"--and that to cross the lines you propose crossing in the form of targeted punitive action would have the opposite effect that you intend. T.R.U.M.P. Inc doing it does not make tit for tat the response of the just society I prefer we cultivate.

We disagree on method; it is also disingenuous of you to mischaracterize that disagreement as "planting head in sand."

/tips hat

 

[James_G]

He's right but for the wrong reason...