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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: What has gone wrong with the human race?
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
The news story says it all.
What in the name of all that is holy has gone wrong with us? When will it end?
Will it end?
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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roybart
Shipmate
# 17357
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Posted
Sometimes, when I get in a brooding mood, I find myself rewriting Eliot: "This is the way the world ends. Not with a whimper but a bang." Trump, Orban, Duda, Duterte, et al., exploit an ancient vein of fear, hate, brutishness, self-righteousness, and short-fuses. Our leaders increasingly give us what sociologists call "permission to hate."
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"The consolations of the imaginary are not imaginary consolations."
-- Roger Scruton
Posts: 547 | From: here | Registered: Sep 2012
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roybart
Shipmate
# 17357
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Posted
Sometimes, when I get in a brooding mood, I find myself rewriting Eliot: "This is the way the world ends. Not with a whimper but a bang." Trump, Orban, Duda, Duterte, et al., exploit an ancient vein of fear, hate, brutishness, self-righteousness, and short-fuses. Our leaders increasingly give us what sociologists call "permission to hate."
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"The consolations of the imaginary are not imaginary consolations."
-- Roger Scruton
Posts: 547 | From: here | Registered: Sep 2012
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roybart
Shipmate
# 17357
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Posted
I meant to add -- " And encouragement to shoot first and ask questions later,"
Apologies for the TRIPLE (!) posts.
Posts: 547 | From: here | Registered: Sep 2012
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
This isn’t “a world gone mad” and has naught to do with the current political atmosphere. Swatting has been around for nearly 20 years, apparently, and functions because of the online gaming community. Its peculiar psychology nourishes this shit. That pulled with guns leads to this.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
If it's the swatting itself that's supposed to be the indictment of humanity here, I don't know if we're really floating through unchartered waters of depravity. Young people have been doing stupid things likely to cause serious harm for millenia. When I was a kid, mid-80s, some asshole from my school through a rock, from across a parking lot, at my head, missing my temple by a few millimetres.
That doesn't show quite the same degree of technical sophistication as swatting, but it's the same basic deal of someone doing something that, if he wasn't an absolute fucking moron, would realize could get people killed if it went the wrong way.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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roybart
Shipmate
# 17357
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Posted
But this story is not just "about" swatting. It is more significantly about yet another police shooting of someone presumed, unjustifiably, to deserve it.
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"The consolations of the imaginary are not imaginary consolations."
-- Roger Scruton
Posts: 547 | From: here | Registered: Sep 2012
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
It is, it seems to me, a combination of several things:
1. Pranks and jokes that are serious and dangerous.
2. The level of fear and tension in the world.
3. The fact that the US seems to have a problem with guns.
Prank calls have never been funny. Prank calls to the emergency services are stupid and dangerous. People making them should be subject to serious penalties.
Those on the political right like fear and tension. It enables them to take control. That is what we have seen in the last year or so.
The tension is part of the reason that so many police are trigger happy - they will shoot because they genuinely fear someone will shoot them.
What is wrong with us? We are fucking stupid. We always have been, but these days we are fucking stupid and armed. And scared.
"Come O Meteorite, come quickly." We don't deserve to survive.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
Copied across from the duplicate thread
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
I could have put this in the guns thread, but thought it had enough different features to make it worthy of its own discussion.
So here's the story. In the online video game "community" there is apparently a practice known as "swatting" - calling in a false report about some kind of hostage situation at some other game player's home, in the hope that a police SWAT team will be sent out. I gather that some people video themselves playing online video games and stream the video of that online, and in those cases it's such an amusing joke to have a SWAT team burst in to Mom's basement on video and hold the guy at gunpoint.
So, to the present case. Two video game players get in to some kind of dispute. Player A says "here's my address - come and show me how hard you are" or something. Player B gets in touch with a third player - 25-year-old Tyler Barriss - who phones in a false police report claiming to be a male resident of player A's address who has killed someone, is holding the rest of his family at gunpoint, and might just burn the whole house down. Player A didn't give his own address, but the address of some unrelated third party, apparently chosen at random.
A SWAT team shows up at the house, and in what is pretty much standard practice for US cops (see "Fucking Guns" passim), randomly shoots and kills the man who answers the door because "they thought he was going for his waistband".
There's lots of things wrong with this story, but can anyone give me a good reason why Tyler Barris isn't guilty of felony murder?
Originally posted by lilBuddha
quote:
Different enough to generate Two threads.
This happening was only a matter of time, sadly.
If he is charged with murder, it will likely put off jurers. The most they are likely to get is manslaughter. Since this fucker has a history of calling in fake threats, I do hope he revived an extra long sentence. If only one could also prosecute the community that enables this.
Originally posted by Doublethink.
quote:
Also, the guy giving the address in the first place.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Perhaps it will be comforting to reflect that police intensely dislike being played like this. Being jerked around by an online asshole -- you would dislike it too.
It is psychologically damaging to shoot innocent people; the officers involved will need counseling even if they don't lose their jobs. All law enforcement persons will have heard about this incident in the fullest detail. They certainly be more wary in future. And therefore we may hope (although there is no guarantee) that it won't happen again.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
They certainly be more wary in future.
Number of people shot by US police:
2015: 995
2016: 963
2017: 976
I'm not getting an indication of wariness from those numbers.
(numbers according to the Washington Post - the Guardian The Counted programme figures are higher 2015:1146, 2016: 1093)
[ 31. December 2017, 18:52: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I mean to say, they will become more wary about being played by gamergate trolls. The larger issue is a different thing.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I mean to say, they will become more wary about being played by gamergate trolls. The larger issue is a different thing.
I agree with you - they will be more wary for a while. Until there is another incident where they become more concerned, and then it is likely to happen again.
This is the problem - these people know how to get a response, so they will get a response. the response is becoming - because of the increased tension and fear in the country (and the world) - more violent more instant.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I mean to say, they will become more wary about being played by gamergate trolls. The larger issue is a different thing.
How will the poor police dispatchers know they're being played? The reason these pranks "work" is that those receiving emergency calls have no choice but to deal with all calls as though they're genuine. Failure to attend an incident where there have been reports of someone with a gun, especially if that leads to more people being shot, is inexcusable. As long as people pull these pranks, whether it's considered to be "a laugh" or to cause harm to another, then emergency services will respond, and in a country where the chances of anyone you meet being armed are high the police will respond with an expectation that a gun might be used against them, and behave accordingly.
The fault is squarely with the prankster. It probably won't do much good calling for gun control, though there are plenty of good reasons to reduce the number of guns in circulation in the US, this incident isn't one of them. Even in the UK if there was an emergency call about an armed person then the police will respond with armed officers expecting there to be an armed person present who poses a risk to the police and members of the public.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Swatting has been around for nearly 20 years, apparently, and functions because of the online gaming community.
Swatting is not confined to the gaming community. I have heard of cases of swatting simply because one person disliked or was angry with another.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
While it is not a case to call for gun control, I think in the UK, the expectation that the other person will shoot is less, so the speed with which the decisions have to be made is less.
And yes, the prankster who does this sort of thing because it seems like fun is the one to blame. To do this without considering that the response may be with lethal force is idiotic.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Swatting has been around for nearly 20 years, apparently, and functions because of the online gaming community.
Swatting is not confined to the gaming community. I have heard of cases of swatting simply because one person disliked or was angry with another.
Moo
It isn’t, this is true. But the gaming community, more specifically a subset of streaming gamers, have created a different set of circumstances than just phoning the police. They spoof numbers and hide the caller’s ID. As well as fight for anonymity that allows them to hide more effectively.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
I consign CNN's view-this-ad to hell...
Wrong thread.
I live a sheltered life. I never knew this was a thing. I can just about imagine a cheated husband calling the police on the lover, but due to a game???
What is the peculiar psychology of the gamer community lilBuddha mentioned? From GamerGate I got the impression it was rather masculine, and sexist. Are these "worlds" people inhabit becoming so real due to time (and money?)?
My mind boggles. And heart breaks. For the victim, plus the police officer. I fear these acts may lessen for a while but then ramp back up.
Posts: 7800 | From: On the border | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ian Climacus:
What is the peculiar psychology of the gamer community lilBuddha mentioned? From GamerGate I got the impression it was rather masculine, and sexist. Are these "worlds" people inhabit becoming so real due to time (and money?)?
It is sexist, but not only sexist. It is an insulated community that can create a hyper-real aspect to situations that would normally be let go by more of the participants were it in a face-to-face environment. The psychology exists off-line, but online allows for an extra layer of disconnect for one's actions.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Here is an account of a swatting that had nothing to do with gaming.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by roybart:
But this story is not just "about" swatting. It is more significantly about yet another police shooting of someone presumed, unjustifiably, to deserve it.
The police are not meant to shoot people "because they deserve it". We're not living in MegaCity 1 yet.
There is a wider phenomenon of innocent people getting shot by police, that seems to happen when the victim had no reason to suppose he was about to be challenged by armed police. If you're engaged in an armed robbery, the possibility of coming up against armed police is in your mind; you can decide whether to try to shoot it out or surrender, but when you hear "armed police!" you know what is happening.
If you're just walking around carrying a table leg ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Stanley ) or running for a tube train ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes ) , then you're not expecting to be challenged by armed police. Your reaction at that point, whilst your brain is still trying to process the incoming information, can result in your death.
I think this phenomenon is under-researched. All police firearms procedure seems to work on the assumption that the person being challenged is who the police think they are and is doing what they think they're doing.
It scares me because I can be very slow to take in what's going on around me. I can see how it could happen to me.
(fixed links)
[ 01. January 2018, 13:33: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I think there's a lot of truth there.
You see the police, their guns drawn shouting "hands up!". You know there's no reason they're shouting at you, you've done nothing wrong, there must be someone else they're shouting at.
You're pulled over by the police, you don't think you were speeding, but perhaps you were. You expect them to be asking for your licence and id, that they're telling you to keep your hands in sight doesn't register because it's unexpected, you do what you think they want and reach for your wallet.
How do we train police to deal with the real possibility that everyone they encounter could be innocent and behaving accordingly? As well as the possibility that they're the real deal, armed and dangerous?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
The police, especially the generally undertrained American police, also go into that situation with a mindset that doesn't allow for proper perspective. They go in adrenaline up, thinking that the target is a threat.
It is a catch-22 situation, made worse by the poor training and prevalence of guns.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The police, especially the generally undertrained American police, also go into that situation with a mindset that doesn't allow for proper perspective. They go in adrenaline up, thinking that the target is a threat.
The police are acting on the basis of information to the effect that someone has killed or is threatening to kill at least one other person. The police see it as their job to prevent further carnage.
The problem is that the report is false.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The police, especially the generally undertrained American police, also go into that situation with a mindset that doesn't allow for proper perspective. They go in adrenaline up, thinking that the target is a threat.
The police are acting on the basis of information to the effect that someone has killed or is threatening to kill at least one other person. The police see it as their job to prevent further carnage.
The problem is that the report is false.
Moo
I disagree. Not that the false report isn't a huge problem, it is. And the perpetrator(s) are responsible for the man's death.
But police are part of the problem as well. Part of it solvable, part of it not.
American police, as a whole, are woefully under-trained. This is a fact. If you expect people to go into potentially dangerous situations, they should be as prepared as possible. For their own safety as well as the public's. This part could be made better.
The part that cannot is that one must be prepared to respond to a threat quickly and that will result in necessary fatalities. Our brains are not built for the speed in which these situations can occur.
Proper training can reduce unnecessary deaths. It will never eliminate them, but fewer is better.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
The problem is that the report is false.
That is one of the problems, certainly, but it is also the case that the police fairly routinely shoot and kill people who aren't actually armed and posing an imminent threat to anyone. People who are having a mental heath episode, people who are holding a wallet or cellphone, children with toys, people who are deaf, or people who just don't react in exactly the way that Officer Hair-Trigger is expecting them to react.
It's also not unheard of for the police to stage a full-scale raid on the wrong house, because someone screwed up the address.
In all these cases, the police have an act first and ask questions later approach. Their training is entirely about dominating any interaction by force and shouting, and not to engage the brain at all until the member of the public that they are interacting with is subdued.
As you can perhaps tell by my tone, I am not convinced that this is the optimal model of policing.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Yep. I think swatting is the tip of an iceberg. Below that relatively small number of incidents of malicious false-reporting there's a much larger issue of acting on incomplete information and simple mistakes.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
On a lighter note (no one was harmed), we had a case of bounty hunters rather than a SWAT team who were sent to the wrong address -- the Phoenix Chief of Police.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
"Come O Meteorite, come quickly." We don't deserve to survive.
Hear.
"I've been wading through all this unbelievable
junk and wondering if I should have given
the world to the monkeys." --God, as reported by Elvis Costello
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
In all these cases, the police have an act first and ask questions later approach. Their training is entirely about dominating any interaction by force and shouting, and not to engage the brain at all until the member of the public that they are interacting with is subdued.
For values of "subdued" up to and including "dead." And there is no way to hold them accountable. The Big Blue Wall keeps them from testifying against each other, and the various attorneys general are professionally reluctant to bring charges, and judges and juries are reticient to find guilty. All the makings of a police state, except -- well, except fuck-all. We live in a police state. America is now a third-world country. Travel here at your own risk.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
In all these cases, the police have an act first and ask questions later approach. Their training is entirely about dominating any interaction by force and shouting, and not to engage the brain at all until the member of the public that they are interacting with is subdued.
This is a massive over-statement. Police training isn't uniform across the country, and in many places police training is not in fact entirely about dominating through force and shouting. Plenty of police departments emphasize de-escalation as a policy, and a retired LAPD cop I know says that's pretty much what he did on patrol all the time. I asked him what he thought about the Pasadena police officers who beat the crap out of a black guy during a minor traffic stop, and he said it was a bullshit stop to begin with that they went on to handle all wrong -- they shouldn't have been shouting at the guy and man-handling him. But he also said that as soon as the guy grabbed for an officer's baton, policy says they needed to counter that with strong force, and that's why they weren't disciplined. I think they ought to have been disciplined for creating such a bad situation, and obviously there is plenty to criticize about the way we are policed in the US. But when I was assaulted on the street, I was grateful for the cops who showed up within minutes and calmly and entirely without incident arrested the crazy drunk woman who had punched me in the back of the head.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
This is a massive over-statement.
An overstatement, probably. But I really don't think it's a massive one.
I agree with you that police training varies significantly around the country, and am happy to hear your retired LAPD cop saying that de-escalation is pretty much what he did on patrol all the time.
And yet just up the road in Pasadena: "they shouldn't have been shouting at the guy and man-handling him. But he also said that as soon as the guy grabbed for an officer's baton, policy says they needed to counter that with strong force, and that's why they weren't disciplined."
So the cops start assaulting someone, and when he tries to defend himself in any feeble manner, policy says they have to counter with strong force.
Which has nothing at all to do with de-escalation.
You know what is de-escalation? Grabbing the stick someone's hitting you with so they can't hit you any more. That's de-escalation. And you know who was doing that? The victim.
I've met any number of perfectly pleasant cops, in various parts of the country, and had sensible polite interactions with them - if I've stopped them to ask for directions, or some other interaction that I have initiated. But when they start issuing instructions, it's entirely different. There's no please and thank you, no politeness, just aggressively-barked commands. That's not de-escalation.
Now, cops shouting at people in a rude and uncivilized fashion doesn't in itself get people hurt or killed, but it's usually the small, frequent actions that speak to attitude, and this attitude is one of aggressive command.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
I have another take on the OP's title question. Yesterday I read a story in Haaretz about a dinner party held by a noble family during the war in Hungary I think. After dinner, some of the guests got into a truck and drove across a field where they executed 180 Jewish slaves. This was pre-arranged, as the slaves had spent the afternoon digging a trench which became their graves. The guests then returned to the party I think.
Nothing has gone wrong with the Human Race. We are the same as we always have been.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
Good Lord, that is horrific. I'd hope some of us have moved on since then...but I guess we'll never know unless we're put in a situation. God help me.
And I thought this was sinking fairly low.
Posts: 7800 | From: On the border | Registered: Jul 2001
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
There is hope. There is light. There is good. I saw it again watching a play last night. People deserve chances at redemption precisely because there is the potential for evil in all of us.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
There is hope. There is light. There is good. I saw it again watching a play last night.
Ah! Exactly! It is the calling of the artist to show us the light. Quick, Robin -- to the manuscript. The Batsignal is in the sky!
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
There is hope. There is light. There is good. I saw it again watching a play last night.
There is. But it seems just a flicker in today's world. Perhaps 'twas always thus...and I was once idealistic.
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
People deserve chances at redemption precisely because there is the potential for evil in all of us.
Oh, indeed. It is that potential for evil that scares me, though. If a Hitler, or Trump, can exist, and thrive, what the hell am I capable of? And what would tip me over?
Posts: 7800 | From: On the border | Registered: Jul 2001
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
I don't know. But if I was at that party, and my comrade asked me, I'm not sure I can say with 100% certainty that I wouldn't have got on that truck. That doesn't in any way lessen the moral culpability of those who committed that awful crime. It just puts it in perspective.
The byzantines regarded it as a mercy to put out the eyes of internal enemies, rather than kill them. They wanted to give people a chance to repent. I like that idea.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Good and evil. Stupid. Really stupid. Even those who believe in good and evil should not think in these terms in regards to behaviour. Much of what we do is influenced by how our brains evolved. Most Nazis weren’t evil. Not even all those who did atrocious things were evil. They were led to those behaviours. Not that this absolves them, of course.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Most Nazis weren’t evil.
That's some serious shit you're smoking.
Even the Nazis realised they were the bad guys.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Good and evil. Stupid. Really stupid. Even those who believe in good and evil should not think in these terms in regards to behaviour. Much of what we do is influenced by how our brains evolved. Most Nazis weren’t evil. Not even all those who did atrocious things were evil. They were led to those behaviours. Not that this absolves them, of course.
Those behaviours were utterly evil.
There is no such thing as an evil person, just evil behaviour. So we must be held account for what we do, not who we are (nobody, except ourselves, knows who we really are)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
Great sketch Doc Tor. One of my faves.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
The tabloids usually print EVIL next to stories about notorious killers, along with GO TO HELL. I still don't really understand what they mean in either phrase, except I suppose, 'we don't like you'. The large print size gives it an extra kick.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Most Nazis weren’t evil.
That's some serious shit you're smoking.
Even the Nazis realised they were the bad guys.
Boogie gets it, I think. It isn’t rocket surgery. The Germans were not possessed by demons or particularly bad, neither were the Khmer Rouge, etc. Ordinary people can be got to do horrible things in the right circumstance. Hitler didn’t wield power given the devil, he manipulated psychologically/sociology. Yes, there were Nazis who could only be described as evil, regardless of the supernatural. But most of them were not. More people would do the same in those circumstances than think they would. The same people who go to church, donate to charity, are kind to strangers in good circumstance might do horrrible things in extremis. And it isn’t evil influence, but human nature.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
"The Germans weren't particularly bad."
Yeah, okay. Of course, I could post a dozen pictures of laughing off-duty guards at Auschwitz, or smiling U-boat crews or that clip of film of Hitler doing a little dance.
No. They were particularly bad. The average Wehrmacht soldier didn't go to war in 1939 not knowing what the Nazis wanted, and only return home in 1945 to discover that his Jewish neighbours had mysteriously disappeared and no one knew where they might have gone.
You might be able to argue that "The British weren't particularly bad", and debate the merits of carpet bombing and Dresden and Bomber Harris. The British and their Empire allies did do terrible things in the aim of winning the war against fascism, but 'not particularly bad' is a pretty decent description of what happened.
The German population? Nope. They gave their lives in service to a great evil, and in doing so, did evil, became the agents of evil and spread evil in the world. To say they themselves weren't actually evil is semantic sophistry. They were indeed, the baddies.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
world. To say they themselves weren't actually evil is semantic sophistry. They were indeed, the baddies.
Doc, you are not stupid. But sometimes you say stupid things.* I'm not saying that Germany didn't do horrible things. I'm saying that you, you Doc Tor, could easily do the same things in the same circumstance. If PapaDoc Tor had placed you, BabyDoc Tor, in a time machine and you were taken to early 20thC Germany, you could have been a guard at Dachau. You wouldn't have been 'infected" by evil, just reacting how normal people do.
Thinking in terms of good and evil ignores why people do what they do and our susceptibility to influence.
Thinking in terms of evil makes people think that merely praying and trying to be "good" can fix things or keep them from straying.
*Does the analogy help to see how it works?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If PapaDoc Tor had placed you, BabyDoc Tor, in a time machine and you were taken to early 20thC Germany, you could have been a guard at Dachau.
No.
I'd have been in Dachau, you blind idiot, because PapaDoc Tor was a fucking Jew.
Seriously. Go and sit in a corner and think about what you've done.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
You wouldn't have been "infected" by evil, just reacting how normal people do.
I remember reading about an experiment that was done with a pool of college students. I don't remember the exact details, but they went something like this:
The pool was arbitrarily divided into "guards" and "prisoners". The "prisoners" were again arbitrarily divided into a group that the guards were told was being punished for heinous crimes, and a group that the guards were told was being given protective custody so that they could testify against some truly heinous crimes. Both groups of prisoners were housed in substantially similar cells -- sparse, but not overly uncomfortable.
The experimenters observed that the guards who were watching the prisoners who were being punished treated them with cruelty, and the guards who were watching the prisoners who were being given protective custody treated them with kindness.
There was nothing intrinsically "evil" about the cruel guards. They acted the way they did because they were led to believe that their charges didn't deserve to be treated otherwise. This, even though they all well knew that it was only an experiment, that the prisoners weren't really criminals or witnesses.
The same may be true for Nazi Germany. The people were told that the Jews had cornered banking and commerce and so were directly responsible for the miserable state of society. A "final solution" had to be applied.
Certainly in our present day, there are plenty of people who sincerely believe that all their troubles are due to "entitlements" doled out to the undeserving poor, or special treatment given to blacks, Muslims and (even still) Jews.
Even so, I do find it hard to believe that a death camp guard would not have felt even some small pang of remorse over a feeble grandmother's sigh of despair, or a small child's crying for its mother, as they were shoved into the furnace.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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