
The Toxic Online World Where Mass Shooters Thrive - prostoalex
https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-toxic-online-world-where-mass-shooters-thrive-11567608631?mod=rsswn
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dieFledermaus
I don't get the point in the article. It just covers all of the information
that the world-at-large is already cognoscente of.

It also seems amiss in it's tangential change in direction, from the " _toxic
online world where mass shooters thrive_ " to - pretty much - focusing on the
latest cluster of shooters.

They also continually substitute /pol/ for _all_ of 8chan. It would be akin to
saying that The Donald is representative of all of /r/ or that The People of
Wal-Mart is representative of America (at-large), when we all _know_ that this
isn't the case. Yet, this over-generalisation is continually being made. Why?
Is it because 8chan is more readily recognisable and easier to write than
/pol/? (I ask because I thought the "fake news" crowd used to have no
believable foundation but upon seeing this I can now understand/empathise with
how that seed manifests/grows.)

~~~
lelethrowaway
Most of the 8chan demographic comes from two waves:

-Gamergaters who left 4chan after moot banned it on his site

-/pol/ users who left 4chan after moot messed around with it and encouraged /mlp/ to post on it

So yeah, 8chan users are by and large the kind of people who always go on
about evil essjaydoubleus destroying Western civilization by posting mean
things on Twitter.

You could make the argument that /pol/ doesn't generalize well to _4chan_ but
that's again not really true; the /pol/ ooze is more contained but it's there,
seeping through the cracks whenever something related to social justice blows
up.

~~~
dieFledermaus
Did 8chan compromise of _only_ /pol/? I think you're demonstrating the problem
I'm pointing out perfectly well: 8chan != /pol/ && /pol/ != 8chan

Your argument could've been that 8chan, as a whole, is a cesspool and that
would have been a _far less_ disingenuous argument than equating /pol/ to
being the entirety of 8chan.

Note that I'm not arguing over the merits of 8chan or /pol/ or anything of the
like, I'm merely pointing out that conflating the two precepts is entirely
disingenuous and is probably demonstrative of how this whole "fake news" issue
started - only it would've started with much earlier news bites containing
much of the same conflation problems.

Whether or not /pol/ was indeed "bad" or "good" holds no bearing over the
initial point that I made (read: you're moving goal posts).

Finally, the news article covers the violence connected to extremism and/or
racism that has surfaced on these boards. This precept is leagues beyond the
"Left versus Right" banter (that seems to permeate in the states) and is -
clearly - far more damaging.

------
sjtindell
This is a natural outgrowth of 4chan culture for anyone who browsed it years
ago. Journalists who haven’t been down those roads will always miss the point.
8chan and sites like it are a symptom, not a cause. The cause is rooted in the
isolation and disenfranchisement of men in modern society. Jordan Peterson is
one of the only individuals I’ve heard describing the root of this problem in
a professional, statistical, research based manner. As long as we continue to
destroy everything that has traditionally given men meaning, this will get
worse. 20% of men enjoy 80% of female attention in a dating app world.
Churches, bowling leagues, etc. are dead and gone, community has collapsed.
Patriotism is dead, the government is seen as corrupt and full of fools.
Corporations are decried as soul sucking bastions of greed. On the one hand,
these are good things. Truths laid bare. We no longer look up at our flags and
company brands in reverence. But without mating, community, honor (serving
your nation), or mastery (serving your work), what are they going to do? Lash
out. They literally just don’t care about society anymore. Why should they?
Where’s the buy in? At least that’s the logic as I understand it. It’s not
correct. Ethics, morals, and honest self assessment are completely lacking in
these people. But it’s a real thing that’s happening.

~~~
MrLeap
> 20% of men enjoy 80% of female attention in a dating app world.

This is a statistic would cause massive amounts of screaming in various
internet echo chambers. Some saying it's conservative, and some saying it's an
exaggeration. I'm not going to argue either way because I don't know. It did
make me think about something I find pretty horrible about reddit/twitter..

"Callout culture" has morphed into some kind of bizarre bullying cult that
feeds off the radicalization it causes. /r/inceltears is a great example.

/r/enlightenedcentrism and /r/politics are just advanced sentence vector
generators tasked with every possible way to communicate the following axioms:

\- Support for any tenet of my opposition proves you directly support the
opposition's atrocities.

\- Moderate, centrist or apolitical people are responsible for ALL atrocities.

Get mad, we can't be any more partizan than we are so you have to be
radicalized! Shit on this group of people this week! Next week it might be
someone different!

I hate it, and I don't see good outcomes arising from it.

~~~
Traubenfuchs
> Some saying it's conservative, and some saying it's an exaggeration.

Screaming and shouting never changes facts:
[https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-
ii-g...](https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-guys-
unless-you-are-really-hot-you-are-probably-better-off-not-wasting-
your-2ddf370a6e9a)

~~~
animal531
Interesting, I never saw the Tinder experiments. I know the same numbers came
up long before when OKCupid was the giant in the field and temporarily
released some of their stats (which they then retracted).

They showed pretty much the exact same 78/22% skew.

~~~
joelx
Once you get out of your teens, people pair off one to one. Even unattractive
people. I think the issue is more that some guys have extremely unrealistic
expectations of what kind of girl they should have. They're overweight,
unemployed, and rude to others but think that supermodels should love them.

Also remember biologically men are programmed to seek many women whereas women
are extremely choosy. This leads to lots of rejection for men. Men just need
to accept that and keep trying with a good attitude to find love.

