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PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   30929 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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These things are never as they seem. People way overestimate indignation as a motive, when in the vast majority of cases it's mental illness or nihilism. Maybe he saw an easy getaway and a chance at infamy. This was the case with the Trump shooter...the guy had no coherent worldview. It's interesting how he got away way like that making such a brazen kill like that and fleeing into the darkness of the city.

the guy had no coherent worldview

Don't spread that shit. That's definitely not true. The one that got his ear was def in the orbit of globo-alternative-sexual-lifestyle and the other one was literally recruiting for Ukraine.

Uh, hate to break it to you, but this guy’s plan was way to functional and well thought out for him to be a random schizo.

It's interesting how he got away way like that making such a brazen kill like that and fleeing into the darkness of the city.

This is why the Inner Party fears weapons in the hands of the Outer Party, by the way. There’s very little you can do to prevent being murdered like this other than not be worth killing, and that’s a tall order for Inner Party members for reasons inherent to being Inner Party.

There’s very little you can do to prevent being murdered like this other than not be worth killing, and that’s a tall order for Inner Party members for reasons inherent to being Inner Party.

Depends on who you consider "Inner Party members." Nobody tries to assassinate, say, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, despite the IRS's unpopularity.

I remember reading a thread on Tumblr discussing how we remember the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that launched World War I, but we forget that political assassinations were not uncommon in turn-of-the-century Europe, compared to after the World Wars, mostly of people we would consider rather "mid-level" in the government — not notable enough for the sort of fame-seeking that motivates most assassination attempts on heads of state. The question was raised of why this changed, and the general answer was that in Europe (or at least parts outside Western Europe) back then, even ministry heads and upper-level bureaucrats were members of the hereditary aristocracy — personally important beyond their government office, and not readily replaceable.

Nowadays, though, such jobs are held by interchangeable human cogs in the bureaucratic machine. Take out the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and his or her #2 will be in their office within the week, and the operation of the IRS will proceed without the slightest hiccup. Hit the J. Edgar Hoover building with a truck full of explosives*, and the rest of the FBI continues with business as usual.

This is why I disagree with our own @KulakRevolt's Substack piece "Assassination War & the Death of Bureaucracy," because, long before assassinations of IRS agents "cause a Johnstown style 2/3 flight from the profession," (which even he estimates would take "merely 100 IRS agents" being killed annually), you'll long since run out of assassins willing to die to take out utterly-replaceable human cogs, only to see the machine grind on undaunted.

Sure, the mostly-figurehead merely-elected politicians whose names and faces are known to the public might have to worry, but then, see the "mostly figurehead" part.

*Example inspired by Vox Day's claim in this post that the Oklahoma City attack was a "false flag" precisely because it was in Oklahoma City:

In other words, a real terrorist attack on the FBI isn’t going to be in some random field office; the Oklahoma City truck could have just as easily have been parked in front of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. If there is a false flag attack in London, it would probably be on some trivial, but vaguely symbolic structure that was already scheduled for demolition. An aging football stadium scheduled for replacement would make an ideal candidate.

McVeigh picked the Murrah Building as a target because that was the field office where the Waco raid was planned.

Sure, which puts paid to Vox's "false flag" narrative. But it instead highlights another weakness of assassination and terrorism as political tools in this sort of modern context: the choosing of the symbolic over the effective. To borrow Max Weber's terms, it's favoring "values rationality" (Wertrationalität) over "goal rationality" (Zweckrationalität); that is, what "sends a message" or embodies a particular value over what actually achieves a concrete end.

But the point of both terrorism and many partisan actions is to create fear, provoke a vast overreaction by the victim, and to inspire further action from others through what 19th century Russian nihilist social revolutionaries called “Propaganda of the Deed”. If Osama Bin Laden had secretly bought the Hostess company and increased the amount of sugar and trans fats in each Twinkie by 10 percent, he could have killed far more Americans than 9/11 did, and he would probably still be alive. But I doubt that would have fulfilled any of his political or strategic goals.

and to inspire further action from others through what 19th century Russian nihilist social revolutionaries called “Propaganda of the Deed”

Except when has this ever actually happened? My understanding, from what I've read on the topic, is that "Propaganda of the Deed" never actually worked, not like the revolutionaries hoped, and was in fact counterproductive.

(If I thought such an act would inspire others on the same side to follow suit, well…)

the vast majority of cases it's mental illness or nihilism

Have you seen the video? It's not a crackhead deciding to go off his rocker. This is someone who is relatively practiced with firearms and cool under fire.

Maybe he's a vet with PTSD or something, but this is different from the vast incompetence exhibited by both trump assasins.

I also allowed the possibility that the shooter was motivated by factors that does not readily map to the left/right-spectrum, similar to Thomas Matthew Crooks. Crooks planned the shooting well enough to come within an inch of killing Trump. I would say that is demonstrative of competence, having scouted an opening and having a ladder ready

Thomas Matthew Crooks' plan involved walking along a rooftop, openly carrying a rifle, in front of a crowd pointing and shouting his location and in direct view of at least two secret service snipers, taking a position, and then firing more than a half-dozen shots at a VIP while the snipers assigned to protect that VIP did nothing.

His attempt demonstrated a number of things. "Competence" was not one of them.

"Competence" was not one of them.

Well, in absolute terms sure. But in relative term he only had to be more competent than the secret service. Something that in the wake of his attempt does not seem nearly as high a bar as it seemed prior.

Well, in absolute terms sure. But in relative term he only had to be more competent than the secret service.

Tallest midget. Fastest quadriplegic. Most gentlemanly at the gangbang.

If you're retreating to relativism in an argument, you're sliding down the hill fast. Cede the field, re-group, and come back better.

But in relative term he only had to be more competent than the secret service.

If Ree Tardy Oswald had bought even a cheap magnified optic we would, most likely, be having a different conversation.

Exactly. Even without considering the possibility that the murder is non-ideological, assassins often have incoherent worldviews that do not cleanly map to tribal politics as normally understood by the non-insane. Perhaps he believed the insurance company to be responsible for implanting a mind-control device in his brain or some other similarly schizo reason. Time will tell presumably

Like most actual assassins, I think his motive was money.

He's too cool under pressure. I don't think the gun malfunctions three out of three times, I think it was a homemade silencer or subsonic rounds that fuck up the cycling of the gun. This means he trained to do the manual cycling. He dumps a phone at the scene; I'd be willing to bet it's scrubbed of anything and this is either an explicit "fuck you" to someone or just excellent evidence hygiene with a burner. And then uses a public bike service that is known to have GPS trackers on them to escape in the most densely populated city in the US. And, as of this morning still, he has not been caught. This is a pro's pro.

And that's why the motive is probably shocking in its brutal simplicity - my money is on some internal shit at United Healthcare or something with a competitor. Tens of billions on the line etc. Remember, the CEO was in town for an investor meeting. That's a symbol and message all on its own.

Somebody went ultra greedy and decided to do this using a spreadsheet and a slide rule. That's far more terrifying that "random schizo goes bang bang"

I'm not usually conspiratorial but I wouldn't be at all surprised if this were a hit disguised as a revenge killing. The detail of the slogan scratched on the bullet casings is just that bit too melodramatic, it doesn't fit the stone cold killer vibe.

This isn’t an insane person, though.

Insane people flail wildly in the general direction of their targets and neglect to bring the proper equipment.

This is very much not that (this person doesn’t seem surprised their pistol doesn’t cycle on its own, and that may even be on purpose since doing that makes it even quieter) especially considering the authorities haven’t caught him yet.

(And, I’m not sure they want to reveal the ability to catch him if they could do it. NSA probably could, but this was only a quasi-government actor so maybe not worth burning the latest in AI classification tech to do it; if this guy is caught, that’s going to be one hell of a parallel construction case.)

It might not be as hard to catch him as you think. The stories that broke throughout the day were kind of scattershot, but I just saw one on CBS that had a more complete reconstruction of the events. Initial reports said that the shooter escaped on a Citi bike. Assuming at the time that it was a regular pedal bike, you could probably track him down based on that, though it might take quite a lot of legwork. The CBS story said, though, that he arrived to the scene on foot, shot the guy, then ran to a docking station and picked up an ebike, which he then used to escape. These require either an app or a credit card to use, and you can already nail down the station it was taken from and the window of time when it was rented. It gets better, though. While the regular bikes don't have any kind of tracking, the ebikes do. You know know where he returned the bike to, along with the exact escape route. This can be invaluable information if you're looking for clothing, the murder weapon, or any other evidence he may have ditched along the way. I guess there's a chance he could have used a stolen credit card that wasn't cancelled yet, or a stolen phone that happened to have a Citi bike account on it, or some other way of getting the bike, but for all this guy seems to have done right, the getaway plan was fairly stupid.

You can buy stolen or cloned credit cards pretty easily, ditto for burner phones.

Would you even need to do that? Would a pre-paid card bought with cash not be able to do the trick?

Lyft, who operates Citibike, is now saying it wasn't one of theirs. I would surmise he pre-staged a bike that looked like a Citibike and used that.

Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon in very similar fashion in New York City and was undeniably insane with incoherent and deeply personal motives. Alternatively at times he has described the motives as due to Lennon's blasphemous statements, Lennon's hypocritical lifestyle, or to promote the book Catcher in the Rye. He had attempted suicide on numerous occasions. Despite his insanity he had planned the murder over a month in advance and flew all the way from Hawaii to do it, located John Lennon and waited outside his home until the opportunity presented itself.

agree. insanity does not mean what people often think it does . it does not mean a total lack of composure or forethought

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