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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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Fair point. Overall crimes against LGBT are very unlikely to be ideological.

I read the OP as specifically talking about stochastic terrorism like this mass shooting. Of mass killings targeting LGBT, I would still bet that most were ideological. Given the rarity of targets, random or workplace sprees are unlikely to target LGBT. Though Pulse was apparently an exception!

You keep calling this shooting "stochastic terrorism." Based on (a) my understanding of both the currently-known facts about this shooting, and (b) my understanding of the meaning of "stochastic terrorism", this seems to be a completely unjustified classification.

"Stochastic terrorism" is defined as "the public demonization of an individual or group leading to violence against the demonized individual or group." Even assuming that "groomer discourse" actually represents "demonization" (which I would dispute), you have completely failed to demonstrate any link between it and this shooting other than your own prior. I haven't seen any indication linking "groomer" discourse to the shooter at all. There's no manifesto floating around, no Brendan Tarrant-style Go-Pro propaganda footage, nor even any alleged anti-gay, anti-trans, or anti-groomer statements by the shooter at any time.

So no, until there's some evidence of it, this shooting isn't "stochastic terrorism." Your labelling it as such, under these conditions, is at best an exercise in blinkered question-begging and at worst bad-faith fake-news consensus-building.

Nightclubs, concert venues, and other celebrations get shot up all the time, for completely non-ideological reasons. Example. Example 2. Example 3. Example 4. Example 6. And, most famously, Example 5. Even random vigils/wakes get shot up. Example 7. Lots of things happen all the time, for reasons unrelated to the grand-narratives that currently have everyone's attention. Just because the culture war sucks up all of our attention doesn't mean it dominates the real world in the same way.

Ah, hell. You’re right.

I focused in on the “stochastic” part without fully considering the requirements for “terrorism...” specifically an ideological campaign. You are correct that such a motive hasn’t been proven, and as such, calling it stochastic terrorism is assuming the conclusion.

I want to emphasize the arbitrary, uncoordinated aspect. Do you think “random acts of violence” would be more accurate?

nor even any alleged anti-gay, anti-trans, or anti-groomer statements by the shooter at any time.

There is actually at least one neighbor who made incredibly vague claims the shooter has a history of some incredibly vague homophobic slurs. OTOH, the same article I read also said the shooter had been the victim of homophobic slurs in high school, and his fairly well documented internet lolcow history doesn’t seem to include any hate speech.

Thank you for this information. The neighbor's testimony makes me update slightly in favor of purposeful targeting of LGBT individuals, though the history of violence against his own family still leads me to believe that this was a generally violent individual whose choice of target was a secondary consideration, rather than being an ordinarily-peaceful individual moved particularly to violence by the strength of rhetoric or belief about a single issue.