Thinking the only good that could come of this Mr. Robot-style clusterfuck is that the Supreme Court might now uphold laws re: serial numbers and background checks for ghost-gun kits and parts.

(Oh but wait, that might make it harder for everyone to just shoot people that we think suck.

And I can't remember the last time the Supreme Court didn't surprise me in its short-sighted stupidity.

Never mind. Carry on...)

Krev wrote: Wed Dec 11, 2024 4:20 pm You can tell a lot by someone's affinity for Weezer. Possibly worse than Counting Crows fans.

You don't say...

You know health insurance companies aren’t having a great moment if even Shark Tank Guy thinks they should be handling things differently post-shooting.

Zooming out a little after the smoke has cleared, I do think this is an interesting case. Guess we’ll have to wait and see if it leads to something (other such occurrences, some actual reforms).

What seems curious is that the shooting might not have been 100% ideologically motivated, that there’s some murkiness. There are inconsistencies in the shooter’s thinking and behavior, as noted above, but even if there weren’t, the way he went about this wasn’t as shrewd as it should’ve been if this was intended to be nothing other than a form of praxis. It’s kind of hard for those with skin in the game to resist the urge to graft whatever they want to onto it. What’s emerging more and more, though, is that people on both sides of the aisle—left and right alike—have chimed in as seeing this execution as justified, or at least not unprovoked. I mean, wouldn’t it be a curve ball if Americans put their manifold cultural debates and symbolic and semantic differences aside in the name of finally securing a health care system that worked.

Anyway, Weezer . . .

“In The Garage (Because I Can’t Afford Rent After Chemotherapy)”
“Undone - The Insurance Song”
“Say It Ain’t So (My Claim Has Been Denied)”

Etc.

numberthirty wrote: Thu Dec 12, 2024 3:40 am

Krev wrote: Wed Dec 11, 2024 4:20 pm You can tell a lot by someone's affinity for Weezer. Possibly worse than Counting Crows fans.

You don't say...

Deftones are terrible. You're making my point.

As I understand it, this is the real manifesto that had been quoted in the media but not released in full. Of course he had an extensive online history, but the other “manifestos” going around were faked.

His motivations were clear, but its crazy to think that his own personal history wouldn’t have any bearing on any of his decisions and actions. That’s not how anyone works, no matter what sort of cult of personality happens to be there. That he was some sort of pseudo-right wing tech bro also isn’t the got-ya some are implying.

You can continue to make stupid jokes about McDonalds or whatever, but the level of heroism a shooter achieved across the political spectrum is a new thing.

Much like when the right says they don't want to discuss the underlying problems associated with gun violence when it comes to mass shootings, the entire spectrum seems to be concentrating on determining whether this was right or wrong , reaction policing and shouting "Oh My!" into the ether, rather than focusing on the underlying problems that brought someone to target a greedy resource whore who made his living on the suffering of others.

In truth, the Lockheed and Raytheon leaders should be the ones really shaking in their boots or loafers or whatever people wear.

It's easy for me to make fun of the guy b/c I'm a skeptic of most things. (And uh, his family was loaded, no pun intended.)

And you also can't deny the insane position of privilege he was acting from. (Never mind the self-negating ridiculousness of it all. Being born w/a silver spoon in his mouth is what precisely allowed him the time and energy to take this path. Along w/a healthy dose of resentment and an unhealthy one of possible mental illness.)

But let's rock some balance, and allow me to be serious for a sec.

Business Insider is typically a turd of a publication, but I found this excerpt to be insightful:

"On X, he followed the liberal columnist Ezra Klein and the conservative podcaster Joe Rogan. He respected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and retweeted a video of Peter Thiel maligning "woke"-ism. He took issue with both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. He played the cartoon video game "Among Us," posted shirtless thirst traps, quoted Charli XCX on Instagram, and had the Goodreads account of an angsty, heterodox-curious teenage boy: self-help, bro-y nonfiction, Ayn Rand, "The Lorax," and "Infinite Jest." Yes, he seemed to admire the Unabomber. But mostly, this guy — a former prep-school valedictorian with an Ivy League education and a spate of tech jobs — was exceedingly centrist and boring. A normie's normie. He wasn't an obvious lefty, but he wasn't steeped in the right-wing manosphere either."

"That didn't stop the denizens of social media from pretending to be the most qualified people to lay out exactly who Mangione is. He's "fundamentally anti-capitalist" and "just another leftist nut job." Or he's "a vaguely right-wing ivy league tech bro." Or he was invented by the CIA, or maybe Mossad, as a "psyop." The reality of Mangione — his messy, sometimes contradictory impulses — allowed everyone to cherry-pick the aspects of his personality that confirmed their original suspicions. In the attention economy, patience is a vice."

https://www.businessinsider.com/social- ... er-2024-12

I still don't think any of this will accomplish shee-it in the long run, much less unite the right and left in some anti-Aetna jihad.

(And fuck, for once, I wish I knew the titles of some Weezer tunes beyond da hitz.)

I still think it's missing the forest. The rich are getting richer at a faster rate than ever at the expense of someone. That one of the someones got pissed enough to do this isn't a reflection of the belief system of the shooter, it is a symptom of rampant greed that won't be addressed if we dissect his worldview and layer our own biases on top.

I think any reasonable person would agree that Brian what's his name leaving scraps of a steak that cost $1000 on his plate for a waiter to whisk into the trash while his literal customers die in the streets is as good a place to begin asking questions as any.