Sturmgeist Press Release/ Finnish shootings

[V.V.V.V.V.]

As an aside, blaming post offices and schools and hospitals and other establishments for massacres is a rather hilarious idea, so it's not like yours is any better, but I digress.

I encourage people to stop blaming various forms of media, artistic expression, or what have you for massacres caused by circumstances which do not have anything to do with pop culture phenomena (the media likes this kind of mass murder, you know that) or other outside influences. Freakouts of weird students to kill people is because of their own deranged minds and warped realities of how the world should work. I am not saying that video games do not include warped visions such as these (the eternal "kill people and it's ok cuz nothing happens" anti-logic being on display here), but it is YOUR OWN FAULT if your interpretation of such things causes you to take drastic measures in the real world.

 

[Mort Divine]

It isn't the fault of the schools - it is the compound fault of a) an unhealthy psyche and b) the other kids.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

"Because of other peers" is a cop-out. Only someone with a fragile, weak will in the first place allows himself to be influenced to the point of murder.

 

[thisisaformicatable]

I'm not blaming the school as an legal establishment, we're trying to find the root of the problem, not going on a "who can we sue?!!?!?" crusade. I'm blaming it as a social function, including the kids, the teachers, the methods of operation, society's views of its intended function, etc. Kids are put into the system, a system that has varying degrees of negative effects on a significant part of their population. On a very small part, these effects will be so severe as to cause a Columbine.

Freakouts of weird students to kill people is because of their own deranged minds and warped realities of how the world should work.

So he was born that way?

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

My thoughts on the subject dictate that people have weak willpower because it was bred into them, they had a shitty childhood, or they had too much of an amazing childhood which warped their views of how reality works

Sure, schools can cause tensions, arguments between faculty and students, etc. But NO ONE should go to lengths such as murder due to such things (they should instead seek help; any NORMAL person with a STRONG WILL would do such a thing).

Also, no matter how you look at it, it will always be about "WHO CAN WE SUE?!!!" It is fallacious to try to get to the core of a problem when so much money and controversy can be made otherwise(!)

 

[thisisaformicatable]

My thoughts on the subject dictate that people have weak willpower because it was bred into them, they had a shitty childhood, or they had too much of an amazing childhood which warped their views of how reality works

And the place where a child spends 30+ hours a week doesn't have a huge effect on this?

Sure, schools can cause tensions, arguments between faculty and students, etc. But NO ONE should go to lengths such as murder due to such things.

Also, no matter how you look at it, it will always be about "WHO CAN WE SUE?!!!" It is fallacious to try to get to the core of a problem when so much money and controversy can be made otherwise(!)

So we're back at "leave things as they are and accept a few massacres every year as the cost of doing business," then.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

And the place where a child spends 30+ hours a week doesn't have a huge effect on this?

I'm quite certain that the place a child spends the rest of his time (home) causes more problems for people, but yes, I'm sure problems at school can weigh on people, but mentally-stable people seek help, not murder. I do not believe that such problems cause people to snap and murder random people indiscriminately unless they are sick-minded, weak-willed, and have had enough evidence presented to them which would make them think such things are OK (due to the low amount of child murderers compared to people who are sane, let's not blame video games...many more people who play video games are sane rather than insane, or so I'd like to think...or so I'd hope, I may say).

So we're back at "leave things as they are and accept a few massacres every year as the cost of doing business," then.

No? We're back at "stop blaming music and other kinds of artistic expression for directly -- hell, even indirectly -- causing children to snap and murder people." I never said "leave things as they are and accept a few massacres every year as the cost of doing business," I don't really know where you derived this from.

 

[thisisaformicatable]

I'm quite certain that the place a child spends the rest of his time (home) causes more problems for people, but yes, I'm sure problems at school can weigh on people, but mentally-stable people seek help, not murder. I do not believe that such problems cause people to snap and murder random people indiscriminately unless they are sick-minded, weak-willed, and have had enough evidence presented to them which would make them think such things are OK (due to the low amount of child murderers compared to people who are sane, let's not blame video games...many more people who play video games are sane rather than insane, or so I'd like to think...or so I'd hope, I may say).

I don't understand, are you suggesting that these kids have an actual diagnosable mental disorder that differentiates them from "mentally-stable people"?

No? We're back at "stop blaming music and other kinds of artistic expression for directly -- hell, even indirectly -- causing children to snap and murder people." I never said "leave things as they are and accept a few massacres every year as the cost of doing business," I don't really know where you derived this from.

So how do we prevent these things from happening?

 

[Scourge of God]

It's easier to blame music than to blame a fucked up society, obviously. Frankly, when you lock intelligent, capable, sensitive children in classes up with their moronic, status-obsessed, Modern 'peers,' you have to expect that some of them are going to snap and thin the herd from time to time. It isn't a tragedy, it's evolution in action, baby.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

I don't understand, are you suggesting that these kids have an actual diagnosable mental disorder that differentiates them from "mentally-stable people"?


So how do we prevent these things from happening?

No, I don't think there is currently a diagnosable mental disorder for "being a fucking idiot who lets people get to you way too much."

We prevent these things from happening by urging parents to take stronger roles in helping their children deal with such pressures.

@SOG: *insert equally inflammatory, extreme opinion here*

 

[thisisaformicatable]

No, I don't think there is currently a diagnosable mental disorder for "being a fucking idiot who lets people get to you way too much."

Well pardon me if I see more benefit in taking a sociological/scientific approach to the problem.

We prevent these things from happening by urging parents to take stronger roles in helping their children deal with such pressures.

Great idea. This is why I think we need to focus on the much more open-to-legislation area of the public school system rather than vague "be better parents" rhetoric that will prevent nothing.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Do you honestly think changing schools around will work? I already explained that I understand sometimes school can get to a kid. I believe the root of the problem lies at home.

Also, yes, your sociological view of this is definitely interesting, I would like to know how you propose to prove that the school system causes people to go nuts and kill indiscriminately and after that how you would go about changing it systematically to assure that nothing else negative occurs. Like I said, the problem starts at home; I'm not suggesting a lame rhetorical speech about being better parents; I'm saying that an active role MUST BE TAKEN by responsible parents to help their angsty, hormone-driven teen from snapping under the horrible pressures of a little schoolwork and "bullies" and drugs and whatever else you see in a school system that is so horribly evil.

My point in general is that there must be something wrong with the INDIVIDUAL, not the establishment. A GREAT majority of kids do NOT kill people at random, so from this we can derive that it is an individual problem, not necessarily (or even foremost) a problem with an institution rooted in society.

 

[thisisaformicatable]

Do you honestly think changing schools around will work? I already explained that I understand sometimes school can get to a kid. I believe the root of the problem lies at home.

Have you even read any of the manifestos? I don't claim to have an ultimate understanding of the phenomenon, but you seem to have come to your conclusions without looking into the situation too deeply.

Also, yes, your sociological view of this is definitely interesting, I would like to know how you propose to prove that the school system causes people to go nuts and kill indiscriminately and after that how you would go about changing it systematically to assure that nothing else negative occurs. Like I said, the problem starts at home; I'm not suggesting a lame rhetorical speech about being better parents; I'm saying that an active role MUST BE TAKEN by responsible parents to help their angsty, hormone-driven teen from snapping under the horrible pressures of a little schoolwork and "bullies" and drugs and whatever else you see in a school system that is so horribly evil.

The problem needs to be studied, solutions need to be experimented with. Sadly this costs money, much more than blaming guns or music or blaming the social deviant without attempting to understand him or the conditions that led to his actions.

My point in general is that there must be something wrong with the INDIVIDUAL, not the establishment. A GREAT majority of kids do NOT kill people at random, so from this we can derive that it is an individual problem, not necessarily (or even foremost) a problem with an institution rooted in society.

I think if you look at the shootings you'll notice some patterns suggesting that this is not an individual problem at all, but a product of the system that recurs with regularity.

 

[Scourge of God]

No, I don't think there is currently a diagnosable mental disorder for "being a fucking idiot who lets people get to you way too much."

The issue isn't 'idiots' - in fact, it's just the opposite. The school shooters of recent years have almost universally been the very brightest, most intelligent students in their schools(and the students they've targeted have been...not the brightest or most intelligent).

The basic problem is that we've got this alienating disconnect between the institutions of liberal democracy and the basic structure of reality. Nowhere is that disconnect more blatant than in our educational institutions. From an early age, we shortchange our best and brightest. We cram them in overcrowded classrooms with assorted mediocrities and failures, holding back their educational progress to the snail's pace that can be maintained by whichever stupid my pals or 'mainstreamed' mongoloid is the dumbest fucker in the class. By the time they reach the later years of their secondary education, they might get the opportunity to participate in 'advanced' classes, free of the most malign of the idiots, perhaps, but only marginally better off because they're still being warehoused and still saddled with 'peers' who lack anything like their own capabilities. Our 'democratic' educational institutions are a sick joke, designed to 'level the playing field' between the truly intelligent elite and the merely industrious mediocrities who have advanced on the strength of 'participation' grades and other devices designed to cover up the fact that they lack the ability to achieve actual excellence.

The intelligent are, well, intelligent, and, as a result, they know they're getting screwed. Worse, they get to experience a childhood of torment at the hands of every high-level cretin whose claim to fame is an ability to manipulate a ball (you know, something that a fucking seal can do), egged on by those busy, overachieving beavers who resent the ease with which the truly intelligent excel at things they have to bust their inadequate asses (and churn out the b.s. 'extra credit' assignments) just to get by in.

We've created whole generations of intelligent, alienated, tormented youths, so why are we surprised when, every year, one or two of them turn out to be emotionally unstable and have access to firearms, with predictable results? The tragedy isn't that some ball-toters/beavers/future-shit-shovelers eat a parabellum, the tragedy is that we've built a society that makes it pretty much inevitable.

 

[MasterOLightning]

Well, to solve the problem (if we even get upset about things like this), it would seem more worthwhile to figure out what keeps kids who fit the above frame from shooting up their class, rather than postulating why some one did. Rather than overhauling an entire system, find the mechanisms that work for the alienated, and go from there.

 

[Scourge of God]

This is only one aspect of the failure of the system though. We could, I suppose, get better at identifying and either treating or isolating those most likely to snap, but the more pervasive problems - the shortchanging of the truly capable, the inability to educate students as thinkers, the rather nasty patterns of socialization that seem part and parcel of public school education, etc. - remain. Rip it up and start again.

 

[challenge_everything]

The issue isn't 'idiots' - in fact, it's just the opposite. The school shooters of recent years have almost universally been the very brightest, most intelligent students in their schools(and the students they've targeted have been...not the brightest or most intelligent).

The basic problem is that we've got this alienating disconnect between the institutions of liberal democracy and the basic structure of reality. Nowhere is that disconnect more blatant than in our educational institutions. From an early age, we shortchange our best and brightest. We cram them in overcrowded classrooms with assorted mediocrities and failures, holding back their educational progress to the snail's pace that can be maintained by whichever stupid my pals or 'mainstreamed' mongoloid is the dumbest fucker in the class. By the time they reach the later years of their secondary education, they might get the opportunity to participate in 'advanced' classes, free of the most malign of the idiots, perhaps, but only marginally better off because they're still being warehoused and still saddled with 'peers' who lack anything like their own capabilities. Our 'democratic' educational institutions are a sick joke, designed to 'level the playing field' between the truly intelligent elite and the merely industrious mediocrities who have advanced on the strength of 'participation' grades and other devices designed to cover up the fact that they lack the ability to achieve actual excellence.

The intelligent are, well, intelligent, and, as a result, they know they're getting screwed. Worse, they get to experience a childhood of torment at the hands of every high-level cretin whose claim to fame is an ability to manipulate a ball (you know, something that a fucking seal can do), egged on by those busy, overachieving beavers who resent the ease with which the truly intelligent excel at things they have to bust their inadequate asses (and churn out the b.s. 'extra credit' assignments) just to get by in.

We've created whole generations of intelligent, alienated, tormented youths, so why are we surprised when, every year, one or two of them turn out to be emotionally unstable and have access to firearms, with predictable results? The tragedy isn't that some ball-toters/beavers/future-shit-shovelers eat a parabellum, the tragedy is that we've built a society that makes it pretty much inevitable.

Well said. I have nothing to add to that.

 

[challenge_everything]

This is only one aspect of the failure of the system though. We could, I suppose, get better at identifying and either treating or isolating those most likely to snap, but the more pervasive problems - the shortchanging of the truly capable, the inability to educate students as thinkers, the rather nasty patterns of socialization that seem part and parcel of public school education, etc. - remain. Rip it up and start again.

 

[Pessimism]

The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short; and the best thing next to never existing is to die quickly.

 

[panzerfaust666]

kmfdm was also blammed partly for this. thats the second time they have been tied to a school shooting.