Nice and ongoing terror attacks in W Europe

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I wonder if there's a correlation between mass media and mass murder of this type. The Japanese massacre has no motive (yet revealed) in common with the Munich shooting, but the coverage of that shooting and other acts of violence could conceivably have given the Japanese lunatic a kick up the arse. I think this is where the contagion comes in. (After all, the Munich killer was a student of school shootings, as are many others - the Virginia Tech killers admiration of the Columbine killers, e.g.).

This article is quite good fun, a series of historians naming years that were probably a lot worse to live in than 2016: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...016/07/is_2016_the_worst_year_in_history.html

Still, this sort of mass murder by an individual is a relatively contemporary phenomenon. I think it's tied in with the media above all else. Anybody who gains mass media attention, if only for a week, becomes a kind of immortal.

While violence is falling overall (Statistically), I wonder if such incidents are the death throes of violence or the first signs of a new wave of mass violence to be unleashed by overpopulation and scarcity of resources. Reminds me of Naomi Klein's essay on the Syrian migrations and the often unremarked upon connection between ecological catastrophe and wars: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n11/naomi-klein/let-them-drown
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
hell in a handcart. me and my fellow 'psychic sensitives' are having some scary dreams.

reference to?

om February 28th to April 2nd a large proportion of them had dreamed very bizarre things, the intensity of the dreams being immeasurably the stronger during the period of the sculptor’s delirium. Over a fourth of those who reported anything, reported scenes and half-sounds not unlike those which Wilcox had described; and some of the dreamers confessed acute fear of the gigantic nameless thing visible toward the last. One case, which the note describes with emphasis, was very sad. The subject, a widely known architect with leanings toward theosophy and occultism, went violently insane on the date of young Wilcox’s seizure, and expired several months later after incessant screamings to be saved from some escaped denizen of hell.
 

droid

Well-known member
There is a motive in the japanese attack. He thinks people with serious disabilities should be euthanised, and even wrote a letter to Parliament outlining his ideas. he was (apparently) let go of his job caring for the disabled due to his beliefs - which seems reasonable enough.

Brooker still holds the gold standard wrt media coverage of this kinda thing:


And yes, obviously we are heading into a shit storm which will make all of this look like playtime.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Sorry, the way I wrote that was confusing. I meant it had no motive in common with the Munich attack, not that 'it had no motive, in common with...'

Obviously both attacks had motives but the motives were unrelated.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I guess we're getting off the subject of Islamist Terrorism here, but the level of depression is supposedly soaring in the UK: 'Rates of depression and anxiety among teenagers have increased by 70 per cent in the past 25 years.'

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...ave-soared-in-the-past-25-years-a6894676.html

And according to Wiki (the infallible), depression levels are highest in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_depression

Of course, one always wonders whether it's simply that depression is diagnosed (and even misdiagnosed) these days where before it was missed.

But the bomber in Bavaria yesterday had tried suicide several times before, e.g.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
You seemed quite upset. Im simply trying to comfort you in these times of crisis.

I'm not being hysterical here. I appreciate that the vast majority of people who go about their business each day will get home in one piece.

Anyway, you're usually the doom-monger extraordinaire. Or is it that terror attacks and mass murder are all small beer compared to the ongoing envirocalypse?
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
re: the Brooker clip, I think we live in a highly individualistic era in which people feel increasingly self-important, and yet are also more aware than ever before (via the media) of their utter lack of importance. Celebrity/media attention is the panacea for the sickness of obscurity. If you aren't on cable news you don't matter.

Most people, of course, don't feel compelled to shoot up a school in order to get their 15 minutes of fame. But if you're extremely alienated (and, likely, extremely arrogant), you can turn to the media to see examples of others like you who were able to take revenge on the uncaring society by killing them, by MAKING THEM CARE.
 

vimothy

yurp
Several of the perpetrators of recent attacks in Europe, from Nice to this weekend’s suicide bombing in Germany, have been reported to suffer from psychiatric problems. Yet for Dr. Samuel Leistedt, mental illness does not explain their actions.

(...)

FRANCE 24: Is there a link between terrorism and mental illness?

Dr. Samuel Leistedt: It’s fundamental to understand that a terrorist is not mentally ill in the strictest scientific terms. There are no real signs of mental illness among those we have been able to study. Even if we’ve observed highly narcissistic and paranoid personality traits, it’s not enough to qualify as pathological.

That said, we can make a real distinction between actual terrorism and what we refer to in psychiatric jargon as the “pseudocommando”....

We use the term pseudocommando because unlike the terrorists involved in some of the more recent jihadist attacks, who were often trained in Syria or Iraq to learn how to use weapons, the pseudocommando often acts alone and without much preparation...

A pseudocommando can present serious personality disorders, with narcissistic and paranoid tendencies. These are people who will often kill themselves before being caught. A typical example of this kind of profile is Nordine Amrani, the Liège killer, who killed five people in an attack in December 2011... The Norwegian Anders Behring Berivik, who killed 77 people in July 2011, also falls into this category... The question was raised at some point whether he should be committed to an institution. But it’s yet another example of a highly narcissistic personality.

FRANCE 24: What can we make so far of Nice attacker Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s profile?

Dr. Samuel Leistedt: We can’t yet determine if he belongs to the pseudocommando category, because he was apparently in contact with the Islamic State group... What’s more, it seems as though there was extensive preparation beforehand.

The difference between a pseudocommando and a terrorist is that a terrorist functions as part of a network. Pseudocommandos are isolated, if not lonely. Often, there’s a catalyst for their actions – a divorce, the loss of a job… They don’t let anyone in on their project, and obtain weapons on their own. It’s an isolated and immediate act.

FRANCE 24: According to initial reports, Bouhlel appeared to be extremely psychologically unstable…

Dr. Samuel Leistedt: It’s an exception. Generally terrorists don’t have this type of profile. Depression, ill-being are not the rule. Very few display traits of psychiatric disorders. This man was presented in some media as a psychopath. It was a false analysis... Psychopathy has a very precise definition...

FRANCE 24: The Syrian refugee who blew himself up on Sunday in Ansbach, Germany had spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Are people who are mentally vulnerable a target for Islamic State group recruiters?

Dr. Samuel Leistedt: In Europe, Daesh... recruits from a fertile ground of people who are disenfranchised professionally, socially and who also have family issues – a situation that is particularly common among migrants.

http://www.france24.com/en/20160726...ref=partage_user&aef_campaign_date=2016-07-26
 

vimothy

yurp
As has been pointed out by many people in relation to the RNC - Im pretty sure a statistical analysis (excluding acts of war & terror) would probably show an overall drop in crime and murder...

My recollection is that there was a general drop in crime rates across the developed world in the '90s, except in Japan (where they rose). In the US crime rates are at historic lows, but that's certainly not true in the UK, for example.
 

droid

Well-known member
First time Ive really looked TBH, but it seems the trend is down.

crime-figures_3555010b.jpg
 

vimothy

yurp
In America, the situation is different. A quick google-search doesn't turn up an equivalent graph, but here is one for murder rates that has been widely shared since Trump's speech (although medical advances is an important confounder):

Cn76YaPWAAAD405.jpg
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps

Can Breivik really be called a 'pseudocommando' (great band name, btw) if part of the definition is that they act "without much preparation"? His attacks must have taken an awful lot of preparation, I'd have thought.

On the point about mental illness, it's worth noting that Jo Cox's killer has an extensive history of mental illness, and is said to have sought help the day before he killed her (unsuccessfully, of course, because THERE ISN'T A MAGIC MONEY-TREE, YOU KNOW).
 

vimothy

yurp
"Factors like more crime being reported, more things being considered crime" - is there any reason to suppose either of these apply? How much of that rise do you think they could possibly account for, in the most extreme case?
 

droid

Well-known member
Can Breivik really be called a 'pseudocommando' (great band name, btw) if part of the definition is that they act "without much preparation"? His attacks must have taken an awful lot of preparation, I'd have thought.

Brevik spent (I think ) 3 months making bombs in a farm he rented after forming a farming company 2 years earlier. He also travelled to prague to buy weapons 2 years before the attack and had been working on his manifesto for several years previously. he was probably more prepared than any of the European attackers before or since.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
How much of this is to do with factors like more crime being reported, more things being considered crime, technological advances helping to discover crime, etc.?

Probably a certain amount. There was a big change to the way crime is recorded in 1997, which is mentioned in the graphic, but there may well have been other big changes in the preceding century.

More things being considered crime is surely a huge part of it - no-one was being arrested for posting racist tweets 50 years ago.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Brevik spent (I think ) 3 months making bombs in a farm he rented after forming a farming company 2 years earlier. He also travelled to prague to buy weapons 2 years before the attack and had been working on his manifesto for several years previously. he was probably more prepared than any of the European attackers before or since.

Well there we go then.

AFAIK Breivik did act alone, and although there have been rumours of accomplices, I think it's generally accepted that he was solely responsible.

Still, it seems there was nothing pseudo about Breivik's status as a self-directed, self-equipped commando.
 
Top