By David Futrelle
More than a few observers were surprised, as was I, by the news that the “active shooter” on the YouTube campus today was not another young man angry at the world, but a female YouTuber who blamed company policies for a drop in her channels’ views who shot and wounded three others before taking her own life. [Note: This paragraph has been corrected; see bottom of post for more details.]
Naturally, a bunch of Twitter dudes decided to respond to the tragedy with jokes about women being as bad at shooting as misogynistic idiots insist they are at driving.
Can't drive. Can't shoot. 👀
— Chris Redfield (@Gen_Vengence) April 3, 2018
https://twitter.com/AnthonyChannin2/status/981308137549500421
Good thing the YouTube shooter was a lady, or someone might have gotten killed.
— Greg (@gregvegas) April 3, 2018
https://twitter.com/Mason0010/status/981277110831431680
Looks like there's less female shooters for a reason:
Competence Gap! https://t.co/Jg2mS9BPjl
— Edwardo Deendrow (@elderindro) April 3, 2018
Others made inane “ironic” jokes about glass ceilings being broken, welcoming the female shooter, whose name has not yet been released, to the boys club.
I'm hearing rumors the Youtube shooter is a girl. If so, congratulations, ladies. You've proven once again you can do anything a man can do. #girlpower
— THE KING OF NIHILISM (@amazingatheist) April 3, 2018
https://twitter.com/WeWuzVikings/status/981308119904083969
Hey! Latest shooter is a female! Way to break that glass ceiling ladies!#Equality
— Nerd Jared (@Knighticus) April 3, 2018
Others made jokes about sandwiches and how this means women should stay in the home lol lmao #AmiriteFellas?
https://twitter.com/sinndustries/status/981303664160706560
https://twitter.com/bk5950/status/981306476147937280
https://twitter.com/pvrgist2/status/981296657655529473
Then there were these dudes:
This female shooter has clearly perverted the peaceful teachings of the Holy Book of Womon and isn't a real womon. And before all you womonophobes jump in, the passage about 'kill all men wherever you find them' is taken out of context and is actually a peaceful message.
— Arthur Pewbglount QC (@Tigzy_J) April 3, 2018
Congratulations, fellas! Amazing work all around. Really doing your gender proud.
NOTE: This post has been corrected. The initial news reports suggested the shooting may have been related to a domestic dispute, and I said something to that effect in the first paragraph. The police later released the name of the shooter, Nasim Aghdam, a YouTube creator. NBC is now reporting that she was angry with YouTube for allegedly discriminating against her and filtering her channel in such a way that she lost a lot of her audience.
@Scild
“Didn’t see your correction until after Steph! Mea culpa. I’m a bit too trigger happy tonight; need to cool it down a bit. AFK time! Nite nite my ducks.”
No worries I have zero idea why I was reading it with a “h”!
Night – or good afternoon from “the future”!
@dslucia.
“Both Kupo and myself have noted that this is not what anybody was actually arguing. Nobody here made that assertion, so your attempt to divert the conversation toward that is… well, let’s say “dishonest”.
It’s not dishonest. It’s how I read Scild’s post.
They clarified – I understand their clarified position and agreed. That’s it. Hence me saying we’ve moved past that.
I suspect that the comment that Steph is questioning is this one from Scildfreja:
Which Steph has taken to mean “mental illness can never contribute to someone’s violent actions!” instead of (and this is my interpretation of the quote) “whether or not someone is mentally ill, the ultimate cause of their actions is the fact that they felt justified in acting in such a fashion and made the choice to do so.”
She also combined her question with a defense of Feministguy’s post, (for no reason that I can discern- it’s a pretty obvious case of him attributing violence to speculated mental illness), which has muddied the waters. I’m pretty sure these are two separate queries, though.
In any case, this line of inquiry is a moot point, since, regardless of how one might want to consider how mental illness might contribute to the violent actions a person chooses to do, it is forbidden to speculate on this topic on this blog.
we have this mental health arguement again? mrex returned??
this is exactly what feminist guy did ?
First of all:
I’ve seen Steph Tohill comment here before, before “Feminist” guy showed up, so if any puppetry was going on, I’d suspect the sock was on the other foot.
I don’t, fwiw. I think since Steph had not bothered to read the comments policy, Steph was unaware this behavior was a problem, and a PRATT. I’d like Steph to go back and reread it again, especially this bit:
Steph, if you want to rules lawyer about this, you can point out that we are arguing back against you instead of emailing David. In my case at least, this is because I’d prefer you to see the point and be able to continue to comment appropriately here.
Secondly, I’d like to applaud everybody’s comments above explaining the reasons for the rule.
I’d like to suggest a further update to the comment policy – maybe a link to a subpage on the “mental illness causes violence” theory, based on the comments made here, especially dslucia’s
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2018/04/03/cant-drive-cant-shoot-idiots-respond-to-news-that-the-youtube-shooter-was-female/comment-page-2/#comment-2079847
I have a third point I would like to raise, but will put it in another comment.
in the thread with mrex before I shared plenty of links about mental illness and violence – maybe we can include these and some more in this page about false believes of what makes people commit violence?
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2018/02/15/on-gab-some-are-blaming-yesterdays-school-shooting-by-a-possible-white-supremacist-on-the-jews/comment-page-3/#comments
People have already addressed the problems around conflating criminality and mental illness very well. So I’ll just chip in with a minor, but possibly related, bugbear of mine.
It’s a common whinge of mine that reports of legal matters are invariably wrong. Now that’s not a ‘fake news’ thing. I used to provide legal advice to some newspapers here. Journalists try their best; but they’re rarely legal experts or have anything beyond a layperson’s assumptions about mental health. There’s also a frenzied scramble whenever an event like this happens for copy. In the old days it was speaking to anyone who vaguely knew the subject. That was bad enough, but now it’s even worse when there’s rapid scanning of social media posts without even verifying whether they’re actually anything to do with the subject; or even if they are, what the context might be.
The false logic of “bad thing, therefore not ‘normal'” is common enough; but even the ‘verified’ stories should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt. An example from my night lawyer days: “History of mental illness” turned out to be “Once went to hypnotherapist to try to stop smoking”.
My third point is on the topic Steph has raised about the existence of legal defences regarding “insanity”.
IANAL, so if this is a suitable topic for discussion as a general topic, not as we speculate it might apply in this or any other specific case, I’d love to hear from law Mammotheers.
My understanding is that in cases where the person can be tried, obviously the defence can use it, and the evidence in that individuals case can be weighed. Also that it can be used when the person being tried can’t participate in their own defense because of mental illness.
In any case, it’s individual to the case, and holds force only after judgment is made.
In this case, we will never have that trial. In Australia, in such cases, AFAIK, we must have an inquest, but these are very lengthy unglamourous procedures, and the media have long moved on before the findings are released, and public opinion is already firmly set. Or the justice system hurries to action instead of investigating fully, in order to move to the next, higher body-count case.
As far as I’m concerned, the idea her crime was caused by, or contributed to by, mental illness, should only apply if a properly conducted inquest says so.
ETA: Oooh, Alan, goody!
Any thoughts?
@Croquembouche,
On the subject of reading the comments policy.
“You’re who this blog is really meant for. The comments too, provided you can participate in a generally constructive manner and can treat those you disagree with here with a certain degree of respect. Snark is fine; attacks and accusations and namecalling, not so much. “
Pots and kettles suddenly come to mind.
“Steph, if you want to rules lawyer about this, you can point out that we are arguing back against you instead of emailing David. In my case at least, this is because I’d prefer you to see the point and be able to continue to comment appropriately here.”
I have not once tried to “rules lawyer”, I have no issue with rules established on a private page.
Steph
no one attacked or accused or name called you – they observed what you were arguing and told you what they thought and that you didn’t follow comments policy. that is discussion and observation.
@ Croquembouche
Heh, many, and you know I never miss an opportunity to blather. The interface of the law and mental health is messy and, to a large degree, arbitrary. I have been thinking about doing an overview. Currently though it’s obviously a raw subject, and also some of the points may be a bit triggering. I know there’s people here who’ve had less than satisfactory dealings with the powers that be and I wouldn’t want them to suddenly encounter topics here that might bring back bad memories.
I think what I could do is maybe compose something over the weekend and then stick a link to it on Google drive; if that’s something people would like to read about?
@Valentin, yes, that was an excellent comment full of excellent links. I didn’t say it at the time, but thank you for it.
@ Steph Tohill, I made a point saying I didn’t believe you were a sock puppet OR a sock puppeteer. I made a point of saying I wanted you to be able to continue to comment.
In what way is this not constructive, respectful; in what way is it an attack or an accusation or name calling?
The rules lawyering thing I brought
up to highlight the fact that by continuing to respond to you seriously we are ourselves giving you the benefit of the doubt, while bending the policy ourselves. It was not an accusation that you had already rules lawyered.
I note this is the only point you responded to, by quoting a rule that doesn’t apply to this case.
@Valentin,
I am pretty sure “prat” falls under namecalling unless it has a different meaning here?
@Steph Tohill
PRATT (point refuted a thousand times) https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Point_refuted_a_thousand_times
As for you having violated comments policy that is debatable.
@Croquembouche
But I didn’t see the need for you to raise it again, or comment on rules lawyering given this post a while ago:
“It’s not dishonest. It’s how I read Scild’s post.
They clarified – I understand their clarified position and agreed. That’s it. Hence me saying we’ve moved past that.”
@ Steph
PRATT here is an acronym for “Point refuted a thousand times”. It’s not being used in the English sense.
ETA: Ninja’d!
@Tree
Aha. I’m a Brit. No familiarity with that term apart from as “prat”.
@Alan, I’d love to see that.
@ Croquembouche
Your wish is my command. Now I’ll just have to remember how to spell M’Naghten (not that any of the legal texts spell it consistently).
@ Steph Tohill,
I’m not sure what it is that you think I have unnecessarily raised again.
If its the spirit and intention of that bit of the comments policy – well, I think maybe you do need to reflect on it a little more , instead of leaping to a defensive position.
People have been reacting for reasons they’ve described very clearly. You’ve acknowledged almost none of them.
Scildfreya in particular is regarded as a beautiful miracle of clarity round these parts, for those who are willing to speak and listen in good faith.
People are continuing to show you good faith by continuing to engage with you. Please stop seizing on misinterpretations of what we have said or acronyms we use to dismiss us.
Maybe try reflecting on and responding to what we have actually said? Like, thoughts or questions about the automatic stigmatisation of certain kinds of criminals as mentally ill, and the resultant splash damage to MI people and the broader community.
@Croquembouche
I think you’re just going back over old ground that’s been done and dealt with so didn’t (and don’t) understand you raising it again.
I’ve started on that article because it’s more interesting than what I’m meant to be doing but, at the risk of spoilers, you may be interested to know “Asshole is not a mental illness” is sort of enshrined in law.
I remember I heared somewhere that in Soviet times criminal behaviour is considered mental illness – any kind of criminal behaviour, which is same logic as these people who say “normal” people can’t do such horrible things! they must have mental illness! this means people don’t have to think about what consequences will come from their behaviour.
@ Steph,
I don’t feel you’ve dealt with the old ground at all, but clearly you don’t intend to either. OK. Whatever.
@Alan, this sounds interesting!