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The "oh it was ironic" defense sounds especially weak when OP subsequently shoots up a synagogue. Guess he didn't get the irony? And neither did the Christchurc

The "oh it was ironic" defense sounds especially weak when OP subsequently shoots up a synagogue. Guess he didn't get the irony? And neither did the Christchurch incel a few weeks earlier? That incident should have maybe informed the community's opinion on the future viability of that particular excuse. It's also telling that both un-ironic murder sprees resulted in general approval, and no visible signs of regret on these boards. Or, you know, shutting them down.

Waterluvian 7y ago
I have no opinions or expertise on the legal merit of any kind of defense. I'm just sharing what happens and what's going though the minds of most of the people in these threads. Trolling the trolls is just what you do on /b/
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  > I'm just sharing what happens and what's going though the minds of most of the people in these threads. How can you know what's going on in the minds of most people? Have you conducted surveys? Where's the data? If we've got data, let's go with the data. If all we've got is opinions, let's go with mine.
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    You just have to spend some time on 4chan and have common sense. I won't link it but right now I took a minute to find an example. There's a thread on /b/ where someone claims their mom found their bottle of urine and asked what should they do. Countless people said to basically murder their mother. So do you think those people are truly encouraging a murder? No. They're going along with the fiction. It's just part of what 4chan does...
    - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      > common sense. Isn't as common as one might think. > So do you think those people are truly encouraging a murder? In the general sense, probably not. I'm willing to bet at least some of them are serious some of the time. > It's just part of what 4chan does... By that logic, walking in to a synagogue and unloading a clip is just part of what online forums do. Is that an argument you're prepared to make?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - pjc50 7y ago
      On the other hand, if that person did murder their mother, all the people who told them to do so would be co-conspirators. We're at the stage in society where if someone says "should I shoot up a synagogue" and you say "yes", you should be prosecuted, because otherwise it's going to keep happening.
meruru 7y ago
I think this quote describes the evolution of imageboard culture pretty well: >Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they’re in good company. Edit: apparently this thread is the source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011498
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Sadly I found the same to be true during my teens and early twenties when it came to relationships talk. A group of guys or gals would sit around bragging about how in control they are in their relationships, what high standards they have, etc. when in reality things were much more even keeled. The problem was that those in the group with little actual relationship experience would believe all this nonsense and try to pattern their relationships off of it. Everyone else knew the talk was all posturing without seeing how it negatively influenced those with little experience into making poor choices.
MBCook 7y ago
Ken White’s rule of goats: “The Rule of Goats applies. Slightly paraphrased — for this family newspaper — the rule states: If you kiss a goat, even if you say you're doing it ironically, you're still a goat-kisser.” You don’t get off scott-free just because you say “I was only being ironic“.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  Let's say I am on a forum talking theoretically about robbing a bank (say I'm a fan of the PayDay series or something). Let's say that someone on that forum ended up robbing a bank, perhaps using information that I provided. Did I commit a crime? Am I am accomplice? There's a big difference between planning a real crime and planning a fictitious one, but they can look identical to an outside observer. As for your quote, I don't think it really applies here. You can say all sorts of trouble things, but I don't think you can accidentally become an accomplice, at the very least need motive.
  - krapp 7y ago
    >There's a big difference between planning a real crime and planning a fictitious one, but they can look identical to an outside observer. The /pol/ boards on 4chan and 8chan aren't role playing boards. No one there is discussing race war in the context of an ARG or a fictional universe. The people being ironic here know perfectly well they are ironically supporting actual racists who actually sometimes commit violence in the real world.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      >The /pol/ boards on 4chan and 8chan aren't role playing boards. They often are. Lots of threads are about fictitious things. Don't make me go there to find examples. > The people being ironic here know perfectly well they are ironically supporting actual racists who actually sometimes commit violence in the real world. That's different. If you post something racist, that's a general statement and lots of people will see it. If you post about a story someone is telling, with specific facts, you have no idea if it's connected to reality or not.
ajkjk 7y ago
The problem is that for every serious threat there are thousands or hundreds of thousands of unserious ones. The vast majority _are_ unserious. It's obviously wrong to evaluate it as "entirely unserious", but it's not wrong to evaluate the collection as "mostly unserious".
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  Yes. Which is why I think there's tremendous risk for a bunch of idiots on the Internet to be railroaded because the thread they participated in ended up being a very serious one.
  - mffnbs 7y ago
    I personally find this view strange. I think there's tremendous risk in breeding a community that promotes this behavior to a degree that it's difficult to discern whether or not someone is _actually_ talking about shooting dozens of jews at a synagogue instead of _joking_ about it. At some point in time I don't think it's worth picking apart that nuance anymore. Like, it's great they're not committing acts of terrorism daily and are instead only doing so every few weeks, I guess, but there's really no reason to defend the people who are promoting this behavior in order to protect the use of grade-school irony.
    - antidesitter 7y ago
      > At some point in time I don't think it's worth picking apart that nuance anymore. Good thing you have nothing to do with the justice system, then.
      - mffnbs 7y ago
        Sure, and I wouldn't want to be. Judiciously, though, I do not consider these people to be innocent just because they didn't pull the trigger. The number of deaths on this community's hands is non-zero, despite any pedantry surrounding their intentions.
dang 7y ago
You've been repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and unfortunately ignoring our requests to stop. Would you mind reviewing and following them when posting to HN? They include: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." "Don't be snarky." You don't have to change your views in order to do this, as numerous other comments in this thread demonstrate. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Waterluvian 7y ago

I have no opinions or expertise on the legal merit of any kind of defense. I'm just sharing what happens and what's going though the minds of most of the people in these threads. Trolling the trolls is just what you do on /b/

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
> I'm just sharing what happens and what's going though the minds of most of the people in these threads. How can you know what's going on in the minds of most people? Have you conducted surveys? Where's the data? If we've got data, let's go with the data. If all we've got is opinions, let's go with mine.
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  You just have to spend some time on 4chan and have common sense. I won't link it but right now I took a minute to find an example. There's a thread on /b/ where someone claims their mom found their bottle of urine and asked what should they do. Countless people said to basically murder their mother. So do you think those people are truly encouraging a murder? No. They're going along with the fiction. It's just part of what 4chan does...
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    > common sense. Isn't as common as one might think. > So do you think those people are truly encouraging a murder? In the general sense, probably not. I'm willing to bet at least some of them are serious some of the time. > It's just part of what 4chan does... By that logic, walking in to a synagogue and unloading a clip is just part of what online forums do. Is that an argument you're prepared to make?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - pjc50 7y ago
    On the other hand, if that person did murder their mother, all the people who told them to do so would be co-conspirators. We're at the stage in society where if someone says "should I shoot up a synagogue" and you say "yes", you should be prosecuted, because otherwise it's going to keep happening.

meruru 7y ago

I think this quote describes the evolution of imageboard culture pretty well: >Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they’re in good company. Edit: apparently this thread is the source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011498

Mountain_Skies 7y ago
Sadly I found the same to be true during my teens and early twenties when it came to relationships talk. A group of guys or gals would sit around bragging about how in control they are in their relationships, what high standards they have, etc. when in reality things were much more even keeled. The problem was that those in the group with little actual relationship experience would believe all this nonsense and try to pattern their relationships off of it. Everyone else knew the talk was all posturing without seeing how it negatively influenced those with little experience into making poor choices.

MBCook 7y ago

Ken White’s rule of goats: “The Rule of Goats applies. Slightly paraphrased — for this family newspaper — the rule states: If you kiss a goat, even if you say you're doing it ironically, you're still a goat-kisser.” You don’t get off scott-free just because you say “I was only being ironic“.

beatgammit 7y ago
Let's say I am on a forum talking theoretically about robbing a bank (say I'm a fan of the PayDay series or something). Let's say that someone on that forum ended up robbing a bank, perhaps using information that I provided. Did I commit a crime? Am I am accomplice? There's a big difference between planning a real crime and planning a fictitious one, but they can look identical to an outside observer. As for your quote, I don't think it really applies here. You can say all sorts of trouble things, but I don't think you can accidentally become an accomplice, at the very least need motive.
- krapp 7y ago
  >There's a big difference between planning a real crime and planning a fictitious one, but they can look identical to an outside observer. The /pol/ boards on 4chan and 8chan aren't role playing boards. No one there is discussing race war in the context of an ARG or a fictional universe. The people being ironic here know perfectly well they are ironically supporting actual racists who actually sometimes commit violence in the real world.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    >The /pol/ boards on 4chan and 8chan aren't role playing boards. They often are. Lots of threads are about fictitious things. Don't make me go there to find examples. > The people being ironic here know perfectly well they are ironically supporting actual racists who actually sometimes commit violence in the real world. That's different. If you post something racist, that's a general statement and lots of people will see it. If you post about a story someone is telling, with specific facts, you have no idea if it's connected to reality or not.

ajkjk 7y ago

The problem is that for every serious threat there are thousands or hundreds of thousands of unserious ones. The vast majority _are_ unserious. It's obviously wrong to evaluate it as "entirely unserious", but it's not wrong to evaluate the collection as "mostly unserious".

Waterluvian 7y ago
Yes. Which is why I think there's tremendous risk for a bunch of idiots on the Internet to be railroaded because the thread they participated in ended up being a very serious one.
- mffnbs 7y ago
  I personally find this view strange. I think there's tremendous risk in breeding a community that promotes this behavior to a degree that it's difficult to discern whether or not someone is _actually_ talking about shooting dozens of jews at a synagogue instead of _joking_ about it. At some point in time I don't think it's worth picking apart that nuance anymore. Like, it's great they're not committing acts of terrorism daily and are instead only doing so every few weeks, I guess, but there's really no reason to defend the people who are promoting this behavior in order to protect the use of grade-school irony.
  - antidesitter 7y ago
    > At some point in time I don't think it's worth picking apart that nuance anymore. Good thing you have nothing to do with the justice system, then.
    - mffnbs 7y ago
      Sure, and I wouldn't want to be. Judiciously, though, I do not consider these people to be innocent just because they didn't pull the trigger. The number of deaths on this community's hands is non-zero, despite any pedantry surrounding their intentions.

dang 7y ago

You've been repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and unfortunately ignoring our requests to stop. Would you mind reviewing and following them when posting to HN? They include: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." "Don't be snarky." You don't have to change your views in order to do this, as numerous other comments in this thread demonstrate. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html