The reason I think that it wasn’t politically motivated is because, we have this poor kid that has been bullied every day for years.
In the usual run of things in the US this would just be another school shooting. But those are so passé now days.
To be truly remembered and immortalised you shoot the loudest bully in the world.
This got deleted from unpopular opinions, reason is justifying violence. Just a note, I’m not trying to justify what Thomas did, just speculating on his motivations.
I think this may not be the right community to post this in, but your theory is interesting and possibly has truth to it. Law enforcement is still investigating, and there may be some curve balls that we don’t anticipate in this young man’s motivation.
I agree, tried to post in unpopular opinion first…oh well.
After reading about him (from the other side of the world), I felt sorry for him. He was by reported accounts a nice young guy but was bullied all the time at high school. That is really sad.
The fact that he is no longer at school does put a hole in my theory, but just because you leave school doesn’t necessarily mean that the hurt has gone away.
I’m surprised this was removed from unpopular opinion, but I haven’t read their rules, and some people do not tolerate nuanced thought.
It is unpopular to express sympathy for the young man, and even for his parents, but I agree with you it is very sad that he felt like he had to do this (for whatever reason he believed). And hearing that anyone was described as a loner, and severely bullied in school is very sad.
I see parallels with school shooters that we have in America. People generally don’t empathize or mourn the school shooter. The shooter lashes out in a violent way, but we don’t spend a lot of time asking why, or digging into the root causes. They are mostly dismissed as monsters of society.
I don’t condone the violence, and don’t wish to see it replicated. But I assume that most people are multifaceted, and aren’t one dimensionally good or bad.
I empathize with Thomas, because that was my experience of school. I was bullied every day for basically my entire school career. I was the weird kid, who didn’t understand people and was smarter than average.
I fantasied about killing my bullies, but in NZ we don’t have access to guns or the fucked up relationship with them that the US does.
I feel sorry for the kid. What he did wasn’t right or good in any way. But I assume the school shootings and this act come from a place of great hurt. The world has shat on them for their whole life and they don’t see it ever ending.
To go further, it took years (many years) after I left school to come to terms with who I was and how to change to be a well adjusted member of society. If I had the kind of access to guns that you seem to in the US, I don’t know what would have happened, I was an angry hateful person who blamed others around me (rightfully so in a lot of cases, but not always) for all my troubles.
“this may not be the right community” … and :
“I’m surprised this was removed from unpopular” …
… so you see, this is the problem. Many moderators will think :
oh I don't like this post probably it shouldn't be here anyway in case of doubt let's just delete it we have too much work already !Yep. I would jump at the chance to be in a forum that didn’t have moderation. The early internet did just fine without moderation.
Learning to ignore the crazy person on the street corner is a life lesson. Having them arrest or otherwise disposed of because, “it’s wrong because…” is not workable approach. No one has executed it successfully, even billion dollar companies fail at it.
Pretty sure that’s exactly what 4chan is.
4chan is anonymous. That leaves only the turds that can handle the stink.
Things like Usenet were only semi-anonymous.
I actually think the internet works better with personas that stick to the person. There are issues there but they are solvable.
A forum where anyone can spin up new accounts is closer to anonymous/4chan than Usenet was.
Fair. Another difference with the early internet was the self-selecting population though, just a whole bunch of nerds. Now it’s everybody.
Yep 4chan is a cesspit of hatred.
While I agree fully with your sentiment, the internet brings all the crazies of the world to the same street corner and emboldens them. They think their views are the norm because everyone around them is spouting the same shit, whereas in times gone by the crazies were isolated and the shit didn’t leach from them like a cracked sewer main.