• 1 post
  • 58 comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: January 19th, 2025
  • tomenzgg@midwest.socialtoGaming@beehaw.org•Tumbler Ridge Shooter Created Mall Shooting Simulator in RobloxEnglish
    4 months

    Since 6 whole paragraphs were too daunting to read, I’d be happy to summarize the sources I’d linked to for you in just one manageable paragraph.

    The primary cause, in over 50% of cases was an individual undergoing an acute stressor. Trauma could also contribute but, as I mentioned previously, mental illness is rarely a primary cause, even in cases of trauma. But, primarily, it’s an acute stressor.

    This also isn’t anything I’m saying; I’m just citing the conclusions drawn by studies on the matter.

  • tomenzgg@midwest.socialtoGaming@beehaw.org•Tumbler Ridge Shooter Created Mall Shooting Simulator in RobloxEnglish
    4 months

    Most people

    An appeal to general consensus and definition by crowdsourcing is inherently anti-scientific.

    kill a bunch of random people and then themselves for no good reason is mentally ill

    I mean, clearly the scientists and doctors who study these things didn’t draw that conclusion.

    Being in a bad mental state is not, by any definition, an equivalent to being mentally ill. Mental illnesses are particular things, not a general blanket attribute for that person being “different from us” and non-standard.

    And in this specific case, she was not a particularity stable individual.

    Alright? I already said that some cases certainly involve mental illness. Your anecdotal pointing out won’t change the statistics and studies, though: those are a minority of cases and generally incidental.

    But you have demonstrated for all of us scapegoating in action: your entire comment disregards science and evidence-based assessment for an anecdotal definition based on a sense of normalcy that allows us to say, “Fundamentally, those people are just different from us. Normal people wouldn’t do that.”

    It isn’t helpful, though.

  • tomenzgg@midwest.socialtoGaming@beehaw.org•Tumbler Ridge Shooter Created Mall Shooting Simulator in RobloxEnglish
    4 months

    Of course.

    Basically, any study of mass shootings within the last decade all always draw the same conclusion: they are not driven, as a rule, by mental illness. In general, mental illness accounts for 25% of cases (and that’s for mental illness, in general) but the mental illness itself is generally incidental. But, of course, most people have a particular mental illness in mind when they mention it in this context and that’s severe mental illness, generally psychosis. The previous link mentions this as only being present in 5% of cases though this other source mentions 10%.

    Regardless, these are clearly minority level numbers and, even if we wanted to stretch things and pretend they were higher for the sake of argument, still well and beyond below 50% as to make saying that mental illness, primarily, is to blame – end of story – just inherently untrue.

    But, moreover – and the far more important part! –, the thing that shouldn’t be lost here is that the claim that mental illness is the cause has caught on as such a popular talking point because it’s easier to scapegoat.

    It’s a simple answer that, for those unfamiliar, is going to make, supposedly, intuitive sense. The politicians like it – for much the same reason they like blaming violent media – because it doesn’t force them to do anything about the actual root issues (the social conditions that drive people to this desperation or create the far right ideas that become so popular that people write entire political manifestos beforehand) and it works so well as a scapegoat because people with psychosis are foreign (and, therefore, hard to understand) for the generally (more) mentally abled population.

    The fact is that schizophrenics are overwhelmingly more likely to be victimized with violence than to be committers of it; but framing violent events like these as being driven by mental illness helps to prop up the misconception and ensure that people with severe mental illness are misunderstood.

    Anyway, they were close because the beginning of their comment is spot on only to settle so assuredly on incorrect information but, more over, an unquestioned stereotype that causes real harm due to it being based on erroneous information.

  • tomenzgg@midwest.socialtoProgramming@programming.dev•I Started Programming When I Was 7. I'm 50 Now and the Thing I Loved Has ChangedEnglish
    4 months

    That’s fair. I took a class while getting my Masters that used Scheme (having learned Scheme on my own ahead of time) and, after getting past the parts I was already familiar with the language on, I found it really difficult to grasp what they were trying to teach me. I can’t say it’s what you experienced but I’ve tended to find that higher level education courses that utilize Scheme tend to operate on a level of abstraction that’s hard to grasp unless you already know the big picture they’re trying to impart.

    Regardless, I hope it’s easier the second time (if you ever do give it another try).

  • tomenzgg@midwest.socialtoProgrammer Humor@programming.dev•ed postingEnglish
    5 months

    When I use an editor, I don’t want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!! Not a “viitor”. Not a “emacsitor”. Those aren’t even WORDS!!! ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!