evilgenius wrote:Newfie wrote:It's also a good example of how we let the media grab our attention and lead us around by the nose.
Oh, and you don't think that people pattern themselves after each other?
Evil,
If you were to slow down a bit and read more closely you would see we are talking about the same thing.
The patterns we are most often exposed to are the ones we see in media. Copy cat killers being but one example. Propoganda that hypes the worst of society. Our media is constantly in a state of tension, finding and eliminating the bad guy. The few times I turn on a TV set in a motel room I get these sick CSI types of shoes where they are discecting people. Then perpetrators are some kind of dementated monster. The solution is to pump them full of lead.
Dr. Phil, political talk shows, Howard Stern, shooter video games. It's all sick.
Yes, these are the things we all too frequently pattern after. It's a mirical we are not worse.
Then again, I was reading some Indian news last night and was reminded of an indicent where one group of 2,000+ stopped and attacked a passenger train, locked the doors and poured on some gas immolating some 600 inside. Ensuing riots killed thousands. Recently there have been dairy farmer killings, for molesting the sacred cows. Not to mention torching off wives with insufficient rosette, or pitching widows on the pyre with their deceased beloved.
What drives that society? AFAIK their media is pretty censored. They don't have the gun ownership we do.
Maybe it's just that, at our core, humans (too many anyway) are pretty fecked up animals, it always tightly bound and apt to do anything. Maybe the answer is that we are imperfect critters capable of a very wide range reactions.
There are not always nice clean logical answers.