Massacre at historic African American Church in Charleston

[Martinus]

Can we please switch back from "Raz does not know what a city is" to "Yi is racist" discussion?

[Berkut]

Or that it merely has a very large area to describe a metropolitan area.  Columbia and Jefferson City have over 300,000 people in their metropolitan areas, yet no terrible inner city that Yi was discussing.  Lot of cows and pigs though.  Yi accused me of lying despite not actually having evidence that I lied, he only the provides possibility that I may be wrong.  I will concede it is possible that Mr. Roof was attended school in Chicago's South side or Compton, but I have seen no evidence of that and have no reason to think so.  The only school I saw that he did attend did not look like an inner city school.  The idea that someone would consider Columbia, SC a big city (big enough to have a rotting inner city of grinding poverty), honestly never occurred to me.

You've conveniently forgotten the fact that you said he went to one school when he went to several.

What is your point, btw?

Does him attending a high school where there were a lot of black people make his actions more or less interesting in any way?

[Valmy]

p.s.  I thought you were Universalist Valmy, not Christian.

Long answer: It's complicated and frankly I don't even care that much.

Short answer: Nope. Christian.

[viper37]

Or that it merely has a very large area to describe a metropolitan area.  Columbia and Jefferson City have over 300,000 people in their metropolitan areas, yet no terrible inner city that Yi was discussing.  Lot of cows and pigs though.  Yi accused me of lying despite not actually having evidence that I lied, he only the provides possibility that I may be wrong.  I will concede it is possible that Mr. Roof was attended school in Chicago's South side or Compton, but I have seen no evidence of that and have no reason to think so.  The only school I saw that he did attend did not look like an inner city school.  The idea that someone would consider Columbia, SC a big city (big enough to have a rotting inner city of grinding poverty), honestly never occurred to me.

You've conveniently forgotten the fact that you said he went to one school when he went to several.

What is your point, btw?

Does him attending a high school where there were a lot of black people make his actions more or less interesting in any way?

I won't pretend to answer for Yi, but I believe that the fact he attended majority black school and got problems with some of the people (maybe he tried to get a girl and she went with a black dude instead), blacks became the focus of his paranoia, since he had problems with black people.  Kinda like someone raped by a black man might develop hatred for all blacks.

Ji does not attempt to excuse the gesture, he attemps to find a rational cause for so much hatred, outside of the simpler, easier explanation that most southerners are racists to begin with.

So, in essence, is the man naturally evil or does he become evil through society.

[Martinus]

p.s.  I thought you were Universalist Valmy, not Christian.

Long answer: It's complicated and frankly I don't even care that much.

Short answer: Nope. Christian.

[Admiral Yi]

What is your point, btw?

I suspect his path to mass murderer was more personal than ideological.

[Berkut]

Or that it merely has a very large area to describe a metropolitan area.  Columbia and Jefferson City have over 300,000 people in their metropolitan areas, yet no terrible inner city that Yi was discussing.  Lot of cows and pigs though.  Yi accused me of lying despite not actually having evidence that I lied, he only the provides possibility that I may be wrong.  I will concede it is possible that Mr. Roof was attended school in Chicago's South side or Compton, but I have seen no evidence of that and have no reason to think so.  The only school I saw that he did attend did not look like an inner city school.  The idea that someone would consider Columbia, SC a big city (big enough to have a rotting inner city of grinding poverty), honestly never occurred to me.

You've conveniently forgotten the fact that you said he went to one school when he went to several.

What is your point, btw?

Does him attending a high school where there were a lot of black people make his actions more or less interesting in any way?

I won't pretend to answer for Yi, but I believe that the fact he attended majority black school and got problems with some of the people (maybe he tried to get a girl and she went with a black dude instead), blacks became the focus of his paranoia, since he had problems with black people.  Kinda like someone raped by a black man might develop hatred for all blacks.

Ji does not attempt to excuse the gesture, he attemps to find a rational cause for so much hatred, outside of the simpler, easier explanation that most southerners are racists to begin with.

So, in essence, is the man naturally evil or does he become evil through society.

The problem with this idea, well, one of them anyway, there are a few, is that it does not serve as any kind of explanation.

Lots of people have lots of problems with various other people. Very few of them decide to go into a church and randomly execute some as a result of those problems.

So even if we accept that idea that this is somehow related to his being treated badly (or his perception even that he was treated badly) by black people, it is not interesting. There are majority black schools here in Rochester NY where some of the students are not black - yet nobody has strolled into a downtown church here and killed a lot of people.

So even if we accept this idea that his "society" played some role, it gets us no closer to any kind of explanation or understanding of his actions.

We are still going to have to go back to other factors beyond his attending a school with black people.

This doesn't even begin to get into the more basic objection of the reasoning that sounds suspiciously like "Well, that is bad, of course, but if only those black people hadn't..."

[Martinus]

Yeah, what Berkut said.

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah, what Berkut said.

Or anything else that disagrees with me.

That's a strange criteria for deciding if an explanatory variable is interesting or not.  Mass murderers will always be a small subset of any explanatory variable, whether it's listening to death metal, owning a gun, living in a southern state, being a loner, wearing black, etc, etc. 

[Berkut]

Yeah, what Berkut said.

Or anything else that disagrees with me.

That's a strange criteria for deciding if an explanatory variable is interesting or not.  Mass murderers will always be a small subset of any explanatory variable, whether it's listening to death metal, owning a gun, living in a southern state, being a loner, wearing black, etc, etc. 

True. And particular variables about that mass murdered have that same problem.

Which is why I found it curious that the one you chose to latch onto was his possible attendance at a school that might have had a lot of black people attending...

[Admiral Yi]

True. And particular variables about that mass murdered have that same problem.

Which is why I found it curious that the one you chose to latch onto was his possible attendance at a school that might have had a lot of black people attending...

I find it curious that you found that curious but did not find find it curious that Martinus wanted to focus on gun laws and southern history.

[Berkut]

True. And particular variables about that mass murdered have that same problem.

Which is why I found it curious that the one you chose to latch onto was his possible attendance at a school that might have had a lot of black people attending...

I find it curious that you found that curious but did not find find it curious that Martinus wanted to focus on gun laws and southern history.

Gun laws and southern history seem to have a much greater explanatory value than "Poor guy had to go to school with the blacks".

[crazy canuck]

True. And particular variables about that mass murdered have that same problem.

Which is why I found it curious that the one you chose to latch onto was his possible attendance at a school that might have had a lot of black people attending...

I find it curious that you found that curious but did not find find it curious that Martinus wanted to focus on gun laws and southern history.

Southern history and gun laws seem more plausible explanations for what happened then an explanation that the shooter spent time around black people. 

[Razgovory]

What is your point, btw?

I suspect his path to mass murderer was more personal than ideological.

And how does wearing the Rhodesian flag come into this.  Do you suspect he had some personal relation with that nation?

[derspiess]

Gun laws and southern history seem to have a much greater explanatory value than "Poor guy had to go to school with the blacks".

Why do you so often feel the need to twist and misrepresent others' arguments here?  I mean, I know it's Languish but come on.