Several people shot dead in Plymouth 12 August 2021
- Thread starter tendril
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SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
I spent a year living in Plymouth. It's an odd place. Feels very isolated from the rest of the world, moors on one side and sea on the other. An hour's drive to even get to a motorway. I've written elsewhere on here about the physical structure of the city, which is not human-friendly at all and which lacks social spaces. Then there's economics, which is not a pretty picture. Health resources in particular are pretty bare-bones in the south west generally.
Of course something like this could happen anywhere, but I'm not at all surprised to see it happen in one of the UK's many degraded, forgotten places.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
i wasn’t just talking about incels’ ideology though - other terrorist attacks seem to be motivated more by spite than ideology - the ideology just being a convenient framework for their dysfunction - maybe it’s just that modern terrorism needs redefining - our generation is used to considering terrorism as carried out by political groups with specific aims and demands
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Thats interesting, and partly why I drew the comparison with the South Wales valleys. Both seem cut off places due to their relative remoteness, easy to turn in on itself, where your own issues and feelings are magnified back at you everywhere etc. It’s like a kind of sadness permeates into the fabric of a place. So easy, for that to turn into other stuff too
This is a good paper just in case anyone’s interested enough
Placing poverty-inequality at the centre of psychiatry | BJPsych Bulletin | Cambridge Core
Placing poverty-inequality at the centre of psychiatry - Volume 44 Issue 5
I don’t think it’s possible to understand groups like incels, violent conspiracists, violent religious fundamentalists or any other radicalised group without (a) understanding the context of the society they are formed within and what generates the alienation that they then respond to in destructive ways; and (b) understanding the circumstances under which that alienation becomes destructive rather than a prompt for positive change. Erich Fromm - Wikipedia has some interesting things to say about this, from his vantage point of having fled the Nazis. From that wiki link:
Anyway, there’s no way I can type a potted overview of this stuff on a phone in five minutes, but it’s what springs to mind when I see the flood of responses to stories like this one that are all focused on human dramas, grief and monster-hunting. It’s understandable, but all it’s really doing is guaranteeing that there will be repeat cases. This guy didn’t appear out of the blue, and the reactionary forces that created him still exist and will create more of him. Unless you address social failures, you are just left with the impossible task of predicting what the next reactionary horror will be.
Like anybody you care to name from history, Fromm has his crackpot theories. But his basic point is that the modern world has alienated us from the family, the guild, the community, you name it. He predicted that one response to this would be people turning to those groups that offer a sense of belonging whilst simultaneously providing a bolster to their psychic defences of why their sense of failure was not their fault. He also specifically tied this into the increasing way in which action had been reified into an aim in itself, so that it wasn’t enough to be, one also has to have — consumerism cannot thrive in a world of contentment.
Anyway, there’s no way I can type a potted overview of this stuff on a phone in five minutes, but it’s what springs to mind when I see the flood of responses to stories like this one that are all focused on human dramas, grief and monster-hunting. It’s understandable, but all it’s really doing is guaranteeing that there will be repeat cases. This guy didn’t appear out of the blue, and the reactionary forces that created him still exist and will create more of him. Unless you address social failures, you are just left with the impossible task of predicting what the next reactionary horror will be.
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SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Plymouth is still suffering from the war, when (I think) a greater proportion of the city was destroyed by bombing that any other in the UK. The place was then rebuilt by sociopaths. An entire bombed out church still stands right in the city centre to remind everyone of this. The church is now on a traffic island, completely inaccessible. This is one of Plymouth's many examples of how to use public space to commit acts of psychic violence.
It's 100% about misogyny. Absolute hatred of women because women now have choices.
I've a feeling that Taliban extremists would want to do the same to their women if they were suddenly as independent/ socially mobile/ politically advanced / free as women have become in countries in the West.
Kevbad the Bad
Amiable Bowel Syndrome
Plymouth nowadays has electricity, running water, schools and all sorts. It may be a bit of a garrison town and have a lot of Royal Navy links, which affects its politics, but it's no more cut off from the world than Cornwall, or East Anglia, or much of Wales etc etc. I worked in Plymouth for 20 years and found people there, surprise, surprise, the same as people everywhere. Maybe friendlier than in some places. Last thing it needs is better access to a motorway. Better train links, sure.
ElizabethofYork
Old Crone
The so-called "manosphere" is blaming women for this incident. We should have had sex with the bloke. It's all our fault.
Obviously.
Obviously.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
I'm not questioning that. But I do believe there are social conditions which create fertile ground for this and all sorts of other hateful ideologies. Happy people don't get into this shit.
bimble
floofy
Sorry but am unconvinced by the socio-economic and geographical ideas, appealing as they are. Remember that Elliot Rodger, who is sort of canonised amongst the extreme incels see eg Elliot Rodger: How misogynist killer became 'incel hero' , was rich, went to prep school in sussex & drove a bmw in LA.
fucthest8
Cool people die horrible, preventable deaths.
I've never been able to put my finger on what's wrong with Plymouth and I think you've nailed it.
However then you get past that and out to the area around the Hoe and it's ... nice. Which just serves, for me, to highlight how divided the city is. You drive through 45 minutes of (a fair bit of) deprivation, to then be served up with that bombed-out, isolated church ... then on the other side, nice stuff.
It's fucking weird. I'm going to Plymouth tonight for stuff that was planned long ago and we don't want to cancel, I'll reflect on all this as I drive in.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Strangely even most unhappy people don't get into this shit
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Even posh boys can be misogynistic killer shits shock
I wouldn't be surprised if people like Rodger are seen by other objectionable virgins as confirming their world view, being as surely (ito) someone with all his advantages should be able to get a gf
fucthest8
Cool people die horrible, preventable deaths.
Of course they are. However the place as a whole has a fucking weird vibe.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Innsmouth in Devon?
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
As I said, could happen anywhere. And the mental and economic landscape of the south west is a preoccupation of mine anyway for various reasons.
For the record my intention is not to diminish this cunt's responsibility for his actions, nor to downplay the virulent misogyny which is at the heart of all this. I'll take my thoughts on other issues elsewhere.
bimble
floofy
I didn’t think you were doing any of that. The fact that both Rodger and this guy in Plymouth had people who cared enough and noticed enough that they tried to get psychological help for them is an additional grim fact.
fucthest8
Cool people die horrible, preventable deaths.
Yes and apols for the derail about Plymouth from me.
I've got nothing useful to add about these awful events, there's a long discourse to be had about how people end up in place where they can murder their own mother and then a bunch of strangers and I'm not clever enough to work it out. Late stage capitalism? The cult of the individual? It's fucking miserable.
I've got nothing useful to add about these awful events, there's a long discourse to be had about how people end up in place where they can murder their own mother and then a bunch of strangers and I'm not clever enough to work it out. Late stage capitalism? The cult of the individual? It's fucking miserable.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
The UK's most notable firearms atrocities of the last 40 years [Hungerford (Ryan), Dunblane (Hamilton), Cumbria (Bird), Northumbria (Moat) and Plymouth (Davison)] do appear to paint a picture of men with varying, often un-disgnosed/treated psychological issues, obsessions, anger issues and some with records/allegations of assault.
I'm not sure much can be read into the geographical pattern of these events, but the fact that most of these events were undertaken by individuals with firearms licences is troubling.
I'm not sure much can be read into the geographical pattern of these events, but the fact that most of these events were undertaken by individuals with firearms licences is troubling.
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
Moat didn't have a firearms licence when he started killing people FWIW
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
True, and to some extent it's debatable whether or not Moat's killings constituted a 'killing spree' as the others clearly do, so perhaps wrong to include that incident with the others? (not trying to derail thread btw).
maomao
普費斯
Moat was culturally notable but didn't have the others' bodycount.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
I still can’t work out if he had a shotgun license or a full firearms certificate, the press seem to be using the two (very different in terms of how they are granted) terms interchangeably.
maomao
普費斯
Imprecise language and poor fact-checking in the British press. Surely not!
It's not something that you'll find in a working class area though.
Miners who lost their jobs didnt treat the women who still had their jobs like this.
It's a mindset that encorporates a sense of entitlement and that comes from priveledge. It comes from a sense of superiority.
The question is why do they feel superior to women?
Of course it is. But all you’ve done is kick the can along the road to the question of why the emancipation of the outgroup prompts this hatred. This level of discontentment isn’t inevitable.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Yeah, the comments on crops and farmers were completely weird and misplaced.
There's a variation on a license either for a shotgun that has limited capacity for holding ammunition (either a single or double barrel, or a pump or semi-automatic that is limited to holding 1 in the chamber + 2 in the magazine) or a pump action or semi-automatic shotgun that can hold more than that (usually 1 + 7-9 or so). The later are usually only given to farmers, professional pest control workers, or people that do practical shotgun as a hobby (mentioned elsewhere).
The later are commonly known as FAC (firearms certificate) shotguns. I think it's a bit historical when there was a clear difference between shotguns and other firearms such as rifles and pistols.
It's the whole "get a girlfriend" thing isn't it? Like a commodity. These men are used to being able to "get" whatever they want. Buy whatever they want..
But they have turned women into non people. Things to have.
And sadly they are probably very friendless too. Except for other men who think the same way.
It's nearly as if they see women as things to collect. A tick box in life.
Part of a list of things to do / have to make you "successful".
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