Toronto van attack: Suspect quizzed after 10 pedestrians killed

[frogwoman]

in pre-internet days these guys would probably have become serial killers tbh.

 

[StigoftheDig]

e2a: That said, there's clearly something going on besides poor social skills and internet access. I don't know what it is that breaks a person's mind to the point where they're capable of these crimes but it is separate from, and mercifully much rarer than any of the soundbite explanations you get when white people commit mass murders. That's why I don't like seeing 'oh, and he had Aspergers' added as an afterthought. I don't like that kind of cowardly implication of causality.

I did apologise for posting it. I posted it in response to something about his previous eccentric behaviour and apparent difficulty communicating.

It wasn't meant to imply the causality of "he had Aspergers therefore he did this..." but I can see that should have made that clearer.

 

[StigoftheDig]

...or indeed clear at all...

 

[frogwoman]

I did apologise for posting it. I posted it in response to something about his previous eccentric behaviour and apparent difficulty communicating.

It wasn't meant to imply the causality of "he had Aspergers therefore he did this..." but I can see that should have made that clearer.

I think this has to be viewed as a political pathology as much as a personal one. As bizarre as this shit is it's a political movement based on misogyny. It's not some mentally ill loser or someone without social skills in their basement and I think that's been a barrier to taking this seriously.

 

[StigoftheDig]

I think this has to be viewed as a political pathology as much as a personal one. As bizarre as this shit is it's a political movement based on misogyny. It's not some mentally ill loser.

What I should have been saying all along is what my better self sometimes asks of other people: "it's too early to know. . . I shouldn't have an opinion on this...".

 

[keybored]

Details on more of the victims have been released - the "Chads and Staceys" being "overthrown" include the single mother of a 7-year-old boy, a Korean chef from a Peruvian restaurant, and a 94-year-old woman who went for a short walk outside her seniors' building to feed the birds.

Three more reasons these nutters would celebrate.

 

[Old Gergl]

.

 

[Yossarian]

Definitely seems like it's time to start calling these attacks terrorism.

Despite a great deal of evidence that connects the dots between these mass killers and radical misogynist groups, we still largely refer to the attackers as “lone wolves” — a mistake that ignores the preventable way these men’s fear and anger are deliberately cultivated and fed online.

Here’s the term we should all use instead: misogynist terrorism. Until we grapple with the disdain for women that drives these mass murderers, and the way that the killers are increasingly radicalized on the internet, there will be no stopping future tragedies.

Opinion | When Misogynists Become Terrorists

 

[existentialist]

Ah, the old romantics.

I also got onto that website (I think it has suddenly received a lot of traffic). It made me sad. Not even angry that they were so misogynistic. Just sad that society/their life/other has made them that way. It must be absolutely exhausting to be so angry all the time.

Less exhausting, perhaps, than facing up to their own role in the miserability of their lives. And anger is always so much more instantly gratifying than self-examination.

 

[Crispy]

Of which the relevance is...?

Because having a condition that makes social interactions difficult (note: despite being married to a psychologist I didn't know that Asperger's was a deprecated term) can make someone particularly susceptible to a worldview that considers difficult social interactions to be entirely the other person's fault. "There's nothing wrong with me, there's something wrong with them!"

 

[SpookyFrank]

Because having a condition that makes social interactions difficult (note: despite being married to a psychologist I didn't know that Asperger's was a deprecated term) can make someone particularly susceptible to a worldview that considers difficult social interactions to be entirely the other person's fault. "There's nothing wrong with me, there's something wrong with them!"

So of the 700,000 people in the UK with autistic spectrum conditions how many can we expect to become murderous terrorists?

 

[Crispy]

So of the 700,000 people in the UK with autistic spectrum conditions how many can we expect to become murderous terrorists?

Fewer than one, probabilisticly speaking. It is of course the toxic worldview that is to blame.

 

[elbows]

(note: despite being married to a psychologist I didn't know that Asperger's was a deprecated term)

It isnt universally deprecated as far as I know. Aspergers was removed from DSM-V (the US classification manual) but as far as I can tell its still in ICD-10 (the WHO classification manual).

Anyway that name for it seems far more likely to be expunged now that it has become clear that far from resisting the Nazi's, Asperger was assisting them.

I was excited to write a positive book about autism and the Third Reich. My first day in the Austrian National Archives in Vienna, however, dispelled any notion of a heroic tale.

Leafing through Asperger’s district Nazi party file, I saw that officials deemed him a supporter of the regime and its racial policies. His professional and patient records, then, showed that he participated in Vienna’s child killing program. Through his clinic and positions in the Nazi government, Asperger endorsed the transfer of dozens of children to their deaths at Spiegelgrund, Vienna’s death center.

Asperger's Syndrome, the Nazi Regime and the Dangerous Power of Labeling People

 

[likesfish]

Tbf Asperger was screwed either go along with the Nazis or go to a camp.
The Nazi programme at the start was similar to eugenics programmes that were all the rage all over Europe at the states by the time the full horror was unleashed it was way way too late for Aspergers soul.
Tyranny’s kill overt resistance and rot everybody else souls by forcing compliance with horrors.

 

[maomao]

Because having a condition that makes social interactions difficult (note: despite being married to a psychologist I didn't know that Asperger's was a deprecated term) can make someone particularly susceptible to a worldview that considers difficult social interactions to be entirely the other person's fault. "There's nothing wrong with me, there's something wrong with them!"

All humans are succeptible to ideas or beliefs that make them right and everyone else wrong.

 

[kabbes]

I saw a study that potentially linked depression, social media use, and decline in social skills last week. IT basically said that millenials are spending less time with their peers and depression and suicide has gone up, as social media use has also gone up. It couldn't tell if the social media use was the cause, or if it was the symptom. When I get more time, I'll try to look it up.

<Edited to add>
It might have been this one: Social media use associated with depression among US young adults

To be frank, there has been a deluge of research on this over the last five years or so and they all point to the same thing: social media is incredibly toxic and a recipe for every nasty assault on your well-being that you can think of. This forum is the closest I get to social media and even this place leaves me from time to time with emotions I have to examine quite carefully. If I had kids, I would be doing everything in my power to stop them going within a mile of social media.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

To be frank, there has been a deluge of research on this over the last five years or so and they all point to the same thing: social media is incredibly toxic and a recipe for every nasty assault on your well-being that you can think of. This forum is the closest I get to social media and even this place leaves me from time to time with emotions I have to examine quite carefully. If I had kids, I would be doing everything in my power to stop them going within a mile of social media.

There's a reason that I resisted getting a home internet connection, despite staring at a computer screen all day for my job. (Somehow people seem to think its unnatural for me to not want sit in front of one even longer when I get home.) It was only starting back to school that made put a connection in. There is no substitute for real experiences.

 

[RainbowTown]

Aspergers/autism aren't mental health conditions.

Yes, it can be in some cases. According to the NAS, The National Autistic Society:

www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/asperger.aspx

See paragrah three.

 

[maomao]

Yes, it can be in some cases. According to the NAS, The National Autistic Society:

www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/asperger.aspx

See paragrah three.

Paragraph three says people with autism may also have mental health problems. People with broken legs may also have mental health problems that doesn't make broken legs a mental health issue.

It might be clearer to say that autism is not a mental illness though.

 

[Thimble Queen]

Yes, it can be in some cases. According to the NAS, The National Autistic Society:

www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/asperger.aspx

See paragrah three.

Do you mean where it says some people with aspergers also have mental health conditions?

 

[prunus]

I just spent a few minutes looking at that site. This is radicalisation in plain sight, they are openly talking about and justifying acts of violence and what they would do. They fucking HATE women.

I think they mostly hate themselves.

 

[iona]

Yes, it can be in some cases. According to the NAS, The National Autistic Society:

www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/asperger.aspx

See paragrah three.

Very first paragraph - autism is a developmental disorder (or developmental condition; sometimes the more specific term neurodevelopmental is used).

No paragraph on that page states that autism "can be [a mental health condition] in some cases" and I'd be astonished to find the NAS had such a claim anywhere on their website.

 

[RainbowTown]

Paragraph three says people with autism may also have mental health problems. People with broken legs may also have mental health problems that doesn't make broken legs a mental health issue.

It might be clearer to say that autism is not a mental illness though.

I agree. That's why I said in my original post (in answer to another post) that it is of total irrelevance whether the perpetrator of this multiple murder has asperger's or autism or not. Likewise, I mentioned there as well, that hopefully this condition alone will not be used as some sort of 'mental health' excuse ( I purposely used the quotation marks ) by either his defence or others when trying to reason why he murdered innocent people.

The NAS reference is purely a factual one with regards mental heath and autism. If you click on the links in paragraph three, they go into slightly more detail about why some people with autism/asperger's are more prone to certain mental health problems than the general populace (ie."roughly 40% have symptoms of at least one anxiety disorder at any time, compared with 15% of the general population"). So whilst the condition alone is not a mental illness, it can be exacerbated and descend into such trauma more readily than those who do not suffer from it (again from NAS: "even though mental illness can be more common for people on the autism spectrum than in the general populace, the mental health of autistic people is often overlooked.") But you (and others here) are, of course, correct to point out that the condition itself is not a mental illness and has never been classed as one. I should have acknowledged that and I did not not. Duly noted.

 

[existentialist]

To be frank, there has been a deluge of research on this over the last five years or so and they all point to the same thing: social media is incredibly toxic and a recipe for every nasty assault on your well-being that you can think of. This forum is the closest I get to social media and even this place leaves me from time to time with emotions I have to examine quite carefully. If I had kids, I would be doing everything in my power to stop them going within a mile of social media.

Hmm. Personally, I think we'd be better off doing some really good educational stuff on how to deal with it. It's here to stay, and a lot (though admittedly not all) of the shit it brings with it is the same interpersonal stuff that's just as much of an issue one-to-one, just not with such a far reach.

But then, since we can't really do the basic emotional and wellbeing stuff without it being regarded as a bit of a pinko liberal bit of handwringing, yet, I won't be holding my breath.

 

[kabbes]

The only way really to deal with it is to avoid it. Everything else is a partial mitigation at best. It’s basically everything we know of that is bad for us concentrated into self-administered hits. You might as well research the best way to deal with taking heroin.

 

[Yossarian]

An autistic former classmate of Minassian's has spoken out about the attack and what he says is interesting - he thinks Minassian might have been targeted by the "incel community."

He does a good job of making it clear that there's no link between violence and autism, and I feel a lot of sympathy for him - it was bad enough for him when Adam Lanza carried out the Sandy Hook attack, now he has to deal with this.

"We see in the media . . (non-autistic) classmates of Alek making some comments that really show just how much misconception there is around autism and what it means to be autistic...

But if Minassian was involved with incel, it is more likely this community targeted him, Echakowitz said.

When it comes to violence, autistics, like all people with disabilities, are more likely to be the victims rather than the perpetrators, Echakowitz added.

‘We’re not a violent group of people’: Ex-classmate of Alek Minassian speaks out about autism | The Star

 

[newbie]

If I had kids, I would be doing everything in my power to stop them going within a mile of social media.

good luck with that, as it's approximately as credible as keeping them away from (amongst others and in no particular order) rap music, videogames, traditional values, body shaming, swearing, gendered toys, television, porn, bad influences, square eyes, comics, advertising, rock n roll, violent films, junk food... and having guilt tripped parents.

It's a scary place, the world. Especially when you recognise that kids are very good at doing what's not allowed.

 

[A380]

As a result of this thread I had a look at an incel forum.

Jesus fucking Christ. I had no idea.

They walk anoungst us.

 

[DotCommunist]

"We will overthrow all the Chads and the Stacys" | Richard Seymour on Patreon

thought this was interesting.

It would be easy to address this MRA meme as a manifestation of 'entitlement'. That concept has achieved a certain glamour and generalised consent. So generalised that we no longer have to think about what it means. Entitled to what, exactly? Entitled to obey a tyrannical and nonsensical masculine superego injunction, which ultimately drives one mad. Entitled to a masochistic ideal which, necessarily, only leaves one feeling miserable and stupid.

The irony, of which I suspect most MRAs are at some level miserably aware, is that this ideological figment, this fantasy they call Stacy, may not even be who they really want to fuck. It is who they think they should want to fuck, while they secretly fantasise about Lilith. Self-hatred is already folded into the misogyny.

What MRAs have done, however, is literalise an image of sexual success, and thus also their need to be free of it. Rather than rejecting the ideal as a stupid fiction, they have accepted its basic realism, and spent years tormenting and gratifying themselves at the thought of Chad and Stacy's gruesome last minutes. Rather than waging war against the tyranny of meaningless ideals, they wage literal war against what they believe is a literal sexual despotism, rather like the "oppressive Tawaghit" of the Daesh imaginary, in which they are an oppressed caste.

This leaves us with the question of why Minassian, just as he was about to murder ten people and wound a further fourteen, should declare his affiliation in this heavily stylised, ironic language of memes. Doesn't this suggest a frightening degree of detachment in the killer? You could argue that this is the affect the killer wants to convey, like a meatspace troll who pretends his sadism has no moral basis: it's just for the lulz. But irony is just, in a way, a container for ambivalence. The core of irony is a disavowed, or negated, passionate attachment. The negation is what allows the attachment to be expressed, while also reproaching it. It is not difficult to see how an ironic commitment tips over into a passionate commitment, without totally losing the sense of self-reproach.

 

[Chz]

Well, it does appear that at least the Toronto Police were serious when they claimed they would learn from their mistakes and change. This is the police force that was called to deal with a teenager with a switchblade on a tram that had been emptied except for said teenager and managed to shoot him within a minute of arriving on site.

I know it is slightly deviating from the topic, but if anyone wondered what in the holy hell I was on about there the officer in question is appealing his conviction in the case:
Toronto officer to learn if he'll win his appeal of sentence in Sammy Yatim killing | CBC News