Idle Threats

The world DESPERATELY needs to realize that threats are just that: they aren't actions.  The vast majority of threats running around out there are only threats in the perception of the terrified masses who choose to live in fear.  Empty threats are just words.

You can track the vast majority of today's problems to people living in fear and reacting to threats that don't warrant any concern at all.

Everything from the TSA (no, nobody has ever even attempted to bomb a plane with a bottle of hand sanitizer BUT WE MUST TAKE THEM ALL BECAUSE OF THE THREAT!) to trash talk over video games (the Carter kid, STILL jailed over a 'lol j/k' FB post, Phil Fish quitting the game industry over 'abuse', the Black Ops backlash over 'nerfing') are suffering this issue.

Folks, I used to joust with the KKK on one of their BBS' back in the day.  (Long story how I wound up there. Hint: not because I was looking to join.)  I was threatened with everything you could imagine, by people from a group with a history of violence, who had a copy of my photo ID with my name, address, etc.  Not 'internet tough guys', these were people who lived within easy driving distance.  (My personal favorite: 'I'm gonna rape you with a posthole digger, you n***er-lover!')

What happened?

Nothing.

Cowards make threats.  Dangerous people just do things.  They don't send you a lovely message detailing what they're about to do, they just show up and do it.

I'm just tired of it.  It all falls back to everyone taking everything and themselves just incredibly seriously.  If someone threatens to rape and murder my wife over some trifle in a video game, is that okay?  Of course not.  But should I get all butthurt, call authorities, and buy a handgun?  Of course not.  People who say such things, by the very act of saying them, announce their impotence and cowardice. Actual rapist/murderers don't get on the internet and threaten it, they just go rape and murder.

If you look at all of the (over) publicized acts of violence in recent days, none of them had any warning.  None of the mass shootings had threatened their targets.  (ONE guy who basically failed at his mass shooting attempt appears to have gone on 4chan and said, effectively, 'gonna shoot up a mall tomorrow, should be lulz'.  The fact that he did this on 4chan should explain why he didn't even manage to kill anyone.)

As far as I can tell, the number of times someone actually tracked a victim down over the internet as part of a rage/threat incident can be counted on one hand.

Is it a problem?  Sure, in that we have an ocean of people, mostly young males, who think it's fine to say this stuff behind the wall of anonymity.  That's a huge sign of major moral decay in society.  People who respect other humans and human life in general don't threaten someone's family over a few milliseconds shaved off the firing time of a rifle in a video game.  That's a character flaw of massive proportions.

That being said, our reaction to said threats is a sign of a breakdown on our part.  Are we raising a generation of sociopaths?  Looks like it.  Are we positively reinforcing that behavior by treating it as noteworthy and effective?  Absolutely.

So the next time someone says something horrible to you online, blow it off.  Realize that the truth is that person is well beneath your notice.  Act based on actions, not words.

The World Has Moved On

I think I know what King meant when he used that phrase frequently in the Tower saga.

I wonder if what I've been feeling lately happens to all men when they reach certain age, or a stage in life?

I feel like the world has moved on.  Things have spiraled completely out of control to the point that they no long make anything resembling sense.  Public behavior has become something alien to me. It's easy to write it off as generational, things 'kids these days' do that shocks old fuddy duddy me, but I don't think it's that simple.

I can't think of a word for it outside of 'decay'.  Things have decayed.  Logic, reason, simple common sense...driven to ground like a hunted animal.  Not just ignored, but openly targeted by the forces of ignorance and stupidity.  Orwellian stuff: 2+2 doesn't = 4, because someone says so.

Reality is what it is...but more and more I see active, aggressive attempts to redefine it based on perception.  Schrodinger's Cat nonsense.  (In case you missed the boat on that one, if you put a cat in the box, IT'S STILL IN THE DAMN BOX unless someone took it out...your ability to observe it doesn't change a thing because you're not some all-powerful deity whose sense of sight dictates what does and doesn't exist.)

I'm at a loss as to how to approach such things.  I can't abide by them.  I mean, I can't pretend to go along with the insanity.  Real is still real, logic is still logical, reason still rules the world.  But society and culture continue the march of the fool, so what am I to do about it?

I used to think commentating on it would help, but that's been disproved by many years of failure. All platforms available to me to speak my viewpoint and attempt to educate are, effectively, karaoke: everyone comes to sing, nobody comes to listen.  I used to think, hey, if I did an audio show, or a video show, or some other media...but I know full well that won't change a thing.

Is this how it always is when you get old and wisdom finally catches up to you?  Did my forefathers also look out on their worlds as they aged and see madness?  Or is it really, truly getting worse?