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[Tiruin]

I really guess its a thing on values in culture. It's becoming worse, that is. :/

Was never like that in my parents' times.
...
Though we don't have shootings here, I mean. I'm talking about news like that.

[TD1]

Yea, degradation of values is quite saddening.

However, I don't think these shootings have to do with values-they're just crazy.

Then again, I do wonder why they're based so much around America.

[Graknorke]

I really guess its a thing on values in culture. It's becoming worse, that is. :/

Was never like that in my parents' times.

I wouldn't say values are getting worse. I mean, everyone's values are worse to everyone else because you measure things by your own.
But It's more like... the things that make doing stuff like that worthwhile is more of a thing? I mean, with global news and the internet you could go and shoot a bunch of people and within hours most of the English-speaking world would know about you.

[nenjin]

I really guess its a thing on values in culture. It's becoming worse, that is. :/

Was never like that in my parents' times.

I wouldn't say values are getting worse. I mean, everyone's values are worse to everyone else because you measure things by your own.
But It's more like... the things that make doing stuff like that worthwhile is more of a thing? I mean, with global news and the internet you could go and shoot a bunch of people and within hours most of the English-speaking world would know about you.

Then again, I have a hard time believing all these shooters just had a pathological need for attention and figured killing people was the way to get it. I think media is a contributing factor but....I think societal pressures and perhaps people's inability to deal with stressors is the more likely cause. Kids were bullied, perhaps even more brutally, 30 years ago than today. People lost jobs in larger numbers. Wages didn't suck as bad then as they do now but.....politics was still as volatile and perhaps only slightly less polarizing. (I mean, you want to talk polarizing political discourse? Read the shit politicians said about each other and their agendas during the Civil War-era! The kind of shit you'd be shamed out of politics today for saying today.) We can't even claim there's more alarmist propaganda today than previously; WW2 puts paid to that.

So I dunno. Like with most complex problems, it's a variety of factors most likely. But where to start, to begin chipping away at the problem? Gun control isn't a feasible answer, because supporters would rather the status quo continues than even experiment to see what most restrictive gun control might accomplish. And again, it's a bandaid to the larger contributors to the problem.

[XXSockXX]

So I dunno. Like with most complex problems, it's a variety of factors most likely. But where to start, to begin chipping away at the problem? Gun control isn't a feasible answer, because supporters would rather the status quo continues than even experiment to see what most restrictive gun control might accomplish. And again, it's a bandaid to the larger contributors to the problem.

A good start would probably be acknowledging that there is a problem in the first place. It's not like the mass shootings or the huge number of gun-related deaths in the US really cause a big public outrage. The usual reaction is "this is terrible", "how could that happen", then maybe a bit of a gun control debate which leads nowhere because it's too entrenched. But it's not like there are mass protests or anything and after a week everything is back to normal. The conversation seems to focus on the motives of mass shooters and their political or psychological problems, but it doesn't get to any underlying issues.
There probably are multiple causes, like structual poverty and lack of psychiatric care (though gun control seems like a no-brainer to an outsider), but overall there does not seem all that much awareness that having death rates like a warzone isn't normal for a civilized country.
And while values may be an issue, in terms of having a violent culture, blaming a value decay is also an age-old debate that doesn't really lead anywhere. Today people blame the internet or video games, before that it was TV, movies and music, in the 19th century it was crime novels. 

[Tiruin]

I guess I worded my note on values decay wrongly o-o
What I meant there was...something along lacking balance. The decay of culture of good values to counter a pervading influence. Sure, many people blame such and such but do they practice or teach good values to counter the influence of such?
Like so.

[Graknorke]

Sure, many people blame such and such but do they practice or teach good values to counter the influence of such?
Like so.

The point is that those things aren't necessarily a bad influence in the first place.

[EnigmaticHat]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I really guess its a thing on values in culture. It's becoming worse, that is. :/

Was never like that in my parents' times.

I wouldn't say values are getting worse. I mean, everyone's values are worse to everyone else because you measure things by your own.
But It's more like... the things that make doing stuff like that worthwhile is more of a thing? I mean, with global news and the internet you could go and shoot a bunch of people and within hours most of the English-speaking world would know about you.

Then again, I have a hard time believing all these shooters just had a pathological need for attention and figured killing people was the way to get it. I think media is a contributing factor but....I think societal pressures and perhaps people's inability to deal with stressors is the more likely cause. Kids were bullied, perhaps even more brutally, 30 years ago than today. People lost jobs in larger numbers. Wages didn't suck as bad then as they do now but.....politics was still as volatile and perhaps only slightly less polarizing. (I mean, you want to talk polarizing political discourse? Read the shit politicians said about each other and their agendas during the Civil War-era! The kind of shit you'd be shamed out of politics today for saying today.) We can't even claim there's more alarmist propaganda today than previously; WW2 puts paid to that.

So I dunno. Like with most complex problems, it's a variety of factors most likely. But where to start, to begin chipping away at the problem? Gun control isn't a feasible answer, because supporters would rather the status quo continues than even experiment to see what most restrictive gun control might accomplish. And again, it's a bandaid to the larger contributors to the problem.

I think its a mix of modern weapons being more deadly*, and people having no time as a result of having no money.  And by "no money" I mean either unemployed, or employed in a job that only provides enough or less than enough money to meet the basic needs of them and their family.  And then this creates an additional problem of having no political agency, because its kind of hard to go protest or whatever when you're worried what you'll eat in a week.  This finally gets passed on to the kids because, as a result of the parents having no time, they spend a great deal of their years in either a miserable public school environment or whatever time-wasting thing their parents find for them because they don't have time to actually raise their kids.

But I'm pessimistic and what is considered young nowadays, so bleh.  Just my opinion.

*"One injured in school musket shooting!  Two more killed in school musket bludgeoning!"

[nenjin]

Maybe you've hit on something there Enigmatic.

Perhaps that's one crucial difference between then and now: we're at a record low for confidence in government. Whether that's conservatives rightly or wrongly thinking Obama is taking the country to hell, or liberals/independents believing it's already there. Maybe people feel like they have zero recourse: no social safety net, no government aligned with their values, no representatives they believe will fight for them, no friends in real life to cushion the blow of being ostracized and abused, on and on....

Maybe what we face is a genuine lack of trust in the future, period, and so people do the only thing that comes naturally at that point.....they lash out at others before killing themselves. When people commit suicide it's because they tend to see no hope for themselves. And maybe many of these shooters, who have an axe to grind somewhere, decide that not only do their lives have no hope....but the lives of everyone else around them either have no hope, or deserve no hope.

I'm not saying this is a one-size-fits-all explanation of shooters and killers from Oregon to Boston.....but every one of these shooters seems to have "hit their limit." And that says to me that they believe there is no hope of a better future, so they violently check out.

(Although none of that really addresses those two girls who stabbed that other girl to death.)

[Yoink]

It probably has something to with the fact that, back in ye olden days, people were already living in fear of the various Bad Things that could suddenly happen to destroy their lives. Invasions, plagues, famines, outlaws, all that sorta stuff. Inspires people to band together despite their differences, I guess.

Nowadays with how safe we are here in the 1st-world, how much we have in the way of food, money and possessions, and with how much we rely on technology rather than human interaction, I suppose it's easy to become isolated and angry. I hadn't really thought of it this way before, interesting.

[XXSockXX]

Perhaps that's one crucial difference between then and now: we're at a record low for confidence in government. Whether that's conservatives rightly or wrongly thinking Obama is taking the country to hell, or liberals/independents believing it's already there. Maybe people feel like they have zero recourse: no social safety net, no government aligned with their values, no representatives they believe will fight for them, no friends in real life to cushion the blow of being ostracized and abused, on and on....

Though one could counter that there are similar situations in many European countries, increased economic and social pressure, unemployment (there is some social safety, but it's not great everywhere and not a gret perspective for the future), distrust and disappointment in politicians etc.

[nenjin]

Then I'd riposte that, it's our "quintessentially American mindset" that, when added to the mix, becomes a volatile recipe for violence. I mean, we are the country of "rugged individualists", with a culture that benefits immensely from pumping out portrayals of violence on a monthly basis, and all Americans are raised on a diet of "best country in the world!" and "unlimited opportunity!", so the reality everyone else puts up with probably fucks Americans up more than most.

[XXSockXX]

Then I'd riposte that, it's our "quintessentially American mindset" that, when added to the mix, becomes a volatile recipe for violence. I mean, we are the country of "rugged individualists", with a culture that benefits immensely from pumping out portrayals of violence on a monthly basis.

Well, I don't know. Other countries produce portrayals of violence too. As I said, from an outside perspective it clearly seems to be the guns, though I'm aware that that's not something that can be discussed in a reasonable way.

[Tiruin]

Nowadays with how safe we are here in the 1st-world, how much we have in the way of food, money and possessions, and with how much we rely on technology rather than human interaction, I suppose it's easy to become isolated and angry. I hadn't really thought of it this way before, interesting.

...So the idea of good values doesn't work there o-o
Huh.

[Dutchling]

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