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I am 100% sure that the LAPD didn't set the fire.

How can I be so sure? The LAPD wasn't THERE. The LAPD is in LOS ANGELES. Those officers were San Bernardino Sheriffs. This occurred 80+ miles away from LA. It is like calling Milwaukee cops the Chicago PD or Philly cops the NYPD. Totally different agencies.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Callysta of Reverence

Disappointed you didn't goad me into an argument that is unrelated?

I'm not talking about the LAPD, which is a separate matter. I'm talking about the events in San Bernadino. I wasn't implying anything, I was just saying that due to the nature of his insane ranting, I was saying it's a possibility that he set the fire, then killed himself when he knew he wasn't going to get out. Would it look like a police force intentionally started the fire? Yes. Would it destroy evidence and make it much more difficult for the ensuing investigation, of which he knew the procedures behind? Yes. Would it ultimately achieve the goal of martyring him? Yes.

There was a news report released stating that Dorner died of a self inflicted gunshot wound. I'm curious to see if there is smoke in his lungs.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Callysta of Reverence

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

People desperately want to blame the fire on the San Bernadino police, because that would legitimize their dissatisfaction with police in general, and canonize this guy. In the end, I'm pretty sure he was just another crazy guy who calculatingly murdered innocent people in cold blood, while attempting to justify it as some grand scheme against him. Or maybe the police did set the fire. Who knows. Such a boring story anyway.

Ah. So you are biased.

You didn't bother reading the manifesto, ignored the specific facts it cited, but you are willing to give the cops an enormous swath of doubt, despite strong evidence from multiple sources (besides the manifesto, scanner recordings, videos, and corroborating accounts) that their behavior was reprehensible - and the indisputable fact that the cops killed more innocent people than this guy did.

Canonize this guy. So he's either a saint or totally evil. It can't be, as Mono said, scum killing scum, or that the guy was driven over the edge by the circumstances thrust on him by the LAPD. No, we have to make the issue black-versus-white...and since this isn't heaven or hell, such distinctions are completely impractical, and since they're impractical, we can neatly write off all such moral concerns and go on believing whatever we would like. Right?

And if the cops did commit a serious crime that put hundreds of lives at risk? You talk about that incident with Iraqi children being ignited and how bad that was. Strange you don't seem so interested in the American children that definitely would have met the same fate, burned alive in their homes, had the fire caught and spread. That's..."such a boring story anyways".

Long ago, I came to understand something about human nature. For all their posturing and moral protestations, most people are pretty shallow, their biases highly durable. The man who is really, truly changed by an experience is the far distant exception and not the rule. Most people can see or do absolutely anything and not be truly changed by their experience. Trauma is common enough, but metanoia is all but a myth.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

How do you know what he wrote is actually correct? No, I didn't read it either.

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Then you are not interested in (and cannot understand) the answer.

To answer the question anyway, everything he says is very specific, with times and dates, with reference to specific policies and individuals. With footwork, it's as verifiable as it gets.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Eh, if any of it were credible (or hadn't already been destroyed by the LAPD) reporters (and reddit) would have been all over that. Sure, his dates are specific, which means he can recall dates and times correctly, but it would be improper of you to assume he was there, in those dates and times in the same capacity as you or I. The fact that his manifesto is so specific but also includes numerous shout-outs to a number of people who he had absolutely no contact with just says that he attaches much more importance to it (and himself) than is necessary. Which would lead me to believe he did that for the initial events as well. Paranoid people who write entire self-aggrandizing manifestos tend to exaggerate events to suit their solipsistic tendencies. The fact that he wrote a manifesto at all just screams mental illness. How narcissistic do you have to be to think what you have to say is so intrinsically important to the world that you write a manifesto with the sole intent of it becoming viral? He obviously intended for it, and expected it. Otherwise, why would he have all those ridiculous shout-outs? Who are the people that write these? People who have committed to something they know they will not return from.The entire manifesto is one big masturbatory affair. How the LAPD has wronged HIM. what HE's going to do about it. What those officers MADE HIM do to their innocent families. He's just an innocent bystander in the entire affair. HIS death will change the world. The world made HIM act this way. According to him he's a big bad ass survivalist with weapons and demolition training, yet all he managed to do was shoot people in cold blood then make a massive tactical mistake by hiding in a cabin with only two points of egress? He couldn't live in the woods? I thought he had all kinds of training.

I won't argue that police forces in general are wrought with corruption, which is why we have Internal Affairs and the Inspector General. If the guy was getting stonewalled at every single opportunity, then he either had no evidence, no credibility, or had already established himself as someone people just don't listen to. I.E. : Paranoid people with delusions of grandeur. Why didn't he quit and find another department? Why didn't he make anonymous reports to Internal Affairs? Why didn't he contact the FBI? Why didn't he contact a news reporting agency of any kind? They would have eaten it up.

Either way, you're attaching the entirety of police corruption to this situation. Sure, if the San Bernadino police had set the fire and it had caught to another house that happened to have kids in, yeah, that would be bad. So what? Are you saying this man is the vigilante defender of all instances of collateral damage? He's not. He's a murderer who probably set the fire, just like he set his car on fire, then shot himself so you and I would have this exact argument.

Also, a side note: I genuinely like arguing/debating with you Ethan, but can we try to keep it as impersonal as possible? Whenever people use personal experiences of mine to elaborate a point, instead of wanting to engage in a healthy debate with someone I respect (such as you), I just get angry and retaliate, which isn't positive. I obviously can't ask you to stop being you, but for the sake of argument, which we both enjoy, hopefully you won't take offense to this.

In retrospect, after reviewing this mindless rant, I half-regret posting in this thread.

You base all that on one assumption: everything he said was a lie and from that building this whole theory about how he's paranoid, delusional, and invented his own fantasy world, complete with extremely exact dates, times, chronologies, etc...even though you yourself haven't actually read it, and have no reason to believe it is untrue.

Who is it that is building the elaborate fantasy world? You, or him?



"All complaints are the complainer's fault".

No one cared about black people getting beat up until one time it was caught on tape and the city set on fire.

Why should we believe that has changed? If it's your instinct to blame the solitary complainer and assume the best of the large organization - when you have much less of a reason to do so than the FBI or the media - why expect them to do otherwise?





Bias.



I did think long and hard before mentioning that anecdote.

The thing is, every argument is ultimately personal. Since people can't know everything, the way they reach actionable conclusions about life is by fitting in the missing pieces with their own experiences and personality. The human propensity for vanity and egocentrism is necessarily a factor for bias. One can't correct this bias without taking into account the personality and experiences behind it any more than one can see clearly with one's eyes crossed.

It is through comparing and mutually correcting personal viewpoints we find ultimate truth.



Because you don't like how outrageous your bias seems - even to you.

So the question is - find the strength to analyze and overcome your bias, or shrug and live with it? To make a tortured metaphor - red pill or blue pill? Solipsism or metanoia?

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Sudden change of topic, Dotzilla, are you one of the zillas in the <Jolly Rogers> duo?

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

No, I'm not. Dotzilla was the name of my famously banned HWL hunter during Vanilla. I'm not sure why the name has stuck with me all these years. Since then I've only PVPed as a rogue during BC named Roketsurgery, and a warlock during BC/Wrath named Beyourself.

It's difficult for me to scan these long quote trains and formulate a discernible argument. It's even harder for me to discern your argument as it doesn't seem to have a central theme that we can discuss, versus a semantic lysis of different sentences you didn't agree with. I'm interested in your theses.

First, I don't doubt in any way whatsoever that those dates and times are indeed true, or doubt his ability to recall them. What I DO doubt is his perception at the time, which could radically change the events and their repercussions. The problem is, that when you write a manifesto, it is implied that it is to be read with consistency. Those are your last thoughts and views on the world. It is a stream of consciousness. So what am I, the reader, supposed to glean from a series of chronologically accurate accounts of misanthropy followed tersely by a shout-out to Ellen Degeneres? I can't rightly attach the same amount of believability to it once that dichotomy has been exposed. The consistency is lost and his argument deflates.

To address your implication of bias, I wouldn't quite agree. I used to word "probably" because those were the likeliest of unfolding events, supported by my earlier inferences about his mental state. I do realize it would be easy for me to fall into bias because I don't particularly like or agree with this flag-waving, and feel it perpetuates the stereotype of unstable ex-service members. While much of his previous service record is unavailable, it is known that he was merely a Navy Reservist, who had not seen combat. He and the media have espoused continuously that he is a well trained military killing machine. Short of being a SEAL, which he wasn't, the military does not offer this kind of training to reservists who are not in combat related roles. His grandiose perception of his own "training" is what de-validated his argument for me. You don't just "get" survival training in the military. Those schools are very expensive, have high wait lists for people who need them (which is based on rank), and are very hard to complete. Reserve unit budgets almost never approve soldiers for that kind of training. As a reservist in the lower half of the Enlisted ladder, he would be on the very bottom of the totem pole. The chances of him obtaining that training would be astronomical. Hopefully Jubber can offer some insight with Navy specifics.

Ultimately, it looks like he wants to be seen better than he was, which would also heavily support him attempting to martyr himself.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the man saw himself as some kind of vigilante justicar, weighing the deeds of a police force that fired him for reasons that we cannot yet assign legitimacy to. But who is he to judge? Who was he really? Was he even sane? He said this, they said that, is not an argument I'm interested in pursuing. I tend to look less at what people say, and more at what they do. In our society today, were his actions appropriate? Executing uninvolved family members of the LAPD strikes me as cowardly and purposely inflammatory, serving only to spread dischord and start a dangerous manhunt. He continuously put uninvolved people in danger with his firefights. If he were truly interested in enacting change through murder, he'd have assassinated figureheads who's absences would make a difference, not unrelated civilians and low-tier street cops. Purely from a logical standpoint, his approach was sloppy, self-centered, and indicative of mental illness.

I see a panicked and paranoid man angrily swatting at worker bees, not a focused and collected man pointing a sniper rifle at the beehive.

Your argument regarding his psychology and motives is circular, dualistic and deterministic.

He had a problem, therefore he was the problem. He wanted to be seen as good, therefore he was evil. He was evil, therefore whoever was against him wasn't evil. And you never read the manifesto, so your entire viewpoint is based wholly on what you prefer to believe, in a state of willful ignorance.

You accuse him of starting a "dangerous" manhunt. What made that "manhunt" dangerous, him shooting relatives of the cops, or the cops shooting random people and nearly starting a wildfire?

"Taking swats at worker bees, not the beehive". This is an authoritarian/nihilistic argument, the product of learned helplessness. You say his efforts would be futile if he didn't attempt to take on the whole beehive - the entire system, or whatever. So short of challenging the whole world - nihilism - he couldn't hope to change it? And because some people were "worker bees", they weren't in the wrong, because they operated under the mantle of authority and therefore could do no wrong?

He himself said his goal was to take revenge and to bring attention to his cause. For better or worse, he's accomplished those goals, at least partly. People are talking, and we'll see where it goes from there.

My "argument" has been internally consistent all along.

This guy was a fundamentally unstable individual who nonetheless tried to right both specific wrongs and a pattern of wrongdoing by the LAPD. He was subverted in this effort by the LAPD, who destroyed his reputation and ability to find employment. With nothing to lose, he decided to take revenge and use violence to bring his case before the national audience.

The LAPD is a bunch of criminals who are determined to go on being criminals. As the manifesto itself points out, truthfully, efforts were previously made to correct the LAPD's issues through the legal process. Those efforts failed, so this came to pass.

Why do evil dictators come to power? Why are so many CEOs sociopaths? Why are so many military leaders highly intelligent but pigheaded and aliberal? Evil in this world is never a random or arbitrary occurrence - it exists because of human choices. Sane people tried to do sane things to change the LAPD. If sane men can't do the job, eventually an insane man will come along and get it done.

If you wish to legitimately examine this man and his motives through the lens of psychiatry, then you must see him as a victim and not a villain. (You, like everyone who subscribes to the pseudoscience of shrinkology, prefer the latter, which is telling.) So who are the villains? The man who did insane things, because he was insane, and the insanity of the situation afforded him an opportunity? Or the people who afforded him that opportunity out of a desire to protect their own evildoing?

I think your entire argument reeks of squalor. You seek to validate your viewpoints by way of appeal to authority - society, police forces, the military, etc. You dismiss the flawed efforts of individuals acting according to their own volition. Then you presume that the thoroughly evil actions of individuals acting under the mantle of authority are, by virtue of being "worker bees" or "doing their job", being wrongfully persecuted if they are antagonized for doing so. You disdain those who try to make change as best they are able, insisting that if they want real change they must play for impossible stakes - they have to be the acme of elite, and seek to take on the whole world at once. You choose not to inform yourself about matters of interest, therefore you do not understand them, then you argue that because you don't understand the matter, those who have strong views that clash with your biases must be insane, therefore, because they are insane, whatever they believe must be evil and wrong.

Your entire worldview is a carefully constructed rationalization for moral vacillation. Anyone who aspires to be more than they are - is crazy. Anyone who finds fault with, or is victimized by authority - is troubled. Anyone who fights against overwhelming odds and loses - is incompetent. Anyone who makes moral judgements on their own conscience - is presumptuous.

It's a great argument, if your intended destination is sitting around, drinking the kool-aid, saying the world sucks because people suck so let's all pour ourselves another round.

It is wisdom to understand that progress in this world is an emergent quality. More than the sum of its parts. The overwhelming majority of police and soldiers are evil thugs; most businesspeople are evil exploiters; and most lawyers and bureaucrats are evil pedants. Yet through it all they are cogs in the grand machine of progress. Soldiers and police ensure our security; businesspeople ensure our material welfare; lawyers and bureaucrats ensure our capacity to resolve our differences peacefully. The good they do in the big picture is an emergent quality from their individual evil.

That good can emerge only through wisdom and insight - putting down the kool-aid and striving for real understanding. What really was the driving force here, who were the evildoers in it for themselves. How change for the better - progress - can be effected.

So like I said, the empirical fact is, the necessary change this guy hopefully effected, just couldn't have happened any other way.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

I'm not sure why you keep saying I didn't read it. That's three times, now. I obviously read it. What is it you're trying to get across? Are you implying I didn't read it in the same manner you did?

And for someone who denounces the pesudoscience of psychiatry (I wholeheartedly agree with you there) you are are attaching quite a large amount of superfluous placation to this man, which succeeds in deifying him. Look at his actions and words logically. No one thought/act grouping seems congruent. His manifesto is just ranting and complaining about how unfairly he was treated. I'm sure he was treated badly by the LAPD. Like I said, I'm sure they're wrought with corruption, but injustice occurs like this every day in all corners of the world. Life is not fair, and it is his constant prattling about his personal injustice that simply leads me to believe he is purely interested in what was done wrong to him, and no one else.

He won't be remembered, solely for the blunt, retaliatory, and verbose violence of his actions along with his incessant self-inflation. Just another selfish (or possibly unstable) man out for revenge, thinly veiling it as social justice.

We'll have to discuss the difference between self-aware mental illness and how your broad absolution of mental capacity applies later.

The latter. Why the assumption that it's pure fiction and all grievances are imagined?

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.