Just something that’s bothering me after reading part of Hasan’s NYT Op-ed today. The title may be a bit extreme because there could be more reported incidences of mass violence, I didn’t do any hard research.

My point is that people have been facing mass shootings almost my whole life. People have been getting killed by the state. People were baited into joining the military after 9/11 with free dodge chargers (hmmmm) and college. This country has been killing people in other countries in the name of preserving its economic system for centuries. If you want to be “recent” about it, let’s just pretend WWII was a noble war and everything after is what counts. Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Guam, Grenada, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. I know this is a point Hasan makes in his writing, and would agree with, but let’s keep going.

However what is a relatively recent development is celebrity and rich people getting killed. And by “rising tide” that makes it sound like a tsunami, it’s like 4 people over a few years. Speaking of bodies of water, cry me a river.

Kirk is particularly a problem for them because it represents a new class of person getting killed, a class that’s not supposed to get killed. It’s just the internet, not real life. The shooting made it real life. Free speech means debate perverts can say whatever they want and it’s okay, but the shooting made it not okay. Most importantly the shooting is an attack on one of the evangelists of the new digital economy. Streaming, AI, content, grifting, paetrons, video essays – these are all at the center of this new economy propped up by various schemes and scams funneling money into tech. It was supposed to be untouchable and all-powerful. It just bled out on the sidewalk of a Utah campus. Now that the wall between content creation and real life has been shattered, it’s upsetting a lot of people who make their bones in that industry.

Get over it. You’re not special because you’re a dignified talking head on a streaming service. You’re not untouchable. You are part of the system, that’s what the money is for. You want a life where you just sit in front of the computer and meddle with the primal forces of nature? This is the risk you take. Don’t like it? Go get a real job where you’ll be shot doing customer service or doing a ride share like the rest of us.

Just to belabor the point, think about it like covid. These people could sit in their nice modest $5M homes and continue to make a living while commentating on who should be wearing masks, what people should be doing, how safe vaccines were. This is just an extension of that but it’s with bullets instead of a virus. They used to feel safe and Kirk getting mercd messes that up.