Episode 165: A Can't-Look-Away Nightmare Involving A Sci-Fi Writer, A Maybe-Formerly-Racist Cybersecurity Expert, And, Somehow, A Cabal Of Online "Opie And Anthony" Fundamentalists (Part 2)
Episode 165: A Can't-Look-Away Nightmare Involving A Sci-Fi Writer, A Maybe-Formerly-Racist Cybersecurity Expert, And, Somehow, A Cabal Of Online "Opie And Anthony" Fundamentalists (Part 2)
Okay, as the resident Swedish immigrant -- Petter Janse (Janse is close to the "yoncé" in Beyoncé with the "a" in awning fyi) is no way in hell the same person in the Telegram audio from the swatters.
1. Petter's cadence in the youtube clip is of a Swedish speaker who doesn't use spoken english very often. Any of my native Swedish-speaking friends, who either have native fluency in a 2nd language or have spent significant amounts of time abroad, don't carry over the cadence/melody that strongly.
2. He's, for lack of a better word, super nasal in a way that says to me he's either from Lidingö (snobby island in Stockholm), one of the rich people suburbs of Stockholm (like Täby), OR from the gnällbältet (literally whining belt), a part of Sweden east of Stockholm that's known for their extremely whiny accents (hence the name). The way he's unable to pronounce the schwa sound correctly in English is pretty characteristic to Swedes, especially from those regions.
3. Those two things together PLUS the grammar mistakes the person in the clip from the swatters makes, which aren't mistakes a Swede would generally make, tell me it's definitely not the same person.
What's really horrifying about IDing a specific Swedish person like this, is that every single Swede is doxable with just simple biographical info. All addresses and phone numbers are public, by Swedish law, and easily searchable on websites like [removed for when this goes public]. You can also get someone's salary through the tax agency, because again, this stuff is public by law. If you're not Sven Svensson in a major city, you're pretty fucked if someone like ONA ever gets you in their sights,
And yes, Jackie was encouraging her followers to look me up on those pages. Telling them how to do it. Really feels as if she wants someone to "find me". Scary.
My bonus parents live in Sörmland, so I've spent a lot of time there over the years! I'm really hoping to get back there for mushroom picking season again this year.
I have a rare first and last name, probably the only one with my name on the planet, and it's the reason I try keep anonymous outside of work stuff - my use address is my bonus parents', and I'd never forgive myself if the kindest people on the planet got trolled because of me.
Jag är så ledsen att detta händer dig - oskyldiga människor som dig börde inte bli öffer för elaka wannabe nätkändisar.
It’s a common-in-Scandinavia alternative to “step parents”. Basically using bonus parents implies that you see your non-biological parents as a gain rather than a replacement. Also carries the implication that you still have your original parents - no one is dead or estranged, so you end up with 3+ people playing a parental role. “Bonus family” is the same concept, like in-laws but through your parent’s partner, not yours.
Exactly what Kudanshita said, except in my case it's my ex's parents. My dad passed away and my mom has late stage dementia, so they're like an extra set of parents to me.
And you are so right - it is so easy to be doxxed here (Stockholm immigrant here as well!) that it is shocking at the level of incompetence coupled with arrogance employed by this Jackie Singh lady. I really hope Dushatar is ok and is able to get recompense for this attack!
I plan on coming back to Stockholm in... (checks bostadsförmedlingen) about 3 or 4 years, when I can get a 2:a somewhere in like Alvik or Fruangen. Can't afford it otherwise :(
More like 7-10 lol. The housing market here is insane: buy or live with roommies. :) I chose the latter because I wanted to live with people - that's always an option :D
Oh no. I wish you the best of luck 🙈🙈 if you live somewhere other than stockholm, you might have better luck. Still i definitely think you can find a place without the queue though it is quite pricey. My friend recently signed a lease and his rent is 11 grand per month. 🤷♂️
It is. Beautiful place with gorgeous landscapes and very quiet low-key people who are at once polite and very sweet. I absolutely love this place. It's even better to live and work :D
My grandfather is a Swedish immigrant but he's actually from a tiny minority Swedish village enclave just outside of Vaasa in Finland; he never actually lived in Sweden. He speaks with a very heavy accent despite 70 years living in the US and I was immediately convinced that the clip was not of a Swedish person. Reading your comment I'm wondering how weird my grandfather's accent might sound to Swedish native these days and whether you'd be able to place him. I'm so intrigued by languages and dialects.
I know people from Vaasa! Finlandsvenska is extremely distinctive, and it just sounds so warm and friendly. It's also sometimes jokingly called Moominsvenska since Tove Jansson is finlandssvensk. Native Swedes will also pick up on some vocabulary differences, finlandsvenska retains some old Swedish words that fell out of use in modern standard Swedish.
There's a very beloved celebrity, Mark Levengood, who has speaks that dialect - look him up on YouTube if you're curious what the modern variant sounds like!
I will! I got to take a trip with my grandfather in 2017 when he was 91 to Vaasa and then to see his village, Kaarpero; it was an amazing trip, the area is beautiful and we went out to his family's old island summer home. Tons of mosquitoes but exquisitely beautiful.
I thought this was a good episode that got down to the core. It's possible to spend too long in the weeds of a story. Sometimes I think J and K need to do more research - this one I think was enough.
Top tip: If you want to convince a journalist that your online group is being falsely accused of harassment maybe don't harass the journalist? And then say you hope that journalist is beaten up. It doesn't scream 'good guys'.
Not merely “the scum of the earth”, but “the lowest scum of the earth”!
On the plus side, as the lowest we may be eligible for additional “marginalized” points. Not quite sure how the intersectional hierarchy of scum works, but it might be worth filling out the paperwork.
Swede here and former co-worker of Diana Janse’s (and FB friend, though she definitely outranked me and probably doesn’t remember my name, ha ha). It’s a small world! And yeah, there’s no way that’s Petter Janse’s voice on the incriminating phone call. That person also isn’t Swedish.
I nearly screamed in my car when Katie said that Patrick replied to the texts she and her wife were pulled into. Don’t bring her down with you, dude! I don’t really care if he MUST REPLY to everyone, I feel like he was dragging Katie into his stupid toxic relationship with his trolls.
I've now seen a few people on the reddit commenting that there is more to the story or that Patrick did it to himself. If they genuinely believe that they must believe that Patrick is the one driving this and logically they should take Jesse's advice for Patrick i.e. ignore him and stop engaging.
I think they are so in deep that 1) they can't be objective and 2) that they are obsessed.
It is really fascinating but, also I think really concerning. I am reminded of the Derren Brown experiment 'Remote Control'. Except I am not sure this bunch would be shocked when the target was run over. It worries me because I think our increasingly online lives may affect our abilities to empathise with people.
edit: To be clear I do not think that Patrick is actually swatting himself.
I don't think Keffals or Patrick are competant enough to mastermind a plot like swatting themselves. What I do think is that both of them aren't reliable narrators, and that while Patrick does not deserve the level of real life harassment he's getting, he's also a huge factor in how far it escalated.
It's mentally ill people feeding each other's illnesses in a terrifying feedback loop. Everyone sucks here.
I think if someone harasses you personally it's hard to remain objective and rational because it is personal by definition, it is your life. Katie is having a better reaction but, she's already faced vitriol before and come out of it. Jesse had to disengage entirely from twitter to prevent him feeding his detractors but, he has now managed it. I expect that Patrick's personality does play into how he chooses to deal with it. But, think about the van life influencer's reaction, which is very 'the villainy you teach me I will execute and it shall go hard but, I will better the instruction'. She wants revenge because it's personal. She's human and letting it go and walking away - taking the high road is hard. Especially, when your life is ruined.
It is not personal for the people in the fora. They can walk away from this any time they choose because they are anonymous and invisible and one among many. So, I do think the people in the fora suck more. Additionally, whilst there probably are some people in the fora who are mentally ill (as Patrick keeps insisting), I am not convinced that's the majority. I think you underestimate cruelty.
In the 15th century Luca Landucci, a Florentine diarist wrote about people following a condemned man down a street and using hot tongs to attack him removing pieces of his flesh. In Telford in 2015, people shouted jump to a suicidal man. Were these people 'mentally ill'? Unfortunately, I think cruelty is a part of human nature.
I acknowledge there can be complications. "Jessica" Yaniv. Yaniv brought a case - so, reporting on the case was fair enough. KF - cataloguing the story was reasonable but, felt v quickly like laughing at the 'freak'. But, they didn't 'touch the poop', any time Rebel Media or Blaire White engaged Yaniv would react predictably and poorly. In the end how much was legitimate and how much was over the line is hard to judge. But, the whole thing started to make me feel uncomfortable in the end.
I think people have always had little empathy for those outside their immediate circle and not physically close.
It's why it's totally normal for people to go through their day to day life without a second thought for the 1,000s of children starving to death.
I don't mean that as an insult. We'd probably collapse into pools of useless grief if we did feel empathy on a global level...like we do when a loved one dies.
So, I think the lack of empathy is pretty stable. It's that the internet, forums, etc. do not satisfy the "proximal or in-group" requirement for triggering empathy in most while it does allow people to instantly impact other's lives.
My concern is that the lack of empathy will not remain stable but, grow. Most simply, because as you say "the internet, forums etc. do not satisfy the "proximal or in group" requirement for triggering empathy" and increasingly we are living our lives online.
For example, increasingly, people are working from home on computer, rarely meeting their co-workers day-to-day. I acknowledge that if a large business such as P&O is in financial trouble and needs to fire a lot of workers they have always simply gone ahead and done it but, I wonder if it will become easier in smaller businesses if you never really know 'Fred' or 'Ellie' or 'Jackson' to fire them without thinking about that person. Imagine the thought process, 'sure, I could give Fred a chance to improve but, I never see him, I don't know him, I'll just hire someone new, he had his chance.'
Recently, I saw a helmet in an exhibition for the use of pilots in combat. Essentially, it superimposes the control information, altitude etc. on the viewing screen but, also helpfully labels friendly and enemy aircraft. It is increasingly like a video game. That's before we even think about drones.
I realise that an argument exists that what I am describing is not entirely new but, I do think that the internet and our increasingly separate lives are helping to speed up the creation of increasingly lonely, anti-social, self-absorbed, un-empathetic, people and I think the consequences for society will be rather extreme. Sure, I am now catastrophising but, not entirely without foundation.
Me too. It’s never fun. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel that way but you’re just not allowed to say it or show it anymore because of HR departments. It sucks.
I'm not saying everyone has immediately lost any and all empathy and that firing is easy-peasy right now, especially over Zoom. You have my sympathy.
I'm just saying the equivalent of watch this space; how will people feel about this in a few years after we are increasingly online? will people who have grown up almost entirely online be worse or better? Who knows. I think it's reasonable to worry where all this is going.
Although, I will acknowledge I am a bit down atm so, that probably is contributing to the pessimism.
The trolls blaming it on Patrick trying to "kill his unborn child" is kind of telling: at some level they *want* to feel righteous, they have a need to justify their actions.
I'm not sure what it says about those people. Maybe some sort of "how can people do this sort of stuff to someone else" explanation.
Yeah, not to be a victim blamer, but there is definitely some twisted co-dependency between the forum freaks and Patrick that I would venture ends up being far more deranging to him than it is for them. And of course they would eventually stop if he quit responding-it all started as them acting in response to something that he said. His comebacks are their fuel. It seems like his repeated "mentally-ill children" line is maybe his sad little idea of a win. I dunno. Depressing though. Seriously, just don't engage with the depravity from the get-go. It's that easy.
Wow what a story. I feel bad for getting an hour of entertainment out of the Harassment of Patrick, but Katie and Jessie should feel worse for making money off it ;P
But in all seriousness, when Patrick stated that ignoring them doesn't work, I very much doubt that. Based on the behavior noted in the story, I have a strong sense that he never *really* tried ignoring him: he seems like the kinda guy to state on a Monday that he's taking a break from social media, but then is tweeting again by Thursday.
I continue on the theme I noticed from last week's episode...Patrick is just so infuriatingly unlikeable. Again, maybe I'm a bad person or a subconscious Opie and Anthony fan, or something. But Patrick just brings some desire to bully out in me that I've literally never experienced before, IRL or online. It's bizzare, and I'm not justifying anything that the Opie and Anthony weirdos did, including doxxing. But jeez man.
Yeah, 100% agree about not ever talking more about that group or anything further they do. Don't feed them. I don't even know if this whole thing was even worth the coverage in the first place because it probably just contributed to it continuing even more.
as someone who's for years now endured the islation of related hardships, i am so grateful (to feel less alone that, and how) they did cover this. just the once.
I’m trying to learn Russian, and I thought the same thing, he’s definitely doing some kind of х thing with his h’s. Jesse could be right, though, that it’s someone doing a fake accent.
I’m bad at pegging Russian accents because I grew up with it in the States and thus don’t have a great deal of exposure to regional accents, but to me it sound like he was trying not to sound Russian and couldn’t help it. But it’s also possible that it really is just a regional accent. Him being a Russian speaker doesn’t necessarily mark him out as Russian, since there are large Russian speaking communities all over the former Russian/Soviet Empire and Russia is a huge country.
Whether it’s a real accent or not it is odd that he didn’t just use a synthesizer. The voice on the 911 call was obviously fake; idk why he wouldn’t do that again.
How many times would a police department have to be called and respond to the same address with a SWAT (that yields nothing to justify the call) before they realize that the calls are likely trolls likely harrassing the SWATee? I just don't think they would SWAT an address over and over again, unless it's some kind of policy/procedure that says they have to - sending out SWAT has got to be pretty pricey.
To be fair when he says “swat” a lot of them are just the police stopping by as a wellness type check (or even leaving a note if they’re not home), the police aren’t breaking his front door down with guns drawn 40 times.
Good point. But then there was the video of a SWAT "wellness check" on Chelsea Manning that involved what you describe. My point was that if the police are being sent out to the same address 40 times and finding nothing of what the caller suggested is going on at that address, the police would probably start to get wise to it being a repeated false report. I am just skeptical of the number - sounds like an exaggeration.
Could they be attempted swattings? i.e. someone called the police and set up the swat but, on at least some of the occasions the police realised that it was swatting and dropped by to say 'you've been swatted again, hope you are OK dude'.
My guess is that they still have to do something — and stopping by and saying hey we got another call about you FYI seems reasonable enough. It does seem like info you should know.
I dunno. I’m not a cop but I work in criminal justice, and it’s not uncommon for them to get a call to the same house three times in a damn day, like in domestic situations; I don’t mean serious DV, because in that case they could just make an arrest and have done with it, I mean the parties are fighting about money or a side boo or whatever and every time they get mad enough someone calls the cops, and then when the cops get there everyone’s fine and the parties just go lol nvm. The cops **hate** it, and they would absolutely ignore calls from certain houses if they could, but they literally can’t, they’re not allowed to. (They might start slow-walking it after a while, though, and they will definitely be looking for a reason to arrest somebody.) I mean what if the one time they didn’t go out something actually happens? The guys on patrol might be willing to take that risk, but the City isn’t.
at one point they mentioned that Patrick actually slept through a 'swatting': if it was an actual "storm the front door with guns drawn" kind of swatting, you don't sleep through that. seems like it's often just cops showing up to say they did.
I wonder how widely known among police departments the concept of SWATing even is. Would, say, the majority of police chiefs be able to describe it correctly?
If I remember correctly: There's a recent a trend for US police forces to spend loads of money on military equipment, and then find excuses to deploy SWAT teams as often as possible. I can't remember why though. It might be due to lobbying by weapons manufacturers.
Okay, as the resident Swedish immigrant -- Petter Janse (Janse is close to the "yoncé" in Beyoncé with the "a" in awning fyi) is no way in hell the same person in the Telegram audio from the swatters.
1. Petter's cadence in the youtube clip is of a Swedish speaker who doesn't use spoken english very often. Any of my native Swedish-speaking friends, who either have native fluency in a 2nd language or have spent significant amounts of time abroad, don't carry over the cadence/melody that strongly.
2. He's, for lack of a better word, super nasal in a way that says to me he's either from Lidingö (snobby island in Stockholm), one of the rich people suburbs of Stockholm (like Täby), OR from the gnällbältet (literally whining belt), a part of Sweden east of Stockholm that's known for their extremely whiny accents (hence the name). The way he's unable to pronounce the schwa sound correctly in English is pretty characteristic to Swedes, especially from those regions.
3. Those two things together PLUS the grammar mistakes the person in the clip from the swatters makes, which aren't mistakes a Swede would generally make, tell me it's definitely not the same person.
What's really horrifying about IDing a specific Swedish person like this, is that every single Swede is doxable with just simple biographical info. All addresses and phone numbers are public, by Swedish law, and easily searchable on websites like [removed for when this goes public]. You can also get someone's salary through the tax agency, because again, this stuff is public by law. If you're not Sven Svensson in a major city, you're pretty fucked if someone like ONA ever gets you in their sights,
Spot on, I am indeed från gnällbältet.
And yes, Jackie was encouraging her followers to look me up on those pages. Telling them how to do it. Really feels as if she wants someone to "find me". Scary.
One of her tweets:
https://twitter.com/HackingButLegal/status/1650990974724702210?s=20
I'm so sorry you've been targeted like this, and I hope it ends soon.
My bonus parents live in Sörmland, so I've spent a lot of time there over the years! I'm really hoping to get back there for mushroom picking season again this year.
I have a rare first and last name, probably the only one with my name on the planet, and it's the reason I try keep anonymous outside of work stuff - my use address is my bonus parents', and I'd never forgive myself if the kindest people on the planet got trolled because of me.
Jag är så ledsen att detta händer dig - oskyldiga människor som dig börde inte bli öffer för elaka wannabe nätkändisar.
What are “bonus parents”? Are they a lottery prize or a welfare entitlement?
It’s a common-in-Scandinavia alternative to “step parents”. Basically using bonus parents implies that you see your non-biological parents as a gain rather than a replacement. Also carries the implication that you still have your original parents - no one is dead or estranged, so you end up with 3+ people playing a parental role. “Bonus family” is the same concept, like in-laws but through your parent’s partner, not yours.
Exactly what Kudanshita said, except in my case it's my ex's parents. My dad passed away and my mom has late stage dementia, so they're like an extra set of parents to me.
Seriously?? That's insane! I heard you are able to get yourself unlisted - you should consider doing that so no one finds you. What a psycho lady!
Lol @ “the whining belt”
Trust me, if you ever meet someone with a very thick Örebro accent, you'll see it's well deserved
The accent analysis was spot on !
And you are so right - it is so easy to be doxxed here (Stockholm immigrant here as well!) that it is shocking at the level of incompetence coupled with arrogance employed by this Jackie Singh lady. I really hope Dushatar is ok and is able to get recompense for this attack!
I plan on coming back to Stockholm in... (checks bostadsförmedlingen) about 3 or 4 years, when I can get a 2:a somewhere in like Alvik or Fruangen. Can't afford it otherwise :(
More like 7-10 lol. The housing market here is insane: buy or live with roommies. :) I chose the latter because I wanted to live with people - that's always an option :D
I really really cannot live with people. I tried! And I'm on year six in the queue, so I have hope!
Oh no. I wish you the best of luck 🙈🙈 if you live somewhere other than stockholm, you might have better luck. Still i definitely think you can find a place without the queue though it is quite pricey. My friend recently signed a lease and his rent is 11 grand per month. 🤷♂️
Sweden seems great, I'd love to visit sometime.
It is. Beautiful place with gorgeous landscapes and very quiet low-key people who are at once polite and very sweet. I absolutely love this place. It's even better to live and work :D
My grandfather is a Swedish immigrant but he's actually from a tiny minority Swedish village enclave just outside of Vaasa in Finland; he never actually lived in Sweden. He speaks with a very heavy accent despite 70 years living in the US and I was immediately convinced that the clip was not of a Swedish person. Reading your comment I'm wondering how weird my grandfather's accent might sound to Swedish native these days and whether you'd be able to place him. I'm so intrigued by languages and dialects.
I know people from Vaasa! Finlandsvenska is extremely distinctive, and it just sounds so warm and friendly. It's also sometimes jokingly called Moominsvenska since Tove Jansson is finlandssvensk. Native Swedes will also pick up on some vocabulary differences, finlandsvenska retains some old Swedish words that fell out of use in modern standard Swedish.
There's a very beloved celebrity, Mark Levengood, who has speaks that dialect - look him up on YouTube if you're curious what the modern variant sounds like!
I will! I got to take a trip with my grandfather in 2017 when he was 91 to Vaasa and then to see his village, Kaarpero; it was an amazing trip, the area is beautiful and we went out to his family's old island summer home. Tons of mosquitoes but exquisitely beautiful.
I thought this was a good episode that got down to the core. It's possible to spend too long in the weeds of a story. Sometimes I think J and K need to do more research - this one I think was enough.
Top tip: If you want to convince a journalist that your online group is being falsely accused of harassment maybe don't harass the journalist? And then say you hope that journalist is beaten up. It doesn't scream 'good guys'.
I'm fascinated that you have a paid substack that solely focuses on reviewing self help books with a non-trivial following.
Jesse, posters in anonymous Internet forums might be the scum of the earth, but we’re YOUR scum of the earth
Not merely “the scum of the earth”, but “the lowest scum of the earth”!
On the plus side, as the lowest we may be eligible for additional “marginalized” points. Not quite sure how the intersectional hierarchy of scum works, but it might be worth filling out the paperwork.
Yes, I bristled a bit at that comment--Jesse, you *told* us to put pseudonyms on our Substack accounts to protect us from possible harassment!
He doesn't mean us because he knows our secret identities!
We are anonymous. Expect us.
Anonymous is not the same as pseudonymous?
Swede here and former co-worker of Diana Janse’s (and FB friend, though she definitely outranked me and probably doesn’t remember my name, ha ha). It’s a small world! And yeah, there’s no way that’s Petter Janse’s voice on the incriminating phone call. That person also isn’t Swedish.
I nearly screamed in my car when Katie said that Patrick replied to the texts she and her wife were pulled into. Don’t bring her down with you, dude! I don’t really care if he MUST REPLY to everyone, I feel like he was dragging Katie into his stupid toxic relationship with his trolls.
What I find fascinating about the trolls in the O&A forums and Kiwifarms, etc is the projection. If anything, they are the supreme lolcows.
I've now seen a few people on the reddit commenting that there is more to the story or that Patrick did it to himself. If they genuinely believe that they must believe that Patrick is the one driving this and logically they should take Jesse's advice for Patrick i.e. ignore him and stop engaging.
I think they are so in deep that 1) they can't be objective and 2) that they are obsessed.
It is really fascinating but, also I think really concerning. I am reminded of the Derren Brown experiment 'Remote Control'. Except I am not sure this bunch would be shocked when the target was run over. It worries me because I think our increasingly online lives may affect our abilities to empathise with people.
edit: To be clear I do not think that Patrick is actually swatting himself.
I don't think Keffals or Patrick are competant enough to mastermind a plot like swatting themselves. What I do think is that both of them aren't reliable narrators, and that while Patrick does not deserve the level of real life harassment he's getting, he's also a huge factor in how far it escalated.
It's mentally ill people feeding each other's illnesses in a terrifying feedback loop. Everyone sucks here.
I think if someone harasses you personally it's hard to remain objective and rational because it is personal by definition, it is your life. Katie is having a better reaction but, she's already faced vitriol before and come out of it. Jesse had to disengage entirely from twitter to prevent him feeding his detractors but, he has now managed it. I expect that Patrick's personality does play into how he chooses to deal with it. But, think about the van life influencer's reaction, which is very 'the villainy you teach me I will execute and it shall go hard but, I will better the instruction'. She wants revenge because it's personal. She's human and letting it go and walking away - taking the high road is hard. Especially, when your life is ruined.
It is not personal for the people in the fora. They can walk away from this any time they choose because they are anonymous and invisible and one among many. So, I do think the people in the fora suck more. Additionally, whilst there probably are some people in the fora who are mentally ill (as Patrick keeps insisting), I am not convinced that's the majority. I think you underestimate cruelty.
In the 15th century Luca Landucci, a Florentine diarist wrote about people following a condemned man down a street and using hot tongs to attack him removing pieces of his flesh. In Telford in 2015, people shouted jump to a suicidal man. Were these people 'mentally ill'? Unfortunately, I think cruelty is a part of human nature.
I acknowledge there can be complications. "Jessica" Yaniv. Yaniv brought a case - so, reporting on the case was fair enough. KF - cataloguing the story was reasonable but, felt v quickly like laughing at the 'freak'. But, they didn't 'touch the poop', any time Rebel Media or Blaire White engaged Yaniv would react predictably and poorly. In the end how much was legitimate and how much was over the line is hard to judge. But, the whole thing started to make me feel uncomfortable in the end.
Tranniv was and is a scary person. He's one who systematically harasses other people while imagining himself as the victim.
Also lol his clit fell off.
I think people have always had little empathy for those outside their immediate circle and not physically close.
It's why it's totally normal for people to go through their day to day life without a second thought for the 1,000s of children starving to death.
I don't mean that as an insult. We'd probably collapse into pools of useless grief if we did feel empathy on a global level...like we do when a loved one dies.
So, I think the lack of empathy is pretty stable. It's that the internet, forums, etc. do not satisfy the "proximal or in-group" requirement for triggering empathy in most while it does allow people to instantly impact other's lives.
My concern is that the lack of empathy will not remain stable but, grow. Most simply, because as you say "the internet, forums etc. do not satisfy the "proximal or in group" requirement for triggering empathy" and increasingly we are living our lives online.
For example, increasingly, people are working from home on computer, rarely meeting their co-workers day-to-day. I acknowledge that if a large business such as P&O is in financial trouble and needs to fire a lot of workers they have always simply gone ahead and done it but, I wonder if it will become easier in smaller businesses if you never really know 'Fred' or 'Ellie' or 'Jackson' to fire them without thinking about that person. Imagine the thought process, 'sure, I could give Fred a chance to improve but, I never see him, I don't know him, I'll just hire someone new, he had his chance.'
Recently, I saw a helmet in an exhibition for the use of pilots in combat. Essentially, it superimposes the control information, altitude etc. on the viewing screen but, also helpfully labels friendly and enemy aircraft. It is increasingly like a video game. That's before we even think about drones.
I realise that an argument exists that what I am describing is not entirely new but, I do think that the internet and our increasingly separate lives are helping to speed up the creation of increasingly lonely, anti-social, self-absorbed, un-empathetic, people and I think the consequences for society will be rather extreme. Sure, I am now catastrophising but, not entirely without foundation.
I personally find firing people difficult. Even on Zoom.
Me too. It’s never fun. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel that way but you’re just not allowed to say it or show it anymore because of HR departments. It sucks.
I'm not saying everyone has immediately lost any and all empathy and that firing is easy-peasy right now, especially over Zoom. You have my sympathy.
I'm just saying the equivalent of watch this space; how will people feel about this in a few years after we are increasingly online? will people who have grown up almost entirely online be worse or better? Who knows. I think it's reasonable to worry where all this is going.
Although, I will acknowledge I am a bit down atm so, that probably is contributing to the pessimism.
The trolls blaming it on Patrick trying to "kill his unborn child" is kind of telling: at some level they *want* to feel righteous, they have a need to justify their actions.
I'm not sure what it says about those people. Maybe some sort of "how can people do this sort of stuff to someone else" explanation.
Yeah, not to be a victim blamer, but there is definitely some twisted co-dependency between the forum freaks and Patrick that I would venture ends up being far more deranging to him than it is for them. And of course they would eventually stop if he quit responding-it all started as them acting in response to something that he said. His comebacks are their fuel. It seems like his repeated "mentally-ill children" line is maybe his sad little idea of a win. I dunno. Depressing though. Seriously, just don't engage with the depravity from the get-go. It's that easy.
Wow what a story. I feel bad for getting an hour of entertainment out of the Harassment of Patrick, but Katie and Jessie should feel worse for making money off it ;P
But in all seriousness, when Patrick stated that ignoring them doesn't work, I very much doubt that. Based on the behavior noted in the story, I have a strong sense that he never *really* tried ignoring him: he seems like the kinda guy to state on a Monday that he's taking a break from social media, but then is tweeting again by Thursday.
Wow, Trace. How does it feel to just be “someone from Jesse Singal’s crew?”
There are worse things to be.
“I am being harassed by a FURRY, who is ASSOCIATED with Jesse SINGAL”
I continue on the theme I noticed from last week's episode...Patrick is just so infuriatingly unlikeable. Again, maybe I'm a bad person or a subconscious Opie and Anthony fan, or something. But Patrick just brings some desire to bully out in me that I've literally never experienced before, IRL or online. It's bizzare, and I'm not justifying anything that the Opie and Anthony weirdos did, including doxxing. But jeez man.
I looked him up on Twitter and he still posts his wordle score every day. I feel like that’s all we really need to know about him.
Yeah, 100% agree about not ever talking more about that group or anything further they do. Don't feed them. I don't even know if this whole thing was even worth the coverage in the first place because it probably just contributed to it continuing even more.
as someone who's for years now endured the islation of related hardships, i am so grateful (to feel less alone that, and how) they did cover this. just the once.
That guy’s accent was weird, but as a native Russian speaker (in the US, though), he makes the «х» sound in «хave» like a Russian.
I’m trying to learn Russian, and I thought the same thing, he’s definitely doing some kind of х thing with his h’s. Jesse could be right, though, that it’s someone doing a fake accent.
I’m bad at pegging Russian accents because I grew up with it in the States and thus don’t have a great deal of exposure to regional accents, but to me it sound like he was trying not to sound Russian and couldn’t help it. But it’s also possible that it really is just a regional accent. Him being a Russian speaker doesn’t necessarily mark him out as Russian, since there are large Russian speaking communities all over the former Russian/Soviet Empire and Russia is a huge country.
Whether it’s a real accent or not it is odd that he didn’t just use a synthesizer. The voice on the 911 call was obviously fake; idk why he wouldn’t do that again.
Whoa I thought part 2 would be next week. What a welcome surprise
Right! I thought we'd have a cliff hanger until next week.
I find Patrick's believing that some rando Swede is the person responsible for SWATing him makes him less sympathetic.
How many times would a police department have to be called and respond to the same address with a SWAT (that yields nothing to justify the call) before they realize that the calls are likely trolls likely harrassing the SWATee? I just don't think they would SWAT an address over and over again, unless it's some kind of policy/procedure that says they have to - sending out SWAT has got to be pretty pricey.
To be fair when he says “swat” a lot of them are just the police stopping by as a wellness type check (or even leaving a note if they’re not home), the police aren’t breaking his front door down with guns drawn 40 times.
Yeah, I think they have to show up even if they're pretty sure the call is fake.
Yes Patrick even said he slept through one of the instances and only later saw it on the door camera.
Good point. But then there was the video of a SWAT "wellness check" on Chelsea Manning that involved what you describe. My point was that if the police are being sent out to the same address 40 times and finding nothing of what the caller suggested is going on at that address, the police would probably start to get wise to it being a repeated false report. I am just skeptical of the number - sounds like an exaggeration.
Could they be attempted swattings? i.e. someone called the police and set up the swat but, on at least some of the occasions the police realised that it was swatting and dropped by to say 'you've been swatted again, hope you are OK dude'.
My guess is that they still have to do something — and stopping by and saying hey we got another call about you FYI seems reasonable enough. It does seem like info you should know.
Now I'm imagining a SWAT team ramming down the front door but shouting "WELLNESS CHECK. GET ON THE FLOOR."
I dunno. I’m not a cop but I work in criminal justice, and it’s not uncommon for them to get a call to the same house three times in a damn day, like in domestic situations; I don’t mean serious DV, because in that case they could just make an arrest and have done with it, I mean the parties are fighting about money or a side boo or whatever and every time they get mad enough someone calls the cops, and then when the cops get there everyone’s fine and the parties just go lol nvm. The cops **hate** it, and they would absolutely ignore calls from certain houses if they could, but they literally can’t, they’re not allowed to. (They might start slow-walking it after a while, though, and they will definitely be looking for a reason to arrest somebody.) I mean what if the one time they didn’t go out something actually happens? The guys on patrol might be willing to take that risk, but the City isn’t.
But to echo previous commenters I’d be shocked if all 40 of those times involved the police showing up with guns blazing.
It would be kind of bad if they got a legitimate call and ignored if because of all the fakes.
at one point they mentioned that Patrick actually slept through a 'swatting': if it was an actual "storm the front door with guns drawn" kind of swatting, you don't sleep through that. seems like it's often just cops showing up to say they did.
Swatting is such a bizarrely American thing, like using month before day, and the continuing use of inches and Fahrenheit.
They haven't reached that number yet apparently.
I wonder how widely known among police departments the concept of SWATing even is. Would, say, the majority of police chiefs be able to describe it correctly?
If I remember correctly: There's a recent a trend for US police forces to spend loads of money on military equipment, and then find excuses to deploy SWAT teams as often as possible. I can't remember why though. It might be due to lobbying by weapons manufacturers.
This whole narrative was like the plot of one of the more depressing Russian novels.