H8Chan

This morning, I had every intention of following up my Thursday post on science, but that all went to pieces when I read about the latest terror attack on a house of worship, a mass shooting in a San Diego metro area synagogue. Like the Christchurch mosque shooter, the perpetrator of this attack wrote a manifesto on 8Chan, one drearily similar to the other shooter's manifesto, also posted to 8Chan. Additionally, the responses to the manifesto were encouraging the violence.

It seems that this current shooter was radicalized online by reading about the 'white genocide' conspiracy theory, and that his family wasn't involved in his turn towards terrorism (I am reminded of the two suicide bombers in Sri Lanka who were sons of a wealthy spice merchant). It's a shock when people 'from good homes' commit heinous crimes, but a sober look at the evidence reveals that many terrorists come from monied backgrounds. Poor people don't have the money for arms, and working stiffs don't have the time to spend on radical sites.

I have a nauseating feeling that these 8Chan massacres will continue. There's a toxic synergy of social isolation, bigotry, and nihilism that occurs online, and impressionable people will be 'blackpilled' and see violence as the answer to the problems they believe afflict them.