A Statement About Mahbod’s Annotations on Elliot Rodger’s Manifesto(news.rapgenius.com) |
A Statement About Mahbod’s Annotations on Elliot Rodger’s Manifesto(news.rapgenius.com) |
Contrary to Moghadam's comments, the diary is not particularly well-written. It's long, repetitive, weirdly detailed (the author recounts meals eaten years ago), and studded with evidence of psychopathy.
RG's style of annotation works extremely well for some kinds of writing --- song lyrics, The Great Gatsby, TS Eliot poems. What I think those things have in common is that they're hospitable to "riffing" and cross-linking; for instance, the lyrics to the ICP song where they come out of the closet as religious are totally incongruous until RG annotations inform you that they're reprised lyrics from previous ICP songs.
But riffing on Rodgers diary doesn't serve the same purpose, at least so close to the event. It is instead a minefield; almost anything you can say risks diminishing the tragedy, or misapprehending how the mind of a deeply mentally ill person functions, or, god help us, using the output of that mind as a platform on which to build suggestions on changing our culture.
There may be some point at which RG annotations will add value to this terribly sad artifact of Elliot Rodgers, but it probably won't be in 2014.
The thought was very similar in this case, in that News Genius could help annotate and pull out important sections, things that could help people understand the text. In retrospect, I believe we didn't consider fully how hard it would be to annotate, or how much more of a minefield it would be with the additional dimensions of misogyny and mental illness to consider. (Well, personally, I voted against its inclusion. But that's neither here nor there.)
I'm not sure what the right response is in this case. But that's the context.
Part of that attention was due to a Rambo narrative that accompanied Dorner due to his military experience and the fashion in which he was (briefly) believed to be engaging Southern California police officers (no doubt this narrative was abetted by the 24/7 news cycle). Part of it was due to the style in which he wrote his manifesto. And certainly part of it was the fact that his grievances confirmed a lot of the (probably accurate) biases people have about the LAPD.
All that is a prelude to the argument that the annotations on the Dorner "manifesto" do not in fact show RG at its best. Like the Rodgers incident, the Dorner incident is tremendously sad. It was not an armed struggled between a wronged former officer and the police establishment; it was a manhunt that followed the cold-blooded murder of an innocent woman and her fiance. But you might not get that impression from clicking through the animated GIFs, lyrical references, and amplified exposition of Dorner's complaints in the annotations on the site.
Again, I think this isn't so much a problem with reading and studying the output of the mentally ill, but instead with the idea of doing that on a site that encourages random anonymous people to riff off of and respond to that output. It has the effect of turning an artifact of illness and tragedy into popular culture, which to me demeans the site almost as much as the victims.
Why not? There's what to do lessons and what not to do lessons.
From what I read in the essay he talks continually about how he lives in a beautiful, wealthy suburb, has an apartment and BMW, nice clothes and so forth. I don't watch teenage television shows like the OC, The Hills or whatever, but from this material perspective he had the perfect life. Yet his parents split up, he didn't get along with his movie premiere attending father's new wife, and he was isolated and cut off from human contact. He is miserable. He even says repeatedly he goes crazy watching guys with much less money have so much "social success".
Something can be learned from him. That buying into the idea that money alone buys happiness is something close to insanity. That growing up in a wealthy community where image and status are everything, even among kids, might not be healthy. That close friendships and lovers are more important than the BMW he continually refers to.
I can see shades of this when I walk into a post Series A startup on Saturday at 8 PM and see that 95% of the office is there working, many of the people in their 20's. They all think they are going to be the Mark Zuckerberg. It seems like insanity to me. It reminds me of all the people I know who were having trouble in their marriages, so they would work until 6, 7, 8 doing busy work so they wouldn't have to go home. Usually in a few months time I hear from them they are separating from their spouse. Some people see work as an escape from their other problems. Our society being run as it is, by those who it is run by, this is not much frowned upon as a real problem.
I can easily imagine this kid growing up the son of some guy who was in early on some hot startup, with the kid now living in Palo Alto, Altadena or somewhere...
Because it's just one kid. The sample size is too small.
Rap Genius is in still somewhat in that growth phase of its life where it wants to attain and secure as many users as it can. The Rogers story is something a lot of young people are curious to see, and if RG can be a place where they can see it, that means they're doing well. Purely as a business decision, they should and probably will keep hosting it.
You won't believe the amount of essays I had to read (whenever we would peer-review essays in middle and high school) that had to do with serial killers, massacres, etc. This is simply a subject a lot of people are fascinated by -- most importantly, people in the right age group that Rap Genius is interested in.
I should note that if you disagree, you should be voicing your outrage at the mass media, Scribd (for continuing to host the unabridged Rogers documents), WashPo, etc. etc., not just Rap Genius.
depends on your standards. He's not a professional author but I think he's probably better than your average college grad.
studded with evidence of psychopathy
genuinely interested. could you point to some of these. I've been skimming it and haven't really seen that.
in fact, this struck me as empathetic
James’s mother, Kim Ellis, had just passed away from breast cancer. I cried for a bit. Kim was a very kind-hearted person, and the mother of my best friend. She had been suffering from breast cancer for several years, but I never thought she would die from it. I immediately thought of how James must be feeling. He just lost his own mother!Annotate It made me think of how horrible I would feel if the same thing happened to my own mother, just the thought alone filled me with pain.
This really isn't empathy. Roger is not feeling his friend's pain—he's transferring his friend's situation to himself and feeling his own pain. He's crying in imagined self-pity.
Roger describes crying in self-pity or frustration many times in the document, even into adulthood. A quick word count:
34 cried
10 cry
19 crying
9 tears
Otherwise Roger's depiction of himself comes off as completely self-absorbed and often unaware or unconcerned with the feelings of others. The narcissism is overwhelming.
That's exactly why it should be studied.
It's widely available, and people are interested. Either RG-style annotation helps people come to terms with it, or not. But they have to try, to find out – and possibly improve their practices if they're found wanting.
Very curious - what are the stylistic signatures of psycopathy?
In his ideal world, there would be a benevolent dictator -- "benevolent" in this context includes exterminating women by starvation, save for a few that are kept locked up in labs where they exist only for reproduction -- and he suggests himself as this dictator. According to his theory if there are no women there will be no sex, and men can rise to higher levels of achievement (notice how he blames his shortcomings on others). He also believes that there would be no love in such a world, though he seems to have a poorly developed notion of love as an emotion (he speaks of love in terms of sex, and never associates love with any specific person other than himself).
Mahbod compliments several of Rodger's sentences as "artful" and/or "beautifully written". That is okay, if ill-timed. One can make a stylistic statement about Mein Kampf without endorsing its message.
He also, however, speculates that Rodger's "sister is smokin' hot." That is violently inappropriate, particularly given the misogynistic nature of Elliot's crimes.
He also went on a tour and actually read the book on > 1000 occasions and won multiple prices.
Now, imagine Serdar doing that in 1946. He would - for good reasons - be ostracized.
Mahbod, even if he were "only" commenting on stylistic things, shows that he is lacking something very important: tact and empathy. This is not a triviality and as such not "okay". He also didn't frame the comment in any way (e.g. "I am surprised to see such an artfully...").
He should have seen that coming. If he hadn't, he shouldn't be leading any community.
I think 'violently inappropriate' is being used by the internet echo chamber to draw attention to themselves.
Really? Violent?
http://recode.net/2014/05/26/rap-genius-co-founder-moghadam-...
A claim like that should carry a source at least. Not all of us follow RapGenius' every move.
As an aside, it has always amazed me how many people over the years have failed to realize Rap Genius' gimmick is just that, a gimmick. It's their attempt at using an admittedly off-color flavor of comedy to build their brand. Said brand is heavily rooted in rap, which is one of the most politically incorrect and offensive mediums of pop culture in existence today.
It stands to reason that when the Rap Genius founders are in character, their behavior should not be taken literally as a reflection of who they really are.
A good example of this is when they were featured on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2013:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5773556
Most people simply took them literally, became offended, and jumped on the revulsion bandwagon. Others understood that the RG guys were essentially mocking the startup scene and the rap scene at the same time, in effect making fun of themselves.
---
In Mahbod's case specifically, it seemed like he was aiming for humor that went right up to the line but didn't cross it. Unfortunately, comedy is a hit-or-miss endeavor and some of the misses were bound to cross that line. Add to that his medical issues potentially adversely affecting his judgement, and it's no wonder.
Was what he said inappropriate? Absolutely.
Should he have been fired for it? Debatable.
Should we assume he's a terrible human being (as some other comments have implied)? Certainly not.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3021564/most-creative-people/how-...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/02/22/rap_genius_wa...
http://valleywag.gawker.com/rap-genius-frontman-blames-brain...
We don't know nearly enough about the brain to argue that the removal must restore the previous personality.
Yeah, because otherwise most rap is all about sensitivity and feminism. I mean, they'd never embrace Ice Cube's records there, right?
I just see corporate drones fearing for their dollars because of the backslash against this guy's annotations.
The noble thing to do would have been to stand behind their colleague. I'd take a "misogynist" over backstabbing people throwing their friends to the lions. At least a misogynist could either be joking or made to change his mind about women. But their actions are all for personal interests and their bottom line.
The political correct world today is strictly about inflicting damage upon populist targets, while not targeting other bigots that don't qualify for the agenda. It's a deranged movement of convenient targets.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/03/andreessen-horowitz-iinvest...
That comment about his sister I viewed more as teasing/disparaging the author--your mileage may vary.
Reading a bit more about the dude from Rapgenius, though, he seems like kind of a gangsta-wannabe tool.
But no, we didn't do a good job with the Dorner manifesto, as a whole. Part of that is due to the level of quality increase that the site has seen since then, but maybe part of that should have been a warning.
It would be a kindness to everyone if RG simply delisted the journal for the immediate time being, and then restored it in the future, possibly a year or so from now.
It's the same reason that we shouldn't let blind people fly commercial airliners. Flying requires vision. Running a company requires good judgement.
Says who? It's not like the company is Disney. For some companies such antics are par for the course (e.g a gangsta rap record company).
Of course, I'm basing that on his autobiography which might be nothing but bullcrap. I looked through it, and the takeaway is that he was a sullen, jealous coward his whole life--but sufficiently introspective to write 137 pages about that life in which almost nothing happened, and nothing at all happened that he himself instigated. You know, until the end. Note also that the bio was coherent and competently structured, whereas in his videos he's barely able to sputter out a normal-sounding sentence. Psychopaths tend to be eloquent and charismatic.
Too bad there isn't a history eraser button we can use to retroactively deny him fame for this.
There is also this part:
"I am Elliot Rodger...Magnificent, glorious, supreme, eminent, Divine! I am the closest thing there is to a living god."
> bizarre descriptions of a sexless utopia where all women are enslaved and forced to be artificially inseminated to procreate.
...is required reading for millions of schoolchildren
GitHub had some serious HR issues and internal mismanagement.
Rap Genius has an entire brand, emphasized through every public appearance, of utter douchebaggery.
Downvoted for at least a triple non sequitur and not adding anything on topic, except for an attempt to derail it into yet another discussion about the thing that must not be.
"Unaccetable" for running a company with profit, or "unaccptable" for your moral code? Because the former sure ain't the case.
Sociopathy/Psycopathy is about as real as Drapetomania or hysteria. It's the modern day blasphemy, if you question the state or authority you are 'anti-social'
But you're right--it's not an "actual medical illness." Mental conditions are "disorders", not "medical illnesses" since they are chronic/permanent conditions.
I suggest you upgrade your knowledge on the topic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-...
We have at best a debatable set of symptoms which are entirely subjective and which are provided by criminologists let alone psychologists.
It's easy to test for and show someone has a cold in a completely objective way, either your cells are infected with a virus with a given genetic pattern or they are not. There is no disease called psychopathy and there is no objective test for it.
So since you're the expert on psychopathy and we know so much about it, what is the underlying physical process for it? Is it an infection? Are the neurons misfiring? Is a certain protein misfolded? Oh wait, you can't answer any of those because it's made up pseudo-scientific bullshit. Labeling someone a psychopath is about as real as labeling them a witch, only symptoms, no cause, no mechanism, nothing.
PS. Here's the 'brain scan' evidence that homosexuality is a real 'mental disorder' LOL http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7456588.stm
He was a severely mentally ill sick person who is now dead and took innocent people with him. Seriously, misogyny doesn't have all that much to do with it, from my perspective. Yes, he was a misogynist, but the unsaid implication I've seen all over the web is that "All misogynists are just like this guy!", which doesn't follow, as far as I'm concerned.
I just write misogynists off as sad people that I won't associate with, not violent murderers waiting for a chance to "show the world".
Not all misogynists will act out in physical violence, but misogyny provides fuel for those that do and it also provides excuses for those actions when they occur. Ultimately misogyny encourages violence against women, period.
> I just write misogynists off as sad people that I won't associate with, not violent murderers waiting for a chance to "show the world".
Which is a privilege you have since you are not the target of misogyny. Women who suffer direct harassment and violence because of misogyny don't get the chance to be so nonchalant about that behavior and cultural influence.
But that is not this case. This was severe mental illness, not misogyny. More to the point, to those who said "he killed men because he couldn't kill the sorority" miss the fact that he stabbed two men to death first.
This case was someone who was very very sick, and decided to lash out at the world, and innocent people paid the price. Those who attempt to paint it as "MRA's are dangerous" (which they are, there is a brand new petition on WhiteHouse.gov saying exactly that) or anything other than it actually is confuse the hell out of me.
I'm not sure why you bring up the characterization of homosexuality in older, long-since discarded versions of the DSM. The DSM is merely a reflection of the current state of consensus regarding psychological diagnoses. It's not an authoritative guide. As consensus changes, so does the DSM.
Ok, not everybody is going to kill girls because they rejected you, but almost every man understand at least some of the feelings + frustrations he experienced (especially virgins).
To deny this is to deny the huge elephant in the room - the fact that men do have the primal need for sex, and when it's denied/suppressed, bad things happen as that need goes unfulfilled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence
So? We are capable of empathy and understanding of lots of things, that being ethical we wouldn't do. It's not like a murderer or rapist is some kind of alien, that we cannot even comprehend. We do it all the time, in talk and in art. E.g:
As an aside, your comment is very patronizing.
> Its newsworthy because it doesn't happen that often. You are kidding me right? Sexual violence is continuous.
Also, you're wrong. And if you think misogyny (or whatever cause du jour we're using today) creates serial killers, and not mental illness then you're more than welcome to believe that. Plenty of psychologists say you're entirely incorrect[0], and I'll defer to them on this, but this "discussion" is utterly pointless, as you cherry pick whichever sentence you feel like pulling apart and ignoring the rest of it -- which are facts for the most part, not my opinion.
[0] http://time.com/114354/elliot-rodger-ucsb-misogyny/
Ps. You know, I'm not even arguing that cultural misogyny isn't a problem. I think it is, and am a big believer that we have a problem in our tech industry that we need to fix. What I'm arguing is that you're currently no better than those who blame video games for shootings, ignoring the real cause, which is broken, sick people.
EDIT:
Oh and you're wrong. Victims are not "overwhelmingly" women, nor is it "overwhelmingly" because of sadistic motives. See [1]:
Characteristics of U.S. Serial Killer Victims
Sex N%
Male
3,854 44.54%
Female
4,799 55.46%
http://www.scccj.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/0124207_h...
In the serial killing figures you show the numbers are overwhelming dominated by the US where the high availability of guns make multiple murders more common - and the number of sexual serial killers much less as a proportion.
In Europe, I stand by my statement that serial killers are overwhelmingly, etc, etc...
This is scary shit. It is OK to be scared by it.
A much fairer (and still true) statement would be "some people do risky, strange, violent things as part of their drive for sex." If you want to further dissect the issue into the different kind of strange and violent things men do vs. other genders' behaviors, that's fine too, but by comparing Rodgers to "some men," the implication is made that his actions are endemic to men (they're not -- they're endemic to violent, crazy people).
Most men just channel that into something else, like entrepreneurship (ie Zuckerberg), or drugs/alcohol/video games.