Online of Fire

“The far-left accounts cheering political assassination and prominent right-media personalities calling for civil war against ‘the party of murder’ were engaged in a mirrored cosplay, both play-acting as violent revolutionaries from the comfort of air-conditioned rooms with WiFi. How can something like this happen in America? is an important question to ask, but not a difficult one to answer. To see what we are doing to ourselves, you only had to do the easiest thing: log on.” Derek Thompson: All the Sad Young Terminally Online Men. “As young single men have dramatically increased their time alone and online, they’ve marinated in a unique attentional environment that is more charged with extremist ideas and emotional negativity. Political scientists have found that social isolation increases the risk that young men develop a ‘need for chaos,’ and law enforcement officers have independently confirmed that modern political violence is more likely the result of isolated lone wolves who stitch together a bespoke ideology of hatred that is disconnected from any formal organization.”

+ “A confounding aspect of where we are right now as a country is that the everyday person in their home or workplace is horrified and frightened by acts of violence, political or otherwise. But the people we are online are often not.” Yes, It’s the Guns. It’s Also the Phones.

+ “Sean Aaron Smith delighted in the sheer volume of attention the tower fire was receiving, even if most of it dripped with sarcasm. A lean, tattooed—and until recently, entirely apolitical—27-year-old, Smith had come to view 5G as the linchpin of a globalist plot to zombify humanity. To resist that supposed scheme, he’d spent the past five months setting Texas cell towers ablaze.” Wired: One Vigilante, 22 Cell Tower Fires, and a World of Conspiracies. “Inside the mind of the most prolific anti-5G arsonist in the world—and the incoherent, very online political violence of our era.”