didn't know

[calimac]

After processing the shock and sorrow, what struck me about the YouTube shooting was what I hadn't known.

I hadn't known that YouTube was located there. As with the nearby neighborhood, also in San Bruno, where the gas pipeline suddenly blew up one quiet dinnertime a few years ago, it was a particular locale I'd never been, though I pass very near by it all the time.

I did discover Netflix hq, in another nearby town, this way. I just happened to drive by a building with a Netflix sign on it one day, and only later realized it must be the place where they plan all those bewildering additions and subtractions to their streaming list.

What they do at YouTube hq I'm less certain of, since their customers upload most of their videos, but one thing I certainly hadn't known is that it's possible to make a living doing this, but that appears to have been the shooter's occupation, until the decision by YouTube to "demonetize" (lovely word) certain types of videos rendered this particular form of feeding less lucrative, and that was what she was angry about. Angry enough to drive 300 miles, acquire a gun and use it, which is pretty angry, though not, it occurs to me, angry enough to come up with something a little more effective than this turned out to be.

That the shooter was female, and one whose principal interests seem to have been animal rights rants and exercise videos, seems to have bewildered a good number of people not expecting this sort of narrative.

But what bewilders me is mostly how the revenue stream worked. Exactly how did her videos generate money, when they did? They've all been taken down now, to deter the curious I guess since they're not supposed to have been inflammatory, but a few clips survived long enough to illustrate news programs on the shooting. I for one would not pay money to watch a home-made video of a woman with a hostile glare affixed to her face demonstrate squats while wearing a camouflage unitard, or even watch it for very long for free, but to each their own.

Comments

[ex_inklessej388]

I think people made revenue from the viewers they were pulling in for YouTube from their content to show ad space to. YouTube would give people a share of the ad revenue from advertisers based on the number of unique hits and time that a person stuck around to watch a video. They have recently changed their structure where content generators on YouTube are not given as much as in the past.

As much as people hate the man, Jordan Peterson talks about this very thing from a clinical psychologist perspective in this new book. Typically what drives a person to do something like this is decades long self lying and building a false reality in their heads. When those lies and that reality are forced to face actual facts and reality the person has two choices, (1) face the music and change their outlook (depending on how deep they are into their own world, this may be impossible without professional help) or (2) feel slighted and wronged by the world to the point that you can justify killing innocent people in your mind. When it gets to that point it doesn't matter the target aside from a general hang up they might have (Columbine it was about the high school, but notice that individual hits were not made, it was just about taking out people, people who made up a real world that didn't jive with the broken person's worldview).

I was vaguely familiar with her work prior to this tragedy. It was weird and while it may have came across as creative, in hindsight I bet there are some red flags there where she was disassociating with reality-- sadly she didn't have anyone close enough it seems to notice and get her help.

[calimac]

Very thoughtful reply.

I'd been considering using a term like "parasitic income stream" to describe this woman making a living off her videos, and now that I learn it was through siphoning off a portion of YouTube's ad revenues, I'm convinced that would not have been unjustified.

In one sense, then, she had no right to rely on its continuing. I've had times in my life when I was surviving on largesse, and was always prepared to have it cease abruptly. On the other hand, she might have a reason for complaint about the manner of the cessation, especially if - as she also claimed - it was arbitrarily and inconsistently applied. "Facing the music" in terms of realizing this was a hapless way of making a living is not the only alternative to taking it out on random YouTube employees, and you're probably right as a sign of instability that that's what she did.

[ex_inklessej388]

I'll take it a step further and be a little controversial here because we are singing from the same song sheet already...the USA doesn't have a gun problem to attribute to the mass shootings and tragedies...they have a serious mental health problem. I think that Western society has developed to the point that we groom people to build their own little realities and echo chambers and when that reality fails to meet the mould of their own twisted worldview the second option almost always plays out. I am sure that having ready access to guns doesn't help, but it takes more than just having guns around to decide that going to school or work and randomly murdering people is justified.

[calimac]

Since you continue to show yourself as thoughtful, I'd like to pursue this a little further. My understanding is that you are not from the US but Canadian, and a military veteran there at that. Is that correct? That would give you a different perspective on guns than most people who discuss this question.

It seems to me your thesis brings up a couple points needing further consideration. Given the manifest fact that the US has a mass shooting problem far more extensive than that of other first world countries: then, if as you posit it's more a mental health problem than a gun problem, it suggests: first, that the US's mental health problem is worse than that of other countries.

This in turn could manifest two ways:

1) The US has more and/or more serious mental health patients, at least of this kind, per capita than other countries.

2) The US is much poorer at diagnosis and/or treatment than other countries.

Would you say that either of these is the case?

Second, if it is to be treated as a mental health problem, rather than a gun control problem, it needs a mental health solution. This raises the question of pursuing it. You write that the shooter should probably have raised some red flags earlier. But the number of red flags far exceeds the number of eventual shooters; how do you propose going about this, in a manner both efficient and respectful of privacy and autonomy?

We also have the interesting fact that the shooter's family say that, when she was found the previous day not far away, they warned the police of her animus towards YouTube and the police assured them that they'd keep an eye on her. But the police claim that the family gave them no warning of any kind. (A type of factual dispute that has appeared in many previous cases of this sort.)

[ranunculus]

While I DO believe that there should be more gun controls than we currently have (specifically on automatic weapons), I also think that we have a mental health crisis. Decades ago I was able to go to a county clinic and get help for my depression essentially for free. Only a couple of years later getting help like that was no longer an option. In my case I did two years of therapy before I felt ready to continue on my own without outside help. Those two years changed my life. While I don't think I would ever have picked up a gun and shot someone, I am a FAR less angry person now.

[wild_irises]

So a person makes money based on a YouTube policy which says "If you bring in people to our site and we can show them advertising, we'll give you a share of our revenue." Then YouTube abruptly changes the policy.

Was she always a parasite, living on YouTube's largesse? Or did she become one when they changed the policy? Or can it be framed as YouTube initially had a reasonably fair distribution of its income to the people who brought in its income, and then they parasitically took away that fair distribution and kept everything for themselves?

In case it isn't clear, I am deeply skeptical of narratives in which corporate policies which distribute income are considered "largesse" and corporate policies which retain income for the shareholders at the expense of others are considered fair.

[ex_inklessej388]

Yes there is certainly a lot to unpack here (and I'll try my best to be coherent typing on an old iPad).

First, to get my own political orientation and bias out of the way, I am Canadian and I am a member of the Canadian Armed Forces. Being a Canadian in this thread means that I am coming from a political culture where gun ownership is permitted but not considered a right and where laws have been in place that restrict the sale and ownership of personal fire arms (particular hand guns which are considered restricted firearms requiring additional background checks and personal security/accountability and assault rifles which are outright banned in Canada, including magazines that are capable of carrying more than 15 rounds). As a member of the CAF, you're probably tempted to think of me naturally as being more conservative in my politics, and probably more in favour of gun ownership than the average Canadian. The composition of the CAF however is almost exactly that of the general population save for the presence of visual minorities and women (we are working very hard on this however, and I have hope). Also, the philosophy of an armed force in Canada is much different than in the US. In Canada, members of the CAF are considered members of the profession of arms. It means that our trade, our skills and our good provided to society is that of the controlled use of legal force to promote Canadian interest abroad (or God forbid at home), more often than not (because this is Canada), our international interests are directly in line with the liberal international order. So as a professional my tool is a gun, in the same manner that a scalpel is the tool of surgeon, and just as the surgeon would be violating his professional code of ethics by rushing into a body and cutting people up, so too are CAF members seen to be violating an ethical code when we use force excessively or arbitrarily. This is a concept that is hammered into us constantly as CAF members.

Now to your questions.

I think that the mental health problem falls more under number two than one. While the US is one of the most populous first world countries, I think that even per capita you have more mass shootings and tragedies involving firing arms. So the issue isn't that you have more mental health problems, it's that these problems fester and go unnoticed, untreated to too long. Remember, you're also one of the only first world countries without a suitable healthcare system. People avoid going to the doctor when they have a serious injury or illness, if that's the case they certainly aren't going to seek help when their brain isn't working well. Also the US greatly lacks social programmes that provide an adequate net to catch these people who fall between the cracks. And in the case of mental health, the existence of a social security system on its own if often enough to at least give the general population a sense of hope and optimism that if, God forbid, they become disabled or unable to support themselves help and support is present. Vacuums of support can be the lynchpin in how a person approaches mental health as they start to go down the path, hope is a powerful combatant against depression and anxiety which are often the first movements of going down the tragic path of disassociating from the real world. I also think that mental health services that are provided in the US are much more drug based that actual causation and solutions. So if you are lucky enough to get to a place for help, chances are you'll just be given pills and told to carry on.

I think I answered your second point above indirectly. You need a better healthcare system, better mental health access and a social safety net that can catch people an when they fall between the cracks and provide hope to those who are living on their own today.

And what happened with the shooter is a perfect example. The police were brought in and they did their job. It is not the role of law enforcement to provide mental health care to people. Why didn't this family get her to a hospital? Why wasn't she admitted into a mental health facility? I would wager that no one in her family had health coverage that would even permit that to happen. And furthermore, I suspect the immediate thought from her family was to get law enforcement rather than mental health involved which is an awareness piece entirely.

And I'll add a little disclaimer here with two things. First, even when one has gone down the path and is ready to seek retribution from the real world that didn't fit one's own notions of reality, it's harder to shoot a person when one doesn't have ready access to a gun. So to say the problem is entirely not about guns is not complete accurate, there is certainly a piece here just not as great I think gun control advocates like to make it out to be in the US. And second, this entire comment is basically a hot take now based on my own personal opinions. The discussion has certainly made me want to validate and investigation my theory a little more, but at this point it is just that, a theory based on personal experience, observation and opinion.

And a final observation, it is hella refreshing to have a civil political discussion on the Internet, so thank you!

[ex_inklessej388]

This. What YouTube (let's go right to the horses mouth, what Google) did was wrong. The remark in the original post about questioning what people at YouTube HQ actually do was bang on. It is the content generators that bring in the value for the company and the website, not the company itself. YouTube itself doesn't produce anything, they depend on users to do it for them and pull in viewers. So with their changes the have essentially undervalued the work being done. Now does that justify murdering people? Absolutely not. Should a person perhaps seek more stable forms of income, perhaps, but then again we wouldn't have awesome YouTube videos if these people didn't put themselves out there and make them.

[calimac]

Thank you. That's a different view of our problems, and a coherent one, and that's what I was looking for. I shall try this perspective out in future discussions of the topic, and see where I get with it.

Regarding the role of guns in this incident, one point I've seen made is that California gun laws prevented the shooter from legally getting hold of potentially far more lethal weaponry.

[calimac]

If the video-maker were providing value for service, there'd be a contract.

If the video-maker is creating purely on her own initiative, and YouTube's policy is purely on their own initiative, then it's largesse. On both sides, actually.

The note of the parasitism here isn't a moral condemnation, but an observation of the actual economic dynamics. It's a precarious and indefensible (in the sense of, you have no way to defend your right to it) way of making a living, as this woman found to her cost. That it should be different, likely so. Unfortunately, it isn't.

[wild_irises]

100% agreed. And if I indicated in any way that I thought this justified murdering -- or trying to murder -- people, I retract that wholeheartedly.

[wild_irises]

I expect there was some level of contract, at least buried in the YouTube terms of service. Yes, they have the right to change their TOS at any time, but they still put it forward as their policy.

I take your point about "parasitism" not being a moral condemnation, but I think that's a very loaded word to use without an implication of condemnation.

As a person who writes contracts (for a corporation) for a living, I am deeply uncomfortable with the line that says "if there's a contract, it's not largesse" and "if there's no contract, it is largesse."

Just sayin'

[calimac]

I do not mean to say that all economic transactions may be divided into contractual and largesse, but I do say that the categories are mutually exclusive. You seem to object to this division, but I cannot guess why.