I missed this last night:
> Being upset about samas front gate
To write that, you must have missed what I was upset about. What upset me was the community response to the violence (which in physical terms was inconsequential, and certainly doesn't compare to the worst things going on in this world): piling on and egging each other into escalating rage towards the target of the violence, while obviously feeling good about it. In other words, a mob. I don't like mobs.
The mob dynamic is the same whether the target is a rich person who many people happen to dislike, or a much weaker person. The idea that "it's ok if the target is $so-and-so" is abhorrent—a self-deception that allows us to deny, excuse, and enjoy our share of the violence we all partake in as human beings, while projecting it onto (and into) other people whom we call bad and evil.
Even though I know that this is human nature it upsets me when it shows up in a community that I'm responsible for, and it was showing up badly in this thread when I first saw it last night.