NaibofTabr

Oh, that’s nice!

This is a good suggestion because even if you’re unable to dissuade the interest in guns, you might at least make the kid think twice about safety before they eventually handle one and thus prevent a tragedy.

This may not be the approach you have in mind, and it kind of depends on the kid’s personality, but one of the ways to de-glorify and de-romanticize something is to de-mistify it, to take it out of fantasy and make it real (to the point of being mundane).

To that end, consider Forgotten Weapons on YouTube. Ian will discuss a single gun, its design history, manufacturing, intended use, disassembly and cleaning, along with regular reminders about gun safety. Ian will even talk about the political and financing decisions that led to a particular gun being made (accounting is of course the height of glory).

If the kid finds the history, engineering and basic maintenance discussion to be boring, they might lose interest in the topic altogether. Alternatively, if they find it interesting, you might steer an unhealthy interest in violence toward something productive (history and/or mechanical engineering).

Keep in mind that forbidding access to something just adds to the mystery and romance around it and can have the effect of increasing the desire for it.

Empire of the Sun is a film about civilians caught in a war zone.

The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, is a collection of short stories about the Vietnam War. It shows the exhilaration, the terror, the cruelty and hardship of living through a war. It definitely doesn’t glorify conflict.

My War Gone By, I Miss It So, by Anthony Loyd, is a firsthand account of the Bosnian conflict of the 90s. It is ugly and brutal, and the author tries to give an honest presentation of his own state of mind at the time.

Black Hawk Down (the book, not the movie), by Mark Bowden, is a fairly thorough account of the incident in Mogadishu in 1993. Bowden did a lot of research and describes the political background that led to the UN and US presence in Somalia, and all of the mistakes that led up to the helicopter being shot down and what happened after. He interviewed many of the military personnel who were actually involved and recounts the events from several different perspectives. And as the Wikipedia article says:

Bowden simultaneously manages to capture the siege mentality felt by both civilians and the US soldiers, as well as the broad sentiment among many residents that the Rangers were to blame for the majority of the battle casualties.

This is a very realistic presentation of what combat is like, framed inside the perspective of the overall military operation. Bowden doesn’t shy away from describing the mistakes in decision-making, but also does a fair job of describing how lack of information or bad information leads to bad decisions in the moment which result in people dying for no good reason. He definitely doesn’t glorify the conflict. My overall impression after reading it was “I hope I never have to be involved in anything like that”.

And finally, Alice’s Restaurant, by Arlo Guthrie, is a song about the draft.

if you wanna end war’n’stuff ya gotta sing loud

birds of a feather

That idea being “I want a Catholic monarch on the throne”.

Ah, interesting, is V an anarchist?

I’ve seen the movie more recently than read the book, so I don’t remember the exact presentation, but… don’t you think the phrase:

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Imply that V expects governments to exist?

V has both personal and ideological problems with the current establishment, but I’m not sure that he’s completely against any establishment.

Also the Bolsheviks. And Maoists.

The movie was well produced and I think it delivers the intended message within its self-contained universe, but… considering that the entire story is framed in the context of the Gunpowder Plot, from beginning to end, I think that message is muddled when you understand the actual history behind it.

This symbol says “I want to blow people up for God!”

Symbols should be chosen with more care, and not adopted from movies or comic books.

But then I sigh and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil;
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stolen out of Holy Writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.

from Richard III, Act I Scene III by William Shakespeare

Also, notably, Guy Fawkes was in no way anti-establishment or anti-monarchy, and was certainly not an anarchist. Fawkes (and his group) wanted to replace a Protestant monarch with a Catholic one.

Or pipe GUI output into another GUI function.

Or >> log.txt

Er, wouldn’t that also set the value of human life to $0?

Hey babe, let’s keep in touch…

AI came along and just whacked it with the sloppy stick.

ugh, why is the top image so sloppy

I’m convinced that many of the people calling for violence from the left in response to the administration’s behavior are the same ones that pushed the right into extremism over the past 30 years.

Division and chaos are the intent and they’re playing both sides to achieve their goals. The last thing they want is for people to sit down and talk to each other.

The technology enables the surveillance state. Therefore the technology is not amoral.

Enabling a surveillance state is not amoral.