Queensday gone wrong

[Roderick]

Today, in the Netherlands, it was Queen's Day, in which we celebrate the queen's birthday. And apparently, someone thought it the right occasion to try to kill her by driving his car through the feasting crowd into the tourbus carrying the royal family.

He didn't get through to the bus because the car was wrecked during the collisions with the barricades around the city, but he did manage to wound dozens of people and kill four. So that's awful. Besides that though, you have to wonder... why the hell would anyone want to kill the queen? She has no direct political power, she's completely harmless and a great icon and feature of our country. What the fuck, man? Don't touch our queen. I'm no royalty follower by any means, but even I'm indignant. Guess I do have a soft spot for them.

Edited April 30, 2009 by Rodi

[Marek]

Followed the news from here in the UK. Saw some of the video footage from after the crash. Really horrific. Just the thought of that car driving into a crowd of people Carmageddon-style and people flying through the air... fuck. That's properly fucked up.

Apparently the suspect lost his job and was going to be evicted soon, which I guess drove him mental. I still read a bunch of those typical "oh he's such a nice gentleman, just a quiet man in a normal town" statements from neighbors though. Really makes you wonder what was going through his mind.

[Roderick]

In a weird way, I'm a bit... disappointed? that it was just a guy losing his mind. No masterplan, no crazed anti-monarchy ideology... not that that would have been preferable, but it's at the same time frightening and boring that it was just a dude who had flipped his lid over a lost job.

I never saw the queen as shocked and human as today during her little press conference though. She was even stumbling through the sentences a bit.

[gdf]

I wouldn't mind if someone tried to kill our Royals, no big loss other than in terms of tourism. Even then we could milk the tributes for years and put the Queen's body in an open casket.

That's horrible though, saw some of it on the news. Pretty shit for the families of the people that were killed

[James]

Bizarrely enough, yesterday I was wondering how hard it would be to take out an important public figure such as a monarch or political leader (not that I'd want to do such a thing, but it surprises me that more people don't try). I came to the conclusion that to have a proper chance you'd have to be willing to sacrifice yourself and probably numerous bystanders as well. Turns out this guy was OK with that, which is pretty upsetting.

[Roderick]

Annoyingly, the perpetrator died of his wounds today, so now we'll never what exactly drove the fucker, nor can we punish him. That's just frustrating.

[James]

I often wonder what drives people in the news to do the terrible things they do, but I think if they told me I still might not understand. I think narrative fiction has taught us to expect resolution, and that these incidents are stories with a beginning and end, which isn't really the case. I often feel that the news is also presented to us as a story, and like in fiction we are lead (intentionally or not) to think about things in a certain way, and care about some things more than others. Not that that's an especially original or revelatory idea. It's just that I keep forgetting and re-discovering it.

But yeah, I think the whole search for explanations thing is our fear of chaos. People do things we don't expect or understand, and that makes us feel the world is unpredictable and uncontrollable, and we don't like that. This may also be blindingly obvious, I don't know.

[Ben X]

I wouldn't mind if someone tried to kill our Royals, no big loss other than in terms of tourism. Even then we could milk the tributes for years and put the Queen's body in an open casket.

Jesus!

I'd like someone to wipe all their memories and relocate them to a life as factory workers in East Europe, clone their bodies and pretend they all suddenly died of inbreeding so we can put the bodies in open caskets. Then abolish the monarchy so the extended royal family and hangers-on all have to go and get jobs, sell off all their property to rich Americans, put the money to use on our schools and hospitals, and teach the world to sing.

[Roderick]

I often wonder what drives people in the news to do the terrible things they do, but I think if they told me I still might not understand. I think narrative fiction has taught us to expect resolution, and that these incidents are stories with a beginning and end, which isn't really the case. I often feel that the news is also presented to us as a story, and like in fiction we are lead (intentionally or not) to think about things in a certain way, and care about some things more than others. Not that that's an especially original or revelatory idea. It's just that I keep forgetting and re-discovering it.

But yeah, I think the whole search for explanations thing is our fear of chaos. People do things we don't expect or understand, and that makes us feel the world is unpredictable and uncontrollable, and we don't like that. This may also be blindingly obvious, I don't know.

The desire to understand things springs naturally from our desire to control these sort of events, but it's not a misguided expectation to think that people have their reasons for doing something like this. There are always reasons; that's not part of fiction, that's part of human psychology and biology. You don't 'just' do something without a reason. The reason may be completely ridiculous, but it's a necessary component to anything. In that sense, stories are informed by our real-world psychology, not the other way around.

GDF was obviously make a bit of a joke with his wish to see the royal family dead. But I expect better punchlines from him!

[Nachimir]

I can't say much about this except

I think narrative fiction has taught us to expect resolution, and that these incidents are stories with a beginning and end, which isn't really the case.

I think about this occasionally too. Stories are essentially structure imposed on continuous events, minimising the dull parts and emphasising meaningful ones. It's an essential part of how we communicate and help each other to understand the world. An answer to the question "What did you do today?" in assembly language is an answer without a story.

So yes, man goes bonkers and harms people. I doubt we'll ever have a 100% chance of preempting this kind of thing.

[James]

The desire to understand things springs naturally from our desire to control these sort of events, but it's not a misguided expectation to think that people have their reasons for doing something like this. There are always reasons; that's not part of fiction, that's part of human psychology and biology. You don't 'just' do something without a reason. The reason may be completely ridiculous, but it's a necessary component to anything. In that sense, stories are informed by our real-world psychology, not the other way around.

I don't mean to question that there are reasons; simply that they will always be accessible, comprehensible or satisfying. How far do we have to go before we feel we can close the book on a particular event? How many books and articles about a serial killer or rapist or despot or madman does it take to reach resolution on the matter? I don't know, perhaps I'm just being pessimistic, but I feel like the search for resolution will generally be fruitless.

Also, although stories are undeniably influenced by and ultimately based on real-world psychology, they have also built up their own language and conventions through thousands of years fiction and storytelling. We have tropes, stereotypes, narrative arcs and the like, which, whilst possibly based on some kernel of truth (to coin a phrase), have passed enough times through the feedback loop to have taken on a character of their own.

I don't mean to be totally nihilistic about things. I think wanting to understand stuff is natural and generally a good thing. I just think it can sometimes get a little desperate and hopeless.

[Roderick]

Don't totally agree with you on the last part, but I like The Kernel of Truth and do agree with your reasoning on story tropes (even if they themselves have been shaped by our own desires through a natural selection of their own. Memes? Memes!).

[James]

The Colonel of Truth

(Sorry)

[syntheticgerbil]

I don't really know what to say either, especially on the monarchy issue, but this certainly is bizarre and tragic news. I don't think I want to see the video Marek is talking about, it'll just leave a bad taste in my mouth.

[Marek]

BTW I absolutely hate the opportunistic politicians (PVV party etc.) who immediately questioned the security around the event.

I mean, the car drove through two barriers. Shots were apparently fired on the car. And after the crash happened the site was immediately zerged by 40 police officers. Yes, there was enough security.

[toblix]

But if there were, say, thousand policemen in a pile, the car couldn't have passed through it.

[OssK]

It means that they just did not build a concrete bunker around the whole event... These kind of incidents happen when you get cheap on security...

also:

I think narrative fiction has taught us to expect resolution, and that these incidents are stories with a beginning and end, which isn't really the case.

is to most intelligent thing I have heard in month...

Might be kind of why people let neverending stories (like Bastian or any WoW player) take over their life... Yeah, Bastian is a fucking no-life !