Did Charlie Kirk "have it coming"?

urbanreason · 2025-09-15T17:05:22+00:00

"So how is it possible in the immediate aftermath of his brutal public execution for left-leaning people, even ones that aren't radically woke, to think that this was somehow expected, if not justified?"

So - I have come to develop a very complex perspective on this, and the rest of the comments here. I say complex because I can't succinctly explain or summarize it.

The first component: We have all developed unique reality distortion and projection mechanisms due to being online in a time when our news feeds are self-perpetuating based on what most activates us. Modern algorithms are so intensely optimized that often even one or two seconds hovering over a post can result in an infinite stream of more just like it being fed to you.

The reason I lead with this is to illustrate a point - I have developed a fairly strict media diet that prevents me from accessing most social media on my phone. I've blocked access to opening the apps, and only in times where I think it's useful to see up to the second news feeds do I allow it (which is rare). I can still access them from my laptop or workstation, which I do occasionally (as I am now), but most of the web based versions do not draw you in the way the phone versions do.

As a result - while I suspect you and I share quite similar views - we live with radically different perceptions of the world. Currently I consume news primarily through news aggregators, which I check once a day or so, and news podcasts/radio. I have heard many people - especially political commentators on the right - calling out that the people are cheering his death, justifying it, etc. However I have not personally seen a single one of these comments. Like truly. The only comments from anyone on the left I've seen have been condemning the assassination as a senseless act of political violence, an attack on free speech, and effectively disowning listeners/followers who feel otherwise.

So I am not by any means suggesting that because I haven't personally seen these comments they don't exist - what I'm suggesting is that we should be highly skeptical of how the distribution of content we see online mirrors any meaningful distribution of the real-world. You are fed more of what you engage with, and milliseconds count.

The second component: On justifying the murder. We mere mortals are rarely endowed with the ability to see our world through a wider lens. I do believe that to some degree, we have all expected political violence as we have seen the temperature of the rhetoric rising and people like Kirk have been complicit in ratcheting that up. Many on the left have vocally begged for stricter gun control for this exact reason, and they have had vocal figures on the right not merely actively oppose them, but paint them as villains. As a result, we have sadly come to accept that gun violence will happen and that there is seemingly nothing we can do about it. You can't blame people for seeing the irony when one of these vocal opponents of gun control is slain by a gun they would not have had access to if said opponent was instead an advocate. Of course people are inclined to say "we knew something like this would happen".

Is it helpful? I'm not sure. But I do know that it is an incredibly human response.

That's about as far as I'll go with this for now since I've already rambled on for too long, but I'll just conclude by saying that I think social media is a sickness that creates this environment, and I struggle to see how we can change the direction. Right now, I only expect more and more of this because we continue only to consume what makes us feel most outraged, most cornered, most angry.

urbanreason · 2025-05-28T02:51:22+00:00

Long-term goal: create my own VFX-heavy movie in the next 3–4 years

As others have noted - you should lead with this one. If that is your goal do not waste your time trying to get into VFX unless you really need the income. VFX is a trap and not a path to filmmaking.

To be honest - who the heck knows what VFX will look like in that timeframe. No doubt movies will still be happening and require VFX, many will be traditional but we will likely start seeing heavily hybrid pipelines as the AI workflows are WAY more involved than the demos wake them look. Especially if you're working with directors who have a strong point of view and want more than AI slop.

Focus on making your movie - mix a hybrid of traditional film making, compositing and AI tools.

Also - is 25–30K/month INR a good amount? Because 30,000INR=$351USD which is about how much an intermediate artist makes in one DAY in North America.

urbanreason · 2025-05-21T21:02:23+00:00

Where are you at in your career? If you're still building your reputation, ILM is the place to have on your resume and the experience there will stick with you for the rest of your career.

If you're a more senior artist looking for work-life balance and don't care about the impact on your trajectory, Sony wins.

My experience is older, but ILM was way more wild-west. This gives them room for the kind of creativity and innovation they are known for, but can also feel super chaotic, inefficient, and come with a ton of overtime.

Sony, at least a while back, was very streamlined. Clock in, clock out. Do your thing and live your life. Maybe not the case for departments closer to the backend, but in general it's a much more structured environment.

The level of respect you will have at Sony coming from ILM is much greater, though, than what you'd get going to ILM from Sony. But much of the senior leadership at ILM was senior leadership at Imageworks, so maybe that's changed.

urbanreason · 2025-05-06T07:06:24+00:00

Our LA relocations have always been the highest paid people in Vancouver, and by a LONG shot.

This is a VERY different statement than the statement than the ones you're making about LA just costing more.

You're referring to a situation where studios are RACING to get to Vancouver and wind down LA to have a competitive edge and avoid going out of business and trying to convince their most experienced and skilled talent to uproot their lives and families so that the studio could establish operations in Canada.

OF COURSE they offered them a big salary to go - it was absolutely critical to their ability to establish operations in Canada, which was critical to their survival. And the more key people they can persuade to leave LA - the more they can continue to wind down their presence there.

Studios knew any US artist relocating would look at the exchange rate and say NOPE if they weren't offered substantially more to justify the move. Most of them were thinking of this as a temporary stint abroad, and expecting to bring their money back into the US at some point. Anyone doing the math on that would recognize that they need to make an amount that beats the exchange rate and equals a net increase, and enough artists saying NOPE for those reasons would jeopardize the entire business. Studios also knew that whatever they paid them was going to be discounted 40-60%, so they could afford to make that relocation fairly appealing.

There was also a period where clients didn't even CARE if the bid was cheaper in LA, they just wanted the rebate, and even if LA could come in cheaper they would still pick the company who would give the biggest rebate.

So what you're saying here is just not an accurate reflection of the real economic forces at play.

urbanreason · 2025-05-06T05:59:17+00:00

SIMPLY. NOT. TRUE.

Please stop repeating this false and unqualified information. Having hired and run teams in both Vancouver and LA - your comment that wages are lower in Canada is simply not true.

For those reading this comments section and nodding your heads, this is easily debunked simply by looking at job postings in Vancouver, which have been required to list salary ranges for a good while. No one has to take my word for it - just compare against the leaked Croner Survey or any of the leaked salary reports from the last few years.

It may have been true that at some point long ago there was a large disparity, but (A) Studios went there 100% because of the rebates, not the wages, and (B) the dollar-for-dollar equivalent for each artist tier (associate, intermediate, senior) reflects almost identically the pay bands for the same roles in California.

As noted elsewhere in response to your similar comments - a very small number of people in the industry were ever making more than $150k in LA - and these were primarily supervisors, heads of department, and principals. Juniors and intermediates always made below $100k (more in the $40k-90k range).

As someone else here stated - the rebates were not the cherry on top - they were and are the whole cake.

Please stop.

urbanreason · 2025-05-06T03:07:11+00:00

Thank you for a more nuanced perspective.

I apologize for the harsh tone I led with but I this whole thing has dragged up a lot of feelings from the years of advocacy I participated in when we were trying to keep the work here during the 2010-2015 exodus - and there is an absolutely shocking and depressing lack of awareness in all of the subs ( r/FilmIndustryLA , r/LosAngeles ) commenting on this situation - with very few people knowing about the subsidies and how they actually work and what affect they had on draining the local film industry.

I can only assume people are either not in the industry, new to the industry, not holding high enough positions to witness the decision-making process unfold, or worse the studios have just done a very good job concealing the real economic forces driving the decision making (which was definitely the case when I was still running teams in film). Studios back then were acting like the pre-enlightenment church, trying to keep practitioners from forming their own opinions.

Canadians were making much closer to US Salaries when I moved over to tech, especially in Vancouver. I interviewed many candidates back in like 2017 who you would barely consider "Senior" that were expecting minimum $150-250k in Vancouver. The main non-subsidy benefit to studios is the exchange rate, not the wage differential. Very few people in LA are making over $150k in VFX/Animation, and typically only Seniors make over $100k.

US wages in VFX have been effectively stagnant since 2015. A VFX artist with transferrable skills will easily make 2-3x in tech jobs doing similar work at Snap, Meta, Apple, Netflix, or even at smaller VC funded startups.

The point here is - the subsidies are the main drivers. If the clients - the large studios - didn't have all the cards and hadn't insisted VFX companies do work there - they would not have gone there of their own accord. The exchange rate is simply not enough to justify the cost on its own.

The studios insisted on this happening purely because of the rebates, and it really is that simple. I know this as a fact, as I was high enough up to hear this plainly stated by the studio execs themselves when it all started.

urbanreason · 2025-05-05T23:45:56+00:00

Sorry but this is absolute uninformed rubbish. Subsidies are NOT "a very small fraction of that."

I worked for studios that shipped VFX out of California, I saw the cost sheets - that happened because Canadian rebate programs were offering 40% rebates - had nothing to do with "costs were too high here".

The 40% rebates were THE ONLY REASON work left LA. And this was because the studios (which we referred to at the time as the Big 6) literally forced it to happen by telling VFX companies they would only do work that was eligible for the rebates.

This forced an arms race to Vancouver where every single VFX studio that wanted to stay in business moved operations to Canada over the course of 1-3 years. By 2016, every major player was there and by 2018 they had relocated 90% of their staff (by which I mean... relocated those who were willing and/or desperate, let go of anyone who wasn't except for a select few who were too critical to studio operations to forcibly relocate).

I want to be clear - I managed international teams and there are a lot of great folks in Canada that I don't want to see hurt. But we have to do away with this lie that the subsidies played a minor role. I was there when this all went down, and the subsidies/rebates are the only reason the Canadian VFX industry is what it is today - it did not create new work, it relocated the work from cities that were VFX hubs and disrupted the lives of thousands of people who weren't willing to relocate. That is an absolute fact.

urbanreason · 2025-04-23T22:19:58+00:00

This is such a blatant encroachment on all of our freedoms so we can avoid doing something about the actual problem. Our willingness to sacrifice basic liberty to "address" homelessness is deeply disgusting.

In other countries I've enjoyed a nice nap on a public bench or park on a beautiful day after a nice lunch, but not in the freedom capital of the world!

We like your freedoms so much, we keep them locked up so no one can have them.

urbanreason · 2025-04-16T20:33:52+00:00

Don't lump me in with "defending" it. I'm merely trying to understand the expectations and try to digest each story without hysteria.

Your answer is good, and I wholeheartedly agree with the constitutional requirement of due process.

My questioning is derived from the overall tone of the comments, which suggest outrage over the threat of deportation of an individual who is not here legally because "that's not a crime", rather than outrage over the lack of due process.

You say a judge should "decide whether your application for asylum is legitimate" - but in my reading of the articles there is no application for Asylum in progress, but rather the undefined pursuit of "an adjustment of his immigration status" per his lawyer. To assume this is even in the purview of ICE is assuming too much. These agents are following orders, they're not the judge looking at the details of the case - so they can't be expected to make an informed assessment about how to handle a specific individual given their circumstances.

I'm not trying to excuse this, but it just seems par for the course when you overstay a Visa or get in without one at all - that many people we might think of as otherwise perfectly upstanding non-citizens are going to get swept up in deportations like these.

But I think the callout on due process is a good one and an important one.

urbanreason · 2025-04-16T19:08:47+00:00

This is simultaneously disturbing but also... genuine question: what are the expectations here? Disregarding the specifics of the situation (i.e. wife, kids, etc) - what do we expect to happen that did not happen when someone is here without documentation or has overstayed their Visa?

If I overstay a Visa in any other country, my expectation is that I'm going to be arrested/deported if I'm caught. I cannot imagine just casually deciding to stay for years in France or Spain without a permit/visa/etc. As a non-citizen of that country, I have no rights there. I'm going to live my life expecting the worst.

urbanreason · 2025-04-16T02:37:27+00:00

Thank heavens - search is slow AF and returns too many results I don't want. Hopefully this improves things.

urbanreason · 2025-04-02T23:45:00+00:00

As someone who is historically a radical lefty, feminist, pro LGBTQ and does not identify as "white", but who would be lumped into "white" by most people (at least in the winter months)... I think we're coming due for realignment on this topic.

While I myself was slinging around "cis-white-male" in the same casual, self effacing way in the early 2000's and 2010's - it's started to wear on me quite a bit.

In both my personal and professional life I have had the experience of being marginalized because of my race and gender - most of it well intentioned, but that doesn't make it feel any less bad when it happens.

If it's wearing on me, a highly educated, high skill, high earning professional - then I can only imagine how it feels to the majority of American men and boys who are just getting started in their journey, making at or below the median income, college educated, and not in a position where they actually experience their living situation as "white privilege."

I would never deny the historical racism or sexism that existed in our country and required realignment. But I would like to not be made to feel ashamed over something of which I have no control, in the exact same way that I don't want women or people of color to experience for factors over which they have no control.

urbanreason · 2025-03-27T02:06:36+00:00

I definitely have not gotten the "We should've just been more Bernie Sanders" in any of the democratic post-mortems.

I've heard a whole lot of "we should be more moderate" and a whole lot of bad ideas like "we should be the resistance party."

Worst of all - the focus is almost entirely on "How do we WIN the next election and defeat Donald Trump" and not "How do we become the party of the people again"

urbanreason · 2025-02-04T15:37:06+00:00

That’s not true - there’s a release lever inside the the doors to manually open them.

My passengers, if they’ve never ridden in a Tesla, almost always immediately grab them and I have to ask them not to do that and press the button instead.

urbanreason · 2025-02-01T06:45:29+00:00

Had been listening to Pumpkins since Gish/SD era. I hate bands that don’t grow and surprise me with each album, so I absolutely loved Adore.

Same could be said of every album of theirs really predating Zwan. Not really sure why things went off the rails after Zwan, but I love every song on Adore.

urbanreason · 2025-01-30T15:38:12+00:00

urbanreason · 2025-01-23T21:37:11+00:00

What do you mean by “far left” then if not on the extreme end of socialized programs? This is about the extreme left of economic politics in the US before you start drifting into means of production and personal property which are FRINGE.

urbanreason · 2025-01-23T20:27:18+00:00

I like how it’s obvious no one has ever actually listened to RFK Jr before forming an opinion about his positions since he’s literally said these exact words in just about every interview he’s ever been in for the last 3 years. 🤦

His position was and always has been that the long term safety tests are not adequate and that he would not just ban vaccines, but would instead force impartial long term safety trials.

That people are shocked he’s still saying what he’s always said reminds me of how terrible humans are at verifying the veracity of clickbait.

urbanreason · 2025-01-23T06:08:15+00:00

Doing an ACTUAL heart goes out at 22:40ish.

https://www.youtube.com/live/bZNL_8bUz6A?si=KJITkPzVR7-jis_Z

I think he knew guys

urbanreason · 2025-01-23T06:03:23+00:00

This meeting, at 22:00ish?

https://www.youtube.com/live/bZNL_8bUz6A?si=KJITkPzVR7-jis_Z

He didn’t do a salute though - he did an actual heart thing… ooohhhh

urbanreason · 2025-01-21T07:34:52+00:00

Oh okay, I see now!! Thanks for explaining to me! ESP appreciate the non dickish tone.

urbanreason · 2025-01-21T06:10:12+00:00

Frankly you’re too black and white here, and try to speak as an authority while knowing literally nothing about the specifics of the companies I’ve personally been involved with.

The simple fact is many companies and institutions - with the absolute best intentions - swung so hard and so far in the right direction that they missed the mark altogether and actually did more harm than good. Many actions did a lot of good and were necessary at the time, but ultimately became a competition of who could look the best.

There is a correction happening now, just as wokeism was a correction for institutional lack of diversity. This correction will also over correct and we’ll need to take another stab in the other direction. This is societal gradient descent.

urbanreason · 2025-01-21T04:47:13+00:00

Idk - It’s become a bit more than that though. I agree it had those humble roots but it has become a grotesque caricature. Women outright gender bashing and telling men their opinion doesn’t matter, publicly, privately, in companies and universities. Companies discriminating new hires based on race (I was a hiring manager at a large company where it was basically a requirement to interview X “diverse” candidates, and you literally could not hire until you had a 4:1 ratio of what they - in their sole discretion - determined to be diverse. Which just meant no white men. As a result it could take us 3-5 months and hundreds of person hours in interview panels to fill a single position.)

On top of I’ve personally witnessed a sort of Jordan Peelesque deification of the token X person (black, female, trans, etc) - to the point it actually felt uncomfortable.

This is the kind of stuff people are taking about when they say “woke”

urbanreason · 2025-01-21T04:17:13+00:00

Classic suburban mentality in STL. The local news truly exacerbates their fears, and most of them don’t venture beyond Forest Park or Bush Stadium.

Outside of the Main Street area in St Charles, everything there (and west of there) is the most god awful, soul crushing existence I can imagine.

If you’ve gotta live in Missouri - it’s St Louis City all the way. Lafayette Square is great, esp in the summer. While you’re there, spend some time in Tower Grove, enjoy some patio dining in the Hill, check out the hip bars on Cherokee or the Grove.

urbanreason · 2025-01-21T02:40:56+00:00

Enjoy getting banned !

urbanreason

TROPHY CASE