A fire, a fascination with explosives and family discord marked path to clinic bombing
www.latimes.com
Guy Edward Bartkus is the sole suspect in the bomb attack at a Palm Springs fertility clinic last Saturday. In the years leading up to the incident, his life was touched by family acrimony and a keen interest in explosives.

Imagine my surprise reading this on the LA Times this morning (emphasis mine):

“I would not acknowledge reproduction as a human right, but instead as a form of rape,” IndictEvolution wrote on Lemmy.World in July 2023. “I am also not bothered by infanticide as long as it is done humanely…”

Here is an archive of the article.

Here is his account.

It looks like he only stayed on Lemmy for about a month, most likely a temporary Reddit exile with the earliest exodus on June 2023. The article mentions threads on Reddit but doesn’t provide any quotes from there. User IndictEvolution on Reddit deleted their account, and the article makes it sound like they are referring to a different username that they don’t specify.

    • masta_chief@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      We’ll have to push back with pointing to the decentralized nature of the fediverse, and that there’s gonna be crazies on some instances. I always use email as an analogy when explaining Lemmy, maybe we could continue that and argue you wouldn’t blame all of email infrastructure if an extremist had a gmail or Hotmail or whatever.

      Actually now that I read that, it just might be more confusing. But there’s gotta be a counter angle to argue to get ahead of people thinking “Lemmy=bad”

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
        0·
        7 months ago

        Also even if the cops shut down world, people will just … move. Like yours and my instances don’t even have the word “lemmy” in the domain. I don’t think anyone would care beyond “we shut down that radical forum.”

        Though most likely is it goes completely unnoticed and some bombing or shooting or human rights abuse next week will shoves it down the memory hole for good.

        • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
          0·
          7 months ago

          some bombing or shooting or human rights abuse next week will shoves it down the memory hole for good.

          Next week? Try last night in DC. I’m doubting this will even register tbh

        • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
          0·
          7 months ago

          It would not bode well for the future of discourse if lemmy.world of all places gets shut down for radicalism. Our instance is significantly more radical than lemmy.world. Can you imagine some ecofascist idiot who posted on slrpnk.net a couple times committing a terror attack and getting the instance taken down? I can, which is why this news should be very concerning.

          Edit: Just looked through some of the bomber’s comments and their replies and some users even pointed out that his rhetoric was reminiscent of ecofascism. Anti-natalism and ecofascism are ideological siblings. The backlash to this attack is going to catch environmentalist groups in the crossfire, with many environmental activists being accused of having anti-natalist views. Anyone who’s ever advocated for degrowth might get lumped in with them.

          • turtle [he/him]@lemm.eeOPEnglish
            0·
            7 months ago

            I agree, you have very good points. I don’t particularly think that him having posted for about a month two years ago on a particular instance is any particular mark against that instance, as I think that that could have happened to many (but perhaps not all) Lemmy instances. Good point about backlash hitting eco activists too.

        • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
          0·
          7 months ago

          It’s funny because even of the people I know, it’s actually like “lemmy=what?” Even of the people I’ve talked to about it.

          They’re so painfully disinterested, they usually tune out after the first five words of my fediverse elevator pitch.

  • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
    0·
    7 months ago

    here comes the influx of fascists i guess?

    when they come looking for the dangerous hacker known as lemmy.world

  • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    Wonder if the wayback machine can find anything from reddit or if we can find their account on lemmy.

    Fuckin wild and 100% un-surprised it was .world lol

    • turtle [he/him]@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      I linked his account on Lemmy.world in the original post. I couldn’t find an active account on Reddit though, unless the LA Times reporters used the wayback machine themselves to see his old posts. I’m sure that they would be on wayback machine, but the article mentions a different web handle associated with him.

  • gradual@lemmings.world
    0·
    7 months ago

    His last comment contained “and that wellness is hard to measure since society does not allow people to express how they truly feel about things.”

    Too true.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.world
      0·
      7 months ago

      I think I am a world user, it was just the top of a drop down menu when I created my lemmy. God damn it.

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        You’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s the largest instance. There’s no particular stigma for users on it. Unlike there is for the more ideologically selected instances, like .ml.

        • Logh@lemmy.ml
          0·
          7 months ago

          I feel a little bit like I was duped by ml. Chose it because the devs were here, but I haven’t thought about the top level domain until I saw their profile pictures. Now, I’m no stranger to leftist views, but I’m pretty far from being ml. I might switch if things get ugly, but I can take some minor stigma for a while longer.

            • Logh@lemmy.ml
              0·
              7 months ago

              I have been exploring Marxist thinking deeply in the past but not for the past few years. True, it might be something to go back to sometime.

          • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            0·
            7 months ago

            .ml used to feel similar to .world in that it mostly indicated you just joined a pseudo-default, but it feels like it’s getting more ideological over time. The devs run two instances, .ml and lemmygrad, and lemmygrad was the explicitly Marxist instance, but since lemmygrad got defederated from some large instances it feels like .ml is now getting more ideological.

            I wouldn’t worry too much about it impacting your experience or what people assume of you in the near term. It’s still generic enough that a .ml handle doesn’t automatically mean something. It’s more like a confirmation when someone is already posting some extreme things.

        • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
          0·
          7 months ago

          I do think it would be better if people spread out a bit more though. I don’t believe it’s healthy for our communities to have any instance approaching “default” startus.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
          0·
          7 months ago

          Lemmy.world is also ideologically selected, they deliberately defederated from the larger explicitly Marxist-aligned instances. Lemm.ee is an example of an instance that tries to be more ideologically neutral, .world is openly liberal aligned.

          • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            0·
            7 months ago

            They’re a huge instance most people joined by default. No one sane thinks a .world account means anything about the person posting under it, except maybe they just went along with the pseudo-default.

            You guys think there’s a big rivalry and anyone who hasn’t rebelled against the unjust persecution of the tankiest instances must have cast their lot in with the enemy, but in reality no one really thinks about it at all.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
              0·
              7 months ago

              I don’t judge people based on their instance at an individual level, that’s not my point. Like you said, most on Lemmy.world picked it because it’s the largest instance. However, the moderation and admins do have an ideological bent, and over time this filters out users that don’t “fit in” with that, leading to an “average user” with views aligning with the average mods and admins.

              I don’t really care ahout inter-instance drama, it’s not that deep. But I do notice trends and I understand how soft-censorship works and how consent is manufactured. Plus, there are terminally online users on Lemmy.world that do see all Marxists as enemies and wish to take down Lemmy.ml, so that does exist, and is tolerated by Lemmy.world mods and admins.

              • FlyingCircus@lemmy.world
                0·
                7 months ago

                Then there’s me, who joined .world because it was the largest, is a Marxist, but has no idea how to even switch instances or access .ml where I would like to be 😂

                • turtle [he/him]@lemm.eeOPEnglish
                  0·
                  7 months ago

                  Personally, I try to stick to instances that will only defederate from others if there are major, serious issues, like illegal content and what not, and that are also not largely defederated by other instances. That way, I get to have a more complete experience of Lemmy / the threadiverse without missing out on major chunks of it. I think it’s counterproductive that the majority of instances defederate major, legitimate instances, especially now that the Lemmy software allows each individual user to block entire instances if they wish to. This only serves to weaken the threadiverse as an alternative to other major discussion sites. It’s even possible for instances to issue default instance blocks on new accounts if they are worried about the new user experience, removeable by the users themselves if they so wish (like lemmy.zip seems to be doing).

                  The main instances that I’ve found so far that seem to follow this “defederation only as a last resort” philosophy are the following:

                  • lemmy.ml (although this one is a bit risky for this purpose because there is constant lobbying on liberal instances to start blocking it, despite it being the original and reference Lemmy instance)
                  • lemm.ee (my main instance, appears to have the second fewest defederations of other instances)
                  • lemmy.zip (they don’t defederate from much - third fewest out of this list - but I understand that new accounts have for instance hexbear and lemmygrad automatically blocked, which each individual user can unblock)
                  • lemmy.sdf.org (they defederate from the fewest instances that I’m aware of - the only defederation they currently have seems to be due to technical issues arising from a dead instance)

                  If you would like to keep contact with the broader range of Lemmy instances, these are the ones I would look into. You can check which instances any Lemmy site defederates from by visiting <site URL>/instances and clicking the “Blocked Instances” tab.

          • Etterra@discuss.onlineEnglish
            0·
            7 months ago

            It’s also run by Europeans so they decided to stomp down on discussions of jury nullification around the time somebody (I didn’t believe it was Luigi) ventilated that healthcare CEO’s head. Which is why I changed instances. Jury nullification is the last tool available to an oppressed citizenry to fight back against unjust laws and/or unjust applications of law.

    • turtle [he/him]@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      You mean the reporters? I wondered about that, but then realized that the guy tended to use the same online nickname on various sites. Searching the web for that nickname probably turned up a bunch of his accounts and then they could read the comments to determine if they were likely the same person. Pretty good reporting, I thought.

        • turtle [he/him]@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          7 months ago

          Yes, definitely a good privacy and security practice. Different passwords is important too. Different email addresses as well, if possible. There are services like simplelogin and anonaddy that make the email part simple.

          • Lime Buzz (fae/she)@beehaw.orgEnglish
            0·
            7 months ago

            Yes, the email I use has that built in, though if I can I don’t use email for an account, like on Lemmy (which is how it should be everywhere in my opinion, just a username and password). All my passwords are different too!

  • yesman@lemmy.world
    0·
    7 months ago

    These people are like the photo-negitive of Eugenicists.

    anti-natalists present with reactionary ideology since they’re obsessed with what other people are doing with their bodies. And they advocate for a totalitarian state to regulate that. But then they’re also obsessed with environmentalism?

    Maybe their lefty misanthropes? I don’t get it.

    • turtle [he/him]@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      If you read some of the other comments here, it’s more like they’re the two sides of the same coin. Eugenicists want to kill poor and other disadvantaged people and antinatalists (at least going by the bomber’s comments) want primarily poor people not to have kids, although they seem to try to dress it up as not wanting anyone to have kids. Who knows, this is all pretty fringe stuff.

      • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
        0·
        7 months ago

        Who knows, this is all pretty fringe stuff.

        He personally was the fringe, but antinatalism is product and offshoot of neomalthusianism and eugenicism which are in the core of imperialism. Just the big scale ones do not bomb a clinic, they bomb and starve entire nonwhite countries.

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
      0·
      7 months ago

      Maybe the term is being taken over by eco-fascists, but I’ve considered myself an anti-natalist for many years and I’m only playfully misanthropic.

      I don’t go in for the Malthusian claptrap. I just think it’s more ethical to adopt an existing, actual real child rather than make a brand new one. I think this is a really really compelling point, and I wish more parents would seriously consider it before choosing to follow their biological imperative.

      It’s like with nihilism, where everyone agrees life is ultimately meaningless, but some people are real babies about it (pun intended).

        • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          0·
          7 months ago

          If you want my personal opinion, it depends on how you want lemmy.

          .ml is held by Marxist-Leninists. Most users there aren’t, but if you care about that, its either for you or aren’t for you.

          .world is held by centrist liberals. Most users don’t care about that, but if it matters to you, there ya go.

          My instance is for anarchists. There’s ones for queer people. Or people who speak German. Or Italian. Or French. Some are made for being NSFW, some are made to shitpost, some are isolated by choice or massively de-federated.

          But most instances don’t care who you are or why you’re on it, just don’t break the rules.

          So far lemmy.cafe lemmy.zip sopuli.xyz all seem fine, I don’t recall a constant issue with the userbase.

        • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          7 months ago

          Well, that depends on what you want. Lemmy.world leans right and harbours transphobes and racists, hence the nazi.world jokes. Personally I think such users should just be allowed to make fools of themselves, but if you find that disturbing you can join another instance. lemmy.ml leans left, lemm.ee is fairly centrist, and sh.itjust.works is mildly right. But all are great instances.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
          0·
          7 months ago

          Lemmy.ml is seen as “bad” on Lemmy.world because the average opinion of Marxism-Leninism on Lemmy.world is negative, but that’s not the case everywhere. If you aren’t hostile to MLs, Lemmy.ml is fine.

          It really depends in what you want in an instance, though. My favorite instances are the niche ones that stick to a common subject or theme, mander.xyz is a good example of a science-focused instance, or Hexbear.net which is focused on Left-Unity and anti-Capitalism.

          • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0·
            7 months ago

            Hexbear is an interesting beast. It tends to be really insular because it is defederated by a lot of the bigger instances. But it does have a strong sense of community, and a lot of its own in-jokes. From the outside looking in, it often looks like a dumpster fire. But the reality is that it’s more like old 4chan, where it always looks like a dumpster fire on the surface… Then when you dig deeper and start understanding some of the memes, you realize it’s actually a really interesting community surrounded by a dumpster fire

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
              0·
              7 months ago

              Hexbear was its own thing for years before federating, that’s why it has a stronger site culture than most other instances. It’s unapologetically Communist, so those who are hostile to that quickly defederated from them once they started federating.

              • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                0·
                7 months ago

                Lots of instances defederated because of the tendency to brigade. Since Hexbear was already a fairly large instance before federating, it meant it tended to dominate a lot of conversations on other instances. People have similar complaints about .world these days too. But fairly early in the first Reddit exodus, there were a few cases of Hexbear brigading smaller instances, and the Hexbear mods/admins clearly didn’t have any interest in stopping it. So not all of the defederation is purely politically based. Politics may have helped swing the decision, but it certainly wasn’t the only reason.

                • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                  0·
                  7 months ago

                  Yeah. The “it was just because they hate communism” descriptions of hexbear defederation are just making up a story of oppression to explain why it wasn’t actually their behavior that got them locked out. People don’t hate communism, they hate trolling, tankies (in the literal sense with the Ukraine invasion), and brigading (referencing their fights with the libs and then a bunch of commenters swarming).

                  I could take or leave the lemmygrad defederation, but hexbear absolutely made its own bed.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                  0·
                  7 months ago

                  I don’t really think it’s brigading to participate on threads you’re federated with. If comments on threads federated with Hexbear are active, Hexbear users see them, and as Hexbear is a large instance, this appears as brigading, but is just a natural element of participation in federation. Some instances are hostile to Communists, so they didn’t want a bunch of Communists on every thread, so they defed.

            • Simon 𐕣he 🪨 Johnson@lemmy.ml
              0·
              7 months ago

              Most people are mad at hexbear because their moderation policies are consequentialist not deontological and thus more stringent against stupid online shit. As a poster you don’t have a “right” to post on hexbear, however the community has a right to be protected. As such it’s one of the better places if you don’t want to read reams upon reams of lib coded bigotry.

          • Psychadelligoat@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0·
            7 months ago

            Lemmy.ml is seen as “bad” on Lemmy .world everywhere else because the average opinion of Marxism-Leninism on Lemmy.world is negative of how tankies behave, but that’s not the case everywhere we like to pretend otherwise. If you aren’t hostile to MLs tables or tell the truth about countries were in love with, Lemmy.ml is fine.

            Ftfy

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
              0·
              7 months ago

              What a colorful modlog you have, frequently suicide baiting and complaining about Marxists. Always funny to check the modlogs of people most upset about Lemmy.ml.

              Lemmy.ml is generally seen as fine, or positively among instances like Hexbear.net and whatnot. Users hostile to Marxists tend to also be hostile to Lemmy.ml, users pro-Marxism tend to be fine with it.

              • Psychadelligoat@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                0·
                7 months ago

                What a colorful modlog you have

                Am I supposed to care what the terrible mods on this site think of me? Little weird of you to go crawling around there like it’s relevant but go off

                Lemmy.ml is generally seen as fine, or positively among instances like Hexbear.net and whatnot.

                I love how you immediately jump to an even worse regarded instance as if that’s going to help your point

                Keep pretending y’all aren’t shitty tankies and aren’t hated by most of the rest of the site, you look like a bigger idiot than normal doing it!

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                  0·
                  7 months ago

                  I mean, you’ve been banned many times for telling other users to kill themselves, tried to claim calling a user “guy” isn’t misgendering them, and seem to just be generally toxic. It’s nice as a bit of confirmation that those who complain the loudest about Marxists also generally are toxic people. I wouldn’t call the mods removing your suicide baiting comments and transphobic remarks “shitty.”

                  Hexbear.net is worse regarded among people who hate Marxists, yes. As a Marxist, I don’t really hold the opinions of those hostile to Marxists as particularly important, the driving divide is in people’s position on Marxism. If I went into a MAGA conference, I would expect to be hated as well, but I wouldn’t care much either. Anti-Communism is the biggest division, those supportive of Communism tend to be okay with the Marxist-aligned instances.

        • Arelin@lemmy.zip
          0·
          7 months ago

          Lemmy.zip and lemm.ee have been consistently the best so far.

          And anyway, the main reason not to use lemmy.world is just that it’s the most popular. The whole point of coming to the fediverse is to decentralize so joining LW kinda beats the purpose.

      • Grapho@lemmy.ml
        0·
        7 months ago

        Not really tho. Some instances talk a big game about their cOnCeRnS when defederating from the explicitly leftist instances but then let fascists of every ilk say the wildest shit as long as it’s directed to whomever is the villain of the month for libs.

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
        0·
        7 months ago

        I’d agree except it’s the biggest one, so fair game imo.

        It’s like Hamiltonians taking swipes at Toronto.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        0·
        7 months ago

        .world is ideologically liberal on average, so a lot of people on the fediverse take issue with that as Leftists tend to be more prominent by ratio than on Reddit. It’s also the largest instance, and gets hate for that, as a lot of people like the decentralized aspects of the fediverse.

      • Sagittarii@lemm.ee
        0·
        7 months ago

        …That it’s no better than reddit and doesn’t ban right wingers? Like that IndictEvolution account is still up lmfao

          • Grapho@lemmy.ml
            0·
            7 months ago

            Spouting blatantly ecofascist rhetoric should have had him banned and his comments removed. Instead the community he modded is still up and still posting ecofascist shit with zero pushback from admins.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            0·
            7 months ago

            Liberalism is the dominant ideology in western society, banning the Marxists but keeping the liberals is more of an echo-chamber than a Marxist instance banning liberals could hope to be. Liberals never have to engage with Marxism if they don’t want to, Marxists must engage with Liberalism on a daily basis.

  • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    In that same period, Bartkus’ rhetoric on alternative social media sites was dark.

    I’m just proud they know we exist.